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Chapter Fourteen

Rachael was standing in her house, her mind in a fog with vague thoughts that both seemed to be there yet seemed distant. These times were becoming more frequent as of late but when they did come the headaches no longer bothered her. She was aware of what was going on around her but she did not care.

The phone had rung several more times but she was so disinterested in it that she could not remember who had called. She had heard their voices talking over the answering machine but they did not seem important. Nothing seemed important and it made her feel freer than she had ever felt in such a long time.

"Tonight's top story a local detective is taken to the hospital following a near fatal car accident. Detective Joseph Namer," Rachael immediately snapped out of the fog she was in and began to listen intently to the news playing on her television.

"Detective Namer was driving when witnesses claim a dark colored SUV ran a red light and collided with his vehicle. Detective Namer was rushed to the hospital while the driver of the SUV sped off leaving the detective in critical condition. The police are asking if anyone has any information about this to please come forward..." The female anchor said. Rachael was in her bedroom changing her clothes and fixing herself up. She knew her love was in danger at the hospital and she needed to be with him. No one was going to stop her!

"May I help you?" a plump receptionist said as Rachae approached the desk. She wore a pair of reading glasses that had a floral design on the frames but Rachael's eyes were drawn to the large black mole on her chin. "I'm here to see Joseph Namer."

"And what is your relation to the patient?" she said as she typed on the keyboard of her computer. Rachael was immediately annoyed that she had called him a patient instead of his name. It made him seem so trivial rather than celebrate the hero that he is.

"I'm his girlfriend." she said.

"I'm sorry but he's in critical condition in the ICU. Only family members are allowed at the present time." The receptionist said with a look of compassion as if sympathizing that she was denied access to her boyfriend. Rachael felt her blood pressure rising and she wanted to grab her head and smash it against the desk. How dare this person try and keep her from her love?!

"Pie, Pie, everyone loves pie. Everything's better with pie. Apple, blueberry, cherry pie. Everything is better with pie, yeah!!!" Rachael heard the jingle from a commercial and calmed down some. The song gave her chills for some reason and it helped relax her.

"Oh gawd not again, I'm so sick of hearing this commercial," the receptionist complained "Isn't there some other commercial they could play" Rachael turned and walked away no

longer wanting to deal with the receptionist. Her stomach growled and for the first time she felt hungry as if she had not eaten in days. She had lost some weight because her clothing that used to fit snuggly, now hung loosely on her.

The younger man entered their safe house and went to the bathroom. He glanced at his reflection and smiled then winked at himself.

"Hello you handsome devil." he said. He touched his hair to make sure it was properly styled the way he liked it. His hair was short and flowing back with his sides around the back of his head shaved to the scalp. His tips were frosted but the lower half a dark brown showing his natural color. His green eyes sparkled as he rubbed his hand over the stubble on his face and he contemplated how he might change his appearance in case anyone had seen his features. He had already altered his appearance when he drove the SUV but now he was hoping to keep this look. He felt it suited his features perfectly.

"That should be the last we see of the good detective." he said as he returned to the old man.

"You finished him off?"

"Aye just as you wanted." he said and the old man turned away from the monitors he was watching and stared at him with hatred in his eyes.

"You damn fool! You botched the assignment. The detective is alive, he's in the hospital in critical condition. Not to mention the police are on a manhunt to find you. I said I wanted an accident."

"It was an accident, a car accident." he replied and grinned causing the old man to become even angrier.

"You were supposed to be an expert and highly praised but I see now I was misinformed about your abilities." the old man sneered.

"What are you talking about? The good detective was taken out of the picture. Besides I'm the one doing all the work while you sit there playing with your keyboard." he sneered back at the old fool.

"There is one more loose end to take care of. The doctor the detective was with seems like he joined the investigation. We need him silenced."

"Consider it done."

"Only this time I don't care how you do it because you've bungled this up enough that it doesn't matter as long as he's dead. Not just kinda dead, not just a little bit dead," the younger man rolled his eyes as the old man continued. "Not just close to being dead but actually dead, understand?"

"So you want him dead, dead." he mocked.

"I'd go as far to say dead, dead, dead."

"You got it boss." He said grinning and the old man felt his stomach turning. Had he just made a mistake in giving the fool free reign?

Rachael had never bothered with the internet much she had left that to Cindy, who was always advertising their business online. Today she was determined to find where Joseph had moved to since he moved out months ago. She was determined to nurse him back to health once he was released from the hospital.

The accident had given her new vigour and now she had a purpose! She could use this to fix their relationship. She recalled that the cards had shown her the chariot card and the lovers card so this must mean that the car accident was the chariot card and it would make the both of them the lovers.

With a last name like Namer she figured it should not be too difficult to search for him so she went to the library to use the free internet and search for him. She found an address but was not sure if it was the right place or not. The details and the phone numbers listed were incorrect when she tried to call them and someone else answered. Eventually she wrote down a couple of pones to try in case they were his.

A strange aroma was suddenly in the air and it smelled familiar to Rachael but disgusted her at the same time. She could not identify the smell but it was close to being like rancid meat. Her stomach felt ill and she wanted to get away from the stench as fast as possible.

"AWWWW!! What the hell you just bit me you jerk!." One of the librarians screamed and an older man was walking away from her. He had a strange look on his face like he was smiling in a deranged way. His white hair carefully tucked under a bowler hat and Rachael remarked she had not seen one of those in some time. The librarian held her bleeding arm as her coworkers helped her. One was yelling for the old man to leave which seemed silly because he was already doing that and the other brought out a first aid kit and was getting what was needed to dress the wound.

The smell vanished with the old man and she was grateful he took it with him. She wondered how anyone could smell that bad and wondered if it was because he was old. She quickly forgot what was going on and returned to her search for Joseph's address. Other patrons of the library went to console the hurt librarian but Rachael was the only one that seemed too busy to bother.

She was in the process of leaving when it was announced over the loudspeaker that the library was closing early today. Outside an ambulance arrived and the EMTs were preparing themselves to enter. She wondered why they arrived but a second later figured it was none of her business and continued on her way ignoring them.

She walked several miles until she came to the first address and saw a ginger colored cat sitting in a window on the first floor. He looked cute but this told her this was not Joseph's place because he was allergic to cats like she was so he would never get a cat.

She looked at the next address and noticed it was eighty miles away so she started walking. She knew she had a vehicle somewhere but forgot where she put it. Of course she had forgotten how to drive so she was reduced to walking. The weather seemed warmer today so she felt fine walking and the fresh air felt invigorating. She was sure there would be no headaches today.

Dr. Ami was pacing as he spoke on his cell phone to a colleague about being asked to help the police deal with possible parasites. His colleague knew more than he did in certain areas and was hoping for some helpful advice. Unfortunately his friend knew about as much as he did at the moment.

"So do you know of any parasites that affect the human mind?" Dr. Ami asked Dr. Lee.

"Toxoplasma gondii tops the list as the most famous and most dangerous neurological parasite. This tiny protozoan doesn't look like much more than a blob, but once it makes its way to the brain, it can radically alter the behavior of hosts like rats, cats and, yes, even humans.

T. gondii's life begins in cat feces, where its eggs are known as "oocytes" or "egg cells" and wait to be picked up by carriers like rats. Once they're safe and warm in the guts of their temporary hosts, the oocytes morph into tachyzoites, the unassuming little blobs that can really do some damage. Those tachyzoites migrate into their hosts' muscles, eyes and brains, where they can remain hidden for decades without doing much of anything.

But when the moment comes to strike, the little T. gondii tachyzoites alter their hosts' brain chemistry. Infected rats actually become sexually aroused by the smell of cats, and leap fearlessly into their claws, where they die and release the tachyzoites back into the cats, allowing the egg-laying cycle to start anew.

Creepy, perhaps, except that rats aren't the only hosts in which T. gondii hibernates. Some researchers estimate that as much as thirty percent of the people on earth -- more than two billion of us -- are carrying little T. gondii tachyzoites around in our brains right now.

What might this mean for human behavior? Just as a start, some studies have shown that cases of schizophrenia rose sharply around the turn of the twentieth century, when domestic cat ownership became common." Dr. Lee quoted as he read from a book in his library.

"Yes, I mentioned them in my lecture. I am surprised though because I do not remember them infecting humans. But they can not be the only ones."

"There are many, my friend. Naegleria fowleri are an amoeba that eats the brain of its host. Rabies has been known to cause uncontrollable fear in humans instead of foaming at the mouth. Trypanosoma causes First they suffer headaches and have trouble sleeping, or sleep and wake at odd hours, due to the parasite's alteration of the rhythm in which the sleep hormone melatonin gets released. Before long, though, human hosts start to exhibit a variety of other psychological symptoms." Dr. Lee replied.

"Headaches have been reported in the victims and the odd behaviors could be pointing to Trypanosoma as the parasite."

"If that is the case then there are only four drugs that can cure it provided it is in the early stages. Give me a moment to look them up," Dr. Lee said and Dr. Ami heard him clicking on the keyboard of a computer.

"Can you email me everything you have on it?"

"OK pentamidine, suramin, melarsoprol and eflornithine are the ones listed. I think there might be an experimental fifth drug but I doubt you want to turn people into guinea pigs. I'll send you everything I have on it. Good luck because these are nasty little buggers. Oh, I must also warn you that there are two types of Trypanosoma, there is an American one and a African one. The African one is the one I was referring to." Dr. Lee said.

"What are the differences between them?"

"Basically they appear the same except one is transmitted by a fly found in Africa and the other is spread by triatomine bugs or "kissing bugs." as they are called. There is another page here that says that the parasite can infect animals as well. Did you not say animals were being affected too?" Dr. Lee asked.

"Yes! Since disease or parasites can be spread from animals to people a hypothesis could be an infected animal, maybe a rat or something, could have made its way to the city. A cat could have eaten the rat and spread it to other animals. Soon the animals attack people and so on." Dr. Ami said.

"It's a possibility but I have never heard of something like this happening before. Could we be looking at a terrorist attack? Something they think we would not figure out?"

"I suppose the American version could have been smuggled in by illegal immigrants that snuck in running across the border." Dr. Ami replied.

"You are in the upper United States, right? How could it have gotten there and no reported cases in the lower States?" Dr. Lee inquired.

"Maybe there were but no one knew what they were looking for. Doctors do not conclude that a parasite is involved unless they have better signs pointing to them. In some cases it then becomes too late."

"I think we would have heard of such a thing because look how fast the numbers grew of people biting people. We would be hearing of this if it were happening down south." Dr. Lee said doubtfully as the prospect was being more improbable as he thought about it. Dr. Ami, on the other hand, believed he had found the answer. He began to use his own computer to see if he could get a hold of the drugs needed to cure it.

"Nevermind that; nevermind that. We may have hit upon the answer and if the detective can get me an infected person we can check them out and cure them. Think of what the newspapers would say." Dr. Ami mused.

"A small refraction about the bovine spongiform encephalopathy and they move on to the next story." Dr. Lee sneered.

"Do not be so cynical my friend. We may get a nobel prize for this! I wondered what it was like to be a detective when I was a little boy and now I have the chance."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, we don't know any of this for certain. One step at a time because you cannot say it is solved when you have not even verified that it is Trypanosoma. You know that this is not how it works, don't you?" Dr. Lee cautioned but he knew his friend was not listening to him. He was very headstrong when he thought he was right and rarely listened to reason.

"Of course I do but right now people are confused and thinking that it is something else instead of getting the treatment they need. Once the detective comes through we can fix this horrible nightmare."

"I have to go, call me in a few days on your progress." Dr. Lee said.

"Will do." Dr. Ami said feeling a little bit giddy now that he felt he solved the case. He wondered if this was what it was like to be a detective. Did Joseph feel like this every time he solved a case?

Marms sat at the window and watched the strange female hooman walk away. She had first interrupted him when he was telling the birds that they needed to leave his kingdom. They were trespassing and disturbing his sleepy time.

He then saw he walk up to the apartment building and was staring at him. Not that he could blame her because he was gorgeous to look at. He even puffed out his chest so she could see how beautiful his fur was. She did not seem to notice for some reason.

She was not the hooman that he lets live with him, so he could care less about her. The other guy Marms knew was probably gonna come by later and feed him but he was not the hooman that he lets live with him, so he wanted him in and out of his kingdom. Food and begone peasant, was his thoughts on the matter.

He wanted to see the hooman he lets live with him because it had been far too long since he came home. Who was going to pet his pretty fur? Who was going to give him kisses and make his voice sound funny when he talks that strange hooman talk? A person could not expect Marms to make purring noises for just anyone.

A dog walked by and Marms puffed up his fur and hissed at the large brute. It walked away seemingly unaware of the hissing kitty but Marms felt he had taught him a lesson. Still there was something wrong with that doggie. It seemed sick to Marms in some way that he could not really understand. The more he thought about it the more he realized that female hooman was sick like the doggie was.

Marms hoped that the hooman he lets live with him was not sick like those two were but he soon forgot about them as he realized he needed to yell at the birdies some more. He had his whole day planned and was not going to let a sick dog and hooman get in his way. He gave one last meow hoping his hooman heard it and woul;d return home before he began to instruct the birdies again.