Of Royal Descent (16 page)

The door in the back of the room opened
, and before I could even look to see who entered, I fell to my knees.  Pain racked my entire body, and a primal scream of suffering and rage instinctively followed.  A degree of nausea I had never before experienced washed over me and pressed me down to the floor. 

I could hear a male voice screaming. 

"You swore to me! You fucking swore to me!  I’ll kill you, Edgar!"

"Isn't this exciting?" asked Bradbury, speaking to no one in particular.

I twisted my head to see who had joined us in the room.  From the linoleum, I caught a distorted, sideways view of an enraged man locked in a cage just small enough for him to have fit through the back door.  Bradbury moved in front of my line of view, and I tried to look past him, but I was too weak to move.  My eyes started to blur as the room grew fuzzy. 

There was another shriek
, and I couldn't tell if it had come from me or the caged man.  While I fought to keep my eyes open, Bradbury stepped away from me.  I had a clear shot of the cage, only the man inside had disappeared.  In his place was a blue monster much like the one I had dreamt of that morning.  I could not scream, although I wanted to.  I could not move at all.  I watched as the creature climbed the bars to its cage and stretched out a long, festering arm toward Bradbury.  The monster strained and contorted itself in its vain attempt to grab hold of him.  Bradbury chuckled.

"You might as well calm yourself
, Dylan.  I held up to my end of the bargain.  I gave you my word he would not be forced here and he wasn't.  Doyle came of his own free will.  Now, won't it be nice to have the entire family under one roof?"

The monster dropped to its feet and crouched, methodically swaying back and forth.  It was hypnotizing.

"Your death will be painful.  I swear it," came the familiar clipped and ragged tones of the monster.

Bradbury chuckled again as my eyes involuntarily closed.  I tried to concentrate on his words to the creature.  No matter how I looked at it, they
could have only meant one thing.  The terrifying abomination of nature issuing death threats was my father. 

The long, crooked fingers of darkness crawled inside my brain
, and I succumbed to unconsciousness.

14

I didn't know how long I had been out when I started to rouse.  I lied still and kept my eyes shut because I had no choice.  I wasn't able to move anything.  Keeping my breathing even, I listened intently.  A steady rhythm of mechanical beeps sounded nearby.

I could tell I had been moved.  My body was stretched out flat onto some type of cushion.  Sudden
ly I remembered the blue monster.  I wondered if I was lied out next to him somewhere.

"
There's a spike in his heart rate," came a voice close to me.

"Good.  He is returning to us.  We have much ground to cover today," Bradbury answered.

"Doyle," he continued, only now directed at me, "your vital signs tell us you are waking.  Don’t be alarmed, you’re safe.  Try to relax until the neurotoxins wear off.  This always happens with the first shade.  It doesn't last long."

Safe?
  Was he kidding?
  I wasn't for sure what had transpired exactly, but here's what I did know:  Somewhere in the building, presumably close by, there was a freak of a monster capable of God knows what, threatening to kill people.  Well, at least threatening to kill Bradbury.  The monster may have been my father but that sure didn't mean I wanted him to tuck me into bed at night.

And as scary as my father turned out to be, I had a feeling the true
danger came from Bradbury himself.  He had a merry disposition and a bowl-full-of-jelly laugh but he was not Santa.  This guy had Dr. Frankenstein written all over him.  And now I was at his mercy.

The beeping on the machine accelerated. 

"Doyle, please try to relax.  I assure you, you will begin to regain your strength momentarily," said Bradbury, who had remained close by my side.

I willed myself to
calm down, and the beeps returned to their steady rhythm.  I saw no use getting worked up when there was nothing I could do about it.  I breathed evenly and waited for my body to catch up with my brain.

"Good, Doyle. 
Excellent.  Welcome to the first shade.  Paralysis is normal for the first few minutes.  You've never been around your father before, therefore your body has never had the chance to build up a tolerance for the neurotoxins that are bonded to the aggregation pheromones.  Now that the virus is activated, your body will begin to cannibalize the poison."

My eyes fluttered open.

"Ah, see there?  Your body has already begun," said Bradbury, looming over the head of the hospital bed I was on.

I could make slight changes in position of my neck
, and I could see I remained in the room I had passed out in.  But neither my father nor my grandfather was in the room now.  It was just Bradbury and one other guy in a lab coat with me.  I was bare-chested and covered in wires and IV lines.

I tried to speak but wasn't able to produce sound.

"Yes, that will return too, shortly," Bradbury acknowledged.  "Although I will warn you, the more the toxins wear off, the more pain you will feel.  Your body is being taken over by a hostile entity.  The activated virus is busy now, killing off healthy cells, making room for the new, mutated cells to grow.  It is a painful process, but I assure you, when you enter the second shade, you will never again feel physical pain."

I eyed Bradbury in my most questioning stare, as that was all I was capable of doing.

"Your organs are shutting down.  The first shade is when your body undergoes natural death," he answered.

Natural death?
  That didn't sound good. 
I guess I wore a confused expression, as Bradbury continued.

"You're dying, Doyle."

I began to feel pain in my arms even as he spoke the words.  From under sedated grogginess, my sixth sense bristled.  I knew he was telling me the truth.  I was dying.

I closed my eyes to shut out Bradbury's face.  Looking at him only made me feel hatred
, and I didn't want to waste my time thinking about Bradbury while I died.  I felt a tear slide out and roll past my temple, into my hairline.  Thoughts of Addy swam before me.

"Ah, Doyle.
  Don't be scared, my boy.  You have some time left yet.  The process lingers for a couple weeks.  And besides, you have something much better to look forward to.  Though your body will function differently, you will regain physical function of it along with your intact mental faculties afterward.  The things you will be capable of soon are truly wonders to behold."

A vicious jolt of pain shot through me
, and my back arched off the bed.  My mind was already screaming before my voice could catch up with it. 

"Now," said Bradbury to the other guy.

The nameless doctor stuck a needle into one of my IV tubes.  A warm, gentle sensation crept over me, easing the pain.

"Morphine," explained Bradbury.

My body relaxed, and I fell back to the table.  I brought my hand up, slowly and clumsily, to shield my eyes.

"Does the light bother you
?" asked Bradbury.

I didn't answer.  Not because I couldn't but because if I directed my speech at Bradbury, I knew only death
threats and curse words were going to come out.  I was afraid that that might have hampered his willingness to let the morphine flow freely.

I noticed the lights in the room grew dimmer
, but I continued to shield my eyes.

Several minutes went by in relative silence.  The two men would occasionally move around the room
, and sometimes I would feel another delicious dose of morphine work its way into my system. 

I spent my quiet time thinking about Addy.  Another tear slid out and worked its way through my hair.

"Can I have my sweatshirt?" I asked without removing my arm from my eyes.

Someone laid the shirt across my chest
, and I pulled it over my face and inhaled deeply.  Addy's scent clung to it from the night before.  I pictured her with her head resting on my thigh, looking up at me, as she had that morning.  I could see myself tracing the side of her face. 
How soft her skin was.
  I would never feel it again.  Another pain ripped through my chest, and I cried out.

"Double the dose, the neurotoxins should be almost out by now," instructed Edgar to the man wielding the drugs.

"Sir, we have a situation in the lobby," came an unknown voice from seemingly nowhere.  I removed the shirt from my eyes and saw Bradbury holding his two-way radio.

"Elaborate," Bradbury answered in an indifferent manner.

"It's Hawthorne's friend.  He's refusing to leave."

Oh God. 
I'd forgotten about Chuck.  I'd told him to come get me if I didn't show back at the hotel.  I sprang up immediately from the bed and stumbled forward from my lack of balance.  Pain rippled in every direction.

"Don't hurt him.  He doesn't know anything, I swear it," I choked out.

"Of course he doesn't know anything.  You didn't know anything, how could he?" replied Bradbury, unconcerned. 

The doctor came to help me to my feet and directed me back to the bed.

"Sir, what would you like me to do?" came the guard's voice again.

Bradbury looked thoughtful as he considered his options.  "Bring the boy down.  Let them say their good
-byes," he spoke into the radio.

"Yes sir," was
the reply.

My extrasensory perception alerted me that something was wrong
… very wrong.  I quieted my mind and tried to decode the message exactly.  This was new to me, and it was apparently going to take some practice.  Not to mention the liberal dosing of morphine that wasn't helping to sharpen my focus.

I breathed slowly in and out and closed my eyes, concentrating on Chuck's face.  Images swirled through my mind
.

"What is it Doyle?" asked Bradbury intently.

I didn't answer.  I continued searching the corners of my brain.  It hit me suddenly, knocking the breath out of me.  My third eye had placed in front of me the memory of an eight year old Chuck Johnson. 

I, Chuck Johnson, hereby solemnly swear my loyalty and allegiance to my brother, Doyle Hawthorne, forever, no matter what.
  I could see the blood intermingle on our thumbs as we pushed them together and Bradbury's words returned to haunt me. 
Now let's pretend your dormant virus is activated, and now you have the disorder.  If the person you had transmitted your blood to came within a certain distance to yourself, you would trigger the virus in that person.

"You can't let him down here!" I screamed.
             

Bradbury stared at me thoughtfully.  "Doyle, if you were just
to simply vanish, this friend of yours could cause problems for me.  This leaves me with two options.  One, you tell him you have decided to stay, and he must return home alone.  Or two, we kill him.  Which would you prefer?"

Through the glass barrier, I could see the door open to the adjoined room.  The guard was leading Chuck inside.

"Wait, wait!  Okay, I'll make you a deal.  Just tell him not to come in.  Do it now!" I said, nearly hysterical with fear.  Obviously, I couldn't tell Bradbury why I was freaking out.  He would be delighted to have another lab rat.

Bradbury, curious to hear me out, held up his hand to stay the guard on the other side of the glass.

"Give us a moment," he said into the radio.

They remained where they were
, and I turned to face Edgar.

"If you swear to me not to let him in here, or in this building ever again, you have my word I will submit willingly to any test you would subject me to," I said.

Slowly, Bradbury stood and walked toward the glass to get a better look at Chuck.  After what seemed like an eternity, he turned back to face me.

"
Any
test?"

I nodded.

"Any particular reason you feel the need to keep a wall between the two of you?"  He looked thoughtful.

Oh God, what could I say?  And could I make it believable? 
Chuck's life depended on it.

Tears sprang to my eyes.  "Chuck has been my best friend as long as I can remember.  I know him well.  If he walks into this room, there's no way he's leaving without me.  This will create a problem for me, as you just told me you would kill him if he didn't leave.  And that would create a problem for you, because I would kill you before my father ever got the chance,
” I said quietly, not knowing how much of our conversation, if any, could be overheard through the glass.  Although my voice was low, I spoke with conviction, meaning every word of my threat on Bradbury's life.

He
chuckled his Santa Claus laugh.

"Okay, Doyle
.  You can say good-bye your own way," he said as he handed me the two-way receiver.  "Just make sure he leaves the area.  I don't want him raising questions."

I took the walkie-
talkie and stepped in the direction of the window.  The wires connecting me to various machines held me back, and I waited impatiently while the doctor rolled each machine and IV pole toward the glass barrier.  Chuck stood staring back at me, looking confused and worried.

"Hey," I began as I pressed the transmit button on the receiver.  "I'm sorry
.  I can't let you past the glass.  I just found out that I'm sick," I said.

The guard handed his two-way over to Chuck.

"Sick?  Like contagious?  You were fine a couple hours ago," he said skeptically.

I was going to have to be more convincing.

"No, I wasn't," I spoke quietly, hoping to convey the seriousness of my condition.  "I just didn't want you to know how bad I felt.  I've been sick for a while."

Recognition flashed in Chuck's eyes
, and I knew he was thinking of the day we drove into Kettering and I threw up at the gas station.

"So let's go.  We'll get you a doctor."

"There's no better place for me to be than here," I said, suppressing the anger I felt at having to lie to Chuck.  "It turns out my grandfather was a patient here a long time ago.  They specialize in rare diseases.  I have what my grandfather had, a rare type of cancer."

I already felt sick to my stomach because of the first shad
e, and the guilt I felt over lying to Chuck was not helping to suppress the nausea.  I turned just in time to vomit into the trash can.

"So what happens now?  How are they going to treat you?  When will I be able to visit?"  Chuck
asked.

I swallowed the lump in my throat
while I held the receiver down and mentally prepared myself for what I was about to say next.  Exhaling slowly, I brought the walkie back to my mouth.  "I won't get better, Chuck.  I'm dying."

I watched Chuck's face alter as I spoke.  He shook his head vehemently in denial.

"No, Doyle, you're not dying.  Suck it up.  They're going to help you," he said.  And for the first time in my life, I saw tears come to Chuck Johnson's eyes.  "It'll be okay man, you'll see."