Tooth and Nail (Draft In Progress - Book One)

Chapter 17 - Guilt Trip

The street was dim as I struggled to keep my heart beating on the trek past Alkek. The parking garage was empty, which was strange. Usually there would be someone blasting music from their car and enjoying the campus night. The weather was lovely. An omniscient and friendly moon lit the sandy colored brick walls around me, and I hummed to myself, a futile attempt to comfort the body I knew was dying.

—

When I walked out of the HPB that afternoon, I didn't know what I was thinking. A test tube in my pocket, slapping in my pocket against my leg with every step. My hands were free to maneuver my bike off the curb and onto Comanche Street. Maybe this is what people mean when they say "Money burning a hole in my pocket." The money is so eager to be known, to be spent, that it feels like a red-hot iron toasting its way through silk and suede and plastic buttons. I passed Vista street and turned left on Woods. My favorite route to the Quad - From Woods to LBJ to Bobcat and beyond. I could pick up a bottle of water from the vending machine at the Pet Store by Flower Hall, then dig through my backpack for my notes, pick a tree, and think in peace.

Was my formula a bad idea? I had come to Texas State to cure the world. I wanted to ease the fears that today's children were too young to know. They are supposed to fear death until second grade, but zombies had been appearing in my little brother's writing since before first grade. He loved to write. And when I read paragraph after paragraph of horrid, shocking, vile, scenes depicting his own death, I knew what I needed to do. I loved science. And I would use science to make his nightmares go away - I would create the cure for a plague that didn't exist, at least not yet. Then he could look up at me with his glassy and wide black eyes and say, "Big brother, thank you. Thank you, Harry, for making my stories into fearless fiction." Okay maybe he wouldn't be that poetic but at least I'd get a slap on the back and a Dr. Pepper out of it.

And when the blood thinner medication made all of those rats in the second floor lab go nuts, I figured this was my chance! They were attacking eachother, eating their own and others' tails, what could work better? I set to work to make these cannibalistic rats into model citizens. Sure enough, it worked on three of the four rats I was allowed to keep out of the two hundred evacuated and exterminated from the lab downstairs.

Sure, they'd bitten me plenty of times, and it never spread, but I was actively dosing myself with close to lethal quantities of the antidote. I drank water in excess, ate oranges by the pound, took all of my allergy meds on time. I was the picture of health until this morning.

I looked in my mirror, expecting to see my own dark eyes staring back. But they were going gray. My hair fell out with each gentle comb stroke. My hands felt cold, not sweaty, as they usually are. I lifted my white t-shirt up to my chin, glad to see that the body I had worked so hard for was intact.

Lunch had been fine. I picked up Chick-fil-a from Jackson Hall, enjoyed my lemonade, and thought. Thought like I did during my afternoon break, when I went to the Quad. Thought like I'm thinking now, wandering back up to my office under this dark sky. This time, the bite mark in my thumb gives me a throbbing feeling. My pulse pounded in my ears, interrupting the silent night. I could faintly hear kids walking up behind me on the side walk, or somewhere near here. Everything echoes.

Under the bridge.

Half a block.

Through the side door. Up the elevator, down the hall.

Why cant I speak? Why can't I think? The pounding was too loud, my breathing felt as labored as my aching feet. My feet. Why am I barefoot?

I took a swig of the coke in my hand, listening to the splash as the soda hit the bottom again. Tile is cold, even through thick comfort socks. I couldn't unlock the lab door. I knocked and shouted and rammed my side into the door but I couldn't get it open. The serum in my pocket felt hotter than ever, tempting me. Drink me, Harry. Drink the Rat juice. You know it will work. But I didn't know, and I drank it anyway. I tried to wash it down with more coke, to get something in my system working on it faster.