This wasn’t what I have intentionally planned. I had wanted a dog, something I could throw a Frisbee to. A barking-shoe-chewing dog. Not a freak destine to chew off my face. So maybe I was over reacting but maybe… Maybe I wasn’t. Rex didn’t eat or sleep like normal dogs. He didn’t bark or run around. But he was in fact a dog. He’d just lie on the floor and wait for the night.

I had first been five when I had wanted a dog. Now I was fifteen, I think ten years of waiting was long enough. I remember the night I had found out Rex’s secret it was the first month he had lived at our house. My parents were gone to Las Vegas for a week because of their anniversary. I was searching all over our house for Rex when my sister finally yelled,

“Sol, get your nasty little mutt away from me!” Her high pitched voice echoed through the house.

I rolled my eyes, of course. Rex loved to tease Alice. Plus she looked nothing like me she had long black curly hair, big green eyes, and she was extremely short, her skin was pale like it had never seen sun light. Plus my sister was about two years older and ‘in charge.’ My motto was that if you’re in charge you get to cook.

On the other hand I was a blond, with aqua blue eyes, and slightly tan skin and, oh so much taller. Obviously the stork wasn’t too bright on the whole gene thing or maybe he just dropped the wrong baby at the wrong address. Rex’s walked casually into the room with arrogance like he owned the place. Alice then walked in right behind him her nose buried into a book, and the funny thing was that she worked at Borders.

“Book worm.” I muttered under my breath.

“What was that?” she asked, putting the book down so that her cat-like green eyes could burn into my skull.

“No, uh… Nothing. I didn’t say anything.” I said scratching my head.

“Yeah, that’s what I though… Nothing. That’s why your mouth was moving and words were coming out.

My sister then threw a pillow at my head. “Shut up.” She laughed.

Rex growled deep in his throat, it sounded a little too threatening. He’d never growled at anyone in the family not even my parents.

“Freak.” She said and walked away.


Later that night when Alice was asleep and I was watching old black and white horror movies, I heard a noise coming from the French doors in the back. I got up my legs were numb from sitting for three hours straight. I followed the noise to see Rex on his hind legs whining, and scratching at the white paint. Mom was officially going to kill me if she saw this. Rex had this innocent look on his face light he’d been peeing on the carpet and was caught.

Rex growled when I didn’t open the door, his eyes did this crazy thing that looked like old TV static. I shifted my head to the left curiously. What was wrong with this dog? His gaze was so hard to tear away from it felt like some one had tied a rope around my waist and began to pull. I put my hand on the cheap golden knob and twisted. Rex zoomed outside and didn’t return all night.

I woke up feeling something dripping on my chin, it was a sticky liquid. I tried to picture how many possible things could be dropping on my face. I opened my eyes to see a long pink tongue drooling I lazily pushed Rex out of my face.

“Gross.” I mumbled still a little sleepy. I barely rocked him. “You’re so disgusting.”

Where had he been all night long? I stayed up as long as I could. It had been three AM. I looked over at the clock that now said it was about five-thirty PM. I’d nearly slept another day. I placed my legs on the floor, stepping in something even worse. My eyes traveled to the white carpet. It was soaked with crimson liquid. I felt my eyes nearly fall out of their sockets. I looked at Rex who seemed to be glaring at me. Alice my mind screamed at me. I raced to Alice’s bedroom nearly tripping on my own feet. I opened her door to find it unoccupied.

“Alice!” I yelled almost at the top of my lungs.

“What?” she yawned walking out of the bathroom.

“The floor- and Rex… And…blood.” I stammered.

“Hey… Sol. Calm down what’s wrong?” she asked.

“There’s blood every Alice.” I finally spit it out.

She looked at me strangely, “blood… Are you sure?” she asked.

She jogged downstairs her black curls bouncing to life. She finally saw the carpet and pushed me, roughly. “You are so stupid! I should have known you were pulling my leg. Grow up, Sol.”

I stared down where I saw Rex licking the carpet.


That night I waited for Rex to whine at the door. Then I followed him. The moon wasn’t out and the stars didn’t light up the sky like little light bulbs. I tried to keep my eyes open as the wind blew and the fog got into my eyes. I knew Rex wasn’t very far ahead but I’d look sight of him. I looked down into a puddle of rainwater and mud where I saw a reflection of something jump behind me. I whirled around to inspect the tree tops, which were bare.

Suddenly the air rushed out of my lungs as my back hit against the cold, wet, rocky floor as I stared up into the eyes of Rex. Rex growled and swiped his paw against my chest causing my shirt to rip and me to start bleeding. Rex’s eyes did that crazy static thing.

Something really fast happened at that moment I looked around and saw four other dogs that looked like Rex staring at me. What was going on? Rex’s face began to change into… A guy? What was going on? Was I dreaming, I felt real pain and at that moment everything threatened to close in. This was real.

“Rex, who… What?-“ I continued to stutter.

“Shut up!” he growled, keeping his foot on my neck to keep me from speaking and it happened to hurt. He looked down at my cuts which he had given me himself, he looked down almost regretfully. Rex then glared, whatever emotion was there before was gone now. “I’ve infected you.” He said looking around.

“It’s too late to take it back now.” Another one crossed his arms over his chest.

“You’ll be just like us. Welcome to the brotherhood.” Rex said.

Oh, Alice was going to kill me!