Guinea Pig (13 page)

Chapter Fifteen.

The banging at the front door annoyed Will as he lay in the back yard eating. He was always eating these days; he just couldn't seem to ever get full. Not for more than an hour or two. He suspected that it was something to do with the transformation. His body was crying out for food because it needed the energy to break down and rebuild itself into whatever sort of mutant he was becoming. And though he didn't want the process to continue, starving wasn't an option. Not only would it drive him crazy he knew it wouldn't stop the change. It would only make it more difficult. Whatever was happening wasn't stopping. In fact he thought it was speeding up. That was why he was so hungry.

He ignored the banging simply because he didn't want to see anyone. Or more correctly he didn't want anyone to see him. The changes were obvious now – the golden tan was unmissable, and he felt like a freak show. The fortunate thing was that he no longer had any nearby neighbours so there was no one to see him and stare. There was also no one who visited him either – until now that was. When he wandered out though, people did stare. The soldiers on patrol, the few people he encountered in the neighbourhood or at what remained of the shops. And at his new internet café, a good fifteen miles away they'd kept wanting to touch him for some reason. He'd told them it was jaundice and that had quickly had them keeping their distance.

As for his family they didn't know about his mutations. But still they were frantic. They wanted him to come home before something else happened, and he didn't know how to tell them that he couldn't. He was never coming home. His father was threatening to come over and abduct him. Not that he could when the entire city and most of the surrounding suburbs were effectively a quarantine area. People left but they didn't enter. So he kept lying to them, telling them he was fine, and that he felt safe. And that he only had a few more months work on his thesis left. Of course since he'd lost the ability to read and write or even sit down he had to tell them that by paying someone when he got there to write his emails for him. Paying them with whatever he could trade. Watches others had left behind, things he had looted from the remains of empty houses. The theft was a crime, and giving so much to others for a few minutes work was another. It was extortion but it was what he had to do.

Why couldn't he just tell them the truth? He didn't know, but he hated himself for his failure. For his weakness. He wanted to. He'd resolved a hundred times or more to just tell them. To get it over with. And yet each time he'd taken the coward's way out and said nothing. He told himself that he had time. But he didn’t. Not much anyway. He told himself he still had hope – that the doctor would come and save him. But there was no hope. Not really.

The banging stopped and Will breathed a small sigh of relief. Whoever it was would go away now, leaving him in peace and that was all he could ask for.

But he was wrong. He knew that a few seconds later when he heard footsteps on the footpath leading around the side of the flat and realised that whoever it was, was determined to bother him. He turned to look to see who it was.

A moment later his visitor came around the corner and Will was shocked.

“You!” It was him! Long overdue and far too late, but it was Doctor Millen.

“Good Lord!”

The doctor saw him and immediately smiled and in that moment Will knew he was screwed. Even more so than he'd guessed. Apparently it hadn’t been a mistake after all. It wasn't a side effect. The doctor had intended for this to happen. Will's hopes suddenly crashed. After all the weeks of hoping almost against hope that he would arrive and fix the problem he suddenly knew it wasn't to be.

“Crap!” What else was there to say? So Will repeated it a few more times as the doctor approached and started examining him. Or tried to. Will was in no mood for that. Not when he knew that this was the man who had done this to him. Who had turned him into a monster. Intentionally.

“Stop that!” Will pushed the doctor' s hands away angrily. “I don't want you to examine me. I want you to fix me. Whatever you put in me I want it gone.”

“I can't do that. I told you that at the time. But you don't need to be fixed. You're not ill.”

And there it was Will thought as he heard the doctor's terrible words; proof of everything he'd feared. He was screwed. But that just made him angry.

“Look at me you bloody idiot! I'm turning into some sort of mutant!”

Will was angry. But more than that he was scared. Not scared that the changes were irreversible after all. He'd already understood that. Scared that they were going to just keep getting worse. That sooner or later he wouldn't be even vaguely human. Vaguely intelligent. It was easier to be angry than scared.

“You're not a mutant.”

“Look at me!” Will screamed it at him again, almost too angry to think. “Look at what you've done! Of course I'm a mutant! I'm a freak! A bloody side show attraction! And you did this to me! On purpose!”

“You're not a mutant. You're not any of those things. You're perfect. Now calm down and let me explain.”

“Calm down?!”

It was the very worst thing he could have said to him. In fact Will almost couldn't believe he'd heard the doctor come out with it. That he had used that tone of voice. That he was trying to pacify him as though he was a frightened patient. He was talking soothingly to Will just as if he was no more than an upset child. As if he wasn't the one responsible for his condition. “You've ruined my life and you want me to calm down?! What the hell sort of monster are you?!”

“I'm not a monster and neither are you. I know it's hard to understand but this is all exactly as it should be. You're just scared and that's only because you don't understand. But when it's done, when the change is complete you will. You'll be pleased and the world will be a better place.”

“Pleased?!”

Will was stunned by the idea. As if anyone could want this! And yet he knew the doctor meant it. He really thought this was a good thing. How could anyone think this was good? But a lot of his anger went away as he realised the doctor was mad. Completely, barking mad. There was no point in being angry at a mad man. They didn't understand. And in the end he knew as his logic started returning to him, he had to know what he'd done. Where it would end up. It took a few seconds to calm down enough to ask him though. More than a few seconds as he stood there concentrating on not hitting him.

“What did you do to me?”

Will forced each word out, trying not to scream them at the mad man. Trying not to just give in and scream full stop. The fear, frustration and anger were making it hard to keep control.

“That's the wrong question.” The doctor started smiling and reached out with a hand wanting to touch him again. Will knocked his hand away once more.

“It's not what I did to you. It's what I've made you into. A miracle given form.” He was smiling again. The look on his face was one of complete rapture.

“You'll understand when it's complete. The whole world will understand. And in time others will join you. Perhaps the entire world. You've just got to have faith.”

“Others?”

Will was appalled by the idea. As if he could really be considering doing this to anyone else. He shouldn't have done it to him in the first place. “No others! I'll have you locked up long before that happens. No one should have to go through this. No one should have to suffer this nightmare!”

“No, you don't understand!”

The doctor seemed upset, which didn't strike Will as a sane thing. Especially when it was Will who was experiencing the problems. What did the doctor have to be upset about? Except perhaps the loss of his medical license, and a jail term if he wasn't either willing or able to fix whatever he'd done to him. A very long jail term since apparently he wasn't. “It's not a nightmare – it's a blessing. You have to understand that.”

“I understand that I'm a freak! That my body and mind are both falling apart. That people point and stare. That I can never go home to my family. That I'm in pain and can't sit down. That my life is over. And I understand one more thing. That it's all your fault. You did this to me deliberately.”

“None of those things are true. And even the last is a lie because I wasn't “doing” anything to you. I was trying to help you.”

But finally some of that confidence was starting to slip. Doubt was creeping in. Will could see it in the doctor's eyes. He was finally starting to question what he'd done. Though of course it was too late for him.

“They're all true.” Will took a deep breath. “You've hurt me, maimed and disfigured me, crippled me. Why did you do this to me?”

“Hurt? You're not hurt.” But even as he said it the doctor was starting to look worried. “You can't be hurt. This is a miracle, and miracles can't be bad.”

“This is no miracle. It's a damned curse!” Will told him the obvious truth. Though he was beginning to realise that the doctor couldn't really afford to hear it. This whole mess had something to do with his faith. He was a religious nutter.

“It is. It has to be. I mean I used the paint brush and it is a miracle.”

And just like that more pieces started falling into place. The paint brush. Will knew he had to be talking about the one that had been stolen from the church. Though how exactly it connected he wasn't sure.

“Doctor I don't care about a damned paint brush! Not even a religious one. I just want whatever you did to me to be fixed!” Though he was certain it couldn't be. He was just letting himself get angry because he didn't want to face the truth. That he was doomed.

“I told you, this can't be undone. I asked you if you were sure. Ten times. You signed forms.” The beatific smile was gone and suddenly the doctor was being defensive. As if he thought he was in danger of being sued.

“Yes and you also said the genes came from some guy who was resistant to diseases. That six others had had the same genes given to them. You lied to me! You gave me something else! Something bad.” And that was the part that scared him the most. That he didn't know what he'd been given.

“No, I said that six others had been through the same procedure. I didn't say that they had got the same genetic spliced virus that you did. And the donor is as far as I know resistant to disease. I didn't lie.” But he was playing fast and loose with the truth Will realised. Splitting hairs to keep himself out of jail. Will didn't care if he went to jail.

“Stop lying you snake! You deceived me and it was deliberate. Now what the hell did you put in me?” Will was becoming angrier by the minute as the doctor evaded the truth, even though he knew he had to keep calm.

“I told you. It was the brush!”

Will stared at him, wondering for the first time if the doctor was completely crazy. If there was any reason in his path at all. He'd put a brush in him? That made no sense. And anyway the brush had been stolen. He stood there staring angrily at the doctor, waiting for him to explain and wondering if he should just hit him with something until he did. Eventually though the doctor seemed to find some words – before he had to.

“There was a legend about the brush. A tale that no one really believed. But one that I knew was true. That the brush was brought to the artists by an angel so that they could paint the frescoes on the walls of the Mileseva Monastery.”

“I know that! But what does any of it have to do with me?” It was hard not to shout and scream at him in frustration as the doctor kept going back to the tale of the brush. Was he just being evasive? Or did the brush somehow have something to do with him?

“It was brought by the archangel Raphael. But when he brought it, it wasn't a brush. You see God had told him to bring the artists inspiration, and inspiration does not come from bits of wood and horse hair. It comes from the soul.”

“Raphael himself was the inspiration. And so he brought the artist himself. And then he commanded the artist to take the hair from his head and fashion it into a brush so that he might inspire him in his work.”

“An angel hair brush! Great!” Will shook his head wondering if the doctor had any grip on sanity left to him. It was all madness. “But what does any of that have to do with me?”