Deficiency

THIRTEEN

Terri had just pulled Curt fully into the house when the sheriff's patrol car turned into her driveway. She saw the head trauma immediately. Whatever had been used as a weapon, had split open the front of his skull just under the hairline and the flow of blood down his temples and over the bridge of his nose made it look horrible. She turned him on his back and leaped up to get her doctor's bag. When she returned, the patrolman was already there, kneeling at Curt's side.

"What happened?" he asked.

She shook her head and went to work, checking his pulse, cleaning the wound, and evaluating what had to be done. As she spoke, she cut away some of his hair.

"I heard a knocking at the door, but I was in the tub," she began. "I had no idea he would be at my door, of course."

"Who is he?" the patrolman asked.

"My fiance, Curt Levitt. By the time I got downstairs, this had all obviously happened. I opened the door because I saw his car in the driveway and this is how I found him," she continued, deciding he needed stitches immediately. "I want to stop this bleeding and then we'll need to get an ambulance and get him to the hospital to see what sort of injury he's obtained." The patrolman nodded and returned to his vehicle to make the call for the ambulance.

"They're on the way," he told her coming back.

"Thanks."

"Do you have any idea how this happened?"

She shook her head.

"I didn't see anyone else or even hear another car," she said. Curt was still unconscious. She felt her heart tighten, and her breath quicken. Suddenly, she was not the doctor anymore; she was a very concerned loved one.

"I'll look around," the police officer said. She barely heard or acknowledged him.

"Curt," she said. "C'mon honey."

His eyelids fluttered. When he opened them, she could see immediately that the pupils were enlarged. He had been hit very hard. All the complications paraded before her.

"Whaaa," he said.

"Don't move. What happened, Curt? If you can, tell me. There's a policeman here."

The patrolman returned.

"Nothing," he said and noticed Curt's eyes were opened. "What's he say?"

"Curt, can you tell us what happened?"

"Hit me," he said. "He was... at your... door... hit me," he finished and closed his eyes again.

"Try to stay awake, Curt. Who hit you? Did you recognize him? Curt?" She shook him gently.

"Man... at the hospital," he said in a voice barely above a whisper. She looked up at the patrolman.

"Get in touch with District Attorney Dennis. Tell him to meet us at the hospital," she said. "Stay with Curt. I'm running upstairs to throw something on. Stay with him."

"What should I do first?" the patrolman asked, confused by her list of commands.

She looked at Curt, his eyes closed again.

"Call Dennis first," she screamed and ran up the stairs. The ambulance was there moments after she returned, and the paramedics had Curt on a stretcher in seconds. They kept track of his vitals all the way to the hospital. Terri followed in her own car, the sheriff's deputy leading the way. She knew the doctor on duty at the emergency room, of course, Steve Battie, who was only a few years older than she was and working out of his cousin's practice in Liberty. The protocol for Curt's situation was cut and dried. They immediately determined he had a concussion, slight, but significant enough to hospitalize him and keep him under observation.

Will Dennis appeared at the hospital only twenty minutes after she had. She described as much of what happened as she could and then, after Curt had been through X-ray, they both went to his bedside.

"Curt, Will Dennis is here," she said and Curt opened his eyes slowly.

"She did it," he said. "Book her."

Everyone laughed.

"What really happened, Curt?" Will asked.

Curt turned to look at Terri before speaking.

"Terri and I had a lovers' spat earlier in the evening. I was feeling miserable about it and decided to go to her house to apologize. I wouldn't have gotten much sleep anyway. When I pulled into the driveway, there was a man at the door. He was kneeling down and obviously doing something to trigger the lock and open it.

"He stood up quickly when I drove in and I guess I was a little too much Mr. Superman. I wasn't thinking sensibly. I charged out of the car toward him, yelling, 'What the hell are you doing? Who are you?' As I drew closer, I recognized him. He was the same man Terri had been talking to in the hospital parking lot. She said he was a state policeman," he added looking accusingly at her. He turned back to Will Dennis. "He stood his ground, but when I stepped up to him, he lashed out with the handle of a pistol... looked like a .45-caliber pistol to me, and caught me in the head so sharply, my lights went out.

"The rest," he said after a deep breath, "you guys know." Will Dennis nodded, looked at Terri and then turned back to Curt.

"Did you notice a car in front of the house? I imagine you would have seen one in the driveway," he said.

"There wasn't any in the driveway, but I vaguely recall passing a car parked on the side of the road, right by the house."

"Anything you remember about the car?"

Curt started to shake his head and closed his eyes. He was still having some pain.

"Sorry. All I can tell you is it was probably black and probably a full sedan."

"Okay," Will Dennis said turning to Terri. "I'll be in touch."

"Who was that guy? What's going on?" Curt asked, showing more agitation.

"I'll tell you, Curt. Just relax. Let me just see Will out," she said and followed the district attorney into the hallway. "What should I tell him?" she asked when they were beyond Curt's hearing.

"It doesn't look like he's going anywhere for a while. You can tell him all you know, if you like. Ask him to keep it to himself. He's earned it," Will Dennis said. "Not that it's anything he would want to earn, I'm sure," he added.

"Do you want me to meet with the police sketch artist? I'm no law enforcement officer, but I think it's about time."

"Yes, probably. We'll talk about it tomorrow," he said.

"Okay, but as a physician, I'm advising you to go home and get some sleep. One of us has to be fresh in the morning and I know it's not going to be me," she said.

"Should I alert your patients?" he asked jokingly.

"Hey, this won't be the first time I go to work on a few hours of sleep, if any. You should try interning."

"Thanks, but I have my own internship going at the moment," he replied, wished Curt well and left.

She returned to Curt's room. For a few moments, she thought he would doze off now and she could put off telling him anything, but as if he could sense her decision, his eyes popped open.

"Hey," he said. "What the hell am I doing here?"

"You said it yourself, big shot. You decided to be Superman."

"Okay," he said reaching for her hand. "I don't have the strength for crossexamination, so just give me your testimony straight." She smiled.

"Where do I begin?" she asked rhetorically, and then proceeded to tell him all she knew. His reactions moved from incredulity to abject terror.

"No one knows how he's doing these terrible crimes?"

"Nor can they say with certainty apparently that he is doing them at all. It's a mystery that just grows deeper and now, more complicated for me," she said examining his wound again.

"You're not going home now, are you?"

"I don't know. I didn't think about it."

"I'd feel a lot better if you would go to my house instead, Terri, or to your parents."

"Right. Go to my parents and we'll have panic in the streets," she said.

"Then go to my house. Our house," he added. She nodded. "Promise?"

"On my Hippocratic oath."

Two hours later, after Curt was resting comfortably, she got into the elevator and walked down the corridor to exit the hospital through the emergency room. That was when she knew not only wouldn't she go to Curt's house; she wouldn't get even an hour's sleep.

Darlene Stone finished cleaning up and shut down the lights behind the bar. Griffy asked the last two hangers-on to leave, telling them as he usually did, to get a life. She and he had no doubt they would stay until morning if Griffy didn't shove them off. He was the current owner of the Inn and lived with his wife in a small apartment above the bar and restaurant. She did most, if not all, of the cooking, not that they had that much of a food crowd here. Burgers, fries, meatloaf twice a week, and roast beef sandwiches were the heart of their small menu.

"All and all a pretty good night," Griffy told her after quickly reviewing their receipts. "I guess we'll keep the Outlaws on another month for sure."

"Sometimes I think you could have my grandparents up there howling and it wouldn't matter," she said.

"And they probably wouldn't charge as much," Griffy said laughing. She gave him a hug, said goodnight, and left the Inn. She was halfway to her car in the rear parking lot where the help parked when she noticed Paula Gilbert's automobile still in the lot. It gave her pause. She smirked and nodded to herself, imagining the handsome stranger had been waiting for her and taken her off to some rendezvous. Envy boiled in her heart. It could have been me, she thought. It should have been me.

She continued to walk, gazing back at Paula's car. Suddenly something caught her eye and she stopped again. The clouds had shifted and some starlight moved a shadow just enough to reveal what looked like someone silhouetted in the front seat behind the steering wheel.

Who was that? Paula? Why would she be just sitting there in her automobile this late in the evening?

Curious, Darlene changed direction and headed toward the car. As she drew closer, the sight before her became clearer and clearer and stopped her in her steps, practically gluing the soles of her feet to the tarred surface. Were her eyes playing tricks on her? She actually wiped them with her balled fists and looked again.

Paula Gilbert was naked. Her bare bosom could not be mistaken. The two mounds of white flesh capped by those large areolas were too impressive. She hurried over to the car and then, just before she reached out to knock on the window, gasped, and stepped back quickly. The sight brought up the little she had eaten and the small amount of beer she had drunk to wash it down. She shook her head to deny what she had seen and then she turned and ran back to the Inn.

Griffy had already locked the door behind her and put out the lights. She shook the handle and then pounded the door and shouted for him. Almost three full minutes later the light went on in the kitchen, and he appeared, moving cautiously with surprise toward the rear entrance. He was in just his pants.

"What's wrong, Darlene?" he asked opening the door. She started to speak, but turned instead and pointed at Paula Gilbert's car.

"What is it?"

"Go... look," she said.

"I ain't got my shoes on," he complained.

"Go look!" she screamed and he jumped and then started out and across the lot to Paula Gilbert's car. Darlene followed slowly but remained back a good twenty or so yards. Griffy slowed down as he approached the car, stopped, and then slowly opened the door.

"Jesus!" he shouted. "Get in there and call for an ambulance."

"Yes," she said, realizing that should have been the first thing she had done. In a panic she punched out 911 and gasped her words. The dispatcher needed her to repeat it all and she did, fighting the hysteria in herself to slow down and be sensible.

"They're on her way!" she shouted to Griffy. He was standing back. The car door was open, and he was just gaping at Paula Gilbert as if he was terrified of touching her or talking to her.

"You better see to her," he said.

"What's going on?" Darlene heard from behind. Griffy's wife Dorothy was there in her bathrobe. "What are you two doing? What's all the shouting for? What's happening?" she followed, delivering her questions in shotgun fashion.

"Paula Gilbert," Darlene said nodding at the car.

She walked to it slowly and joined Griffy to look in.

"Oh my God," she cried, but unlike Darlene and Griffy, she went forward and tried to rouse Paula. Her eyelids fluttered.

"She's alive!" she screamed. "Did you call for help?"

"They're on the way."

"Go get a blanket for her," she ordered Griffy, and he turned, happy to have a reason to get away from the scene. He charged past Darlene and into the restaurant.

Now feeling ashamed at her own response, especially in light of how quickly Dorothy had moved into action, Darlene joined her and they both looked in on Paula Gilbert.

"What happened to you, Paula?" Darlene asked her.

She opened and closed her eyes and moved her lips. Reluctantly, still feeling as if she was getting too close to a leper, she lowered her head to turn her ear like a cup catching the soft, nearly inaudible words.

Darlene's eyes widened as she listened to her speak, gasping out her incredible tale.

"What happened to her? What is she saying?" Dorothy asked. Darlene shook her head.

"She must be delirious," she said. "She's making no sense."

"God only knows what really happened to her," Dorothy said, "but whatever it was, I hope to hell it's not catching."

He was in an unusually disturbed state of mind. He had set out this evening believing he was in a vigorous, healthy state, never feeling more energized and contented. That was why he was so charming in that saloon and why he was so poetic and philosophical with Paula. He had really intended to have a simple romantic evening, make love, and bring her back as contented as he was. Despite some of the disturbing things that had recently happened, he still harbored the belief that he could transfer wonderful things to women when he didn't have to take what he needed from them. In a sense he was truly the world's greatest lover. Not only did women have difficulty turning him away, but they were ruined for other men, always dissatisfied afterward since none could come up to his level of satisfaction. It was a delicious sort of arrogance that put vigor in his strut and power in his eyes.

But something very unexpected happened when he began to make love to Paula Gilbert. He had a need he had been unaware of until he was actually making love to her. Usually, this was a feeling he experienced before he went looking for prey. Something in his body always first sent signals to his brain to tell him to go on a hunt. He hadn't had any such signal all night. What was going on?

Why were his periods of contentment getting shorter and shorter? At this rate, he'd be hunting day and night and never have a rest. It was like those batteries running cell phones and the like, he thought. After time, they held a charge for less periods of time and had to be recharged so often, it was cheaper or easier to throw them away and start with a new one.

But how was he to do that? He couldn't throw away his body and start with a new one, could he?

Or could he?

Something was rising toward the surface of his memory. He sat in the dark and waited patiently for it to break out. It was coming, coming up out of his past. Something to do with his body. What?

It stopped coming up.

He grimaced as if he could squeeze his brain like an orange and force the memories to drip out.

It was sinking again, going deeper and deeper into the blackness. Wait, he wanted to shout. Don't give up. Come back to me.

Tell me who I am.

Exhausted with the effort, he finally gave up and started the engine of his vehicle. Paula was still in the rear seat, breathing with such great difficulty, he could hear her gasps clearly. The sound was haunting him.

"Stop it!" he screamed at her. "Just die quietly like the others." It occurred to him that he had never spent this much time with a woman afterward. He would take what he needed and leave them. It was his own fault now, of course. He had taken her in his car. He could have left her on the side of the road, he realized, left her in the bushes by the lake if she had begun to die immediately.

For a while he was surprised by what happened but she didn't show signs of anything detrimental, so he told her to dress and he would take her back to her car. She was quiet, but he interpreted that simply as her sense of contentment. Let her savor the lovemaking, he thought proudly.

Then he looked into the rearview mirror and saw she basically hadn't moved.

"Get dressed. We'll be back at the tavern soon," he ordered. She didn't respond so he pulled over to the side of the road and leaned over the front seat. He flipped on the overhead light and saw what was happening.

"Damn it," he shouted at her as if it was entirely her fault. Cars whizzed by, even at this hour. He was back on a busy highway. A few hundred yards down was the first of those houses he had pointed out to her on the way to the dam. So he turned around, shifted into drive, and shot forward, now speeding toward the tavern. When he arrived, he saw a pickup truck with three men crowded in the cab pulling out of the lot. He waited until they were gone and then he drove in, pulled alongside her car, and deposited her in the front seat. He flung her clothes into the rear of her car, got back into his, and drove off thinking maybe no one would find her until morning at least and by then it would be far too late. She would be unable to tell anyone about him, not that anyone would believe her if she did.

When he pulled into the driveway of the rooming house, he hesitated before driving around back. There was something stuck in the front door, a piece of paper. It waved gently in the breeze. He looked around cautiously, his sixth sense triggered like the instinct of a wild animal. He could practically smell the presence of someone else. It was faint. Whoever it was had been here and gone. He got out of his car, leaving the engine running, and went to the door to pull the sheet out from between the screen door and the front door. It was from the minister, a Reverend Dobson.

Dear Mrs. Martin,

I hope you are all right. I came by to comfort you and discuss the funeral to see if there was anything special you would like me to do. Please call me as soon as you can.

God Bless,

Reverend Dobson

He had forgotten about that; he had forgotten there would be a funeral. How stupid of him. He was taking too much pleasure in all this and making too many mistakes. Of course, he would have to leave this place now. There was no doubt anymore. He really was enjoying the area, the peacefulness, the easy pickings. He had been feeling like a fox in a rabbit warren. All he had to do when he was hungry was reach out.

After he parked his car behind the house, he went in through the backdoor and up the stairs. He went to the old lady's bedroom and looked in on her corpse again almost as if he had expected she had moved.

"Thanks," he said. "Now I have to go."

Blaming her made him feel better even though he knew how ridiculous it was. He felt drunk, intoxicated. The evening had been full of ups and downs and it left him giddy. He might even have trouble sleeping, he thought. He was too wired.

He went to his room and packed his bag reluctantly. This place was really very comfortable and he had so looked forward to the morning, to sitting by the lake. It had been so relaxing. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. It was the old lady's fault. If she hadn't been so pathetic, he wouldn't have killed her.

Of course you would have, he told himself. She would have pointed you out. You had to be sure she couldn't do that.

He continued to argue with himself, even considering remaining one more day, and then, suddenly, it began as always, a slight ringing in his ear. He went to the window and looked into the night.

It was out there... something threatening. It was coming in this direction. He couldn't stay here any longer, no matter what he wanted.

He hurried now and then he rushed out and started down the stairs, still regretting his quick exit. He paused at the foot of the stairs. An idea occurred to him. Confuse the trail, keep whatever it was from following his scent. He went into the kitchen and looked around. The old gas stove was perfect, he thought. Carefully, he prepared the flammable oils and put them in a frying pan. He started the fire and then he let it spread to the molding on the floor. He watched the fire, fascinated with how quickly it invaded the heart of the old wood and crept in behind the walls. He could hear the crackle and the small explosions. The home was as brittle as old bones.

He was saddened by it all as he walked away. By the time he got into his car, he could see the hot illumination in some of the windows. It wouldn't be long, he thought. The fire was ravenous.

He drove away slowly, looking back when either a gas pipe or the heating oil set off an explosion. The flames were crawling out the windows and up the sides of the house now. What a parasite fire is, he thought.

It never occurred to him that he was one too.