• A man sitting in his truck reached down to turn the volume knob up on the radio. One of his favorite songs was playing. He heard the dog he recently caught become hectic, rattling more in his cage. He looked back through the window into the back of the truck. The animal was looking directly at him while it leapt repeatedly into the back of its cage, like it was trying to get at him. It had fierceness in its eyes that the man had never seen before in all his years of dog catching. He tried to ignore it and looked back in front of him. It was darker than usual today. He put the car into drive and began rolling out onto the street, heading away from the neighborhood he was in and towards the Silverwood Veterinary Clinic. He began rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he yawned. He had been working all day and was ready to return home, eat a nice meal with is son, and go to bed. He had heard of the power outages that were happening all over the area and was worried maybe his boy was alone in the dark. He pushed his thoughts to the side as he pulled into the parking lot of the clinic. Normally, he'd take strays directly to the pound, but something was strange about this dog. How it watched him approach, and how it simply let him put it in the back of his truck. It didn't seem like a regular dog, or even a crazed one. He wanted to get it checked out by friend of his who worked here. He climbed out of the truck and walked through the front door, where he was greeted warmly by a cute receptionist sitting behind a desk.

    “Good day, Mr. Hall. How may I be of service?”

    “I just need to speak with Dr. T'soni, if that's alright.”

    “Okay, give me just one second” She start pounding on the keyboard. He figured she was only pushing random numbers, or trying to buy time for some reason. He took a look over his shoulder, but didn't see anything.”

    “I'm sorry, Mr. Hall. Laura is currently with a client. Seems a house cat went a little crazy. Scared the owner pretty bad.” The receptionist only looked up at him when she was finished talking, like she had just got done reading a report of some kind.

    “Please, call me Ira. Have there been a lot of similar cases like this cat?”

    “Hmm.. Well, I don't know, but normally when they send out these notices to the staff, it means something.” She looked at Ira curiously. “Why do you ask?”

    “Well, I have this dog in the back of truck. Something seems to be wrong with it. At first I thought it was just a crazed dog, possibly with rabies or something. But I don't know. Something wasn't right. I thought Laura could shed some light on it for me.” He began wondering if something was happening to the animals in the city, and something was going on, what was it?

    “Well, Ira, I'll page Dr. T'soni and tell her your here with a sick animal. Maybe she'll be interested.”

    “Thank you, miss. Tell her I'll be outside with the animal.”

    “Yes, sir”

    With that, he walked out of the clinic, and to the back the truck. he opened up the back doors and there the dog was, sitting calmly like it was waiting for him. Just eying him. He noticed that the back half of the cage was bent from where the dog had been throwing itself in to it. But now it seemed so calm. The only thing that separates it from looking like a normal dog was that a thick saliva was dripping from it's mouth and into a small puddle at the dogs feet, and the look in it's eyes. It was like looking into the eyes of some hellish monster. Through the corner of his eye he saw T'soni standing, looking at him in an annoyed way. Ira turn to face her and smiled.

    “What?” He said, laughing a bit.

    “Oh, you know exactly what. Look, we're pretty bust tonight. I here you've got a strange animal?”

    “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look here.” He pointed at the dog, which she then looked at. She started inching closer the dogs cage, getting a good look at it. “I don't what's wrong with it. I figure I'd just bring it right to you.”

    “Yeah, this dog is infected.” She said, loudly. She almost sounded sad.

    “Infected? With what?”

    “We're... We're not really sure. But it's been happening to all kinds of animals. House cats, dogs, birds, lizards, you name it.”

    “What exactly does this infection do to the animal?”

    “From what we can tell, it amplifies aggression, causes the animal to go insane, and then eventually kills them. It also seems to... To cause some kind of mutation in the animal. Like a permanent boast of adrenaline. But whats strange about all this is how the animals will just sit and calmly, watching. Sometimes they'll have these outbursts of aggression, seemingly unprovoked. But most of the time they just wonder aimlessly, or just sit. It's freaky.”

    “Yeah, that describes this dog pretty well. It didn't even put up a fight when I loaded him up, but he just went crazy when he was in that cage.”

    “Bring him in, and we'll see what we can do.” She sighed. “We're almost out of space here, though.”

    Ira picked up the cage and started to walk behind Laura, into the clinic. She lead him into the back area with all the other infected animals. Once they caught sight of the dog, every animal in the room went crazy, throwing themselves into their cages. Several nurses rushed in and began holding the cages down. He put the dog down and turned to Laura.

    “Have there been any attack on humans? Can humans get the infection?”

    “We don't know, Ira. We don't know a lot right now. Maybe you should go home to your son now. Watch the news in the morning, okay? Maybe they'll be something there.” She spoke in a busy, and annoyed, manner. Dr. Laura T'soni was always a bit one the mean side, but she was pretty. Long brown hair, always tied back, dressed in scrubs and a lab coat. Ira couldn't help but admire her for a second. He knew nothing would ever really happen between the two of them, but damn if a man can't fantasize.

    “Ira. Stop staring. I said maybe you should go back to your son. I heard about the power outages. I bet he's scared.”

    “Right, sorry. I'll just be on my way then.” He turned and walked out of the back room, and through the exit doors. He closed the back door of this truck and then got inside. Before he started the car, he heard screams coming from inside the building.