Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [51]
‘Several hundred times?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jesus Christ. Several hundred times as strong as what we’re used to?’
‘We are very intrigued to find out what effect it has on test subjects.’
‘Christ,’ repeated Jack. ‘That will fry our brains.’
‘Come now, Jack.’ Dieter smiled, shifting from foot to foot in his fashionably baggy suit. He was full of nervous energy, eager to get started. ‘It doesn’t do to begin an adventure with a negative attitude.’
* * *
Chapter 12
Creed was coming home. Bert knew that even before he heard the familiar sound of the car.
It came thundering into the garage under the apartment, followed by a sudden silence which gave way to the ticking of cooling engine, slam of car door, scraping of the small back gate, creak of footsteps on the old wooden staircase that ran up the side of the building.
It was none of these sounds in itself that confirmed Creed’s return to Bert. It was the combination of them. Their spacing and pattern. Particularly the rhythm of footsteps approaching the door of the apartment. This was unmistakably Creed. Bert waited for that door to open, quivering with a strange blend of excitement and rage.
Bert was twitching with tension as the key scraped in the old lock of the door. What was Creed doing? Why was it taking so long to open the foolish thing? Bert’s bladder was bursting. It was all the small woman’s fault.
As the door opened Bert launched himself forward, claws scrabbling on the linoleum of the kitchen floor, and shot past Creed, black paws flying, not even pausing to sniff Creed’s crotch – he’d obviously met a woman in the course of the evening, a woman he was interested in – and bounded down the rickety old wooden staircase in the backyard where he urinated splendidly, all along the peeling white picket fence that screened the backyard from the street, carefully saving some for the corner where he had to respond to the challenge from the German shepherd.
Bert had been brewing a response to that particular bit of renal graffiti for a whole night now. A whole painful, piss‐restraining night. He would have relieved himself on the kitchen floor, but he knew he dared not do that. He’d remembered being bad as a puppy and Creed standing glowering over him with a rolled newspaper, his whole posture radiating disapproval.
Creed had never had to use the newspaper, though he’d once rubbed Bert’s nose in the unspeakable richness of his own mess. But puppy days were gone now and Bert had learned. The mere thought of Creed’s disapproval was enough to fill him with shame. Bert didn’t want to be bad. So he’d held his bladder until Creed got home and let him out.
Creed watched with bemusement as Bert shot past him out into the darkness of the backyard.
Where’s my welcome home? Creed thought. Then he realized that the cleaning woman had locked Bert’s dog door again.
The door was a hinged plywood hatch Creed had fitted over a hole he’d carved and sawed out of the wall beside the back door over the course of a long, hot weekend a few summers ago. Creed remembered lying on the kitchen floor, laughing and sweating, sawdust sticking to his face as Anna passed him a beer and he’d pulled flashing lengths of flexible metal ruler out and measured and adjusted the hole with drunken precision.
It was a very fine dog door and still gave him a jolt of pride to contemplate, even now. It came complete with a sliding bolt on the inside and the cleaning lady had slid this carefully shut before she left, in her meticulous, security‐conscious way, condemning poor Bert to a night of torment until Creed had come back.
Creed walked through the apartment and opened the big window to watch his dog frolicking in the backyard. He didn’t like to think of what might have happened to Bert if he hadn’t come back at all. It was a point to consider for the future.
Tell Chavez that his wife and kids could look forward to a new pet.
Bert was dancing back up the stairs now, back into the kitchen to find Creed. He was whining with delight at his master