Deficiency

by Andrew Neiderman

  He pulled up behind Will Dennis, who was again on his cellular, talking while he filled his gas tank. Dennis had his back to him. He got out slowly, fingering the pistol he had used back in the motel owner's apartment. There was only one other gas customer, and he was finished, closing his tank and getting into his car. He watched him drive away. Will Dennis still had his back to him, still talked on the phone.

  "Okay then," he said, "I'll be there in an hour." He flipped his phone closed and turned to reach for the gas hose, which had stopped its flow. For a moment, probably because of the black hair, he didn't recognize him. He even flashed a smile and said, "Just about done."

  "Leave it," he told him.

  "Pardon me?" Will said. He stared and then rose slowly as his eyes began to reflect recognition.

  He pulled out the pistol.

  "Leave it," he repeated. "Just walk to my car." Will Dennis looked about frantically.

  "Move," he ordered firmly.

  "Look, there are people who can help you. They're here now, and I was just going to meet with them, actually. Why don't you follow me in your car and..." He pulled the hammer back on the pistol.

  "Walk to my car or die here," he said.

  Will nodded and started toward his car. He backed up to let him pass. The driver's door was still open.

  "Get in behind the wheel," he commanded as he opened the rear door. "Go on."

  "What do you want?" Will asked.

  He smiled.

  "I told you that before. I want more. Now get in and close the door." Will did and he got in behind him and held the pistol close to the back of his head.

  "Imagine," he said, "your brains splattered on that windshield. What a mess of thoughts and memories, huh?"

  "I can help you," Will said. "Really. I'm on the phone with everyone involved. We have a solution."

  "Oh, I know there is a solution. I know you can help me." He stopped smiling and added, "I want you to take me to her. Go on."

  "Take you to whom?"

  "The doctor, Dr. Barnard, the one who could make trouble for us. Go on."

  "But..."

  "Drive or decorate the windshield," he said putting the barrel of the gun against the back of his head.

  Will dropped the shift into drive and pulled around his own car, looking at it longingly, as longingly as a man who was being swept past his last hope for rescue at sea.

  "There's no need for this," Will said. "You're a very valuable person. They want to take you back, to help you, to make sure you're healthy and everything you need is provided."

  "I know what I need and I know how to get it," he said. Will thought.

  "I don't know where she is," he said.

  "Then make a call and find out. You can find out anything you need to find out, and believe me," he added poking him sharply just where his neck and head joined, "you need to find this out."

  "She's at work for sure," Will said.

  "See. You're screwing up already. I know she's on vacation."

  "Well, then she's gone. She's out of the area."

  "She's only away for a few days. She can't be far. If she is gone, you are gone," he said. "Either you will die or she will die today. Who will it be?" he asked.

  "Why do you have to kill her, or me for that matter?"

  "We've got to protect ourselves."

  "We?"

  "Yes, we," he said.

  "Look, if you're including me in this, I want to assure you..."

  "We're not," he said.

  Will gazed into the rearview mirror and saw him, his eyes fixed on the back of his head. He's mad, he thought. Whatever he is, he's insane.

  "This won't help you," he said. "They won't take you back if you do something like this. I'm the chief law enforcement officer in the county!"

  "That doesn't matter to us. We don't want to go back now. We want to go forward. Axe we going to her or what?" He leaned closer.

  "Okay, okay, we're going to her," Will said.

  "We knew you would make that choice," he said smiling. "We know you as well as you know yourself."

  Will Dennis shuddered with a chill that brought him back to his childhood days when he first confronted something horrifying in a movie. He had gone with his older brother and his older brother's friends. His older brother wasn't supposed to take him, but he had to watch him that day and he wasn't about to be stuck in some G-rated film. He confronted his first vampire on the screen and cringed at the sight of blood dripping from those long, sharp teeth.

  The creature seating behind him, for that was the only way he could think of him, a creature, revived those images. Would he lean forward any moment and sink his teeth into his neck, drawing out some precious nutrient and leaving him in mortal agony? Will Dennis thought his position had brought him face to face with some pretty cruel and violent people, but he always had the sense that he and the force behind him had the upper hand. They were there to punish, and punish they would. This was different. No court, no laws, no objections and motions to strike mattered. He was as helpless as the women who had fallen victim.

  "You understand, I hope, that I was cooperating with your people. I've kept your existence secret, just like they wanted, and like I'm sure you want, right?"

  "What did they promise you?" he asked.

  "Me? I just do what I have to do to help. It's all for the better, isn't it? I mean as I understand it, you will be the answer to all diseases and illness, to aging itself. You're quite a wonderful thing."

  Will saw him turn his eyebrows in. He had him thinking.

  "You're absolutely right about this," Will continued, excited by the apparent breakthrough. "You've got to stop this Dr. Barnard. She doesn't have the same view of things. She's threatening to make trouble. She threatened me on the phone just an hour or so ago, in fact."

  "Oh?"

  "She said she was going to go public and expose you. She was going to put the blame on me. Actually, when you came up to me at the gas station just now, I was talking with your people, deciding how we would handle her."

  "Well, now you know how we'll handle her."

  "Yeah, right. That's good. She's at this cabin that belongs to the old doctor she works with, Templeman. It's on the lake, in the woods. We're about forty minutes away. I know exactly where it is. I've fished on that lake, hunted around it, too. I grew up here, you know."

  "That's nice," he said.

  Will actually felt himself relax.

  "Now she's not alone. I'm giving you important information here. She's with her fiance, this lawyer, Curt Levitt. He's the one who you, I mean, who Dr. Stanley, confronted. You've got to be careful."

  "Oh, I'm careful," he said. "Drive on and keep talking. It's better than the radio." Will saw him smiling. Was he really satisfied or was he toying with him. Keep talking? Yes, that was the way to handle people like him.

  I'll slip out of this, he thought. Somehow, I'll survive.

  He drove on and he kept talking.

  Although the day began quite overcast, the cloud cover thinned and weakened until direct sunlight wove through the gauzy layers and brightened the water on the lake. In the distance it looked like ice to Terri. The wind had died down and the boat barely rocked now. She was lying back in Curt's arms. They had just eaten their cheese and bread and had nearly finished the bottle of Merlot. She felt cozy and warm as she leaned back. He leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead and move off some strands of her hair. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

  "Happy?" he asked.

  "Content. Glad I followed your orders for a change, Doctor," she told him and he laughed.

  "Why is it," he asked, "that I get the feeling this is really a unique occasion?"

  "Don't worry. I'll settle down to just a mere twenty hours a day," she replied, and they both laughed softly. She closed her eyes again and he took a deep breath.

  "I think I must have dug up sour worms or something. We haven't had a bite."

  "Oh. I saw the bob thing bobbing
."

  "You did?"

  He sat up quickly, moving her off him to seize the pole. When he wound in the line, he saw the hook was clean.

  "Oh, that's great," he said. "We've provided a picnic for the fish, too." She laughed harder, her voice carrying over the water.

  "If we don't catch anything significant, don't tell my father," he warned. "He's never gone fishing without success."

  "Stop competing with him. You're your own man, Curt."

  "Aye, aye, Dr. Freud."

  She smiled and shook her head. Then she turned serious.

  "Do you suppose there is some kind of psychological drive to recreate ourselves in our children?"

  "Are you kidding? If I heard him say, 'when I was your age...' once, I heard it a hundred thousand times."

  "Maybe that's part of this unrelenting drive to clone ourselves," she offered.

  "I'm sure it is. I'm sure it has a lot to do with ego. I'm so good. There should be more of me. Of course, there would have to be more of you or I'd be in competition with myself," he said. He laughed, but she didn't. "What?"

  "That's what he's all about, I think, competition. In the end he wants to be better than his original self."

  "He's already better. He's survived."

  "Yes," she said. She looked worried.

  "Terri?"

  "Let's go back, Curt. I want to go back," she said with that final and firm tone he recognized.

  "Why?"

  "As far as I know there are only two people, three now counting you, who know the truth, Curt. The other person is Will Dennis, and we've handled him wrong, I think. This isn't a matter of negotiations. You don't negotiate with cancer or pneumonia. You eliminate it.

  "Or," she added pulling in her fishing pole, "it eliminates you."

  "Right," he said, somewhat annoyed. "I knew this vacation idea was a dream."

  "It's not that," she began, but he pulled the cord and got the little engine going, revving it up as high as he could to drown her out. She fell back against her seat as he turned the small boat and headed for the dock. She saw him squinting.

  "What?" she asked, sitting up and turning.

  "Someone's on the dock waving at us. It looks like... our boy, Will Dennis," he said.

  Her heart stopped and started with a thick, resonant pounding she could feel in her temples.

  "Is he alone?"

  "Far as I can tell he is," Curt said.

  They drew closer.

  "I guess you got to him," he added.

  Will Dennis stood back as they brought the boat in, Curt cutting the engine and stepping up.

  "Will," he said, nodding.

  "I thought it would be better to come out here to speak with you, Doc," he told Terri as Curt helped her out of the boat.

  "Something new happen?"

  "Yes. We got him," he said.

  "You got him?"

  "How did that happen so fast?" Curt asked. He reached for the poles and the marine bag.

  Will shook his head and smiled.

  "These guys are good. I'll never resist calling in the Feds. Petty jealousies in law enforcement help only the perps."

  "That's very big of you, Will," Curt said.

  "Yeah, well, you grow with your problems, Curt." He looked toward the house.

  "Great place. How about we have some coffee and talk?"

  "Okay," Terri said. She looked at Curt who nodded and the three of them started for the house. "Well, I can't deny this is a big load off my mind," she continued. It was Curt who first heard the footsteps behind them and turned. Terri had her arms folded and her head down. She kept walking beside Will Dennis.

  "Terri," Curt called.

  She paused and turned.

  Dr. Garret's duplicate was standing there, holding a pistol pointed directly at Curt. She looked up at Will.

  "There was nothing I could do," he whined, his arms out. "He had me in his gunsights the whole time I was on the dock. He jumped me at a gas station about an hour ago and made me take him out here."

  "Made you?" Curt asked.

  "At gunpoint," Will added.

  "What do you want?" Curt asked, stepping forward aggressively, ignoring the gun.

  "Curt!" Terri warned.

  Now that she was actually confronting him, she could of course see how perfect was the mirror image of Dr. Garret Stanley, only she noticed some swelling in his cheeks, a reddening of his complexion, and a clear symptom of a thyroid problem -- bulging in his eyes. He was breathing hard, too.

  "What do we want, Mr. Dennis?" he asked Will, smiling. "Well? He wants to know. Tell him."

  "He wants more," Will said obediently.

  "More? More of what?" Curt asked.

  "More of everything, just like everyone else. Let's all walk slowly to the house. Mr. Dennis had a good idea. We'll have some coffee and talk." Curt hesitated on the balls of his feet, poised to charge.

  "Curt, please," Terri cried. It wasn't only the sight of the pistol that frightened her now. The man was having some sort of physical reaction and from her perspective, it made him look even more maddening.

  Curt looked at her and then joined her, glaring up at Will Dennis.

  "This is your responsibility," he told him. Will said nothing. Curt grasped one of the fishing poles tightly. Terri could see it in his face -- he was thinking of spinning and striking him.

  "Don't," she whispered.

  "Don't be plotting anything," he said seeing them talk. "Stay together," he ordered when they reached the door. "Slowly, go ever so slowly. I'm right behind you."

  Terri opened the door and they all entered. She looked back at him and saw he was sweating profusely now. His gun hand trembled a bit.

  "Mr. Dennis," he said pointing to the rocker. "Why don't you take the center seat. You're used to being the center of things, aren't you? Go on," he snapped. Will looked at Terri and Curt and then walked to the chair and sat.

  "Comfy?" he asked him.

  "Listen," Will began, but stopped and stared.

  He had his hand up for silence and then tilted his head as if he was listening to something. He smiled and nodded. Then, he stepped forward and shot Will Dennis dead center in the heart.

  In the house the .38 sounded like a cannon. Will Dennis's chest seemed to explode, the blood spurting down his white shirt. The impact made him rock in the chair. His look of surprise froze on his face and his head fell forward and the rocking stopped.

  Terri screamed.

  He turned to her and Curt, who were frozen in place, Terri clutching Curt's hand.

  "My God," she managed.

  "We had no need of him now," he said, nodding at the dead Will Dennis. "All he would do is wiggle and squirm, lie, and make every effort to save his pathetic life. It's his nature. He lacks the pure honesty of someone like me who never denies his true purpose.

  "You two should feel honored," he continued, "I'm truly the New Man, the future of the species. All we've been up to now is God's little experiment, not yet perfected. Oh, well, at least He has given us the ability to finish His work, eh?"

  He wiped his forehead with the back of his left hand and saw the layer of sweat. He glanced at himself in the mirror hanging on the wall and turned to Terri.

  "What do you think, Doc?"

  "You don't look well," she said.

  "I know." He smiled. "But I know what I need to make myself well, better than well," he said. "You're not as young as I like them these days, but I know you can give it to me."

  TWENTY-THREE

  "I can help you more easily," she said. "You look like you're suffering a vitamin B, deficiency and acquiring beriberi. I have B-complex serum in my medical bag. A simple shot..."

  He shook his head.

  "No, that's not enough. Even with a continuous IV feed, they kept me in a nearly semiconscious state compared to how I can be," he said, "They were never very interested in my being a fully active individual. Everything has become more complicated. There's only one way to rea
ch the level we need now. I have two mouths to feed, so to speak. You see," he said to Curt who moved protectively toward Terri, "that's what we really meant by more. We need more." The look in Curt's face told Terri he was going to do something dramatic and drastic any moment. Surely he would die, she thought. There was no way to reason with this person. Something Doctor Stanley had told her about people who believed clones lacked souls returned. There was no remorse, no sense of morality in this laboratory offspring. Whatever Doctor Stanley had created, he hadn't foreseen a certain mad coldness.

  Only one thing came to mind as a solution. She ripped the marine bag from Curt's hands and opened it to pull out the serrated fisherman's knife. He laughed when she held it up for him to see.

  "What do you think you're going to do with that?" he asked. "You can't stop me with that."

  "I'm going to keep you from getting what you need, then," she said and brought the blade to her neck where she would cut quickly into her carotid artery. Death would be quick. "You know the human body," she said. "You know what happens once I do this."

  "You won't," he said.

  "Why not? You're going to kill me anyway, aren't you? That's what will happen. The only difference is, from how you are degenerating, I can be assured you will die too."

  He shook his head and looked at Curt with a certain new desperate interest in his eyes.

  "You won't do that, but just in case, Curt will precede me to the Afterlife."

  "Or I'll go for you now and you'll shoot me," Curt threatened, not sure where Terri was heading with all this. He took a step forward.

  Finally, the look of confidence left his face. He was getting redder, breaking out in what looked like hives. He pulled at his neck collar, the sweat now dripping off his cheeks. He glanced at the dead Will Dennis and then back at them.

  "Let Curt go," she said, "and I'll drop the knife. Once he's out that door and in our vehicle, I'll give you the knife."

  "No," Curt said.

  "Do it," she ordered, pressing the knife against her skin enough to cause some bleeding.

  "Terri!" Curt cried. He didn't know what to do first, get that knife out of her hand or lunge for the killer.