In two steps he had fallen flat on his face, giving himself a b.l.o.o.d.y nose and-he discovered with horror-loosening his upper canines. They wiggled when he touched them with his tongue. He was trying to crawl back into bed when an aide found him.Dr. Charles wasted no time being polite or solicitous. "That was a stupid thing to do. In the first place, you"re not ready to get out of bed, and when I decide you are-whenI decide, Inspector-you will be helped in and out. Under no circ.u.mstances are you to do it alone. I presume that as a police officer you know how to take orders. Well, I"m giving you one.Stay in bed. Donothing without asking permission first. Is that clear?"
Garreth shrank back meekly into the bed. "Yes, sir."
"Good. We have the barium study scheduled for you tomorrow. A dentist will check your teeth as well." He stalked out.
Toward evening Garreth managed to doze some, but he never really slept, never truly rested. With nightfall, though, he felt better, just like the night before. The desire to sleep vanished, though he remained tired. He turned on the TV.
A nurse, coming in to check his vital signs, turned it off. "Dr. Charles wants you to sleep."
As soon as she left, however, he switched the set back on, keeping the volume as low as he possibly could and still hear. That proved to he very low indeed. It seemed that his sharpened hearing was persisting. He also used that hearing to listen for nurses in the corridor, so that he could shut off the set before they caught him with it on.
After midnight, Channel 9 started itsFriday Fright Night feature, three horror movies in a row. Garreth settled back to watch, as he often had since Marti died. However melodramatic, the movies diverted him. Tonight"s offerings began withDracula. He sighed. How appropriate. His entire life these days seemed to revolve around blood, or the lack of it.
Into the movie, with everyone worrying about Miss Lucy"s mysterious wasting disease, Garreth reflected that his one complaint with these shows was the way the characters waded up to their necks in clues and yet never realized they had a werewolf, demon, or vampire loose among them. On the other hand, perhaps that was reasonable. In a real-life reaction to such a situation, no one would guess, either. They would hunt for a rational explanation and refuse to accept anything less. Like with Miss Lucy. They thought the broach on the shawl caused the punctures on her neck. No real-life person would consider a vampire bite as- The thought ended in a paralysis as though he lay in the morgue again, without heartbeat or breath. He could not move, only stare unseeing at the TV screen with mind churning. No, that was impossible. It was acrazy thought!I"m losing my mind, he thought. Lane Barber might be psychotic and a killer, but a human one, certainly. Nothing more or less. How could she be anything else?
So she slept all day. She worked nights. If she kept no food in her apartment, perhaps she hated to cook and always ate out.
She bit men she made love to and some of them died, but two men with punctures in their bruises did not mean punctures in every bruise.
On the TV, Miss Lucy slathered in bloodl.u.s.t, turned vampire by Dracula"s bite.
Thirst started to burn in Garreth"s throat and he reached involuntarily for the bandage around his neck. No. He jerked his hands away.That really is impossible! If every vampire bite made a vampire, the world would be hip-deep in the breed. Look at all the men Lane had bitten.
He turned off the TV with a decisive stab of his finger. The blood loss must be affecting his mind. Vampires didnot exist. He had no insatiable urge to bite the nurses, did he, despite his thirst and their attractive blood sent? He had not developed a desire to don a black opera cape and take the form of a bat. He just happened to feel better at night.
But cold continued to run up and down his spine, and knots worked uneasily along his gut.
Anger flared in him. This was nonsense! He would end it once and for all. Easing out of bed, he groped his way to the bathroom and peered into the mirror. The face he saw every morning while he shaved stared back at him.
There. Satisfied?Everyone knew vampires did not make reflections. Moreover, barring the drawn appearance and pale color, his square face looked exactly as always. His canines, though sore and loose from his fall this afternoon, looked no longer than usual.
Then he realized he had not turned on the light.
He quickly flipped up the switch . . . and wished he had not. The eyes in the mirror, perceived before as normal gray, now reflected the light as Lane"s had, flaring red . . . fire red, blood red, h.e.l.l red.
Garreth slammed down the switch in a spasm of panic and clutched the edge of the washbowl for support, trembling. No! This was insane. Impossible!
And yet . . .
He sat down on the closed lid of the toilet. And yet, how was it that he, who always woke with the sun, now felt better at night?
Why could he see in the dark? Why did he smell the blood in people and throw up solid food? On the other hand, if he had become- He could not finish the thought. It stumbled and died before a new flood of panic.Run! a voice screamed inside him.Run!
It brought him off the toilet and to the bathroom door, where he clung to the jamb, breathing hard. He had to get out of here.
There was a logical explanation for everything but he needed somewhere to think. Somewhere quiet. He could not do it in this place with its reek of blood and voices shouting up and down the halls and interns and nurses coming in all the time to poke and prod him.
How to get out, though? While they could not keep him against his will, demanding to be released in the middle of the night might make them consider him irrational. He could not just walkout without clothes.But he had to get away somehow!
Shaking, he made his way back to the bed and pulled the call-light cord.
"May I help you?" a female voice asked from the speaker above the call light.
"I need to go to the bathroom. Will you send an orderly to help me, please?"
A female aide appeared a few minutes later, not an orderly. She opened the cabinet beside his bed.
"Please, not the urinal," Garreth said. "I can"t use that thing. I feel much better. Can"t you let me use the bathroom if someone takes me there?"
"I"ll see," the aide replied, and left.
While Garreth waited, crossing mental fingers, he ripped the draw sheet on his bed into several long strips and wrapped them around his waist under his hospital gown. When the door opened again, he smiled in relief at the brawny orderly.
"You"re sure you want to try this?" the orderly asked.
Garreth nodded. He had no trouble making the gesture sincere.
"Okay." Putting an arm around Garreth, the orderly supported him getting out of bed and walking across the room.
The orderly"s cheerfulness stabbed Garreth with guilt. He consoled himself with the thought that if all went right, no one would be hurt.
The orderly left him in the bathroom. Garreth waited a few minutes, running the water, then sat down on the floor and called for help.
The orderly hurried in. "Did you fall? Are you hurt?"
"Help me up, please."
As the orderly leaned over to do so, Garreth threw an arm around the muscular neck and tightened down. The orderly collapsed flat on the floor in Garreth"s neck lock.
"I don"t want to hurt you," Garreth said, "but if you don"t shuck your shirt and pants in one minute, you"re going to have the biggest pain of your life in your neck."
"Mr. Mikaelian, you-" the orderly began in protest.
"Take off the shirt and pants," Garreth said.
It was not easy with both of them lying on the floor, but the orderly managed. Garreth tied his hands with the strips from the draw sheet, gagged him with another strip and a washcloth, and tied him to the pipes of the washbowl, out of reach of the call-light cord beside the toilet. Then Garreth changed into the orderly"s clothes, rolling up a cuff to shorten the trousers to his length. He helped himself to the orderly"s shoes and socks.
"I"m sorry about this, but I want a quicker discharge than I think the doctor is willing to give me. At least I"m leaving you your skivvies. I"ll see the other clothes are sent back."
The orderly sighed in combined disgust, anger, and bewilderment.
Garreth walked out, shutting off the light and closing the bathroom door.
No one looked twice at him in the corridor. He took the elevator down and walked out of the building without once being challenged. On the street he hailed a cab. The resolution that let him walk without staggering ran out. He slumped back in the seat.
"Hey, buddy, you okay?" the cabbie asked.
Oh, G.o.d. The cabbie smelled of blood, too, though with the reek of sweet and cigar nearly overwhelming it. The combination sent waves of nausea through him. "I"m fine."
The fifteen-minute ride home seemed interminable. Keeping the cab waiting, he unlocked the door with his hidden spare key and went in to change clothes. A sweater with a turtleneck reaching almost to his ears hid the bandage on his throat. He clipped his off-duty Charter Arms Undercover .38 on his belt, then dropped the extra set of car keys and his bank card into the pocket of a sports jacket. He had to endure another ride in the cab to his bank"s automatic teller and one last one to the lot where he had parked the ZX.
It was with relief that he paid off the cabbie, adding some extra money along with the orderly clothes. "See that these reach an orderly named Pechanec at General will you?"
Then he was free, on his own. He started the car. But he hesitated before backing out of the parking slot. Where did he go now? "On his own," it occurred to him, this time meant alone . . . very, very alone.
4
Garreth drove blindly, not caring where he went. Some place would feel right, and there he would stop, and think. Rational answers he had overlooked before would become apparent. Then perhaps he could make the terrified child within him realize that there was nothing to run from, nothing to be frightened of.Eventually he found himself in a deserted parking lot, but it was with shock that he looked up and recognized Mount Davidson.
The white cross atop the hill loomed above him, his strange new night vision seeing it luminous with icy fire against the night sky.
Relief and triumph followed surprise. This proved his imaginings false. How could he possibly have come to a place like this if he had . . . changed.
Climbing out of the car, he made his way up the slope toward the cross. Still no terrible agony engulfed him. If anything, each step made him feel better. Sitting on the ground at the base brought sheer relief, with all the aches of the past several days draining away.
Garreth stretched out full length and buried his face in the gra.s.s. The earth felt delicious, so cool, so clean and sweet-smelling.
Funny. He had never liked sleeping on the ground as a kid on scouting campouts, but now it felt better than any bed, certainly better than that torture rack at the hospital. What a joy it would be to just to continue lying here, to pull the earth over him and sleep forever.
Pull the earth- He sat bolt upright, shaking, horror and gutwrenching fear flooding back. Whatthe h.e.l.l areyou thinking, man!
He really was going wacko. He had better take himself back to the hospital before his delusions had him jumping some unsuspecting jogger.
But Garreth could not make himself move, even though he suddenly felt as though his presence defiled the hill. The earth drew him. It even soothed the thirst growing more ravenous by the hour. The sun, he decided. He would wait for the sun. If nothing happened when it rose, there was nothing wrong with him except that he had gone bananas and needed a room at the funny farm.
And if-well, it would be a clean end with no one having to know what a foul thing he had become.
Garreth crossed his legs, folded his hands in his lap, and waited.
Eventually the sky lightened.
His heart pounded. Feeling it, he scolded himself.Don"t be afool. Nothing"s going to happen. But his heart continued to slam against the wall of his chest while the sky grew brighter. Pulses throbbed in his aching, burning throat, in his arms, legs and temples.
The upper rim of the sun appeared over the horizon. Garreth braced himself. A beam of light lanced westward to the great white cross above him. He fought an urge to bury his face in his hands and made himself lift his chin to meet the sun.
There was no agony, no searing dissolution. The light burned through his eyes, however, turning the throb in his temples to a pounding headache. A great weight pressed down on him, draining his strength, dragging at his limbs. The earth beckoned to him, called him to the sweet coolness that would shut out this miserable, blinding, exhausting sun- "No!" He lurched to his feet. "d.a.m.n you!" he shouted at the sun. "Kill me! You"re supposed to kill me. Please! I won"t be- that!" He screamed into the terrible blood-red sky of dawn. "I won"t be! No! No! NO!" Screamed in fury and despair, over and over and over.
Garreth could not recall running down Mount Davidson or fishing trooper gla.s.ses from the glove compartment of the car and gunning the ZX out of the parking lot, but he found himself driving again, with mirror lenses hiding the eyes of his image in the rearview mirror. Driving where, though? He slowed down, groping for orientation. And slowed still more as a patrol car pa.s.sed him going the other direction. He carried no driver"s license; that sat in the Property Room along with the rest of his billfold contents, state"s exhibits.
A street sign finally told him where he was. From that he guessed where his reflexes were taking him: Lien . . . who had kept him sane the last time his life came crashing down around him.
Garreth parked the car around the corner at the end of the block Harry did not pa.s.s on the way to work and followed the narrow footpath between the backyards to the Takananda gate. Slipping over, he sat down behind the big oak tree shading the flagstoned patio and settled against the trunk to wait.
From inside the house came the sounds of morning: a shrill electronic beeping of the alarm clock, running water, the murmur of voices. The telephone rang. Harry"s voice rose. Moments later the front door slammed and the motor of the car roared to life. Tires squealed around the corner at the far end of the block.
Garreth pushed to his feet and came around the tree onto the patio.
Lien saw him from the kitchen. Her almond eyes went wide. "Garreth!" She ran out of the house to him. "What on earth are you doing?"
He managed a wry smile. "Visiting."
Her eyes flashed. "Don"t lie to me, Garreth Doyle Mikaelian! Harry just had a call about you. Come in this minute and sit down!
You look ready to fall on your face."
He followed her gladly and dropped into the closest chair.
She sat on the ha.s.sock in front of him, frowning in exasperation and concern. Her nearness brought a warm wash of bath- talc.u.m scent overlying that of blood. "Why did you run away from the hospital?"
He could give a half-truthful answer. "I couldn"t eat their food or sleep in their bed. I wanted out."
She stared. "Have you lost-" She broke off to resume in a patient voice, "Garreth, you almostdied. You"re in no condition to be going anywhere. You need medical care. Come on; I"ll drive you back."
She started to rise.Garreth reached out to catch her wrist. "No! I can"t go back. I-I"m-" But the words caught in his throat. He could not tell her about the hateful thing he had become. h.e.l.l . . . he could not even say the words to himself. Thank G.o.d for the gla.s.ses so she could not see the animal glow of his eyes. "Lien, I have to sleep and I haven"t been able to since I went into that place. Let me stay here today, and promise you won"t tell anyone where I am, not even Harry. Please!"
She stared from his face to her wrist and said softly, "Garreth, you"re hurting me."
He let go as though stung. s.h.i.t. "d.a.m.n! I"m sorry."
Lien rubbed the marks left on her wrist by his fingers. "I never knew you were so strong. Garreth . . .
How could he be so thoughtless? He had seen some of his strength when wrestling the orderly. "I didn"t realize-I never meant- I"m sorry," he said miserably.
"Garreth!"
He looked at her.
She patted his arm. "You can stay on one condition. That you do nothing but rest. Do you promise?"
He nodded.
She smiled. "Fortunately it"s Sat.u.r.day and I don"t have to work, so you won"t be alone. Harry went off without breakfast.
Would you like his waffles?"
His throat burned with hunger but the thought of waffles brought a spasm of nausea. He grimaced. "I"m not hungry."
Lien frowned at him "Garreth, you-" Then she sighed. "All right. Now get yourself into bed in the guest room."
A bed. He would never be able to sleep on a bed. "I"d rather sleep out on the patio."