Those hours in the woods had soothed some of the ragged edges of my frayed soul and had finally allowed me to come back to life, even if only a little. But slowly, day by day, that little was beginning to grow.
But now I could feel the panic tearing at me again, shredding my insides, trying to climb out of me as Bishop placed the syringe between his teeth and hit a few keys on the computer he had set up. There was no internet, the aliens had banned it and dismantled it months before they had unleashed their unholy attack, but Bishop kept all of his notes on his laptop. I watched Bishop as he frowned, shook his head, and pulled the syringe from between his lips. He seemed to have completely forgotten that I was even here, or what the syringe was for. I understood this strange quirk about Bishop, understood people who lived mainly within their own worlds. Aiden lived within the walls of science and math; my father had also been a dreamer who had spent many hours locked away writing.
But Bishop was driving me nuts right now, and at this moment I had no patience for it.
“Bishop.” He continued to ignore me as his fingers flew over the keyboard. “Larry. Doctor Bishop!” He finally glanced up at me, surprise filtering slowly over his features. I shook my head in annoyance. “What is wrongwith my blood?” I demanded.
“Oh yes, yes, your blood. We need a fresh sample Bethany.”
I exhaled angrily as I folded my arms over chest. “I’m on antibiotics, remember?”
“Oh yes, yes.” Disappointment flitted over his features, he dropped the syringe down. “We’ll wait until you are off the medicine.” He had already informed me of this fact two days ago, but he seemed to have forgotten. “How is your shoulder? Let me take a look.”
I sat on the edge of the table as he examined my wound closely. His fingers were gentle as he prodded me, but I couldn’t stop myself from wincing as they touched against the tender flesh of the burn. “It’s healing exceptionally well considering the amount of damage, and the means taken to close it. It’s a good thing you were so close to the hospital as you’re showing no signs of infection.”
I caught a brief glimpse of a horse head and two front hooves before he tugged my shirt back into place. As the swelling, blistering and redness had gone down the rearing horse burned into my shoulder had become more obvious. At least it was a horse and not a camel after all, I thought wryly. I shifted on the table I was sitting on, my hands wrapped around the edge of it as I leaned forward.
“Yes, I was lucky. So what is wrong with the samples?”
He glanced back at me, shoving his horn rimmed glasses further up his nose. “I told you it’s just contaminated, we’ll get it all cleared up in a few days.”
I knew he was impatient to get fresh samples from me, and now so was I. “What are you seeing in the samples you do have?”
“Cell degeneration.” I froze; my legs stopped swinging back and forth as I gazed at him in shock. “Abnormalities.”
“Excuse me?” I squeaked.
He seemed to truly see me for the first time, seemed to finally focus on my fear and uncertainty. “It’s nothing to worry about Bethany. I’d let you know if there was. The degeneration is simply because the samples are old and were improperly stored. They were more than likely contaminated.”
“Contaminated?”
“Hmm.” He was back at his computer, his head bowed as he read something on the screen. “Due to lack of room we stored the alien, and your blood, in the same fridge at the warehouse. There must have been cross contamination.”
I continued to stare at him in wide eyed horror, angered by the fact that he seemed to be taking this so lightly when I was a tumultuous mass of raw nerve endings and terror. There had been so many changes going on within me lately, so many things that I didn’t understand. Could these abnormalities in the samples be the reason why? Had that thing that grabbed me on the beach somehow done something to me?
“What if it’s notcross contamination!?” I nearly shrieked.
He looked up in surprise at my harsh tone. My terror must have been evident as he forgot about his computer to walk back toward me. “I’m sorry Bethy I’m not explaining myself well at all.”
“No, you’re not,” I agreed.
“The blood samples I took from you were ruined when the alien was stored with them. Your cells are showing a mutation.”
My throat was completely dry, my heart lumbered painfully in my chest. That cold chill was back, it crept down my spine leaving a layer of sweat behind. Bishop’s eyes grew distant once again as his eyebrows drew tightly together. I hated the fact that he seemed completely baffled by whatever he had discovered in my cells. “A mutation that resembles the cells of that thing we killed?” I croaked.
“No not like that, it’s different.” Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! My mind screamed over and over. I was trying not to shake, trying to remain calm, but it was taking every ounce of strength I had to do so. “The alien cells must have mixed with your blood and changed it somehow while they were in the fridge, that’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“But you believe there’s something different about me? That my cells are different?”
My voice was barely more than a whisper. “No Bethany I don’t believe that. They couldn’t be anywhere near as different as what I’m seeing. There are still many human characteristics visible, but the differences are too much, and too startling. Your DNA would have been changed at a genetic level; it would have rendered you something that was neither human, nor that creature. We would have noticed the differences; it’s simply not possible that we wouldn’t. That youdidn’t.”
Of course it wasn’t possible; of courseI was completely human. My mother and father were entirely human; Aiden and Abby were entirely human. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something off; that I wasn’t entirely like him, like them. Not anymore anyway. I had noticed differences, not many, and I could explain all of them away by our strange new world and new existence. Well my new eating habits were a bit strange, but even that could be explained away. I had eaten little red meat before all of this had started, but lately it seemed to be all I wanted. And I liked it rare, or at least a lot rarer than I had ever liked it before. I shuddered at the thought of the still bleeding meat, but even as disgust rolled through me, my stomach rumbled in hungry expectation. However, even that could be explained away by anemia or some other vitamin that my body was lacking due to my increased exercise and lack of a consistent, and well balanced, food supply.
My better night vision was due to my increased night activity, my hearing seemed better but I attributed that to the fact that I used the sense more now in order to survive. I was more graceful and faster because I had to be, because I had been honed into more of an athlete and had been trained to fight and move more quietly through the world. I was more aware of my body now than I ever had been, that was the only reason I noticed all of these differences in me. Even as I thought it though, I had the niggling doubt that I was wrong, that I was lying to myself.
“You haven’t noticed anything have you Bethany?”
His gaze was keen, sharper than I like. I swallowed heavily as I shook my head. “No, nothing,” I lied though he didn’t know that. “Aiden and Abby are normal?” I managed to choke out wondering if perhaps their blood was abnormal too.
“Their blood’s normal, I checked it to see if maybe there was some strange genetic flaw in the three of you.”
“Am I…” I broke off as I nearly choked on the words. “Am I somehow one of those things? When that thing grabbed me on the beach, did it somehow do something to me that changed me?”