2017-10-03 - spike - The New Shop 21

Author: spike
Title: The New Shop 21
Date: 03 October 2017

Chapter 21
Oh god, my head. It pounded. I drifted in and out of consciousness a few times before I finally snapped awake. I tried to look around but I was still frozen. At least the pain was gone and I could see again, breath again.

Where the fuck was I? I could see the edge of a bed, a desk, and a full length mirror attached to the door showed me a little more. I was standing amongst a pile of junk. Traffic cone, stop sign, a blow up doll, a pair of panties was draped across my muzzle.

What the hell?

Then I studied the walls. That stupid tennis player poster with her scratching her butt. On another wall, a banner with Greek letters. Ahhhh shit, that’s all I needed.

Frat boys? What was I? Some kind of item in a fucking scavenger hunt? I hated the lot of them. Every single one of them was an absolute douche and now I was in their frat house?

There didn’t seem to be anyone in the room, that was something at least. I had to get out of here but sunlight was shining in through the window. I couldn’t leave right now even if I wanted to. I’d have to wait until after dark. But how? Frozen like this?

Then, an idea. The core was designed to stay powered by being recharged every cleaning and this one had taken a lot of drain in the past day. Not only was it powering the mesh freezing me in place, I’d wagged that tail quite a lot and those shocks must’ve taken quite a bit of power from it. That seemed my best hope. Drain the battery in the core.

I concentrated, trying to think of M, of the fun I’d had and the bliss of those rewards for being a good dog. I also opened and closed my jaw constantly and as quickly as I could. I’d need to be careful though. I didn’t want to unfreeze before night time or when one of the fuckers who’d stolen me was present.

For the rest of the day, that’s exactly what I did. Snap my jaw and wag my tail. I couldn’t see a clock in my field of vision but I saw the change of the light as morning became afternoon.

Then the door opened and my tail instantly sank between my legs, my jaw froze in place.

He looked like the most hated of school and college idiots. The typical jock. He tossed his gym bag onto his bed and then spotted me. He stared, he knelt in front of me and turned, yelling something.

Another one came in then, pointed at him and laughed. Then started animatedly telling him something, presumably where they’d stolen me from.

He looked at me again, felt me. I managed to read “Fucking hell, it’s amazing.” from his lips followed by, “Weirdest thing in New York? I think you’ll get bonus points for that thing. And it can be worn?”

“What do you mean you can’t find any way to get it off?”

“Fuck! Oh god, that looks tempting, though.”

“Yes I’m fucking serious! Yes, yes, I’m a perverted bastard! You knew that anyway. I’d love to be in that thing. Look at it! It feels amazing! Where was this store?”
Damn. He’d turned away. I watched him walk up to the desk, jot something on a pad and then crash onto his bed.

So now I had to endure their company for god knows how long. Oh joy.

It was dark before they finally got into something that wasn’t college based, took a couple of swigs each from a bottle of vodka and left the room, presumably for another night on the town.

I started in earnest then. Got to drain the battery. Jaw flapping, tail wagging, I kept it up for hours. Finally the jaw started to slow to my impulses. The tail sagged in its wag. My own jaw was aching from all the effort too but I kept it up and a while later, I collapsed into a heap on the floor.

Finally, I could move. I could see the door wasn’t a lockable one. I’d heard of this. Frat boys seeing everything in the house as theirs, taking what they wanted from their “brother’s” rooms, even taking girls to their “brother’s” beds cos they were too drunk to know where they were or just too lazy to go to their own.

I shook my head at the stupidity of the fraternity system, not for the first time and padded across the room to the door. Kneeling into a beg, I managed to hook my foreleg onto the handle and yank it down. I breathed a sigh of relief when it swung open a little.

Then, an idea. They needed to be punished in my opinion. They could be in for the shock of their lives very soon if I had any say in it. I padded back into the room to get a proper look around.

The other shit’s bed was a mess as was his desk. I knelt up again and… There. The desk, piled high with books and papers and on one sheet, a phone. He’d left his phone. Using my muzzle I managed to ease the paper the phone rested on to the edge, then when the phone was balanced on the edge of the desk, I tried one last grip.

It was slow, but it closed around the phone and paper and I pulled causing the pile of books to topple onto the floor.

Well, I might as well punish the retard myself too. I cocked my leg, praying that my efforts in draining the battery had released that too and soon the piss began to flow all over those books.

God did I need that? It must’ve been well over a day since my last one. Since my last food and drink too! I had to get home!

I pawed the door open and peered around it and down the corridor. Oh thank fuck for modern architecture and fire regulations. A fire exit sign. I followed it, pushed the door it pointed at and found a stairway going down.

Now… How to… I wasn’t happy even attempting to walk down those things head first. I backed onto them and inched down.

Another fire escape sign, another door, this one with the fire escape bar lock. I jumped at it, slammed it open and ran out onto the campus into driving rain, bolted across the grass, saw an open gate and ran towards it.

Please let me be in New York. Not some godforsaken university somewhere else. I could’ve been in a car travelling for hours for all I knew.

The rain was welcome at first. It cooled me and being a rubbery material I was doubly sealed into, the rain didn’t penetrate but as I continued I started to shiver.

The moment I got out of the gates I paid more attention. There, an intersection with a street sign. I stared at it and sighed with relief. The shop was miles away but at least it was a walkable distance. On foot, it’d probably take an hour or two. On knees and elbows, I didn’t want to even think about how long it’d take, but at least I knew the way.

I ducked down an alley and started my epic quest across Queens to find home.

I had to be careful though. Careful crossing the street. Careful not to be seen. The last thing I wanted was to be hauled into a cop car. At least they couldn’t legally arrest me. For one thing, no Miranda rights were possible if I didn’t look at their mouths but if they did I’d have no way to communicate anything they wanted to know even if they did manage to ask me in such a way I could understand. No way they’d get me out of either of these suits either.

That wasn’t the primary concern though. I couldn’t feed myself, I couldn’t drink, couldn’t even shit and an attempted arrest would only delay those things. Possibly for too long.

As I got to the end of the alley, I rose to a beg and looked both ways before bolting across the street to the alley beyond.

Shit. Another thing to worry about.

The sky. It was getting lighter. I had to hurry. I couldn’t travel like this in broad daylight. Pretty soon people would be getting up for their jobs or returning home from their night shifts and I couldn’t… Fuck. I bolted down the next alley, across another intersection and another. Each time, the sky grew lighter.

I’d only managed to run five blocks before the sun began to shine down a street ahead but that alley! The next one along had a pile of garbage bags. I bolted across that street and padded up to them, up to the wall they were up against and backed into them. Very soon, I was in the middle of the pile.

Sheltered, surprisingly warm and with no sense of smell to worry about, I curled up and fell asleep.

I was jerked awake by a sound. I looked around confused. How could I hear? I was nowhere near home yet.

Then my stomach growled like the hungry dog I was. I sighed. God, if hunger was waking me up… I was parched, I almost felt like a puff of wind would blow the pile of dust I’d turned into away. I needed water.

I poked my head out of the pile and sighed. I’d slept through the day. I… how long was that? It had to be at least fourteen hours but at least it wasn’t raining. I could feel my energy reserves were running low but the sleep had helped a hell of a lot. I’d been tortured, driven almost to madness by those shocks, knocked unconscious by the lack of air and frightened the life out of by being stolen in the first place. The concentration required to drain that battery had been tiring too.

But the important thing was, it was dark. Again, no idea what the time was, but anything that covered my movements even if people were about was welcome.

Another street, this time with parked cars, so I rose up again to peer this way and that before making the attempt. Traffic. I ducked back down again and waited a while. Finally it was clear. Another block closer to home.

I had to start heading east as well as north, that meant more streets to cross.

Across the next street, the alley was gated. I couldn’t go that way but there was a park one street down. A welcome change and it sped my progress a hell of a lot. I hid in a bush until the number of people diminished and again, once the streets ahead were deserted, ran on. No more alleys though. No more chance to conceal myself. Every one seemed gated.

Finally, a clock on a building. If it was right, it was getting close to two when another street sign indicated I’d passed the half way point. It wouldn’t be totally quiet for another few hours but I couldn’t wait that long. I continued.

I lost count of how many avenues and streets I crossed. How many alleyways found I could run down. At one point I ran headlong into a homeless man. This one I did knock off his feet.

He scrambled back onto them and stared at me, then tried to grab. I just leapt for his groin and head butted him in it before trampling over his prone body and continuing on my way.

And then, finally, the street I recognised, the street that’d changed my life. The door at the side of the building in a discrete location allowing the perverted to enter unobserved. The door buzzer. I was home. The sky was beginning to lighten again as I knelt and prodded the button with my nose.

I continued doing that for what felt like an age before, with an extremely pained expression, Joel yanked open the door, his knees buckling under the barrage of shocks he must be enduring.

I bolted in, rammed into the inner door, bolted across to the back room door and started pawing at it. This one needed a code to enter after all. In my current state something utterly impossible.

Joel ran to me, he knelt by me, I looked at him.

No idea what he was saying, he looked happy but at the same time his nose was wrinkling at something. I just continued to paw at the door.

He opened it, I ran in, through, into the wet room and sat in the begging position under the shelf with the food on it. Then M was standing… Kneeling… Looking at me… Tapping something onto his arm band… Then on his other… I couldn’t hear a thing, I just looked up at the shelf.

He pointed his fob at me and when that elicited no response he nodded and ran out of the room.

Joel knelt by me then. I looked at him and then pawed at the wall, looking up at the shelf again.

He mouthed “Fuck. Of course.” and reached up for something. About fucking time too. A bottle of water and a tub of food.

Then, a change. I felt something behind, there was a click.

“isn’t he responding, M? What’s wrong with him?”

I looked at Joel and then at the tail.

“He must’ve completely drained his core, sir. He was in a frozen state when they carried him out of the store and by the time we’d issued the cancellation on the escape protocol and opened his piss tube he must’ve been out of range for everything else.”

“Fuck, you mean he was frozen? For how long do you think?”

“Don’t know but he’s a clever one. It takes a lot to drain one of those things. He must’ve realised that as the core was powering a lot more, it’d drain quicker. Just as well it did too or he could’ve been frozen like that for a week!”

I stared at M in horror.

He pressed something on his other arm band. Nothing though. I nodded towards the tail and then towards the food.

“Oh, bugger, sorry Tyson. Of course. The dog trainer’s tuned to only tail frequencies. Now what’s that in your mouth? Drop it boy.”

I tried. Nothing happened. I nodded towards the tail again.

“Suppose we’d better get that charged and you out of that suit, hadn’t we?”

I backed away, shaking my head.

“You don’t want out, boy?”

I shook my head again.

“You love it so much, even after all you’ve been through?”

I nodded.

“OK. For now at least. Have to ask Q for permission though, we’d better tell him you made it home anyway. I’ll just put this on charge. Five minutes might be enough for your jaw to release. Then maybe we can get to the bottom of this but we really need to get you hosed down. Then wash, flush and feed. Not happy feeding you until you’re clean. Joel says you smell worse than stinky! What the hell did you do? Sleep in a rubbish dump?”

I nodded and shook my head a little.

Joel still looked uncomfortable being around me. “I think that probably means slept in a mountain of garbage bags, M. Lots of them in alleyways around here.”