Chapter 6
Seacrest College Campus
Eve opened the door of her dorm and called out, "Hi, I'm ba..." She was cut off by a pint-sized hurricane that wrapped her in a tremendous hug and started babbling.
"Oh you're back and you're all right and okay. I was so scared and worried and..."
"Bette," Eve gasped out, "Air is becoming an issue here."
"Oops, sorry about that," she apologized. "I was just scared and..."
"And worried. I got that already," Eve interrupted gently. "But scared and worried about what?"
"You, sweety," Bette answered, "Ever since that really bad vision that M-M-Marcus gave me I've been getting flashes of things even when I'm not handling anything. I keep seeing the two monsters from that night, sometimes one at a time, sometimes both together. Another vision that keeps recurring is you all cut up and lying on a slab, dead."
"Are you sure? That sounds an awful lot like me in a coma after my accident," Eve tried to reassure her friend.
"Maybe," Bette sounded uncertain. "But there were no life support machines or anything like that and the doctor-guy was pulling a sheet over your face. I'm pretty sure they don't do that with coma patients. Besides, if it is you after your accident it's the farthest into your past I've ever seen."
"What do you mean, Bette?"
"Well, it's like this," Bette explained, "When I touch someone or something I get flashes of their history. Not all the gory details, just the highlights, and the extreme lows as well. But when I touch you," she grasped Eve's hand in her own, "the farthest back I see is you waking up in the hospital."
"That's probably because I don't remember anything before that," Eve said with a self-deprecating smile, "Amnesia chick here after all." She indicated herself with a pointed thumb.
"You don't get it," Bette persisted. "Even if you don't remember your history, it still happened. It's like you don't have a past, like you didn't exist before that point."
...
"Penny for your thoughts," Marcus prompted.
"Oh, it's nothing really, " Eve absently answered. It had been three days since Bette's comments about her past – or lack thereof – and she was still brooding about what they might have meant. Not even Marcus's company at what was rapidly becoming their table at the campus coffee shop seemed able to distract her.
"It looks like something to me," he persisted. "You've been stirring your coffee for nearly twenty minutes and have barely said three words in that time. Talk to me Eve. What is it?"
"I'm just puzzling over a problem," she replied. "A variation on the old If a tree falls and no-one hears it does it make a sound? question. This one goes If no-one can remember a person's past, did it really happen?"
"So is this the Philosophy of Amnesia? Or has something else got you pondering the past?"
"Bette was saying something about how I don't have a past because her visions don't show her anything before my coma. Now I don't put a lot of stock in that sort of thing. Please don't tell her that by the way. My rebirthday is coming up, and I just sort of started thinking about what my life was like before the landslide erased it all."
"Um, rebirthday?" Marcus quizzed.
"Oh, sorry. My actual birthday is in May, but since I can't remember it I don't have any real emotional attachment to the date. My Dad and I celebrate my new life as a kind of rebirth on the anniversary of the day I woke up. That's tomorrow. Dad is planning something in Boston for the weekend."
"Then why don't we do something tomorrow night?" he suggested. "Just the two of us on a quiet romantic rebirthday dinner date."
Eve smiled, "That sounds wonderful. Why don't you pick me up at seven?"
...
Downtown Seacrest
Eve leaned into Marcus's side with his arm wrapped around her shoulders as they walked through the park. Marcus had gotten reservations at the best restaurant in Seacrest for her rebirthday dinner. He had even arranged for the orchestra to play a number of special requests and they had danced the evening away. Now they were simply enjoying the warmth of each other's arms on a cool autumn evening.
"Thank you for a wonderful evening Marcus," Eve looked up at him. "I think this has been the best rebirthday I've had yet."
"How many have you had? I think you mentioned the number five once," Marcus asked.
"It's five years ago today that I woke up from my coma," she confirmed. "Five years of trying to build a new life without the foundations of my old life to work with."
"That certainly can't be easy," Marcus said with a note of admiration. "You've done an amazing job."
"I don't know about amazing, but it certainly has helped to have people like my father and Bette supporting me," she answered. "And now you too. I know we haven't really known each other very long but it feels like you were always meant to be a part of me. I miss you when you're not with me, like there's a part of me missing that I didn't even realize was supposed to be there if that makes any sense. Sometime during these last two weeks I've fallen in love with you Marcus Talbot."
Marcus stopped in his tracks, stunned as her casual statement sunk in. "Eve," he paused, trying to find the words. "There's a part of me that wants to tell you to run from me as far and as fast as you can. That loving me is the biggest mistake you could possibly make. But that small voice is drowned out by the simple joy I feel whenever I see you smile. I feel my heart sing along with the music of your voice. And the sheer intensity of it all frightens me if I stop to think about it. But when I'm near you all the fears, all the doubts and uncertainties fade away and I know deep down in my soul that this is the truth. I love you Eve."
He leaned down to her, she stood on tiptoe, and as their lips met they melted into each other and the world around them ceased to exist for a few magical moments. The spell was broken when Marcus suddenly stiffened and gasped.
"No," the pain in his voice was obvious, "Eve, run." He was almost growling as he collapsed in a heap.
"Oh no sweetness, don't run," Eve backed up a few steps from the young street punk who was wiping Marcus's blood off the wicked looking knife he held. "You and me are gonna have us a party."
Brandishing the knife, casually tossing it back and forth from one hand to the other, the punk stepped over Marcus's prone form and advanced on Eve. As he reached out to grab her, he froze at the sound of a bestial growl behind him. She shrieked as something suddenly erupted from the assailant's chest spraying blood across her face and blouse. It took a moment to register that the something was a fur-covered claw gripping the mugger's still beating heart. Another razor sharp claw swiped across the now limp body's neck, tearing the head from the corpse.
Eve stood frozen in horror at the sight of the Beast standing before her. It stepped towards her, ignoring the bloody body on the ground. Leaning forward slightly, the Wolf Man sniffed the air around her. Its eyes widened in... something, recognition maybe, before taking a step back from her. As she watched, the werewolf's eyes changed from a glowing, feral gold to a clear, piercing grey – Marcus's eyes. It was then that she realized the Beast was wearing Marcus's clothing. "Marcus?" she whispered.
The Wolf Man gave a sudden yelp of pain and clutched his side, spinning away from Eve and collapsing in a heap on the ground. At the same time a sound like a car backfiring registered on her senses. She watched in stunned fascination as the Wolf Man's body began to ripple and shift, transforming to Marcus and back again, as if unable to hold either form.
Shaking off her stupor, she knelt beside him and gently moved the hand/claw that was clutching at his side. Examining the injured area, she found what she assumed was a gunshot wound. Tearing a sleeve off her blouse, she wadded it up and used it as a compress on Marcus's wound. Maintaining pressure with one hand, she fumbled her cell phone open with the other and hit the speed dial. "Daddy?" she sobbed.
...
Seacrest General Hospital
Nurse Liza Montero had worked with Dr. Carlton for the last three years and had never seen him move faster than a brisk walk. She felt him to be one of the most calm, stable, and sedentary men she had ever known. So while she sat outside on a smoke break, gossiping with a friend from Pediatrics, she was more than a little shocked to see Carlton tear out of the hospital at a flat out run, jump in his car and peel out of the parking lot with tires squealing.
"What could get Dr. Carlton to move like that?" her friend wondered.
Montero replied simply, "His daughter."
...
Downtown Seacrest
Konrad Frankenstein watched through the scope of his rifle as the girl broke down in hysterics over what she had just witnessed. For a moment he considered firing one more shot to put her out of her misery, then thought better of it. He was not a murderer after all. The expendable street thug he had hired to attack the young couple had confirmed his theory that Talbot was indeed a werewolf. Frankenstein had then shot the Beast with a silver bullet he had specially made in Boston a few days earlier. The Wolf Man simply had to be put down like the wild and savage animal he was, he mused as he packed up the rifle and headed back to his car.
...
Carlton's heart was pounding in his chest like a jackhammer as he stopped his car and got out. In the headlights' glow he could see Eve, sitting on the ground holding someone and rocking back and forth. She looked up and called to him, sobbing, "Daddy, please help him. Please."
Grabbing his bag, he rushed to her side only to stop dead when he got a look at who, at what, she was holding. "God in Heaven! What... what is going on?"
"It's Marcus, Daddy," Eve could barely hold her voice together. "I think he's been shot. I don't understand what's happening to him. Please help him Daddy, please." She looked up at him and Carlton's heart just broke at the pain and grief in his daughter's eyes.
"I love him Daddy," she whispered.
Instantly he was on his knees beside them. "Let me see the wound." Eve carefully lifted the makeshift compress from Marcus's side. Carlton gently felt around the bullet hole, eliciting a growl from his patient.
Eve stroked Marcus's brow, "It's all right," she whispered to him. "He's trying to help you." The stricken werewolf calmed visibly at the sound of her voice.
Carlton concluded his exam. "It feels like the bullet is still in there. I'll need to operate as soon as possible. Help me get him into the car."
Between the two of them, they managed to get Marcus into the back of Carlton's SUV without much difficulty. Eve settled in beside Marcus with his head in her lap. "Where are we going Daddy?" she wanted to know.
"There's no way we can take him to the hospital like this so that severely limits our options," Carlton told her. "We're going home. I have a fully equipped surgical suite set up in the attic of the north wing. It hasn't been used in a number of years, but everything I'll need is there."
A few minutes later he pulled up to the rear of their home. Working together, he and Eve got Marcus into an oversized dumbwaiter that was large enough to lie down in. As Eve crawled in with him Carlton told her, "This goes all the way up. I'll meet you there with a gurney." He closed the dumbwaiter and pressed the up button.
Eve's mind swirled with unasked and unanswered questions. What was happening to Marcus? Who shot him and why? And somewhere under all her concerns for Marcus she wondered Why did her father have a surgical suite in the attic? The dumbwaiter jerked to a halt wringing a pained whimper from the werewolf in her lap. She stroked his fur and made soothing sounds until the door opened revealing her father and a medical gurney.
"Help me get him prepped for surgery," Carlton ordered.
"What do you need me to do?"
"Just hand me the instruments as I ask for them and handle things like sponges and suction," he told her. "I'll tell you what to do and how to do it, so don't worry. We'll get him through this."
Eve drew strength from her father's confidence. "Okay," she nodded.
Twenty minutes later she watched in awe as Carlton worked quickly and efficiently. "OK now, hand me that spreader and the long forceps." He opened the incision wide with the spreader and pointed with the forceps, "Now I need suction here. Excellent." He probed a little with the forceps. "There's the bullet." Gripping it with the forceps he carefully removed the small piece of metal and dropped it in the tray Eve held out to him. "Now to close him up... what the?" He and Eve stood in silent shock as the surgical incision closed by itself and healed as they watched, leaving only a faint scar.
...
Marcus woke to find himself lying in a hospital bed with an IV drip in his arm. As he struggled to sit up a firm hand gently pushed him back down. "Not so fast, sleepy-head. You've been unconscious for more than a day, so you lie back and take it easy for a little bit until the doctor can take a look at you."
He looked over at the speaker, "Eve? What happened? Where are we? Are you all right?"
Eve laughed, "So many questions! Let's see, Yes, someone shot you, at my house, and I'm fine. Now I've got a question of my own. When exactly were you going to tell me about your furry little problem?"
Marcus just stared at her blankly. "I'm a closet Harry Potter fan. Sue me," Eve explained. "And answer my question."
"I'm not exactly sure when or how I would have broached the subject, but I would have told you about my condition," he said. "I mean something like I love you Eve, by the way I'm a werewolf, is more likely to get me locked up in a rubber room than anything. I do wish you hadn't found out in such a traumatic manner."
"Do you remember what happened?" Eve wanted to know.
"Only up to a point," Marcus confessed. "I remember walking with you in the park, our conversation, a kiss that made the stars sing, and then a burning pain in my back and I could feel the Wolf breaking free. Everything after that is hazy at best."
Carlton walked in at that moment. "So you're back among the living I see." He pulled a stethoscope from his pocket. "Let's just give you a quick once-over to make certain everything's all right."
He proceeded to check Marcus's vitals and overall physical condition, as well as inspecting the region where the bullet wound had been. Once he was satisfied, Eve fluffed a pillow and propped it behind Marcus so he could sit more comfortably.
"Now I believe we deserve some sort of explanation," Carlton demanded. "Don't you agree Marcus?"
"Absolutely," Marcus agreed. "I'm just not sure where to start."
"The beginning is a good place," Eve observed.
"Which beginning though?" Marcus mused. "There are three different points at which the tale can begin. I guess we can start with my condition and then see where things go from there. Do either of you know anything about Lycanthropia?"
"Don't you mean Lycanthropy?" Carlton asked.
"No. Lycanthropy is a mental illness in which the patient believes that he turns into an animal, usually a wolf. Everything happens only in his mind. He may act like a wolf, but he does not actually become one. Lycanthropia involves chemical and hormonal imbalances that cause real physical changes. The patient not only acts like a wolf, he takes on some of the actual physical characteristics of a wolf."
"But what triggers the changes?" Eve enquired.
"They're a little different for every werewolf," Marcus explained. "For my part, the Full Moon and the nights immediately before and after it bring on an involuntary change. I can voluntarily trigger a spell at any time, though I have no control over the Wolf if I do. Also, a serious injury like being stabbed or shot will trigger a reflexive change."
"Why is that, I wonder?" asked Carlton.
"A werewolf has superhuman strength, speed, and agility," Marcus answered. "And it heals conventional injuries so quickly it's as if they never occurred. A knife or gunshot would close up almost immediately, leaving barely any scar. The wolf feels the pain of the injury of course, but all that serves is to enrage it and the person who hurt it usually ends up in small, bloody pieces."
"Yeah, I kinda figured that out," Eve muttered.
"I'm so sorry you had to witness that Eve," Marcus apologized.
"So a life threatening injury will cause a change so that you can heal yourself," Carlton clarified.
"Basically, yes," Marcus confirmed. "There are a number of residual effects as well, even when I'm... me. I'm stronger and faster than normal. Not werewolf levels, but I can put most Olympic Medallists to shame. My senses are much sharper than typical as well. I can actually identify a person just by scent. And I heal quickly."
"How quickly?" Carlton asked.
"Hours instead of days, days instead of weeks," was Marcus's reply.
"So how exactly did you contract this disease?" was Carlton's next question.
"Well," Marcus paused in thought for a moment, "For the how and why I think we should start at the very beginning, in a makeshift laboratory in an old watchtower near a small Swiss village called Frankenstein."
