"Mommy," Kelly cried out. "Mommy, what's Mark doing? Make him stop!"
But there was nothing Sharon could do. It felt as if her feet were rooted to the floor. Still, she reached out toward Mark. "Stop it!" she shouted. "For God's sake, Mark- you're killing him!"
Mark felt his fingers tighten around the dog's throat, and as if from far away he could barely make out a voice calling to him to stop. But his entire concentration was focused on the dog now. He felt it wriggling in his grip, felt its forepaws clawing weakly at his chest. Then, as he continued to squeeze tighter, the clawing stopped and all he felt were a few faltering twitches.
Then nothing.
His vision began to clear. Suddenly he was staring intoChivas's face. The dog's eyes, bulging in their sockets, seemed to be staring at him, and its tongue lolled limply from the side of its slackened jaw.
"Ch-Chivas?" he asked, his voice choking with emotion. His eyes left the dog, then, and fixed on his mother, who was staring at him, her face ashen, her eyes reflecting shock.
In the corner, near the back door, Kelly was huddled on the floor, crying.
Then Mark's tears overflowed as he stared helplessly at the lifeless body he still clutched in his hands. The strength drained from his fingers, andChivas slid to the floor, sprawling out almost as if he were only asleep.
"I-I'm sorry," Mark wailed. "I didn't mean it!" Turning away, unable to face his mother or his sister, he shambled out of the kitchen and stumbled up the stairs to his room. He slammed the door behind him, then stood still, leaning his weight against the closed door, his breath coming in rough, choking gasps.
It wasn't possible-he couldn't have killedChivas. He couldn't have!
But he knew he had.
The dog had attacked him, so he'd killed it.
But that wasn't true, either, not really.Chivas had only been trying to protect his mother.
His mother!
He could remember the rage now, remember the blinding fury that had risen inside him, overwhelming him, driving him on to want to hurl his fist at her, smashing it into her face.
His mother!
It wasn't possible.
Choking back a sob, he stumbled toward his bed, then paused as he caught sight of himself in the mirror on his closet door.
His hair, limp with sweat and matted down against his scalp, framed a face he could barely recognize.
His eyes seemed to have sunk deep within their sockets, peering out suspiciously from beneath the ridges of his brow.
His jaw seemed thicker and his lips were twisted slightly, giving him a sullen look.
"Nooo…" he wailed softly. "That's not me. That can't be me."
And suddenly the rage was on him again. His fist clenched, and he pulled his arm back then smashed it into the mirror with all the force he could muster. The mirror shattered, jagged lines flashing out in every direction from the point of impact. "Nooo," he sobbed once again. He staggered back and for a moment was unable to tear his eyes from the distorted image in the broken mirror. But at last he turned away, lurched toward the bed. He tore at the bedclothes, stripping them away with a single furious wrench, then grabbing the thick coverlet with both his hands and ripping it a quarter of its length before throwing it aside.
His eyes, glittering with rage, darted around the room, searching for something else to destroy.
When he finally collapsed on the bed half an hour later, his anger at last spent, the room was a shambles.
Feathers from an exploded pillow covered everything and still floated in the air. His clothes, hurled mindlessly from the closet and the bureau, were scattered over the floor. The clock was smashed, and a lamp, its shade crushed, lay in one corner.
But the rage within him at last was quiet.
The tension in the house was almost palpable. Finally, Sharon threw aside the magazine she'd been holding in her lap, unread, for the last twenty minutes. "We have to talk about this," she said, her eyes fixing on Blake, whom she was certain was no more involved in his television show than she had been in her magazine.
"I'm not sure how we can talk about it, when you won't even let me talk to Mark," he replied. Though his voice was even, there was an edge to it that made Sharon wince.
"You weren't there," she said. "You can't possibly understand what happened."
"He killedChivas," Blake told her. "He looked like he was going to take a punch at you, and whenChivas went after him, he killed him. Isn't that about it?"
Sharon knew he was right, and yet even as he spoke the words, she wanted to cry out to him that it was something else entirely, that Mark hadn't been himself, that it was as if some furious stranger had taken over Mark's body.
But she'd already tried to explain that to him.
He'd come home from the office a few minutes after Mark had disappeared into his room, listened in shock as Sharon had brokenly explained what had happened, then buriedChivas in the backyard, with Kelly looking on, her body shaking as she tried to control the sobbing that had overcome her when she realizedChivas was dead.
He'd already started up the stairs to deal with Mark when Sharon had stopped him. "Leave him alone," she pleaded. "He's as horrified about what happened as you are."
Blake had stared at her in bewilderment. "He tried to take a swing at you, and killed his own dog, and you say he's horrified? I say he needs a good talking-to, if not a whipping!"
That's when she'd tried to explain what had happened, tried to explain that from the moment Mark had come home that day, there was something different about him, something more than the changes that had been taking place over the last few weeks. "There was a look in his eye," she said. "And when I told him I don't want him going back to Martin Ames, he just went crazy."
Blake had stared at her then. "You toldhimwhat?" he echoed.
"You heard me," she'd said, her voice dropping, unwilling to have Kelly-who'd gone up to her own room after announcing she didn't want any dinner-overhear what would probably develop into an argument.
She'd been right. It had gone back and forth as she'd prepared dinner, and when finally she and Blake had sat alone at the table in the kitchen, it had continued. Finally Blake pushed his plate aside and tossed his napkin onto the table.
"I don't get it," he said. "You don't have any idea of what Ames is doing, but you're convinced that it's some kind of terrible experimental program that's turning our kids into monsters. And you won't let me discipline my own son, even after what he did this afternoon." He'd stared at her for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was uneven. "What the hell do you want me to do, Sharon?"
She had looked up at him pleadingly. "I want you to agree that he won't go back to Ames until we know what's going on out there. And I don't want you to start punishing him for something I'm absolutely certain he didn't intend to do."
Blake had regarded her speculatively for a moment. "And how are we going to do that?" he asked, his voice cool. "Am I supposed to go out there and confront Ames? Tell him you think he's some kind of modernMengele and demand to see all his medical data? Hell, I wouldn't even understand whatever he might tell me!"
"But you understood enough to let him start medicating Mark, didn't you?" Sharon demanded, her voice bitter.
That's what had set Blake off. "Yes, I did, damn it!" he exploded. "And it hasn't hurt Mark at all. He's in better shape than he's ever been in. I should think you'd be pleased about it."
She'd almost told Blake about the mice then, but had quickly changed her mind. It wasn't so much that she'd stolen them from his own company, but that in his present mood he only would have mocked her further, then demanded to know what she'd done with the mice. And if she told him she'd given them toMacCallum…