Extensive bone re-formation completed in less than a day? Christ, not
even the most malignant cancer cells in their most furious stages of
unchecked reproduction could match that pace!
For a moment he was exhilarated, certain that his experiment had proved
a far greater success than he had hoped. Then he realized that his
thoughts were still confused, that his memory was still tattered, even
though his brain tissue must have healed as thoroughly as his skull had
done. Did that mean that his intellect and clarity of mind would never
be fully restored, even if his tissues were repaired? That prospect
frightened him, especially as he again saw his uncle Barry Hampstead,
long dead, standing over in the corner, beside a crackling pillar of
shadowfire.
Perhaps, though he had come back from the land of the dead, he would
always remain, in part, a dead man, regardless of his miraculous new
genetic structure.
No. He did not want to believe that, for it would mean that all his
labors, plans, and risks were for nothing.
In the corner, Uncle Barry grinned and said, “Come kiss me, Eric. Come
show me that you love me.”
Perhaps death was more than the cessation of physical and mental
activity. Perhaps some other quality was lost. . . a quality of spirit
that could not be reanimated as successfully as flesh and blood and
brain activity.
Almost of its own volition, his questing hand moved tremblingly from the
side of his head to his brow, where the recent explosion of pain had
been centered. He felt something odd. Something wrong. His forehead
was no longer a smooth plate of bone. It was lumpy, knotted.
Strange excrescences had arisen in an apparently random pattern.
He heard a mewling sound of pure terror, and at first he did not realize
that he had made the noise himself.
The bone over each eye was far thicker than it should have been.
And a smooth knot of bone, almost an inch high, had appeared at his
right temple.
How? My God, how?
As he explored the upper portion of his face in the manner of a blind
man seeking an impression of a stranger’s appearance, crystals of icy
dread formed in him.
A narrow gnarled ridge of bone had appeared down the center of his
forehead, extending to the bridge of his nose.
He felt thick, pulsing arteries along his hairline, where there should
have been no such vessels.
He could not stop mewling, and hot tears sprang to his eyes.
Even in his clouded mind, the terrifying truth of the situation was
evident. Technically, his genetically modified body had been killed by
his brutal encounter with the garbage truck, but life of a kind had been
maintained on a cellular level, and his edited genes, functioning on a
mere trickle of life force, had sent urgent signals through his cooling
tissues to command the amazingly rapid production of all substances
needed for regeneration and rejuvenation. And now that repairs had been
made, his altered genes were not switching off the frantic growth.
Something was wrong. The genetic switches were staying open. His body
was freneflcally adding bone and flesh and blood, and though the new
tissues were probably perfectly healthy, the process had become
something like a cancer, though the rate of growth far outstripped that
of even the most virulent cancer cells.
His body was re-forming itself.
But into what?
His heart was hammering, and he had broken into a cold sweat.
He pushed up from the armchair. He had to get to a mirror. He had to
see his face.
He did not want to see it, was repelled by the thought of what he would
find, was scared of discovering a grotesquely alien reflection in the
mirror, but at the same time he urgently had to know what he was
becoming.
In the sporting-goods store by the lake, Ben chose a Remington
semi-automatic 12-gauge shotgun with a five-round magazine. Properly
handled, it could be a devastating weapon-and he knew how to handle it.
He picked up two boxes of shells for the shotgun, plus one box of
ammunition for the Smith & Wesson .357 Combat Magnum that he had taken