Changes (18 page)

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 did 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 then 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 that 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 the window to his right. The smell intensified and seemed to be coming from 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 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 talking about.

“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 two houses up on the left; a police car 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 subtle sigh. “The E.M.T.s are on the scene now. One of the victims is injured and she is in the ambulance right now getting 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 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 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 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, bones, flesh, and a hint of the sweetness of rot was all there, as powerful as anything he had ever smelled before.

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. She couldn’t take her eyes off the obvious security guard in the passenger‘s seat, and the look on his face. He looked horrified. He looked like he was sick. Again, she didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, and now she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to know. The woman with him seemed fine, so if she wasn’t worried about it, than she shouldn’t be either, so she shrugged it off, let them pass by her, and left it at that.

Rachel released the break and pulled up to the driveway on her left, put the car in 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 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 think straight, and his mind started flashing over, and over again,
Remember, remember, remember.

Listening, and finally getting her answer, she sighed. 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.

“I’m changing into something.” He could feel tears beginning to well up in his heart. What happened with Sally came back again, as well as, how he felt after his skin peeled. He felt aggressive. He felt passionate, but not in a good way. He didn’t fear anything anymore. His mind felt rambling. He could feel almost like something was there, at the back of his mind, and was trying to get out. He didn’t know what that was, but it was just a feeling, and that feeling was gaining strength, and it scared him to his very core. “Something is happening and I don’t know what?” Hearing his own voice brought a new fear to come up within his throat. It felt almost like he wasn’t the one talking anymore.

“What are you talking about? What happened to you?” She looked to the center of the street ahead of her and back to him again, seeing no other cars around them. Seeing that, it gave her the time to talk.

He bowed his head towards his lap. He wasn’t sure where to start, or if he should even try to, but he also knew that he had to do something. He couldn’t keep everything he felt inside himself anymore. He needed her help. If he didn’t, he felt like he was about to explode. “I was bitten by something Friday night. I don’t know what it was, but after it did, I began to feel something different.” He sighed. “I changed. I am changing.”

“What?” She looked back to the street. What he said caused her mind to fly into a million different directions. She didn’t expect to hear any of this, so she couldn’t get her mind to grip onto anything at first.

He felt a tear come into his right eye. “I walked you to your car that night, remember that?” The thoughts of that night came back to him almost like it was nothing more than just a dream—a dream that someone else was having.

She nodded.

He continued, “When I made my way back to the lobby, I heard someone call my name. I thought it was Collins. When I walked to the row of trees and bushes that line the front walkway and the front of the building, something behind them bit me.”

She turned from the center of the street, and blinked. Nothing he said made any sense. What did this have to do with anything, she didn’t know, but what she did know, was that doubt started to creep up into her heart. “Something bit you?” She tried to understand him, but wasn’t sure if she did. She tried to believe what he told her, but couldn’t grip it tight enough at the same time to do it. Seeing the tear in his eye and watching it streak down his right cheek, told her that whatever he was trying to say, he did feel it deep inside his soul. It told her that he believed what he was telling her, and seeing that, and feeling it, it made her breathe.

He nodded, looking from her and down to his own hands. His eyes, in fact, went right to his left wrist.

She watched his eyes turn down towards his arms, and seeing it, it brought a new thought to come up to her quickly. “Where did it bite you?” She looked at both of his arms.

“My left hand.” He sighed.

She looked to his left hand and saw nothing on it. “I don’t see anything there Jimmy?”

He sighed again, and laughed softly under his breaths. “It healed that next morning.” His thoughts turned soft. Every part of him turned to nothing but a haze. It felt like someone else’s memory. Nothing seemed real. He felt like he was living someone else’s life.