Catalyst: A Red Dog Thriller (The Altered Book 1)

by Blou Bryant

  A need to see Hannah overrode his desire to keep his eyes closed and return to blissful oblivion. Still half asleep, he threw off the blanket and gingerly dug his toes into thick carpet and inched through the room, his hand out searching for the wall and a light switch.

  He was not sufficiently awake to be bashful at his nudity, alone in a room with a woman. The horrors of the day before mingled with the nightmares of his sleep, and blessedly obscured his present reality.

  Wyatt brushed his hands up and down the wall until he found a switch which he flicked, flooding the room with fluorescent light, blinding him momentarily. Eyes open again, he saw her on the other side of the small bed, covered in a faded and frayed old quilt. “Hannah,” he said quietly, but she didn’t reply.

  A hand on her head revealed that she was hot to the touch, and sweating profusely. He pulled down the blanket to see the gunshot wound. Esaf had dressed it again, the light gauze mostly white, with only a small dot of dried blood in the center.

  His head buzzed and his body was weak, he needed to return to bed, he knew that, and yet there was an electricity inside him that prevented him from pulling back. He opened his eyes wider and looked at his hands, which tingled with a strange energy.

  Without understanding why, he pulled back the bandage and looked at the wound in her side. Esaf had sewn it up with what looked like precision, but the surrounding skin was red and angry. Her skin looked so pale, covered with the sweat of a feverish body that moved only ever so slightly with her shallow gasping breath.

  The electricity in his body intensified as did the fog in his mind. Without thought, Wyatt rubbed his hands together and ignored the pain from the still open cuts on his left palm. The energy flowed through him, focusing on his hands, yearning to be free of him, to be released.

  Without any conscious thought, he pressed his hands down on the bullet wound. The electricity in him pulsed through his hands, shocked him and jolted Hannah’s body, which jerked in response.

  He tried to pull back, but he couldn’t break the connection, his hands glued to the wound in her side. Not understanding what was happening, he wondered if it was a dream. Without understanding why, he willed her to heal.

  Another surge of electricity passed through him and this time her entire body jumped under his hands. His heart pounded hard in his chest, and there was one last large pulse through his hands, as something flowed from him into Hannah. At this, he blacked out.

  Chapter 13

  Wyatt woke to the sounds of conversation and laughter. He kept his eyes closed at first, and took the chance to consider his condition. It was immediately apparent that the fever that had gripped him through his sleep had passed.

  As he left his dreams behind, he came to recognize that the voices were those of actors on a TV sitcom, the laughter canned except for that of his companion. He opened his eyes to see Hannah sitting up, watching TV, a blanket wrapped around her. From his position behind her, there was more skin visible than he was comfortable with and he coughed.

  Hannah turned, and beamed at him, and said, “Good morning, sleepy, how is my favorite kidnap victim today?” Not waiting for a reply, she said, “I’m feeling great. Esaf was in earlier, he says it’s a miraculous recovery. I’m still freaked out though, and could use a McBreakfast and a coffee. Think we can get someone to do a food run for us?” she asked, bubbly and smiling.

  So, Esaf had been in already and was pleased with her progress, that should have been happy news but Wyatt worried that there was more to her recovery than Esaf’s treatment, two pills, and a night’s rest.

  Memories of the previous night filled his mind, and he wondered if the electrical transmission between him and Hannah been a dream or a hallucination. Perhaps he’d unknowingly understood that she was recovering and that fact had transferred into his unconscious, delirious brain.

  Or, he wondered, was he infected by the virus, and if he was, then had he infected her in his delusional state? He had a sudden need to see her wound, to see what that bright and ugly hole looked like. Wyatt snuck a peek at the sheet that covered her but saw a small dried stain and nothing more. “I need to see your bullet wound,” he said and yanked to pull her sheet down so he could inspect her.

  “Are you trying to get me naked? Do you want me to flash you? You’ll have to ask nicer than that!” she said but nevertheless allowed the sheet to slip a bit, a devilish smile on her face.

  Her good spirits and good health just made him want to see the wound even more. “All I want to see is the bullet hole.” He pulled at the side of her sheet again, and ignored her as she cracked another joke. When he ripped off her bandage, she cried out in pain and swatted at him. Wyatt sat back down in shock. There was no evidence that she’d ever been shot, other than six precise stitches, pink and clean.

  “Oh my God,” Hannah said, when she saw the wound was gone, “I hadn’t looked when Esaf was here.”

  Wyatt went mute. He stared in horror at her side and then at his own hands, no longer covered by bandages and filled with cuts and scrapes from the broken glass and his fall. If anything, his hands looked worse than they had the night before, and the skin was red and ugly.

  “How is that even possible?” she asked. “Oh, the virus. Did I do that; do I have the virus? I do and it healed me.” She paused, “That’s why Esaf asked me so many questions, I’m infected.” Hannah grabbed his hands and looked at them. “You’re still bleeding though; you must have not caught it from me.” He didn’t correct her.

  The door opened and the two of them realized they were naked. He pulled his sheet up, but Hannah didn’t bother.

  Esaf and Sandra stood in the doorway, the latter with a lecherous look on her face. “Are we interrupting, or can we join?” she asked.

  Esaf grumbled and reached the bed in two strides. Hannah finally pulled up the sheet, but he yanked it back down, ignoring her complaint. He leaned in and stared intently at the stitches. “Amazing, revolutionary!” he said. “Recovery in only hours. Sandra, when was I last here?”

  “It’s ten o’clock now, and we were last in here around eight.”

  Esaf closed his eyes. “Around? If I wanted a guess, I would have done it myself.”

  “Sorry, Doc.,” she said and took a clipboard off the wall to the left of the door. “You, we, were here two hours and fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I thought so,” he replied. Sandra caught Wyatt’s eyes and rolled hers.

  Hannah got up on her knees, her face flush with excitement. “I have healing powers,” she said. “I need a superhero name! How about Unbreakable?”

  Wyatt said nothing, what could he say, he didn’t understand what had happened, but telling Esaf wouldn’t be the smartest play. “What does this mean, Doc?” Hannah asked.

  Esaf said, “I don’t know. I need to run tests before I can say for sure. Before we start, tell me everything you’ve heard about V32.”

  Hannah was still excited and happy to oblige. She shared what the Doctor had said at the Center, with additional memories of comments her mother had made at home.

  Partway through, Wyatt interrupted. “Would you mind if we got our clothes back?”

  Esaf waved a hand at Sandra, who left the room and returned moments later with two bags from Walmart. She looked in one and threw it to Hannah and then the other to Wyatt. “Your clothes were a mess and are now in a garbage bin across town, so we bought you new ones.”

  Wyatt asked, “Can we get privacy to change?”

  Esaf shook his head. “We’ve both seen you naked, no reason to be shy now. Hannah, continue with your story.”

  She continued and got changed while talking, letting her sheet drop as she did so. Clearly a bit of a free spirit, she had no body issues preventing her from nudity in front of strangers.

  Wyatt looked away, to the amusement of Sandra, who watched him with one raised eyebrow. He shot her a dirty look and pulled on the skimpy red underwear she’d bought, the sheet between him and her eyes. The bag contain
ed jeans as well, which he managed to get on without letting the sheet fall below his waist. The outfit finished with a new black t-shirt which was just as tight, he noted with dismay, as the one he’d worn the night before.

  Her story finished, Hannah asked Esaf, “What do you think is happening to me, do I have the virus, and if so, what does it mean?”

  He shook his head, “I don’t have enough information yet to give you an answer to that. The evidence is that you healed in a way no normal person would, so yes, I suspect you’ve been altered in some way,” he said and walked to the door. “Follow me.” He led them to the other room. “This is my lab,” he said in his high, quiet voice.

  “You’re testing only Hannah?” asked Wyatt.

  Esaf studied him for a moment. Wyatt winced inside, it was a dumb question. There wasn’t any reason for them to run tests on him. “Yes, only on her as you’ve not shown any special ability to heal other than that provided by an obviously superb level of fitness.”

  Sandra was standing next to him and reached around to pat his stomach. “Damn right, he is in good shape,” she said, and leaned in to whisper “Trust me, I’ve seen every inch of you, and you are solid.”

  “Sandra,” said Esaf. “Enough.”

  “Doc, you’re never any fun.”

  Esaf looked at her with what might have been affection, “I never will understand why you enjoy my company so because I’m not the type of fun you enjoy.”

  “Opposites attract?”

  “Not true. Studies show that supposed fact is, like much common wisdom, more common than wise. Nevertheless, if you can be quiet for a moment or two, I have work to do with my patient.”

  Sandra put her thumb and forefinger to her lips and made a zipping motion. She sat down and gestured for Wyatt to pull a chair up next to her, which he did.

  Esaf and turned to Hannah, who he had guided onto an examination table. “I want to check your white cell count, run a DNA analysis and take… well, it’s a long list. These should show if there is V32 active in your system, and what its effect has been.”

  “I have questions,” she replied, excitement in her voice. “How could I have healed so fast? Is this permanent, I mean, I assume I can die, but how badly injured can I be to not heal myself? Is it possible I can’t die? And what else might it do? It didn’t seem to have made me smarter, but could I tell if it did? Do smart people know if they’re smarter?”

  “Clearly,” he said dryly, “Extra intelligence isn’t an issue here. How about I do my work and then answer your questions once I have actual data?”

  Hannah was still grinning, and said, “Sandra is right, you really are no fun.”

  Esaf grunted. Wyatt felt a kinship with him and suspected he wasn’t much fun either. He wondered what they, what Esaf, would do to him if he told the truth. He looked down at his hands and wondered, what power was in them? As he extended them, Sandra took one and squeezed, as if he’d been looking for support. He jumped.

  “Nervous much?” she asked.

  He tried to pull his hand back, but she didn’t let go. It didn’t matter, there was no electricity, no jolt, no transfer from him to her and he let out the breath he’d been holding. Was it all a dream? Perhaps Esaf was right and Hannah was the one with the power and he had simply imagined it in his delusional state. He’d had a fever after all. “Hey, Sandra?” he asked, trying to be nonchalant, “When you came in earlier and I was out cold, where did you find me?”

  She was close enough to him that he could smell the mix of perfume, motor oil and body odor on her, a strangely intoxicating scent. She leaned in even closer and said, “Whisper if you want to talk, the Doc doesn’t like interruptions.”

  “Ok,” he said, quietly, “but do you remember?” he asked, wanting to find out if he’d been on top of Hannah when they arrived if he really had healed her and passed out.

  Sandra was shoulder to shoulder with him, both in their cheap lab seats. “You had rolled around; you were up against your girlfriend there.”

  “She…”

  “She’s not your girlfriend, yes, she mentioned that. Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering if I moved in my sleep,” he half-lied. So, up against her. That could mean anything. He leaned in to watch and listen as Esaf examined Hannah. Sandra continued to hold his hand, which continued to show no signs of any special powers. “Esaf, what tests are you going to run?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Esaf mumbled in response.

  “Try me, I’m not dumb.” As an athlete, Wyatt spent a lot of time learning about how the body worked, monitoring his own condition in an effort recommended by his coach to improve his performance. As well, he was a good student and said, “I got top marks in biology class.”

  Esaf looked at him dismissively and turned back to his machines. As he jotted down numbers on a small pad, he said, “Boy, everybody gets top marks now, that’s how it works. Doesn’t matter if you’re a genius or an idiot, it’s not how you do, it’s how you feel that matters to schools now. It’s why so many morons get degrees. Speaking of which, I have four, not that it matters, how many do you have? Let me get on with my examination.”

  Wyatt went quiet, but continued thinking about it. Nobody did something for nothing, Wyatt was sure that Esaf wasn’t helping them out of the goodness of his heart. It wasn’t for nothing that the offer of help had come just as they’d mentioned breaking into Mennar and possibly being infected with a new virus. The other possibility, he thought, was that Joe had intervened. Finally, he said, “We deserve answers.”

  “Deserve?” asked Esaf. “What makes you think you deserve anything from me? You’re not paying, you’re here out of the goodness of my heart.”

  “It’s our bodies you want to test. Isn’t there a medical code of ethics you need to follow? You can’t just run tests on us without our permission.”

  Esaf didn’t answer for a time and continued to monitor the little machine he’d connected to Hannah’s finger. Eventually, he took it off and said, “I can’t get enough data with this, I’ll need to draw blood and run you through the scanners.” She didn’t disagree, and even seemed to enjoy the process, she was excited.

  As he ushered Hannah away, Esaf turned to Wyatt and said, “You’re right, there is a code of ethics for doctors, but don’t forget, young man, I’m not a doctor anymore.”

  Esaf and Hannah walked to the other end of the long lab and left Sandra and Wyatt sitting alone. They watched for a time, neither speaking. Blood was drawn, spittle samples taken and placed into a small silver machine, and several monitors were connected to her head and chest. She looked like a cyborg, with the number of wires that were hooked up to various body parts.

  Wyatt tried to listen in to the occasional comment that Esaf made, but there wasn’t much conversation, he wasn’t a very talkative man. “Sandra,” he asked, “the doc is a bit strange. How’d he end up with…” he trailed off, not sure what the proper term for the bike gang was.

  “A bike gang?” she said, reading his thoughts. “We do have bikes and I suppose we’re a gang, but not like you think. We call ourselves the Red Dogs after the bar we hang out at, what do you think we are? Gangsters or Hells Angels?” she asked and her blue eyes sparkled with amusement as she teased him, but under the teasing, he could sense that she was defensive.

  “You guys aren’t exactly the Rotary Club, are you?”

  “Would they take you in, would you prefer to ask them for help?”

  Wyatt shook his head, “No, and we appreciate this, but I’m wondering what your angle is. That’s the point, you don’t seem the type of group that takes in kids like us, not for the fun of it at least. I mean, you’re not exactly a university student on a charity term, are you?”

  “You’re blunt for a middle-class kid,” she said, a hurt look in her eyes. “I had assumed you’d paid the freight, but Esaf said you’re a freebie, so I don’t know, yes, we do it for the money, but that shouldn’t be a surprise. Life isn’t free, ev
erybody needs cash.”

  “I’m honest,” he said with some regret at being judgmental, his mouth got ahead of him far too often.

  “I could have gone to university if I wanted to.”

  His brain had caught up and he replied, politely, “You seem very smart, I believe you.” Kindness to people often got more out of them than honesty, a lesson he’d learned early in life. Nice didn’t always mean honest, it often meant the opposite.

  Sandra laughed loudly enough to make Esaf glance over his shoulder with annoyance. She lowered her voice to a whisper again, “Boy, you’re handsome, but don’t play me for a fool.” She put one hand on his shoulder and pulled him in closer. “You think I’m not like you and your middle-class friends. You’re right, but I’ve got my own knowledge. I got stuff they don’t teach in school,” she said, and pressed a single finger down on his shoulder, just below the neck.

  Wyatt would have jumped, but he couldn’t, his entire right side went numb, then she pressed just a bit harder and his entire body was wracked with pain. He would have screamed if his mouth wasn’t paralyzed. This lasted a few seconds and then she took her hand off him and the pain blessedly disappeared completely.

  Sandra leaned in close, their noses close enough to touch, and her eyes bored into him, her playfulness gone. “I live in the real world, I do what I want, I take what I want and I give what I want.” She grinned, grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulled him in and gave him a hard, wet kiss on the lips, and, when done, leaned back with a content look on her face. “Any more questions?”

  Wyatt sat stunned for a moment, seeing in Sandra something rare he’d not recognized earlier. She was what he’d always wanted to be, unconcerned with what society wanted. He wondered how to respond but after eighteen years of conditioning to behave just right, embracing his inner rebel wasn’t easy to do.

  Sandra waited and let him decide what the next move was. He tried honesty as best as he could. “Tell me then. What are you? Not you, but all of you. You’re right, I’m a middle-class kid with no experience with this, so enlighten me.”