“Twinkie!” Jeff got her attention and with arms slightly spread in a submissive fashion said, “No, of course not! He’s just a canine . . .”
“Stop THAT!” she nearly shouted. “No one uses the word canine!” She thrust the device forward toward Jeff, and this time it was no longer shaking in her hand. “What the hell is going on? What the hell ISTHIS place? What’s happening to me? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?”
“TWINKIE!”
The strange voice came from her left. Jennifer slowly turned her head in the direction of the voice, the device still pointing at Jeff. Her month was slightly open, eyes the size of saucers. She stared at Genghis Khan, who was looking at her with one eyebrow cocked as if admonishing her. Then, to her utter surprise and amazement, the big Doberman Pinscher said in an authoritative voice, “Relax!”
The blood rushed from her head. She felt hot, and little sparkles of light erupted in front of her eyes. She turned to Jeff. “What . . . the . . . ?” Trent had his hands on his hips and looked annoyed. She started to sway back and forth, her eyes began to lose focus. And as the black veil of unconsciousness started to cover her eyes, and as she swayed one more time and began to fall to the floor, she could hear Jeff say . . .
“Andddd . . . there she goes.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
Jennifer Winkles was dreaming. She was playing with her dog. He was a puppy again and running after that yellow tennis ball he liked so much. She was the age she was now and laughed at how he would run up to the ball and pounce on it like it was trying to escape. He then grabbed the ball in his little jaws and shook it vigorously.
Then, there was a loud gunshot.
Jennifer’s eyes popped open, back to reality. Where was she? She blinked a couple of times and realized that she was upstairs in the apartment lying on her bed. She propped herself on her elbows and saw something wrapped around her right arm. It was similar to a blood pressure cuff, but had a small computer screen on it. Obviously, a newer model. She glanced up and saw Jeff sitting on a chair to her right. He had his coffee mug in his hand and calmly asked, “How are you feeling?”
She was still a little lightheaded and said as she began to sit up, “Okay, I guess.” She then looked to her left and saw Genghis sitting on the floor next to her bed. “SHIT!” She started frantically kicking at the covers that seemed to refuse to give up their hold on her. Kicking and crawling, she attempted to get as far away from the dog as possible, but wound up pushing herself into a fetal position against the headboard of her bed.
“Twinkie.” Jeff got up and put a hand on her shoulder. “Twinkie, you're alright. Calm down, you bumped your head.”
Jennifer looked at Trent, then over to Genghis, then quickly back to Trent. “He talked to me!” She started to breathe heavily. “He talked. When I was in that spaceship.”
“Talked! Spaceship? Whaaaat? ” Jeff said, throwing his head back and putting on an overly fake laugh. “Oh! Come on now, Twinkie.” He said while sitting back down. “Spaceship!” and wiped away a non-existing tear. “Now, Twinkie, that’s just ridiculous, there’s no such thing. And you know as well as I do that human dogs can’t talk.” He fake-laughed again, sounding a little like a demented Santa Claus, and slapped his knee for good measure. “Oh, that’s a good one,” he said while shaking his head. “You must have been dreaming, Twinkie. We, ah . . . that is, I found you on the floor of the garage. You must have struck your head getting out of the back seat of the car after you found your phone. You're fine now.”
Jennifer gave Jeff a skeptical look and said, “A human dog?”
Jeff just stared at her with a frozen look on his face and then said, “Yes . . . I, ah, No! What I meant was . . .”
“Don’t deny it. That wasn’t a dream,” Jennifer said while slowly turning to look at Genghis, who was still just calmly sitting there like a good dog. “He can talk. I heard him as clear as day.” Jeff took the opportunity to give his partner a scathing look.
“Jennifer, please,” Jeff said. “That’s just . . . crazy talk. You were dreaming the whole thing.”
“It wasn’t a dream!” she said, swinging her head back to Trent. “You know it, and what was that place I was in? What was all that weird writing? And all that computer stuff?”
“Twinkie, do you think for one minute that something that outlandish could possibly exist?” Jeff leaned back in his seat and took a sip of coffee. “Sounds to me like your subconscious mind made up the whole scenario when you bumped your head. You know you do watch a lot of space movies on the television.”
Jennifer lay back down, resting her head on the pillow, and rubbed her eyes. “Perhaps you're right.” Jeff looked over at Genghis and gave him a wink. She stared up at the ceiling and continued, “But it seemed so real. The sounds, the smells. I remember panicking and grabbing a ray gun off a table and pointing it at you and Genghis. Well,” she said, not sure of anything anymore. “Maybe it wasn’t you, it’s all still kind of fuzzy.”
“Oh, it wasn’t us, that’s for sure,” he smirked. “Maybe you saw the robot from the movie Robot Monster. You know the one, big black gorilla suit and wearing a space helmet.” Trent took his index fingers and pointed them up from his head. “With the long antennae.”
Jennifer laughed, thinking back to the bad black-and-white 1953 movie they all watched
