Wild (3 page)

I had to start thinking of something else. I threw the bloody shreds of denim onto the bench behind me and disinfected my hands to examine her stab wound. It was deep, but had not hit any main arteries. My time during my residency at San Francisco General Hospital had given me lots of opportunities to deal with knife wounds. It wouldn’t be hard to patch her up and stop the loss of blood. She would be okay.

I had everything I needed and started by cleaning her wound. I put pressure on it to stop the bleeding. I needed to give her a small amount of morphine for the pain before I would be able to suture the wound. As I rolled up the sleeve of her sweater and turned the inside of her arm toward me, I noticed a band aid, therefore I decided to use the other arm instead.

I tapped her skin and found a vein instantly. While I administered the morphine intravenously I felt her soft skin again. With the back of my free hand I touched her cheeks, telling myself I needed to check her temperature, when I knew her temperature wasn’t elevated. Her skin was soft as a baby’s and just touching her face made my body tingle.

I felt like a stalker as I gazed at her defenseless body and knew that at this moment I wasn’t any better than the man who had assaulted her in the alley. The only thing which had changed was geography. She was in my house, or should I say my
lair
, where she had even less of a chance of escaping than in the alley. I could keep her here forever, and she wouldn’t be able to get away. She would be trapped.

My thoughts about what I wanted weren’t any less evil than her attacker’s, with one difference: I wanted her to want me too. I wanted her to respond to me with the same desire I had for her, to open up her arms and wrap them around me eagerly, to feel her press her body against me willingly, to ask me to take her. Looking at her slender legs I wondered what it would feel like if she wrapped them around my hips and pulled me toward the center of her body, inviting me.

As I began suturing her wound, I was disgusted by my thoughts. The fact that I had to handle her soft skin while I worked on her injury didn’t help me eliminate my inappropriate thoughts in the slightest.

My animal instincts told me to take her and make her mine, while my human instincts battled against the notion of taken a woman by force. I still had enough humanity left in me, but the longer I felt her half-naked body so close to mine the greater the risk was that my human instincts would lose the battle.

I couldn’t allow this to happen. In all the years I had lived in seclusion hidden away from society, and despite the loneliness I felt, I had never desired a woman nor had I felt any particular temptations. I had learned to control most of my emotions and only unleash my animal self onto the evil in the City. I knew it didn’t make me good, but I hoped in some small way some innocents would be spared because of my actions.

I put all instruments I had used into the sink to sterilize them later. As I turned back to her I could feel her stir. I was by her side at once. She didn’t open her eyes. Tenderly I slipped my arms underneath her and lifted her up. She shivered slightly.

Stupid me!
She was cold. I had laid her onto the cold surgery bench without at least covering her body partially with a blanket to keep her warm. It was inexcusable. I whisked her upstairs.

Most of the upper floor was just one large space where I had let the furniture define the use. The red brick walls were exposed in many portions of the building, but they were interrupted by steel braces and some strategically placed sheer walls. I had tried to make it look as appealing as possible without compromising safety.

Toward one end was what I would have called my bedroom, if it wasn’t for the fact that I rarely slept. Rather, I rested without ever really letting my senses shut off. The king size bed was comfortable even though I would have felt just as comfortable on the floor which was concrete. Concrete was a bad conductor of sound which suited my purpose. I had used a system of cubes locked into each other to create a room divider to give the illusion of privacy and separation in the bedroom.

In the living room which occupied the center of the warehouse one wall was equipped with every electronic gadget available on the market. An oversized couch occupied the middle of the room together with a coffee table and a comfortable armchair. A large TV was mounted on the other wall. The kitchen was at the back of the building. It was framed by a bar. There was a door which led into the bathroom. It was the only room on this floor which had a door.

The most remarkable thing about my place was probably the fact that besides the huge skylight above the living area it had no windows whatsoever. It was what I had wanted: complete privacy. Nobody could see into the skylight – it was protected by windowless buildings on all sides. In order to make up for the lack of ventilation I had an elaborate air conditioning system in place, and the kitchen and bathroom were equipped with industrial strength vents which would suck out any excess moisture and smells.

 I laid her into my bed being careful not to put any pressure on her leg. The down comforter I covered her with would keep her warm. She would be safe for now, as safe as she could be in the home of a stranger. I looked at the clock beside the bed. It wasn’t even midnight yet and I settled in for a long night of waiting.

I went to my wall of electronics and switched on the monitors: surveillance. While glancing at one of the monitors which gave me a live picture of what was happening outside on the street, I reset the digital recorder to the time when I had left earlier. I pressed play and went through it in fast forward mode.

Early in the evening there had been some activity: the odd office worker leaving the office late, an occasional homeless guy, some Chinese youngsters taking a shortcut through the area to get to Chinatown just a few blocks away, some cars and taxis passing by. A tourist couple looked lost. They were obviously trying to find their way back to their hotel after a night out in North Beach. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. I reached the point on the tape where I had come home and stopped it.

Nobody apart from me had ever set foot into my home. Technically she hadn’t either, since I had carried her in, but that was beside the point. She was here, and I had no idea what I should say to her when she woke up. How would I explain myself?

She would scream, no doubt. Nobody would hear her, but she was unaware of that. The place was soundproof as long as the blinds to the skylight were closed.

There was nothing I could possibly say which wouldn’t frighten her. She was alone in the home of a strange man. She was injured and wouldn’t be able to walk much without assistance for a few days.

What the hell had I done? I couldn’t think clearly. I needed to get my strength back.

I strode to the fridge and opened it. It was filled mostly with steaks. I took out two 18-ounce rib-eyes and threw them onto the butcher block. The industrial gas-fired grill was right next to it. The burner came on in an instant and it wasn’t long before the grill was hot. I flipped the steaks onto it, gave it fifteen seconds on each side and was done with it.

I didn’t need tongs to take them off the hot grill. My hands took the heat easily. I wouldn’t even have needed to put the steaks onto the grill, but again, I liked things to resemble the time when I was still different. I had always liked my steaks rare, but now I ate them barely seared on the outside.

I tasted the blood as I bit into the first one and devoured it in only a few bites. I took more time for the second one and tried to savor it, but alas I didn’t have the patience. No animal did as long as it was hungry. After the second steak my immediate hunger was satisfied. I hadn’t even sat down to eat at the bar. The hunger was often too great to take the time to sit.

As the food settled in my stomach I felt my strength coming back. It was the same after every night of roaming the streets. Why did I do it? I never really knew. Maybe it was penance for my sins. Maybe I just wanted to feel that I had some purpose in my life. I wanted to prove to myself that there was good left in me, that I hadn’t completely turned into an animal.

I tried to hold on to my humanity, because I still had hope, that one day I would be fully human again. In the meantime I did what I had to do. I worked on my research by day and tried to help innocents by night. I didn’t pretend to be one of the good guys, as much as I wanted to. I tried to fight the bad in me and others as much as I could with varying degrees of success.

My thoughts went back to the girl in my bed. She shouldn’t be here with me. It was too dangerous for her. I could still take her to a hospital now, drop her off at the emergency room entrance without being seen and she wouldn’t be the wiser. She would be confused as to how she had gotten there, but she would be safe, safer than here.

I looked over to the bed and the feeling of her lying under the same covers under which I had spent so many sleepless nights, gave me an unreal sense of closeness to her, as if she belonged to me. I fantasized she would wake up in my arms and not be frightened. What was it about this girl that made her so special, that made me want her?

She was quite pretty, but not conventionally beautiful. There was nothing extraordinary about her, only the fact that when she had looked into my eyes the only thought in my mind had been to take her home.

I had kidnapped her. It was wrong. I had to let her go while I still could, take her to the hospital and leave her at the emergency room - if I could.

It was what I had to do. I walked over to the bed where she slept peacefully. I pulled away the comforter and the sight of her bare legs caused a flame of desire to shoot through my loins. As I slid my arms underneath her and touched the naked skin of her legs I could barely contain myself. I felt like a recovering alcoholic opening a whiskey bottle and sniffing at it.

She unexpectedly stirred as I was about to lift her out of the bed. I paused and she went quiet again. As soon as I pulled her into my arms and pressed her against my chest she moved.

“No,” her voice protested. Was she awake?

I stared at her face, but her eyes were closed. She was dreaming.

“Shh,” I whispered barely audible. “I’m taking you to the hospital,” I said in my most soothing voice. I had learned that even in an unconscious state, people could hear certain things and for some reason I wanted her to hear my voice, just once.

“No,” she murmured again. “No hospital.”

She had to be awake. Unconscious people didn’t normally respond. I checked and her eyes were still closed. Was she hallucinating? Had I given her too much morphine?

I could have made a mistake. She weighted no more than a hundred and twenty pounds and I had calculated the amount of morphine for her size automatically in my head. What if I had miscalculated?

I couldn’t move her right now. I had to be sure she was stable. I fetched my stethoscope and my blood pressure monitor from the lab and checked her vital signs. Her pulse was racing and her blood pressure was dangerously high.

While I picked her up and carried her into the lab, I scanned my refrigerators in my mind. What did I have that I could give her to lower her blood pressure? As soon as I laid her onto the surgery bench again where the glaring lights shone at her from all sides, I saw something dark on the skin of her upper thigh.

I looked closer. I was wrong. It wasn’t
on
her skin, it was
under
her skin. At first look it seemed to be a tattoo, but as soon as I examined it, I realized it wasn’t a tattoo. It looked like a capsule, and it was expanding.

Without so much as thinking it through even once I opened my instrument drawer and pulled out a scalpel.

There was no time to swab her skin with alcohol. I had to cut into it immediately. As I sliced her skin open I could feel her shift. I held her down as well as I could while trying to hold the scalpel still. I cut long and deep enough to grab the foreign object with my tweezers. I pulled it out and I dropped it onto a steel tray.

I could tell that whatever was in there had leaked. Some of it had surely gotten into her blood stream. With a small vacuum pump I sucked the dark liquid out of the wound until I could find no more. The wound was clean now, but how much of her blood was contaminated?

I checked her vital signs again. Her pulse was still high, but seemed to settle. Suddenly she shivered again. I covered her with a clean sheet, but knew it wouldn’t be enough to keep her warm. As fast as I could I closed the incision site.

I took a warm blanket out of a cabinet and wrapped it around her. I needed to examine the object I had removed from her body, but I didn’t want to leave her alone upstairs. I wanted to make sure that if her condition changed, I would be there to act immediately.

I took the capsule from its tray and placed it on the microscope. I knew immediately what it was. The capsule had a special coating which acted as a time release mechanism. It was very simple and very effective. But what was it supposed to release?

I didn’t have time to investigate any further.

“Uh, where am I?” I heard the girl utter. I rushed to her side grateful for the fact that I still wore my lab coat.

She was too weak to lift her head and could only stare into the lights above her. I bent over her so she could see me. Her big brown eyes looked up at me.

“You were attacked. You’re alright now,” I assured her and smiled at her softly. I was surprised at how calm and quiet my voice was. It betrayed nothing of the storm raging inside of me.

She looked at me, and a painful expression suddenly crossed her face.

“I can give you some more morphine for the pain.”

She raised her hand slightly. “No, no more. I, I …”

“What is it? Are you in pain?” I probed.

Please, please, let her be alright.

“Doctor, I have no insurance,” she admitted and closed her eyes seemingly too embarrassed to look at me.

That was her problem? She had no health insurance? I had to control myself in order not to break out in laughter. She refused morphine even though she was in pain, because she couldn’t pay for it? Who was this girl?