Time Spent (14 page)

Max couldn't hold his concentration any
further. He relaxed, and first the collars, then he himself, faded
from view.

"What was that?" Brandon asked.

Becca observed the images Max sent to her,
and then spoke. "It has to do with what he saw on the rooftop.
Those collars are on all of us, right now. They're energy or
something. He saw it happen."

Brandon nodded. "Tell us, Max. Tell us what
you saw."

______________________

As Max emerged on the rooftop followed by
the others, he flattened his ears back to try to keep out the sound
of the howling wind. Something very bad was happening here. He
tried to bark to the others but no one could hear.

Sparks began to leap between them, touching
off Max's nose and making his fur stand on end. Lines of energy
arced between them, and then arced into the air above the rooftop.
And where they came together, the sky darkened. A shimmering hole
began to form in the air. A sound rose, like the sound of cracks
opening in ice, only a million times louder.

Max lowered his belly to the surface of the
rooftop and whimpered.

______________________

Max ran through walls and corridors, but the
black metal things scrabbled after him, somehow able to pass
through walls as well. Soldiers with guns spotted them, but the
metal things fired their beams at them, killing them on the
spot.

Max needed help. Who could help him?

A buzzing in his head pulled him to the
right. Max charged in the new direction. He passed through several
different corridors before emerging in a larger room with a
swimming pool. There was some kind of mass at the bottom of the
pool, but Max's power was leading him to the other side, where
watery footprints led to a smashed door.

Max ran across the water, skipping across
like it was nothing. He noted this with some delight, as he hadn't
known he could do that! On the other side, he passed through the
door, which looked to have been battered down from this side. Soon,
he came upon the person he assumed responsible, a small, slender
girl with shoulder-length mouse brown hair. He knew this girl:
Heather McDonnell, one of the students from the school bus!

Max ran in front of her and barked, but she
couldn't hear him. He concentrated, trying to make her like him so
she could see him, but it didn't work. He tried harder, but it
seemed Heather was immune to that aspect of his power.

Suddenly the two spidery black things came
into the hall. One of them fired its beam at Heather, and it lanced
into her shoulder. Heather's entire body reacted, energy spreading
out from the point of impact to replace her skin, muscle and bone.
Soon, she stood transformed into a white-hot glowing force.

The black metal spiders stopped. Heather
reached down with both hands and grasped them. She squeezed, and
her energy hands melted right through them, reducing them to slag.
She opened her hands, and melted fragments dropped to the floor.
Her body reverted to its normal form.

"Where did those things come from?" she
asked no one in particular.

Max barked again, louder and louder, finally
summoning all his will into the loudest bark he had in him.

Heather jumped. "What was that?"

Max concentrated. If he could make her hear
him, perhaps he could make her see him. His body shook with the
effort.

Heather looked down, startled. "Whoa! Where
did you come from?"

But the effort was too great. Max was forced
to stop, and he again faded from view.

However, this time Heather knew he was
there. She knelt next to him and reached out her hand, her fingers
touching the air where his nose was.

Her transformation was immediate. Heather's
body melted away, leaving a ghostlike shape in front of him. "Well,
hello there," she said.

Max lolled his tongue out and licked her
face.

"I'm trying to find the lab this scientist
sent me to, but I think it was a trick," she said.

Max growled at the mention of Carl Macklin,
the bus-driver-turned-scientist who had tried to kill them all.

"You know him, huh?" she asked.

Max yipped.

"I left Simon with him," Heather said. "I'm
worried he might have done something to Simon. I need to find him."
She stood with a jolt. "Oh! Wow. What's that?"

Max knew exactly how she felt. He had been
just as surprised the first time he had felt it.

"I think..." She turned toward the south
wall. "I think he's this way." She ran through the wall.

Max started to follow her, but realized she
didn't need his help. He needed to get back to Tyler. At the
thought of his friend, he felt the familiar buzz in his head
pulling him in one direction, and followed it.

______________________

When the apartment door opened, Max jumped
to his feet, his tail wagging. Since they had moved out of Tyler's
parents' home and into the small apartment, Max had been seeing
less and less of him. At first he had tried following him to work
during the day, but it had proved pointless. Tyler couldn't pay him
any attention at work, and no one else could see him. Max had ended
up sitting in a corner and waiting.

He had decided to roam around outside and
explore during the day, and wait for Tyler at night, but soon this
too began to lose its appeal. Tyler went out more and more at
night, and got home later and later.

Max had begun to feel forgotten, a ghost of
the past that refused to fade away.

The door opened, and Tyler stepped in. Max
yipped at him, but his ears soon fell when he saw Tyler was not
alone. A girl was with him. Tyler had said no one could know about
Max, so Max was supposed to be quiet whenever anyone else was
around.

"Nice place," the girl said.

"You're very kind," Tyler said with a laugh,
"thanks. Have a seat."

She passed through Max on her way to bed
but, as with other people, she never even noticed him. She sat on
the edge of the bed. Tyler went into the kitchen and returned with
a bottle and two glasses. He opened the bottle and filled one
glass, handing it to her, and filled a glass for himself, setting
the bottle on the floor. He sat next to her on the bed and raised
his glass. She smiled, and clinked it with hers.

"What are we toasting?" she asked.

"To new friends," he said with a smile.

She sipped her glass while her other hand
played with a curl of her brown hair.

Max settled down on the floor. This was not
the first time he had seen Tyler's mating rituals. Since coming
here, he had seen Tyler initiate sex with several other people,
male and female, both at work and at home. Tyler seemed quite
successful at it. Max was a bit envious, although he had had an
operation performed on him when he was a pup and had never felt the
drive to seek out a bitch for himself. It was interesting to watch
the humans do it, and Tyler usually forgot he was present, so had
never told him to leave. He had to be quiet, though, so as not to
be noticed.

"So I heard something," the girl said.
"Something about you used to be blind? Is that true?"

"How did you hear that?"

"Blaine said something about it."

Tyler looked a bit alarmed. "Damn it, Todd
must have talked about it."

"Who's Todd?"

"My agent." Tyler took a sip of wine. "He's
a friend of the family. He knows my parents pretty well, my dad
really. He's a lawyer."

"So...is it true?"

Tyler swallowed. "Yeah, yeah it's true. I
was blinded in an accident, a stage light fell and exploded right
in front of me."

"Oh my God...." she put a hand on his arm.
"But...your sight came back?"

"Yeah. Yeah, just came back. They said it
was a miracle."

"Wow..."

"Yeah." His eyes drifted away. "Yeah, I
probably shouldn't have lived at all."

"Huh?"

His eyes snapped back to her. "Oh. Uh, the
way my sight came back, it was in another accident. A school bus
crash. I almost drowned."

"Oh!" She put a hand around his arm and
squeezed him.

Tyler put an arm around her. "Yeah, it was
terrible. I lost my dog."

Max lifted his head. What was he
hearing?

She put her wine glass on the floor.
"What?"

"Yeah, my dog, Max...he died."

"Aww..." she put her arms around him.

Max stood on his feet and barked at Tyler.
He didn't like Tyler telling this girl he was dead. He did not like
it at all.

Tyler reached down one arm and waved him
away. He held the girl with the other arm.

Max jumped up on the bed, standing inches
from the girl's ear. He concentrated. Finally, he issued a sharp
bark into her ear.

"OH MY GOD!" She jumped up out of Tyler's
arms. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Tyler said, standing and
putting his hands on her arms.

"A dog. I thought I heard a dog
barking."

"You probably imagined it. I shouldn't have
told you that story."

Max concentrated and barked again.

"I just heard it again," she said, looking
frightened.

"There's nothing."

She looked down at her phone. "It's, uh,
it's getting late, maybe I should go..."

"Already?"
"Yeah, yeah...I'll see you at the studio..."

Tyler tried to get in a kiss but she
practically bolted for the door.

"I'll walk you out," Tyler said, with an
angry glance back into the apartment.

After the door closed, Max sat on the bed
and wagged his tail with satisfaction.

______________________

A shiver passed under Max's fur, and the
ripples spread out, ran together, coalesced, and built into
wracking spasms. Max whined and whined. At this point, fear
overtook him, and he tried to run away from the rooftop, the hole
in the sky or whatever it was, but his paws could find no purchase
on the roof. The wind passed through him, blowing leaves and dirt
into and past his ghostlike form.

And now, something even stranger was
happening. Everything around him began to fade away. The world was
fading from view, losing cohesion, the others on the roof were like
ghosts now, a shimmer of light and nothing more.

Soon, everything was gone except the shades
of his friends, and the hole in the sky.

______________________

When he found Tyler, he was facing a male
Max recognized from Tyler's school. His name was Marcus, and Max
had seen him on the night they came home from the hospital, before
Tyler even knew Max was there. It was painful to remember that
night, when Max was first adjusting to being unseen, barking and
barking and never being heard. Only Tyler had heard him, and even
then only as a ghostly echo from far away.

This Marcus had come to visit Tyler that
night, and Max was more than a bit confused to see him on the base.
As he vividly recalled, Tyler had killed Marcus with his eyes.

This time, Marcus' body shone with a
brilliant, blinding light. Tyler's eyes were closed, and Marcus was
shouting at him. "Why, so you can go back to being some big star
and forget about everyone you know? Everyone who LOVES you?"

"I won't do that."

"Yes you will. It's what you do. It's who
you are."

Tyler opened his eyes. "I won't." The light
died away, revealing Marcus' short dark hair and caramel brown
skin. Tyler reached out and took Marcus' hands in his. "I
promise."

They embraced. Max waited for them to
separate, and when it looked like that wasn't happening anytime
soon, he barked to get their attention.

"Max?" Tyler said, turning to him. "Hey, I
forgot all about you, boy, you okay?"

Max flattened his ears. How could Tyler have
forgotten him? He yipped to affirm that was okay.

"We need to get through this wreckage and
get back to Becca, can you get us there?"

Max concentrated, bringing Tyler and Marcus
into his ghostlike state.

"Oh wow, what is this?" Marcus asked.

"Meet Max," Tyler said. "He can walk through
walls, and take us with him."

"This is so crazy," Marcus said, shaking his
head. "How did this happen?"

"Well, it happened to us in the school bus
crash. But you weren't there."

"The school bus?" Marcus tilted his head,
confused. "Yeah, yeah I was on it, it turned over out on Highway
10, right by the river."

"Turned over? What do you mean? We crashed
off the bridge, INTO the river."

Marcus shook his head. "No..."

Max knew they didn't have time to talk about
it. He couldn't keep them both in this state for long without
wearing himself out again. He concentrated, and felt the familiar
buzz in his head, indicating where he'd find Becca. He barked
loudly at the two of them.

"C'mon," Tyler said. "We'll figure it out
later."

______________________

When he heard keys in the lock, Max perked
up. He wasn't expecting Tyler for a few hours. But when the door
opened, it wasn't Tyler he saw, but another familiar face.

Max jumped up and barked.

The familiar green eyes appeared in his
head, along with her voice.
HHEY MAX HOW ARE YOUU

Max yipped. Becca was the one person with
whom he had been able to fully communicate. She was even capable of
hearing his thoughts if he concentrated on it.

LLOOKS LIKE I'M GONNA BE STAYING HERE
WITH YOU GUYS FOR A WHILEE
, Becca sent.
TTHAT COOL WITH
YOUU?

Max was glad for the company. He put out his
tongue and wagged his tail happily.

Becca set down her bag, which seemed to be
all that she owned. She walked around the tiny apartment,
familiarizing herself with it. It did not take long.

"Wow, kinda small huh?" she said.

Max agreed.

WWHAT SAY WE GET OUT OF HERE AND HAVE SOME
FUN...THE PARK MAYBEE