Dog days of summer_(0)

I am not the author but this story is one that I have read multiple times. Seventeen chapters in total.



Dog Days of Summer – 1
by Ken L. Master

***

Chapter 1: Change Happens In a Flash

The disturbing dreams started while Billy was still
recovering from the lightning strike. Bill couldn’t
remember actually being hit, but the neurologist told
him nobody ever did, the strike just happened too fast.
It was the first week of summer vacation, when he heard
the neighbors’ dog Rex barking on his running line as
the thunderstorm blew in suddenly. Billy hadn’t thought
twice about it, he knew the Phillips’ weren’t home, so
he just ran outside to let the big mutt in out of the
rain.

He had one hand on the Shepherd’s collar and was trying
to unsnap the chain when the bolt of lightning nailed
them both; one minute he was yelling at the big dog to
be still, and it seemed like a second later he woke up
in the hospital. The doctors told him later that the
metal posts holding the running line cable had carried
off most of the charge, which was why he and the dog
weren’t totally fried. After three weeks, he still had
occasional headaches, but everyone said it was a
miracle he and Rex were alive, so Bill figured weird
dreams weren’t much to bitch about.

The really strange part was that what he remembered of
the dreams was always in the Phillips’ back yard or
inside their house. They were pretty crazy though, not
nightmares, just really weird—like black and white
movie clips, with perspective all wrong, like he was
laying on the ground, and noises like barking or
growling, and strange smells.

That seemed really odd to him, he didn’t remember ever
actually smelling anything in his dreams before. When
he described them to the neurologist, the doc told him
his brain was still trying to get itself sorted out, so
some freaky dreams weren’t unusual. The EEG’s and other
tests were all okay, so the doctor said the dreams
would stop after his brain made some adjustment to
being blasted like that. Bill wasn’t sure why he
decided not to tell the doc that he sometimes thought
that he was the one doing all the growling and barking
in the dreams.

Only a couple of days after talking with the doctor,
Billy had the weirdest experience of his life. He’d
dozed off while listening to some tunes in his room and
was having one of the dreams again, and this time Amber
Phillips was in it; he could see her face, and he was
looking UP at her while she talked to him. “…such a
good boy, Rexie, you’re such a good, good boy,” she
said with a giggle, “you’re a lazy, worthless mutt but
you’re my sweetheart, you know that? Nobody ever had
such a good, good dog, and we love you like crazy, you
big furry shit.”

Billy felt her scratching his head affectionately and
heard the contented growl coming from his throat; it
seemed completely natural to roll over onto his side
and have the girl begin scratching his furry belly. He
could feel Amber’s hand rubbing his belly and chest as
she kept talking, and suddenly he knew without question
that he was Rex, laying in the Phillips’ side yard
while Amber petted him. He could feel his tail thumping
into the grass as he wagged it and he could see his own
bedroom window over Amber’s shoulder. ‘Holy shit, this
is too weird,’ he thought suddenly, ‘I’m inside the
goddamn dog, this is crazy.’
Billy jerked awake with a gasp, suddenly back in his
bed with the CD still playing. He sat up and hit the
power button, and in the sudden silence he could hear
Amber Phillips’ voice through his open window.

“…may think I don’t have anything better to do than
rub your belly, you spoiled mutt,” she said with a
laugh, “but you’re wrong, you lazy thing; I’ve got
laundry to put away and Mom wants help making dinner,
big boy, so I guess you’re out of luck for now.”

Bill looked out his window as the girl was getting to
her feet beside the big dog; he gasped in amazement as
he realized Rex was laying exactly where he’d just been
in the dream. He closed his eyes to try and remember
the exact position, and for a split second he was THERE
again, lying on his side and staring up as Amber walked
away.

He felt a whirl of vertigo as the dog scrambled up onto
all fours, and then Billy was back inside his room,
watching as Rex followed the girl through the gate into
the Phillips’ back yard. He collapsed into the chair in
front of his computer desk, shivering in shock and
astonishment.

“Jesus Christ, this is just nuts,” he whispered to
himself, “It was exactly like the dream, he was right
where I was, I was dreaming what he was seeing,
hearing, I was THERE, like I was inside his head.”

‘Get a grip, dude,’ he advised himself silently, ‘and
try not to be goofier than you are. It’s just a
coincidence, that’s all, maybe you were hearing her
voice while you were sleeping and just blended it into
the dream. That makes a lot more sense than what you’re
imagining, for real. Uuhh, and let’s not even mention
this little episode to Mom and Dad, or the doctor, for
sure. Talk about this to anybody and you’ll be talking
with a shrink and eating Thorazine instead of M & Ms.’

**

Every night his dreams continued, and day after day
Bill went Internet searching, trying to understand what
was happening to him. He remembered more and more
details from the dreams every time he woke up, and
everything he could check out on the Net made him more
spooked, because stuff he was dreaming turned out to
make sense. He learned that dogs mostly don’t see
color, no yellow or red or green, but probably blue and
violet, and that matched exactly what he was seeing in
his sleep.

While he couldn’t really identify the smells and sounds
he remembered, that made sense too, since animals
senses of smell and hearing were much better than
humans. After a week of searching and worrying, Billy
decided that he was either totally losing his mind, or
else somehow his brain was plugged into the German
Shepherd, his mind was sharing the dogs life when he
slept. And though Billy was scared shitless, he didn’t
really think he was going crazy, no matter what anyone
else might have said.

It didn’t make sense, but it was too real not to be
true; some way, somehow, that lightning bolt had cross-
wired his brain with the German Shepherd, and he was
able to experience everything the dog was living. ‘And
if that’s really true, dude, then this is the chance of
a lifetime,’ he thought suddenly, ‘It’ll be like having
your own personal spy-cam right in the house with all
those hot babes.’

Billy had a major lust attack every time he laid eyes
on the neighbor girl, but then everyone in town had the
hots for the Phillips girls. Amber’s sister Jade was
twenty-two, still living at home with their mother and
working on her Master’s degree, but all the guys Bill
knew weren’t interested in either of the girls for her
mind. Like their mother, the Phillips sisters were
total knockout blondes, with long perfect legs,
sparkling green eyes, and stunning full breasts that
stood out in taut globes under their sweaters. Billy’s
Mom said it had been somewhat of a scandal when Angela
Richter got pregnant at fifteen and delivered Jade
right after she turned sixteen, but Ben Phillips’
family had done the right thing and the marriage saved
Angela’s reputation.

Jade was almost thirteen and Amber was seven years old
when Ben Phillips was killed in a plane crash, and
Angie Phillips had raised the girls as a working mother
since then. Maybe because of her own teenage
experience, Angela Phillips kept her daughters on a
short leash. Billy once heard Jade joke that her Mom
had three rules: 1) Finish your education & earn your
own way, 2) Think for yourself, and 3) Keep your legs
together.

Joke or not, the girls had taken their mother’s advice
to heart, and none of the guys at Midvale High had
gotten anywhere with Jade, and nobody was getting
anywhere with her little sister either.