Terri hovered over him, breathing hard, struggling to keep herself from falling. Curt charged forward and grabbed her. They both looked down at him, watching him die. His eyes were open. The light in them dwindled into tiny sparks that faded.
"The only thing that frightens me now," Terri hoarsely whispered, "is that somewhere back there, there might be another."
The ambulance took both bodies away after the medical examiner was done. Curt sat out on the porch, dictating events as he recalled them. There were six sheriff's deputies, the sheriff himself, two county detectives, and a state BCI investigator, a real one, all gathered as his audience. Terri, exhausted still, remained sleeping in the bedroom. The skeptical and incredulous looks on the faces of the law enforcement officers amplified with every reference to the science Curt made. He did the best he could, but he could see he wasn't being very convincing.
Then they came.
Two FBI investigators.
They pulled the sheriff and the BCI detective aside, and when they were finished, the sheriff told his officers to get back to their regular tours and forget what Curt had said.
"I'll deal with the press," he insisted. The BCI man looked happy to have any responsibility at all lifted from his shoulders.
That's the way it's going to be, Curt thought. No one wants to deal with this. And that's why, he thought as well, it will continue.
He went back inside to check on Terri.
Despite her condition, which was mainly severe fatigue from the trauma of experiencing the first stages of beriberi and all that followed, she insisted he take her home.
"To our house," she said.
He loaded the car and literally carried her to it. She closed her eyes and lay back when he lowered the front seat as far as it would recline, and then they left the cabin and started for his home.
Curt called Hyman Templeman and he came over to examine Terri. Afterward, while she rested, he and Curt had tumblers of single malt scotches and sat in the living room. He listened to Curt's retelling of the chilling events.
"I saved her life and she saved mine," he concluded.
"Not a bad way to start a marriage," Hyman quipped, and Curt smiled. They both looked up when Terri entered, wearing her robe and slippers.
"Just like men. You go to the booze to comfort yourselves," she said. "And don't offer me any," she added.
"A mere cc of that will knock you for a loop in the condition you're in," Hyman said.
"What's so bad about that?" she countered.
Curt looked at Hyman and he shrugged.
He rose, poured her a short shot on the rocks, added some water, and gave it to her. She sat, sipped a little, and then looked at Hyman.
"You know," she said, "a part of me was fascinated with all this when I heard what had been done. There is such promise in the future, especially the work with stem cells."
He nodded.
"Unfortunately," he said, "it's like every other major discovery from the wheel forward. The bad almost outweighs the good ... gunpowder, rockets, nuclear energy... I guess there was good reason to prohibit Adam and Eve from biting into the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge."
"Maybe, but it's too late now," Curt said.
They looked at him.
"Mankind will spend the rest of its history trying to get back into Paradise," he added.
Hyman smiled.
"Well," he said rising, "I'll leave it up to you two to continue the effort." He gazed around and nodded and then smiled at them.
"From the looks of it, you have a little bit of paradise to share already. You're still on vacation, young lady," he said sternly to Terri, "so don't even entertain the notion of returning to work."
She laughed.
He kissed her on the cheek, and then Curt walked him to the door and thanked him for coming over.
For a long moment he stood there, watching him drive off. Terri was suddenly at his side, holding his arm and resting her head against his shoulder.
"I remember Gramps coming in from the field. I could see he was tired, but it was a satisfactory exhaustion. He looked like he had accomplished something. Then he would see me standing here and his face would brighten with laughter and joy and the fatigue would fly off his face. I wasn't that small then, but I would run down to him and he would lift me with such ease, I thought he was the strongest man in the world and always would be.
"Grandma would yell at him for carrying a boy my size back to the house, especially after a day's hard labor, and he would shake his head and say, 'He's not heavy. He's just a thought, a dream, the future.'
"It's nice to be thought of as the future, don't you think, Doc?"
"Yes," she said. She lifted her face to kiss him. "No matter what, that's good. And they with all their science and experimentation will never take it away from us if we just hold on to our humanity."
"Funny thing for a doctor to say."
"Maybe I'm more like Hyman than I care to admit."
"That's not so bad.
"No, I guess it isn't," she said.
They kissed and turned to go back inside.
He paused and she looked off into the distance with him. She saw his eyes narrow and for a moment become the eyes of a young boy again. She could hear the words he wanted to speak.
It was on her lips to say it, too.
I see him.
I see him coming home, the future in his arms.
About the author
Andrew Neiderman is the author of numerous novels of suspense and terror, including The Devil's Advocate which was made into a major motion picture by Warner Bros. Mr. Neiderman lives in Palm Springs, California, with his wife, Diane.