Huskies from Hell

'Just look at this.' Dusk whispered. 'Baked potatoes. I haven't had those in ages.'

Ghost nodded. 'Looks like he might be useful after all.'

'We'll see if he can stay sane here. We're still dealing with a guy the company sent.' Rusty whispered.

The rest nodded in agreement when he came back with the rest of dinner.

'I hope you like it. I had to make do with what was here. Tomorrow I'll order some better stuff.'

'It's okay.' Dice said. 'We'll eat it for now.'

'It fills the stomach.' Rusty said.

He returned to the kitchen losing hope he could have made a good impression and snacked on some beef and potatoes thinking they must hate him when in fact they were whispering how good it was to have real food after a long time.

'Just don't forget, he's from the office so he'll soon try to run the show. Better to get him to leave before he becomes trouble.' Ghost whispered.

'Just let him stay long enough to cook us some more food like this.' Dice said. 'I'd miss this.'

'I don't mind eating instant as long as there's no pesky men around.' Rusty whispered poking a potato.

'We'll see.' Dusk said. 'Any bets on how long he'll endure our usual routine?'

The girls laughed as they wagered their cookie rations.

After dinner the girls went into the hot-tub while Petrash cleaned up.

"They did eat all the food, so it wasn't all bad probably." he thought.

After he was done he heard the girls come back and settle down in the common room. He checked to make sure the bathroom was empty and took a long shower before relaxing in the large tub.

"Better.. But I need to set aside a day to clean up here as well." he thought looking at the rings of dried soap on the tub, tufts of fur and empty flasks in a corner and sighed.

He let himself sink deep enough to keep his nose out of the water, which is why he didn't notice Rusty coming in to take a shower again. She needed one after laughing so hard at the movie that she spilled her drink all over herself.

She hadn't noticed his clothing on the bench nor his body under water, took off her big shirt, opened the shower and lathered herself firmly with soap. She rinsed herself and feeling fresh and clean again she stretched herself just as Petrash came up out of the water.

'...' Came out of his mouth at the sight of her wet fur curves right in front of him.

'What are you doing here!?' she yelped, hurriedly covering her private parts with her arms.

'That's my line!' he said turning around quickly. 'Didn't you see I was here!?'

'How would I know when you hide under water!?'

'My clothes are right there on the bench next to your shirt!'

She wanted to respond, but didn't have an answer to that and looked away.

'I'll get out.' he said and reached for his towel. 'It's not polite to stay while a pretty girl uses it.'

'Yeah.' she said, then blushed. 'What? Wait what? What do you mean pretty?'

He wrapped the towel around his waist and stood up. 'Ehm, well, that I should leave as a girl needs to use the bathroom.'

He walked past her turning his head the other way when she noticed his grey canine ears. She blinked in surprise, then saw something sticking out underneath the towel. She stepped closer to him, pulled down his towel and looked at the grey tail at his back.

He turned away quickly covering himself, tucking in his tail and flattening his ears. 'What are you doing!?'

She grabbed one of his ears. 'What are you!?'

He tried to step back but tripped just as she came closer, and both ended up on the floor with her on top of him.

'Ouch!' he said as he rubbed the back of his head.

She shook her head, saw his grey ears again and pulled them to see if they were real.

'Hey! Stop that!' he said, pulling her hands away.

'Why do you have these ears!? You can't have these. You're not Kanine.'

'I'm half Kanine. My mother is Kanine Wolf and my father human and I'm one of the few to end up as half instead of almost full Kanine or human.'

She stroked his ears and they twitched.

'Stop that! They're sensitive!' he said closing his eyes.

She grinned. 'How cute. How embarrassed can you get?'

'Very! Especially with a beautiful naked girl on top of me!'

She stopped stroking his ears, remembered the situation they were in, quickly got up, grabbed a towel and her shirt and rushed out while drying her fur.

Petrash sighed and felt too tired to get up from the floor yet. "Okay, it did feel very nice." He contemplated the situation for a moment more. I'm so going to die here.' he told the ceiling.

Rusty went back to the living room and the others saw the surprised look on her face.

'What's up?' Dusk asked.

She sat down and took a shot from a bottle of liquor. 'He's half Wolf...'

Dice raised her eyebrow. 'What do you mean?'

'He has the ears and a tail. His mother's Wolf.'

'Wait, how did you find out?'

'He was in the bath when I took a shower.'

The girls looked at each other. 'You were in the bath together?'

She waved her hands in denial. 'I hadn't noticed him as he was under water while I showered! He was just as surprised as I was!'

'And he had nothing to say?'

She nodded. 'He said he'd leave as it wasn't polite to stay with a..' She turned away feeling embarrassed.

'With, what?' Ghost asked.

She took another shot from the bottle. 'Nothing. I saw his ears and tail and he explained and left.'

'Right.' Ghost frowned. 'We'll ask him tomorrow. It's late enough.'

The rest agreed and they all took a quick glance later at his room before walking into their shared bedroom.

Petrash woke up early, and because the scene from the bathroom kept going through his mind he eventually got up and started making breakfast to think of other things. He had barely finished setting up the table when the girls walked in.

'Morning. I hope you slept well.' he said, then saw Rusty and blushed.

She turned away quickly and sat down trying not to look at him. Ghost noticed and leaned closer as she sat down.

'Did something else happen yesterday in the bath as well?' she whispered smiling deviously.

Rusty grabbed a couple of eggs and hastily peeled them. 'No! Nothing!'

'So..,' Dice said pulling off Petrash's bandanna. 'we heard something interesting about you..'

He flattened his ears. 'Say all you want. I've heard enough bad jokes about these all my life.'

She stroked one ear. 'Oh, we'll find new ways to tease you.'

'Right.' he said, pulling away.

'So you might as well let your tail out. No use hiding it from us anymore.' Dusk said with a devious smile and smacked his ass.

'Go eat breakfast!' he said and walked into the kitchen while Dice and Dusk sat down.

The girls ate and afterwards got ready for their deliveries. Their job was delivering cargo to various scientific stations deeper into the snow ring where no air transport could go. For that they drove large tracked vehicles capable of driving large distances thanks to hydrogen generators fuelled by the snow itself.

Petrash watched them leave and walked into the administrative office where he found a mess of papers and binders on the wooden desk and metal shelves.

'How the hell..?' he asked, but knew the answer.

Again he sighed, turned on the desk light and the old PC and sat down on the worn out chair to make sense of it all. He ordered supplies and food first, checked only the last week of a long list of unread email and tried to first sort all paperwork by date. By the time he had managed to make some sense of it it became time to make dinner.

Just before leaving the office he received an email telling him to deliver all due reports in a couple of days or face budget cuts.

"I can make it if I work late." he thought, taking a deep breath and exhaling. "No need to really get worried."

One by one the girls came back at the end of the day and ate dinner. When he finished cleaning up he went back into the office and started on the reports, searching for forms and delivery receipts in the stacks.

After a while Ghost walked in. 'Busy?' she asked.

He nodded. 'I have to file these reports soon. Lots of papers to go through.'

'Ah, work hard then.' she said and left for the bedroom.

'Yeah..'

'I've got the next thing.' Ghost said to the other girls as she undressed and crawled into their large bed. 'He needs to file the reports soon. Which will be difficult if they disappear.'

The other girls sniggered. 'We won't have to deal with him for long for sure.' Dusk said.

'Remember that bald guy?' Dice asked. 'He went crazy just from trying to find what he needed in that mess.'

The rest sniggered and reminisced on some of their previous victims before falling asleep.

The next day Petrash started filling in the reports as soon as the girls left and he managed to get most ready before they came back.

'How's it going?' Ghost asked while he set the table.

He smiled a little. 'I can finish tonight, then double-check and send them tomorrow. Just in time.'

'Good job then.' she said smiling. 'Head office will be happy with those.'

He nodded and carried on serving dinner.

Late that night he stretched after writing the last report and slumped in his chair. 'Finished.' he said to himself. He made a backup copy to the external disk attached to the PC, then locked it and dragged himself to bed.

A few minutes after he left Ghost walked in, unlocked the PC, deleted his reports and backup along with other random files, then pulled the power plug.

'Whoopsie.' she whispered while plugging the power back in. 'Power failures happen with old computers.'

The next day the girls heard Petrash cursing.

'What's wrong?' Ghost asked innocently, walking into the office.

'The damned PC must have crashed last night. And it took all my reports with it, even the backup I made! Shit!'

She pretended to look worried at the screen. 'Really nothing left?'

'All gone. All my work for nothing!'

'Well, I'm sure if you explained to HQ they'll understand.' she said and patted him on his shoulder.

'Yeah.' he said, but knew there was no excuse they'd accept.

He knew couldn't start again until the end of the day after checking the supplies and equipment stored for shipping so he had to work all night.

The girls noticed he hurried with dinner in the evening and sniggered at his worry.

'Worried about his reports, eh?' Dice said.

'Must be tough being a desk jockey when they can't deliver reports in time.' Dusk said.

'Getting chewed out by the boss is such fun.' Rusty sniggered.

Ghost nodded. 'He'll be gone soon.'

Petrash was busy in the office when the girls went to bed and sniggered.

Later that night Ghost woke up to go to the bathroom. When she returned she noticed the light was still on in the office. Curious to see if she'd find Petrash asleep at the desk she looked in and saw him going through binders and filling out forms.

'Hey, it's late. Shouldn't you get some sleep?' she asked with a little grin of satisfaction.

He shook his head, barely able to keep his eyes open. 'Have to finish these.'

'Aw, that can wait until later.'

'Actually, not.' he said flipping through pages quickly.

'Why not? So you get chewed out, big deal.' she said with a shrug.

'If only that...'

She tilted her head. 'Worse?'

He nodded without taking his eyes off the paperwork.

'How worse?' she asked, raising an eyebrow in wonder at his frantic working.

'Nothing to worry your pretty head over.'

She slapped his shoulder. 'Tell me.'

He sighed and put down the binder, keeping his eyes on it. 'Okay, I didn't want to worry you because I knew I could have finished in time yesterday. But if I don't hand in the reports before two hundred tomorrow they'll cut our budget. And that includes your pay.'

'What?' Ghost asked, unsure she heard him right.

'No funds until they are convinced we're doing good here.'

Her eyes grew big. 'They can't do that!'

Petrash looked up at her. 'I'm afraid they can. And they will after all this time of no management here.'

Ghost's eyes went from Petrash to the paperwork strewn all over the desk and back to him. 'But is there enough time then?'

He sagged his shoulders. 'Probably not, but I'm going to try anyway.' he said, forcing a grin. 'At least I got everything sorted at date now.'

"Shit, this wasn't supposed to happen." she thought and looked around at the chaos again, wondering if she could right her sabotage. 'Can I help?'

Petrash looked at his desk and took a deep breath, feeling slightly confident by her offer to help. 'Well, if you can gather the paperwork for each month I need, that would help.'

'Okay, what do you need now?' she asked and they continued where he left off.

When he clicked on the upload button at one hundred seventy seven on the clock they let out a deep sigh of relief.

'We did it!' she said and hugged him tightly from behind.

'Yeah.' he replied and blushed. 'We did it.'

She yawned. 'This has been the most boring and tiresome job I ever did.'

He nodded and rubbed his face. 'Let's hope we won't have to do that ever again.'

He stared at the monitor for a few moments, then noticed she had fallen asleep leaning on his shoulders and smiled softly. Careful not to wake her up he turned, lifted her up in his arms and carried her silently to bed where the other girls were still fast asleep.

'Thanks for your hard work.' he whispered and sneaked back out whispering 'Sleep tight.'.

He figured he could get some sleep before having to start breakfast and crashed down on his bed.

By the time he woke up from his alarm clock he noticed he was late. Quickly he got up and headed to the kitchen but found the table all set with the girls eating.

'Ah?' he said. 'Who..?'

'I did.' Ghost said. 'I figured I'd give you a break for your hard work last night.'

'Ah so. Thanks.' he said smiling and relaxed as he sat down.

Dice stretched on her chair. 'Did you carry her to bed this morning?'

He looked up surprised. 'Who!? Me!? How..?'

'Might have dreamed it though.' she yawned. 'It was rather weird.'

'Yeah.' he said and got himself a cup of tea from the kitchen while seeing Ghost glancing shyly at him.

Dice leaned toward Ghost. 'So, what happened to the plan?' she whispered. 'You couldn't delay him again?'

Ghost shook her head. 'No way, it would have meant our pay got cut. He didn't tell because he didn't want to worry us.'

Dice raised her eyebrows, then frowned. 'Tssk.' she said and they all ate silently.

Chapter 03

'Dusk, you're going to lab 54, right?' Petrash asked a few days later.

She looked up from preparing her bag with emergency supplies. 'Yeah, what of it?'

'Mind if I tag along? I have to have some papers looked over and I'd like to have a word with the administrator there. It's not far so if it's not a bother..?'

He looked like a lost puppy to her with his flattened ears and carefully wagging tail and couldn't bring herself to refuse him.

'All right then. Just don't make a fuss and distract me from driving.'

He smiled. 'Thanks, I'll get ready.'

Soon after he had settled in the passenger seat of her truck with a book. Occasionally he looked at her while she was concentrating on driving.

'What?' she asked, noticing his looks.

'Eh, what?' he asked.

'You keep looking at me, you want something?' she asked, feeling a hint of regret taking him along. She didn't like a male hanging around her all day.

'Oh! Ah, no. Just admiring how you can drive this thing every day. I think I'd end up buried in the snow after ten meters.' he said with a grin.

She blushed at the unexpected compliment. 'Just read your book.' she said, hiding her surprise.

Eventually they ended up at the lab, a series of red coloured low metal buildings. Petrash met with the people in charge there while Dusk helped with unloading the cargo. After going through the numbers and schedules, Petrash got taken on a small tour of the facility. He found it interesting to see what they did here and Frant, the administrator, was happy to show anyone interested. When they walked out the back at the kennels they met with shouting. Petrash recognised Dusk's voice and worried instantly.

'You can't do that!' she shouted.

Petrash and Frant turned the corner at the kennels to see her and Kull, a burly feline and the caretaker of the dogs, shouting against each other.

'I can and I will because I have to!' Kull said, holding tight onto a tranquillizer gun.

'Wow, what's going on!?' Frant asked.

'He wants to kill her!' Dusk shouted, pointing at Kull.

'Wait, what? Kill who?' Frant asked.

'You know the young husky-wolf who's mother died last week?' Kull said. 'She's going wild and attacks everyone coming close to her. I have no choice but to put her down.'

Dusk glared at him, bearing her fangs. 'She's hurting! You can't put her down for that!'

'I can't keep her here if she doesn't calm down! This is no charity!' Kull shot back.

Dusk turned to Petrash. 'You say something too!'

He saw the frustration and tears in her eyes and racked his brain to think of something before all hell broke loose. 'Hang on.' he said, holding up his hand. 'Let me see first.' He moved closer to the cage and watched the blue-grey young husky, huddled all the way back in a corner, and thought of what he could do for her. He leaned over to Frant after deciding to take the risk on a hunch he had. 'Mind if I give it a try?'

Frant nodded. 'Sure. I don't like to have to put down an animal, so if there's a chance to save it..'

'Okay.' Petrash said, opened the kennel carefully, walked in slowly despite the growling from the husky, pulled out his book and sat down on a potato bag used by the dog to sleep on.

'What are you doing?' Dusk asked, confused by what he did.

'Don't worry.' he said, giving her a smile. 'Why don't you get some rest before we're taking the trip back. I can see you're very tired.'

'I'm not!' she huffed.

'Just do it. Nothing you can do here now.' he said.

She stared at him for a moment, then sulked while she left for her truck.

'Are you going to be okay?' Kull asked.

'I will. I just have to try anything I can because I don't like to see Dusk this sad.'

Kull nodded. 'Okay. If you need anything, just call.' he said and left the gun on the floor at the cage. 'Just in case.'

'I'll try to get out before I'd have to use that though, but thanks.' Petrash said and pulled out the carton of cookies he had put his coat, pulled one out and laid the carton next to him. Then he started to read his book and nibble on the cookie, ignoring the growling from the corner.

After a while the growling became softer and stopped. Petrash occasionally pulled out a cookie and this time he tossed it over to the husky. It looked wary at it at first, then watched him eat another cookie and started sniffing it. Slowly she crawled closer and licked it once. It must have tasted good because she carefully ate it, making him smile softly.

When she looked at him as if asking for one more he tossed another one, only a little closer to him so she had to crawl closer to get it.

After she finished that one he laid a cookie next to him, then ate another one and continued reading his book. She crawled a little closer but stayed put for some time before she dared to crawl closer again. It took quite a while before she got close enough to snatch away the cookie making him smile once more.

This time he took another cookie and held it out to her on his flat hand. She let out a growl at first, looked sideways a few times, sniffed carefully, then carefully took the cookie from his hand and ate it.

'So, feeling better now?' he asked.

She sniffed his hand once more and gave it a lick.

He patted on his lap. 'How about coming here so I can pet you?'

Carefully she came closer and laid down on his lap and he gently ran his fingers through her fur. It was really thick and soft and he scratched her head a little. He could sense her warming up to him as her tail started to wag more little by little. After bribing her with a few more cookies he knew she trusted him.