Route 66

23 The Disco Club

I discussed the tests with Blake and then made the appointment. Doctor Lindstrom assured me there would be no pain involved.

Two weeks later I received a call from the doctor and could tell by the urgency in his voice that this was not routine.

"Mrs. Preston, the results of your tests...I don't know where to start! You're a true anomaly. In all of history there have never been results like these documented anywhere.

Forgive me, let me slow down, I'll explain. As we age, our bones lose their pliability. Of course you can do things to slow it down; calcium supplements, calisthenics, and the like, but your skeletal structure doesn't match the profile of a thirty-seven year old woman, not even close. The human body is in a state of regenerative growth until about the age of twenty-six. From age twenty-six onward, those growth processes cease and physiologically speaking, we all start on a slow journey of degeneration to the point of death.

There's a trigger that happens to all of us to initiate that change and up until now no one has been able to stop or reverse it because it's never been fully understood. In your case, there is no sign that this process has been initiated. I could go on, but Mrs. Preston, the end result is you are biologically twenty-one years of age in every conceivable way."

Lindstrom caught his breath and exclaimed, "Do you realize what this means?"

I was speechless. This was the stuff of fairy tales.

"Mrs. Preston?"

"I...I'm sorry doctor. That's a lot to take in. My mind is jumbled."

"We must schedule another appointment right away! You and I, together, will find out how this happened and...well...figure out how to replicate it. Do you perhaps remember an event back in 1963 or '64 where there was some kind of physical trauma?"

Did I want to bring it up? The desert. The lake. Annette's murder. To move life forward I had convinced myself that those events were just a fabrication of a wild imagination. The horrifying experience rushed back to the forefront of my conscious mind. I was hit by a mutant bolt of lightning in a freak storm that altered my body at a molecular, atomic or maybe even subatomic level.

Now I had to come to terms with the possibility that Randolph was real and still out there. I felt sick to my stomach as the hair on my neck stood up.

"There was a lake," I said with a pause.

"Yes, Mrs. Preston? A lake? What happened at that lake?"

"I was swimming and very thirsty. A storm came up out of nowhere and an enormous bolt of lightning hit me while I was still in the water."

The doctor urged me on and said, "Yes, a massive charge and electrified liquid consisting of two parts hydrogen. Go on. Was there anything else in the lake? How dry was it before the storm? Did the humidity levels change drastically from the beginning of the storm to the end?"

I was getting overwhelmed by the barrage of questions, but I pressed on, saying, "There was something else in the lake, a serum, and two men were trying to end my life with it."

"A serum?" Doctor Lindstrom said in confusion. "Of course, there has to be something unnatural about the whole thing. Listen very carefully, Mrs. Preston, I need to know more about the properties of that serum."

My voice cracked as a tear ran down my cheek and I whispered, "It killed my very best friend and I...I'm sorry doctor, I can't talk about it anymore. I'll call you back."

"Veronica, wait! For God's sake can you tell me the name of that chemical?!"

In that instant, I didn't feel human anymore and instead became a toss-away specimen, revealing a murder to someone whose only care was securing the name of a chemical.