Fook (22 page)

“What’s wrong with you?” Derek questioned
his dramatically different friend as he unsuccessfully attempted to
prop himself up.

“What’s wrong with me?” Jason repeated
confused. “Wasn’t it you that said I should lighten up; that I
should be more outgoing and a little less...well...me.”

“I don’t think I said all that.”

“Well that’s what you meant,” Jason asserted
angrily. “I’m sorry,” he smiled, the sudden anger fading from his
eyes. “You know, I really wanted to tell you the truth. You were
the one person that I thought I could trust with something like
this but I guess I was wrong now, wasn’t I?” he mimed a camera
taking a picture.

“Jason, I—”

“—I know. I know. You didn’t take the
picture. You actually destroyed all of the pictures and I should be
praising your heroics and yadda, yadda, yadda.”

“I—”

“—Can’t say I believe it, but it was a good
story anyhow,” Jason continued. “You know what? It’s water under
the bridge. Don’t worry about it.”

“Jason it’s true.”

“No. You know what’s true? This. This right
now is true. The situation we currently find ourselves in. That’s
what’s fucking true!”

Derek watched as the previously unfamiliar
anger returned to Jason’s face, then faded as quickly as it had
appeared.

“As I was saying...I wanted to tell you
about the blood. Even though my grandmother had warned me to never
tell a soul, you were someone that I thought I could trust but then
you had to go and get
her
involved,” he motioned toward the
bed.

“Bethany?” Derek called out, finally
managing to prop himself up on one elbow, as he unsuccessfully
attempted to see the top of the bed.

“Now, I
knew
I couldn’t trust her. I
mean, how can you trust someone who’d rather climb out a window
than offer the simple courtesy of seeing a date to its end?"

“Bethany, are you alright?,” Derek called
out concerned.

“She’s fine,” Jason assured.

“What did you do?”

“Hey!” Jason snapped. “You’re losing focus
here!”

Derek returned his concerned gaze to his
roommate.

“You were so gung ho to find out what was in
the core and now all you can think about is that little bitch.”
Calm again, “As I was saying, there was nothing special about your
machine. Don’t get me wrong, it's a beautiful display of
craftsmanship. You should be very proud. The blood, my blood,
however is the true star here. As much as I’ve tried to understand
it, sadly it still remains a mystery to me. I haven’t been able to
find any record of even one individual outside of our family, with
the same condition. I guess you could call it a defense mechanism,
sort of like fight or flight. In this case it acts as the flight by
somehow creating a link between here and there upon imminent death.
Unfortunately I need to practically die to use it, and even then I
don’t have any control, as I found out with my little hanging
experiment. That’s where our…sorry…your machine comes into play. By
delivering a targeted blast of electricity directly through the
blood filled core, we managed to trigger the flight defense and
with a bit of programming wizardry, I was able to not only harness
but aim that reaction toward a specific place and time.

“You’re insane.”

“I’m insane? No, I’m very sane. It’s you
who’s insane my friend,” Jason asserted as he got to his feet. “Or
at least that’s what I’m counting on everyone thinking.”

“Everyone?” Derek questioned confused.

“You see, even though I believe you were
part of that whole bedroom scheme and even though you went behind
my back to test my blood and who knows what other deceitful things
you’ve done during our friendship, I still can’t bring myself to
kill you. I don’t know. Call it a weakness, but I guess I still
kind of like you. But seeing that I can’t have you exposing my
little secret to the world, I do need to get you out of the way,”
Jason explained as he made his way to the open bedroom window.

Derek struggled to sit up.

“After they see what you’ve done here, they
won’t believe a thing you say, especially if you start talking
about time travel and magic blood and how your shy, timid roommate
set you up.”

“What did you do, Jason?” Derek pushed
against the floor, fighting the waning effects of the drug.

“I didn’t do anything,” Jason insisted as he
stepped out of the bedroom window, onto the sloped roof just below.
“You were the one that texted Bethany, saying you were coming over.
You were the one that everyone saw stumbling up to her front door
and into her bedroom and you’ll be the one they find in this room
when I’m gone. No one knows about our little incident in the lab
tonight. No one knows that I climbed in through this window and hid
in the closet while you were stumbling around downstairs and no one
knows the pleasure I took from slitting that little whore ear to
ear,” he punctuated his rant with a devilish grin before
disappearing into the night.

Shuffling toward the bed, Derek pulled
himself to his feet as Bethany’s battered body came into view, the
once white sheets now stained by the life which had been drained
from her nearly decapitated head.

“I’m sorry I left earlier, I...”

Derek turned to see, a vaguely familiar girl
standing in the doorway. Glancing at the body and then back at the
new girl, “I didn’t—”

Too terrified for an explanation, Rachel’s
scream drowned out Derek’s plea of innocence as she turned and ran
from the room, screaming for someone to call the police.

Though innocent, he knew that he didn’t
stand a chance against the evidence surrounding him. As quickly as
his weakened legs could carry him, Derek stumbled toward the open
window. Bethany’s bedroom was only on the second floor, however,
given the ten foot tall ceilings, it was still at least a twelve or
thirteen foot drop to the bushes below. Luckily, the first floor
jutted out from that side of the house, giving him a small, sharply
sloped roof to step out onto to make his escape a bit easier.

Propping himself against the window frame he
attempted to lift his leg, only getting it six inches off the
carpet before its weight proved too much for his weakened body and
fell back to the floor.

“In Bethany’s room! He’s still in there!”
Rachel’s voice echoed through the house.

He knew he didn’t have much time. It wasn’t
the cops that were going to show up first. In a matter of moments
the room would be filled with horrified and angry sorority girls.
He wouldn’t even live to receive his life sentence if they got to
him first. Panicked and determined to find safety, he lifted his
leg again, this time grabbing hold of his knee as his muscles
started to tremble and managed to get his calf and the side of his
foot onto the edge of the window sill. The hard part done, he
shoved his leg through the opening just as Rachel reappeared in the
doorway with two of her sisters.

Rachel knew where
not
to look as she
focused her attention on Derek. The other two either hadn’t been
warned or hadn’t understood the severity of their sister’s claims
as their eyes immediately turned to the bloodied corpse sprawled
across the bed, sending one girl back into the hall and the other
into a series of bent over, stomach churning convulsions.

Taking advantage of the girls’ momentarily
distracted states, Derek returned his attention to the window as he
ducked beneath the raised pane.

“Stop!” Rachel screamed.

He didn’t get a chance to see if the girl
was charging him or not as the slope of the small roof proved too
much for his trembling legs, and instead of cautiously stepping out
onto the shingled surface and gently lowering himself down as he’d
planned, his foot slid down the roof and off the edge, sending him
on a somersaulting plummet toward the bushes.

“He’s getting away!” Rachel cried from the
window.

Looking up at the girl in the window from
his dense, leafy bed, Derek knew he didn’t have time to lay around
and recover. Managing to free himself from his tangled prison of
broken branches, Derek slinked out onto the manicured lawn and
managing to get to his feet, ducked through a row of tall
hedges.

“Come on! Hurry!” Derek could hear another
girl cry from the front porch as police sirens joined the hunt in
the distance.

Looking behind him as he stumbled through a
neighboring property and onto a side street it occurred to him that
he had no place to go. He couldn’t go back to the dorm. It would
only be a matter of time before the police came looking for him
there. Besides that, Jason would probably be there, pretending to
be asleep to ensure his own alibi. His only hope was the lab. He
had to get to the machine. He had to—

The crack of a wooden plank breaking in two
across his face put an instant end to all thought as his feet came
out from under him and the blow of the shattered board in
conjunction with the impact of the ground jarred his mind.

“You just don’t know when to give up, do
you?”

With the brief thunderstorm dissipating,
pockets of stars danced overhead as Derek struggled to regain the
breath that had been stolen from him by the impact of the ground.
Pulling himself together, the stars' movement began to slow to a
more tolerable spin as Jason stepped into view.

“Now, where do you think you’re going?”
Jason asked, pausing as if he actually expected a response.

Doing all he could to maintain
consciousness, all Derek could do was groan.

“Did that hurt?” Jason asked, kneeling
beside his fallen roommate. “Ooh, I guess I did hit you kind of
hard,” he poked at Derek’s already swelling face. “Seriously
though, where are you going? The dorm’s back that way,” he motioned
back toward the sorority house. “But you wouldn’t be stupid enough
to go there. So where could you possibly go to escape what you’ve
done?” Jason rubbed at his chin as the answer drew a smile to his
face. “No… You weren’t… You didn’t think that… Then again, I do
like that better,” he spoke to himself.

Only half aware of Jason’s presence, Derek
closed his eyes in an attempt to calm the rolling ocean on which he
lay.

“Tell you what,” Jason continued as he
fumbled through his pocket. “Since we’ve been friends for so long,
I’m gonna help you out. I’m going to get you out of here but first
you have to promise to cooperate,” he emphasized as he withdrew
another syringe from his pocket and, plucking the cap from the
needle, leaned over his friend. “You, my friend, are going on a
little journey,” he smiled as he slid the needle into Derek’s
jugular.

The ocean calmed and the dancing stars
overhead faded as the world was replaced by darkness.

TWENTY-TWO

“Unbelievable! You really don’t feel that?”

Feeling just as he had when he’d awoke on
Bethany’s floor, Derek struggled to open his eyes, hoping to find
himself in his bed with the TV on and the worst hangover in
history, but the excited voice circling around him wasn’t that of
any known TV personality, though it
was
terrifyingly
familiar.

“It’s all over. Just like before.”

Derek opened his eyes to the sight of Jason
staring at his outstretched palms and kicking up dust and gravel as
he paced excitedly around. Overhead, large bundles of wire
crisscrossed the night sky and the previously passing storm
appeared to be regaining its hold on the night sky with an even
more ominous looking ceiling. He didn’t need to look around. He
knew where he was. Though this time he couldn’t claim to be the
least bit excited about it.

“Hey,” Jason kicked at his awakening friend.
“Wake up.”

Fighting the second dose of the
incapacitating concoction flowing through his veins, Derek slowly
rolled his head from side to side as the waves beneath him once
again began their nausea inducing ballet.

“You know, I wasn’t sure that I could do
this without you,” Jason spoke as he sat down on the ground beside
Derek and began poking at the iPad within the briefcase. “Sure, I
watched you set it all up but I’ll be honest, I don’t know the
first thing about this electric shit and all I could picture was
being fried to a crisp trying to hook up those wires,” he motioned
to the cables that connected the device to the large transformers
behind them. “You know what though?” he slapped Derek on the chest,
drawing a hollow thud as Derek remained motionless, only wishing to
be able to move in response to the blunt pain. “I did it and ta-da.
Here we are.”

Derek just stared up at him with as much of
an unenthusiastic glare as he could muster.

“What? Not excited? Where’s your adventurous
spirit now? Don’t tell me you’re not at least a little excited by
this still. I know we were just here but it’s still pretty fucking
cool, though it is a bit later in the day this time,” Jason
acknowledged his miscalculation as he looked around at the darkness
of the surrounding woods. “Oh well, at least we’re not siamese
twins, right?” he laughed as he issued another slap. “Anyway, I’ve
gotta be going but you enjoy your new home.” Standing up, “oh, I
almost forgot. Here.” Reaching into the backpack, he pulled out the
white medical coat and tossed it at Derek, the white fabric landing
on his face and blocking his view as Jason depressed the button on
the orb in his hand.

The transformers cracked and whirred as
power surged through the yard. Rocking his head back and forth, the
coat slid aside just in time for Derek to see Jason and the machine
disappear, leaving behind a soft, fading glow as the super charged
equipment returned to normal.

“Where was he going to go?” Derek wondered
as he struggled to move his fingertip against the coarse gravel.
Turning his head to the side once again, the white coat came into
view as did a tiny paper sticking out of one of the side
pockets.