Chapter 40 #3
The next room turned out to be the bathroom, and the next one the bedroom, where we found Zeke, in bed, fast asleep, and with some strange device attached to his face.
“What is that thing, Max?” asked Dooley as we all sat around the figure of the sleeping police academy instructor and studied him carefully.
“It looks like a gas mask,” said Brutus.
“It’s a device for sleep apnea,” said Pippy. “Harley had one of them, and he mostly slept with it on his face. It’s for people who have trouble breathing at night.”
“Odd,” said Brutus. “It makes him look like an alien.”
At that moment, the man must have become aware that he was being watched, for he opened his eyes, lifted his head, and looked straight at us. For a moment, we didn’t move a muscle, and he didn’t react in any meaningful way. But then he opened his mouth and muttered, “Mom, is that you?”
At which point his eyes closed again, his head hit the pillow, and he was fast asleep once more.
“See?” said Pippy. “This device really helps people sleep. It certainly helped Harley sleep.”
“He doesn’t look like a hot lover to me,” said Brutus. “Not very handsome at all. Not like Chase. I mean, I don’t see what Odelia sees in this guy.”
“Maybe it’s his personality,” Harriet suggested. “Maybe he makes her laugh. Women like men with a sense of humor who make them laugh.”
From what we’d seen of Zeke so far, he hadn’t struck me as much of a comedian. Then again, we probably hadn’t seen him at his best. A man being pursued by a BearCat rarely is.
We jumped down from the bed, and I got the feeling that Gran would be mightily disappointed when we told her that, as far as we could tell, there was no evidence that Zeke was a terrorist. A slob, yes, and a man who loved to eat meat, and couldn’t breathe at night without a device that made him look like an alien. But not a terrorist.
As we walked out of the room, I accidentally bumped into a small table that had been placed next to the door. A vase rested on top of it, and as it started to sway and threatened to topple, I had the good sense to hold on to it and make sure it didn’t crash to the floor.
The upshot was that I was lying on my back, holding the vase in all four of my paws.
“A little help here, you guys?” I asked.
And just as I was trying to place the vase on the floor, something fell out of it.
It looked like… a gun.
“Oh, look,” said Brutus. “A gun.”
And just when I was making my second attempt to get rid of the vase, a second object fell out of the receptacle. It was a second gun. And as more guns poured out, soon it became evident the thing had been used as some kind of storage place for all these guns.
“That is only to be expected with a drill sergeant,” said Dooley. “They like their guns.”
“He is not a drill sergeant, though,” said Brutus. “He is a teacher. Teaches the students all about the law.”
“Hey, you guys,” said Pippy. She had ventured deeper into the room and had opened one of the guy’s closets. “There are more guns in here. Big ones. And also grenades. And some stuff that I don’t even know what it is.”
“More guns?” asked Brutus. “The guy must be a collector.”
We joined Pippy and discovered that she was right: the closet was filled with all manner of weaponry, none of it stored safely. Guns, boxes of ammunition, and other equipment had simply been piled inside, as if someone had tossed everything in there in a hurry.
The same sharp chemical odor hung in the air that I’d noticed in the storage building. Apparently, what I’d mistaken for bleach was actually coming from the ammunition and gun-cleaning supplies.
“He must really love guns,” said Brutus as he surveyed the contents of the closet. “I mean, really, really love them.”
And since we felt we were going well, we moved to the other closets in the bedroom, and soon discovered that they, too, had been crammed full with all manner of weaponry.
“Is it possible Gran is right?” I asked after a while, when Brutus attracted our attention to something that looked like a bazooka. “And this guy really is a terrorist after all?”
“Terrorists don’t usually keep this much stuff in the house,” said Pippy, sounding remarkably well-informed on the subject.
When we all gave her a questioning look, she explained, “Harley designed an app for the military, so he knew a lot about these things. And he liked sharing what he knew with me, since I was always on paw to listen.”
It made sense, since no terrorist wants to be blown up by the weapons he collects.
“But then what is he?” asked Harriet. “And why does he keep so much of this stuff in his bedroom?”
The answer to that would have to remain a mystery, for at that moment, a man suddenly appeared behind us.
It was Zeke, and he was still wearing his mask, which made him look like a monster from the deep.
Only this particular monster from the deep was reaching out his hands and seemed determined to catch us, uttering strange sounds all the while.
And so we ran screaming from the room, as fast as our paws could carry us, down the stairs and out of the house.
Looked like we had woken up the savage beast!