PROLOGUE

They’re drawing in closer, the hum of their equipment like the sick buzzing of a thousand diseased insects swarming about, their lights (but they can’t really be called lights if they’re dark like that, he thinks as he works all the more feverishly, they can’t really be called lights if they suck light into them like that, can they? More like darks, more like anti-lights, more like - ) glaring at him as he sits at his bench fiddling with the latest iteration of what he has come to think of as “The Device” – capital T and D, of course, not “the device,” but, “The Device” – their mics picking up his every sound, every breath, every thought, until – 

“I’ve got it. It’s done.”

He smiles and leans back in the rickety old chair, leans back and takes in the scents of the workshop; the ghostly, lingering scent of a thousand sliced pieces of wood and the endless pieces rusty metals saved for theoretical projects that would never be and the steel tools, gathered together over the course of years; he takes it all in, proving both to himself and to them that, this time, he means it, that he is done, and ignores the continuing approach of The Crew, knows that once they see he’s done it, once they see he’s finally finished, that they will back off and be proud of him again. All that’s left is to – 

“To test it. I just need to test it.”

He turns around and smiles at the half-crazed, full-starved Rottweiler through the glass door on the other side of the shop.

“Whaddya say, boy? Ready to make history?”

The dog whimpers.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He smiles, puts in his earplugs, and hits “play”.

PART ONE

1 - Attack

At least in one way, dogs are much like children; your own are unending sources of joy, but those of strangers are often near intolerable.

This is not a thought or feeling that Jason Helm feels comfortable sharing with others. Not only has he read somewhere that over one third of Americans have dogs, but prevalent is the idea that dogs are incontrovertible judges of character; more than once has he read on a bumper sticker or a t-shirt or simply heard a dog owner say, “If my dog doesn’t like you, I probably won’t either,” and for such people, this pithy little saying is more than just a witticism; it is a way of life.

He is not particularly comfortable with the thought himself when it comes to him on this hot June morning as he approaches the front door of his first job and sees the adornments of a true dog-person: a doormat covered in large, cartoonish paw prints reading, "Paws and Stay Awhile!", the large sign hanging in the window next to the door which proclaims, "This House is Protected by my Shepherd and My Shepherd is Protected by My Shotgun", the rubber bones and nearly-ruined frisbees covering the front lawn; all warning signs of who holds the title of VIP (VID?) of this particular household, the most sure of which will come as soon as he rings the doorbell.

 Jason did not always have this disdain for strange dogs; in fact, he considers himself a dog-lover, having grown up with a yellow lab whom he absolutely adores to this day and who stayed with his parents when he moved out only because of the pet policy at his apartment complex. But since becoming a mobile locksmith, ringing a doorbell and hearing the ding-dong drowned out not by the sound of civilized human greeting, but by the aggressive barking of not-so-civilized canine elicits a whispered curse and an oftentimes literal girding of his loins. Many dogs, he finds, seem to think that they are put in the world not only to be protector of their household but, once the stranger is proven a non-threat, also doctor to their new friend, providing a very harsh and very unsolicited prostate exam on their uncomfortable visitor with their snout. This is to say nothing of the slobber that would inevitably leave strings in strange designs like hieroglyphics on his pants and shoes, the scratches that would often appear on his thighs as the dog leapt up to say hi, the sneezing and itchiness as the dog’s hair, somehow, by some nefarious, gravity-defying force, drifted upward towards and got stuck in his eyelashes and beard and nose.

Thus, though the barking answer to the doorbell of what sounds to be a very large dog at his first job is no surprise to Jason, it is most certainly unpleasant. He hears the skidding of paws and claws across wooden floors as the dog comes to greet him, and, though he is expecting it, he still jumps as the dog reaches and leaps up into the floor-to-ceiling window on the left side of the door, nails scratching against the glass, hot plumes of breath forming clouds which dissipate almost as quickly as they appear on the glass.

After a moment he hears muffled shouting, a male and female voice, the conversation volleying across the house:

“Who’s that?” a male voice says.

“I don’t - Oh wait, hold on.” the female voice says, moving to Jason’s right.

Jason sees a face appear in the window, eyes peering out through a gold-rimmed pair of granny glasses to look at his truck in the driveway. The face pulls back and he hears her speak again.

“LockPro… It’s the key guy.”

“Key guy?”

“Yeah, for the Chevy.”

“Oh yeah, okay. You got the key with you?”

“Yeah, here.”

He stands and, though barely able to hear the man walking to get the keys and then towards the door over the barking (which has still not quieted down) listens, perhaps, for gentle reprimands and the closing of a door, hoping against hope that, just for once, a dog owner would realize that their little shadow need not always join them in greeting their guest and would lock the big fella away for a few minutes. No such luck. He hears the footsteps coming towards the door, where the dog is still leaping madly for joy. Jason steels himself, readying a smile, preparing for the double greeting of man and his best friend.

“Oh, shush, Clyde! He’s a friend,” says the man from behind the door as he unlocks and twists the doorknob.

The door opens a crack and a man’s moon of a face, round and white and big, sticks through. He holds the dog by its collar,  and Jason sees that he is barely able to restrain the excited animal.

“Hey there, key masteeerrrrrr.”

He drags out the last word for ‘comedic effect’ and Jason dutifully laughs.

“Hi there, I’m here to make a key for your – “

The man opens the door wider and cuts him off.

“Hey, is it OK if he comes out and says hi?” He asks, giving the dog a gentle tug forward by its collar. “He’s loud and scary-looking, but harmless. And once he gets a good smell of you, he’ll be your friend for life.”

He says this with a smile and Jason, moaning inwardly, smiles in return.

“Sure, no problem.”

“Great!”

The man opens the door wider and lets go of the collar. The dog resumes its barking and barrels toward Jason.

“Hi doggy. Nice doggy,” he says, rubbing its neck and back as it runs around him. The dog rubs against his legs, taking the occasional leap up towards his face, presumably for kisses; they are, after all, now friends for life.

Looking lovingly at his large dog, the Man with the Chevy says, “He’s a real sweetheart, our Clyde. He’s a Swiss Shepherd, basically a white-furred version of their German cousins. Isn’t that white fur absolutely gorgeous?”

He continues before Jason can even open his mouth to respond.

“We got him and Bonnie eight years ago from the Stanley shelter just up the street in Duxbury. Unfortunately, we lost Bonnie earlier this year to heartworms.”

He pauses, head and eyes downcast as Jason gives his condolences.

“Thank you, thank you. Someday, I’m sure we’ll get another but for now we just need the time to heal, you know? Now, what do you need from me?”

“Oh, just the key you currently have and the vehicle.”

The man hands over the keys.

“Here you go. I’m David by the way.”

“Hi David, I’m Jason,” he says, already starting to back away towards his truck. “So, I’ll get to work, it’ll be about fifteen or twenty minutes probably, but I’ll let you know as soon as I’m done.”

Jason turns and continues to walk towards his truck and once again sighs inwardly as he hears shoe and paw padding along the walkway behind him. David speaks.

“Do you mind if I watch? It’s so fascinating to me how you can do all this!”

Jason turns around and gives a big smile.

“Not at all, feel free.”

Jason makes keys for roughly eight to ten customers a day and he finds that around half of them will ask to watch as he works. If watching were all that interested these folks, it really wouldn’t be too much of a problem. It would be a little creepy, sure; kind of weird, as it always is to know that someone is watching you doing something, but it wouldn’t slow down his work any. However, it seems that whatever quality it is in people that gives them the courage and extroversion to ask if they can watch also gives them the desire (or, perhaps, the compulsion) to also ask about and comment on his every move as he works. He has been doing this job for just over eight years and is pretty comfortable with it by now, but cutting and programming the keys to a vehicle correctly still requires a good deal of concentration: especially the high-security keys like David’s 2020 Silverado, where the cut is a path going down the center of the wide, flat side of the key rather than making jagged teeth along the side like a conventional key.

Jason knows the general flow of the customer conversations by now. He thinks, so did you go to school for this?

David says, “So, did you have to take courses for this sort of thing?”

Jason finishes his first cut and pauses long enough to respond, “No, actually it was all just on the job training.”

He begins to make the second cut, a deeper tracing of the first, and thinks, wow, I bet you guys are booked solid!

David says, “Well, you guys must be out straight! This is quite a service you provide.”

Jason finishes the second cut and shuts off the cutter so that he can flip the new key over and cut the other side. He answers, “Yeah, we keep busy for sure. Especially in the summertime, you know: everyone buying their new summer cars and losing their keys at the beach and everything.”

“Oh,” David exclaims, “I’m sure!” He watches as Jason finishes cutting, and then steps out of the way as Jason hops out of the truck and walks towards the car, Clyde eagerly following his new friend’s every step as he goes. As he walks towards David’s truck, he locks his own; this is a beautiful neighborhood, of course, but with tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of tools and inventory in the truck, locking it every time he steps away has become a habit as ingrained as covering a cough.

“Well anyway, I guess I’ll let you get to it then! Just let me know when you – “

David is cut off mid-sentence by an atmospheric change. The air thickens, time slows and a sharp spike shoots through Jason’s head and, judging by his wince, David’s too. His ears cut partially out momentarily; it feels as though someone has stuck a large wad of cotton in each ear and through the strange absence of sound there is the ghost of a high-pitched ringing pulse in his ears, so distant and ethereal as nearly to be dismissed as imagination. Stranger still, Clyde has stopped his gyrations and is stone-still against Jason’s side.

“Wha – “ David begins but is cut short by another sharp needle of headache and a low and deep vibration coming from the dog, which Jason feels against his leg. As the ringing in his ears subsides and the cottony silence once again dissipates, he realizes that the vibration is a thick and rumbling growl.

Blinking and shaking his head slightly, David starts toward his dog.

“Hey now, Clyde, what’s wrong, lovey? Whatsa ma-“

The dog, still growling deep in his throat, turns his head slowly towards his master, neck creaking as though on unoiled hinges. David stops dead in his tracks.

 “Clyde?”

He is barely able to utter this before Clyde takes two bounding steps and flies through the air, a furry, self-guided missile aimed directly at his master. David screams, lifting his hands to stop or perhaps catch his furry friend, but he is too slow. Clyde latches onto the man’s throat, still growling deep in his own, and shakes his head back and forth, trying with all his might (and succeeding quite effectively) to rip flesh from bone. Man and dog fall back, Clyde clinging to his master’s throat like a grotesque, 75-pound beard. Blood spurts in geysers from David’s neck around the dog’s head as he hits the ground and a sheet of blood is rained down upon man, beast, and land alike, a small-scale simulation of some Biblical plague.

From inside the house: “David? Oh my God, David, what’s happening?”

David’s wife runs to the front door and before she can even begin to process the carnage before her, Clyde is bounding up the driveway towards her, leaving David gurgling and twitching spasmodically behind.

Jason takes all of this in with shocked horror, frozen where he stands; but at the woman’s scream he is mobilized. He takes a step back as the dog reaches the front steps and another as he leaps through the door. By the time the dog has latched onto her throat, Jason is already running towards his truck, taking no glances back.

He finally reaches it and grabs frantically at the door handle. It’s locked.

He moans, patting and grasping and emptying each pocket. He finds his keys, drops them, and picks them up again, pressing unlock as quickly as he can. The battery has been low in his fob for some time now (idiot, he thinks, shock giving way to panic, idiot, you know it’s been low and it takes two seconds, TWO SECONDS, you do it all day, it’s your damn job, you do-) and it takes a few times and a little extra pressure to get it working, but after three or four presses the locks clunk up and he whips the door open.

As he jumps into the truck, he turns around, certain Clyde will be behind him, eyes crazed and yet laser-focused, tongue lolling wildly to one side, teeth chomping and still shining with the mingled blood of his masters, ready to add that of his new friend-for-life as the third ingredient of his deathly cocktail. At first, he is so sure of this fear that, when he turns, he actually sees the dog lunging at him; but when his eyes focus, he sees that it is still working away at the woman’s throat, grizzly gurgling noises and a sound like a chicken breast being ripped to pieces (that’s her tendons, oh GOD, her tendons) reaching Jason even through the closed door of the truck.

Gagging, he scrambles to take his phone out of his pocket. Breathing heavily, sweat dripping down his forehead and stinging his eyes, Jason takes out his phone and calls 9-1-1. As he dials, he registers the sound of screaming coming from all up and down the street.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” a voice answers after the first ring, frustratingly calm. He hears other phones ringing in the background; it’s a busy day at dispatch.

“Yeah, hello, I’m at 217 Standish Street in Duxbury and this dog just- just went crazy and attacked his owners.”

“Okay, do they seem to be – “

Her voice is drowned out by another of those weird atmospheric, head-splitting pulses. Eyes watering, ears ringing, Jason lifts his head and looks around. He sees the dog standing in the doorway, alert, at attention, its jaw still dripping large drops of blood, a string of flesh hanging from its teeth. It is once again frozen in place, its ears pointing straight up, one of them rotating back and forth like a radar searching for signal, its head is cocked to the side, its bulging eyes straining forward. This stance gives Jason pause in its familiarity. It reminds him of his own dog; something he used to do as a puppy. It is more than just a dog simply at attention, it is a dog called to attention, forced to attention by… something. Was it a toy? Some song? Maybe a –

Another jolt hits and just before he closes his eyes against the pain, Jason sees the dog lifting its head and howling. When he opens his eyes again the dog is gone and the voice on the telephone, tinny and sounding approximately 5,000 miles away, is telling him that police have already been dispatched to Standish Street and will be on the scene in about ten minutes. As he is lifting his phone back to his ear to respond, he feels it vibrate and sees an incoming call from his father. He answers and hears something he cannot recall ever having heard before: his father is screaming.

…