Deficiency (28 page)

"Garret?" she heard. "Doctor Stanley? Are you there?"

That voice.

She couldn't mistake it.

It was Will Dennis.

"I now know how he knew you had spoken to Paula Gilbert," she muttered as she closed the phone.

"I don't understand," Darlene said.

Terri shook her head and looked at the cell phone. She truly felt as if the legs had been cut out from under her and sat back stunned.

She looked at the phone.

It had been a hand grenade after all.

Anxious and impatient, he decided to wait for the Samuelses in their room. Surprise was always his best friend in situations like this, he thought. There would be no need to manufacture some reason to be there. No reason to tax his brain. He found the master key for all the rooms and just sauntered down as if he was carrying out some mediocre, simple responsibility. When he entered the room, he saw they had left a lamp on next to the bed and a light on in the bathroom.

"Sure, what do you care about my electric expenses," he muttered. He liked playing a role, enjoyed slipping into identities, assuming someone else's life, even that ugly man decomposing in his living room. At least, he had a life of some sort.

When you're desperate for an identity, you take what you find, he told
whatever part of him even suggested criticism. Survival takes precedent over
everything and anything else. And what great difference did it make anyway? Very
soon he would drop this identity and leave it behind like an old suit of
clothes. In a sense he resembled a snake, shedding its skin. He didn't mind the
analogy really. How clever it was to be able to take off your skin and replace it with a brand-new covering?

Curious about these people now, he passed the time by going through their bags. He held up Mrs. Samuels's undergarments, deciding she was quite conservative and obviously very wide in the hips. Charles Samuels had very uninteresting clothing, too. His suit and two sports jackets were bland, simple, and not very expensive.

He found some personal papers, business cards that told him Charles Samuels was a loan officer in a bank. There was a letter from some cousin in Kingston describing her new home and inviting the Samuelses to visit. The directions to the house were in the letter. He thought about it a moment and wondered if this was a sign. Should he be heading there? Nothing dramatic happened, no ringing in his head, but still, he thought he should give it consideration, so he folded it up and put it into his pants pocket.

It was time to plan. What would he do exactly when the Samuelses arrived? He had thought of something, he realized. Before he had ambled down here, he had made something of a plan. What was it? Damn this memory thing. He had to restore whatever it was in him that was bringing about these lapses. That was for sure.

He looked at the bed and saw the long, serrated bread knife he had brought along.

"Oh yeah," he said aloud. "The best way to say hello."

Remembering restored his confidence in himself. He sat comfortably now and waited. They couldn't be much longer. People who didn't know an area wouldn't spend much time out there at night. They would find the restaurant they wanted, eat, and come right back. He checked his watch. It occurred to him that he wasn't sure exactly when they had left. Time was becoming very obscure again, liquefying and freezing into a piece of ice. He couldn't hold on to it at all. Had ten minutes passed or an hour? When did he walk in here? All these little confusions were mounting.

He felt a buzzing inside his head and soon he couldn't sit still. He rose and paced and went to the window to check the parking lot and then paced and began to talk to himself, reciting words, names, events in no special order or logic, babbling as if he was some sort of cauldron of memories, overflowing.

"I'm literally losing my mind!" he cried. "Damn you," he raged, waving his fist at the ceiling.

Who? He thought he heard called back.

Damn who?

He didn't know and it was stupid to behave like this anyway.

He paused and then seized a grip on himself and sat again. When he looked at his watch, he thought only a minute or so had gone by. How could that be?

His lips were drying.

His eyes burned.

His very skin felt as if it were writhing on his bones and inside himself his organs were turning and twisting, tugging on his bones.

I am not a well man, he thought, and then he thought, I am not a man.

What am I?

On his wrist, time, like a persistent termite, continued to bore a hole in his wooden heart.

Finally, he heard the distinct sound of a car entering the motel lot. Excited, he rose quickly and peered through the curtains. It was the Samuelses all right. About time. He backed up and pressed his back against the wall so when they entered, they would not see him there until they had closed the door behind them.

He heard the key being inserted and braced himself. The door opened, but only part way.

"All right," he heard Charles Samuels say in an irritated voice, "I'll just get everything myself. Stay in the car."

Stay in the car? That wouldn't work, he thought.

The door opened farther. Charles entered, but didn't look in his direction. Instead, Samuels started for the open suitcase.

He pushed the door so it shut and Samuels turned around.

"What?" he asked as if he had said something to him. Samuel's face collapsed in fear. "What is this?"

"You left the lights on," he said. "You went out to eat and you left the lights on."

"Huh?"

"That's inconsiderate," he told him stepping closer. Samuels had yet to see the knife he was holding just behind his back. "And when people are inconsiderate of others, they should be punished," he continued.

Samuels looked at the closed door, considered his options, and started to back away.

He smiled, raised his left hand abruptly, which caught Samuels's attention, and then drove the knife into and just to the left of Samuels's sternum. With the accuracy of a heart surgeon, he sliced the pulmonary artery. Samuels gasped, raised his hands as if to surrender, and then coughed, brought his hands down surprisingly hard onto his shoulders, and held himself there for a moment, gazing into his face, his own eyes full of wonder as though he had a preliminary view of where he was now going before collapsing at his feet.

"Turn off the lights when you leave next time," he muttered down at Samuels.

All was quiet. He turned to the door and listened. Mrs. Samuels had not gotten out of the vehicle yet. He waited and suddenly, he heard the car horn. He went to the window and saw her leaning over to press it. She did it again and then, frustrated and angry, she opened the car door and came toward the unit.

Once again, he backed away from the door. When she opened it, she was in midsentence.

"What's taking you so damn long, Charles? We've got to get out of here before…"

She stared at her husband's folded body on the floor. It took the breath out of her and all she could do was gasp and bring her hands to the base of her throat.

Quietly, calmly, he closed the door behind her and she turned.

He smiled.

"Now if you don't put up a struggle, you might live," he said.

He knew there was no chance of that, but when someone was in a state of pure desperation, even empty promises bobbed about like lifesavers.

He raised the bloodied knife so she would see it.

"Go to the bed and start to take off your clothing," he ordered.

And then he said something that put even more terror into her, not that she thought that was possible.

"I'm hungry," he said.

She was unable to move, unable to speak, barely able to breathe.

"Move!" he shouted and suddenly she found the strength to do so.

It was toward the end when he felt regenerated that he suddenly realized the Samuelses had returned to leave. Charles was getting their suitcases and she was too afraid to get out of the car and help him pack up.

Why would they do that? Why would they come here, book and pay for a room for the night, and then leave? What frightened the woman?

He searched his memory, which was better now, sharper, and recalled they had stopped at the office to pick up a newspaper to find advertisements about restaurants.

The picture.

They had recognized him. What else had they done?

He had to move quickly, he thought. He had better leave as soon as he could.

Once she regained her composure, Terri picked up the phone and again began to punch out 911. All the while Darlene Stone stood like she was indeed made of stone, her eyes glazed over with exhaustion, fear, and confusion. Terri decided to describe them as being in a very bad car accident. She didn't even give her right name. Then she gave the police dispatcher as good an idea of where they were exactly located as she could before turning back to Darlene.

"C'mon," she said reaching for her hand, "we've got to make our way out to the highway."

"Why did you tell them you were Grace Robbins?" she asked.

"Grace was my roommate in undergraduate school," she said moving her forward as she spoke. "Her name just came to me."

"But why didn't you use your real name?"

"It's a complicated mess, Darlene. Right now, all I want to do is get us home. I want to soak in a hot bath and not think about it all. You need a good day or two of complete rest. I'll call in a prescription for you, get you something to help you sleep and forget all this for a while."

"What about that horrible man?" she asked.

Terri thought for a while before responding. They trekked on through the bushes, past some more pine trees, toward a field that ran adjacent with the highway. She was familiar enough with this area to guide them.

"He has other, more compelling business to consider," she replied.

Terri really had no idea what Garret Stanley would do next and if he would decide he had to come after them again. As she walked along, she considered all the possible options, not the least being to contact someone at the FBI. She had doubts now that they were ever brought into this mess here. She recognized how difficult it was going to be to get anyone to believe her story, but at the same time, she thought it would be their best insurance. Perhaps, Garret would realize that if he left them alone, people would just not believe them and it would go away.

All of the potential scenarios loomed out there, but at the moment, she was far too exhausted to make any quick decisions. The advice she had given Darlene was probably the advice she should be giving herself, she thought. She laughed to herself just imagining being in Hyman's office and beginning with a line like, "Hyman, here's the reason why these young women died of severe vitamin deficiencies." Envisioning the look on his face brought a smile to her own. Hyman Templeman, the medical iconoclast, confronted with the horrors of the new millennium: cloning humanity.

It occurred to her of course that she just couldn't go home, or go to Curt's home and go to sleep. Hyman, Curt himself at the hospital, her parents, her in-laws, everyone was going to want to know where she had been. She wasn't even sure what she looked like. She felt some deep aches and some sharp sticking pain in the area of her back. She touched her forehead where her skin felt raw and imagined some sort of scrape there as well. Of course, she couldn't let Curt see her this way, and she could not tell him everything yet. He was in no condition to be burdened with all that worry. It would just impede his recuperation.

Maybe the fabrication she gave the dispatcher was the best story to use at the moment… claim she had been in a minor traffic accident. At least that would give her some time to work out a solution, if there was any.

Almost twenty minutes later, they broke out of the woods and stepped onto the highway. It was close to perfect timing. A highway patrol car followed by an ambulance rounded the corner, lights blinking, sirens screaming. She held Darlene, who was wavering, her eyes closed. The patrolman spotted them and put on a blinker as he slowed his vehicle. When he pulled up and stepped out of his car, she recognized him to be the first highway officer who had been sent to her house. He recognized her as well.

"Dr. Barnard?"

"Yes," she said.

The ambulance attendants started toward them as well.

"What happened?"

"We got lost, into an accident, and then lost again," she said.

He stood back as the attendants approached, both of them recognizing her as well.

"Dr. Barnard?"

"Yes, please get her inside the ambulance. Let's get her blood pressure."

Darlene gave in to her exhaustion just at that moment and sank in Terri's arms. The two attendants moved quickly to put her on a stretcher and get her into the ambulance, while the patrolman and she stood back watching.

"How did you come to be out here? Who is that?" he asked her.

"Someone I was helping," she said, keeping it as cryptic as she could.

"What about the car? Where about is it?" he asked turning toward the woods.

"I don't care about the car right now," she said. "Thanks," she added and got into the ambulance as soon as Darlene was rolled inside.

One of the attendants turned to her.

"You have a bad gash on your forehead, Doctor. Might need stitches," he said examining it.

The patrolman stepped closer to the open door.

"I'll follow you to the hospital," he said. "We can send a tow truck later."

"Good," she called back. "Let's get going," she told the attendant and he closed the door.

Moments later they were on their way to the emergency room, and she wondered if the patrolman would report back to Will Dennis or a superior who would report to Dennis.

Wasn't it horrible to have to be afraid of the very people who were employed and supposedly dedicated to helping and protecting you?

She sat back and let the attendant begin to clean her wound, while the other one began to monitor Darlene, and she realized she had been as close to death as she had ever been in her life. It was a rescue that had the potential for geometric impact. Whenever or if ever she saved anyone else's life with her medical skills, she would think it would have not happened if she had not effected this escape.