Andrew Neiderman - Deficiency

"That's not true, Terri. You're going to influence the lives of hundreds of people and they will in turn influence a hundred more. It will matter."

"I want to believe that, Curt. Then I stop and wonder what new monster will be out there tomorrow, a product of greed and the hunger for power."

"Whatever it is, we'll stop it," he said.

"As long as you're there to hold me," she told him, "I'll believe it."

"Then you'll always believe it," he said. "For I'll always be there to hold you." She fell asleep in his arms, truly feeling secure and safe.

She woke before he did and let him sleep. While he did, she put on her running shoes and sweat suit and went out for a jog. There was a beautiful mist over the water. With the sun on it, it looked like an abstract painting. Birds were flitting about excited at her presence. She saw a pair of beavers scurrying at the edge of the water. The air was cool, fresh, and reviving. Instead of growing tired with every passing thousand yards, she seemed to grow stronger. She had no idea if the path along the water went all around the lake, but midway, she realized it probably did and she continued.

Finally, she had to stop to walk and catch her breath. She was still a good quarter of the lake away from the cabin and now berated herself for going too far. Curt was surely up by now and wondering where she was. He would worry. It put more speed into her steps and she started to jog again. The path thinned out in places and was barely visible. Some wild bushes became hazardous, their branches pulling at her sweat suit. She had to go slower. At last, the cabin came into view. She sprinted the last hundred or so yards and then stopped at the stairway in front, holding the railing and catching her breath. The door opened and Curt stood there gaping out at her, a mixture of confusion and annoyance on his face.

"Where the hell were you?"

"I didn't realize how long it would take to run around the whole lake," she said.

"Sorry."

"Why didn't you leave a note, Terri?"

"I really didn't expect to be out this long. Sorry," she said. She straightened up. He wasn't smiling. "What?"

"You had a phone call."

"This early? What?"

"It was Hyman."

She held her breath.

"What did he say, Curt? Is he sick or something?"

"No. He wanted you to know there has been another bizarre death."

"What?"

"A teenage girl. He said to tell you it looked like another case of Frank scurvy," he added.

The fatigue she had enjoyed suddenly turned into pure exhaustion. Her legs ached and weakened. She stared up at him and shook her head.

"But... Will Dennis said it was over. He said he was dead. He said. ..."

"I've got the coffee made," Curt said sharply, turned, and went inside. She stood there on the steps.

Behind her, a crow, annoyed by something, screamed so loudly it carried across the lake and woke whatever was left sleeping.

He didn't sleep all night. This feeding left him far too wired. He had seen young people juiced up on Ecstasy and other recreational drugs when he was in dance clubs, and he thought he resembled them. He wanted to play music loudly in the car. He moved to the beat, pounded the steering wheel, sang along whenever a song was familiar to him, and drove much faster than he usually did. There was something extra in his feed this time, he concluded, something he needed all along. Whatever it was, it had a great deal to do with his energy level. It made everything else work more efficiently within him. He was truly running on all cylinders, and, he thought, for the first time ever. Even when he was home, there, wherever, and they were taking care of him, he didn't feel this good. So much for what they knew.

Young teenage girls, he concluded, they're the ticket, girls who were just a few feet past puberty, like fresh eggs. Time, that wicked thief, had less opportunity to steal their radiance, make it duller, coat it in minutes and seconds and hours, thicken it over with days and weeks and months until they were so old, you had to scrape away to find the glitter.

Now he would go to a different supermarket in which there was nothing older than sixteen. He would hang around schools. He would stalk the Brownies and the Girl Scouts, or he would simply wander through malls. They gathered there like birds on telephone wires, chattering, giggling, parading, and flirting, trying out their wings.

Maybe he would never need to sleep now. Sleep was really to refresh oneself, to rest tired limbs, to restore and rebuild dying cells. He did that instantly so why sleep? He would truly be a shark, always on the hunt. What an advantage he would have? They had to sleep. They grew exhausted. They were more like vampires than he was, crawling back into their temporary coffins every night. He was the mythical bird that never lighted, pausing only to consume its nourishment.

He actually felt as if he had grown inches, widened, thickened. He was truly bigger than life. Still, he recognized that he had to be cautious. They would be coming after him again, more intently, more determined. He was no fool. If anything, his mental capacities were as heightened as his muscles. Too little time had passed. That picture in the paper was still vivid in the minds of some people, he concluded.

Memories of the motel owner returned and he nodded at an idea. As soon as he came upon a mall, he pulled in and went to the large drug store. He bought black hair coloring and then he returned to his motel room and washed it in. He decided that although it still looked artificial, he had done a better job than the motel owner. It was passable. At least people wouldn't spot him from a distance, he thought. He even colored his eyebrows.

There weren't really all that many people who could recognize his face with certainty -- our face, he thought. When he gazed into the mirror, he did see himself twice. He saw a duplicate of himself just under the skin as if he wore a mask. He'll always be with me, he concluded. As long as I live, he lives. Yes. Now it was time to protect him, to protect us, he decided. When you pursue a shark, don't lose sight of him, he warned the predators. If you do, you will soon find yourself pursued. Predator will become prey.

I'm standing behind you, he thought and sang, I'm standing behind you, on your dying day.

It made him laugh so hard that he had tears in his eyes. Suddenly, he became serious and went to the telephone. He found the telephone book in the drawer beneath it and looked for the number. Then he punched it out and waited.

"I'd like an appointment with Dr. Barnard today," he said as soon as he heard the office identified.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Dr. Barnard is on vacation this week."

"Vacation?"

"Yes. I do have an opening with Dr. Templeman at four-thirty, if you would like."

"No, I want to see Dr. Barnard. Where is she? When will she be back?"

"About a week. I'm sorry. The best I can do for you is schedule you for a week from this coming Wednesday. Would you like a morning or afternoon appointment?"

He just hung up.

And sat there, fuming with frustration. One of the consequences of being at so heightened a level of activity was the difficulty of slowing it down, stop going in one direction and take another, pausing. The urge to keep moving burned like a hot coal in his stomach. He raged, threw the phone across the room after tearing the wire from the wall, and then kicked over the chair. Nothing stops me, he thought. Nothing stops me. He walked to the front windows and looked out. The day was grayer than he had realized. It might rain here. There was light traffic, about seven other cars in the motel lot, but no one walking about, no real activity around him. How dull it all suddenly looked. Why stay after all? He could get into his car and drive off, forget about it all, just go on. Maybe he should.