Her Perilous Wolf, Julie Steimle [howl and other poems TXT] 📗

recover then offer him a sandwich. As for the kids, they did what kids did and stared at his bandages way too much, asking all sorts of cheeky questions. Once Doug had shooed them out of his office, finally alone with the man, he asked what the true story was.

Sighing, Keith said, “In my younger years, I was this adventurous kind of guy into extreme sports. But my favorite pastime was debunking all sorts of stories and hoaxes. You know, like a good old skeptic.”

Doug nodded. If he had had the money, freedom, and time, he might have done that once.

“If I was told there was a haunted house, I proved it to be nothing more than the house settling and frogs—by simply sleeping over there.” Keith laughed as if it were the stupidest thing to do now. “If I was told there were alligators in the sewers, I went down with a group of intrepid hunters and my video camera to route them out—or to at least prove such things entirely nonsense.” But then Keith heaved a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “So when I heard about this pyscho rumor that there was a vampire colony in the mountains near this one town in northern California, I had to check it out. Biggest mistake of my life.”

Doug nodded. All that matched up with what Troy had told him.

“For those who want to know the ‘truth’, I tell people I was attacked by a bunch of freaks and Satan worshippers. You know the kind that mountain rangers are trying to route out from caves and stuff?” Keith eyed him.

But Doug shook his head. “Never heard of such stuff.”

Keith laughed, nodding. “Just as I thought. You’re a pragmatic, thinking sort of man. You wouldn’t do anything as stupid as I did. But believe me, I was attacked by people, not animals.”

Then he changed the subject to all the places in the world he had hiked. As he did, Doug addressed the issues at hand. “Can I unwrap your wounds and take samples?”

“You can do anything that will lead to a cure,” Keith said in earnest, removing his shirt then a couple bandages. “I am sick and tired of bleeding on everything. I mean, I’m grateful for the comfrey treatment. Troy has been a super help in that, but the wounds open up whenever a vampire is near.”

Doug stared, watching the sheer number of wounds the man exposed, just on his chest and arms. “So… that’s real?”

“I don’t know how it works,” Keith admitted, folding up the shirt, and. “But something triggers it.”

Sighing, Doug nodded. He then pointed. “Hand me any stained bandages. I’ll get you fresh ones.”

He noticed that Keith even had comfrey leaves within some bandages. Keith had explained they were for staunching blood flow. He wondered if it actually worked. Doug had collected and labeled around twelve of these bloodstained bandages, inspecting the wounds carefully—especially the nature of the bites. They were most definitely human bites, except for the obvious canine-teeth punctures. Some of the bites were merely shallow surface scratches. Others were deeper flesh wounds. Two were down to muscle.

“What did the doctor say about your wounds?” Doug asked him.

Keith sighed. “No stitches would fix it. He’s already tried that for other patients. The stitches dissolve and wound just opens up. He’s even tried plastic surgery… but just goes back to a gaping lesion, often worse than before.”

“How long does it usually take to revert back?” Doug asked.

Shrugging, Keith thought it over. “Three days, tops. Most of the time, quicker.”

He jotted that down. “Has he tried treating it like warts?”

Keith raised his eyebrows? “Um? I’m not sure.”

Eying the surface lesions, Doug nodded. “Alright, I recommend the good doctor treat your shallow wounds as warts. I’ll email him. He can freeze them, then cut them out. But also, I think… I want to try something now. Are you game?”

Nodding earnestly, Keith said, “I am your guinea pig. Do what you will.”

Doug closed his eyes, groaning. “Don’t say that.”

Keith grinned. “Sorry. It’s just good to meet an ethical man. I once bumped into the SRA, and I was lucky to get away before they could use me.”

“Use you?” Doug halted.

Keith nodded. “Sure. They use bite victims as bait to catch vampires.”

Doug felt breathless. “What do they do when they catch them?”

Blinking at him, Keith said with a plain shrug, “Kill them.”

A shiver went down Doug. “Would they kill Troy?”

To that, Keith paused for a while, but then he shrugged again. “I can’t say. Rumor has it, some vampires have deals with the SRA.”

“Deals with?” Doug stared.

Keith extended an arm. “Let’s start what you have planned. I can talk while we do this.”

Nodding, Doug went to his small locked refrigerator and took out a package of blood coagulant, the one used for hemophiliac patients. He just needed a drop or two. He wanted to see what would happen if he applied it to a wound.

As he chose a medium-sized bite, Doug asked, “What kind of deals would the SRA, who you just said killed vampires, would make with a vampire?”

Nodding, Keith sighed. “Well, some vampires buy blood rather than attack people. And the SRA, I hear, use some as informants against what is known as the Order of Blood.”

“The vampire mafia,” Doug murmured.

Keith nodded. “Yeah, to be succinct. In fact, I think I was attacked by the Order of Blood—at least one of their strongholds.”

Doug drew in a breath.

Then Keith got all grimly nostalgic, murmuring “I was in the woods near the town where Dr. McAllister’s family lives in northern California.” Keith shook his head. “I was an idiot. There a sign at the foot of the hiking trails warning no overnight camping. I thought it was hogwash.”

A cold chill shivered up Doug’s back as he pressed the coagulant into Keith’s wound. Almost immediately there was a reaction, he could nearly see it. The pink-blood cells drew toward the coagulant, attacking it.

“I was set upon in the dark—but even I had taken precautions, just in case there really were vampires. I had eaten seriously garlicky food all day—so when they bit me, they pulled back—too… I dunno, disgusted, damaged, whatever, by my blood. Point is, I escaped. I ducked into the underbrush like a commando, and I survived. It was long while later, days, when Dr. McAllister’s sister, Eve showed up, freaky lookin’ and all upset. But she found me in the woods and took me to the hospital where I got treatment.”

Doug drew in a breath.

“She saved my life,” Keith said. He shook his head. “A high school girl who looked like a vampire just walked into the forest and flew me out of there.”

“Flew you out?” Doug’s stare fixed on him.  

Keith colored and said, “My head was spinning. It felt like I was flying.”

Shrugging it off, Doug continued to check his wounds. Yet he asked, “Was it really vampires?”

Sighing, Keith said, “I was bit. And these wounds don’t heal. That’s all I really know.” But then Keith had added something funny. “I also met the good doctor’s wife then—Nurse Jane? She was Jane Bennetti back then. Sixteen or seventeen, I think. And their other friend, Deidre Johnson. They said Deidre could see ghosts.”

Doug lifted his head. “Ghosts?”

Keith shrugged once more. “What do I know? I was light headed.”

But Doug had a feeling that Keith believed it. Doug did not know this Deidre, but Keith seemed to want him to, just in case. Maybe he wanted Doug to have someone to contact to confirm his story. There was something in his gaze that said there was more to the story than what he had told.

The coagulant hardened against the gauze it was soaked in, and the wound, for a second, had a healthy fresh look to it. Most of the vampiric erythrocytes had been drawn out by the coagulant, but the ones that had remained once more attacked the cells, preventing it from healing. He took notes.

“What’s the verdict, doc?” Keith asked, looking hopeful.

Doug shrugged. “What can I say? This is a puzzle. I’ve never seen wounds act like this. I’ve never seen blood like this.”

“How come the bite does not make me into a vampire?” Keith asked. “The bites sometime burn, you know.”

Thinking, Doug did not have an answer. There was something off about it all. Troy had become mostly infected, but because he did not drink blood, he could abide sunlight—at least to sunburn level. Doug had seen fully infected blood, and there was very little difference between it and Troy’s blood except for tolerance to light. He just could not figure out why a diet of drinking blood would change anything… unless the diet affected the infection.

He murmured out loud, “As far as I can guess, your immune system is holding it off. Also, I think the exposure to sunlight helps. Have you considered sun tanning?

Keith laughed, nodding. “Sure have. It kinda works. But it’s temporary.”

Nodding in thought, Doug wondered if some of the toxins simply shelter itself in the cells. It takes a degree of exposure to really kill them. He said, “I’m going to recommend a protocol for pre surgery removal of shallow bites to the doctor. It may or may not work.”

“I’ll try anything,” Keith said again.

“It could kill you,” Doug warned.

Sighing, Keith’s smile fell a degree. His real pain surfaced. “I cannot live like this. I’ve become what I’ve mocked. I’m paranoid all the time now. I’m in pain all the time now. I believe all creepy thing are real. I’ve been to healers. I’ve washed in holy water, for pity’s sake. I just want to return to normal.”

A return to normal…. Doug could see that desire in Troy’s eyes as well.

Doug helped Keith bandage up his wounds again, fresh ones, with comfrey. When the man was dressed, he unlocked the door, escorting Keith out.

The man said to him at the front door, peeking at Jean and then Skyler who was playing video games on his couch, “Don’t get in too deep with these folk, Doug. Dr. McAllister is a straight shooter and won’t lead you wrong. But Troy is messed up. He admits it sometimes.”

Nodding, Doug sighed. He knew Troy has issues. Half of it was rage. The other half was a mixture of a stolen childhood, grief from the loss of a loved one, and intense sexual angst. Doug figured out the man was bi—which would not have bothered him except that Troy had surreptitiously checked out his butt. When Doug had called him on it, Troy had apologized. He could not help it sometimes, as Doug was a ‘fine specimen’.

That made working with Troy in close quarters a little weird. It was also why Doug agreed to go back to distance collaboration. Besides, Troy had turned his entire lab into a cold space—making it freezing. Yet Troy was walking around in short sleeves, hardly noticing the chill at all. 

And that was just the beginning of the week. The week had continued with Doug spending half his time in the hospital labs doing his regular work, the rest of the time in his office researching ways to draw out and freeze the toxic blood and flesh so it could be excised.

Troy emailed him on Thursday. It was brief.

 

Go ahead and treat Keith’s shallow wounds with that wart-cure idea you had. Keep the tissue and send it my way after you are done with it. I think you have something.

 

So when Keith came back around Friday, he told Keith of the scheme. He was all for it.

“Cut away, doc,” Keith said with a small whoop with his fist. “I trust you.”

Doug wished he didn’t. It made him nervous.

As soon as they chose a shallow bite, Doug soaked up some gauze in blood coagulant and pressed it into the wound, saturating it. He then moved quickly, using drops of liquid nitrogen to freeze the wound itself—something Troy had sent over Thursday evening with all the equipment to keep it cold. Then