Elixir. Part 21

"What's gotten into you?" But she closed her eyes and groaned in pleasure, not really expecting an answer.

Fires of spring, Chris thought and slipped his hands under her, raising her bottom until he was deeply engaged and moving in slow deliberate cadence again. Wendy closed her arms around him and they moved in unison until they came together for the second time.

Chris rolled onto his back. For long slow minutes they lay embraced, the only sound being their own breathing and the fire. They dozed off for a few minutes until a log cracked.

Wendy yawned and stretched, her warm b.r.e.a.s.t.s falling against his chest, one leg innocently entwining his. Chris felt himself stir again, and before he knew it he was fully erect under the blanket.

"That was nice," she whispered.

"Was?" and he pulled her onto him.

"You've got to be kidding." She reached down and felt him. "I don't believe it. You get a battery implant or something?"

Chris grinned. "Love-starved."

"It's only been a three weeks."

"Three weeks, four days, and two hours," he said. "But who counts?"

"Thank G.o.d it wasn't three months."

Had Adam not wakened, Chris would have gone a third round.

20.

He didn't like the idea of Wendy going alone. But after six weeks cooped up in the cottage she jumped at the opportunity to get away. Jenny had called to say their IDs were ready, and Wendy would pick them up in person in Detroit.

Because Jenny and Ted were under FBI surveillance, they couldn't travel. And Wendy looked less like her media photos than Chris did his. At the Detroit bus terminal she would retrieve the material from a locker put there by a trusted employee of Ted's. They had worked out the plans in detail. Nonetheless, Chris was worried. It was the first time they would be apart.

On a Wednesday morning, with Adam in his car seat, Chris dropped Wendy off at the station in Lake Placid.

"I hope you guys will be all right," she said. She held Chris's hand tightly and cuddled the baby.

Chris kissed her. "We'll be fine," he said. "We've got so much wood to chop, you'll be back before we know it."

Wendy gave Adam a dozen kisses. "I'll call from Detroit." She brushed back the hair from Chris's forehead and studied his face. "You look good, by the way. Your skin is nice and smooth, and your eyes are clear. Must be all that exercise."

Chris gave her a lecherous grin. "Just what you give me lying down, p.u.s.s.ycat."

She chuckled lightly. "That's another reason I'm going-just to recover."

Chris watched her go into the station. He waited in the car while she purchased her ticket. Already, he was missing her.

As the bus filled up, he glanced in the mirror. She was right: He did look better, although Wendy hadn't picked up half of what he saw. The crowfeet tracks around his eyes had begun to fade. Incipient liver spots on the back of his right hand had disappeared. His hair was thicker. And it wasn't all the wood-chopping-his body had hardened into that of an athlete ten years his junior. His deltoids bulged and his forearms looked like small hams-nothing wielding an axe would do. In fact, the changes were almost frightening. Like some kind of Twilight Zone experience-looking into a mirror with a yesteryear reflection staring back.

Even more remarkable were the interior changes. He felt more agile, stronger, and, yes, more s.e.xual. In a word, younger. And, most important, he could swear that his mind was sharper-that his recall and memory had improved. He'd even bet that his IQ was higher. His only wish was that he could share it with Wendy. But the time was not yet right. When they settled down someplace safe in their new ident.i.ties.

The long bus rolled out of its bay onto the street. Wendy was at a window waving at them. Chris waved back and uttered a silent prayer. G.o.d, send her safely back to me.

Later that day Wendy called to say she had made it safely to Detroit and would meet him Friday night at the station.

The two days pa.s.sed and Chris took care of Adam and did more ch.o.r.es.

He also took his second shot. It still puzzled him that two ampules appeared to be missing. His only explanation was that he had miscounted that night at Darby.

"'Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques, dormez vous? Dormez vous...?'"

Jenny changed Abigail's diaper while she sang to the music box. The silver metal plinkings filled the air like bubbles.

"That's French, and someday I'll teach you, but for now we'll do it in English. 'Brother John, Brother John..." She held a foot in each hand and danced them in the air as she sang and her daughter wiggled and giggled. "'Ding, ding, dong.' Can you say that, 'Ding, ding, dong?'"

"Donk, donk."

"That's it, that's it," Jenny laughed. It was the only moment of peace the whole evening. Before Ted stomped out of the house for his card game with the boys, they had had a big fight. He didn't like how much they had gotten themselves involved with her fugitive sister and her husband. "Their faces are all over the networks," he had shouted.

"She's my sister."

"I don't care if she's the Virgin Mary. If they find out we helped them, they'll put us away for twenty f.u.c.king years."

She hated him when he got loud and vulgar. She hated how his face contorted and turned red, and the filthy language that flowed out of his mouth like raw sewage. "Will you please lower your voice? The baby can hear you."

"The baby, the baby. Is that all you think of? We supplied bogus IDs to the most wanted criminals in the f.u.c.king country, and you're worried about the baby waking up. Jesus!" He jabbed a finger at his forehead. "Sometimes I think you're not all there."

Jenny deflected that. "Well, it's not the first time you've done something outside the law."

They both knew what she was talking about. In the late seventies, the Internal Revenue Service had caught Ted for tax evasion and sentenced him to three years in prison. Jenny also suspected that he had something to do with a car-theft ring that exported stolen luxury vehicles to Europe and the Middle East.

"You b.i.t.c.h. You just don't let go, do you? The dog s.h.i.+ts once, and you just keep rubbing his nose in it."

"Will you please stop swearing. She'll hear you."

"Jesus!" he shouted in frustration. "Now I know why that kid of yours is such a flako." He grabbed his keys and left the house, slamming the door behind him.

She heard him drive off, thinking how for years Wendy had complained that Chris was never home. How Jenny envied her that. She loved it when Ted was gone. He knew nothing about the sensitivity of children-how impressionable they were. That was the problem with men. They created a vulgar and dangerous world unfit for the babies they sired.

Jenny ran upstairs. All the shouting had aroused Abigail. "Don't cry, my little angel, don't cry," she cooed, as she took her in her arms. "Daddy's been bad, but he's gone now. And Mommy's right here."

Jenny dimmed the light and sat in the rocking chair while the music box tinkled softly in the background.

"Don't cry, my little beauty, don't cry. Mommy's going to be your mommy for a long long time," she said, and her eyes fell on the two gla.s.s vials sitting on the nightstand.

On schedule, Wendy called Friday morning to say that she had a complete set of new ID's-licenses, birth certificates, and social security cards. Their names were Roger and Laura Glover, and their son was Brett.

He liked the names but couldn't process the fact that when she returned they would no longer be known as Christopher, Wendy, and Adam Bacon. It was too much to hold onto.

In fact, Chris's mind was having problems holding much of anything. His metabolism had kicked into turbo. It was like being on amphetamines nonstop. He could not focus. Were it not for Adam, he would have gone for a long burning run. Instead, he put the baby down and made a mental note that there were three things he had to do that night-three MUST-DOs: Check up on Adam. Pick up Wendy. Take his next Elixir injection.

If another treatment made him even more hyper, he'd take some Xanax-what Ross Darby once recommended for insomnia.

He shot out back to the pile of tree trunks. The night was clear and frigid, the sky pinp.r.i.c.ked with a million stars. Low on the horizon of trees rose a fat white moon. Over the last week he had moved to the chainsaw. The sound traveled, but there were too few winter residents about to take notice. Besides, he got a lot more wood cut. It was also much more exciting. He pulled the cord, and the saw growled into action.

In the light from the deck he worked the saw, cutting logs until he had a huge pile. He did that for an hour until his hands felt fused to the machine-as if the muscles of his arms had grown over the grips and up the blade of the rotor, its high-whining barbs powered by the heat of his own blood and blotting out all awareness but the raw pleasure of grinding through the timbers and spitting up dust and smoke and filling his head with a gratifying roar.

He chainsawed until he ran out of gas, then refilled it and continued cutting, knowing in the back of his mind that he had pa.s.sed into some crazed auto-mode.

Someplace deep down a voice whispered of things he couldn't forget-three of them.

Adam.

He snapped off the saw and bolted back into the house. The baby was in a deep sleep still. "Good," he whispered, and shot outside again.

A flick of his arm, and the chain screamed into action, and he cut until the motor choked out again.

You 're forgetting something Adam's fine, he told himself. So he refilled the tank and pulled the cord to action.

Something else. Wendy. Pick up Wendy... Where, though? Where was Wendy?

Bus station.

Lake Placid.

The thoughts came to him in little periodic bursts. Bursts that were getting farther apart. Lake Placid. Plenty of time.

time What time?

He put the saw down still idling and ran into the house and checked Adam. His eyes pa.s.sed by the clock, but nothing registered. Not the fact that it was 9:45 and he was supposed to be on the road by now.

Back outside he revved the saw then screamed through another ten-foot trunk of oak until he had neat fat logs in a pile.

forgot something else time Adam something else He turned it off the chain saw and looked around as if expecting somebody to step up with a cue card. He walked toward the lake. The surface was a brilliant sheet dusted with diamonds. It was a magical scene, and for a long moment he just stood by the banks taking it all in, his head still buzzing from the saw.

Without thinking he plopped onto the ground. He was sweating profusely, his s.h.i.+rt icy against his skin. He rubbed the cold metal band of his watch. In the moonlight he noticed the small hand on the eleven, the long one on the three. But it didn't register because he felt faint.

He got up hoping that movement would help. Guided by the moonlight, he began walking but instead of heading toward the house he moved into the woods without thought. Deeper into the thick he stumbled until he was totally disoriented and feeling fainter, driven onward in hope of remembering just what he had forgotten to do.

Wendy.

He braced himself on a tree. "Where's Wendy?" he said out loud.

Coming home "Have to get Wendy. Almost forgot."

You forgot something else He turned and saw the moonlight through the trees and he felt his body jolt.

"It was horrible. He just shriveled up like that."

"Oh, G.o.d, no. Nooooo..."

He stumbled toward the moon, thinking it was the warm bright lights of home, with Wendy inside and Mom and Dad and baby Adam all by the fire. And a big bed.

and in the big bed was...

gotta get back before it's too late.

not enough time.

gotta take my shot.

no, not the insulin ELIXIR.

ELIXIR.

He saw the bed, open and clean white glistening sheets so wide and smooth.... I want to go home. Not feeling good. Body sore. Hurts me.

me hurt He flopped on the bed and spit out a tooth. The tip of his tongue found the gaping hole. He put his finger inside and felt another wiggle. His teeth were breaking off in jagged pieces. It was horrible. They filled his mouth and he spit them out.

His head ached. He pulled off his gloves and ran his fingers across the scalp. Large clumps of hair came off in his hands. His head felt cold. He was going bald by the second.

In the moonlight he saw his hands.

His hands, they screamed with pain, and before his eyes they shrivelled up to small k.n.o.bbed things. He brought one to his face. It had gotten tiny and dark. His fingers hurt, but he barely felt the pain. His face felt totally unfamiliar. It was full and flabby, the creases too deep, the flesh under the chin too loose, the neck too thin. It was like touching somebody else's face. And his head all smooth with thin fuzz in the back.

Then the pain erupted. And he suddenly saw himself from above, lying on the bed of snow in a clearing, his body convulsing with agony as he began to shrivel up and die-like Methuselah and Jimbo- Like Dexter Quinn- Like Sam- But then the pain stopped and he felt his mind slow down as if under rapidly dimming power-a thing old and weary and barely able to process the few sad moments left, wis.h.i.+ng it would get itself over with, wis.h.i.+ng he could for one last time see his wife (don't let her find me like this), sensing himself going down a long spiral stairwell, not b.u.mping his way step by step but moving smoothly because he couldn't walk since his feet were all gnarled and twisted which explained why he was slouched up in a big metal chair with wheels on the side locked in place and on this special escalator that corkscrewed down toward a small ball of white light at the bottom that grew larger and brighter as he descended, his poor eyes fixed in horrid fascination on the glow which in no time became a dreamy white light, not hard or harsh, but like fog lit up from within-a warm incandescent blankness that closed around him like a sh.e.l.l, the interior growing dimmer and quieter until all he registered was the soft raspy sigh of his last breath before the long long night closed down on him.

Three.

But at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.

-ANDREW MARVELL, "TO HIS COY MISTRESS".