The Experiment (Book 3): Infectious Thinking

by Micah B. Edwards

  "Well, I don't want to pay for an Uber for no reason!"

  "Geez, didn't know you'd gotten the power to be super-stingy," she says.

  "Hey, I'm picking up your dinner!"

  "Great, now get me a cab, too. Please?" Regina flutters her eyelashes mockingly.

  "Is it time to have the conversation about unfair social expectations yet?" I mutter.

  "Yes, once we're at Brian's you can complain about the patriarchy," Regina says soothingly. I snort.

  - - -

  We pick up Brian's key from the hospital front desk and soon find ourselves at his apartment. I've never been over here before, but if you'd asked me to guess what it was going to be like, I would have said "sparse." He's never struck me as the sort of guy who spends a lot of time at home or cares about things, so I figured it would be a bare walls kind of place.

  Instead, it's surprisingly well-decorated and warm. It's not a big apartment, but the furniture is quality and well-maintained, the art on the walls is interesting and the floors all have rugs that match the rooms in style and color. He's put thought and care into this place, and it makes me wonder why we hang out at my house instead of here. My place is larger, but much blander. The only thing I've hung on the walls was more drywall to replace the stuff that Vince damaged. And a TV, I suppose. That's sort of like art.

  Regina flops down on the sofa, sighing contentedly. "It feels so good just to lie down. Need me to make space?"

  "Yeah, in a minute," I say. "Lemme stir up some trouble first."

  I page back through my call log until I find Tanger's office number, and call it again. After a few rings, it's picked up.

  "Answering service for Mr. Tanger, would you like to go to voicemail or have him paged?"

  "Page, please. This is the doctor, and it's about Dan Everton."

  "Yes, sir. Anything else?"

  "Please let him know it's urgent." I give her my number, though I assume it's already on her caller ID, then hang up.

  Regina's looking at me expectantly. "I'm poking at Tanger," I say. "We'll see how he responds."

  Less than five minutes later, my phone rings with a number I don't recognize. I put it on speaker. "Hello?"

  "Amici. What do you have?"

  I briefly consider continuing my bluff, but since I have no idea what this mystery doctor sounds like, I ditch that idea immediately. "Surprise, Evan! It's me."

  His voice goes instantly flat. "Dan."

  "You missed me today, Evan. I'm bringing the fight to you now. You'd better pull out all the stops, because I'm about to screw your life up."

  "You think you can touch me? I've ruined better men that you on a whim. I can buy and sell you, Dan. You're nothing. You're worthless. People like you don't matter. You're just a bug underfoot. I won't even notice when I step on you."

  "Ooh, that's gonna sound real good as your campaign slogan, Evs. Did I mention that I've been recording this call?"

  There's a snarl and the line goes dead. Regina asks, "Did you record that?"

  "No; I wish I'd thought to. That could've been a really handy line to have on tape. Show people who's really the bad guy."

  I start to put my phone away, then realize I have a couple more calls to make. The first one goes to voicemail, as I expected, and I leave a message. "Mr. Steele? This is Dan. I'm not going to be able to make it into work tomorrow. Or for the next couple of days, probably. I have to sort out some things, some personal business, and I don't know how long it'll take. I'll let you know as soon as I can."

  "How do you think he'll take that?" Regina asks as I hang up.

  I shrug. "I hope he takes it well, but frankly, I'm getting pretty good at getting fired over this stuff. I can take it in stride these days."

  I dial one more number, and a brusque voice answers. "Sam Peterson."

  "Officer Peterson! Hi. Dan here."

  "Mr. Everton."

  "Um, you said to keep you in the loop. And nothing's happened yet, but I expect it to tomorrow. I think Tanger's going to come after me, using proxies."

  "Why do you expect this to happen tomorrow, Mr. Everton?"

  "I'm a...good guesser?"

  He sighs. "I sincerely wish you would seek my assistance in a more direct manner on these things, instead of as an accessory after the fact."

  "I promise you, I'm taking the direct approach. As much as I can. You saw today, there's no way I can let you guys handle this. Tanger's too poisonous. He'll turn people. I have to do this myself, and I have to do it before he ruins too many other people's lives. He's turning people into living missiles."

  "I hope your direct approach involves less property damage this time."

  "Absolutely. No structures are at risk from me. And the faster I get this done, the less damage Tanger can do, too."

  He sighs again. "Thank you for the warning. I'll keep an eye on the department."

  We hang up, and I shrug at my phone. "Honestly, that went better than expected."

  "So what's next on the agenda?" Regina asks.

  "Movies?" I say. "I've got to get a good night's sleep, but it's early yet. And I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, at least."

  "I know I said this earlier, but you're really good at the silver lining, Dan."

  "Yeah, I get a surprising amount of practice."

  - Chapter Seventeen -

  From my perspective, it's an uneventful evening. At some point during the movies, Regina and I wake up to discover that we've fallen asleep on each other, and decide that that's probably a good sign to call it a night. She grabs me a spare blanket and pillow before retreating to the bedroom, and I stretch out on the couch and resume watching the movie for probably another ten minutes before sleep claims me.

  My dreams suck. I've had trouble with them ever since this superpower nonsense shoved its way into my life. This is no real surprise, since my first experience with the powers ended with me beating a guy to death, more or less. In self defense, sure, but it turns out that doesn't really make you feel a lot better about having blood on your hands. Since then, I've been responsible for at least one more death – and probably more if Vince's clones count, which I think they do. I've been shot, bludgeoned and beaten, and had to watch the same happen to my friends because of me. I've been hit by a car, struck by lightning and trapped in a burning building. So yeah, it's no wonder that my dreams are kind of a cavalcade of horror these days.

  All that said, these are bad even by those standards. I've grown sort of used to dreams of constant fighting, dreams of pain and blood. I routinely see my self-doubts play out in scenarios where I'm the aggressor, relentlessly pursuing people who are only trying to escape my pointless wrath. After all, that's how I feel about the people chasing me, but they always believe they're in the right, and how can I say for sure that they're wrong?

  But the crop of dreams I'm dealing with tonight is nothing so blatant as that, nothing to be examined and analyzed. Instead, it's just a series of small hurts and disappointments, getting steadily sharper as the night goes on. In one, I'm meeting a friend for coffee at By the Beans, but they never show up. I look up from my phone every time I hear the front door jingle, but it's always a stranger, looking at my expectant face with a mix of pity and disgust.

  In another, I'm being fired from Børger by Matt, who's looking at me with regret. "I really wanted to give you a chance, Dan," he says. "I thought everyone else was wrong about you. But I've done all I can here."

  Then it's my parents, kicking me out of the house I rent from them. They won't say why, but I can see anger and sadness hidden in their expressions. I don't know why, but I know I deserve it.

  It goes on and on. Everyone I've known is revealed to have harbored a secret dislike for me. Those who I already knew disliked me make cameos with expressions of vindication, gleeful that finally the rest of the world can see what they always saw. And throughout it all, the ever-increasing feeling in my own gut that I am terrible, I am worthless, and I deserve this.
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br />   Usually when I wake up, it's in the middle of a dream. I often can barely remember it, but I know that there was a story going on. This time, though, when I open my eyes around 5 AM, I feel certain that the dreams had faded away into greyness long before. For the last couple of hours of sleep, I've just been staring into a featureless fog of shame and self-loathing. When I wake up to look blankly at the ceiling of an unfamiliar apartment, it feels very much like that's just continued on into the real world, and that it might never stop.

  I stay like this, staring upwards without moving, for probably half an hour or so before the front door opens. Brian comes in, trying to move quietly, so to avoid making his life any harder, I say, "Hey."

  "Oh, you're awake! Good, dude, 'cause I was going to run into something trying to sneak around here in the dark, you know?" He flips on a light, then recoils. "Whoa! Geez, man. What's that about?"

  "What's what about?"

  "The mask. What'd you do that for?"

  I touch my face, and sure enough, I've grown a mask overnight. "Who's it of?"

  Brian starts to talk, then grimaces. "You might just want to go look, dude. It's something else."

  I sit up and pull on my jeans before walking to the bathroom to see what I've done to weird Brian out so much. When I turn on the light there, I physically take a step back at the sight in the mirror.

  The mask is of me, my face. It's completely recognizable; there's no question that it's me. Which is impressive, since every feature is distorted into a horrible parody of humanity. The brow scowls, a thick ridge over deepset hollows for eyes. The nose is sharp and hatchet-like. The ears lay flush against the skull, slightly pointed and pressed back like those of an angry cat. The mouth is fleshy and gives the impression of being overlarge, something made to drool while it overeats. The wrinkles are deep canyons, poisonous choices etched into the skin.

  It's the face that matches my dreams. A face made to neglect and disappoint, a face of untrustworthiness and idiot malice. It's the face of filth, and it fits.

  I wander back out of the bathroom, and Brian shudders again. "Dude, can you take that off? It's seriously creepy."

  I shrug. "I dunno. Kinda suits how I feel."

  "Man, what? What do you even mean by that?"

  "I dunno. Kinda seems like you guys would be better off without me."

  Brian pauses, then says, "Okay, so I'm just getting off of a long shift, so maybe I'm not gonna put this in the nicest way: shut up and quit feeling sorry for yourself."

  "What?" I ask, shocked.

  "Dude. You're a good guy. That's just an objective fact. You've got your problems, sure, but basically if everyone were like you the only problems we'd have in the world would be sloth and diabetes."

  I laugh, and he continues, "So how come you let this Tanger guy get under your skin at every single opportunity?"

  "What? No, this isn't him. These aren't his ideas. He hasn't been anywhere near here."

  "Yeah?" asks Brian. "I think he's been just about everywhere."

  Retrieving his backpack, he fishes around in the outer pocket and produces a folded square of paper. "These are up all over the city right now."

  I unfold it to find my own face staring back at me in a full-color photo. "WANTED FOR VANDALISM," reads the caption, followed by a bunch of legalese involving law codes and jail time. I feel a fresh wave of disgust for myself, followed immediately by confusion. Why am I blaming myself over this? I haven't vandalized anything. But if it's Tanger who put the sign up....

  "Dude, that mask is creepy expressive," says Brian. "I can actually see the dawning realization on your stupid face. This isn't you. Get that through your thick skull, would you?"

  I look down at the poster in my hands again. "Man, he must have spent all night putting these up."

  Brian nods. "Yeah, I saw them everywhere on the drive home. If they're all loaded like that one is, and I think it's safe to assume that they are, then pretty much everyone's going to be against you right now."

  "Yeah, probably," I say, "but that's not what I'm thinking about right now. If he's been up all night, then he's not going to be operating at peak efficiency."

  "So?" asks Brian.

  "So this is the best time to take the fight to him," I say. "He's tired and more likely to slip up. This is where I can nail him."

  I grab my phone and dial.

  "Answering service for Mr. Tanger, would you like to go to voicemail or leave a message with me?"

  "Do whatever you want. Just tell him this is Dan Everton, and that he's going to have to try a lot harder than that to get to me." I pause, then add, "And if he wants to see some vandalism, he's going to see some vandalism."

  "Sir, threats –" the man on the other end begins, but I've already hung up.

  "There! That ought to keep him stirred up. At least enough to remain on alert, instead of napping to catch up on sleep."

  "Dude," says Brian. "Seriously, go take that mask off. That grin is one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen. You look like you just ran something over with your car and are about to go eat it."

  "That's a remarkably specific expression."

  "Yeah, I couldn't have told you what it looked like before just now, but it's a specifically gross mask. Go take it off, man."

  - Chapter Eighteen -

  I'm sneaking into Tanger's office building. As I pass by a mirror on the wall, I see my reflection, staring back at me with the face of Nosferatu. I touch my face and feel the now-familiar numbness of a callus-mask, but the reflection is still unpleasantly realistic. I turn my eyes away from my own masked image and move on.

  The office is dim and silent. The guard's desk outside of the office waiting room is unmanned, but a concerning dark stain pools out from behind it, spreading slowly into the carpet. I don't go look to see the source. I don't want to know.

  Inside the waiting room, the receptionist's desk is also empty, but every one of the other chairs contains a man or woman in identical suits, staring blankly ahead. As I enter, their eyes all swivel to lock on to me. Their faces gradually twist into angry disdain, and their bodies tense as they slowly rise from their seats, still staring at me.

  "Monster!" the cry goes up. One starts it, but soon they're all chanting it. "Monster, monster! Kill the monster!"

  "I'm not here for you!" I shout. My terrifying vampiric visage sneers, giving the lie to my words. "I'm here for Tanger!"

  "Stop the monster. Kill the monster!" they rumble, advancing. As they come closer, I can make out their faces, and I'm startled to see that I recognize them. There are the two men who were here earlier, apparently still waiting for their appointment, but no longer content to simply scowl at me. There's the receptionist, here after all, whose face twisted with disgust when she learned who I was and who hung up on me. Sergeant Conroy is next to her, looking as furious as when I last saw him at the precinct. Backing him up are the man from the black car who tried to shoot me, and Carl, who tried to run me over with a bulldozer.

  And behind them, more people, impossible people. There's Vince, barely recognizable dressed up in the suit, his hair burned off and his face blackened by flames. Regina stands with him, electricity crackling from her at each step, apparently causing her great agony. And two thickly bearded men, one middle-aged and one young, shuffle along as well. I recognize them only from photos I found online – Aaron Lovell and Jonathan Caraway, the two men who were twisted into mindless ape-things and who I killed.

  All of them advance on me in a tightening knot, and I back up until I run into the receptionist's desk. I jump on top and shout again, "Tanger! I'm here to stop this!" and this time the door to Tanger's office opens.

  Tanger stands there, grinning at me from the far side of the small mob of people. His suit is identical to everyone else's, but appears to have been tailored to fit him specifically. "Come on then, Dan," he says. "Come and stop me."

  The mob is clawing zombie-like at my feet now, grasping for my ankles to pull me to t
he floor. "Call them off! I don't want to hurt anyone else."

  "Don't you?" says Tanger, still grinning. "Then you have a difficult choice."

  A motion behind Tanger catches my eye. Deep within his office I see a man shrouded in shadow, sitting at a sewing machine. He sees me looking and I catch the glint of his smile.

  "Don't mind me," he says. "I just make the suits."

  Hands grab my ankles and yank hard, and I'm falling off the desk to crash to the ground.

  I jerk awake to find myself lying on Brian's couch, my heart pounding. It takes a minute of focused breathing and intentional stillness to calm myself back down. The air smells of bacon and eggs, which helps. It's hard to be panicked when your body is instead telling you that it's time to be hungry.

  I check my cellphone for the time – almost 11 AM – and see I have several texts from Brian. They read:

  Left for bfast with R

  made you some food

  we couldnt eat it with things growing off your face behind us

  I put your creepy mask in a bag. Do not leave it in my house

  I hadn't really thought about what it must look like while the masks are growing. I'd think it would be pretty cool, but apparently I would be wrong. Or Brian's got a weak stomach; either way. Though as an EMT, he'd probably have to have a pretty strong stomach. So I suppose watching the masks grow must be pretty grotesque after all.

  Speaking of stomachs, mine is screaming at me to head for the kitchen, but I make a stop by the bathroom first. There Brian has laid out a hand mirror and a pair of trauma shears, as I'd asked him to. Working carefully, I cut off first the gloves I've grown in the last few hours, then the mask. I make the cuts as small as possible, but even so, they're a little bit ragged. Still, the cuts on the gloves will be covered up by a shirt, and the one on the back of the mask is mostly hidden by the hair. It's nothing we can't fix well enough with superglue, anyway.

  Divested of my latest growths, I finally heed my hunger and go in search of food. After a brief search, I find the source of the delicious smell. There's a plate of potatoes, scrambled eggs and bacon stashed in the oven to keep warm. It's a sizable pile of food, but I dig in like I haven't eaten in days.