MAN'S BEST FRIEND
Copyright (c) Rick Yost

Greg Davis loved his four year old, Yorkshire Terrier, 'Griffith', very much.
So when the management of his apartment complex, informed he and the other tenants, that they would be spraying for pests later that day, he knew he couldn't leave his little buddy home to be exposed to it. So that morning he gathered up Griffith's food and water dish, toys and blanket and took the twelve pound little, bouncing bundle of fur with him to the lab.
He set the dog up with all his favorite items around him, nestled safely under Greg's desk. Greg would check on the dog from time to time, during the day. But Greg became engrossed in his work around noon and not only forgot to stop for lunch, but also forgot to take the dog out to the grassy areas around the building, to let him do his thing.
Greg himself, was amazing with the progress he had made on the 'jumper', as it was called. This was the complex and technological mass of computers, cables, wires, ion drivers, anti-matter accelerators and lasers that made up the 'machine', that would soon be used to travel through, not only space without a vehicle, but also through time.
The basic machine itself, took up a small amount of space in the lab, roughly the size of a large telephone booth. The controlling computer was situated, across the equipment cluttered room from the machine and there were other diagnostic computers, snaked into the adjoining lab.
There were many scientists, professors and graduate students who had put many hours into the development of this technology, but the machine was far enough along, to be considered, 'Greg's Baby', now. Although his degrees were quite basic to the field, such as Particle Physics, Human Physiology and Bio-Physics, it was his astounding and eye-opening time and space theories, which he had unleashed on the staunchly conservative and very comfortable academics in his last degree thesis, which gained him notoriety and his present position of 'Jump Test Operations Manager'. That was three years prior to today and he was getting very close to actually starting the accelerators up and sending a subject across the room.
It was now a little past three in the afternoon. He was still so into his work, he had put his canine friend, in the closed office just ten yards down the hall from the lab, out of his mind completely. He didn't hear the dog scratching on the door, desperate to get his master to let him go out to relieve himself.
Greg steps onto the jump platform, to do a simple test. But it was a test that required all the drivers running and all the accelerators whirling at full speed. Except for actually pushing the 'jump' button, it was up and ready to go.
The computer was set and timed for a twenty-second test.
As he calmly and patiently waited for the test to end, he stood in the center of the 'jump' platform and was completely engulfed in the bright blue light that a real 'jumper' would experience when traveling through space and time. This was quite risky and not really accepted test procedure. At this point mice or other small lab test animals were required for tests of this sort. But just like the experienced auto mechanic, who can diagnose a problem with an engine, just by listening to it, Greg knew his machine better than anyone else and knew as long as he was careful, there was no chance of mishap. The test was almost finished. The counter on the platform floor read, 8 seconds to go.
Then suddenly, he heard that familiar 'yap', and click of little nails on the tile floor of his 'best friend'. There was no time to do anything. There was nothing he could do at all.
While the test was ongoing and he was standing inside the blue light on the platform, he could not move. It took only a few seconds, from the time he heard Griffith running down the hall, till the happy, but stressed little dog burst into the lab and headed straight for Greg and the platform. "No Griffith, stay! Stay!" Greg yelled down at the oncoming dog, but to no avail. Griffith was doing what he did with Greg at home a thousand times before, jumping into his best friends arms, to go for a walk. The little dog, had no idea, this leap, would end his life and change his master's life forever.
Greg opened his eyes to find himself facedown on the floor, where he had fallen from the platform. He immediately felt very sick at his stomach. He was dazed from hitting his head on the floor, he took a few moments to remember what had just taken place.
Still raising his aching body up from it's prone position, he tries to focus his vision on the
blurred form of someone standing in the doorway, ten feet away. Before he can determine their identity, he hears a woman scream, loud, harsh and shrill. Though startled by the scream, he is feeling so weak, he collapses back to the floor and passes out.
It was autumn now. The trees and foliage of New England had turned to their beautiful golden and fiery colors. There was a crisp, but refreshing chill to the breeze that blew across the grounds of the Everett C. Coop, Research Facility & Medical Center. This high-tech, hospital in Providence Rhode Island, was where Greg spent the next eight months, in a coma.
The worst possible result from the accident with Griffith and the 'jumper' had not happened. Greg did not die. But in the time to come, he would wish he had.
When the dog leaped into Greg's arms, as he stood on the platform, it was an instant overload to the system as it was set. The result was, the atoms of Griffith's canine body were disassembled, as were the atoms of Greg's human body and all the atoms were combined inside the blue beam, just as the machine is intended to do.
The 'jumper', disassembles atoms and reassembles atoms. That is it's function.
The event had also had some other life threatening effects. When everything went awry, Greg's clothes were partially fused through parts of his body. The fabric of his shirt collar and yoke had wound up halfway under the skin of his neck and shoulders.
The waist of his trousers and his belt, along with a set of keys and wallet, were laced through his abdomen. His Zippo, cigarette lighter was inside his stomach, accompanied by four quarters, three pennies and a pair of fingernail clippers.
At first, the surgical staff, was hesitant about treating Greg at all, fearing any surgery performed, while he was comatose, could prove fatal. But after locating and obtaining a signed release from Greg's only living relative, his father, they did what they could do to remove the foreign matter from his body.
The last surgery was completed, three months ago and the wounds were healed.
It had been six weeks now since Greg had finally come out of his coma and now he was kept well sedated, in a bed on the third floor of a high-security section of the hospital.
He had healed, regained most of his strength and his vitals, had been optimal for weeks.
For all practical intents and purposes, he was back to his best health, physically.
Now came the real difficult part of this ongoing ordeal for both, Greg and the doctors.
They would have to allow the sedative wear off and let, the new and altered Greg, wake up to his new life. A life as, half man, half dog.
All the sensitive, orientation and careful wording and explaining of what his body had gone through, was exhausted. They had prepared him as much as they could. The time had come.
He was now sitting up, on the edge of his bed.
A freestanding, full-length mirror, had been brought up from Physical Therapy, and was placed directly in front of him. The room felt cold.
Greg hunched a little sitting very still, as he gazed with a look of disbelief, at the reflected image before him. Though the door to the hallway was left cracked a little, he was left alone in the room, to come to grips with what he had become.
Greg was a very practical person. He knew very well, by now, what had taken place that day in the lab. He knew better than the surgeons that had worked on him, what physically had happened to both he and Griffith. The scientist in him, could accept the eventualities of dangerous work. But it wasn't the scientist, he was meeting in the mirror. It was the basic and frail ego, of a man turned into a hideous thing.
His body, which had retained it's human form with his familiar arms, hands, torso, legs and feet, was mostly covered with short brown and gray fur. However, the nails of his fingers and toes, had turned to long black claws. His head was no longer human, it was the head and snout and nose of a dog. His ears were now, three inches long, pointed, furry and set much higher on his head. He took note of how easily he could hear even whispered conversations from the hall. His nose was dark gray and on the end of his whiskered snout, which now protruded from the front of his face a good four inches. He opened his lips and shocked himself, by his ability to snarl and show his pointed teeth, complete with canines. "Oh that's attractive!" he said, trying to use a little humor to steady himself. As he spoke these, his first words, he felt the strangeness of his larger and longer tongue against the roof of his now longer mouth. He took a few seconds to try some different sounds with his old vocal chords, combined with his new mouth. Still amidst his verbal exercise, he glances down his reflected image to his groin.
His new full body coat of fur, stopped just below his rib cage. He could see his bare stomach and lower abdomen, complete with pubic hair, now short, curly and gray.
Below, he was somehow pleased to see, his old set of privates, apparently unaltered.
His first unmanaged grin came from this discovery, since he knew he might have found he had now been equipped with a small, furry sheathed, bright pink penis. "Thank goodness for small favors!" he said aloud, still trying not to freak. Again, he noticed his speech, after pronouncing the word, 'goodness'. He noted the uncomfortable 'n' sound his new tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth was making. It might take some time, to be able to enunciate like his used to.
It was at this point, he thought of his girlfriend, Claudia and his humor and his spirit fell very low.
Not even when he was noticing his penis, had he thought of her, although he did enjoy their lovemaking very much. It was the prospect of trying to converse, that brought her to mind. Claudia; a pretty, young, linguist and verbal diagnostician, made her living, diagnosing and treating, children with speech problems. She had told Greg one of the things that attracted her to him in the beginning, was his voice. She said it was nice to hear someone speak properly for a change.
He felt his heart sink, thinking of the face she might make if she were to listen to him speak now. Not to mention the thought of her looking at his new face.
It was this thought that he had been trying to avoid. But it was no use. He'd already seen how the doctors and nurses stared at him, when they thought he wasn't aware. Basic human vanity was eating at him now and he could do nothing to stop it. He was frightened, embarrassed, ashamed and very angry, all at once.
"I am a monster!" he shouted to his reflection as he stood up and pushed the mirror over with a shove and it crashed to the floor and shattered into tiny pieces.
He stood for the first time in months, a little shaky but feeling the control coming back to his now more muscular legs. His fists were clinched tightly. His new claws, were digging into his palms. At first, he's expected someone to react to the sound of the crashing mirror. But then, they would have expected this type of reaction from him, dealing with this new truth. As he stood in the middle of the room, feeling confused and frustrated, he gazed down to the shattered glass, strewn across the floor. He thought of his little dog Griffith. This made him very sad. He started to weep. The rage that destroyed the mirror only seconds before, had now turned to nausea and weakness, that made his head swim. He considered himself to be an average man, of average strength and power to battle life's challenges and adverse situations. He knew quite well, that there were people all over the world that would wake up tomorrow without limbs or their sight or their minds intact, due to accident or disease, but he also felt it a little difficult to feel fortunate, having been morphed into a dog. He knew at that point, what it is like for many, 'unfortunates', who mourn the loss of a life, that lives on. He slowly let his legs collapse beneath him and he sat down on the floor. As his rump hit the floor, he made one more discovery, he'd not noticed sitting on the bed. He reached behind to where the base of his back and the split of his buttocks meet, to grab hold of his new, eight inch, furry tail. Óh, that's just great!" he said, in a mortified, yet resigned tone. Still crying, now uncontrollably, he slowly laid down on top of the shattered glass, curled into a fetal position and fell into an exhausted sleep. His last thought before he slipped away, was wondering whether he would 'chase rabbits' in his sleep.