Chapter 11 - The Turning of the Page

BEFORE

Jessup, Maryland

By the middle of December Ansem and Rebecca had eloped and moved into Ansem’s house. Rebecca wanted to level both houses and build one big one on both properties, but Ansem would not allow it. They would leave it like it was, so it would always be the same as when they first met and fell in love.

Christmas was on its way, Ansem and Rebecca spent what nights they could shopping due to Rebecca’s hectic schedule as a doctor. She knew she could retire tomorrow with the money Ansem had. Rebecca wanted to work. Even though she joked about it, she had no intention of marrying into riches and ditching her responsibility as a trained professional to help people who cannot help themselves.

They were decorating their Christmas tree when Ansem first sneezed. He dropped the garland as he covered his mouth and sneezed again.

“Oh, honey,” Rebecca grabbed him, “are you getting sick?”

It was no surprise when Ansem got really excited. He could not wait as he ran down to the basement, “Now I can try my supplement firsthand!”

Ansem came back up from the basement with the original bottle of pills that was brought back from the factories, after being deconstructed, replicated, and reconstructed. There were sixty-six little white pills inside the bottle. He took one out and popped it in his mouth, swallowing it without water. He looked over at Rebecca who was standing uneasy behind him.

“Ansem are you-” Rebecca stopped herself mid-sentence, “How are you dispensing the dosage?”

“You take one a day for a week. The cold is gone by day two and never returns as long as you complete the regiment.”

Ansem and Rebecca continued finishing the decorations on the Christmas tree in their living room. Ansem put the angel on the tip-top and turned the lights on. The tree lit up the corner and the window perfectly. They stood before it together and held each other warmly.

That night Ansem continued to cough and sneeze and hack up phlegm. Midway through the night he got up and ran to the bathroom. He threw up bile and blood into the toilet. Ansem flushed it without showing or telling Rebecca. He went downstairs to the kitchen to call the research reps at the manufacturing plants and ask them about side effects. They told him the same thing that was written on the bottle, “Side-effects include: nausea, fever, and fatigue.”

They also told him it could possibly cause stroke, intestinal bleeding, and liver failure. Ansem had no idea it was so dangerous. Even though he had kept it from greedy corporation hands, it had still become twisted and processed. All humanity was sucked out of the pill. They were not honest with Ansem. The private manufacturing company he made the deal with never told him about any side-effects when they examined his formulas. But that’s just it, Ansem thought, this could not be his formula, when they reconstructed it for mass production they must have replaced one of the chemicals with a cheaper product so they could pocket the dividend.

Ansem got off the phone and threw it against the wall. It shattered into tiny plastic pieces all over the kitchen. He went back upstairs but collapsed on the staircase. His airy voice called out for Rebecca as he slipped his grip and slid down the stairs. Rebecca came out of the bedroom and caught her husband. Together they got him back to bed.

The next day was no better. Ansem stayed in bed as his fever grew worse and the nausea subsided. Rebecca stayed by his side. When the time came he asked for his next pill. She was reluctant to give it to him at first. But finally, Rebecca gave in and issued his next round of supplement with plenty of water. Maybe that was the problem…and just as he suspected it was written on the bottle, ’Take with water’. Ansem fell asleep and hoped he felt better when he woke up. Starting the road to recovery meant all his invested millions would not be in vain.

Ansem woke up and did not feel any better. He was unaware of how much time had gone by. His body was bruised with internal bleeding, and he could not move without being in extreme pain. Ansem was terrified that he might have a stroke or liver failure. He already had four out of six side-effects; getting the other two would kill him. Rebecca pressed his forehead with a cold compress. She acted like a nurse when what she really needed to do was be the doctor she prided herself to be and demand he go to the hospital at once before this gets any worse and they find themselves in a position of no return.

On the third day he demanded to take another pill, even though they were convinced it was killing him. Rebecca refused. Ansem used what little energy he had to yell at her. He was miserable, always in pain. She tried not to fault him. Rebecca conceded to Ansem’s wishes and did not stop him from taking the pill for a third time. The biggest regret of her life. By that night, the fever was back and ten times worse. There was nothing a cold compress could do. The supplement was not making him better.

On the fourth day Ansem made Rebecca promise she would let him take the full regiment of pills. Every ethical fiber in her being fought him on this. Rebecca found herself in a personal hell watching her man transform into a husk of the person he used to be. Ansem was in pain. And Rebecca would do anything to relieve that pain. She wanted to throw out his awful supplement and call an ambulance. Instead, she buckled under his relentless begging. It was everything to him. And even pain-addled his arguments were hard to refute.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Just like a vaccine you had to get worse before you got better. Maybe, just maybe, Ansem thought in his diluted state, the supplement was giving him every virus and infection it protected against all at once so it could cure him forever. It was just a matter of time.

On the fifth day Rebecca could not sleep, not only were her husband’s vitals rapidly declining before her very eyes, but their marital bed now repulsed her. Soaked in sweat and dried blood she couldn’t get him out even if she tried, he was bruised all over now from the intestinal bleeding, any sudden movement might rupture an organ at this point. Rebecca brought up some tea, but he did not drink it until he needed something to swallow the pill.

On the sixth day, when he opened his eyes they were green with jaundice. Rebecca knew they were beyond the point of no return now. His liver was failing. If they moved him out of the bed he might rupture an organ and bleed out. She glared at him with a dirty face covered in stale tears. She betrayed everything her entire life was built upon after getting sucked into his nightmare. And there he laid, mustering enough energy to use the bottom of a spoon to crush the pill into a cup of water to take with ease. Rebecca questioned herself at that moment and wondered if he was a masochist and her the sadist.

On the seventh day after he took the final dosage of the supplement, Rebecca spent almost the entire day holding her cellphone in her hand, contemplating whether or not to call the paramedics. If she got Ansem to the hospital it might save his life, if he made it all the way there in one piece that is. But there was something else to worry about.

If she did manage to get him to the hospital and they ran tests on him they would find the supplement in his blood, it would undoubtedly be traced all the way back to the shipping companies and both Ansem and Rebecca would be arrested. So those were her two choices… do nothing and let Ansem either die or, more unlikely, pull through or call for help and spend the rest of her life behind bars.

“Screw it,” she finally said, as the sun set behind the house.

Rebecca finally made the decision to do the right thing no matter the cost. Whether it may be going to jail or Ansem dying along the way. She had to do something. She couldn’t just sit here and watch him die. “Hello, please send an ambulance, my husband is dying of end stage organ failure.”

After long hours late into the night the doctors confirmed with Rebecca as colleagues. There was nothing they could do to stop what was happening. All they could do was make Ansem comfortable and send them home before the results of the blood tests were sent to the authorities. Rebecca left Perkins Clifton T Hospital, her place of work, with everything she needed for hospice. If only she remembered to change the sheets. Ansem made both ambulance rides without bursting his liver. For the first time in a week, back in his bed, Rebecca could see Ansem was at rest. That could just be all the morphine.

On the eighth day Ansem Weathers died, the same day his pills were shipped out to the general public, Rebecca’s last Christmas. The room was dark and quiet, night lurking outside the window. He lay still with his arm hanging off the bed. His wife, Rebecca, at his side, head in his lifeless hand. She was crying for him. His heart had stopped beating. She could feel it. Pulse was everything. She had been constantly monitoring him, and as Ansem grew weaker, she had to concentrate more and more on finding it.

Now it was gone, along with everything she cared about…Part of her wanted to wait there forever for him to return to her; but there was no getting around it…Ansem was gone, and as his doctor she pronounced him dead at 8:22 PM.

A heartbeat, latent and subtle, crawled through the vibrations of their defiled marital bed. She wanted to believe he was back so bad. Rebecca continued to cry into his hand, this world was small and comforting right now. As long as she didn’t have to leave his embrace, she never had to deal with his death.

Rebecca did not feel the shift on the bed. She was grief stricken and distracted. It was not until Ansem’s pulse came back that she responded. This was not just her imagination; she could feel it, cheek to palm. His heartbeat was perpetually slower but gradually getting stronger. She had to stop crying now. Rebecca got a hold of herself; she had to be reminded of who she was before Ansem’s love, a woman first and a doctor second. Wife or not, those two will never change. She opened her eyes and begged God for the chance that her husband, Ansem, was not dead.

The pale green bloodshot eyes of death leered over Rebecca as she looked up at her dear Ansem. He was sitting up, dazed, like he was alive for the first time.

“Ansem?”

A moaning hunger bellowed out of him.

His breath smelled terrible. Rebecca saw her husband, but just as a shell. It terrified her. Ansem moved his hands over Rebecca’s head, combing through her dirty blonde hair to her shoulders. At first he was soft and glided gently down her arms. She resisted his cold embrace.

“Ansem, please answer me.”

His dirty rotten nails caught Rebecca’s hair as his grip tightened. Rebecca’s hair went taught and she realized she was in mortal danger. Ansem Weathers was no more. When Rebecca squirmed out from under his palm and looked deep into her late husband’s eyes she realized this, but it was too late…

“Ansem! No!”

It was time to say good-bye to the hair he held hostage. Rebecca took a deep breath and at the same time snapped her head away and bolted. The momentum of the dash was enough to rip the hair out of her head. Rebecca backed away, dabbing her head, and seeing blood. It looked like it wanted to say something, but Ansem did not speak, he choked and spat. Ackk!

Rebecca knew she had to run. Ansem’s corpse stood between her and the door. It keeled over, coughing and retching itself profusely. Every time Rebecca went for a side it took a step closer toward her. The skin at the corner of its lips tore as it coughed up blood and bile.

It turned its cough into a scream that tore its vocal chords, relinquishing even more of its humanity. The walking corpse clawed at its own face in pain. More and more Ansem lost facial recognition. Ansem scratched furiously and then stopped suddenly. It sniffed the air like an animal, a predator, and looked right at her.

Fight for your life Doctor Pratt or you won’t make it through the night.