The kid looked at him dully, then closed his eyes. Bill knew the signs: shock—physical and emotional.
“Shut up, Gilchrist.” Rosko seethed. “If it were your child you’d—”
“I’d what?” Maybe it was the cold, or the pain, or the complete arrogance of this thick-necked blue-collar felon, but Bill smiled. “If it were my kid? That what you’re asking?” Then it wasn’t funny anymore. “If it were my kid, I’d take my pride out of the equation and save her life.”
He looked over to Abra who was slowly shaking her head.
“No, Abra. I’m not keeping it secret anymore. Who’re they gonna tell?” Bill felt drunk with power. Couldn’t wait to finally tell Rosko, show him what a complete dick he’d been. “My daughter, my beautiful little girl was born with cystic fibrosis.”
He looked to Sheila who showed the right response: shock.
“No,” she mouthed.
Under other circumstances, this is where she would have hugged him and said, I’m so sorry, Bill. But those days were gone.
“We found out in vitro and Abra and I decided we weren’t gonna let it happen. Never told Elise. Never told anyone. Matched her skin and hair with a stem line and gave her the therapy right after birth. She’s been healthy ever since. And you think I give a damn whose DNA she has? Shit no. A real parent wouldn’t care.” He pointed the gun at Paul’s devastated face. “Go to your grave with that thought.”
“Billy, you could have handled all this another way,” Abra said.
“Yes, I could have,” he said without turning. “I wish to God I had. But I panicked when Sheila started in on me about the Slade woman. And once I’d started on that slippery slope …”
Exposure would have ruined his other plans—his and Mama’s. She’d fallen out with Abra about providing the public with full disclosure; she’d been dead set against Abra’s go-slow approach. Bill agreed with Mama that his sister was wrong, but had stayed on with Abra. Worked with only limited numbers of patients, tracked all their data … so small compared to what he and Mama wanted but it kept Abra under control. Created the façade for her and the public of following protocol and gave them access to the stem cells from her fertility clinic.
“You could have come to me and we’d have worked it out together. Instead, you arranged all these ‘accidents.’ ”
“Remember what you said when I told you? Your first reaction was, ‘Maybe God is telling us to go public now.’ You’ve always had a blind spot there, Abra. The government would shut us down—” he snapped his fingers “—like that, and people would not be clamoring for seven-twenty-three. Every organized religion in the world would be up in arms, screaming that it goes against God and nature. We’d have the entire ideological spectrum, right, left, and middle, condemning us as Nazis. We’d be tarred and feathered. It must be kept secret. Your problem, Abra, is you’ve always thought small. ‘One person at a time’? Sentimental crap! The human genome is going down the tubes. Humanity needs help and it’s getting that help in spite of itself.”
“What-what do you mean?” Abra said.
“Mama and I took matters into our own hands years ago, and we’ve been doing just that.”
Abra gasped. “How—?”
“We can discuss this later. Right now, we’ve got some nasty business to attend to.”
Could he do this? He’d have no qualms about shooting Rosko. But the kid? And Sheila?
He’d have to. Otherwise his whole life, and Abra’s and Mama’s, would have been for nothing.
He raised the pistol and pointed it at Rosko’s chest.
•
Shen knew as soon as Dr. Gilchrist stepped into the room what was on his mind. He’d seen it in his eyes: Kill everyone except Jiù-zhù-zhe and blame it on Mister Rosko, the man wrongly accused of murdering Doctor Kaplan.
Kill the brave boy and the man who had saved his life? Kill the woman whose husband and baby he had stolen away? Shen Li always paid his debts.
He slipped his hand inside his jacket and found the handle of his 9mm semi-automatic. He was glad that he always kept a cartridge in the chamber, for he doubted he had the strength to work the slide now. He slid it free of the shoulder holster, clicked off the safety, and cocked the hammer. But when he tried to raise it in the doctor’s direction, his hand shook so that he could not aim it.
Someone else would have to do it. The boy was closest, but Shen could not give it to him. Rosko was too far away.
That left Dr. Sheila.
•
Sheila felt something nudge her calf. She glanced down and saw Shen holding something out to her in his wavering hand. It looked like—
Mother of God, a gun!
At first she thought he was pointing it at her, then realized he was holding it by the barrel.
Offering it to her.
For what? Protection against Bill? How? She’d never held a gun, let alone fired one. She might do more harm than good. Maybe Bill could be reasoned with. Violence was always a last resort.
She heard Abra cry out, and turned to see Bill pointing his pistol at Paul.
“You’re first, Rosko. I think I’m going to enjoy this.”
Without thinking, Sheila grabbed the gun and pointed it at Bill. She hadn’t found the trigger yet when she shouted.
“Don’t, Bill! Don’t make me shoot you!”
His eyes widened as he glanced her way and saw the pistol.
“Where the hell—?” Then he looked at Shen Li. “You’ve really disappointed the shit out of me, Shen. I’ll deal with you later. Right now …” He redirected his gaze at Sheila and smiled. “We both know you’re not going to fire that, Sheila, so why don’t you—?”
“I will!” She hooked her index finger over the trigger. “I swear I will! And it won’t be in the knees!”
She told herself that was true, but she was it?
Bill was still smiling that cocksure smile she’d once found so endearing. Wasn’t he aware that his new face was little more than tattered, blood-caked flesh around splintered teeth? He looked like he’d been ravaged by rats. He took a step closer.
“You know you won’t. It’s not in you. Besides, this is me, Bill, the guy who pulled you out of a career-ending funk.” Another step. “You owe me too much. You were an emotional basket case and I took a chance on you.” Another step. He was only three feet away now. His left arm hung at a funny angle. Mutilated scarecrow. “Think about it: Where would you be without me? What—?”
Where would she be? Dek? Bill had killed Dek and brought her here to spy on her.
“Don’t let him get too close!” Paul cried.
Bill began to swing his revolver toward Paul. “That does it! I’ve had all—”
“This is for murdering my husband.” Sheila’s pistol fired with a deafening report. She didn’t remember pulling the trigger but the gun jumped in her hand. She saw a bright brass casing arc through the air as Bill grabbed his left breast. He stumbled back, blood leaking between his fingers, eyes wide with shock and disbelief.
He turned and fell face first across his desk where his sister stared at him in open-mouthed horror. The pistol slipped from his fingers as he slid to the floor, leaving a red smear across the desktop.
He gasped twice, then lay still.
Sheila dropped the pistol and began to cry. Paul rushed over and threw his arms around her.
The shot seemed to have shocked Coog out of his daze. He was up and hugging her and his Dad. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Shen Li smiling up at her.
•
Sobbing, Abra rose and pulled herself out of her chair to crawl around the desk to where her Billy lay. She touched his throat to feel his carotid pulse—still there, but weak and slow. Her little brother, the darling of her life, was dying.
But what had happened to him to lead him to this fate?
Human nature.
He’d been wrong about many things, but she saw now that he’d been right about the dangers of enlightening the publ
ic.
… the entire ideological spectrum, right, left, and middle, condemning us as Nazis.
Nazis. She gagged at the idea of being lumped with those beasts. Mama had fought so hard to erase the stigma of being the daughter of a party member. Married a nice Englishman to get his name and flush out the German image. Told Bill and Abra they were different. But the public would disagree. Today, tomorrow at the latest, their dream, the Proteus Cure, would be dragged out into the open. She could see—see clearly for the first time—what would follow.
Public excoriation in all the media … saying her mind was as twisted as her body … comparisons to Mengele … effigy burnings … hurled rocks, perhaps hurled bombs … her name dragged through the scientific mud …
When all she’d wanted to do was help.
No one would understand—no one would be allowed to understand.
It would all come down, and she could do nothing to stop it.
She looked up and spied Bill’s gun lying on the desktop. She glanced over to where the Sheila, Paul and Coogan were hugging each other and crying. All together while she was alone …
“Your dream …”
She gasped. Bill’s voice, barely audible. She leaned closer, her ear nearly touching his lips.
“What?”
“It’s coming true …”
•
Sheila glanced over and saw Abra leaning over Bill. His lips were moving. Still plotting? But no … the growing look of horror on Abra’s face said otherwise.
She straightened. “No! Oh, no!”
Bill’s slack mouth and open glazed eyes confirmed the inescapable truth—he was dead. But that didn’t seem to be the reason for her horrified reaction. What had he told her?
Abra grabbed Bill’s pistol, pressed the muzzle against her carotid artery, and pulled the trigger.
FIFTEEN
“I still can’t believe I killed someone,” Sheila said as she pushed a floweret back and forth through the juice leftover from her broccoli and garlic sauce.
She couldn’t believe Abra had killed herself either. Like losing her mother all over again. The grief would hit her, and hard. But for now she was safe from emotion, in that special place in her mind that allowed her to wade through her trauma and still function.
Numb, exhausted, she sat at her kitchen table with Paul. Coog had migrated to the TV in the front room to watch the news stories about the three of them. Thank God he didn’t remember what had been said about him yesterday. The afternoon was all a blur for him.
“You’re going to have to tell him soon,” she said.
He nodded. “Very soon. I’ll give things a few days to settle down, then ease him into it. I just hope it doesn’t hit the airwaves first.”
The TV seemed to be carrying only one story. The rain had stopped and the river was starting to recede so now they concentrated on what was being called the “Tethys Tragedy.” The nature of Proteus hadn’t broken yet, but it was only a matter of time.
The way she felt, cooking had been out of the question, as had eating in public. So they’d ordered Chinese takeout.
Paul reached over and gripped her hand.
“I’m so sorry you had to do that, but you had no choice.”
“I just wish I felt bad about killing him.”
That single finger twitch on the trigger had saved four lives. Still, it had been her finger, and she wasn’t about killing, she was about life. And she couldn’t help feeling good that she had stopped Bill from going any further.
She sighed and closed her eyes. It was over. After a day and a half of hell, it was finally over. Or so she hoped.
The cops had arrived sometime in the afternoon. She’d bet Bradfield’s finest had never seen anything like the scene in Bill’s blood-bathed office: two dead, one wounded, and three wet, bedraggled survivors.
It had taken the rest of the day to remove the bodies, cart Shen Li to the hospital, and sort things out with officialdom. By night she and Coog had been allowed to go home, but Paul—to Sheila and Coogan’s horror—had been led off in handcuffs and jailed. Sheila had searched frantically for a lawyer, but trying to find one willing to take a murder case during a flood had proved impossible.
And then this afternoon, miracle of miracles, Paul had been released. Shen Li had made a deathbed confession, taking blame for Tanesha and Hal, and describing how he’d stolen the bat from Paul’s garage and returned it after he’d killed Kaplan.
Deathbed confessions apparently carry a lot of weight, and Paul was freed.
All Bradfield was in shock—both from the flood and the deaths—and Tethys Medical Center was in chaos. The Feds had shut the place down and the patients were being moved to other hospitals. Nobody knew who was in charge.
But at least it was over.
Or was it?
Alone in her bed last night, Sheila had cried for Abra. How could such a good person go so wrong? Her bloody death had been a horror—Sheila had pulled Coog against her so he wouldn’t see the red spray from the poor woman’s neck.
And now she was gone, leaving another hole in Sheila’s life.
But mourning for Abra wasn’t the only thing that had kept Sheila awake. Something Bill said had bothered her. Bothered her still.
She turned to Paul. “Do you remember what Bill said before he died?”
Paul shrugged and smiled. “I don’t think I was paying attention. I was just a wee bit distracted by that gun he was pointing at us. What I can’t figure out is Shen Li. He was a cold-blooded murderer, but he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—kill Coog. Why did he give you the gun? Why confess?”
“Maybe because you saved his life. He sensed he was dying and decided to do the right thing. But Bill said something to Abra … something like ‘Humanity needs help and it’s getting that help in spite of itself.’ What did he mean by that?”
“Megalomaniacal raving.”
“Let’s hope so. What bothers me is that he sounded so smug about it.”
Paul squeezed her hand. “He was crazy, Sheila.”
“But he said, ‘Mama and I took matters into our own hands years ago, and we’ve been doing just that.’ What’s that mean? That VG-seven-twenty-three is being used somewhere else?”
“There’s a scary thought.”
Sheila nodded. “The thing is, neither he nor Abra ever mentioned his mother before. I didn’t even know she was alive.”
“Let’s just hope she’s not as crazy as he was.”
“Amen. And then there’s what Bill said to Abra before she killed herself. Whatever it was, it seemed to horrify her.”
“You’re sure the horror wasn’t simply seeing the life go out of her beloved ‘Billy?’”
“Could be, but I sensed it was something else.”
Paul sighed. “Well, we’ll never know, will we.”
That’s for sure, she thought as she reached for a fortune cookie.
She cracked it open and pulled out the narrow slip. Along the bottom ran a string of six lucky numbers, but the fortune gave her a chill.
Nothing is as sure as change
Her insides twisted as she handed it to Paul. He took it with a grin, but the smile faded as he read it. He looked up at her.
“It’s just a coincidence, Sheila. I mean, you can’t really believe a fortune cookie’s got anything to do with reality.”
No, she didn’t.
But still …
EPILOGUE
Anna Gilchrist squirmed in her first-class seat.
Lufthansa did everything possible to provide a comfortable flight but, considering her advanced age and where she was bound, how could one be comfortable?
No parent should have to face the tragedy of outliving a child, but burying two of them—both Abra and Billy, gone at once—was almost too much to bear.
Their legacy, however—hers and the children’s—would live on.
Changing the world …
But not one life at a time as dear, romantic Abra had believed—mil
lions at a time.
Her company, Schelling Pharma, had joined the vaccine business—flu and pediatric types such as DPT, MMR, and so on. Last year Schelling had shipped one-hundred-million doses of Viron-P, its flu vaccine. Fifty million of those to America. This year the USA sale had reached seventy million. And why not? Since profit was not her motive, she was selling it for a little above cost.
Viron-P was as good against influenza as any of its competitors, but each dose also contained a helping of Die Perfekte stem cells. Only a few were needed to begin the job. She and Billy, working together, had neutralized its gender effect years ago. Already it was at work in last year's vaccine recipients. And seeing as children as young as six months were in the recommended vaccine population, it would already be having an impact.
A hundred million doses last year, a hundred-fifty million this year—many donated to Third World countries—and even more next. And on and on. Not as good as adding it to the water supply—Abra had been right about the unfeasibility of that—but a close second.
Billy had told her about Tanesha Green. More Tanesha Greens would be appearing. And so it was inevitable that, in a few years, the world would realize that something was amiss. But it would take them many more years to pinpoint the Schelling vaccines as the cause, and by then she would be gone and nearly a billion doses would have been dispensed. And the good will have been done.
No, not done—begun.
Stopping the vaccines would not stop their Protean benefits, because those benefits wouldn’t be limited to the recipients. With vertical transmission to their children, and even horizontal transmission through blood banks, Proteus would keep spreading.
Anna smiled. Yes, a New World was in the making—a smarter, healthier, more peaceful world. Her legacy—hers and Abra’s and Billy’s. She only wished she were younger, so that she could witness it, glory in being a part of it.
About the Authors
TRACY L. CARBONE is a Massachusetts native who sets most of her work in the fictional town of Bradfield. She was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for her editing work on Epitaphs: A Journal of the New England Horror Writers. The PROTEUS CURE is her fourth published book, with previous titles including a Young Adult science fiction, a suspense thriller, and a collection of horror and literary dark stories. Her short stories have been published in several magazines and anthologies in the U.S. and Canada. Her medical thriller HOPE HOUSE will be released by Shadowridge Press the summer of 2013. www.tracylcarbone.com
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