Acceptable Risk (45 page)

Kim tried to read, but she couldn’t concentrate. Instead she found herself wishing she’d been able to follow up that afternoon on the lead involving the Law School. Feeling progressively more nervous as the evening dragged on, Kim began to think about Kinnard. She wondered who he was with and what he was doing. She also wondered if he ever thought about her.

Kim awakened with a start despite having again taken a Xanax to slow her churning mind. It was pitch black in her bedroom, and a glance at her clock told her she’d been asleep only for a short time. Settling back into her pillow, she listened to the night sounds of the house, trying to decide what could have awakened her so abruptly.

Then she heard several dull thumps coming from the back of the house that sounded like her new rubberized trash cans hitting up against the clapboard. Kim stiffened as she thought of a black bear or a rabid raccoon trying to get at her garbage, which she knew contained chicken skin and bones.

After switching on her bedside light, Kim got out of bed. She put on her robe and slipped her feet into her slippers. She gave Sheba a reassuring pat. Kim was thankful she’d been keeping the animal inside.

Hearing the thumping yet again, Kim hurried through the short hall into Edward’s room. Switching on the light, she discovered that Edward’s bed was empty. Thinking he must still be in the lab, and concerned about his walking back in the dark, Kim went back into her bedroom and dialed the lab number. After ten rings she gave up.

Kim took out the flashlight she kept in her bedside table and started down the stairs. Her intention was to shine the light out the kitchen window where the trash cans were stored, hoping to scare away whatever animal was out there.

As Kim rounded the turn in the stairs, giving her a view of the foyer, she froze. She saw something that made her blood run cold. The front door was wide open.

At first Kim could not move. She was paralyzed with the terrorizing thought that the creature, whatever it was, had come into her house and was that moment stalking her through the darkness.

Kim listened intently, but all she could hear was the chorus of the last tree frogs of the season. A cool wet breeze wafted in through the open doorway and swirled around Kim’s bare legs. Outside, a light rain was falling.

The house was deathly silent, giving her the hope that the animal had not come in. Kim descended the steps one at a time. After each step she hesitated and strained to hear some telltale sound of an animal intruder. But the house remained quiet.

Kim reached the open door and grasped the knob. Looking back and forth from the darkened dining room to the parlor, she began to close the door. She was fearful of moving too quickly lest she provoke an attack. She had the door almost closed when she glanced outside. She gasped.

Sheba was sitting about twenty feet away from the front of the house in the middle of the flagstone walkway. She was blissfully ignoring the drizzle while calmly licking her paw and rubbing it over the top of her head.

At first Kim could not believe her eyes since she thought she’d just seen the cat on her bed. Obviously Sheba had sensed the front door was open while Kim was checking on Edward, and had come down to take advantage of the opportunity to get outside.

Kim took several deep breaths to try to rid herself of the heavy, drugged feeling that clouded her brain. Terrified about what was possibly lurking in the nearby shadows, she was reluctant to call out to the animal, who probably would have ignored her anyway.

Sensing she had little choice, Kim slipped through the door. After a quick scan of the immediate area, she dashed to the cat, snatched it from the ground, and turned, only to see the front door closing.

Screaming a silent “no,” Kim lunged for the door, but she was too late. It shut with a heavy thud followed by a sharp metallic click of the bolt engaging the striker plate.

Kim vainly tried the handle. It was locked as she’d expected. She pushed the door ineffectually with her shoulder, but it was of no use.

Hunching her shoulders against the cold rain, Kim slowly turned to face the blackness of the night. She shivered with fear and cold, marveling at her desperate circumstance. She was in her robe and pajamas, locked out of her house on a rainy night with a disgruntled cat in one hand and an ineffectual flashlight in the other, facing an unknown nocturnal creature lurking somewhere in the shrubbery.

Sheba struggled to be put down and audibly complained. Kim shushed her. Stepping away from the house, Kim scanned the front casement windows, but all were shut. She knew they were locked. Turning around, she gauged the distance to the lab, where the lights were finally off. Then she looked at the castle. The castle was farther away, but she knew the doors to the wings were unlocked. She didn’t know about the door to the lab.

Suddenly Kim heard the sound of a large creature moving in the gravel along the right side of the house. Knowing she could not stay where she was, she ran in the opposite direction, going around the left side of the house, away from the approaching bear or whatever animal had been at her new trash containers.

Desperately Kim tried the kitchen door. But it was locked, as she was sure it would be. Using her shoulder, she hit it several times, but it was no use. All she managed to do was make the cat howl.

Turning from the house, she spied the shed. Clutching the cat closer to her chest and holding the flashlight like a club, Kim ran as quickly as her backless mules would allow. When she got to the shed, she undid the hook that held the door closed, opened it, and squeezed into the shed’s inner blackness.

Kim pulled the door shut behind her. Just to the right of the door was a tiny, dirty window that afforded a meager view of the yard behind the cottage. The only illumination came from a pool of light spilling from her bedroom window and the luminous glow of the low swirling cloud cover.

As she watched, a hulking figure rounded the house from the same direction she had come. It was a person, not an animal, but he was acting in a most peculiar fashion. Kim watched him pause to smell the wind just as an animal might do. To her dismay he turned in her direction and appeared to be staring at the shed. In the darkness she could see no features, just his dark silhouette.

Dismay turned to horror as Kim watched the figure lurch toward her with a slow, dragging gait, still sniffing the air as if following a scent. Kim held her breath and prayed the cat would be still. When the figure was a mere ten feet away, Kim shrank back into the dark recess of the shed, pushing against tools and bicycles.

She could now hear his footfalls in the gravel. They came closer, then stopped. There was an agonizing pause. Kim held her breath.

Suddenly the door was rudely yanked open. Losing control, Kim screamed. Sheba answered with her own scream and leaped from Kim’s arms. The man screamed as well.

Kim grasped the flashlight in both hands and turned it on, flashing the beam directly into the man’s face. He shielded himself from the unexpected blast of light with his hands and forearms.

Kim’s mouth clamped shut in surprised relief. She recognized it was Edward!

“Thank God,” she said, lowering the flashlight.

Scrambling from her position wedged among bikes, lawnmower, and old trash containers, Kim burst from the shed and threw her arms around Edward. The beam of her flashlight played haphazardly in the trees.

For a moment Edward did not move. He looked down on her with a blank expression.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see your face,” Kim said, leaning back so she could look into his dark eye sockets. “I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

Edward did not respond.

“Edward?” Kim asked, moving her head to try to see him better. “Are you all right?”

Edward exhaled noisily. “I’m fine,” he said at last. He was angry. “No thanks to you. What in the hell are you doing out here in the shed in the middle of the night, dressed in your robe, scaring me half out of my wits?”

Kim apologized effusively, stumbling over her words as she realized how much she must have frightened him. She explained what had happened. By the time she was finished, she could see that Edward was smiling.

“It’s not funny,” she added. But now that she was safe, she smiled too.

“I can’t believe you’d risk life and limb for that lazy old cat,” he said. “Come on! Let’s get in out of this rain.”

Kim went back into the shed and with the aid of the flashlight located Sheba. The cat was hiding in the far corner behind a row of yard tools. Kim enticed her into the open and picked her up. Then she and Edward went into the house.

“I’m freezing,” she said. “I need something hot like herbal tea. Would you like some?”

“I’ll sit with you for a moment,” Edward said.

While Kim put the water on to boil, Edward explained his side of the story. “I had intended to work all night,” he said. “But by one-thirty I had to admit it was impossible: My body is so accustomed to going to sleep around one, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. It was all I could do to walk from the lab to the cottage without lying down in the grass. When I got to the house I opened the door and then remembered I was carrying a bag full of the remains of our pizza dinner which I was supposed to put in the Dumpster at the lab. So I went around back to put it into our trash. I guess I left the door open, which I shouldn’t have done if only because of mosquitoes. Anyway, I couldn’t get the goddamn covers off the trash containers, and the harder I tried the more frustrated I became. I even hit them a couple of times.”

“They’re new,” Kim explained.

“Well, I hope they came with directions,” Edward said.

“It’s easy in the light,” Kim said.

“I finally gave up,” Edward said. “When I came back around the house, the door was closed. I also thought I smelled your cologne. Since I’ve been taking Ultra, my sense of smell has improved remarkably. I followed the scent around the house and eventually to the shed.”

Kim poured herself a mug of the hot tea. “Are you sure you don’t want any?” she asked.

“I couldn’t,” Edward said. “Just sitting here is a strain. I’ve got to go to sleep. It’s as if my body weighs five tons, including my eyelids.” Edward slipped off the stool and staggered. Kim reached out and steadied him.

“I’m okay,” he said. “When I’m this tired it takes me a second to get my bearings.”

Kim listened to him struggle up the stairs while she put away the tea and the honey. Picking up her mug, she followed him. At the head of the stairs she looked into his room. He was on his bed asleep with his clothes half off.

Kim went into the room, and with a great deal of difficulty got his pants and shirt all the way off and put him under the covers. She turned out his light. She felt jealous how easily he could fall asleep. It was such a contrast with herself.

In the misty predawn light Edward and the researchers met halfway between the cottage and the castle and trooped silently through the wet grass to the lab. They were all in a somber mood. Inside, they poured themselves cups of morning coffee.

Edward was considerably more dour than the others, and he had improved from a half hour earlier when he’d first awakened. As he’d gotten out of bed he’d been shocked to find a carcass of a chicken on the floor that looked as if it had come from someone’s garbage. It was encrusted with coffee grounds. Then he’d noticed his fingernails were filthy, as if he’d been digging dirt. In the bathroom he’d looked in the mirror and saw that his face and undershirt were both smeared with filth.

Everyone carried their coffee to the area of the lab they used for their meetings. François was the first to speak. “Even though my dose of Ultra was more than halved, I was still out last night,” he said gloomily. “When I woke up this morning I was as dirty as I’d ever been. I must have been crawling in the mud. I had to wash my sheets! And look at my hands.” He extended his hands, palms up, to show a myriad of shallow cuts and scratches. “My pajamas were so dirty I had to dispose of them.”

“I was out too,” Curt admitted.

“I’m afraid I was as well,” David said.

“What do you think the chances are we wander off the property?” François asked.

“There’s no way to know,” David said. “But it’s one hell of a disturbing thought. What if we had something to do with that vagrant?”

“Don’t even bring up the possibility,” Gloria snapped. “It’s beyond contemplation.”

“The immediate problem could be the police or some local inhabitant,” François said. “If everyone in the town is as worked up as Kim says they are, one of us might be confronted if we go beyond the fence.”

“It’s certainly a concern,” David said. “I suppose there’s no way to know how we’d react.”

“If we’re functioning on our reptilian brains, I think we can imagine,” Curt said. “It would be a survival instinct. We’d undoubtedly fight back. I don’t think we should delude ourselves. We’d be violent.”

“This has got to stop,” François said.

“Well, I certainly wasn’t out,” Eleanor said. “So it’s got to be dose-related.”

“I agree,” Edward said. “Let’s halve our doses again. That will take the maximum to one fourth of Eleanor’s original dose.”

“I’m afraid that might not be enough,” Gloria said. Everyone swung around to look at her. “I didn’t take any Ultra yesterday, and I’m afraid I still went out. I’d intended to stay awake to make sure no one else did, but I found it virtually impossible to keep from falling asleep no matter what I did.”

“Falling asleep quickly is something I’ve been doing since I began taking Ultra,” Curt said. “I thought it was due to the level of activity it caused during the day. Maybe it has something to do with the drug itself.”

Everyone agreed with Curt and added that when they awoke in the morning they’d had the feeling they had had a particularly good night’s sleep.

“I even feel rested this morning,” François said. “I find that especially surprising with the evidence that I’d been out running around in the rain.”

For a few minutes everyone was silent as they pondered the dilemma posed by Gloria’s revelation that even though she’d stopped taking the drug, she’d still experienced somnambulism.