Good afternoon. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here once again to introduce the nineth chapter of my story Catilla. This week my owner and I learned about yellow ribbons on dog leashes and collars. This is done to warn folks the dog with the ribbon needs space and should not be approached. This can be for different reasons such as the dog is aggressive, is suffering from PTSD, is skittish, is elderly or it may be in training to be a service dog amongst other things. I am pondering the idea of wearing one just to keep away my rabid fans. I know everyone wants a picture with a gorgeous toy poodle who writes short stories and I appreciate my doting public. However, my privacy is most important to me. I need my alone time. This, however, shouldn’t stop individuals from coming up and adoring me, at an acceptable distance. I am aware of my brilliance and otherworldly good looks, but one can only take so much. And with that thought, here is chapter nine of Catzilla. Enjoy!

Catzilla

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Nine

I didn’t turn around to discover the identity of the voice. Instead, I grabbed Lyle’s hand, and ran as fast as I could drag him. We got a good head start but the man’s feet pounded close behind. We rounded a corner and hid in a doorway. Lyle took the lanyard off his neck and slipped it around mine.

“I’m going to ward him off,” he said. “You head to my mom’s office.”

Before I could speak, Lyle took off towards the man. With Lyle’s mother’s keycard bouncing around my neck, I rushed down a flight of stairs, found the bathroom and burst inside. I dashed into one of the stalls and waited. I knew I couldn’t stay long because Lyle wouldn’t be able to hold the guy off forever. I watched the time on my phone and waited exactly three minutes before I left the bathroom and darted up the stairs. Feet pounded in the distance as I scrambled to Lyle’s mother’s office door, held the keycard near the pad, turned the light from red to green, and scurried inside.

I backed away from the door, stepping over to the side so no one could see my feet under the crack below. Shortly after, someone stopped right outside. As the door had no window, I couldn’t tell if it was Lyle or the man. It also occurred to me it might not be either one of them. There could be a third person standing out there. It also occurred to me if it wasn’t Lyle whomever stopped might have a keycard and be able to unlock the door. My eyes darted around the office and saw no good place to hide.

After a beat, the feet outside the door walked away. Not long after a second pair stopped by the door. “Briar,” I heard Lyle’s voice say. “Open up.”

I exhaled the huge breath I’d been holding and opened the door. Lyle scurried in and I shut the door after him. “We’re trapped, Lyle. We need to get out of here and go home.”

“But we don’t have any more information about what’s going on than we did when we got here. Our risk will be for nothing.”

“Right now, I want out. I don’t like strangers chasing me.”

“I think I might have seen something when that guy was pursuing me. We need to go back there and find out what it was.”

I knew Lyle had seen something unusual since he knew the place well. But with that guy in the building, we didn’t have much of a shot. “There’s no way. He’ll catch us.”

Lyle put his fist to his chin and pondered. “There are three legitimate ways out of here. One is to go out the door and accept getting caught. Two is to hold up in this office until my mom gets here in the morning and somehow gets in without her keycard.”

“What’s the third?”

“We go out the door and don’t get caught.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

Lyle plopped down on the edge of the desk and pondered more.

“Okay, how about this? Where was this thing you saw and how far is it from an exit?”

“It’s at the far end of the factory and the nearest exit is across the length of the building.”

“How can that be? What about fire codes?”

“That’s where things get interesting. According to my mom, the Edevane Company is planning to install fire exit doors on the first floor. Four to be exact. But they aren’t putting them in till the end of next month.”

“Fabulous.”

“I don’t know how the Edevane’s get away with it, but somehow, they do. I vote for getting out and escaping without getting caught. If we’re determined, we just might make it.”

“We need a plan first. We need to know exactly where we’re going and how we’re going there once we leave this room.”

“We’ll turn left and go straight down the hall. That’s the closest side to what I saw. Then we’ll head straight across the building because that’s the nearest exit.” “Terrifying. Do you think your mother’s keycard has access to the area you thought you saw?”

Lyle shrugged.

“Lyle!”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“What happens if that creep catches us?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“Great. I’m starting to think we should stay in here till morning and wait for your mom.”

“If we do, she’ll start locking her keycard in my parent’s safe and we’ll never gain access to this place again.”

Lyle was clearly not improving the situation. “I suppose if we make it across the length of the first floor, we can get to our bikes fast. But we need to decide on how much time we can check this thing out before we leave.”

“It’ll probably take us five minutes tops to get a good idea of what’s in there.”

“As soon as we step inside, I’m starting my phone timer.”

“Timers make noise when they go off.”

“Fine. I’ll use my stopwatch and watch it.”

“Okay. Five minutes.”

“Alright, let’s go. Oh, wait.” I put Lyle’s mother’s lanyard back around his neck.

“Thank you.” Lyle opened the door and peered out. He slipped into the hall and motioned for me to follow him. I did and we crept cautiously down the left side of the hall. As we went, I noticed another light above starting to flicker. We reached the stairs and peered around listening for footsteps. When we heard no one, we hunched over and inched down the stairs, praying not to be discovered.

We arrived at the last step and Lyle tapped my arm and pointed towards the room at the end of the first floor. We waited, looked around again, and listened for footsteps. When we heard no one, which made me more nervous than if we had, we tiptoed towards the door.

“See?” Lyle whispered. “Never seen that before.”

I looked and the door Lyle pointed at was marked with a restricted sign. Lyle inched towards the pad and held up his mother’s keycard. The light turned from red to green, surprising us both and we slipped inside. As soon as we were in, I started the stopwatch.

“It’s a laboratory,” Lyle said turning on the light.

I looked up from my phone to find he was right. “They didn’t have a laboratory here before?”

“No. Just a factory.”

“Probably put it in for that Dr. Grosser…did you hear that?”

“What?”

“Sounded like cats meowing.” We turned and looked towards the back of the room and saw another door. “Let’s hurry.”

Lyle held his keycard up to the pad. The light stayed red. “At least we have a good guess at what’s in there.”

“Is there anything we should look for out here before we leave?”

Lyle shrugged.

“I think we should leave.”

Lyle shut off the light and cracked open the door. We looked around and listened. Nothing. Lyle pointed towards the direction of the exit. We crept with caution, moving through the factory like spiders. I found myself paying attention to the sound of my breathing as we moved.

Halfway through I heard a sound. I touched Lyle’s back. “Above us,” I whispered.

“Keep going,” he whispered back.

We skittered along past the factory. I could see the EXIT sign glowing in the distance now. As we moved footsteps pounded along with us from above.  

“He’ll cut us off at the stairs,” Lyle said.

“What do we do?”

Lyle grabbed my hand, and we made a swift left turn.

“Where are we going?”

Lyle steered us into a hall beneath the upper levels. “Always have a plan B…and C and D.” Lyle made another sharp left and we found ourselves in a breakroom.

“Now what?”

Lyle pointed. Above the sink there was a window.

“I said there wasn’t another exit,” Lyle said. “But I didn’t say there wasn’t a window.”

He climbed up on the sink and opened it. “Ladies first,” he said.

Lyle moved over and I climbed up on the sink with him. “It’s small.”

“Not that small. Hurry.”

I put my hands on the sill of the little thing and started working my way through. Just as I got to the other side, I heard footsteps coming our way. “He’s coming, Lyle!”

Lyle started to head through the window just as the man rounded the corner and entered the break room.

“Hey!” the man shouted.

“Lyle!”

The man grabbed one of Lyle’s ankles and started to drag him down. I lurched forwards and grabbed Lyle’s arms. “Let go of him!” I snarled.

Lyle kicked wildly and got his ankle loose. He crawled halfway through the window when the man grabbed his ankle again. Lyle kicked harder but the man held on. My heart pounded wildly as I tried to help Lyle through and searched for something to use as a weapon.

“Come here!” the man yelled as Lyle struggled to break free.

“My pocket!” Lyle shouted at me.

“What?”

“Pocket on my shirt!”

Confused, I jammed my hand into Lyle’s shirt pocket and grabbed a keychain with a makeshift wooden oval and a red button. Something Lyle must have done as an experiment.

“Press the button! Press the button!”

I did and the most horrific screeching sound went off. I dropped the thing; the man covered his ears and Lyle pulled himself the rest of the way through the window. We scrambled as fast as we could for our bicycles, the horrific screeching sound bellowing in the distance.

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: BAMA RUSH: ACCEPTANCE IS EVERYTHING (2023)-HBO MAX

This week’s movie is a new documentary focusing on a small handful of young women going through rush at the University of Alabama. Rush, if you are unfamiliar, is the week or two prior to the start of fall classes when (mostly) freshman and sophomore women attempt to gain entrance into a sorority. And Alabama is one of the biggest sorority systems in the country.

Having been in a sorority myself once I can tell you this is a vapid, chaotic, and crazy week. And apparently it has become even worse. To go through rush now, at least at the University of Alabama, it will cost each participant over $8000 dollars. $8000. This money goes to several things. These are mostly but not limited to clothing, shoes, accessories, makeup, head shots, and a coach. The head shot part made me laugh. Honestly, no one who isn’t a singer, actor/actress, model, or someone in the entertainment business should ever have to get head shots. These are absurdly expensive. They are also grueling because it takes an entire day to do them right. I know because I studied acting in New York City and I had to get them twice. And I got a very good photographer to do them each time. Headshots are for business not the Greek system. Period.

The other thing that made me laugh was hiring a rush coach. Talk about the pink tag. Talk about preying on desperation. If you think retail reems you on items for girls and women, it’s nothing compared to trying to get into a sorority. You think the guys trying to get into fraternities are shelling out over $8000? Not a chance. Unless things have dramatically changed, prospective fraternity pledges just show up at the barbeques, drink beer and chat. And the fraternity pays for the BBQ. With student debt the way it is, the Greek systems, especially the sororities across the country, need to take a good look at their outdated sexist highway robbery and their gross mistreatment of women. And young women need to wake up. Colleges were originally designed for men. Women weren’t part of the plan. And women should absolutely be part of the plan…for an education. Because that’s equal. Not to mention studies show sorority girls are three times more likely to get raped than other women their own age. Three times. One of the women in the documentary tells us she’s been “roofied” three times. Three times. And society accepts this as normal? Too many worthless legacy students and their ivy tower dwelling alumni parents are at the core of this cart and pony show screw job.

Greek systems, especially sororities, take advantage of two failures in the school systems: 1. They do not teach women self-defense. 2. They do not teach anyone basic finance. And those two loopholes have screwed millions of college students over the years. Watch the documentary Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and The Era of Predatory Lenders. Kids hanging themselves in their dorm rooms over credit card debt. It’s a barrel of laughs. 

The director of this film, Rachel Fleit, is fantastic and brave. She wove her own battle with alopecia into the story to show the human desperation of wanting to belong to a group and the ridiculous ways society judges human beings.