Deficiency

TWENTY-TWO

He didn't sleep all night. This feeding left him far too wired. He had seen young people juiced up on Ecstasy and other recreational drugs when he was in dance clubs, and he thought he resembled them. He wanted to play music loudly in the car. He moved to the beat, pounded the steering wheel, sang along whenever a song was familiar to him, and drove much faster than he usually did. There was something extra in his feed this time, he concluded, something he needed all along. Whatever it was, it had a great deal to do with his energy level. It made everything else work more efficiently within him. He was truly running on all cylinders, and, he thought, for the first time ever. Even when he was home, there, wherever, and they were taking care of him, he didn't feel this good. So much for what they knew.

Young teenage girls, he concluded, they're the ticket, girls who were just a few feet past puberty, like fresh eggs. Time, that wicked thief, had less opportunity to steal their radiance, make it duller, coat it in minutes and seconds and hours, thicken it over with days and weeks and months until they were so old, you had to scrape away to find the glitter.

Now he would go to a different supermarket in which there was nothing older than sixteen. He would hang around schools. He would stalk the Brownies and the Girl Scouts, or he would simply wander through malls. They gathered there like birds on telephone wires, chattering, giggling, parading, and flirting, trying out their wings.

Maybe he would never need to sleep now. Sleep was really to refresh oneself, to rest tired limbs, to restore and rebuild dying cells. He did that instantly so why sleep? He would truly be a shark, always on the hunt. What an advantage he would have? They had to sleep. They grew exhausted. They were more like vampires than he was, crawling back into their temporary coffins every night. He was the mythical bird that never lighted, pausing only to consume its nourishment.

He actually felt as if he had grown inches, widened, thickened. He was truly bigger than life. Still, he recognized that he had to be cautious. They would be coming after him again, more intently, more determined. He was no fool. If anything, his mental capacities were as heightened as his muscles. Too little time had passed. That picture in the paper was still vivid in the minds of some people, he concluded.

Memories of the motel owner returned and he nodded at an idea. As soon as he came upon a mall, he pulled in and went to the large drug store. He bought black hair coloring and then he returned to his motel room and washed it in. He decided that although it still looked artificial, he had done a better job than the motel owner. It was passable. At least people wouldn't spot him from a distance, he thought. He even colored his eyebrows.

There weren't really all that many people who could recognize his face with certainty -- our face, he thought. When he gazed into the mirror, he did see himself twice. He saw a duplicate of himself just under the skin as if he wore a mask. He'll always be with me, he concluded. As long as I live, he lives. Yes. Now it was time to protect him, to protect us, he decided. When you pursue a shark, don't lose sight of him, he warned the predators. If you do, you will soon find yourself pursued. Predator will become prey.

I'm standing behind you, he thought and sang, I'm standing behind you, on your dying day.

It made him laugh so hard that he had tears in his eyes. Suddenly, he became serious and went to the telephone. He found the telephone book in the drawer beneath it and looked for the number. Then he punched it out and waited.

"I'd like an appointment with Dr. Barnard today," he said as soon as he heard the office identified.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Dr. Barnard is on vacation this week."

"Vacation?"

"Yes. I do have an opening with Dr. Templeman at four-thirty, if you would like."

"No, I want to see Dr. Barnard. Where is she? When will she be back?"

"About a week. I'm sorry. The best I can do for you is schedule you for a week from this coming Wednesday. Would you like a morning or afternoon appointment?"

He just hung up.

And sat there, fuming with frustration. One of the consequences of being at so heightened a level of activity was the difficulty of slowing it down, stop going in one direction and take another, pausing. The urge to keep moving burned like a hot coal in his stomach. He raged, threw the phone across the room after tearing the wire from the wall, and then kicked over the chair. Nothing stops me, he thought. Nothing stops me. He walked to the front windows and looked out. The day was grayer than he had realized. It might rain here. There was light traffic, about seven other cars in the motel lot, but no one walking about, no real activity around him. How dull it all suddenly looked. Why stay after all? He could get into his car and drive off, forget about it all, just go on. Maybe he should.

No, he heard and turned.

He was standing there shaking his head.

What?

We can't just go on. They'll come after us, armed to the teeth with information, pictures, witnesses. They'll hunt us down and they'll stomp on us. He saw that his hair wasn't dyed.

"Your hair isn't dyed, too," he said.

He smiled back at him.

"Doesn't have to be. I'm inside you most of the time, remember? Thanks to you, that is."

"Oh. Right. Well, what do we do?"

"You'll know what to do. Just go on," he said nodding at the door.

"Right. I do know what to do."

He opened the door. The rush of cool air washed over him and despite the clouds, the light made him squint. He pulled up his shoulders. He could feel him slipping back inside him, strengthening, supporting. He was confident again and started for the car.

Yes, he thought as he opened the car door. I know what to do. I know exactly what to do.

Curt sat beside her when she made the call. It took quite a while to track Will Dennis down, and at one point his secretary tried to talk her into calling later.

"No, I must speak with him now. You have to get to him," she said firmly.

"Well, I'm trying. He hasn't responded to the page yet. You want to continue holding?"

"Absolutely," Terri said. "We'll hold until hell freezes over." She heard the secretary blow air through her lips and then the elevator music began again, periodically interrupted by messages and information from the district attorney's office, the county clerk's office, and the tax assessor's office.

"He's busy composing what new lies he's going to tell you," Curt said.

"My next call will be to the newspapers and radio and television stations," she threatened.

It was nearly fifteen minutes before the secretary came back on to say, "Please hold for Mr. Dennis."

Terri sat up.

"Before you start, let me tell you I've been on the phone all this time with Dr. Stanley's people," Will Dennis began.

"And?"

There was a truly pregnant pause.

"Apparently, we sent Dr. Stanley back in a body bag and not, what shall I call him, It?"

"What? How could that be?"

"You know he's a perfect duplication. If I had any doubt, which I didn't at the time, you would have ended it when you described how you had struck him in the forehead. Both of them had head bruises, and practically in the same place. He wore Stanley's clothing. He responded to everything the way I expected Doctor Stanley to respond. There just wasn't any way to tell," he claimed, his voice now high-pitched.

"What do you intend to do?" she asked.

"I'm working on it with the higher-ups," he said. "They're bringing in everyone they can. There hasn't been a manhunt like this since we went after bin Laden." Curt, who was sharing the earpiece, pulled back and shook his head.

"Tell him, they have to have a press conference and let the public know it all," she told Will Dennis.

"It's not my decision, Doc. I've made that suggestion myself. It's out of my hands."

"It's not out of mine," she said.

"Nothing's changed in that regard, Terri. You do that and they'll paint you into a corner. They..."

"They've lost control now, Will. If you care at all about the people who elected you, and the people who are vulnerable to this, you'll take a leadership position, I'll stand beside you," she said. "We'll do it together." He was silent a moment.

"Will?"

"Let me think about that, Terri. You might be right," he admitted. "I'll call you later today. I want to hear what they've got to say, what they're doing. Okay? I'll call you this afternoon."

"I'm not back home. I'm at Hyman's cabin in Willowemac. I'm supposedly taking a much-needed rest with Curt."

"Understood," he said. "I know the place. It's peaceful. I envy you."

"Yeah? Well, I'm not feeling very restful at the moment, Will." Curt smiled.

"Squeeze the bastard," he cheered.

"If this goes on, Will, you will be the one blamed."

"Is that a threat?"

"Just a clearly thought-out realization, Will. You have the information and you're sitting on it and another person is dead, and a teenager to boot." He was quiet.

Curt's smile widened as he nodded and whispered, "Yeah, right on."

"I'll call you later," Will said. The line went dead. She held the receiver a moment and then slowly cradled it.

"Maybe, I should go back to the office," she said.

"To do what? You're only an hour away, baby. Seconds away from reaching the media. Will Dennis knows that in spades now. We might as well go fishing. You've done what you can and very well, too," he added.

"I guess you're right," she said after a moment's thinking.

"Sure I'm right. It's like any negotiation. You deliver your best assault and then you let the other side stew. A watched pot never boils," he added. She smiled.

"Who told you that one?"

"My grandmother always used it, and Dad never forgot it. He loved to move on to another case and leave the first one hanging there."

"Yes, well I don't know if this one is hanging or seeping," she said. He leaned over to kiss her.

"You'll know soon enough," he said. "C'mon, I'll put the worms on the hooks." She laughed and followed him out. He had their fishing poles set against the railing and a basket between them.

"What's in there? And don't tell me worms," she said quickly.

"No, some wine, some cheese, a loaf of that French bread. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou beneath me in the wilderness. Ah love," he moaned and she poked him.

"Curt Levitt, since when did you become the romantic?"

"It was that smack on my head," he told her.

"In that case I'll bop you every night."

"Big talker," he teased, kissed her on the cheek and started for the boat. She watched him a moment and then followed. Despite it all she couldn't help feeling guilty about enjoying anything. She should be doing more, she thought, only she had no idea what it was she could do now.

Pick on the unsuspecting fish, she thought and hurried to catch up to Curt.

He sat in his vehicle and watched the front entrance of the county building. At one point he saw the two men who had accompanied Will Dennis to the motel and handled the cleanup. They went into the building and a little over an hour later, they emerged, but without Will Dennis.

He wasn't patient, but he looked patient sitting there in the car, calm. No one going by paid the slightest attention to him, he thought, actually, to us. He actually felt invisible. Finally, Will Dennis came out of the building. He was accompanied by two sheriff's patrolmen. They stopped at the bottom of the steps and spoke for a while. Then the patrolmen went to their vehicle and Will Dennis walked around and into the parking lot where his county vehicle was parked. He got into it and drove out.

Following at a safe distance behind, he could see Will using his car phone. He drove a good fifteen minutes before pulling into a self-service gas station about five miles or so past what was once the Monticello Trotters Race Track. Restaurants and gas stations, as well as motels had sprouted around it, but it all looked in hibernation now. There was nowhere near the bustling activity that characterized the area in its heyday.

Ghosts, he thought to himself. This place is haunted by its past. Memories lingered in old road signs that made promises no longer kept, hawking this bungalow colony or that small hotel, tempting visitors with now faded pictures of beautiful lakes and emerald-green golf courses. We've got to do our business and move on, he thought. There was an inherent danger to camping out in cemeteries. The dead might enjoy your company.

He pulled up behind Will Dennis, who was again on his cellular, talking while he filled his gas tank. Dennis had his back to him. He got out slowly, fingering the pistol he had used back in the motel owner's apartment. There was only one other gas customer, and he was finished, closing his tank and getting into his car. He watched him drive away. Will Dennis still had his back to him, still talked on the phone.

"Okay then," he said, "I'll be there in an hour." He flipped his phone closed and turned to reach for the gas hose, which had stopped its flow. For a moment, probably because of the black hair, he didn't recognize him. He even flashed a smile and said, "Just about done."

"Leave it," he told him.

"Pardon me?" Will said. He stared and then rose slowly as his eyes began to reflect recognition.

He pulled out the pistol.

"Leave it," he repeated. "Just walk to my car." Will Dennis looked about frantically.

"Move," he ordered firmly.

"Look, there are people who can help you. They're here now, and I was just going to meet with them, actually. Why don't you follow me in your car and..." He pulled the hammer back on the pistol.

"Walk to my car or die here," he said.

Will nodded and started toward his car. He backed up to let him pass. The driver's door was still open.

"Get in behind the wheel," he commanded as he opened the rear door. "Go on."

"What do you want?" Will asked.

He smiled.

"I told you that before. I want more. Now get in and close the door." Will did and he got in behind him and held the pistol close to the back of his head.

"Imagine," he said, "your brains splattered on that windshield. What a mess of thoughts and memories, huh?"

"I can help you," Will said. "Really. I'm on the phone with everyone involved. We have a solution."

"Oh, I know there is a solution. I know you can help me." He stopped smiling and added, "I want you to take me to her. Go on."

"Take you to whom?"

"The doctor, Dr. Barnard, the one who could make trouble for us. Go on."

"But..."

"Drive or decorate the windshield," he said putting the barrel of the gun against the back of his head.

Will dropped the shift into drive and pulled around his own car, looking at it longingly, as longingly as a man who was being swept past his last hope for rescue at sea.

"There's no need for this," Will said. "You're a very valuable person. They want to take you back, to help you, to make sure you're healthy and everything you need is provided."

"I know what I need and I know how to get it," he said. Will thought.

"I don't know where she is," he said.

"Then make a call and find out. You can find out anything you need to find out, and believe me," he added poking him sharply just where his neck and head joined, "you need to find this out."

"She's at work for sure," Will said.

"See. You're screwing up already. I know she's on vacation."

"Well, then she's gone. She's out of the area."

"She's only away for a few days. She can't be far. If she is gone, you are gone," he said. "Either you will die or she will die today. Who will it be?" he asked.

"Why do you have to kill her, or me for that matter?"

"We've got to protect ourselves."

"We?"

"Yes, we," he said.

"Look, if you're including me in this, I want to assure you..."

"We're not," he said.

Will gazed into the rearview mirror and saw him, his eyes fixed on the back of his head. He's mad, he thought. Whatever he is, he's insane.

"This won't help you," he said. "They won't take you back if you do something like this. I'm the chief law enforcement officer in the county!"

"That doesn't matter to us. We don't want to go back now. We want to go forward. Axe we going to her or what?" He leaned closer.

"Okay, okay, we're going to her," Will said.

"We knew you would make that choice," he said smiling. "We know you as well as you know yourself."

Will Dennis shuddered with a chill that brought him back to his childhood days when he first confronted something horrifying in a movie. He had gone with his older brother and his older brother's friends. His older brother wasn't supposed to take him, but he had to watch him that day and he wasn't about to be stuck in some G-rated film. He confronted his first vampire on the screen and cringed at the sight of blood dripping from those long, sharp teeth.

The creature seating behind him, for that was the only way he could think of him, a creature, revived those images. Would he lean forward any moment and sink his teeth into his neck, drawing out some precious nutrient and leaving him in mortal agony? Will Dennis thought his position had brought him face to face with some pretty cruel and violent people, but he always had the sense that he and the force behind him had the upper hand. They were there to punish, and punish they would. This was different. No court, no laws, no objections and motions to strike mattered. He was as helpless as the women who had fallen victim.

"You understand, I hope, that I was cooperating with your people. I've kept your existence secret, just like they wanted, and like I'm sure you want, right?"

"What did they promise you?" he asked.

"Me? I just do what I have to do to help. It's all for the better, isn't it? I mean as I understand it, you will be the answer to all diseases and illness, to aging itself. You're quite a wonderful thing."

Will saw him turn his eyebrows in. He had him thinking.

"You're absolutely right about this," Will continued, excited by the apparent breakthrough. "You've got to stop this Dr. Barnard. She doesn't have the same view of things. She's threatening to make trouble. She threatened me on the phone just an hour or so ago, in fact."

"Oh?"

"She said she was going to go public and expose you. She was going to put the blame on me. Actually, when you came up to me at the gas station just now, I was talking with your people, deciding how we would handle her."

"Well, now you know how we'll handle her."

"Yeah, right. That's good. She's at this cabin that belongs to the old doctor she works with, Templeman. It's on the lake, in the woods. We're about forty minutes away. I know exactly where it is. I've fished on that lake, hunted around it, too. I grew up here, you know."

"That's nice," he said.

Will actually felt himself relax.

"Now she's not alone. I'm giving you important information here. She's with her fiance, this lawyer, Curt Levitt. He's the one who you, I mean, who Dr. Stanley, confronted. You've got to be careful."

"Oh, I'm careful," he said. "Drive on and keep talking. It's better than the radio." Will saw him smiling. Was he really satisfied or was he toying with him. Keep talking? Yes, that was the way to handle people like him.

I'll slip out of this, he thought. Somehow, I'll survive.

He drove on and he kept talking.

Although the day began quite overcast, the cloud cover thinned and weakened until direct sunlight wove through the gauzy layers and brightened the water on the lake. In the distance it looked like ice to Terri. The wind had died down and the boat barely rocked now. She was lying back in Curt's arms. They had just eaten their cheese and bread and had nearly finished the bottle of Merlot. She felt cozy and warm as she leaned back. He leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead and move off some strands of her hair. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"Happy?" he asked.

"Content. Glad I followed your orders for a change, Doctor," she told him and he laughed.

"Why is it," he asked, "that I get the feeling this is really a unique occasion?"

"Don't worry. I'll settle down to just a mere twenty hours a day," she replied, and they both laughed softly. She closed her eyes again and he took a deep breath.

"I think I must have dug up sour worms or something. We haven't had a bite."

"Oh. I saw the bob thing bobbing."

"You did?"

He sat up quickly, moving her off him to seize the pole. When he wound in the line, he saw the hook was clean.

"Oh, that's great," he said. "We've provided a picnic for the fish, too." She laughed harder, her voice carrying over the water.

"If we don't catch anything significant, don't tell my father," he warned. "He's never gone fishing without success."

"Stop competing with him. You're your own man, Curt."

"Aye, aye, Dr. Freud."

She smiled and shook her head. Then she turned serious.

"Do you suppose there is some kind of psychological drive to recreate ourselves in our children?"

"Are you kidding? If I heard him say, 'when I was your age...' once, I heard it a hundred thousand times."

"Maybe that's part of this unrelenting drive to clone ourselves," she offered.

"I'm sure it is. I'm sure it has a lot to do with ego. I'm so good. There should be more of me. Of course, there would have to be more of you or I'd be in competition with myself," he said. He laughed, but she didn't. "What?"

"That's what he's all about, I think, competition. In the end he wants to be better than his original self."

"He's already better. He's survived."

"Yes," she said. She looked worried.

"Terri?"

"Let's go back, Curt. I want to go back," she said with that final and firm tone he recognized.

"Why?"

"As far as I know there are only two people, three now counting you, who know the truth, Curt. The other person is Will Dennis, and we've handled him wrong, I think. This isn't a matter of negotiations. You don't negotiate with cancer or pneumonia. You eliminate it.

"Or," she added pulling in her fishing pole, "it eliminates you."

"Right," he said, somewhat annoyed. "I knew this vacation idea was a dream."

"It's not that," she began, but he pulled the cord and got the little engine going, revving it up as high as he could to drown her out. She fell back against her seat as he turned the small boat and headed for the dock. She saw him squinting.

"What?" she asked, sitting up and turning.

"Someone's on the dock waving at us. It looks like... our boy, Will Dennis," he said.

Her heart stopped and started with a thick, resonant pounding she could feel in her temples.

"Is he alone?"

"Far as I can tell he is," Curt said.

They drew closer.

"I guess you got to him," he added.

Will Dennis stood back as they brought the boat in, Curt cutting the engine and stepping up.

"Will," he said, nodding.

"I thought it would be better to come out here to speak with you, Doc," he told Terri as Curt helped her out of the boat.

"Something new happen?"

"Yes. We got him," he said.

"You got him?"

"How did that happen so fast?" Curt asked. He reached for the poles and the marine bag.

Will shook his head and smiled.

"These guys are good. I'll never resist calling in the Feds. Petty jealousies in law enforcement help only the perps."

"That's very big of you, Will," Curt said.

"Yeah, well, you grow with your problems, Curt." He looked toward the house.

"Great place. How about we have some coffee and talk?"

"Okay," Terri said. She looked at Curt who nodded and the three of them started for the house. "Well, I can't deny this is a big load off my mind," she continued. It was Curt who first heard the footsteps behind them and turned. Terri had her arms folded and her head down. She kept walking beside Will Dennis.

"Terri," Curt called.

She paused and turned.

Dr. Garret's duplicate was standing there, holding a pistol pointed directly at Curt. She looked up at Will.

"There was nothing I could do," he whined, his arms out. "He had me in his gunsights the whole time I was on the dock. He jumped me at a gas station about an hour ago and made me take him out here."

"Made you?" Curt asked.

"At gunpoint," Will added.

"What do you want?" Curt asked, stepping forward aggressively, ignoring the gun.

"Curt!" Terri warned.

Now that she was actually confronting him, she could of course see how perfect was the mirror image of Dr. Garret Stanley, only she noticed some swelling in his cheeks, a reddening of his complexion, and a clear symptom of a thyroid problem -- bulging in his eyes. He was breathing hard, too.

"What do we want, Mr. Dennis?" he asked Will, smiling. "Well? He wants to know. Tell him."

"He wants more," Will said obediently.

"More? More of what?" Curt asked.

"More of everything, just like everyone else. Let's all walk slowly to the house. Mr. Dennis had a good idea. We'll have some coffee and talk." Curt hesitated on the balls of his feet, poised to charge.

"Curt, please," Terri cried. It wasn't only the sight of the pistol that frightened her now. The man was having some sort of physical reaction and from her perspective, it made him look even more maddening.

Curt looked at her and then joined her, glaring up at Will Dennis.

"This is your responsibility," he told him. Will said nothing. Curt grasped one of the fishing poles tightly. Terri could see it in his face -- he was thinking of spinning and striking him.

"Don't," she whispered.

"Don't be plotting anything," he said seeing them talk. "Stay together," he ordered when they reached the door. "Slowly, go ever so slowly. I'm right behind you."

Terri opened the door and they all entered. She looked back at him and saw he was sweating profusely now. His gun hand trembled a bit.

"Mr. Dennis," he said pointing to the rocker. "Why don't you take the center seat. You're used to being the center of things, aren't you? Go on," he snapped. Will looked at Terri and Curt and then walked to the chair and sat.

"Comfy?" he asked him.

"Listen," Will began, but stopped and stared.

He had his hand up for silence and then tilted his head as if he was listening to something. He smiled and nodded. Then, he stepped forward and shot Will Dennis dead center in the heart.

In the house the .38 sounded like a cannon. Will Dennis's chest seemed to explode, the blood spurting down his white shirt. The impact made him rock in the chair. His look of surprise froze on his face and his head fell forward and the rocking stopped.

Terri screamed.

He turned to her and Curt, who were frozen in place, Terri clutching Curt's hand.

"My God," she managed.

"We had no need of him now," he said, nodding at the dead Will Dennis. "All he would do is wiggle and squirm, lie, and make every effort to save his pathetic life. It's his nature. He lacks the pure honesty of someone like me who never denies his true purpose.

"You two should feel honored," he continued, "I'm truly the New Man, the future of the species. All we've been up to now is God's little experiment, not yet perfected. Oh, well, at least He has given us the ability to finish His work, eh?"

He wiped his forehead with the back of his left hand and saw the layer of sweat. He glanced at himself in the mirror hanging on the wall and turned to Terri.

"What do you think, Doc?"

"You don't look well," she said.

"I know." He smiled. "But I know what I need to make myself well, better than well," he said. "You're not as young as I like them these days, but I know you can give it to me."