The Immortal Gene Read online

  “Go ahead, laugh about this, but it’s your life. Many of these changes have occurred. There’s no denying what you were and what you’ve become. What we need to look at now is moving forward, learning to live with it as long as you can.”

  “Tell me about the sac around my heart.”

  “We all have a sac around our hearts called the pericardial sac. I haven’t opened you up, but I can tell you it’s harder to hear your heartbeat through your chest, as if it’s encased in something much thicker than the pericardial.”

  Jake took a deep breath, then exhaled. “My lungs? Are they cool? They feel fine.”

  “Listening to your chest while you slept can only be done effectively on your right side. Sounds on the left side are almost non-existent. But your body seems to be managing just fine.”

  “Okay, humor me. I have two more questions.” Jake wrapped his hand around the water glass and gripped it tight. “How do you know so much about snakes? Were you a veterinarian before this clinic business?”

  “After you were placed here, I researched the snake that spit venom at you, then snakes in general. Everything I’ve witnessed with you was either human-like or snake-like, so I’ve continued studying them for over a year.”

  “Second question. If what you say is true, and I have taken on some of the attributes of a snake, then why doesn’t this happen to everyone who gets bitten by a snake? Why just me?”

  “Firstly, you weren’t bitten. Secondly, there’s that mysterious substance they found on your clothing and in your hair. It has yet to be identified. I saw trace elements of it in your mouth. You certainly ingested it, along with the venom.”

  “What mysterious—”

  He recalled knocking the makeshift table over in Luke’s tent. The green liquid had splashed onto his face.

  He explained what he could remember to the doctor.

  “It had a citrusy taste. I swallowed reflexively.”

  “Any idea what it was?”

  Jake shrugged. “Just something Luke had in his tent. I have no idea.” He stared at the floor for a moment. “What does all this mean for me?”

  “I have no idea. You will live or die with what you’ve become or will still become yet.”

  “You think I’m going to start slithering around the neighborhood or something? Shed my skin?”

  Sutton headed for the door. Once there, he stopped without turning around. “Before you leave, we can run some tests. Get better informed.” He glanced over his shoulder. “In the meantime, don’t bite anyone.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I tested your saliva. The liquid closest to your gums. I found traces of modified saliva, similar to a predigestant found in snake venom.”

  “Predigestant? What the fuck, Doc? Do you mean like when a housefly goes to eat something, it vomits on it first to make it easier to digest?”

  Sutton kept talking as if Jake hadn’t asked a question. “Your particular saliva has a neurotoxin that doesn’t seem to affect you in any way. You’re safe from your own teeth, just don’t bite anyone else.”

  “Hey, thanks, Doc. Was thinking about heading to the beaches of Rio for an evening of fun, dancing, wine, and a little biting.”

  Sutton’s footfalls echoed down the corridor.

  The water glass in Jake’s hand cracked. He glanced down at it as he squeezed tighter. A moment later, it broke into several pieces. Blood seeped from two spots where the glass had cut him. The pain curbed his anger and the blood had a calming effect, reminding him he was still human after all.

  What he needed was an exit plan. He needed away from lunatic doctors with conspiracy theories. He needed time away from people in general.

  After opening the laptop, he checked his email inbox.

  Nothing.

  He’d find a house soon. Maybe before that he’d get an apartment for a month or two. He just needed out. To get away. Before he lost his mind or hurt someone.

  If what the doctor said was true and he had taken on snake-like attributes over the previous eighteen months, then he needed to remove himself from society before he hurt someone.

  Sutton had told him that it was quite common for people waking from a coma to have unexplained swells of anger. It seemed everything made him angry. Someone wanting to visit. Someone talking. The Internet page not changing fast enough. The temperature too cold. The food not tasting just right.

  He Googled Fortech Industries and came up empty. He Googled Luke Mercer and came up empty—the man had never been found. He needed to learn everything he could about Fortech. Maybe they had a cure. It was their liquid that Luke had had in that tent.

  Jake had nothing to lose. His Cindy was gone. He was on disability at work and would never be allowed out in the field with a doctor convinced he was part snake.

  Athina, his dog, had died during his coma. There was nothing left for Jake but the trust fund money and a terminal case of snake-itis.

  The phone rang.

  Jake snatched it up, blood covering the receiver.

  “What?” he snapped into the phone.

  “Holy shit, dude,” Kirk said. “Lighten up. This isn’t the Jake I used to know.”

  “Just had a talk with the doctor. Pissed me off.”

  “Oh, sorry man. Okay, one quick question then I’ll let you go and be pissed off on your own. Cool?”

  “Shoot.”

  “I need your help as a consultant on a case.”

  “Me? No way. I’m still in a wheelchair.”

  “I know. Listen. You remember Detective Keri Joslin?”

  “Yeah. Wasn’t she working the Blood Eagle killer case?”

  “The one. She was reassigned a few months after you disappeared. Something about evidence going missing, fingerprints smudged. In other words, she screwed up at the worst time. We probably would’ve caught the guy.”

  “And now you have the case?”

  “Yup. Transferred down after I was lonely in Orillia without you. I’m back in the Toronto office and working the case. There’s been nothing new since the Marcello family where you got your horse allergy shit. But our killer is due. It’s been over a year and a half. This asshole will strike soon. I’m under pressure to come up with something. Just thought you’d want to come in on this. Be useful. Read all the files. Offer up some thoughts. I know, I know, you’re on disability leave. But reading files and making notes could be done in a wheelchair. So, how about it, man? Once I get you settled back in Ontario, are you up for it?”

  “No.”

  Jake hung up, smashing the phone down so hard he cracked the cradle.

  An email dinged on his computer. He opened it. A realtor. A meeting. The house in Novar could be viewed in two days and was available immediately.

  It was the first news that had made him genuinely smile all day. It was also the first time his mood lightened in recent memory.

  Once he was in his own home, he could do whatever he wanted, unseen. Even if that meant hunting, eating his meat uncooked, or rubbing at the skin that peeled on his shoulders.

  His last thought as the sun set outside on another day was how Dr. Sutton would probably say the peeling skin was a form of molting or shedding like snakes do with their skin. And who knows, maybe it was.

  Maybe Jake Wood was a snake in man’s clothing after all.

  If so, he was okay with it because it was a snake that would find Fortech Industries. And it was a snake that would find the Blood Eagle killer. Investigating with Kirk meant Jake would have to follow the rules the police were bound by, and that was precisely why he’d said no.

  Doing it alone would allow him to hunt the Blood Eagle killer and see for the first time what a Jake Wood bite would do to a man. Jake had wanted the case before he’d fallen into a coma and he still wanted the case. Who better to test his modified saliva on than a serial killer?

  His hand had stopped bleeding. He wiped it clean and examined the cuts in his flesh.

  There weren’t any.<
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  The skin had closed, leaving only blood behind. Not a single blemish could be detected anywhere. It had been cut and bleeding and now looked clean and healthy.

  How could his hand heal in less than two minutes without a mark?

  What the fuck’s going on?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  With the use of a cane, Jake entered his new home on Boundary Road in Novar three weeks later, the real estate agent on his heels. Outside, it was sunny and warm, but the first thing he did was raise the heat to get the house to at least thirty degrees Celsius.

  He set his laptop on the dining room table and looked around the new home.

  The house sat back off the road with a hundred-yard-long driveway. He’d gotten it for a steal as the bank had repossessed it from the previous, delinquent owner. No moving truck was needed as he didn’t own anything anymore. One of the many perks of leaving a relationship via coma.

  Cindy had boxed up his personal items after Jake had disappeared, not sure if he would ever surface again. By the time his birthday came around in April, he’d been gone for six months and Cindy placed his things in storage. When she met Derrick, her husband and the father of her child, Cindy had removed the rest of the reminders of Jake, a relationship lost by misadventure.

  By Christmas—six months ago—Jake’s house had been sold and his portion of the money was added to the trust fund.

  All memory of their union, their marriage to be, was removed in that one act. He couldn’t even visit his old house that he had shared with Cindy. A new family with three kids lived there now.

  To start fresh in Novar, Jake hired a maid service to clean the house and ordered furniture to be delivered prior to moving in. Having done all this online, walking through the house now marked the first time he’d seen his living room and bedroom suite in the flesh, all clean and ready for him.

  After the walk through, the realtor bid him adieu and left with a pep in his step, bounding out to his car to either deal with another client or distance himself from Jake.

  The kitchen hadn’t been dealt with yet. He needed forks, knives, spoons, plates, and cooking utensils. Not only that, the fridge was empty.

  His new car, a 2017 Mustang Cobra, wouldn’t be delivered to the Huntsville dealership until the next day. It was an expensive model, but he had the money and what the hell, a snake had ruined his life, so why not drive a Cobra? There was no telling how much time he had left according to Dr. Sutton. What was important wasn’t when he would lose his life, but what he was going to do with it in the meantime.

  He limped out of the house, locked the front door, and headed to the small grocery store near the highway.

  Once inside, without his hips bothering him too much after the thirty-minute walk, he headed for the meat section. T-Bones, pork chops, and chicken breasts filled his cart. As he meandered the store, local folks nodded at him. He nodded back to be polite, but he hadn’t come to Novar for the company. This was about seclusion, privacy. Yet there was still a certain amount of the old Jake inside him that made him even smile at a four-year-old that smelled of syrup. By the time the mother walked by, her small boy in tow, Jake deduced the boy had spilled his breakfast pancakes into his lap within the last hour.

  The boy touched the area, then brought his finger to his mouth and smiled at Jake. Jake smiled back, understanding this connection for what it was. Two naughty boys who would partake in getting in a little trouble for the greater good.

  At the till, he realized he had no way of getting the load home.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the cashier. “Is it possible to wheel this shopping cart to my house? I’ll bring it back when I return for groceries in a day or two.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” the young woman said as she looked around for someone. She faced him again. “I can’t let you take the cart off store property, but my manager might say it’s okay. If you ask her, I’m sure—”

  “You know what, don’t worry about it. Just call me a cab.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t call from here.” She gestured behind Jake, then in a lowered voice, said, “I’ve got customers. But there’s a payphone just outside. The taxi company’s number is on the wall beside it.”

  His lips tight, forcing his reply down, he paid his bill and used the phone for a cab. It came within five minutes and drove him to his house. When he got his car tomorrow, this problem would be solved.

  He placed all the bags on the driveway, paid the driver, and waited until it backed down and out onto the road.

  Hand on the cane, the grocery bags at his feet rustling in the soft breeze that came through the trees, he detected something was off. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and focused.

  A smell. Something in the air that hadn’t been there when he’d left for the grocery store.

  Perspiration.

  Fear.

  Several different people close by. The smell of anxious men.

  He stared up at the house. Nothing moved. The sun forced itself through the trees, warming his face. He took in the air, assessed direction, then got down on one knee and placed his hands flat on the cement driveway where he waited for a location based on the vibrations in the ground.

  The scent weakened by the second. Four males. On Jake’s property within the last five minutes. The ground moved so subtly that he barely felt their footfalls in the trees to his right.

  Four men in their early twenties had been here and were now running parallel to Boundary Road, headed toward Long Lake Road through the trees.

  Why?

  Perspiration. Fear.

  They had done something wrong here.

  Jake opened his eyes and stared at the house again. His detective skills honed in on what might be different in the hour since he’d been there.

  Ignoring the groceries on the driveway, he limped closer to the house. Along the side, to the left of the front door, broken glass reflected the blue sky.

  He had been vandalized and broken into on day one.

  Without losing time, he unlocked the front door to see what they had done. Jake gave himself one minute to scour the house so he wouldn’t lose their scent before they got too far away.

  Forcing his anger down, he entered the kitchen. Cupboards were left open and in disarray. In the living room, the couch had been pulled away from the wall. Ascending the stairs with his cane, fueled by the anger of being violated, he ran into his bedroom. The new dresser was left with all its drawers yanked open. Whatever they had been looking for they hadn’t found because Jake had no valuables stashed in the house yet. Other than the furniture, there was no cash or jewelry for the taking.

  Back in the living room, the dining table was empty.

  The laptop Dr. Sutton had given him was gone.

  A shriek escaped his lips, heat rising to his face. Like an angry golfer after a horrible shot, Jake threw the cane across the room, where it smashed into the wall and dropped out of sight behind the couch.

  In two easy lunges, he was back outside. He jumped over the bags of groceries still sitting in the driveway, ignoring the pain in his weaker leg, and ran for the trees, his limp barely evident with the rage propelling him.

  He was on his first hunt as a new man and it felt good. Ever since he’d awoken from the coma, there had been an anger inside him that didn’t make sense. The doctor said it was natural.

  But this was different. His anger flowed with his blood, pumping him into a coiled mass, waiting to snap at the smallest provocation. The human side of him understood that to deny this new impulse was to go mad. It was a part of him now. The new Jake Wood.

  Modified saliva and all.

  When he broke through the first set of branches and picked up their scent again, he promised himself he wouldn’t kill any of them. He was a good man. He was a cop on disability. He wouldn’t even hurt any of them. Not too bad at least.

  He just wanted to ask them—in the strongest way possible—why they’d stolen his laptop.

/>   Why would they break into his house? Why today?

  With another guttural cry that resembled a howl, Jake ran through the trees faster than he had run in years.

  When he realized how fast he was going, he knew the truth. He was a new and improved Jake Wood. He had found the fountain of youth in a snake bite.

  The man that resembled Jake ran through the forest hunting four men like a cheetah after a gazelle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Renovation construction on Jeffrey’s basement started earlier than expected. After meeting Megan in Tim Horton’s and making his decision to follow in his father’s footsteps, he needed to get to work right away. Stalking the Radcliffes wasn’t needed after all. That one visit cemented his presence at the Canada Day party. That was all he needed.

  His wife couldn’t make it to the party, he’d tell them. She had recently left him. Walked out on him. His story would dispel any awkwardness they might feel having a man show up at the party by himself. That and the wine he would supply.

  With the party arrangements secure, he realized on the drive back to Toronto that he needed to get his home ready for his new wife.

  Safe Roomz Inc. came out right away and gave him a quote. Base model of four walls and a strong door—$5,000. High-tech model with cameras, monitors, generators, and sustainability for a family of four—$500,000. Basically the kind of panic room seen in the Jodie Foster movie.

  Jeffrey went with a $25,000 model.

  Today marked the last day of workers being in his basement. He’d been busy at work lately and needed these guys out of his house. The first of July, Canada Day, was one week away. He had taken the day off work before the party and had requested vacation time for the week after. They didn’t expect him back to work until the eighth of July.

  Jeffrey followed Steve, his Safe Roomz representative, through the safe room as he pointed out the features Jeffrey had ordered and how they worked.