by Schow, Ryan
“Where is she?” Netty demanded. Her face was anger. Pure determination.
“I can take you to her,” Georgia said, pushing the blankets aside, sliding out of bed.
Brayden, who was asleep beside her, bobbed open his eyes, rubbed his stubbled head and for the briefest of moments, seemed to forget about Abby. Then his expression darkened, and whatever peace he might have had was knocked painfully from his heart. In silence, she and Brayden got dressed and within fifteen minutes the three of them headed out the front door.
Irenka was still asleep in her bedroom.
At Gerhard’s lab, Georgia used the key Abby gave Brayden before she died, then moved quickly inside in search of the scientist. They passed Heim’s brownish blood stains and the stains Arabelle left behind when she was shot and killed shortly afterwards.
No one spoke.
They didn’t stop to mourn.
Georgia didn’t even bother to gauge Netty’s reaction. She hustled them straight down to the lab where, front and center, the ruined pile of meat that was once the boy who killed Arabelle and Abby sat like a charred pile of dinosaur shit. The lab stunk of smoked flesh. Beyond the crispy boy-remains, the new version of Gerhard sat exhausted, nearly lifeless, in front of the glass canister containing Arabelle’s folded, dead body.
Gerhard’s hair was thrashed, his clothes disorderly. The pinkish fluid in Arabelle’s container had nasty looking pockets of pale greenish fluid, like little sour apple death blooms. Proof she was not only dead, but rotting.
Georgia turned her eyes to Abby’s container, expecting to see her friend floating in the same putrid liquid, but for some reason hers was not like Arabelle’s.
Netty walked to Abby’s container, put the flat of her hand on the curved glass and started crying. It began as the kind of crying that sounded like sniffling, but really got going moments later.
Georgia turned and saw Brayden sitting in the corner, not looking at anything. Post traumatic stress disorder. A common condition, she assumed, to seeing one of your best friends being killed.
Georgia looked over at Gerhard and said, “You need to fix her.”
The new version of Gerhard, this handsome mess, he didn’t even twitch, much less respond. If not for his opened, unmoving eyes, he might not even have been awake. He hadn’t moved when Netty started crying, and he didn’t respond when Georgia demanded he take care of her. He seemed checked out mentally, physically and emotionally.
“Fix her!” she screamed. Rage took hold of her. It fought to consume her, tearing through her in snappish torrents, as if it needed to possess the body. If this kept up, she was certain she’d need a priest. One who performed exorcisms.
Gerhard’s eyes cleared and quietly, deferentially, in a voice thick with the resignation that bad things had happened and there was no way back, he said, “I don’t think I can.”
Speechless to his claim, her aura sparking with energy, Georgia drilled him to the core with wild, haunting eyes. Her milky white skin dulled to a grey, translucent pallor. Veins beneath the layers of her derma began showing through, pencil-thin lines snaking the length of her body. The air they breathed, it began to cook, warming their skin and lungs with every breath. In mere seconds, Georgia’s eyes dilated entirely, the iris’s nearly devoured by pupils that were black and consuming, save for their edges, which sizzled with the thinnest ring of fire.
In seconds, the air in the lab blistered with an almost furnace-like heat. The small space became suffocating.
“Georgia,” Brayden warned, now inexplicably alert, “you’ll burn us all.”
“No,” she said in a voice that sounded too deep and too gravely to be hers. “Just him.”
That’s when the shriek of an alarm caused the now sweating Gerhard to turn to another glass canister: a redheaded teenage girl’s.
She was writhing in her own pink gel, her pregnant, nude body making quick squatting motions, like she was trying to push something out.
“Scheissa,” Gerhard swore. He slapped at the fire in his chest, unconsciously, then became alert. Georgia was trying to set his heart on fire. Literally.
4
The room went from near blast furnace temperatures back to normal in a startling amount of time. The change effected Georgia most. Did she have that kind of power on tap whenever she needed it? Then again, the boy-shit in the center of the room was proof she could target and kill. But to stifle an entire room? To be able to smoke everyone? She looked at her skin almost like it was someone else’s, but it had returned to its normal peach tones.
Again, she wondered, is this a temporary condition? Or am I this permanent monster? This sick weapon of Gerhard’s?
The alarm continued to sound, each beep more poignant than the last. Gerhard inspected the pregnant girl, shut off the alarm, did a quick once-over of the readings. Rivulets of blood seeped from the reddish V between her legs, dissolving slowly into the watery pink gel. The heart rate monitor on her machine had all the variance of a stock market crash. Georgia’s attention turned to the redhead in the tank.
The veins in the girl’s forehead bulged like stretched worms beneath the upper layers of her skin. Her entire face strained. Went crooked. Became a scream that couldn’t come out. She had the look like she was fighting to get out of her own skin. Out of her body. She convulsed and pushed, labored to get the babies out of her. When her eyes snapped open, everyone took a small step backwards. Georgia all but wondered, is this normal? The girl’s eyes squirmed with panic, darting back and forth, riotous with worry. Then they dipped down to the basketball-sized belly jutting out beneath her swollen breasts and the writhing stopped completely. She was fixated on her belly, as if it wasn’t supposed to be there. As if it wasn’t hers but some strange, prosthetic attachment.
She put her hands on it, jerked them away at the touch, then shot her eyes squarely on Gerhard as if to say, “What is this? What have you done to me?”
Georgia knew right then the redhead hadn’t known she was pregnant. She was in stasis through all of it and now she was waking up in the pink liquid realizing there was something inside her trying to get out. Maybe she’s like me, Georgia thought: an experiment, but different.
“They all do this,” Gerhard announced. As if that explained everything. “All the girls, these test subjects, they all wake up right before birth, find themselves pregnant, think they are drowning.”
The last sentence seemed to hang in the air forever, as if further discussion of the matter required explanations he was neither ready nor able to provide.
“And then what?” Netty finally asked.
“It’s like the others,” Gerhard muttered. “They all just die.” Gerhard’s breath had that stale, tart stench of a hard night of drinking. If they tested his sweat, Georgia was sure it would be 90 proof.
“What others?” Netty snapped, like she hated the man with vigor. “What do you mean they all die?”
Gerhard punched a succession of buttons on the digital pad assigned to the girl’s canister. The pink fluid started draining.
“Rebecca,” Brayden whispered as he looked at her, his voice sandpaper rough, full of emotion. The way he was looking at her, Georgia knew the thing he was feeling was adoration. How could she know this emotion but not be able to experience it? Abby felt the same thing for the girl. That’s why she was so desperate to get her back.
So this is Rebecca, Georgia thought. The kidnapped girl she, Abby and Brayden came to save but never saved at all.
“We’re going to deliver these babies,” Gerhard said, resolute.
“Babies?” Brayden asked.
“Yes, Brayden, babies. As in three.”
5
Gerhard barked birthing orders, orders everyone followed without hesitation or question. After all, he was the doctor. He needed things like water, towels, tools. Gerhard swung the glass canister horizontal. Rebecca passed out, floated to the back of the glass canister. It was clear her body was losing the fight. The beep-beep-beepin
g of the monitor slowed as Rebecca’s heart rate dropped. Her eyes fluttered open and closed. Finally, they closed and stayed closed.
She went perfectly still.
“If we don’t deliver before she dies, the babies will die, too,” Gerhard announced.
Georgia recognized the impatience in the doctor’s eyes, how he wanted everything and everyone to move faster. At one point he slapped the flat of his palm on the glass canister and cursed both loudly and passionately in German. Like that would speed the draining process.
Rebecca was dying.
His experiment was failing, again.
When the canister was mostly empty, Gerhard and Brayden lifted Rebecca’s body onto a sterile delivery table Georgia wheeled into the lab just minutes before.
Gerhard spread the girl’s legs, measured the cervix, then stopped when he saw the baby’s crown. Brayden must have seen the same thing, too, because he looked away fast, like he might puke. Gerhard made a face at him.
“She’s seven centimeters dilated,” Gerhard announced, as if anyone knew the significance of the number.
His eyes skipped to Georgia, who—unlike Brayden—bore no emotion. She felt nothing, so she was not compelled to turn away. She wondered what Rebecca meant to Brayden. Who she was. Why she meant so much to Abby that her friend died trying to save her.
She wondered, would anyone die trying to save me?
The new Gerhard said, “If she doesn’t regain consciousness, we’re going to have to deliver the first child on the floor.”
“What?” Netty asked, astounded. “The floor?”
“We’ll have to hold her in a squatting position. It shortens the birthing canal. Plus gravity will help. We need to get this first baby out and fast. There are two more behind it.”
Gerhard tried to rouse Rebecca. She wasn’t responding. He slapped her face, but the girl gave no response. It was obvious he had done this before. Netty hurried from the lab and returned in even more of a hurry with fresh towels and water. She held the items, not knowing what to do with them.
Rebecca’s cervix was stretched thin and red, the opening as wide as a soda can, a yawning mouth with what looked like the top of a baby’s head pushing itself out. There was no more waiting.
“Get her on the ground,” Gerhard ordered. “Netty, spread those towels on the floor.”
Netty did as instructed, then helped lower Rebecca’s still wet body onto the towels. Georgia and Brayden held her as best as they could in a squatting position while Gerhard worked the lower abdomen. Brayden did his best to be courteous, but in the end, her nudity didn’t matter because she got very heavy very fast.
The way he was looking, his muscles were threatening to cramp and all kinds of pain was setting in.
His face contorted with the burden, Brayden shot a look at Georgia who looked back at him with absolutely no expression. She wondered, is this really that difficult for him? Holding her? She watched him straining, wondering if her mutations made her physically strong as well. Was she like Abby before she died? Was she made to be nearly indestructible?
After a veritable eternity, Gerhard announced, “Okay, finally.”
Slowly, he cradled the baby’s popped-out head, and it was a beautiful moment that was almost instantly spoiled by the beep-beep-beeping of now another alarm: the smaller, portable heart monitor Gerhard attached to Rebecca once she was on the ground.
Gerhard’s eyes flashed to the monitor.
Rebecca stopped breathing. There was one long beeeeeeep as she flat lined.
“Do something!” Netty screamed, unable to keep her composure any longer. Gerhard glanced at the monitor, but stayed with the baby. It was like he didn’t care that Rebecca had just died.
The first shoulder slid out, then the next. From there the rest of the baby’s body slid free, alive. He rubbed the newborn’s nose and mouth lightly downward to clear the fluids from its system. The baby coughed and snorted until the liquid drained from its mouth and nostrils. Gerhard set the child on the spare towels, but didn’t clean it off. Time was of the essence. He punched the alarm on the heart monitor. It continued to run flat.
Regarding Rebecca, Gerhard said, “Lay her down. We’ll take the other two caesarean.” Georgia and Brayden lowered Rebecca, laid her gently on the towel-covered concrete floor. Brayden rubbed his hands and arms, clearly in pain from the prolonged effort.
Gerhard started CPR on Rebecca.
A full minute of chest pumping and mouth-to-mouth passed.
He failed to get a pulse.
“Brayden, get me the crash cart over there in the corner and warm the paddles!” Gerhard’s face was blistered red. He kept mopping sweat from his brow. Looking at Georgia, he said, “Open the door. I need some fucking air!”
Georgia opened the door to the lab. Cool, fresh air flooded in. Brayden got the crash cart while Gerhard resumed CPR. Nothing worked.
Brayden fought back his tears. Georgia understood. First Abby, now Rebecca.
The steady, flat hum of the EKG monitor was a screaming announcement that Rebecca was not coming back. She was officially the fourth dead thing that was alive twenty-four hours ago. Georgia watched Netty’s and Brayden’s reactions.
The paddles fully charged, a watery-eyed Brayden nodded to Gerhard.
“Hand me that tube of gel,” he said, pointing to his bag. Brayden wiped his eyes and handed him the tube. Gerhard rubbed the gel on Rebecca’s chest, then placed a paddle above Rebecca’s right nipple, and the other opposite the unbeating heart just below her left breast.
The punch of voltage Gerhard sent through her body arched her back, then she dropped flat on the towels again. Gerhard resumed chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth. To his credit, he worked feverishly through the next two minute interval.
The blue line continued to run straight.
“Up the voltage,” Gerhard snapped. Brayden wiped his eyes, moved the meter until Gerhard said stop. He hit her with the paddles again and after a second the beep-beep-beep of a pulse returned.
Everyone found their breath.
“It’s weak,” Gerhard warned. “Charge the paddles just in case.”
Brayden did as Gerhard said while concern continued to burn bright in his eyes. Everyone held their breaths again.
Then…flat line.
Netty looked like she was about to crack.
“Get me the epinephrine,” he told Georgia. She looked at him funny. She didn’t know what epinephrine was. “The vile of adrenaline. And a needle. The big one.”
Georgia got what he needed, then gave Gerhard the needle and a small vial of epinephrine. The doctor loaded the needle, then handed both the needle and the opened vial back to Georgia.
“Be ready,” he said.
He then placed the charged paddles on Rebecca’s chest and hit her with another burst of voltage.
Her pulse returned.
“Adrenaline, now!” he snapped. Georgia gave him the needle; he drove it straight into her heart. He depressed the plunger, then sat back, took a breath and waited. Sweat trickled down his forehead, dampened the front and back of his shirt, and left huge, dark rings under the armpits of his brand new body.
Rebecca’s heart rate spiked, then steadied out. By now they were all sweating. Gerhard looked exhausted.
“Open a door goddamn it,” he said, weary, mean sounding.
“It is open,” Netty said.
He looked at her, then he looked at the door, which stood open wide. Then, to anyone ready to respond, he said, “In the crash cart is a scalpel. I need it.”
Brayden found the scalpel, handed it to him. Gerhard made a smooth, deep incision, the first through Rebecca’s abdomen, the second through her uterus. For all of her bravado, Netty turned and puked. No one seemed to notice, or stop to check on her.
Everything was moving way too fast.
The second baby was turned sideways with the umbilical chord wrapped tight around its neck. Gerhard removed the baby, gently putting his finger between
the baby’s neck and the chord, but it was too late. The baby was dead.
Gerhard lifted it out, cut away the chord, set it on the table. Everyone stared at it. At this point, Netty had that stricken, faraway look, like she’d gone into hiding inside herself. Brayden looked away, his eyes still raw, still wet. Gerhard put his hands inside Rebecca and pulled out the third baby, which squirmed with life. He handed it to Netty, who held it at arm’s length, uncertain of how to feel or what to do. She had snot in her nostrils and a piece of something she’d thrown up on her chin.
“Put it next to the other one,” Gerhard said. Netty was gentle, like she was worried about hurting it. She held it while Gerhard cut the umbilical chord. Georgia and Brayden cleaned the two babies who had lived while Gerhard carefully and methodically sewed up and stapled Rebecca’s abdomen.
While Georgia felt unaffected, she saw Netty refusing to look at the mother or her children.
When Gerhard was done, he leaned back, wiped his brow and let out a huge, exhausted sigh. He looked at Brayden, who was still holding one of the children and sounding weary, and said, “If you want your friend to live, put that baby down and help me lift her back into the canister.”
Georgia took the baby from Brayden; Brayden and Gerhard lifted Rebecca into the canister. Instead of closing and sealing the lid, Gerhard went to the other room and returned with a different needle.
Georgia hated that her first thought about the new version of Gerhard was that he was a damn good looking man. She envisioned him engulfed in flames, then felt better. To protect them all, she looked away, tried to still the impending rage welling up within her.
“What’s that?” Brayden asked as Gerhard was inserting the needle into Rebecca.
“The same thing I gave Savannah, except not nearly as potent and not self-replicating.”
“You gave her a lot of things,” Brayden said, his voice soft but accusatory.
The new Gerhard spoke without looking at any of them. “Savannah got the Fountain of Youth Serum. She was given the minimum dosage, which wasn’t self-replicating, and that helped her heal as she moved through her first transformation. I was forced to give her the full dosage when getting her through the radiation poisoning. If I hadn’t done that, she would have died. In Rebecca’s case, she’ll get just enough to keep her alive, and to accelerate the healing process. This isn’t a permanent thing.”