“Jimmy? You okay?”
He blinked again and the memory faded. His mind switched back to her quickly. “Yeah.” He smiled. “Well, maybe we can find him. I would like to ask him some things myself.” He nodded. He was so right. He had a thousand questions, and had a thousand ideas, but he needed help answering them, and that one person was Collins.
She looked directly into his eyes. “What do you need to talk to him about?” She felt surprised by his statement. She hadn’t expected him to say it.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Some things that I overheard.” His eyes went off hers and went to his hands, folded on top of the table in front of him. So much felt so beyond weird; with all that was going on with him, he understood none of it. Deep inside, he felt so different. He felt so strange. He could feel that Collins was the reason behind it. He was, in a way, not sure, if he even wanted to know the reason for the truth. It might give him nothing to ask.
“Overheard what?” She now felt the sense that she wasn’t being told everything again. He seemed to be holding back. He seemed to be afraid of what he said and wanted to say. It felt like just a hunch, but that feeling grew.
He heard the question and wasn‘t sure if he wanted to answer it. After almost no thought, he decided to go ahead with what he knew anyway. What else could it hurt? “The older man with the fine suit and several other people talked with Collins the last night I saw him. They were asking him questions.”
“The older man with the fine suit.” She pulled herself forward some on her bench. The soft plastic of the fabric under her creaked some as she moved. “Do you mean Doctor Ross?” He was the only one she knew of who looked the way he described, so it had to be him.
“I don’t know who Ross is.” He removed his hands from the table and leaned back to the back of the bench. Inside, his mind flashed, Remember. He blinked. “I just saw them come in one night, and they went straight to the lab that I showed you.”
“What did they talk about?” Curiosity built up in her with each word she heard. If Doctor Ross knew about Collins, it would explain how he came to have the vials of his blood.
He shrugged his shoulders yet again, before he could answer. “They wanted to know if he had been out lately.”
“Out?” she came in fast. She felt completely caught off guard by what she just heard. Why would they hold him? What could it mean?
He nodded. “They were afraid that he was getting out, and he was reassuring them that he wasn’t.” He now bowed his head. Remember. He blinked.
“So, they had to make sure that he wasn’t getting out?” She had to codify her thoughts. “Did Collins say anything about being held there against his will?” She listened and felt completely taken aback by everything he said. Was he being held there against his will? By what she heard so far, it all made sense, especially with everything he showed her. If they were holding him, why would they? If he were there, why would they hide it? Not only that, why would they give her his blood if they were? Nothing made any sense.
He nodded. “He referred to it, but he didn’t come right out and say it like that.”
“Why would they hold him?”
He shook his head and lifted his eyes back to hers. “Maybe it has something to do with your sample.” he heard himself say as his thoughts rolled over, and over again. You know why. You know, remember.
The waiter returned to them two cups of coffee. He set them down, one on each side of the table in front of both of them.
She acknowledged the young man with a quick nod, and watched him leave before she continued. “You said before that he told you about being some kind of a guinea pig?” Everything she heard so far made some amount of sense, but it was still something that she wasn’t sure if she could even believe. In all the time she worked at the labs, she never heard of such a thing being done like that before. She didn’t believe that they would be able to keep a man locked inside, being used as she was being told that he was. She couldn’t believe that Richard Ross would have the ability to do such a thing. It didn’t seem to be a part of his make-up. It didn’t seem to be a part of his character. A lot seemingly happened that she had no idea of how to come to grips with any of it. She didn’t know what to think or what to say.
He again nodded, locking his eyes onto hers. He could feel her discomfort and could understand it completely. What he told her was going against the very core of who she was and what she knew. It would have to make her feel uncomfortable; he would, if he was in her shoes. “You don’t believe this Ross guy could do that, do you?” He did. He did. He sure as hell did. He took his cup of coffee and took a slow sip. It tasted so bitter to his tongue that he couldn’t drink any more of it, so he just put it back to the table without another thought about it.
She looked to his eyes and felt some comfort by them. She didn’t know Jimmy all that well, but she could see nothing but the truth coming from his eyes. He told her everything, as he knew it. Letting her restless mind relax some, she turned it over to a new sense of wonder. “So, how did you change?” She smiled as she asked. She did after all ask the question before, and couldn’t wait to get a better answer to it. “What did you do to get like that?” She pointed a solemn finger to his chest.
He looked down to his shirt. “The uniform came with the job,” he quipped and smiled, lifting his eyes back up to hers. He felt flirtatious all of a sudden. In a way, he wanted to get off the subject of what they were talking about, and felt thankful to her for being the one that did it.
“Not that.” She laughed. “How did you really do all of that? When I saw you Friday, you looked very different. How did you do all of that in the matter of two days?”
“It just sort of fell off.” He laughed.
She dropped her smile. “I’m serious Jimmy. How did you?”
Again, he turned back to the window. Outside, the sun now looked very bright and not a cloud hung in the sky. The whole day looked almost pure and the scene looked just right. The heat came in through the window and shined directly onto his right arm, and made it feel wonderful, almost right. He watched a car pull into the parking lot just behind the building across the street and watched several cars pass by it, heading down the road to his left. A young man stood out of the parked car and disappeared behind the building. Life continued moving, as he’d never seen it before. “I got a little sick,” he finally answered as he turned his thoughts over repeatedly in his mind. He could never answer such a question, especially when he didn’t even know the answers himself.
“Sick?” she sounded surprised. That answer seemed new, so she had to inquire further. She no longer felt tired, and now felt completely refreshed and alert. It had to have been the coffee, or maybe it was just his voice. “What did you have?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head.
“When did it happen?”
“Friday night.” He looked down at his hands and lifted his right arm to the back of the bench, and brought his right leg up to the seat. He let his mind wander as he took in a deep and exaggerated breath.
She heard his answer, and immediately, felt him grow uncomfortable again. Something happened to him. He doesn’t seem to know why. “What happened?”
He blinked. “When I got home I went straight to bed and woke up—um,” he paused trying to focus. For some reason, that he couldn’t place, he found the memory hazy and kind of out of focus. He felt suddenly out of place. He felt the same way as he did when he was back in Collins’ room. “I don’t remember all of it.” He finally settled. I just don’t know.
His answer only intensified the feelings that she already had. “Was it a cold or something else?” She continued to feel an uneasy sense of fear coming up within her new friend. Yes friend, she was beginning to like Jimmy. She used the word freely. “What were your symptoms?”
He could feel his heart beginning to race. He could feel his eyes beginning to water as the feeling of being nervous began to grow again in his soul. Yes, he felt just as he d
id back in the labs. “I,” he paused trying to find the right words. He couldn’t get his thoughts to focus, so he dropped everything all together. “I don’t know. I just was.”
She nodded, staring deeply into his eyes. The fear she saw earlier in him was there again, and it seemed to be coming out stronger than it did before. Whatever happened to him, it must have affected him more than she originally thought it did. Feeling his unease, she decided to let go of the idea and turned her mind over to something else entirely. Suddenly she felt tired again, so she went with that thought. “Maybe we should call it a day.” She paid him a heartfelt smile.
He saw it instantly and felt his mind unfreeze and warm up again. “Yeah. It’s been a long night.” He returned her smile and sat up straight again on the bench with both feet now flush with the floor. He then sighed.
She took one final drink of her coffee and stood up from her side of the bench.
He watched her stand, before he did the same.
Together they went up to the counter, and he paid the tab.
Finished, he opened the door first. She smiled to him, yet again, as she went back outside. He followed her out to the sidewalk and back to her car. They both sat in the car together.
Driving, heading back to the labs, he noticed an interesting smell almost out of nowhere all at once. It smelled sweet and it came on strong. It brought him to an instant hunger, and it flowed through him almost as fast as it came inside the car. It smelled almost like someone had just started a barbeque not far off in the distance. He could smell the burned heat of meat. He could smell the richness of the flesh. It came at him like thunder. It came on the breeze. It filled his nose and raked over his tongue. It seemed like the most fantastic smell he had ever had before in his life. “You smell that?” He turned and looked out through the window on his right. The smell intensified and seemed to be coming from just up ahead of them on the right. He could almost see the fumes. He could almost follow it on the wind. It smelled so strong that he could have followed it for miles.
She turned to him, still trying to keep an eye on the road. “I don’t smell anything.”
“It smells wonderful.” He sat up completely straight on his seat and that made the smell only grow stronger yet. “It’s just up there.” He pointed with his left hand to the windshield, and pointed right.
She followed his hand and didn’t know what to think. She could hear the excitement coming out of his voice, and listening to it, she became curious. Reaching the next intersection, she turned right. She figured that she had nothing else to lose but to find out what he was saying.
“I can’t believe you can’t smell that.” The scent came closer and grew even stronger. They had to be coming up onto whatever it was. His mouth started watering, and his stomach growled and moaned. He felt like he was starving, and hadn’t eaten in days, or even weeks. It made it almost irresistible, and he couldn’t fight the feeling. He needed to find it, and he had to know where it was coming from.
She didn’t answer him, and just slowed the car down at the next intersection.
There, the smell grew stronger still, and he could tell that it was now coming from the left. “Go left.” Again, he pointed. He couldn’t believe how strong it smelled. He couldn’t believe how he could follow it so easily. It almost seemed like he could see it. It almost seemed like he could feel it within his body. It felt so magnificent. It made him feel so powerful.
She turned the car left, and noticed that two houses up on the left that a police car was sitting out in the middle of the next intersection. A woman police officer, who more than likely drove the car, stood out in the center of the street. An ambulance was also there, and it was on the opposite side of the street, on Jimmy’s side of the car. Two other cars were in the center of the intersection, smashed and mangled together in a mass of metal and destruction. It looked like a simple accident, and it looked like it was a bad accident at that.
She pulled the car up to the officer who turned and saw them coming towards her.
Reaching her, she pushed down her window and stopped alongside her quietly. “Is everything all right?” she had to ask.
The young woman had to bend down some so that she could see inside the car. “No ma’am.” She placed her left hand on top of the car‘s roof. “You’re going to have to turn around and go back in the other direction.” She looked to Jimmy and then back in the direction they had just come from.
“I’m a doctor. If I could help in anyway?” Rachel thought it was best to help if she could.
The young officer shook her head and shrugged her shoulders with a subtle motion. “The E.M.T.s are here on the scene now. One of the victims is injured and she is in the ambulance right now being taken care of. The other driver is deceased.”
Jimmy heard it all and he flashed back to the center of the street. He looked to the mass of cars, and could easily tell that the sweet smell was definitely coming from them. Is that what I smell? Seeing it and knowing that he was right, he suddenly felt weak. He could smell the death. He could smell the burnt flesh. He could smell the blood. The thought turned his stomach, as he grew nauseous all too fast. How could that make me hungry? How could I have believed it? How could I think it was? What the fuck is wrong with me? How could he? How dare he? What kind of a monster was he becoming? You are my friend. You are!
The young officer looked back inside the car and noticed the young uniformed man grow white almost all too quickly. “Are you all right, sir?” She wasn’t sure what she saw, but something did look wrong with him. He looked strange, and looked almost guilty to her somehow. She didn’t know what to think about it, about him.
The question made Rachel turn to him quickly. “Jimmy?” She reached with her right hand and took his left shoulder into her palm. “Jimmy?” He looked afraid. He looked pale. He looked the same way that he did back in the room where they used to keep the animals. He looked beyond terrified, and it almost looked like he was going to get sick to his stomach. He looked almost like he had just seen the proverbial ghost.
He couldn’t bring his eyes off the mass of smells ahead of him. The sweetness of that smell almost seemed like he was smelling the scent of a newly baked rack of barbeque ribs sitting on a counter next to the stove. Around the smell was also the burning smell of oil and exhaust. Everything seemed there. The blood, the bones, the flesh, and the hint of the sweetness of rot were all there, as powerful as anything that he had ever smelled before in his life.
Rachel looked back to the young officer, now more than ever, feeling downright concern for her new friend. “He’ll be fine officer.” She smiled. “Thank you.” She had to find out what was going on. She had to get out of there and away from everyone else so that she could ask him what that was.
The young officer looked to the woman and nodded. “You can turn around in the driveway here.” She pointed to a driveway to the home directly behind her, turning slightly so that the woman in the car could see it plainly.
“Thank you again.” Rachel smiled and pushed the button on her door so that her window went back up.
The young officer looked through the windshield again as she stepped away from the side of the car.
Rachel released the break and pulled up into the driveway on her left, put the car into reverse and backed out of it just as quickly. Back out on the street, she headed back in the direction they came from, and at the first intersection, she stopped there and turned her attention back to him. “Jimmy, what’s wrong?”
Again, he couldn’t answer her. He could no longer see the accident, but it was still there, deep inside his mind. The sweet smell now came from behind him, but that didn’t matter, did it. What he felt rolling around inside his head felt even worse. How could he feel what he felt? How could he be hungry with what he smelled? Everything made him feel revolted. It all felt downright bad.
“Jimmy?” she asked again, raising her voice, and grabbed his shoulder again, and squeezed him strongly, trying to get him to
focus again. She could feel him becoming unhinged, and that worried her to no end. “What is it?” she stressed.
He heard the inflection, but still couldn’t bring himself to turn his head to see her. “Something’s wrong with me.” He felt guilty. He felt wrong. He felt almost evil. The revulsion only built up within him, and it made him feel even more afraid. He felt afraid of what he was becoming, and what he might do when he became it.
“What is it?”
“I smelled that.” He could barely even say it. He could barely even think straight, and his mind started flashing over, and over again with a strange sounding voice saying, Remember, remember, remember.
Listening, and finally getting her answer, she nodded. What he said sounded completely impossible, and it made her feel relieved. All concern melted away with everything else. “You couldn’t have smelled that Jimmy?” She turned the wheel, drove around the corner, and headed back out towards the main road.
Nothing of what she said helped him in the least. “Something’s wrong.” he now heard himself say.
“What are you talking about?” She turned and stopped at the stop sign that led out to the main street, and hearing him, and feeling the fear coming out of him, her concern for him came out again with full force and she couldn’t move on. “I can’t help you Jimmy if you don’t tell me what you’re going through.” She now knew that something was going on with him, and she didn’t know what that was. If he wanted her help, he had to tell her something, anything, to get that help. With it all, something did change about him, and she knew that it all had to do with this Collins. She now almost felt sure of it.
He turned and looked right at her. Her eyes met his.
She could see nothing but fear oozing out of his stare.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 1, 2, & 3 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets) Page 18