Legacy of the Defender (The Defender Series Book 1) (26 page)

Lessons from Jason continued while managing to sneak martial arts books from the library to read them cover to cover.  My skills improved drastically.  “Go outside,” they would say whenever I was trying to study fighting.  Without Jason, it was never as exciting.  Trying to learn katas in the sun was grueling, especially if you are trying to hide what you are doing.  Mother wanted me outside to get exercise.  She had no idea how hard I was working inside.

He begged me to sneak out one weekend. 
I did not dare. 
Sneaking out from home was bad for my health.  I did obey the rules on this one.  It just was not worth the risk of not being able to spend the night over at Jason’s, or vice versa.  When we did hang out it was usually at his house.  My parents were too protective to allow me any such freedoms, so I never dared any such attempts while at home. 

Jason’s parents were lax.  Whenever I stayed over, they let us roam freely.  He was responsible, but I was a good influence on him morally, so there were never any constrictions.  In return, we never gave them reasons to mistrust us.  At night, we stayed later at the lake or we rode our bikes crazy distances.  Out of all of our time we shared, we enjoyed walking the woods most of all...suddenly everything changed. 

I paused, startled. 
Had I been speaking aloud this entire time?
  The doctor looked bored, and I realized he had just finished asking the question.  He sat and waited for my answer.  My internal conversation had taken only seconds.  Yet if I told him the truth, he would have me committed.  We stared at each other as I repositioned painfully in bed.  He got bored with my silence because he stood up and turned around, moving the chair off to
the side and back against the far wall.

Funny, in my mind I had covered from start to finish.  I was a geek, a bookworm, a wimp, and probably a coward because I backed down from most confrontations.  Thanks to my stepfather, fear of someone hitting me prevailed.
 
Perhaps had the beatings been worse there would be less fear.  Maybe I would have been tougher.

Nothing prepared me for what he said next. 

“In the past six years you have sustained a series of injuries I’m afraid without leaving the comfort of your own bed.  We placed someone in the room soon after the incident happened.”  I could see a puzzled look on his face.

“It started with claw marks appearing in various places on your body.  The nurses and doctors thought at first it might have been your family leaving marks on you by accident.  Your mother was very upset and passionate about your recovery.  It crossed our minds that maybe she was trying to cause pain to see if she could wake you up.  They monitored her visits, and she made no efforts or gestures to harm you.  Yet the markings continued.  Initially, no one ever actually saw them take place
.
  They were seen at varying intervals, at first.”  He paused, but I did not interrupt him.  This was all crazy to me, but something held my tongue.

“We brought in the church to observe you and see if there was any sort of presence here that might be attacking you.  They ruled out demonic attacks quickly.  The priest felt nothing present and did not see any marks that were similar to demonic possession.  This went on for many, many months, about fifteen.  We were close to ruling it out when a large amount of blood came from a wound on your back.  They classified it as a puncture wound.  I saw the blood soaking the sheets right in front of my eyes.  When we rolled you over a wound opened up right in front of me.  Then several more appeared.  We could not patch you up fast enough.  Blood…given right away, saved your life.  You were going to die while we stitched you up.” 

I began trying to move some of the muscles in my back to see if I could feel anything of the sort.  My entire back still hurt.  Further movement aggravated things greatly.  I needed to slow down.  Movement meant pain.

“This repeated so frequently that we had to leave you on your stomach to monitor your condition every day.  I thought it was strange that it was only on your back that the marks appeared at first.  It showed no signs of stopping.  Slowly they began to appear all over, and there was no pattern to it.  Nothing made any sense; the church came back to evaluate you, and they still could not detect any evil forces or demons at work.  You were not convulsing during the attacks.  This stumped all the doctors and scientists.  Then one day they suddenly stopped.”

The doctor paced the room in front of me.  He walked over and poured some water into a cup, took a long drink while watching me.  It was bizarre.  The chaos beheld was great.  My mind drew blanks. 

I just sat there staring at him and him at me.  I was starting to feel like a freak.  Movies from my childhood played mentally.  They were the kind of movies where something unseen attacked someone, but there was always some way of detecting it.  Granted those were movies.

He drank his fill and began again.  “Several weeks later, it started up again, only this time it was broken bones, torn muscles, and crushed vertebrae.  Then there were wounds to suggest something larger was somehow hitting you from beyond who knows where.  You were getting the hell beat out of you somehow, and we could only watch and attend to your wounds.  Your story stayed quiet save a few church leaders and scientists who came to participate in a comprehensive study.  Many different churches sent many different priests to try to find answers.  Eventually, they all left.  However, the Catholic Church stayed and began to perform exorcisms on you.  Nothing worked.  The attacks came and the damage was left in their wake.”

“The science community brought in several different devices to see if they could detect paranormal activity.  For weeks, machines that monitored movement, and several light spectrometers, decorated your room.  Another device that measured electromagnetic fields found nothing.  That is actually the one they figured would catch it.  Nothing worked.”

“Samples of your tissue were analyzed at the lab.  Your DNA was tested and retested.  There is nothing special about you other than elevated levels of testosterone in your blood.  Why your body was healing and literally re-knitting was something some of the best could not figure out.” 

He was still pacing the room and was looking out the windows now.  I could see his reflection and the mystified look he held close.

“After a year of dealing with these new threats to you, the church finally gave up and posted a priest here twenty-four hours a day.  There were no answers, nothing logical anyway.  They left the priest incase last rights or spiritual intervention was required.  Even though your family is not Catholic, they stayed.” 

A sideways glance from him showed me he was not much of a believer.  Faith was a joke to him.  He continued.

  “Then everything stopped again.  We thought whatever it was had done its worst.  Your body was healing at an amazing rate, except you were still in a coma.  The church pulled the coverage from your room since the danger seemed to be past and visited once a week.  All was quiet.”

He paused and looked at me for a long time.  I found the energy to interject something, but all I could manage to say was, “So that’s it?  It’s over now?” 

He shook his head with a very sad look on his face.  I could actually feel his pain flowing from him into me from across the room.

“No Dieter, it’s not.  It got much worse.  You began to show signs of bite marks from something whose teeth marks we could not identify.  You showed signs of burns from acid.  Hell, I could have sworn at one point you had been run through buy something large.  Several times your nose was broken.  They even had to partially sew your hand back on once!” 

I raised both hands and looked at them.  There was a faint scar on my right wrist.  “But yet you healed remarkably fast, almost before we could finish stitching you up.  So fast that three different doctors petitioned for permits to make you a life study.  Your mother denied them when they did not offer or bring any financial aid with them.”

He refilled his glass and returned next to the bed, and took a long look at me. 

“You should have been dead long ago, but something helped keep you alive.  I may have left out some minor details here and there, you are welcome to read the reports I have written,” he offered with a slight smile that seemed very tired.  “We will talk again after you have seen your family.  I am sure you have a million questions that I cannot answer.”

He began to walk to the door.  A flood of questions came to my mind, but the only thing I found myself saying shocked me.  “There was something there the night of the accident.  I am having weird dreams that seem so real… about monsters…  I...”  He raised his hand to stop me.

“Had I not witnessed these events over the last four years, I would laugh and doubt you.  At this point, anything might be possible.  Get some rest we will talk soon.”  He left the room.  His loud foot falls carried him off into the corridor to somewhere.

The nurse returned.  She approached the bed with a sad look on her face.  Moisture was collecting in her eyes.  I was processing how to request that he call me Dietz and the doctor's refusal.  What do you do with people that do not respect your wishes on what to call you?  It was both irritating and frustrating on top of everything that was racing around in my mind.  I had even made it a point to call him something to irritate him to make my point and had hoped he would have understood.  Sadly my efforts met resistance so the thought faded of winning that one with him.  It was not worth arguing over.  Her scent overwhelmed me.  With her next to the bed, it was as if I was placing my nose on her skin.  I took another deep breath.  It was intoxicating

“I have been looking after you for four years now.  Never have I seen such strength and recovery before, let alone so many times,” she said.

“Eryn is your name right?”  I stammered, having difficulties speaking to her for such beauty moved me beyond what words could bring to bear and loss of motor skills did not help. 

She nodded.  “Yes, Eryn Magnussen,” extending her hand for a proper shake.  I took her hand gently.

“How old do I look?”  I asked.

She made a motion of looking me over before replying.  “If I didn’t know I would say thirty-something.  Not bad for someone with as many wounds as you have taken either.” 

I smiled.  It did not make sense to be able to mature while in this bed for so long.  Perhaps it was possible to learn from dreams. 
Was that even possible
?  Could I really be capable of acting my biological age without adjustment?

“I feel…older,” I said, pausing.  “Please forgive me for staring at you.  It was nice to have you to look at when my eyes first opened.”  She smiled and patted me on the arm.

“I hope and pray that whatever has done this to you is truly gone.  Lord knows you deserve some peace after six years.”  The look in her eyes told me that what she had witnessed had been traumatic for her as well.  Had she been witness to what Doctor Price explained?

“Thanks.  I am very tired, though.  I am going get some rest,” I said.  She stepped back and turned to the door.

“The call button is next to the bed if you need anything,” she said.  She made a motion of depressing a button as she opened the door.

“Okay.”  My eyelids failed to remain open any longer.  That feeling crept over me again like when first I opened my eyes and saw the creatures flying around me.  Almost terror like, this creeping doom circled back in the room with me.  The image was out of focus, but it smelled dark and earthlike, yet nothing was actually visible when my eyes popped open and scanned the room.  I sensed something familiar when the aroma changed to a smell that reeked of darkness.  The aroma seemed to be oozing out of my pours.  Growing in strength, this presence caused my thoughts to shift into a dreamlike state.  I became aware that a dream state had entered, merging the reality of my room with the reality of something un-definable. 

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” she said and walked out the door.

My eyes snapped open one last time, not wanting to see the creatures.

The fact is, my memory leading up to the event was fine, but afterward, there were only bits.  Those were hard to believe.  What the Doctor told me may just have trumped what I held back.  None of this made sense.  It sounded even crazier.  I had to get it straight in my own head before anyone else knew.  I focused.  The memory appeared and formed again.  Just when I felt I could see it clearly, it faded as if something inside me fought to protect me from the truth.

I stared at the walls and the horribly bland pictures decorating the room.  A slight chuckle escaped.  It hurt, mainly due to fatigue.  His question was more involved than he could imagine.  It did not matter that there had been strange occurrences regarding my stay.  With each breath, my eyes became heavier.  At this point being stuck in the bed was no fun.  It hurt to move.  It hurt to breathe.  My eyelids rose and fell to the rhythm of my own breath like a raft on the ocean.  I always liked that sensation. 

My eyelids finally fell.  I drifted rhythmically toward a deep sleep.  Like waves rushing to the sand and crashing, I felt myself slipping.  Exhaustion pulled at me.  A familiarity sensation settled over me.  My dreams flooded with scenes of that night – the same one of which the shrink inquired.  Visions emerged.  I was moving again, even as I lay motionless on the hospital bed.  Forces pulled at me.  An image of the moon came to me.  Yet it was not the moon of this world.  The size, shape, and colors were all wrong.