Dr. Kinney and the Rabid Revenants

By Patrick McGlone

Dr. Alida Kinney starts her veterinary career by moving to the strange town of Dedden. She soon learns that this is no ordinary place. Dr. Rétoon, the elderly veterinarian she works for, can heal animals with just his touch, Dr. Kinney is haunted by the ghosts of two Irish Wolfhounds connected to the veterinary hospital, and a war is brewing between shape shifting sprites that now call Dedden home. As Dr. Kinney begins to unravel the mysteries surrounding the town she becomes more and more distrustful of her new employer and his secrets. Dr. Kinney is determined to help the peaceful sprites and restless souls in the small town, but to do so she must outwit Dr. Rétoon and grow to trust the ghost dogs: the rabid revenants.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312375338

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Dr. Kinney and the Rabid Revenants

DR. KINNEY

and the

RABID

REVENANTS

PATRICK

McGLONE

Copyright © 2014, Patrick McGlone

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-312-37533-8

Dedication

For my Uncle Brad, who I will never forget.

For my parents who always support me in all my endeavors.

For my girl who I always want by my side.

I love you all.

Rab-id

Rab-id adjective.

Affected by rabies; raging; uncontrollable.

Rev-e-nant noun.

One who returns after death, as in a spirit or a ghost.

1

She stood in front of the tall brick building looking up at the tattered sign.  Dedden Veterinary Hospital. How she was convinced to come work here of all places, straight out of veterinary school, baffled her. 

The hospital was very old, not dilapidated, but definitely outdated.  The bricks were cracked and covered in a slimy green mold along the base.  The only two windows were frosted so you could not see in or out.  The shutters were shedding white paint from what looked like the eighth coat, and the only attempt to make the building look more presentable; probably done 10 years ago. 

The doctor that opened the practice lived upstairs on the fourth floor.  The hospital itself was on the ground floor.  Seeing that there were no windows besides the two on the ground floor, she could not fathom who would want to rent out the second and third floors, probably empty she thought. At least the third floor was, as she had declined the apartment space when the doctor arrived at her school about three and a half months ago.  He was nice, though all her friends thought he was creepy and kept referring to him as the Crypt Keeper for the remaining weeks of their vet school lives. 

The Crypt Keeper a.k.a. Dr. David Rétoon had given her the best offer in her eyes: a small base salary, with the promise that she would be the co-owner of the practice without her buying into it.  Dr. Rétoon was a very old man and did not want his practice to die with him.  Nor did he want to sell it.  He had no use for the money, he never planned on retiring, and he had no family.  Dr. Rétoon simply wanted to continue to work there until the day he died.  So the contract was written up: half of the profits, co-owner, with a stipulation that the practice be signed over to her name in the event of Dr. Rétoon’s death.  Dr. Rétoon was insistent that this detail be included in the contract.  He said it was a necessity of the contract.

Why was she so hesitant to go in? She had not been this nervous since her interviews to get into vet school.  This was her first day out in the real world, but she passed the boards with flying colors.  She was a competent doctor, compassionate and understanding.  In vet school she was not the smartest in the class, no that title was reserved for the girls in the front row. She was a back row girl, always went to class, always studying for the next exam, but not every minute of every day.

God I wish I were still in school, she thought.  At least there she could be with friends, sheltered in the high school drama that is professional school.  There were 90 students in her class at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, abbreviated VMRCVM.  By the end of her four-year stint she knew about all of them, but only truly knew about ten.  That was how things were.  You found your click and you stuck with it.  Though friends changed somewhat as she got into rotations, she was still in the back row crowd. This was the same crowd that joined Alpha Psi, the social fraternity.  The same crowd that got drunk after major exams and went out to bars on weekends.  At this moment she missed them so much she almost burst into tears.  She was definitely scared, but soon she would see what it really meant to be scared. 

She started walking towards the animal hospital, not bothering to lock her tan 1998 Toyota Avalon, the same car she had throughout school.  She stopped at the front step and reached out to open the spring loaded screen door.  Two Irish Wolfhounds, with dark gray hair and eyes a brilliant red, lunged at her through the screen.  The screen door hit her on the forehead.  A stream of blood followed.  The Irish Wolfhounds followed that.

She jumped back as her heart almost jumped out of her chest.  She could feel the blood trickling down the left side of her face.  All she could see were the glistening white fangs of the dogs snapping frantically as they pushed through the door.  There was nowhere to go. Her car was too far, she could not squeeze past them to get into the building, and nothing else was around except Dr. Rétoon’s 1982 Ford pickup truck which was also too far to run to. 

She learned at school that if a dog looks like it is going to attack, stand still, and don’t look it in the eyes.  She got that question wrong on her Ethology test, and she fought the teacher over it.  Why would you stand still if you could climb a tree or jump on a car?  And now she would prove her Ethology professor wrong. She could see the headlines now, Veterinarian mauled to death, even though she stood still!  The Irish Wolfhounds charged towards her as she prayed that the owner would come restrain his dogs.  As a last resort, she put her arms over her face and tightened every muscle in her body that she could. 

Then she screamed. 

Not in pain, but in anticipation of the pain.  After a couple seconds, no pain came.  She realized that her eyes were closed and slowly opened one.  No dogs.  She quickly turned around, still no dogs.  In the corner of her eye she thought she saw movement.  She turned back around to the front door and saw Dr. Rétoon standing there. 

What are you doing Dr. Kinney? he asked.

She realized she must look like a mess. And this was not the first impression that she wanted to make on her first day as a Veterinarian.  She was still in a daze and was shaking uncontrollably… and still had one eye shut. 

Dr. Rétoon began to walk towards her with an inquisitive look in his eyes, Alida?

She tried to compose herself long enough to start forming coherent words. 

Yes! I mean hi!  I … two dogs ran out… I thought they were going to attack me; they made the screen door smash into my head. We should look for them, where is the owner? Sorry, they surprised me; I really am good with dogs.

What are you talking about? There are no appointments here yet, I heard your car pull in so I came down to unlock the front door for you.

But, my head, they made it hit the screen doo… As Alida felt her face, she fell silent.  No blood, no pain.  I… 

If it’s okay with you, I can show you the hospital now, its okay to get a little scared of your first day, but don’t go psychotic on me.

Sorry, Alida said.

She couldn’t argue.  There was no blood, no dogs. Can hallucinations be the result of extreme anxiety and stress?  She did just pick up her entire life just yesterday, drove to this small town in the middle of nowhere, and was standing outside the practice for about twenty minutes before proceeding to the door.  But didn’t Dr. Rétoon say he came down when he heard her car pull up?

Alida was not a dumb girl. She got into vet school after all, and went to an Ivy League school, Brown University, for undergrad.  As smart as she was, she was ten times as beautiful.  With shoulder length brown hair that still had natural blonde sun streaks from her vacation before coming to Dedden and sparkling brown eyes, she could look at a guy and send him to his knees.  She was thin, but strong mainly from playing sports growing up and intramural soccer in college and vet school.  Her smile was as big as a tiger’s and just as deadly, for when she flashed that grin, guys fell from their knees to the floor.

She was not smiling now though.  Something was not right.  She knew it when she pulled up this morning.  There was no reason to be so scared, no reason to stand there staring up at the hospital, yet she did.  There had to be Irish Wolfhounds, but what about her head, how could there be no blood, the dogs could have easily run off.  And the front door was not locked shut.  As Alida walked through the doorway, she saw that the big white wooden door opened in, so it had to be open for the dogs to run out. 

Suddenly she had an epiphany, Do you own any dogs or are any missing from the hospital? She didn’t know why she didn’t think of this before.

Nope. Is all Dr. Rétoon replied.

Oh.

She was lost again, still shaken up by her apparent loss of reality, she decided to try and not think about it for the rest of the day.  Alida did not want Dr. Rétoon to think he made a mistake hiring her and picking her as essentially his replacement.  Sorry, I’m just very stressed out from the long move, she said.

It’s all right, I’m sure you will get use to the place.

Something about the way he talked was different from when she first met him.  Alida also swore that he looked ten years older in a matter of months.   

So this is the hospital, not the most modern, but it gets the job done. Dr. Rétoon had a sinister smirk spreading across his face.  Two exam rooms to your right, straight behind the reception desk is the back laboratory area.  That door to the left of the reception desk is the bathroom.  If you follow me, I will show you the laboratory area and surgery suite. 

The interior of the building was bleaker than the outside, but being the only veterinary practice within 40 miles, Alida doubted that it hurt business.  The lights flickered every now and then, giving the hospital an eerie feel.  Alida felt as though she would not be able to smile while working in this atmosphere.  She knew she should have visited the practice before hand, but it was so far away and she had already planned a vacation with her fellow graduating vet school friends. The walls were painted forest green in the entire waiting room.  Two benches were leaning against the left wall with crude handwritten signs labeled CAT and DOG hanging above them.  The reception desk was a large antique office desk, the kind you would expect to see at an old law firm.  There were no other signs, pictures, or even plants.  The hospital left little to the imagination. 

The exam rooms were painted the same forest green as the waiting room, except it was peeling in the corners, revealing a baby blue color underneath.  Before she could look further into the rooms, Dr. Rétoon swung the door open to the back laboratory area and held it out for her. 

The laboratory area had the least amount of equipment than she had ever seen in a veterinary practice.  The tiny area contained a folding table straight in front of her that housed a microscope, probably from the 50s she thought, a box of slides and slide covers, a couple of bottles of dyes, and a container filled with a mixture of cotton balls, swaps, tongue depressors, and vet wrap.  Under the table were two mini refrigerators with faux wood paneling on the front of them.  The refrigerator on the left had a piece of bandage tape with the words, small animal vaccines, scrawled across it.  The refrigerator on the right also had a piece of bandage tape on it, but the words seemed to be smeared by what Alida thought was dried blood or maybe fecal matter.  Besides that label, the laboratory area was pretty clean.  A cabinet with a sink below it sat on the opposite wall.  The sink was large and looked like an old pig feeding trough.  A wheeled cart, the kind seen pushed around nursing homes or insane asylums to distribute medications, was wedged into the corner between the sink and the wall.  On it were a variety of needles, catheters, scalpel blades, drugs (mainly premeds for surgeries the best she could tell), and a box of surgical gloves.  On the other side of the sink was a block of cages, one large cage below two smaller cages.  They looked like the newest equipment in the entire hospital, though seemed to still be dirty from whatever animals were kept there last.  The laboratory area was darker than the waiting room, not even the minimal light seeping through the frosted windows up front could get back there.

So this is the lab, microscope over there, vaccines below, anything else you need over by the sink. Through this door is surgery. You can check it out; I need to run up stairs for a second.  Lois our receptionist should be getting here soon.  She has been working here for five or six months now, so should be able to answer any questions you have.

Sounds good, how many technicians do you have?

Two, Sammy and Rhonda.  They haven’t been working here as long though, so don’t know much yet.  We have a problem keeping employees around.

Why’s that? Alida asked, but Dr. Rétoon was already through the laboratory area door and back in the lobby.

2

Entry 1: 1of 1

21 July 1940

I remember everything. I forget nothing.  This is the beginning of my human life and it ends with its end.

It was my pond and she had no right to be there.  I was there first, but now it was time to move, no matter how much the calm green water beckoned.  I saw the perfect escape.  I do not discriminate.  I do what I must do to survive and with her around I cannot collect what I need to do so.  I survive.

The child was five and was not well attended by his parents. He sat at the edge of the pond far enough away from his parents to warrant a come back here son or a stay close to mommy and daddy.  These heeds of warning never came, so the child continued to watch me, drawing in his little book with a black crayon… a horse swimming in the pond.

His parents were sitting under an Elm that casted a shadow over their campsite.  Judging by their clothes they looked like what some refer to as ‘carnival folk.’  Or at least I thought so at the time.  It turned out that they were of a different breed, early predecessors of ‘hippies.’ This explained the ring of smoke that clouded their camp and their judgment. 

The child was five. I do not discriminate.

I live by one set of rules.  If I can want then I can take. If I can see then I can be.  If I can do then I will do.  I answer to no man, yet the predicament that I am in right now says otherwise.  It was my pond and they had no right to be there either.  I survive.  I survive.  I survive.  The child was five.

So it began, I emerged from the depths.

The child loved animals and loved to draw them.  He loved the dog. He loved the cat. He loved the rabbit. He loved the bird. Most of all, he loved the stallion.  Everyone was drawn to the stallion. The beauty of it is impeccable.  With no bridal, stallions cannot be tamed.  It is the way, the only way he could have been saved. 

The child climbed onto the steed, clung to the dark mane and began to laugh.  His parents made love under the tree, under their cloud of smoke, but stopped upon hearing the boy.  They did not believe what they saw.  They did not rise to rescue their son. They did not jump into the pond after him as the stallion dove head first into it with the young rider unable to loosen his grasp.  They did not fret for one second. After all, ordinary stallions don’t jump in ponds to drown their riders.  That and they were high.  To them, it may have looked like a pink elephant doing a cannonball with a baby chimp on its back.  This made it easy.  I saw the perfect escape.  I do not discriminate.

The stallion emerged from the water at the opposite side of the pond and looked to the childless parents.  They were back to making love.  The fleeting notion that they should be responsible parents lasted no longer than the father’s drug-fueled erection. 

I felt a presence. I changed that day to escape.  I was the child.  I was five.  I could feel a presence and I needed to act fast. 

The clouds swept in and the air filled with wind. Then the rain started. They could not stop me.  I would reach the drowned boy’s parents and be taken to safety before she could intervene.  I ran and ran.  The hippies were gathering up the blanket and using it to shield them from the rain.  The mother saw me running towards her.  I was now her little boy.  I reached them as the presence grew nearer, only to exchange my perfect escape for a perfect capture.  There were no necklaces of any sort on the pond grounds, yet with a swift hand the mother took control. Look what I found!  We must not be the first ones to find this place.  Aww… it looks wonderful on you Buddy.  The father called it a Peace Piece.  It was a hemp twine with a peace sign woven into the front.  How was I so careless? 

Then it came to me.  She tricked me, not the child’s parents, but the presence.  First she infiltrated my pond then she got me captured.  I could only hope that one day I would break free from the chains that hold me.  Then I will change again.  I answer to no man.  I survive. 

The child was five.  Now I am in his place, but the bridal is secure and the parents have hold of the reigns.  I do not discriminate and it was time to move.

A van was parked a quarter of a mile away from the pond in a new clearing.   A tall brick building with no windows on the upper floors loomed amongst the surrounding trees.  It was two years old now and provided me with unlimited sustenance.  I had an agreement.  Every third full moon I would be granted a soul. 

I am not the Devil. I am not God. However, I do decide who lives and who dies.  With the new presence, the agreement was placed on hold.  Souls would no longer be provided.  I could not stay.  Now I am a five-year-old child. I am trapped, but I survive. I survive.

3

The door to the surgery suite was difficult to open. Alida tried to push it but it felt like something was holding it shut.  The doorknob turned, but it would not move an inch.  She hunched down and banged her shoulder into the door to try to loosen it.  It did not budge.  Grasping the doorknob with her right hand, she kept trying to open the door by banging it hard with her shoulder. All of the sudden the door flew open, sending Alida flying into the surgery suite’s cold hard floor.

Before she could get up, the door slammed shut again.

If she did not have the previous encounter with her hallucinated dogs, this may have meant nothing to her, she would have gotten up, fumbled for the light switch and opened the door.  But for some reason, the feeling of dread returned to her, like something was very wrong.  She was frozen in place, not because she was surrounded by complete darkness, but because she landed on something wet. 

Whatever it was, it was all over the floor.  Her whole right side was now soaked.  Alida reached out in the darkness, trying to find something to pull herself up with. Finally she grabbed something. It was cold and soft.  And hairy.  The Irish Wolfhounds she thought. Alida let out a scream so loud that it scared her even more as it echoed throughout the small room.  She let go of her grip and struggled against the slippery floor, trying to find the door.  She frantically swiped her hands out in front of her. A wall. An overwhelming feeling of relief flushed through her veins as she traced the wall and found the doorknob.  Alida turned the knob and was surprised to find that it opened easily.  She scurried out of the surgery suite, still on her hands and knees.  When she was completely out, the door slammed shut behind her again. 

Looking down at her new white lab coat, she saw it was now covered in blood.  She couldn’t be hallucinating this time.  She got through four years of vet school without a nervous breakdown, why was she going crazy now?  She almost went to open the door again, but quickly decided against it.  Whatever was in there, Irish Wolfhounds or not, she did not want to let it out. 

An elderly woman opened the door connecting the laboratory area to the waiting room as Alida started to get up.  She was about 40 pounds overweight with gray hair wrapped in a bun on the top of her head.  She had gentle features about her face, giving her the appearance of a tender, loving grandmother figure.  She must have been around sixty years old, and had a waddle in her step as she appeared in the doorway.  A look of terror and panic overtook the woman as she laid eyes on Alida.

Oh dear! You hurt sweetie?

No, I am fine, just frazzled, it isn’t my blood, Alida told the woman.

Oh thank goodness, but whose blood is it dear?

Dr. Rétoon walked in as Alida finished telling the woman what had happened.  He did not notice that Alida was blood drenched at first, saying, Lois, you have arrived!  I see that you have met Dr. Alida Kinney.  Then he looked towards Alida.  His mouth dropped and for the first time, he looked compassionate and caring.  This faded quickly and was replaced with nervousness and dread.  Dr. Kinney what happened? 

Before Alida could open her mouth, Lois spurted out the entire story, much better than Alida could have done.  When Lois finished, Dr. Rétoon had an enormous smile on his face, resembling the Joker from Batman comics.

Follow me, he said.

Dr. Rétoon brushed past the two women and headed straight for the surgery door.  Subconsciously, Alida began to back up, away from that door, almost hiding behind Lois.  Dr. Rétoon turned around and saw that neither was following him.  Trust me, its okay, he said.  Dr. Rétoon opened the door with such ease that Alida had to double-check her lab coat to make sure she still saw the bloodstains. Yup, still there, not crazy, yet.

Once Dr. Rétoon turned on the lights in the surgery suite, Alida not only felt dumb, but very embarrassed.  What is my problem today, she thought.  The doctor waved the two in. They finally complied.

Alida let out a huge gasp when she entered the room.  A huge stallion, bigger than she had ever seen was hanging from the ceiling by two giant hooks in each of its hocks, just to the right of the door.  Blood was dripping at a steady rate from its nose.  On the floor was an Alida shaped blood angel, with bloody handprints covering about half the wall near the door.

It’s a pulley system; the track leads from this backdoor to the surgery suite.  Makes getting these large animals in here for necropsies a heck of a lot easier, Dr. Rétoon explained.

Alida turned bright red as Dr. Rétoon continued. The horse’s name is Phantom.  He belongs to a corn farmer named Jeffrey Blights.  I got a call last night from him saying his horse had died, so he hauled him over here and he helped me string him up.  We must have pushed him too far in and he blocked the door.  You must have some strong deltoids to push a half-ton horse out of the way with your shoulder.  Although judging by the walls, it looks like the horse may have won the fight.  A small chuckle came from Dr. Rétoon and Lois joined in.  Alida was not laughing; she was still incredibly embarrassed and felt very foolish. 

What about the door slamming shut? Alida asked. 

That’s nothing, always does that, spring-loaded.  Dr. Rétoon let go of the door and it slammed shut.  Try not to do that though, just hang on to the door when you shut it.  Come on, there are some extra scrubs in the cabinet above the sink you can change into.  Alida said nothing; instead she just followed him for the third time today.  The only bathrooms with showers in this place are on the third and fourth floors.  No one is living on the third floor right now, so you can use the shower there and change.  I think there are some towels under the sink up there. 

Thanks, I will be right back. Alida said.  She grabbed the scrubs and headed back to the waiting room.  The only way to the upper floors was by a staircase to the left of the reception desk.  It was a wooden spiral staircase, with turns that were so sharp and stairs that were so abnormally high that a couple of times she thought she was going to fall.  Each step creaked and moaned as she climbed the treacherous structure.  As she passed the door to the second floor she thought she heard growling coming from the other side.  When she stopped for a second to listen, it was silent again.  I have to calm down she thought, hopefully there is hot water in this place.  She could not wait to get the blood off of her, so she continued her trek to the third