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CHAPTER 069

There were two moregunshots as Lynn ran into the backyard. Her daughter, Tracy, was screaming, Dave was up in the tree yelling and shaking the branches, and Jamie lay on the ground with blood pouring from his head. She felt sick. She started forward, and Tracy screamed, “Mom! Stay down!”

The gunshots seemed to be coming from the street. Whoever it was was shooting through their wooden slat fence. There was the sound of distant sirens. She could not take her eyes off Jamie. She started to move toward him.

More gunshots, and snapping of leaves in the tree. They were shooting at Dave. Dave was whooping and growling, shaking the branches angrily. He yelled, “You dead! You dead, boy!”

“Dave, be quiet,” she shouted. She started crawling toward Jamie. Tracy was shouting into the cell phone, giving the address to 911. Jamie was moaning on the grass. He was all she saw. She hoped that Henry had gone out the front door and would see who it was, and would not get hurt. It was obviously someone trying to get Dave.

The sirens were louder. She heard shouts and running footsteps on the street. Some car had pulled up, bright lights shining through the slats of the fence, casting streaks of shadow.

Overhead, Dave gave a war whoop and was gone. Tracy was yelling. Lynn got to Jamie. The blood was thick around his head.

“Jamie, Jamie…”

She got to her knees, turned him over gently. He had a huge gusher on his forehead. Red blood pouring down one side of his face.

He smiled weakly. “Hi, Mom.”

“Jamie, where are you hit?”

“Not…”

“Where, Jamie?”

“I fell. From the tree.”

She had the edge of her skirt in her hand, was cautiously wiping the wound. She saw no bullet hole. Just a huge abrasion, bleeding profusely.

“Honey, you weren’t shot?”

“No, Mom.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t me, anyway. He was after Dave.”

“Who was?”

“Billy.”

Lynn looked up at the tree overhead. Branches gently swaying in the light of the headlamps.

Dave was gone.

Dave’s first jump landed him on the sidewalk, and he began running after the fleeing Billy Cleever, who was heading down the street, running home. Dave could move swiftly when he wanted to, loping on all fours. He ran parallel to the sidewalk, staying on the grass, because the concrete hurt his knuckles. He was growling continuously, as he closed in on Billy.

At the end of the block, Billy turned and saw Dave bearing down on him. He held his gun in two shaking hands and fired a shot, then another. Dave kept coming. Along the street, people were looking out their windows. All the windows glowed blue from the TV sets inside.

Billy turned to run, and Dave caught him and slammed his head into a traffic signpost. It rang with the impact. Billy tried to turn, but he was terrified. Dave held him firmly and smashed his head into the concrete. He would have killed him for sure, but the sound of approaching sirens made him pause and look up.

In that moment, Billy kicked, scrambled to his feet, and ran up the driveway of the nearest house. He climbed into a car parked in the driveway. Dave chased him. Billy slammed the door and locked it just as Dave landed on the windshield. He slid over the surface of the hood, peering into the interior.

Billy aimed his gun but he was too shaken, too terrified to fire. Dave dropped down to the passenger side, tried the door, yanking again and again at the handle. Billy was gasping for breath, watching him.

Then Dave dropped down again, completely out of sight.

The sirens came closer.

Billy realizedhis predicament slowly. The police were coming. He was locked in the car with a gun in his hand, his blood and fingerprints smeared all over it. Powder marks and a red cut where the hammer had nipped him. He didn’t know how to shoot, not really. He had just wanted to scare them, is all.

The police were going to find him here. Trapped in this car.

Cautiously, he peered out the passenger window, trying to see Dave.

Black and screaming, Dave leapt up and slammed against the window. Billy screamed and jumped back. The gun fired, hitting the dashboard, plastic splinters cutting into his arm, the car filling with smoke. He dropped the gun onto the floorboard, leaned back in the seat. He was gasping for breath.

Sirens. Closer.

Maybe they would find him here, but it was self-defense. That would be obvious. Monkeyboy was a vicious animal. The police would take one look at him and realize that everything Billy had done was self-defense. He had to protect himself. The monkey kid was vicious. He looked like an ape and he acted like an ape. He was a killer. He belonged behind bars in a zoo…

Flashing red lights sweeping the roof of the car. The sirens stopped. Billy heard a bullhorn. “This is the police. Come out of the car now. Very slow with your hands where we can see them.”

“I can’t!” he yelled. “He’s out there!”

“Come out of the car now!” the voice boomed. “With your hands up.”

Billy waited awhile, then came out, holding his hands high, blinking in the bright spotlight of the police cars. A cop came up and shoved him onto the ground. He snapped handcuffs on him.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Billy said, his face pushed in the grass. “It was that kid Dave. He’s under the car.”

“There’s nobody under the car, son,” the cop said, lifting him to his feet. “Just you. Nobody else. Now: you going to tell us what this is about?”

His father came. Billy knew he was going to get a beating. But his father didn’t give any indication of that. He asked to see the gun. He asked Billy where the bullets were. Billy said he was shooting at a vicious kid who was attacking him.

Billy’s father just nodded, his face bland. But he said he would follow the cops down to the station, when they took Billy there to book him.

Henry said,“I think we have to admit, it just isn’t working.”

“What do you mean?” Lynn said, running her fingers through Dave’s hair. “This isn’t Dave’s fault, you said so yourself.”

“I know. But there seems to be trouble all the time. Biting, fighting…Now gunshots, for God’s sake. He’s endangering all of us.”

“But it’s not his fault, Henry.”

“I’m worried about what will happen next.”

“You could have thought of that earlier,” she said, in a sudden burst of anger. “Like four years ago, when you decided to do your experiment. Because now it’s a little too late to be having regrets, don’t you think? He’s our responsibility, and he’s staying with us.”

“But-”

“We’re his family.”

“They were shooting at Jamie.”

“Jamie’s all right.”

“But shooting…”

“It was some crazy kid. Sixth-grader. The police have him.”

“Lynn, you’re not listening.”

She glared at him. “What do you think, that you can quietly get rid of him, like a Petri dish that didn’t turn out right? You can’t just dump Dave in the biotrash. You’re the one who’s not listening. Dave is a living, thinking sentient being, and you made him. You are the reason why he exists on this earth. You don’t have the right to abandon him just because he’s inconvenient or has trouble at school.” She paused to catch her breath. She was very angry. “Anyway, I’m not giving him up,” she said. “And I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“But-”

“Not now, Henry.”

Henry knew that tone. He shrugged and left.

“Thank you,” Dave said, bending his head so she could run her fingers through the fur on his neck. “Thank you, Mom.”