Chapter 20
“This is Onree speaking.”
“How close are you to finding the combination?” a hard, vicious voice asked on the other end of Onree’s phone.
“I have some good news for you, sir. We just found the animal with the match. It took all last night and into the morning…, well, half of the morning.”
“It’s about time. It took you forever in a day.”
“You can’t rush good services and that is what I am providing, or else we wouldn’t be working together,” Onree retorted.
“Yeah, tell me anything. I hope, now that we have found the match, you will get those stupid stun guns off the street.”
“Stun Duh, sir, Stun Duh! When you get shot with one of them you go duh, duh, duh!”
“Whatever you call it I want them off the streets. I have an employee who works at my facility who cried her eyes out, seeing all the carnage that your Stun Duh or whatever it’s called is doing to those animals out there. Now with that said, as you are aware, Onree, I am the CEO and founder of the Charlotte Humane Animal Shelter, Mr. Ray M. Johnson. And I don’t need my “nice guy” cover – one who gives to our community – blown with this little side job.”
“I’m usually lost, sir, but I’m more lost now by what you said, not to sound rude about it,” Onree replied.
Mr. Johnson grit his teeth and shook his head in disgust. “I’m going to put it to you in layman terms, Onree. That was the reason I had you staying away from my animal shelter because you don’t have any common sense. It’s simple to get the animals out of the shelter into your car and to the warehouse, but it’s not simple to figure out a mathematical combination, to create your Stun Duh. That’s why I keep you around; because of you’re book smart,” Mr. Johnson said. “So, don’t ever come to my shelter. You are a distraction. Don’t link me to any of your invention, not even this one. All I want to know is when the deal will be made and when I can collect my 75% of the deal with the Chinese. And now, when will it be a suitable time for me to see the final product?” he asked.
“You have a way to crush a man’s heart and hurt his feelings, sir,” Onree said.
“Someone has to do it. And I’m sure the peons you have working for you aren’t ready to tell you what’s what. Anyway, I will be expecting your phone call in the coming hours with the finish product,” Mr. Johnson said before he hung up abruptly.
The dial tone in Onree’s ear was disrespectful. He was very angry. He drove along with the young woman and man from his office to the front of the warehouse. Joining Edna, in her separate cage, was Sam. He, too, was hanging from the ceiling in a cage like a chandelier by a thick chain.
“I just want to say good morning to the both of you. But to you, Sam, I want to say, for your incompetence, for your incomplete work and that brute that sits beside you, you and I are going on an excursion. How does that sound?”
“Boss, I don’t know what that means. I’m lost,” Sam replied, visibly terrorized.
“Good. Then what’s about to happen to you shouldn’t bother you. You can get lost in it.” Onree then turned to the man and woman who had been listening to him. “Okay, you two, I want you to take him, and hopefully this time you won’t let him get away like my prize bird.”
On the way to the back of the warehouse there were several dogs and cats that Onree and his team had gathered from his partner in crime, Mr. Ray M. Johnson.
When they arrived at the back of the warehouse on the other side of the building, there was a white sheet about ten feet wide that spread out across the space. There was a slit in the middle of the sheet. “Alright, get him out of his cage and into the lab.”
“Noooo! What are you doing, sir,” Sam screamed.
“I know exactly what I’m doing, Sam.”
Randall came out of the lab when he heard the commotion. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“I want to use Sam here for a test subject. We can throw him in as a freebie,” Onree said.
“No problem, sir, come right in! I want to warn you; as you can see we are past the test process and we have gone to the completed phase.”
In the lab there were tables, cages, stools and various beakers of all sizes, not to mention caged dogs and cats.
Hooked up to a machine was a furry, Poodle dog. The rare green colored blood came out of the dog and into a clear beaker. The green blood then was placed into a short plastic tube labeled ‘the blood’.
Randall then turned off the machine while the Poodle dog hung his head down in weakness.
“This is the blood you tested, sir, and this is the embalmment fluid,” Randall said, pouring both the blood and the embalmment fluid into a tube with a needle extension.
“Before I started with the job of the transformation, I wanted to make sure that I had enough of the supply first, sir.”
“Very good, Randall.”
“Now if some one would do me the honors of strapping Mr. Sam down; I don’t want any mishaps during the injection process.”
“No! You don’t know what you’re doing!” Sam screamed.
“Man, I didn’t know you were such a squirm. Calm down and relax, Sam. Breathe; this won’t hurt a bit.”
Louis and the Woodchuck were sitting in Kelly’s car. She suggested that Molly stayed at the shelter for some medical attention. Hawk and Worm were flying just above Kelly’s battered Chevy Caprice Classic, leading the way to the warehouse.
“I’ve been there. I know what it is like to be isolated in the cold with no food. Edna had me there in that warehouse,” Louis said.
“Edna used to be his mean owner until I helped him escape and then Louis helped me get grapes. He is my best friend.”
“Whoa, that is too cute. I like you guys,” Kelly said, rubbing Louis and then Woodchuck on the head.
“If you don’t mind, can I ask you something, Kelly?” Woodchuck asked.
“Sure, why not?”
“This is like totally off the subject, but I will ask you anyway,” Woodchuck said. “Could I sit on the other side of you, please?”
“Yeah, but may I ask why, Woodchuck?”
“Well, I don’t know what Louis has had to eat in the last 24 hours but I can smell it on his skin, and it smells like rotten eggs.”
“Woodchuck, that was very, very mean. You shouldn’t talk that way about your best friend.”
Louis smiled while reaching out to grab Woodchuck who dashed across Kelly’s lap, peering out the window. She was full of joy and excitement. At times the conversation that she had with the CEO Johnson dampened her joy and excitement, but she wouldn’t allow it to depress her.
She gazed at her new friends and thought how adorable they were. Maybe I’m ready to get over the death of Jasper, and ready to take a couple of pets in. Then it dawned on her this wasn’t the time to think whether or not she was ready to take on a pet, but to think about what Onree was doing to the pets that were locked away in that warehouse.
She realized something just as real and present as her life. I may be going into danger and for what? For Louis, Molly and the Woodchuck and whatever other pets are in this warehouse. I am their advocate and this is the way, the road map in which I had faith. And now it is coming to pass before my very eyes, Kelly thought, indulging in the warm feeling, when Louis took her out of her reveries.
“Hawk and Worm are stopping now. You can see the warehouse up ahead,” Louis said.
Hawk and Worm came to the driver side of the car.
“You all know what we talked about. Right?”
“Yes, Kelly, we know what to do.”
“Louis and Woodchuck?” Kelly asked.
“Yes, we are ready,” Louis said.
“Can I speak for myself? Yes, we are ready,” Woodchuck replied.
Louis gave him a hard look.
“Okay then, let’s go,” Kelly said.
Louis and Woodchuck hid in the tall bushes away from the warehouse, peering at the tw
o people in front of the building.
“This is pretty cool, Louis.”
Louis gave him a stare. “What’s cool about it, Woodchuck?”
“Me and you, I mean like Starsky and Hutch, Bonnie and Clyde, Superman and Super-girl, of course.”
“So, I’m the boy, and you’re the girl? Very funny, Ms. Woodchuck.”
“Well, excuse me, Mr. Grumpy,” Woodchuck said.
Then at the sound of loud screaming, Louis said, “Okay, Woodchuck, that’s our cue. You got the rope?”
“Yes, I got it.”
“Come on then, let’s go.”
Louis and Woodchuck moved fast out of the high grass and into the dirt gravel surrounding the warehouse.
The woodchuck used the rope that Kelly gave him when they were mapping out the plan. Once the two men were tied up, Louis pulled them out of sight and into the high grass on the left side of the building.
Kelly, who was parked in some grassy area across from the warehouse, saw the plan unfolding. She adjusted her scarf and ran toward the front of the building.
“It sure is taking you a long time. Can you get in the door, Woodchuck?” Louis remarked.
“Hold your darn horses, Louis, would you? I’m not a locksmith; I’m a thief, alright. It’s fundamentally different.”
“Thief or locksmith, I need you to put a rush on it, please,” Louis said.
“And I need you to hold your big head still. How about that, Louis?” Woodchuck said.
Seconds later the lock popped and they were inside the door. When Louis and Woodchuck got through the front door, they saw the cruel, black hearted woman in a cage, hanging by a chain.
“Edna?”
“Why you…? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t come up there and lay you out with my hands of stone?” Woodchuck yelled.
“Looks like you have fell victim to your own trap I see, Edna,” Louis said.
“Yeah, and what do you care?”
“He doesn’t and neither do I is what he is trying to say. I just said it for him, Edna. Now tell us what’s going on in here?” Woodchuck asked.
By that time Kelly opened and walked through the front door.
“Oh my God, Edna. Let me help you out of there,” Kelly said.
“No,” Louis and Woodchuck yelled in unison.
“She is the one who mistreated my friend, until I rescued him. Remember?”
“He’s lying,” Edna shouted. “Just get me out of this cage!”
Then as if that was something Kelly had to think about, out of the shadows, Onree appeared. “Well, well, well, welcome, my animal-loving friend, I see you brought me … animals,” Onree John Thomas said. “I finally see you face to face. Where are the animals? I can smell them.”
“Wow, he is as small as me. I should rush him,” Woodchuck said.
“No, we do nothing yet, Woodchuck,” Louis said.
“Mr. Onree John Thomas…,” Kelly began.
“Whoa, you know my name. How rude of me. You know mine, but I don’t know your name. Such a pity. If you are in here and no one has come after you, I guess you must have done something with my men. Where is good help when you need it?” Onree said.
“Where are you holding the pets, Onree?” Kelly demanded.
“They aren’t pets anymore, they are mannequins now.” Onree reached for one of the shelves and pulled a cage out. Inside the cage was a black haired poodle stiff as a doorknob, with one of her front legs up.
“Oh my God, what have you done to that precious dog?” Kelly blurted in a whimpering cry.
“Oh, no need to feel sorry for that mutt, she was dying anyway.”
“Why, you…,” Kelly yelled, drawing the Stun Duh that she got from Hawk out of her pocket, and firing it at Onree.
However, the Stun Duh didn’t have the desired effect; for Onree opened his shirt revealing a black metal vest. The electric ray bounced off the vest and hit the chain of Edna’s cage.
“Scatter,” Louis yelled.
They all separated. Kelly ran between the shelves, where she spotted Onree running toward the back. She pointed the Stun Duh at him but he was a ways off.
Outside, at the back, Hawk and Worm were high above the warehouse in a tree. “Ugh…, you think they are going to need our help now, Hawk? I heard that stun duhnny go off.”
Kelly gave us a plan and we have to stick to it. When they come out, we fly them out of here. If we go in, we blow our cover,” Hawk explained.
“I will deal with you later,” Louis yelled at Edna’s cage.
She snarled at Louis before he and the woodchuck ran off toward the back. In her pursuit of Onree, Kelly saw and heard the cries of her pets in cages. Weak and deprived of food and water, she could hear what they said and they could hear her.
“I will be back, I promise. I will get all of you out of here,” she said. Then she heard: “There he is,” one of the pet said.
Kelly pointed the Stun Duh at the midget-like man and fired. It caught Onree on the back of his leg. He screamed out. “Oww! Why did you do that?” he hollered from the cold cement floor.
The dog and the cat began to cheer her. “Where are you working your evil, Onree? Tell me or I will give you another blast of your own medicine.”
“It’s over. You are too late. The process has already begun. You may hurt me but you will never be able to save any of these animal, girl,” Onree yelled.
Kelly struck him again.
He tried to get up and she pushed him back down roughly. Not only was Kelly getting cheered, but she also heard, “Put him in a cage,” and so that’s what she did. She put Onree in a cage and placed it back on the shelf.
Meanwhile, Kelly wondered where Louis and the woodchuck were, but she wasn’t going to take any chance looking for them, she had other work that had to be done.
“Oh, would you stop with your crying, Sam? I can still hear you with my ear phone on. I thought the ear phones would help, but they don’t.”
“Please, I am getting stiff; please reverse the process, Randall.”
Randall was placing more inventory on the shelves.
“Don’t you move or I will blast you,” Kelly said, walking through the white sheet. As hard as she tried to keep her composure she couldn’t.
“Hey, I remember you. You are that lady from the animal shelter place, right?” Randall said.
She just gazed all around the room at the horrors before her.