by Jen Haeger
Clem picked up Evelyn’s conversational thread. “And my leg’s much better, so I’ll bunk in the basement too, on the couch.”
David crossed his arms. “Absolutely not. Sorry, Clem, but you still have your cane. There is no way I’d let you climb those basement stairs to get to the bathroom. You’ll stay in my room again and I’ll take the basement couch.”
Evelyn couldn’t imagine a worse scenario than David and Nicolas sharing the basement, but she couldn’t come up with any excuse to prevent it, so she excused herself to make up the basement beds. Kim followed her upstairs soon after, and helped her assemble sheets, blankets, and spare pillows from the upstairs closet and bedrooms. As they put fresh sheets on David’s bed, Kim spoke for the first time since greeting Clem and Nicolas.
“Evie, why didn’t you tell us about Nicolas?” Kim’s voice wasn’t accusatory, rather it was soft with hurt.
Evelyn smoothed out the fitted sheet. “I just didn’t feel like we had time to argue about it. We need the information that Nicolas has on Languorem luporum, and you two didn’t have the same…experience with him. I know we can trust him, and right now we need to. Time is running out, and we have nothing. If I don’t come up with something to stop the Vulke soon…” An unintentional sob broke Evelyn’s voice. Kim padded to her side and placed a warm hand on her shoulder.
“I think that you underestimate us Evelyn. You aren’t the only one who understands the stakes here. Give us a little credit.”
Blinking back tears, Evelyn leaned her head on Kim’s shoulder. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Do you think that we can chalk my behavior up to the temporary madness of impending doom?” Her laugh only had a hint of mirth.
Kim hugged Evelyn. “I sure can…but, Evie, David…”
“I know.”
*
When the women went downstairs again, arms loaded with linens, Evelyn noted a sudden silence at the dining room table where the men were seated. Nicolas was propped up like a marionette and David was eviscerating him with his eyes.
“Why don’t we continue the interrogation in the morning, fellas? Nicolas, there is a bathroom at the top of the stairs and also a half-bath just inside the front hall. You are welcome to use either, then I’ll meet you in the basement off the kitchen here and show you your room.”
His head drooping in a nod, Nicolas stood slowly. “Da, thank you.”
Once Nicolas had disappeared into the smaller bathroom, Evelyn thought that David might start railing at her, but he didn’t even glance at her as he got up from the table and headed upstairs. His reaction was a knife right through her heart. Her eyes found Clem’s and his reflected her pain. In that moment Evelyn truly regretted her decision not to tell David that she was going to not only meet Nicolas, but to bring him here. She saw in Clem’s eyes that they’d lost David, maybe for good. Trying to convince herself that the agony she was feeling would all be worth it if they found a cure hidden in the Vulke research that Nicolas had stolen for them, Evelyn turned from Clem and headed into the basement.
She let Kim make up the couch for David as she put down several layers of blankets for padding on the tile floor of the strange windowed room of the basement, and arranged a sleeping area for Nicolas. Putting the pillow in place, Evelyn grimaced down at the bedding. They’d have to buy him at least a cot tomorrow. Someone behind her cleared their throat softly. Evelyn turned to face Nicolas in the doorway.
His eyes didn’t leave hers, but he gestured to the room. “What room is this?”
Evelyn felt her cheeks color. “We think it might have been a grow room…you know? For drugs, marijuana.”
His eyebrows lifted and his gaze flicked to the room then back to her. “Oh. Da.”
She broke away from Nicolas’s stare and glanced instead down at the sad excuse for a bed she’d made for him. “I’m sorry, it’s not much, but we’ll buy you a cot or something tomorrow.”
Nicolas walked closer to her. “I have had worse.”
Evelyn’s thoughts flashed back to the scars she’d seen on his body the night after the fire, and her insides twisted at the thought of what “worse” might be inside the warped society of the Vulke. The windowed room abruptly felt like a prison. She brushed past Nicolas towards the door.
“Well, I should let you get some sleep. Please feel free to eat anything in the kitchen if you get hungry. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Evelyn…”
She didn’t look back, but her name seemed to echo around Nicolas’s makeshift bedroom and follow her up the stairs as she fled to the main floor. At the top of the stairs she literally ran into David.
“Oh, David, I’m sorry I—“
“Of course you are.”
David didn’t look at her as he stepped around her and continued down into the basement. The chill of his words sunk into her chest. Though she knew that their relationship had been over for a while, she never expected that they would lose their friendship too. Sighing, she thought that perhaps in time she could convince him of her muddled judgement in the face of a desperate situation, but it wasn’t as important now as fighting the Vulke. For that’s what they were doing now. Not finding a cure for the sake of a cure, but trying to find a way to unmake monsters so they had a chance of winning the war.
The siren call of sleep beaconed to Evelyn, but she ignored it and instead put a pot of coffee on to brew, then sat at the dining room table with Nicolas’s satchel and the notes that she’d made in the car based on his translations. Unlikely as it was that she’d make a breakthrough that night, she opened up her laptop and settled in for a long night of technical reading and Google Translator.
*
Evelyn hiked through a forest of burning trees. Clouds of smoky viral code filled the air and she swatted them aside with irritation. Sara stepped out from behind a smoldering oak and joined Evelyn. The last time she’d seen Sara, her mouth had been bloody, but now it was clean, though her skin was sallow and peeling in places. She wore a long, silky black dress instead of her normal punk garb, but her hair was still spikey where it wasn’t falling out.
“Not far now.”
Evelyn tried not to stare at Sara’s corpse.
“Where are we going?”
Sara shook her head and pointed.
“Not we, them.”
Evelyn glanced up and saw a pack of red-eyed Wolfkin charging towards them through the fiery woods.
“Oh god, Sara, what are we going to do!”
Sara shrugged.
“Not my problem, not my department.”
“Quick, Evelyn, in here!”
Evelyn turned and spotted Nicolas peeking out of a door between the trees and frantically motioning her to join him.
“Will you come?” she asked Sara.
“Nah, I’m good.”
Evelyn didn’t want to leave Sara behind, but the snarling, howling Wolfkin were getting closer, so she let Nicolas drag her through the mysterious door. The door led to the lab at the veterinary school, but the place was in shambles. Shattered glass covered the floor, the fridges and freezers were open and their contents strewn about, and nearly every machine was smashed exposing guts of circuitry.
“What happened?”
Nicolas’s smile was joyous and carefree.
“I cured him.”
“Who?”
Nicolas pointed to the closed door of Dr. Jonson’s office. Through a small window, Evelyn could see David inside tearing the tiny room apart with bloody hands. Wide-eyed with horror, Evelyn drifted closer to the window. David’s eyes rolled, and thick, white foam drooled from the corners of his mouth.
“What have you done?”
Nicolas sidled up beside her.
“I give him rabies!”
Upon hearing Nicolas’s voice, David noticed Evelyn staring at him. He growled at her and threw himself at the window. Glass shattered. Evelyn screamed.
63
Evelyn woke up thrashing and felt strong hands on her arms.
/> “Evelyn, stop, you are dreaming.”
With threads of the dream still weaving into reality, Nicolas’s voice did not calm her. She tore out of his grip, knocked over the chair, and stumbled into the living room. Confused and shaking, Evelyn backed away from an upset and befuddled Nicolas. When David burst from the kitchen to the dining room, Evelyn shrieked, backed into the couch, and fell onto it, but the fall brought her to her senses and out of the waking nightmare.
“What did you do to her?!” David’s voice was like broken glass.
“I—“
Pushing herself up so she could see over the arm of the couch, Evelyn saw David grab Nicolas by the shoulders.
“No, David! it wasn’t him, I was having a nightmare. I’m sorry, you both just…startled me.”
Nicolas shook out of David’s grasp as David reluctantly loosened his grip and turned to face Evelyn. “Must have been some nightmare.”
Evelyn tried in vain to erase the horrors of the dream from her mind’s eye. Weariness sped into her on the heels of her fading pulse of adrenaline. “Yeah…I’m surprised that I don’t have more of them actually.”
The fierceness in David’s face softened, but his words still held an edge. “Well, if everything’s fine here, then I’m going back to bed. Let me know if you really need me.”
With that he turned and disappeared into the kitchen. Evelyn felt like she should go to him, but then she spied Clem and Kim on the stairs. “Sorry about the commotion. Everything’s… fine. I just had a nightmare.”
Smiling sympathetically, Kim nodded and turned to leave, grabbing Clem’s elbow when he lingered.
“You sure you’re alright, Evie?”
Evelyn rose from the couch and nodded to him, and only then did he let Kim lead him back upstairs. Turning, Evelyn found Nicolas staring at her, his expression forlorn. “You still fear me?”
Sighing, Evelyn shook her head. “No, like I said, Nicolas, it was just a nightmare.”
She walked over to the table to gather up her notes and shut down the laptop, knowing that she wasn’t going to get anymore work done that night. Nicolas rubbed his eyes and looked over the mess of research on the dining room table and the cold mug of coffee.
“You work all the night?”
“I need to get through all this as fast as I can. There’s just so little time left.”
“Da…have you found anything?”
Evelyn shrugged. “Maybe. Honestly, I can’t even remember anything I read for probably the last four hours before I dozed off.”
“Then you should sleep.”
Evelyn finished tidying the papers and her notes and closed the laptop. She could feel Nicolas watching her. “And you should go back to sleep. I still expect you to translate for me all day tomorrow.”
Nicolas had closed the gap between them and Evelyn felt his breath on the back of her neck. “Da.”
His proximity made Evelyn hastily retreat into the living-room towards the stairs. She called back over her shoulder. “Goodnight.”
“Spokoynoy nochi.”
*
Evelyn slept fitfully until around eight-thirty. No more nightmares haunted her, but she still felt uneasy. She felt like she was forgetting something important, and just when she was dozing off, she’d wake again with a start, trying to remember what it was she’d forgotten. Certain that it was her brain’s way of dealing with the stress of trying to find a cure within the notes Nicolas had smuggled out to them, Evelyn attempted one relaxation technique after another, before she finally admitted defeat and got up. Kim’s bed lay empty and Evelyn heard voices downstairs, so after a visit to the vacant bathroom, she headed down to find some breakfast and face…well, everyone.
Clem was the first to greet her from his place at the head of the dining room table. “It’s a-live!”
“Haha, gimme a break, it’s only eight thirty, not like I slept till noon.”
Evelyn meandered towards the kitchen, but Clem shook his head.
“I wouldn’t go in there if I was you. Nicky and Dave are having a bit o’ a spat about the right way to make French toast. Here, sit. I’ll get ya some OJ.”
Rubbing her forehead in frustration, Evelyn sat as Clem poured her juice from a carafe on the table. She noted an extra chair from the kitchen and modest table settings of plates, glasses, napkins, knives, spoons, and forks.
“Where’s all my notes and my laptop?”
“Dave took it all downstairs earlier. I think he mighta said a-somethin’ ‘bout not wanting you to spill OJ on your laptop.”
Evelyn nodded. She was itching to look at her final notes from last night. Moments later Kim came in with a plate of French toast and Nicolas followed her with a plate of bacon. He paused when he saw Evelyn.
“Good morning. I expected you would sleep longer.”
“I…couldn’t sleep anymore.”
He placed the bacon on the table and sat next to her. Evelyn had hoped Kim would take that seat, but she’d sat on the other side. The awkward silence that followed was broken by David’s entrance with a platter of scrambled eggs. Avoiding eye contact with Evelyn, he sat next to Kim.
“Well, I’m not standing on cer-a-mony. Evie, hand me that plate o’ French toast.”
Evelyn passed the plate to Clem while David and Nicolas both reached for the bacon. An ill look passed between them as David pulled it towards him.
“The butter and syrup!” Kim leapt from the table and sprinted back into the kitchen, breaking the tension. Nicolas picked up the eggs instead and placed them between himself and Evelyn.
“Ladies first.”
“Thank you.” Evelyn scooped a helping of eggs onto her plate then handed Nicolas the serving spoon.
Kim returned with the butter and a plastic bottle of real Michigan maple syrup. “So, Evie, are David and I going to help you with more translations and stuff today? Do you think we’ll be going to the lab tonight?”
Taking a proffered piece of French toast from Clem, Evelyn nodded. “Yes and no. You guys can work off the notes that Nicolas already sent up here and Nicolas and I will work on the notes he brought with him in the basement since he’ll be dictating to me and I don’t want it to distract you.” She swallowed some eggs then continued. “I don’t think we’ll have enough yet to start something in the lab, but I’ll let you know the moment I think I’m wrong.”
The breakfast conversation died out there, though breakfast continued for another twenty minutes or so, ending with Clem insisting on cleaning up so that everyone else could get right to work. Even with the promise of a day in the dark and damp of the basement, Evelyn was glad to get away from David’s brooding and get back to work. She also avoided discomfort with Nicolas by keeping everything strictly business, steering all conversation towards his translations of the Vulke research. Sadly, her initial vigor soon evaporated under the weight of the piles of papers and their abundance of relatively useless information. The Vulke had found all kinds of ways to deactivate Languorem luporum outside the human body, but their scattered attempts to alter the virus once an individual was already infected all failed. One attempt using a co-infection of the virus with another virus had sounded promising at the start, but was ultimately unsuccessful. After Nicolas paraphrased translation of that disappointment, Evelyn felt exhaustion and depression creeping in.
“Lunch time!” Clem’s voice bounced down the stairs.
Evelyn glared at her watch, disbelieving the time that had passed. “Sorry, Nicolas, I think I’ll have to take a nap after lunch. You can either type out translations on my computer down here until I wake up or help Kim and David upstairs.”
The corners of Nicolas’s mouth twitched. “I will type.”
They ascended to meet the others at the dining room table, which had been cleared of David’s laptop and set once again. Evelyn was so tired, she was contemplating foregoing lunch in favor of her nap, but a stomach grumble soon had her sitting with the others. Clem emerged from the kitchen with a tray
of sandwiches.
“Sand-wich-es ala Clem!”
Setting them down with a flourish, Clem bowed to them all. Kim giggled.
Evelyn rubbed her chin. “And what does that mean?”
Clem sat and rubbed his hands together. “It means I made ya’ll sandwiches. Nothin’ gour-met, but should be edible…if ya ain’t too picky,” he said, eyeing Nicolas.
Nicolas waited until everyone else had a sandwich before taking one. Evelyn marked that there were several extras. Hers was ham and cheese with mustard, mayo, and ketchup, which caught her slightly off guard. She slumped in her seat while she chewed, the effort taking its toll on her meager energy resources. Though her body felt like lead, her mind was still racing around in her head trying to think of anything she’d found in the notes so far that would mean a cure for Languorem luporum. Swallowing a bite, she set down the sandwich on her plate. Her eyelids drooped. Kim had asked Nicolas something, but Evelyn couldn’t hear his answer. She turned to look at him, her head moving as if through molasses, and abruptly the nightmare from the previous night returned to her thoughts. I’ve infected him with rabies. Rabies. Co-infection. A co-infection with rabies to disrupt the virus where it integrates with the wolf DNA. No, not rabies. Something else. Something non-fatal to humans…
“Distemper virus!”
Clem, Kim, David, and Nicolas all stared open-mouthed at Evelyn.
“Huh?”
Evelyn’s sleepiness was quashed by a tidal wave of exhilaration. She stood, knocking back her chair, and began pacing. “I have an idea. It could work…but it’s so weird, not what I thought it’d be, and not permanent of course, but could work long enough…but only with the new strain, the one the USDA has been studying, the persistent one…” Thoughts transformed into words and tumbled out of Evelyn’s mouth.
“Evie, slow down, girl, speak English.”
Evelyn stopped pacing and faced the others. “Okay, so, one of the techniques that the Vulke were using to try to increase the virulence of Languorem luporum, and to try to make the virus more active, therefore allowing the Vulke to transform at will, was co-infection with another virus. But it always either had no effect or created a less infectious form of the virus. There are no records of a co-infection actually curing a test subject of Wolfkinism, but they were mainly using nasty viruses that can be fatal to humans. If we use a canine virus to attack the integrated lupine parts of the virus, then we may be able to prevent transformation. But it has to be a virus that isn’t cleared by the immune system, which most common canine viruses are…except for rabies, which of course is right out, but the USDA recently came across a mutant canine distemper virus, because people haven’t been vaccinating their dogs properly in the bad economy.” Evelyn took a deep breath. “Anyways, it can be vaccinated against, but once a dog has it, as far as we can tell, it never clears from the dog’s system. They always have a low level infection, and if the co-infection does what I’m hoping, it won’t really be a true cure, but a suppression of Languorem luporum…And, since I suspect the monthly transformations are responsible for the degeneration to the body and brain that comes with being a werewolf then suppressing the transformations should also give the person a relatively normal life post-co-infection…” A wild smile flashed along Evelyn’s lips but then faltered. “Provided symptoms haven’t already manifested.”
