Authors: Tina Folsom
How much anger had he harbored all these years to have held on to the papers? And what luck for him that his daughter had married a physician. Now I understood how Entwhistle was able to rise up so quickly, when his background wasn’t even genetics.
He had been handed the blueprint to my research at his wedding. What a wedding present! With one move Jeffrey had secured his daughter’s future, and taken his revenge. I had to hand it to him; to show this much patience in waiting until the moment was right took a lot.
Had the anger kept him going for so long? Had I destroyed his career by firing him? Was he justified? I couldn’t judge him for what he had done, because I didn’t know whether I had been justified in my actions back then.
In any case, it was done. At least I knew now, and I could be certain Entwhistle was the only one who needed to be stopped. Now I knew what I had to do.
The TV was still on when I woke up and realized I had fallen asleep on the couch, fully dressed. I hadn’t even brought out the sheets yet. It was pitch-black outside and the clock next to the TV showed it was a little past midnight.
I tried to figure out what had awoken me, but it was quiet now and I decided I had probably been uncomfortable in my position on the couch.
Carmela kept clean sheets and blankets in the linen closet in the bathroom, so I decided to make the couch a little more hospitable.
The bathroom door was ajar and the lights were on. It wasn’t like Carmela to waste electricity, so it was probably the new girl, Francesca, who had not switched them off. I decided not to tell Carmela. She would only give Francesca a hard time about it.
I pushed the door open and suddenly felt resistance midway. Something was blocking the door from opening up completely. I squeezed through to find out what it was and stared at Carmela lying on the floor. She was dressed in her nightgown.
“Carmela!” I bent down to her trying to shake her to wake her up.
“Carmela, wake up.” I was surprised to find her passed out. She hadn’t been drinking anything all day. There was no reason why she had passed out on the bathroom floor. Was she sick?
I shook her again. She finally opened her eyes a little.
“What’s wrong Carmela?”
“I’m not feeling well.” Her voice was barely audible. She tried to sit up, but couldn’t. I helped her up.
“Let me help you back to bed. Or, do you need to throw up?”
She shook her head.
“No. Just so dizzy.”
Luckily Carmela didn’t weigh more than I did and I was able to support her weight to help her back to bed. I knew my leg would thank me later.
Her body fell into bed, limp. We had eaten the same things all day, except for breakfast, so I ruled out food poisoning. Was there a stomach flu going around in San Francisco? Even if there was, she didn’t show the right symptoms, since she said she didn’t need to throw up.
“I’m so thirsty.”
“I’ll get you some water,” I volunteered and darted into the kitchen filling a large glass with water.
I had to support her back to help her sit up so she could drink. In the year I had shared the flat with Carmela, I had never seen her sick. I had seen her drunk and passed out before, but that was different.
“You should try to get some rest. Do you need anything else before I turn the lights off?”
“No.” Her voice sounded sleepy.
I turned off the light and closed the door behind me. I hoped she would sleep, but I would look in on her later. I suddenly wasn’t tired anymore.
Nevertheless, I decided to put the sheets and blankets onto the couch in case I got tired later. I was surprised Carmela’s roommate hadn’t woken up, even though her bedroom was right next to Carmela’s. Some people could sleep through everything.
I hadn’t completed that thought yet, when her roommate’s door opened. Francesca stuck her head out.
“Can you please keep it down? I have an exam tomorrow,” she sniped. So much for the shy and quiet girl, I thought.
“Carmela is sick,” I defended myself.
She just shrugged her shoulders.
“Then I’m sure she’ll appreciate the quiet too,” she said pointedly before shutting the door.
As I put the sheets on the couch and spread out a couple of blankets, I noticed the curtains in the living room were still open. I got up and for a moment looked out of the window, gazing at the lights of the City. Somewhere down there was Vince’s place. I wondered whether he was sleeping or whether he was up like I was. Was he sitting on his couch where he had kissed me until I had forgotten everything around me?
I didn’t want to think about it anymore and pulled the curtains shut, hoping by closing the curtains I could close this chapter for good.
The late night comedy shows finished on TV and an hour later I was solidly in infomercial territory. It was either that or Chinese language soaps. Neither had much appeal to me.
I had never been a night owl and always assumed I had missed out on something by being in bed before midnight. Now I realized nothing happened after midnight.
I trotted into the bathroom and took Carmela up on the new toothbrush underneath the sink. I was still wearing Carmela’s makeup and used some of her creams and tinctures to remove it from my face. I didn’t like makeup, but today I had been glad I had used it. It had made me feel halfway normal.
I switched off the light in the bathroom and decided to check on Carmela. Quietly I opened the door and left it ajar so the light from the hallway would illuminate her room enough without me having to switch the light on and possibly wake her.
She was tossing and turning. I could see she was bathed in sweat. It wasn’t a good sign. I felt her forehead with my cool hand and knew she was burning up. I had to do something.
In the bathroom I found some washcloths which I soaked in cold water and wrung out.
Back at her bedside I tried to cool her body down by putting the cold washcloths on her forehead and neck. I had to try to get her to drink some water and reached for the glass on her bedside table. I missed it and it fell to the floor where I heard it break.
“Damn!”
Now I had no choice but to switch on the light and pick up the pieces of glass so she wouldn’t hurt herself in the morning. The light of the bedside lamp didn’t wake her up. I bent down to the floor and picked up the pieces of broken glass when I noticed a small card on the floor.
It had probably fallen off her bedside table when I had knocked over the glass. I picked it up and put it back on the table. The light of the bedside lamp shone on it.
I froze. I recognized the card immediately. I had received the same card after my visit to UCSF, after my visit to Entwhistle’s clinic.
“Oh no, Carmela!” I panicked. I tried to shake her, but she wouldn’t wake up. I remembered how on the day when I had left she had found the flyers in my room, and I had suggested she should participate in some of the trials to make extra money. I needed to ask her what she had done, but I couldn’t. She wouldn’t wake up. There was only one other way to find out.
I pulled back her covers and tilted her to one side, then hitched up her nightgown to look at her thigh. I couldn’t see anything. I tried the other side, and there it was: the dark spot underneath her skin. I touched the spot and felt the bump. It was the same bump I had felt on the day I had been injected.
I could tell the capsule had already started to leak, much more than my own had from what Vince had told me.
I tried to feel her pulse, and even though I could not count how high it was since I had no experience in this at all, I could feel it racing. Those were the same symptoms Vince had told me I had shown.
He hadn’t lied. I knew that now. Entwhistle was dangerous. Whether Vince had stolen his research or not didn’t matter at this moment. What mattered was he could save Carmela.
I knew instinctively that calling 9-1-1 was futile. They wouldn’t know what to do. Vince was the only one who did. He had helped me. I knew he could help her if I only got to him fast enough.
My only problem was I didn’t know his phone number. In fact, I had never even noticed a telephone at his home, even though he had to surely have one.
A look in the phonebook confirmed that if he had a phone, his number wasn’t listed.
“Carmela, you need to hold on, please. I have to get help.”
She couldn’t hear me.
I snatched her house keys from the table, stuffed some money into my pocket, jumped into my shoes and rushed out the door. I knew I didn’t have much time. I ignored the pain in my leg as I raced down the stairs and out the door.
I saw her on the security camera before she even reached my front door. She paid the taxi driver and sent him away. This action gave me hope, because it meant she wasn’t here to pick up her suitcases, otherwise she would have kept the taxi driver waiting.
Of course, the fact that it was past two o’clock at night didn’t speak for my suitcase theory either. Whatever she wanted, it wasn’t her suitcases.
I rushed to the door and flung it open before she even had a chance to knock. I startled her. The look on her face was panicked. Should I have let her knock first? Was I too anxious to see her?
“Annette,” was all I could say, when I wanted to tell her so much more.
“I need your help,” she burst out.
What was wrong? I could hear the fear and panic in her voice, and my body immediately went into hyper alert, tensing up.
“It’s Carmela. Entwhistle injected her.”
I could sense she was horrified, and so was I. There was no time to waste.
“Get in the car,” I ordered as I pulled her into the house and locked the door behind her. I ran into the lab, grabbed my instrument bag and jerked open the fridge. I took several vials of serum out and placed them in my bag, before slamming the fridge door shut.
When I got into the driver’s seat, I was relieved to see that she had followed my instructions and was strapped into the passenger seat, her seatbelt tight. She would need it.
“When did it happen?” I asked her as I shot out of the garage with the engine roaring.
“I don’t know. I was with her all day.”
“Think back, please. It’s important.”
From the corner of my eye I could see how she frantically searched her memory.
“In the morning. She had an appointment. She was back before noon.”
This meant almost eighteen hours had passed. It was cutting it close.
“Describe her symptoms to me.”
“Her pulse is racing, she’s sweating. I think she has a fever. She felt dizzy earlier.”
The fever worried me. It meant it had started.
“Did you see the injection site?”
She nodded. “It’s dark under her skin, and I could feel the bump.”
“That’s good, it means the capsule hasn’t fully dissolved yet. There’s still a chance.”
I pulled the car to a stop parking opposite her apartment building. I wondered whether she would notice that she hadn’t told me where Carmela lived, but figured she was too panicked to realize I already knew where to go.
I jumped out of the car and Annette followed me. Her hands shook as she tried to unlock the entrance door, so I took her keys out of her hands and unlocked it for her. I went for the elevator which was on the entrance level.
“Which floor?”
“The top.” She said, and started walking up the stairs.
I knew it was a building with at least five floors and Annette was still limping. Why did she want to walk up?
“Take the elevator.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
I guessed she didn’t like confined spaces. I didn’t want to wait until she limped up the five flights of stairs, so I put one arm around her waist, lifted her up and ran up the stairs with her, my instrument bag in the other hand.
She didn’t protest but I could see how she gave me a questioning look.
On the top floor she pointed to one of the doors and I let us into the flat. Carmela was in a poor state. I didn’t need to check her heart rate or blood pressure to know there was little time to act. Cutting out the capsule at this late a stage was useless and would only waste time. Time she didn’t have.
I took two vials out of the bag and started mixing them with the help of the syringe. While I did that I gave Annette instructions.
“Swab her arm with alcohol. It’s in the bag.”
She dug into the bag, following my instructions.
“I need a vein. Use the elastic band and wrap it around her biceps.”
I was impressed at how exact she followed my instructions, as if she had done it a hundred times.
The serum was in the syringe and I tapped at it to remove the air bubbles. Annette had prepared everything and it was easy to find a vein in Carmela’s arm. I inserted the needle and could see how Annette looked away. As soon as the needle was in I released the tourniquet.
I pushed the serum into Carmela’s arm, pulled the syringe out and was surprised to find that Annette was already handing me some gauze and a band aid.
“Thank you.”
I looked at her as she watched Carmela’s face. She was anxious. She knew what was coming. I nodded to her.
“You’ll have to hold her down when it starts.”
“Will you help me?” She looked into my eyes. I couldn’t refuse her anything. I only nodded, because I knew my voice would break and beg her to come back to me.
“And stay away from her teeth, otherwise she might bite you.”
Carmela started screaming. Jointly we held her down as the spasms ripped through her body.
Suddenly somebody banged at the door. I looked at Annette.
“Her roommate. I’ll get rid of her.” Annette jumped up and ripped the door open. I got a quick glimpse of a young woman in her pajamas before she pulled the door shut quickly.
I could hear their entire conversation. My ears were trained well.
“What is going on here?” Carmela’s roommate complained.
“I told you Carmela is sick, so go take a sleeping pill and wear ear plugs.” I could tell Annette had no patience left.