Acceptable Risk (50 page)

Kim tried to control the sound of her labored breathing as she listened to the footsteps continue their descent and then disappear into one of the thick-pile oriental rugs on the marbled great-room floor.

Kim was frightened. In fact, now that she had a moment to grasp the gravity of her situation, she was terrified. She also worried about her knee. And to add to her misery she was wet and cold and violently shivering.

Thinking over the events of the last several days, Kim wondered if the primitive state Edward and the researchers were currently suffering had been occurring on a nightly basis. If it had, and if they had had a suspicion about it, it would explain the marked change in the atmosphere of the lab. With horror Kim realized that there was a good chance the researchers were responsible for the recent troubles in the neighborhood blamed on a rabid animal and teenage vandals.

Kim shuddered in revulsion. It was plainly obvious to her that the ultimate cause was Ultra. By taking the drug, the researchers had become “possessed” in a fashion ironically similar to some of the “afflicted” people in 1692.

These musings gave Kim some hope. If what she was thinking were true, then they must revert back to their normal selves come morning, just like in an old gothic horror movie. All Kim had to do was stay hidden until then.

Kim bent down and put the acetylene torch and lighter on the floor. Groping in the darkness, she found the towel bar and used the towel to dry as much of herself as she could. Her nightgown was soaking wet. Then she draped the towel over her shoulders for a bit of warmth and clasped her arms around herself to try to control her shivering. She sat down on the toilet seat to ease the pressure on her swollen knee.

A period of time passed. Kim had no way of judging how much. The house had become quiet. But then there was a sudden loud crash of breaking glass that made Kim jump. She’d hoped they had given up searching for her, but that apparently wasn’t the case. Immediately following the loud noise, she heard the sounds of doors and cabinets being opened again.

A few minutes later Kim tensed when she again heard one of them coming down the stairs above her. Whoever it was was descending slowly and stopping frequently. Kim stood up. Occasional violent spasms of shivering had made the toilet seat clank against the porcelain reservoir, and she did not want it to happen when one of them was so near.

Kim became progressively aware of another persistent sound that she could not place immediately. Finally she did, and it made her tremble more. Someone was sniffing, much the way Edward had two nights previously by the shed. She remembered Edward telling her that one of the effects they’d noticed taking the drug was how it improved the keenness of the senses. Kim’s mouth went dry. If Edward had been able to smell her lingering cologne the other night, maybe he could smell her now.

As Kim struggled to control her shivering, the person above descended the rest of the way down the stairs. At that point the individual paused again before coming around to stand outside the powder room door.

Kim heard more intense sniffing. Then the doorknob was rattled as someone tried to open the door. Kim held her breath.

Minutes dragged by. It sounded to Kim as if the others were arriving. From their collective sounds Kim could soon tell that a group of them had assembled.

Kim winced as one of them pounded a fist on the door several times. The door held but just barely. It was a paneled door with thin veneers in each panel. Kim knew it would not withstand a concerted assault.

With her panic returning in a rush, Kim quickly squatted down in the darkness and felt for the blowtorch. When her hand did not immediately hit it, her pulse soared. Frantically she felt around in a larger arc. She was relieved when her fingers touched it. Next to it was the lighter.

As Kim straightened up with the blowtorch and the lighter in her hands, the pounding on the door resumed. By the rapidity of the blows she could tell that more than one of the creatures was involved.

With trembling fingers Kim tried the lighter. When she compressed it a spark leaped off into the blackness. Changing hands to hold the torch in her right, Kim twisted the thumbscrew on its side and heard a sustained hiss. Holding the torch and the lighter at arm’s length as she’d seen the plumber do, she compressed the lighter. With a whooshing sound the blowtorch ignited.

No sooner had Kim succeeded in lighting the torch than the door began to crack under the repeated blows. Once it began to break, it rapidly splintered, and bloodied hands appeared through fractures in the panels. To Kim’s horror, the door quickly fell to pieces as the boards were torn away.

With the door gone, the researchers were like frenzied wild animals about to be fed. They all tried to rush into the powder room at the same time. In a confusion of arms and legs, they only succeeded in blocking each other.

Kim pointed the blowtorch at them, holding it at arm’s length. It was making a throaty hissing sound. Its light illuminated their enraged faces. Edward and Curt were closest to Kim. She aimed the torch at them and saw their expressions change from rage to fear.

The researchers shrank back in terror, evincing their atavistic fear of fire. Their beady eyes never left the blue flame issuing from the tip of the blowtorch.

Encouraged by their reaction, Kim stepped from the powder room, keeping the blowtorch out in front of her. The researchers responded by backing away. Kim moved tentatively forward as they retreated. As a group they moved out into the great room, passing beneath one of the massive chandeliers.

After backing for a few more steps, the researchers began to fan out. Kim would have much preferred they stay in a compact group or flee altogether, but she had no way of making them. She could only ward them off. As she moved slowly but relentlessly toward the front hall, they enveloped her. She had to swing the blowtorch around in a circle to keep all of them at bay.

The abject fear that the creatures had initially shown to the flame began to diminish as they became accustomed to it, especially when it wasn’t pointed in their direction. By the time Kim made it past the middle of the room, some of them became bolder, particularly Edward.

At a moment when Kim was pointing the torch in someone else’s direction, Edward rushed forward and grabbed Kim’s nightgown. Kim immediately swung the torch toward him, scorching the back of his hand. He screamed hideously and let go.

Next Curt leaped forward. Kim blistered a swath across his forehead, igniting some of his hair. He yelped in pain and clasped his hands to his head.

On one of her turns Kim saw that she only had another twenty feet to go before she’d reach the hallway, but the constant pirouetting was having an effect on her balance. She was becoming dizzy. She tried to compensate by alternating the direction she spun after each revolution, but the maneuver wasn’t as effective in keeping the researchers away from her.

Gloria managed to step in as Kim was changing directions and grabbed one of Kim’s arms.

Kim yanked herself free of Gloria’s grip, but with her balance already compromised, the sudden motion caused her to twirl out of control, and she fell. In the process of falling, her arm holding the blowtorch hit the edge of a side table with numbing force, causing her to lose her grasp on the blowtorch. The blowtorch bounced off the top of the table and hit the marble floor at a sharp angle, sending it careening across its highly polished surface. It ended up thumping against the far wall at a point where one of the immense damask silk drapes was pooled.

Cradling her injured arm with her good hand, Kim managed to sit up. Looming around and over her were the creatures, closing in for the kill. With a collective screech they fell on her in unison like animals of prey attacking an injured, doomed deer.

Kim screamed and struggled as she was scratched and bitten. Luckily the attack lasted only a few seconds. When a loud, reverberating whooshing sound, accompanied by a sudden bright, hot light interrupted the frenzy, Kim was able to scramble away. With her back against a couch, she looked up at her attackers. They were all staring dumbfounded over her shoulder with their faces reflecting a golden light.

Turning to look behind her, Kim saw a wall of flames expanding with explosive force. The blowtorch had ignited the drapes, and they were burning as if they’d been doused with gasoline.

The creatures voiced a collective wail at the developing inferno. Kim looked back at them and saw terror in their wide eyes. Edward was the first to run, followed instantly by the others. But they didn’t run out the front door. Instead they ran in a panic up the main stairs.

“No, no,” Kim shouted to the fleeing figures. But it was to no avail. Not only did they not understand her, they did not even hear. The roar of the wall of flames sucked sound into its fury like a black hole swallowed matter.

Kim lifted her good arm to protect herself from the searing heat. Getting to her feet she hobbled toward the front door. It was becoming difficult to breathe as the fire consumed the room’s oxygen.

An explosion behind her sent Kim again sprawling onto the floor. She cried out with pain from her injured arm. She guessed the blast had been the blowtorch container detonating. With renewed urgency to get out of the building, she struggled to her feet and staggered forward.

Kim lurched through the door and hobbled out into the gusty wind and driving rain. She limped all the way to the far edge of the graveled area in front of the castle, gritting her teeth against the pain in her arm and knee with every step. Turning around and shielding her face from the heat with her good arm, she looked back at the castle. The old structure was burning like tinder. Flames were already visible in the dormered windows of the attic.

A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the area. For Kim, the scene was like an image of hell. She shook her head in disgust and dismay. Truly the devil had returned to Salem! EPILOGUE

“Where do you want to go first?” Kinnard asked as he and Kim drove through the gate onto the Stewart compound.

“I’m not sure,” Kim said. She was in the passenger seat, supporting the cast on her left arm.

“You’ll have to decide pretty soon,” Kinnard said. “We’ll be coming to the fork as soon as we clear the trees.”

Kim knew Kinnard was right. She could already see the field through the leafless trees. She turned her head and looked at Kinnard. The pale, late fall sunshine slanting through the trees was flickering on his face and lighting up his dark eyes. He’d been extraordinarily supportive, and she was thankful he’d agreed to make this drive with her. It had been a month since the fateful night, and this was Kim’s first return.

“Well?” Kinnard questioned. He began to slow down.

“Let’s go to the castle,” Kim said. “Or at least what’s left of it.”

Kinnard made the appropriate turn. Ahead, the charred ruins loomed. All that was standing were the stone walls and chimneys.

Kinnard pulled up to the drawbridge that now led to a blackened, empty doorway. Kinnard turned off the ignition.

“It’s worse than I expected,” Kinnard said, surveying the scene through the windshield. He looked at Kim. He could sense she was nervous. “You know, you don’t have to go through this visit if you don’t want to.”

“I want to,” Kim said. “I’ve got to face it sometime.”

She opened her door and got out. Kinnard got out his side. Together they strolled around the ruins. They did not try to go inside. Within the walls everything was ashes save for a few charred beams that had not completely burned.

“It’s hard to believe anyone got out alive as fast as it all burned,” Kim said.

“Two out of six is not a great record,” Kinnard said. “Besides, the two who survived aren’t out of the woods yet.”

“It’s a tragedy in a tragedy,” Kim said. “Like poor Elizabeth with her malformed, miscarried fetus.”

They reached a hillock where they had a view of the entire incinerated site. Kinnard shook his head in disgust. “What a fitting end to a horrid episode,” he said. “The authorities had a hard time believing it until the dentition of one of the victims matched the toothmarks on the bone of the dead vagrant. At least you must feel vindicated. They didn’t believe a word you said in the beginning.”

“I’m not sure they really believed it until both Edward and Gloria had another transformation in the burn unit of the hospital,” Kim said. “That was the clincher, not the teethmarks. The people who witnessed it attested that it had been brought on by sleep and that neither Edward nor Gloria had any recollection of it occurring. Those were the two key points that were critical for people to believe what I told them.”

“I believed you right away,” Kinnard said, turning to Kim.

“You did,” Kim said. “I have to give you credit for that and for a lot of other things.”

“Of course I already knew that they were taking their untested drug,” Kinnard said.

“I told that to the District Attorney right from the beginning,” Kim said. “It didn’t influence him that much.”

Kinnard looked back at the impressive ruins. “This old building must have burned awfully quickly,” he said.

“The fire spread so fast it was almost explosive,” Kim said.

Kinnard shook his head again, this time in gratitude and awe. “It’s a marvel that you got out yourself,” he said. “It must have been terrifying.”

“The fire was practically anticlimactic,” Kim said. “It was the other stuff that was so horrifying, and it was a hundred times worse than one could ever imagine. You can’t believe what it’s like to see people you know in such an animal state. But the one thing it did for me was underline that all drug taking, whether steroids for athletes or psychotropic drugs for character enhancement, is a Faustian contract.”

“Medicine has known that for years,” Kinnard said. “There’s always risk, even with antibiotics.”

“I hope people will remember it when they are tempted to take drugs for what they believe are personality flaws, like shyness,” Kim said. “Such drugs are coming; there’s no stopping the research that’s going to develop them. And if someone doubts they will be used for such purposes, all they have to do is look at the expanded use of some of the current antidepressants in such questionable ways since they’ve been on the market.”