Chapter 14:

OUT OF TIME

Feeling restless and ill, but ravenously hungry, Brigitte changed her plans and chose not to go to activities therapy. Instead she went to the lounge and ate as much fruit, yogurt, peanut butter and ice cream as she could stand. The girls noticed and snickered at her, but Brigitte did not care now. Paradoxically, when her stomach felt full to where she was not physically able to eat another bite, she felt no less hungry. She went back to her room and vomited. Immediately afterward, she felt cramps and began to bleed. Her period, absent for two days, had returned. An invasive dread forced its way into Brigitte's mind.

What is it doing to my ovaries?

She never thought this way about it.

Brigitte decided she was too ill and tired to bother with anything else. She stripped off her clothes, put on a gown, and lay down on the bed, sweating. Her skin felt sore and itched everywhere. She could feel the hair moving all over her. Her breasts hurt like two sacks of bruises, and she remembered Ginger's complaint of this very thing. Unlike Ginger, she did not feel restless nor destructive now, she simply felt tired. She closed her eyes for a second.

"Brigitte!" said a male voice. She opened her eyes with a start, finding that she was unable to move, except for her head.

"Sam?" She opened her eyes. It was him. "Sam!" He wore the same jacket and pants as he did on the last night, but thankfully, he showed no blood, nothing that would make her drool and become filthy in front of him.

"Good, you can see me now. I've been trying to appear to you like Ginger can, but I haven't been strong enough." He looked around as though there might be something else in the room, and then looked back to her. "As it is, I don't have much time, Brigitte."

"Sam, I'm so sorry for what I did to you," she confessed, remorsefully.

"I would have went in anyway, Brigitte. I would have never let you face her alone."

"We should have left when you said," she began to sob.

"No . . . no way we should have!" he said.

She continued to cry. He wiped her tears away with a cloth as she said, "But, she was my sister, Sam. I couldn't leave her then. How could I know I'd lose both of you?" she choked up.

"But Brigitte, I couldn't have loved you if did leave."

His words stopped Brigitte. "But you suggested it!"

"Yeah, I did," he said, embarrassed, "and it would have been the smart thing, but not the right thing. I would have been your friend, but I would have never loved you like I do now."

He reached out his hand and stroked her face, which gave her comfort that she had forgotten for so long. He held her hand.

He could touch me!

He said with tears in his eyes, "I've been trying to figure out a way to help you, ever since that night, but I still have no ideas."

"I love you, Sam," she said.

Sam closed his eyes and said, "I love you, too, Brigitte." He opened them again, and he bent down and kissed her on the lips. As he held it, her face tingled with warmth. Then, the sickening thought of the taste blood ruined the moment. "Stop, stop Sam!"

"What's wrong?" he said.

"I've been afraid to think of you because it's been twisting my thoughts," she said. "It's made me perverted. I can't think of you without thinking of tasting your blood, and, that's like sex with me now!"

He paused and seemed to ponder this. "Yes but, whatever Ginger did when she forced you to drink my blood, she also somehow bound the three of us together. I don't understand it, but the power was there."

This puzzled Brigitte. "Sam, why I can't move? What's happening to me now?"

"That's the bad news I have to give you. The monkshood disrupted the process. Think of what happens when, like, a fetus develops. Everything must develop at the right pace. If the liver develops too fast for the heart, the liver dies and so does the baby. The changes are all out of sync for you. That's what you're facing now, Brigitte."

"So, I might die?"

He nodded, sorrowfully.

"Good! I don't want it using my body, and I'm fucking tired of fighting it, Sam. I want to die if it dies with me."

"Brigitte, I hate that thought, so does Ginger . . ."

"No! You're both selfish. I don't want to be a killer. There's no hope for me anymore, Sam, and I'm dead either way. You know it. And . . . there's an afterlife, you and Ginger prove it. . . right?"

"Brigitte," he said, shaking his head, "appearances are deceiving . . ."

Then nightmare Ginger pounced on him from out of nowhere, and simultaneously broke his neck and slit his throat. As Brigitte tried to scream, Sam's open throat pressed right up against her lips. The blood spurted into her mouth, down her throat, choking her, even as her body already responded with nauseating sexual arousal. Brigitte closed her mouth and turned her head away. Sam's corpse twitched and continued to bleed, covering her and the whole bed with blood, until, to her self-hatred, she began drink it again. She cried as she did. It tasted not salty, but sweet.

When it bled out, Ginger tossed the Sam's corpse aside, and sat down on the bed. She wiped her paw across Brigitte's face and licked the blood off. When Ginger did it again, Brigitte spit blood into her face. Ginger smashed her fist into Brigitte's gut, causing her to regurgitate blood.

"Rage! I like that," said Ginger, who lay down next to Brigitte. "You just have to learn where to direct it, sis."

Ginger never called me sis!

When Brigitte recovered enough, she screamed, "You fucking killed him!"

"I did not. I just gave you what you really wanted from him," Ginger said. "Are you feeling that ache now?" She touched Brigitte right on her vulva, right on her clitoris through the bloody gown. Brigitte nearly wretched. Ginger added, "I know, you're feeling like tearing things into fucking little-bitty pieces now? If you could only move a little. Soon, Bee, very soon."

Once Brigitte gained her breath back, she rasped, "Stop! You're not my sister!"

It hammered her in the gut again, and put it's leering face right up to Brigitte's who regurgitated some blood and spit at it again. "Who am I then, Bee? My name is Ginger."

Brigitte could barely whisper, "No, you're not my sister. Why are you . . . what are you doing to me?"

"I'm watching over you," "Ginger" said. "I'm making sure you grow up right."

The answer amazed Brigitte. She could not detect a bit of irony in it. Why can't I move? "No," said Brigitte, she closed her eyes. "That isn't it . . . oh, why I can't think . . ?"

In delight, Ginger licked the blood off Brigitte's face directly.

Ginger noticed Brigitte's discomfiture. "What's the matter, Bee? Still got the cooties? If you still don't want to grow up, you could always fuck off AND DIE. "

With a knife strike, it plunged its claw into Brigitte's gut. Brigitte had a delirious image of being back home years before, of being in the backyard in front of the doll house having a fight with her sister, when Ginger suddenly plunged a hand deep into her guts. Little Brigitte went to her knees dying.

Pamela turned from her yard work and said, "Ginger! Don't eviscerate your sister."

Brigitte woke up, there was no blood, and somehow the relief canceled the pain. Somebody knocked at the door. Brigitte did not answer, but she pulled the sheets up to hide her tail which was now more than a foot long and growing fur. The curtain pulled up momentarily and then Laura came in with a tell-tale scent coming off of her. Brigitte now knew too much about Laura's sex life, too, just another unwanted pornographic image invading her mind.

"Brigitte, it's time to eat."

"I'm not fucking hungry," said Brigitte.

"That's really unlike you. I know you're upset about your friend. June is going to be okay."

Brigitte dared not even think of June right now; the bloody memories were too dangerous.

Laura continued, "Won't you have some dinner? I can bring it to you."

"No!" Brigitte yelled. "Get out!"

June sat on a mattress without a bed, the only "furniture" within the padded walls of the room. She noticed now that without her glasses everything in the room was blurry, except Ginger, who had just materialized, and who, as usual, had no shadows on her. She talked, but June had not begun to listen yet. June sported a large bandage on her left wrist. The staff had stitched her jagged wound up, given her a unit of blood, and put her in isolation-observation room, IS-OB. Her wrist hurt terribly, and she could tell she would not have much use of her hand for quite some time. Four hours had passed since June had cut herself. This long day was now well into the night.

She hated being in this room, especially now, but it had one consolation: she felt utterly safe and relaxed. Her thoughts had slowed down and clarified. The audio hallucinations had stopped. Had the stress really been that bad? After the shock of watching Brigitte go feral, June could not deny that this mandatory rest might not be totally a bad thing.

Ginger finally screamed at June. "Why don't you talk to me anymore?"

June looked at Ginger with a dejected expression, and then looked up and to the right, and scratched her head with her finger pointing there. Ginger looked to where June gestured and saw the camera in the top corner.

"Oh, fuck! Sorry." Ginger said. She then walked weightlessly over and sat on the mattress next to June, who had half wondered if she would get to see Ginger's chair trick from this angle, and mused about the possibility of debunking it. "I don't know why Brigitte won't have anything to do with me again. Now I thought both of you decided to cut me off."

June could understand her being terrified of being ostracized, especially as Ginger was, after all, still only fifteen. June looked at her and shook her head.

"How long are they going to keep you in here, you think?"

June shrugged glumly, not looking at Ginger, and put up two, then four fingers.

"Twenty-four hours?" Ginger asked.

June shrugged again and, with difficulty, put up seven fingers, she could only barely lift the two on her left hand. Then she put up two.

"Seventy-two hours?"

With a sad, sorry look, she shrugged and mouthed the words "could be."

"What? Oh, no! We don't have that much time."

June mouthed the words "I know, sorry."

"June, you said that you and I were here for a reason. Were you fucking bullshitting me then? And Brigitte? Is this the end?"

June shook her head, put two fingers up and mouthed the word, "days."

Ginger did not looked convinced. "These last two days are going to be fucking awful for her, June. I never told her about the nightmares and hallucinations. They are going to feel fucking real, and she's not letting me near her now. You must promise me that you'll escape with her, and you'll get her to take monkshood."

June swallowed. She recalled how bestial Brigitte had become at the sight of blood, but somehow her own fear did not seem to matter anymore. Her bloodletting had somehow edified her commitment. She raised her right hand, palm out beneath her neck and mouthed, "I promise." Even if she knew monkshood would be no solution to Brigitte's problem, it may get Brigitte through this full moon without a total transformation. It would buy her mere weeks, or less, such was the tolerance Brigitte had built up to it.

"I'm so glad you're still talking to me, June."

June almost laughed. Right now she could do anything but talk to Ginger. All she could do was listen.

"I mean, I'm not able to talk to anyone. I'm not able to do a fucking thing; I was never able to help her, why the fuck am I here?"

As bad as Ginger had it, June knew Ginger had it better than a spirit like Bobby, and maybe all of the rest of the ghosts haunting this place. Like Ginger, they had no physical effect on anything, but their afterlife revolved around one decrepit building, indefinitely, and they were far away in time and distance from anything they cared about. Though, June had no guess as to what might happen to Ginger if her sister totally transformed.

June herself felt as helpless as Ginger as she waited faithfully for the purpose they had to present itself. Her consolation: she knew it would.

"I never told you before, June. I do have just a couple powers: one is to move really tiny, light things with my fingertips. Fucking kicks ass, doesn't it?"

June nodded. A weak power, not even as practical as using invisible chairs, but it more than June expected her to have. She could not tell where Ginger was going with this.

"I also have the power to hide something, and I want you to have it, June. Brigitte thinks it was stolen, but no, I hid it from people. I'll tell you where it is."

June looked at her quizzically. Ginger gestured to June's bandaged left wrist and added, "You earned it."

June waited, and Ginger went on, "And if everything fucks up, and Bee and I are gone, I want you to give a message to our parents, please?"

This stunned June. Ginger had never said anything good about her parents before, but June's curiosity had to wait, because before Ginger could go on, the intercom buzzed and said, "June!"

"Who the fuck . . .?" said Ginger.

It was Dr. Gadepalli's voice.

"Doctor!" said June, with sarcastic over-affection. She had lost all respect for him now and had nothing but questions for him that she could not ask.

"Please prepare, I'm coming in."

A stupid formality. "Yeah, I've prepared dinner for you," said June. "Just, wait till I fix my makeup . . ."

The door opened. June lifted the sheet over her. The gown and robe were not making her breasts demure enough for her comfort. He came in carrying a clipboard. Maurice followed him in and put a chair down, followed by Laura, whom June presumed was there to stop an escape. Then, Maurice left and closed the door. The doctor sat looking down at her, and Laura knelt down to the right of her, (Ginger sat to the left) and began to take June's blood pressure, which June did not resist.

"Well, you're the rudest date," said June to the doctor. "Just barge in, then, and bring your whole entourage. Could you leave the chair when you go? And maybe a desk to go with it? A TV and something good to read, too? Oh, and a good razor blade?" she said with a wide grin. "I guess you could see I need to shave my legs. I'm so utterly embarrassed."

June noticed, as always, the doctor never seemed to check out her chest, one reason why June had ever respected him so much. Laura, on the other hand, was a bitch and usually did not hide her envy. Foolish envy at that, as Laura would turn heads anywhere. When the doctor sat down he immediately looked down at and paged through the papers on his clipboard, and then began to write something on the top page. Laura finished taking June's vitals, marked her clipboard and stood up, walked over and waited by the door. Apparently, she was the doctor's body guard here.

"How do you feel, June?" he asked, not looking at her.

"I'm fucking depressed. Yeah, that . . . vid you showed me makes me want to cut my throat. Wasn't practical with a small piece of glass, though. Oh, and my wrist hurts like hell. Don't suppose I could talk you out of some morphine?"

"Why didn't you mention at our previous meeting that you had suicidal thoughts?" asked Dr. Gadepalli, his demeanor flat.

"Maybe because it wasn't on my mind until you showed me that vid. Cautionary tale? It was so uplifting."

He then stopped to write notes.

"You know how hard it has always been to keep a conversation going with you?" asked June. June's anger and curiosity goaded her now into boldness. For Dr. Gadepalli, she had a game in mind: strip poker. She would see if she could strip him while keeping herself covered. Maybe simultaneously, she could actually manipulate her shrink into doing something smart.

Keeping his face impassive, he asked, "Why are you angry, June?"

"Because, like, somebody here isn't what they appear to be," said June.

"June, don't . . ." said Ginger. June sent a quick look her way.

With this statement, the doctor's demeanor cracked for an instant. He looked suspicious, worried. Then he covered it up again, so June added, "I'm talking about you, doctor." He showed the slightest relief, then went impassive again. Ha! Already got his tie, shirt and undershirt.

"I mistook you for an ethical man," June said, "and you've disappointed me." He went back to taking notes.

Nobody believes a crazy lady, including her shrink. June intended now to take full advantage of this.

"I did notice you making certain gestures in here," he said. "What are you seeing, June?"

"Ghosts," she said, "actually, a ghost, but you're off topic."

"Do you see one now?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Tell me about it."

"That's what I mean! Now, how is it that you know something but you don't know everything? I mean, you've got something in your hospital here, you know something about it, but you have absolutely no idea what you're handling or how dangerous it is. It's almost, like, on a need to know basis."

She stayed quiet and read his body language while he wrote. Then to shock him, said rudely, "You're the fucking slowest stenographer I've ever met, doctor."

"June, this is a new, serious turn for your illness," said Dr. Gadepalli. "Please tell me about the ghost. Does it give you commands."

"Yes, of course, the ghost. What I don't get is, how you told the staff to ignore its weirdness and strangeness. And you got rid of the social workers right when I needed to see them about it, but only for a week." June made another read on his body language. And he thinks he's covering it up!

"June, your psychosis seems to have become worse, I'm going to have to change your prescriptions."

With a gambit, June said, "I bet you will. So, how much did they pay you?"

Dr. Gadepalli looked seriously worried now. "Who is they?"

Bingo! "Do you even know?"

He stood up and began to take his chair. "Your thinking is disorganized. Your anti-psychotics need to be raised."

"Those are only good against delusions, Doc. These thoughts aren't going to disappear like the funny ones."

He picked up the chair and began to walk to the door. "We'll make a decision about how long you will be in isolation tomorrow."

On that cue, June was supposed to behave again, instead she got up, finding herself a little dizzy on her legs, and called to him, "So, do you think Violet fell? I don't know, Doc. I heard some rumors that she had a few more injuries, something about broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. Isn't somebody, like, investigating that?"

The doctor took out the keys and opened the door. "Good night, June."

"I'll warn you. Better not see her again. She hates your guts, and I can't blame her."

He opened the door and left, Laura followed him. June laughed. That's belt, shoes, pants and underwear.

"Keep your socks, Doc."

The door slammed. She had fun and did feel like Bugs Bunny. It seemed like a long time since she had done anything that bitchy and bold. It felt so good, like a taste of freedom.

Ginger just looked at her awed and laughed a little. "June . . . why did you tell him that?"

June got really close and whispered one word, "Dirty." She then sat before she had to fall. She almost felt sorry for him. She knew Dr. Gadepalli would try to cover-up what he did at all costs, but until the staff released her from IS-OB, June just hoped she pushed him toward doing the right thing for the safety of his patients. She worried about how Brigitte would react should her medications not work anymore, and she hoped they did. Tomorrow, when June was out, she had to find whoever had the key, or if they had left already, find out how they got out.

It only then occurred to her how debilitating the change in medications might be.

Dr. Gadepalli emerged from the IS-OB room behind the nurses' station. He wrote some last notes on June's clipboard, and then picked up Brigitte's clipboard and began to write.

"Laura, what is Brigitte Kilpatrick's current status?" he asked as he took a paper out of his pocket.

"She wouldn't go to dinner. She says she's feeling sick, but refuses to give any details, and she's hostile, as usual."

"Keep her door locked tonight starting right now," he said. "Do not unlock it under any circumstances but medical emergency. Visual checks only, vital signs and medications are not necessary tonight, and do not enter the room without calling me first. Also, this just came in today." He held up the paper. "She is being transferred early tomorrow to another facility."

"Oh," said Laura. "Where?"

"Some of her relatives in Vancouver have surfaced and are transferring her to British Columbia health authority," said the doctor, attaching the paper to the clipboard. He took clipboards to the wall and hung them up.

From anyone but Dr. Gadepalli, Laura would have found those instructions questionable.

Laura went down the hall to Brigitte's room. She opened the door and peaked in. Brigitte appeared to be restlessly asleep, and Laura noticed how Brigitte's legs kicked. The nurse closed the door and took out her keys to lock it. Meanwhile, two girls talked loudly down by the laundry room.

"No conversations in the hall at night, girls," said Laura, locking the door. "Go to the lounge."

"Sure lollipop!" said Helen, with a giggle.

Laura glared at her before turning to go back to the nurse's station.

Helen and Shannon sauntered up the hall slowly and waited for Laura to turn at the T.

"What a bitch," said Helen.

"You're like so right," said Shannon.

Furtively, Helen took out keys and unlocked Brigitte's door. They both stifled their giggles and continued to walk up the hall.

Dr. Gadepalli needed to make a phone call before he went home for the night. It had been a long day, and he felt grief for June Collier. The latest symptoms suggested paranoid schizophrenia and not bipolar disorder. She had been the most promising, intelligent person to have ever been checked into his hospital.

He could not deny that her word salad made him feel guilty and afraid about Brigitte. She could have heard about Violet Kramer's injuries from anywhere. Staff could have talked and patients could have picked it up. Though, if anyone could have seen what actually happened to Violet, it would have been June, who now thought a ghost did it.

Why did she bring that up then at the end of the conversation? And why did she say, "She hates your guts?"

She could not be referring to Brigitte, but her new delusions and word salad reminded Dr. Gadepalli of his entanglement, which thankfully would be behind him after tomorrow morning. He walked to the closet to get the phone, took out and opened a box on the floor and removed a brief case. Bringing the case to the desk, he opened it, and stared at all the money, more cash than he had ever seen. He had counted it more than once, disbelieving: five-hundred thousand dollars. He kept it here, feeling too apprehensive and guilty to transfer it anywhere else yet. From the upper compartment of the case, the doctor took out a cellphone and pressed one. Instead of ringing it just picked up.

"You've reached K," said a female voice.

"Hello-K," said the doctor slowly according to the cypher. "I-wish-to-speak-to-R"

"Doctor! What may I do for you?" said a baritone male voice suddenly.

"I'm shocked that you did not tell me everything about your 'niece.' You could have told me she was dangerous."

"I strongly suggested that you drug her."

"I did. To do anymore drugging would have been medically unethical. Now I might have lawsuits on my hands."

"Which will be settled out of court. Don't worry. You're insured, doctor. It's way late in the day to be complaining. I suggest again that you lock her door tonight, go home, get a good night's sleep. If it still bothers you, just go into work late, and it will be out of your hands. Anything else?"

"No," said Dr. Gadepalli. The call immediately ended. He sighed. He could not wait to have this shameful part of his life behind him, and to forget it.

"I am alone. First Ginger and Sam, now Jason. He couldn't take the purple anymore, he gave it up and he is fucking out of control. His smell- I can't describe how it effects me. Maybe Ginger had a smell, too, and my sense of smell just wasn't this good then. He complained more about how hard it was to be with me without sex, just in case I didn't get the idea from his smell. He said it would not be safe for me to keep taking purple when he wasn't: a threat. I waited until he went out to make a kill, and I left. I'm on a bus going to Thunder Bay. I'm too tired now to think of where to go from there. It looks so bleak now. I hated leaving him to go through it by himself, but I'm still human."

Lewis continued to read Brigitte's journal. Interesting that her word for monkshood was "purple." He knew now that Jason and Brigitte left together a day after the Bailey Downs incident, after Brigitte explained to Jason what was happening to him. They then stayed and traveled together for six weeks. They kept administering daily injections of monkshood to each other, which had been Brigitte's condition for staying with him. Werewolfism might have made it a pairing of necessity, but it made for bad chemistry otherwise.

Jason did very well lasting on monkshood for six weeks.

After leaving Bailey Downs, Brigitte managed to survive off thievery. Lewis knew of other intermediates doing this in the third week. They made superior thieves. Anyone who could swipe items from shelves faster than a security camera could pick it up would be.

Lewis stopped reading. He was in his motel room and listened with concern to the weather report on television. "This blizzard could be the storm of the century. Yes, potentially record-breaking snowfall. The system has already started to move in tonight, and the the winds will continue to increase. By tomorrow, these could gust up to a hundred kilometers per hour. Then on early Saturday morning, we will begin to see the snow. . . ."

Lewis knew record-breaking snowfall meant something incredible in this region, measured in meters. The roads would become impassible very fast. The deadline on finding Brigitte had become twenty-four hours shorter, and sometime tomorrow afternoon, Brigitte would become contagious again. In the evening, she would be able to move and kill freely while he and Frank would be stuck. Meanwhile, the trail was still cold.

Flipping back to the front of the book, Lewis looked at the pictures from the sisters' "death" show. He tried to understand why Brigitte cherished these. Showing them off in class revealed a desire for attention, but taking them with her showed something else, especially after Ginger had died, and death poses would seem to be the last thing Brigitte would want to recall. Yet, she took them with her. Why?

His cellphone rang. He looked. Then answered. "Hello Frank. What have you found out?"

"I finally got a doctor here to show me the test results on her blood and discuss them with me, all off the record, of course," said Frank, breathlessly.

"Did you find out something surprising?"

"Surprising? No, I found out something crazy. Seems they were puzzled about her blood. Routine tests weren't making any sense. They thought maybe she had cancer because her white blood cell count was so high, so they sent blood and tissue samples to the lab in Winnipeg."

"And?" said Lewis, not surprised.

"Winnipeg thought it was a joke."

"Oh really?" said Lewis, in flat voice. "Why ever?"

"Because her blood wasn't human," said Frank, exasperated. "Do you hear that? 'Wasn't human?'"

Lewis actually found Frank's excitement amusing. "Not human. How Frank?"

"It wasn't cancer because the cells were too uniform, but her white blood cells all had fifty chromosomes, and six percent of the cells in her tissue samples also had that."

"Hmmm," said Lewis. There was a pause.

"Human cells have forty-six chromosomes," said Frank.

"I know."

They paused again. Frank broke the silence, saying, "None of this is surprising to you, is it?"

"No." Another pause.

"Lewis, why haven't you told me everything?"

"Because before you saw her test results, you wouldn't have believed any of what I had to tell you. Call it a day, Frank. Come back to the room now. We have to talk. It's late, we'll probably have to continue it in the morning. But there won't be much time."

Outside of Brigitte's window, the wind had kicked up into a howling, whistling frenzy. Brigitte felt just as restless and angry, but also felt too sick to pace and prowl, almost too sick to stand. She had a headache, her skin felt bruised and itchy all over, she sweated, her joints hurt. All the while, she felt aroused, and tried to rub herself to the release her body had been building to, trying to think of Roy and not Sam. She felt too guilty about Sam. She felt too guilty about Sam. Sensations gathered and built . . . the ache under her naval . . .

. . . then she stood before a swing set, totally losing her memory of her bed in Four Point, back in Bailey Downs the night of Ginger's attack.

The full moon shone brightly behind her, while the swings tapped together softly. Gore and half-eaten human remains hung from the crossbar, and the swings. Two human heads were at the top, one with the spine hanging from it. Torn up human corpses lay beyond it, leading into the dark of the woods. Brigitte could not think twice. Her sister had been dragged into there.

"Ginger!"

She went under it, and called Ginger's name again, hoping that her sister would emerge. Nothing happened, she shouted out again. No answer. So Brigitte ran under the swing set, between the swings with gore on them, into the woods. Calling her sister one more time.

The woods were pitch black. The only thing she could see clearly was the full moon.

Brigitte heard a growl and turned back to look toward the full-moon, where she saw the shadow of a giant animal lunging at her. Its head hit her in the chest, knocking her down. She felt its teeth sink into her side and crush her ribs. The pain felt vivid as it continued to maul her. She could only scream until her strength left her and she went limp. It continued to maul and tear at her.

When she opened her eyes again, the sun had risen and she couldn't breathe. She had a vision of her own dead body, the abdomen eaten away down to the spine, her throat torn deep down to the bone, her right hand gone, her lower jaw crushed. She had totally bled out hours ago, but somehow her eyes were open and she could see and hear. Her body lay in an open field next to the woods.

She could not breathe.

Ginger lay on top of her holding a fork looking right into Brigitte's eyes with her own iridescent blue animal eyes. The fork held a piece of Brigitte's tongue impaled on its tines. Ginger sat up straddling Brigitte as she ate the tongue.

"You think you're fucking better than me, Brigitte? Because I became a slut, a druggie, and a fucking killer?"

In reached under Brigitte's sternum and pulled out her heart. The agony continued to be vivid along with the feeling of suffocation. Ginger leisurely took a bite from Brigitte's heart and then put her own lupine face right up to Brigitte's again.

"Now it's your turn to be its whore, Brigitte. You'll paint your grief and anger with so much fucking blood that you will never be forgotten! You make me so fucking proud!"

Brigitte woke up finally able to breathe again but painfully. Stabbing pain registered in every part of her body, especially her head. She tried to reach the light, but couldn't; she shook too much. She did not dare touch the call button. She grabbed her head in her hands and staggered out of bed toward the bathroom. Before she could take a second step, the pains in her head and jaw intensified to unimaginable.

Brigitte croaked out, "Ging-err!" before falling to her knees. Teeth fell out. She choked on one and spit it out, before she vomited blood, which also squirt from her two lower orifices. This bleeding continued for a long fifteen seconds, with pain hammering her throughout. Then, as Brigitte stopped retching and opened her eyes, she saw two large pools of blood joining together. She tried to draw breath, but could only gulp a little, and she exhaled it in a rattle. The pain began to dull as Brigitte sank swiftly into shock. Her final thought was of relief. No, Ginger, I'm not chang . . .

She collapsed next to the blood pool and went still, her eyes closed. The night wind howled mournfully.

And so ended Brigitte's two-year struggle against the disease that took her sister.