Rise of the Transgenics (22 page)

Taking a deep breath, Harry said, “I’m about
five feet away from where you are, ma’am, to your ten o’clock. My
girlfriend is standing next to me. And it was me chattering my
teeth. I’m, uh, I took a shower before and didn’t have dry
clothes.”

Lame explanation given, he waited, heart
thumping wildly. The woman cautiously approached, saying, “From the
sound of your voice, you must be a teenager. And I smell someone
different...have you got a pet with you?”

“I’m not a pet,” Anastasia stated in no
uncertain terms.

The woman nodded, kept up the approach, and
once directly in front of Harry, she reached out and touched his
shoulder. “My, you
are
wet,” she said in a grandmotherly
voice. “And you smell just terrible! What happened?”

“I don’t think you’d believe me, ma’am,” he
said softly, not really knowing where to start. He didn’t want to
scare her, as the gun looked awfully lethal, but he had to phrase
things right. Thinking of the simplest question he could, he asked,
“Did you see the news?”

Her head suddenly jerked up. “Let me repeat,
I’m blind young man, I don’t watch television. I used to, but not
now. I just turn it on for the noise. I’d rather listen to music on
the radio.”

Harry rubbed his forehead at his mistake.
“Okay, did you hear about what happened to the FBI the other
day?”

Lines formed on her forehead as she digested
the question, and then recognition dawned on her face. “Yes...I
heard about some...
animal
coming in and killing people. It
sounded so awful, and then I heard a news flash about a prison
break.”

Harry couldn’t take the cold much longer. A
wind had sprung up, whipping against his back, and his muscles
began to shake uncontrollably. “Ma’am, if we could come in for
about ten minutes, I can explain everything...and I need a
towel.”

Seconds passed, the woman’s mouth moving
wordlessly, and finally she stepped back, feeling the air behind
her. “You can come in.”

She obviously knew where to step, because
once she started to walk her movements were quick and sure. It was
a lot warmer inside the house, and after Harry and Anastasia
entered, she shut the door. They were standing in a small kitchen,
and the odors of baking bread hung in the air.

Anastasia uttered a soft grunt and Harry
listened to the rumble in her stomach. His stomach also began to
growl, and their hostess laughed. “I heard that. I always do my
baking in the morning so I’ll have something to eat at noon. The
bread won’t be ready for another twenty minutes, so you’ll have to
wait if you want to get fed. If you go straight ahead, you’ll see a
set of stairs. Go up the stairs and look to the left. The first
room is a shower room. Use it.”

Not having any choice but to trust her, they
did as she instructed. Anastasia went first, took her shower, and
came out with a large towel wrapped around her torso. “I’ll see you
downstairs,” she said and kissed Harry on the cheek.

Stripping off his clothes inside the small
room, he bundled them up and stuffed them into a small hamper with
Anastasia’s clothes. He stepped into the shower—it felt glorious to
get clean under the hot water. Lathering up, he washed away the
sewer gunk in his hair and on his body, and then found a towel in a
small cabinet under the sink.

After he dried off and wrapped the towel
around his waist, he went downstairs and found Anastasia and the
old woman waiting for him in a small living room. “If you’re clean
now, wait here,” the old lady said. “Wait here and I’ll get you
some clean clothes, young man.”

“Thanks,” Harry said, grateful for the
assistance.

“You’re about five-eight, aren’t you?”

How did she...? “Uh, yes, that’s right
ma’am.”

She chuckled. “If you’re wondering how I
know, it’s very simple,” she said. “I can always judge height from
the direction of the voice.”

Without waiting for an answer, the woman
tapped her way up the stairs. As she made her way up, Anastasia
whispered, “What makes you think she isn’t going to call the
police?”

“Do you hear her talking on the phone?”

Anastasia twisted her head in the direction
of the second floor and made a shushing gesture. “No, she’s not
calling anyone. I just hear her opening drawers.”

A few seconds later, the woman reappeared
with a pair of undershorts, black slacks, a black hoodie, and a
pair of matching black socks in her left hand. She also carried a
pair of pink shorts and a long sleeved shirt. Oddly enough, she
didn’t have the pistol anymore. “Here you are,” she said, after
reaching the bottom of the stairs. “Get changed. I promise not to
look.”

Harry started to say something and then
stopped. This woman had a funny sense of humor, and he couldn’t
help but let out a tiny laugh while Anastasia giggled. Swiftly
changing, he remembered the coins in his discarded pants, ran
upstairs to get them, and shoved them in the dry pair of pants.
They were a little long and baggy, but the hoodie fit well enough,
as did the socks, and soon he began to feel like a human being once
again.

Just as quickly, though, he cut the thought
short. Anastasia had it worse. “Uh, what should we do about our
clothes?” he asked.

“Leave ‘em,” the old lady commanded. “You let
me worry about them. We have other things to talk about.”

“Comfortable here,” Anastasia remarked as she
looked around the living room.

It was small and spare, with only a beat-up
old couch, a television, and a few cushions around for comfort, all
arranged on a threadbare carpet. In spite of the age of the place,
everything was as neat as a pin and not a speck of dust could be
seen.

On a fake fireplace’s mantel, Harry saw a
number of pictures. They were pictures of when this woman was
younger, standing with a man of medium height and build. He must
have been her husband. Other pictures showed children and more
recent ones showed her holding babies—probably her
grandchildren.

“You can sit down,” the old woman said. “My
name is Josephine Hutch. As I said before, I am legally blind, but
pretty self-sufficient.”

“I’m Harry,” Harry said. He didn’t see the
need to give a false name, as he was already in a lot of trouble.
“My girlfriend’s name is Anastasia.”

Josephine stared at them, her opaque white
eyes wide, but her face resembled a mask. “Your last name isn’t
Goldman, is it?”

“Uh, yes ma’am, it is.”

Her expression never changed. “The doctors
told me a long time ago that I’d lose my sight,” she said in a soft
voice completely free of self-pity. “I lost ninety-five percent of
my sight a year ago,” she began. “Glaucoma is a rotten curse. My
husband was always a good man and he took good care of me. But I
learned to do things on my own alone, and I do all right for
myself.”

Taking a deep breath, she continued, moving
her head back and forth as if mentally sizing both of them up and
filing away their voices for future reference. “I heard the news
that a young man killed some people around six months ago, and when
you said something about the FBI and the prison murders, I knew it
was you.”

She leaned forward. “Did you do it?”

Her voice came out softly, but with an edge
to it like iron and he knew better than to lay some BS story on
her. “No, ma’am, I didn’t,” he answered truthfully. “I was in
prison when it happened, but some animal, uh, animal people did. I
saw it.”

Josephine sat back, a troubled expression on
her face. “I want to believe you, but there’s no such thing as an
animal-person.”

“You might want to think again,” Anastasia
said, getting up from the couch. “I’m going to move over in front
of you and you can touch my face as proof.”

Slowly sidling over, she knelt in front of
Josephine and the woman put her hands out to gently explore the
contours of her face. When she touched the fur, she started as if
she’d been given an electrical shock.

A moment later, she found a semblance of calm
and her body relaxed. Her fingers moved carefully over Anastasia’s
head, touched her ears, traced their way down the sides of her
face, and stopped just short of her neck. “My goodness,” she
breathed, “what did they do to you?”

Anastasia got up and returned to her place on
the couch. “I don’t know, ma’am,” she answered after blowing out a
deep breath. “I used to be the same as you, as everyone else. I’m
not now. Harry is trying to help me become, well, more like
everyone. I don’t mind being me or looking like I do. I just want
to find out why the people who did this have been doing it to
others.”

“There are others?” Josephine’s head turned
in their direction and her voice went up a notch. It didn’t exactly
sound panicky, but was on the verge of it. “How many are we—”

“We’ve only seen two,” Harry cut in gently.
“There might be more. We have to talk to our friend and...”

A knock sounded at the door. “Ma’am, could
you open up, please? This is the police.”

Déjà vu happening once more, Harry grabbed
Anastasia’s hand and they fell to the floor trying to hide behind
the couch. “You can hide in the basement,” they heard Josephine
whisper. “Far wall near the kitchen, there’s a door. Go. I’ll take
care of the police.”

No need to say anything twice. Anastasia
pulled Harry over to the door and they tore down the steps and
crouched under them. The sounds of the policeman’s voice filtered
through. “Ma’am, we’re searching for two dangerous criminals. Have
they been here?”

Josephine’s response could have cut steel.
“I’m blind! Do you think I’d know if anyone walked in here?”

“Well, no ma’am, but...”

That was as far as he got, and Josephine
proceeded to lambaste him verbally, finishing off with “If you have
a warrant, then show me, and do it now. Otherwise, I have things to
do.”

As if showing her a warrant would do any
good, but apparently, the cop didn’t have the heart to invade a
blind person’s home. He apologized, and five minutes later the
sound of the cellar door opening caused Harry to heave a sigh of
relief. “He’s gone,” Josephine called down. “You can come out
now.”

Twenty minutes later, they sat sipping tea
in the kitchen and eating freshly baked bread. “This is good,”
Anastasia mumbled. Her mouth was full of food and she made
satisfied rumbling noises as she ate. Swallowing, she added, “The
tea is good, too.”

Harry seconded the motion.

Josephine beamed. “I’ve always loved baking.
It takes a certain touch, and when you lose your sight, you learn
how important your other senses are. You learn over time, you know.
It doesn’t come overnight.”

As if to prove her point, her fingers deftly
reached out and picked up her cup, and she took a slice of the
still-warm bread without bothering to search for it. “Location,
location,” she murmured. “You listen, remember where you placed
things...it’s really an art.”

Anastasia seemed impressed and complimented
her.

Josephine waved her kind comments off with a
slender, age-spotted hand. “Being handicapped is simply a state of
body or mind. I do what I can. That’s enough.” She finished off her
tea. “Now, where are you two going?”

At this point in time, Harry wasn’t sure.
“It’s still early. I guess we’re just going to try and get out of
the city, ma’am.”

“Shouldn’t you check the news first?”

Good idea. He found the remote and clicked on
the television. Sure enough, there was a young, female reporter
standing outside the abandoned building, a curious crowd of
onlookers behind her, breathlessly intoning into a mike, “And we’re
live at the condemned Mira building, where a fight that can only be
described as incredible broke out less than one day ago.
Eyewitnesses state that three...animal people...fought and murdered
no less than twenty people...”

The camera cut to pictures of bodies being
carried out, some of them missing limbs and all of them bloody.
Harry ground his teeth in frustration, and blurted out, “But we
didn’t do that!”

“Hush,” Anastasia said, putting her finger to
his lips. “There’s more.”

Back to the reporter, who was standing with
Mr. Leader of the lynch mob. He had a massive bandage wrapped
around his head. Blood trickled through, and his clothes had been
slashed to ribbons. “They’re nothing more than killers,” he spat at
the camera. “We weren’t doing anything. They came after us and bit
and ripped us apart. If they want a war, we’ll give it to
them...”

The camera then cut away to show at least
thirty policemen holding the crowd back and patrolling the area,
pistols in hand. This went against departmental procedure, but in
circumstances like this, the cops were bound to be jumpy. The
voiceover said that foot and car patrols would be beefed up in the
area and around all law enforcement agencies.

“We will provide a police presence,” a large
policeman said. The caption showed him to be the Chief of Police.
“We will not allow our city or its citizens to be slaughtered by
these filthy animals who do not value human life...”

With a snort of derision, Anastasia clicked
off the television. In all this time, Josephine hadn’t moved a
muscle, but her face showed fear for the first time. “Did you
really do that, kill all those people?” she asked in a soft
voice.

“No,” Anastasia replied, getting up from the
couch. “I didn’t. Harry didn’t. It was two others like me. There’s
no war going on. It’s just those two...things. And I’m going to
find out who and what they are.”

Harry glanced at a clock. It was nine in the
morning. “It’s still early,” Josephine’s voice came. “Since you’re
probably tired, and since the police are more than likely still
looking for you, why don’t you rest down in the cellar? It’s pretty
warm there, and you can probably find some old chairs to sit
on.”