CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
When I do finally wake up, it is a sudden experience. There is no gentle easing of my conscious mind as if I were a submarine finally coming up to break the surface. No. I go from dead asleep to wide awake in the blink of an eye. Instead of a submarine, I am a helium balloon that had been held under water and released. I rocket towards the surface of wakefulness and don’t look back.
I blink and look around at my claustrophobic surroundings in an attempt to reorient myself. I recognize the space as a closet, but I can also tell it isn’t my closet. Even in the dark shadows that surround me, I can tell it looks different. It feels different. It just smells different.
The Darkness brings back the memories of where I am and how I got here, and I realize that was what woke me from my semi-hibernation. It wanted me awake, and it must have just flipped the internal switch that makes that happen. The memories of the prison and what I accomplished there come back to me along with the warmth of knowing that I did something positive. I made the world a better place by removing people who had no place in it. Some part of me knows the Darkness is influencing my thoughts and emotions, but I’m not bothered by it. By now I’ve come to realize it has my best interests in mind. It is helping me become stronger. Helping me embrace why I exist.
Checking my internal clock, I see that I’ve been in here for almost three days. I’ve been asleep and away from the world for quite a bit longer than I’d planned, but I think it was necessary. Standing and stretching out my limbs, I notice I feel better than I have in a long time. I feel rested and content and at peace. Losing myself to sleep was much more needed than I’d realized. I thought I didn’t need sleep anymore, but maybe that was only because it was a side effect of fighting my nature. My constant struggle with resisting the Darkness was eating away at me in ways I didn’t even understand. I might have been living with my choices, but I wasn’t really alive. Not like I am now.
I may have thought I knew what energy was before, but whatever I had felt then pales in comparison to how I feel now. This is incredible, and I’m nothing but grateful to the Darkness for helping me see the error of my past ways. I am who I was always supposed to be now.
Opening the closet door and stepping out into the small house’s front entryway, I notice that it is dusk and the sun is going down behind the distant trees outside the back windows. I’ve woken up at the perfect time: it will be dark soon, and I won’t have to avoid any daylight. I’m sure this was intentional. The Darkness knew what it was doing.
I can still see the outline of our warehouse in the distance through the fading light as I step out the front door and close it behind me. My feet easily fall into a jogging pace as my body loosens up, and then I slowly goose my muscles until I hit a full out sprint. Wind tears past me as I jump over decrepit fences and crumbling driveways, and I arrive at the front door of the warehouse in just under a minute.
It feels like that exertion took no amount of energy at all. It emptied me of nothing. I am stronger than I have ever been in my entire life.
Pushing open the door and stepping inside, I look around for Ren. Surprisingly he isn’t at his computer. Scanning the vast and cavernous main floor, I spot him standing next to a new table that wasn’t there when I’d left a few days before. Even from this distance I can see it’s covered in what appears to be a science fair exhibit. There are glass vials and beakers and burners laid out everywhere on the workspace, and from behind him I can see that he is busily working on pouring something from one bottle to another.
The table is near his workbench that he’d used to construct my blood lampreys. Those beautiful little devices that I used to suction out blood from the thugs after I’d knocked them unconscious. It pulled a pint of blood from them, and then he’d somehow designed it so that it would break a small vial of my own saliva over the wound to heal it. He had thought of everything and designed and built them himself. The man wasn’t just good with computers. He seemed to be adept at almost anything that involved creating things with either his mind or his hands.
But this table is new. And I’m intrigued by it.
Quietly closing the door behind me, I start to silently pad across the room towards him so that I can step up and see what he’s working on. Not wanting to disturb him, I work on making no sound at all as I enter and move towards him. But he stops me before I even get halfway across the room.
“Welcome back, Cat,” he says in a flat tone which catches me by surprise. Both in the fact that he even knew I was here and in his absolute lack of emotion in recognizing me. I expected more than that upon my return. “Where ya been?”
Slowing my approach a bit, I study his form as he continues to work. “I’ve been sleeping,” I tell him. “Found a closet in one of our abandoned houses. I was too tired to make it home, so I curled up there.”
“Hmm,” he continues as he watches a liquid turn from yellow to blue in one of the vials and nods his head. “I didn’t think we could sleep anymore.”
“Me either,” I say as I finally step up next to him and check out his impressive spread on the table. “It was my first time since all this started. I guess it caught up to me.”
He finally turns to look at me and acknowledge my presence, and I see immediately something is off. Or several somethings are off. His expression is not one I’ve ever seen on him before. He’s almost indifferent and there is a relaxed blankness to him that I don’t recognize. It matches his new eyes which have always been a startling blue in the past, but are now black. A deep black with only the faintest ring of blue around the outermost edges.
But the biggest change of all is in his scent. I’ve been noticing something different in it for weeks now, but I haven’t asked him about it. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, and I wasn’t sure if it was even my place to ask. How do you tell a person that they smell “different”? Plus, would he even know why his own smell changed? He might not fully grasp his own scent. It would probably be a pointless conversation to even have. But the scent that had been forming around him previously is now gone. It’s been replaced with a new one. This new scent still has a hint of Ren, but that’s all it is. A hint. The majority of the underlying taste is completely altered.
His head cocks to one side as he watches me stare at him, and he smiles. “You’re confused aren’t you?” he asks me. “I know. I can see it in your eyes.” He then turns back to the vials in front of him before continuing, “And I can smell it on you.”
“Smell it on me?” I ask and my confusion deepens. A thought then begins to creep up my spine and make me shiver. “Wait a minute, Ren,” I say. “How exactly did you know I was here? When I got home?”
“I heard you,” he says simply. “When you were crossing the floor. And when you opened the door,” he tells me and then waits for a second before finishing with, “I could also barely hear you when you were crossing the parking lot, but I didn’t realize the sound was you at first.”
“You heard me?” I repeat a bit astonished. I don’t make noise when I move anymore. Running silently and moving without making a noise has become second nature to me now. Nobody should ever hear me approach them. Let alone someone who was distracted and working. And inside a building. That isn’t possible.
No normal human should be able to do that. Which means the only way Ren could do it was if he wasn’t a normal person anymore. But that means…
With that thought, everything begins to click into place for me. Ren’s attitude and his altered scent and his heightened ability to hear me through a concrete wall all mean one thing. Ren isn’t a normal human anymore.
“Wait a minute, Ren,” I say gasping a little. “Do you mean…” I have trouble actually saying my suspicion out loud.
“Yes, Catarina,” he says with confirmation in his voice as he turns back to face me while abandoning his work on the table. “I’m like you now. I’m infected.”
“But how?” I ask incredulously. “How did you get infected with t
his? I don’t understand.”
He smiles wryly at me for a moment before plunging ahead. “You’ve missed quite a bit these last few days. Actually, no,” he corrects himself. “These last several weeks. Maybe even months.”
“What have I missed?”
“Well, for one, my cancer has gotten worse. Much worse. My blood and bone morrow have been breaking down at a faster rate than the medical tests predicted. The last time I went in to see my doctor she told me I had only a few months left to live. She tried to convince me again to try an intensive round of chemo, but I turned her down. Even if it was successful the best we could hope for was an extension of a few months. Curing me and ridding my body of the poison was beyond discussion. I wasn’t going to spend my remaining time on earth weak and frail and bed-ridden. It’s not who I am, and it also would have meant leaving you and abandoning all this. I just couldn’t do that.”
“It’s gotten worse,” I repeat numbly. “Months left?” It makes sense, though. That must explain why his scent had been changing lately. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, but it was the cancerous poison eating away at his insides. My sense could detect the change, but I just didn’t know what I was picking up.
“Well, to be honest. I had months left when I talked to my doctor. But that was several months ago. Everything lately has been absolutely borrowed time. I’ve kind of just been waiting for my body to give up the battle. Until that day arrived, though, I figured I would just keep helping you do what we do. Each day we worked together we were accomplishing something, and that made it better. Or at least easier for me to accept.”
What he’s telling me is awful, but it doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t look close to death. Instead he looks incredibly healthy. Healthier than I’ve seen him in a long time. He looks almost robust. Plus, his dying wouldn’t explain his ability to hear me. There must be more to this.
“You said ‘first’ earlier,” I say. “That implies there’s a second?”
“There is. And it’s a pretty big one. I’ve been studying you for a while now, Cat. Your abilities and what you can accomplish. Your struggles with your appetite. Your body’s need for blood and a lack of a need for traditional food. The way your saliva does that weird thing to people when you bite them. And also your own blood and how it works.
“I’ve been running some tests in my free time to see if I can figure out how it works. How you work. Whether there is a cure at all. Or whether it can be spread,” he tells me and his quirky smile twitches and grows. “I believe I’ve figured it out.”
“You have?” I ask and my eyebrows shoot up with both surprise and a tinge of hope. “You know what’s wrong with me and how to cure it?”
“Not exactly,” he says and his smile fades a bit. “I’m not sure it can be cured. Not easily. But I did figure out the other part.”
“What other part?”
“I know how it can be spread,” he tells me with a slight shrug.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I’ve wanted to be cured of this ever since waking up that night in the alley with the old man. That was the only thing I really wanted him to find out. How to make all of this stop so I could go back to my old life. Spreading it to other people? Why would I even want to do that? Or know how to accomplish it? Why would I ever willingly inflict this upon another person?
“What?” I ask incredulously and my attitude changes immediately. “How is that…” I begin, but I’m at too much of a loss of words to continue.
Ren quickly begins talking before I can interrupt him. “It’s an infection,” he tells me. “Of the blood. I don’t know how it started, but it’s essentially just an incredibly powerful virus. A virus that not only infects the host, but also begins making biological changes once it has established itself. It makes alterations to the DNA so that it can feast more easily on what it needs most. On what drives it.”
I can’t find the words to respond, so instead I just stare at him.
“Blood. There’s something in blood that feeds the virus and makes it stronger. And the stronger it becomes, the more changes it makes and the more blood it needs to consume. From what I can tell, though, the host’s blood doesn’t work. The DNA changes the virus makes has the side effect of ruining the blood for its own needs. It becomes unappetizing thus forcing whomever is infected to seek out fresh blood instead.
“From what I can tell, the virus has designed itself to alter the human body into a form that can obtain new blood to feed it as easily as possible. It increases strength and healing and heightens senses and whatever else it can think of to make tracking down fresh blood a priority for its human host. On top of that, the more the virus is fed, then the stronger it becomes and the better it is at changing and adapting its host. It becomes a symbiotic relationship. The host body feeds the virus, and the virus adapts the host in return to make future feedings easier. It’s truly a genius cycle.”
“You figured all of this out?” I ask a bit impressed. Knowing how whatever is inside of me works is fascinating, but also a bit creepy. Knowing all of my actions come from a virus infecting me is bit disgusting. And depressing.
“Yeah,” he tells me. “A few weeks ago. We just haven’t really had a chance to sit and talk. Plus, I was also a bit worried how you’d react once you found out. Especially when I started thinking about number three.”
“Number three?” I ask.
“I knew I was dying. Then I figured out how whatever it was that was happening to you worked and could be spread to others. Your blood. If enough of your blood is consumed by another then the virus will take root in them and the process begins again. That’s how it replicates to other people. Having them consume some of your blood.”
“Wait, they have to drink my blood?”
“Not necessarily, but it would be the easiest method. The problem is that it takes several ounces of your blood for the virus to activate and work its magic. If a person were to be just splashed with your blood? Then nothing. And I don’t think it being on the outside of them is enough, either. It’s why you’ve been hurt in fights before, but we haven’t had clones of you popping up. They may get your blood on them, but if it isn’t in their mouth, and in a large enough quantity, then there’s no change.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Ren,” I interrupt him. “I never drank anybody’s blood for me to get infected in the first place. How did this get started with me in the first place?”
“I’m not positive on that one,” he admits. “But I have theories. You’ve told me the story of that fateful night multiple times, and my best guess is that the old guy that you woke up next to in the alley was infected. He probably was trying to feed on you, since you were out by yourself that night, but something happened. You fought back, or there was bad luck on his part, or maybe a combination of both. He managed to fall and get himself impaled on that pipe. If he was weak enough when it happened, then even the virus wouldn’t have been strong enough to keep him alive.”
“Ok, maybe,” I concede. “But I didn’t drink his blood.”
“Not intentionally, I agree,” he tells me. “That’s where bad luck on your part probably came in. If that pipe pierced his heart or an artery, then there would have been quite a bit of blood. Blood that would have been shooting out of him in large and sudden volumes. Most likely, you had the misfortune of getting a mouthful of it. That’s how it got into your system. You did say there was a lot of blood on the ground when you woke up.”
“There was. It was everywhere,” I say remembering that alley and the events that followed. “Even so, shouldn’t I remember that? How is that something that’s completely blocked out?”
Then it hits me. I know exactly why I have no memory of the events leading up to the alley. “He fed on me,” I mumble. “His saliva.”
“That was my thought, too. He must have either just started feeding or just finished when it happened. You were in that slumber-state that we always notice your victims going into after you’ve bitt
en them. You couldn’t remember what happened. No matter how much you wanted to.”
Speaking of remembering. “How exactly does all this connect to your number three?”
“Number three,” he picks back up, “was my wondering how the virus would work on the disease that has been ravaging my body. I had mostly figured out how your virus worked. Then discovering how it was passed from one person to another was simple enough. The next step was seeing which would win if I pitted them against each other, the cancer or the virus. I pulled some of my blood, and I used some of your blood that you’d given up and I ran experiments.
“The virus won. Every time. It ate the cancerous cells and converted them to become more functional for its goal. My diseased cells didn’t stand a chance.
“Which meant I now had a decision to make. My number three. Which was worse for me…dying from the cancer that was eating away at me or willingly infecting myself in order to live longer? Dying now with a relatively clean soul or choosing to be on this earth longer but possibly losing myself and who I am in the process? I really wanted to stick around on this planet for as long as possible in order to keep making a difference and making it a better place, but I wasn’t sure I was willing to make the sacrifice. It’s been keeping me up as I thought about it.
“And then you helped make the decision for me, Cat,” he tells me with both sorrow and anger in his eyes.
“Me?” I respond. “What did I do?”
“I had planned to talk to you about all of this after you confronted Chadwick. Lay everything out and explain what I had learned and see what your thoughts were. We would discuss it together and come to a conclusion that made sense.”
“Why didn’t you, Ren?” I ask now understanding what his decision was. I’ve suspected it on some level since our conversation started. “I would have happily talked with you. Maybe helped convince you otherwise.”
“Because you robbed me of that decision. I believe my soul was relatively clean when you entered that prison. I was prepared to meet my maker. Either path was still open to me; I would have been content whichever way I went. But not anymore. My soul has been tainted now. I fear what may happen to me if I were to be judged for my actions.”
Catharsis (Book 3): Catastrophe Page 20
