I'll bet you're all anxious to find out how this goes, aren't you? Well, I won't keep you waiting too long, but first, review replies:
Crescent Moon Dancer: Read on to find out! I made sure not to wait three weeks to post this chapter, you're welcome
MrMuddyPaws: Well, plot twists are always enjoyable. I'm glad you liked it, and hopefully you'll like this chapter just as much! As for choosing the narrator, I randomly drew a name from each of the 12 shows and picked which one of those would work best with what I had in mind for the plot. Thanks again!
Dirtkid123: Maybe...
Chapter 9: The Wrath of Fido
Ferb was a killer. I simply couldn't believe it. The same guy I had just saved from certain doom was a killer. I would have bet money that the bugle call yesterday had come from KC Undercover girl on a rampage, but apparently, I was mistaken.
"What's the matter with you?" Davenport asked me, noticing me blankly staring at the badge on Ferb's arm.
"He-he k-killed someone," I stuttered, pointing at Ferb.
"What?" he shouted in disbelief. "This guy?"
"Uh-huh," I muttered. "Ferb, you killed someone?"
He nodded his weirdly-shaped head slowly.
"W-why?" I asked.
He opened his mouth as if to respond, but then closed it.
"Tell us," Davenport insisted. "Until we come up with a plan, we're stuck in this tree, so you'd better fess up."
"Well..." he began hesitantly. "I was searching for food, and I had a knife with me for protection in case I was ambushed. I heard a noise behind me, which, due to the circumstances, startled me. I was so spooked, I reflexively turned around and threw the knife at the source of the noise. I didn't realize that-that there was a girl standing there, and-and I got her right in the heart."
He looked so lowly and ashamed of what he'd done that I found it impossible to be mad at him. "Oh Ferb," I said, giving him a gentle hug, "Don't be upset with yourself because of that. It was self defense, not an evil act."
This seemed to console him, and he perked up a little bit.
"I hate to ruin this lovely moment, but we're still stuck in a tree with no means of escape," Davenport pointed out.
Ferb, his conscience clear, suddenly grabbed my backpack and was rifling through its contents.
"Hey, give that back," I commanded, reaching for my pack. But Ferb pulled it out of my reach and continued searching through it. "What are you even looking for?" I asked, frustrated. He didn't say a word, but pulled a length of rope out of the backpack and began tying an end of it to his knife.
"Are you suggesting we tightrope walk out of here?" Davenport asked incredulously.
Ferb responded with a half nod, but Davenport wasn't buying it, "How on Earth do you suppose we do that?! They didn't exactly have a training station on circus performance!"
Ferb held up a single, flat finger that told Davenport to be quiet and wait, then stood up on the branch, knife in hand. He pointed to me, and then to the dog below, which was staring up at us, its head slightly cocked.
"You want me to distract it?" I asked, earning a nod in response. It seemed Ferb had exceeded his allotted word count for the day, and had ceased verbal communication entirely. "How am I supposed to do that? I don't exactly have a chew toy on hand."
He handed me the dead squirrel, and made a throwing gesture with his hand.
"You expect the dog to run after the squirrel?" Davenport questioned, prompting another nod from Ferb.
I held up the squirrel and prepared to launch it form the tree, as Ferb did the same with his knife, now firmly tied to the rope. He held up a hand, and counted down from three.
"Man I hope this works," I muttered to myself as three fingers became two, and one, and zero.
All hell broke loose as I lobbed the squirrel with all my might out into the woods. Ferb threw the knife into a nearby tree, where it stuck itself firmly into the bark. As the dog chased after the squirrel, which, sadly, had not flown very far from our tree. Ferb handed the other end of the rope to Davenport, and began monkey-climbing along the rope. When he reached the other side, he pulled the knife out of the bark, wrapped the rope around the other tree, and re-jabbed it deep into the tree. He beckoned for me to follow, leaving Davenport to hold the other end of the rope.
"Tie it tightly to a branch so you can climb over after," I told him as I grabbed a hold of the rope. Playing on the monkey bars at the playground as a child could not prepare me for the difficulty of this task. I eventually resorted to grabbing the rope with my feet and crawling along like a demented sloth. It felt like time had slowed down, the other tree never seemed to get any closer as I inched my way along.
"Hurry!" Davenport called from the other tree. "That squirrel won't keep him distracted forever!"
I increased my pace, and after what seemed like ages, climbed into the other tree. I moved to climb down the tree and return to camp, but Ferb stopped me. He nodded towards the dog, still hungrily devouring the squirrel, and I finally understood. We were going all the way back to camp through the trees so that the dog couldn't easily follow our scent trail.
"Davenport, move it!" I called across the gap.
"Are we going to leave the rope behind?" he asked. "Who's going to untie the rope from this side once I'm over there?"
"Good point. Ferb, you came up with this plan, what do we do?"
For a moment, he hesitated, as if he didn't know what to do, but, after a quick thought, he raced back along the rope to the other tree. He ushered Davenport along, and, once he was safely on my side, began untying the rope from the other side.
"What the heck is he doing?" Davenport questioned.
"I don't know, but I hope it works," I responded.
Ferb now had the loose end of the rope clutched in his two-dimensional hands, and he lifted his feet off the branch, allowing himself to swing across the gap.
"No, he can't do that!" Davenport exclaimed. "He doesn't have enough mass to make it!"
"What do we do?!"
"We pull him up."
Sure enough, once Ferb reached the base of the tree, the rope stopped swinging and he just hung there, inches from the ground, before Davenport hauled him up.
"That was stupid and reckless," Davenport scolded, while Ferb looked down at his feet in shame.
"Um, guys. I think he's finished the squirrel, but he's still hungry," I said quietly, gesturing to the dog, who was now stationed at the bottom of this tree, staring expectantly at us.
"Well that was a waste of energy," Davenport mumbled. "At this rate we'll go through all the squirrels in the forest, and the dog will just end up following us all the way to camp."
He was right, now that I thought about it, that plan would never have worked. It would take far too long to climb through the trees like that, and the dog would easily be able to follow us. I glanced down at the dog once again, only to find it engaged in an intense fight with a young boy.
"You might want to see this," I said, pointing to the skirmish below.
"What on Earth? Who is that?" Davenport asked.
"I don't know, but whoever it is just saved our lives."
The fight below intensified, as the boy landed a solid punch to the canine's muzzle. However, he wasn't going down that easily, and the dog lunged at the boy, grabbing his forearm in his powerful jaws. The boy cried out in agony as the dog's teeth sank into his flesh, causing spurts of blood to stain the dirt below. I watched on in horror as the dog shook its head, and a resounding crack split the air. I didn't think I would ever hear such a primitive and pain-filled sound come from a person ever again.
Still, the boy kept fighting, attempting to use his other arm to punch the dog in the face, but to no avail. Even from this height, I could see the life leaving the boy's eyes as his arm bled profusely in the dog's death hold. With a final shake of his head, the dog ripped the boy's forearm clean off, causing a fresh spurt of blood to erupt from the stump. I looked away in horror, for never had I seen such a gruesome sight.
I refused to look back at the boy for fear of what I might see, but it wasn't too long before the bugle call sounded. I dared a glance back at the ground, only to see the blood spatter on the ground, and the dog slowly dragging the body away into the forest.
"Well, that was graphic," Davenport uttered grimly.
"I've never seen anything like it."
"Neither have I."
"Let's get out of here, this is freaking me out," I said, climbing down the tree. Davenport and Ferb followed, and together we trekked back to camp. Along the way, I pondered what I had just seen.
Who was that?
Why did he attack the dog?
Was he trying to save us, or was it just a coincidence?
But I decided to stop thinking about it when the mental image of the dog ripping strips of meat off of the boy and wolfing them down entered my head. Any childish dreams I'd ever had of getting a puppy vanished that day.
I apologize if that was graphic, but this story is rated T for a reason. It was also a pretty short chapter, but I decided not to drag it out. What did you guys think? Any guesses as to who the dog killed? What's going to happen next? I guess we'll wait and see!