Chapter 3
Color
The guys continued to rail at the game on TV, but Rhyne couldn’t get enthused about it. His brain was in a screaming match of its own. Part of him insisted that what he was seeing wasn’t real. That it was all wishful thinking. Or that he was still dozing and dreaming it all.
Yet the other part was giving him the unadulterated truth, as awful, as terrifying, and as miraculous as it was.
“That’s robbery!” Welsh yelled. “That ump’s been paid off! Get rid of the louse!” He glanced back at Rhyne. “Can you believe that shit? He’s…” The man paused as he took notice of Rhyne’s face. “Hey, dude. You okay? You look…sick.”
Carefully, Rhyne sat up, then got to his feet. “I think that dude’s blood is giving me some side effects,” he barely mumbled before leaving the living room and going straight to the bathroom.
He propped the half-empty container of AB neg against the faucet and turned on the water where he proceeded to throw double handfuls of the cold liquid over his face. Running a palm over his eyes, he stared at himself in the mirror.
Droplets dripped from his several days’ growth as more clung to the ends of his hair hanging over his forehead. His eyes remained clear. The face that peered back at him hadn’t changed, yet he knew he was different.
“It was the blood,” he mouthed inaudibly. “The blood did this to me.”
He glanced at the bag. “That AB negative blood.” He suddenly jerked back to the mirror as he remembered.
“Or that guy’s blood. Could that junkie’s blood be responsible?
One of them changed me, but which one?” Another thought hit him, sending another shiver through him.
“What if it was the combination of both that brought this on?”
He caught sight of three toothbrushes dangling from the holder on the wall.
He already knew his was the one sitting on the right front.
Welsh’s was behind his, and Nash’s was front left.
That’s the way it had been for as long as he could remember.
But now…now…he was staring a three different colors, not three shades of gray, grayish-white, and near black.
Rhyne scratched his brain for the names of those colors, but it had been so long. So damn, fucking long.
In that instant, he never realized how much he’d missed seeing the world in something other than black and white.
This awareness gave his spirits a rare sense of being uplifted, and he found himself smiling.
Not the usual grim smile, or the angry one, or the tolerant one, but an honest smile brought on by this happy revelation.
“It’s going to take me a while to get used to this again.” Drawing a deep breath, he straightened.
A soft pounding came from the door. “Hey, Rhyne? You okay, bro?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. That guy must’ve had something else in his system that tried to play havoc with mine.”
“You’re missing a good game,” his buddy remarked.
“I’ll be there shortly. Gimme a sec.”
He heard the sound of the man’s footsteps fading away, and he had another epiphany.
“Do I tell the guys about this? If I do…” Checking the blood bag, he saw it had barely an inch left of the slightly tinted fluid.
Slightly tinted. He chuckled to himself.
What color was that tint? In the dark recesses of past memory, he recalled that blood was red. Everything after that was a blank.
But one thing was evident. If the AB blood was responsible for what happened to him, there probably wasn’t enough left in the bag for both men to get enough of what they’d need in order for them to experience this miracle.
Hell, there was barely enough left for two decent swallows.
“And that doesn’t count the possibility that the guy who’d tried to rob me, his blood may have caused this and not the donor’s blood.
Or it could be the combination of the two. ”
He was torn between telling them what had happened or not.
Then again, if he told them, they’d demand he prove it.
How the hell could he prove it when he’d forgotten the names of the colors, since it had been decades since he’d last known them?
And even if he did remember which name matched which color, and so-called “proved it,” what was to stop them from accusing him of trying to pull one over on them?
That what he was really doing was some elaborate joke because they didn’t have the ability to verify it for themselves?
“No. I’ll keep this to myself for now. But, damn, this is…mind blowing.”
Snagging his nearly empty bag of diluted blood, he opened the door to find Welsh coming back down the hallway toward the bathroom. A worried expression masked his friend’s face.
“I was coming to check on you again.”
“These fucking drugs these people are taking in this era are poisoning the blood supply,” Rhyne growled.
Welsh glanced down at the bag in Rhyne’s hand. “Are you sure whatever upset you didn’t come from the donor bag?”
“I’m pretty sure the donors are checked before they’re allowed to give. If not, the blood bank or the hospital has to have a way to check to make sure no contaminated blood gets into the supply chain.”
The man gestured at the bag. “Are you gonna finish that?”
“Yeah. In spite of everything, it’s too damn good to waste.”
Welsh made a face. “Even if it makes you sick again?”
Rhyne cast him his best dry grin. “What’s the worst it could do? Kill me?”
His friend chuckled in reply and walked past him. “Glad to know you’re still the same old son of a bitch we all know and love. Now get the fuck outta my way. I need to take a piss. I was on the verge of going in the kitchen sink when I decided to check on you one last time.”
Rhyne let out a bark of laughter as the door slammed shut behind him.
Shaking his head, he ambled back into the living room where the game had been paused.
Nash was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn’t unusual.
The man was more of a book mouse than a fan of TV.
More than likely the guy was in his room, deep into some tome, as he often was before bedtime.
Noticing the pizza box on the footrest, he lifted the lid to find three slices left untouched. Grabbing one, he resumed his seat on the couch and took a bite. Yes, it had gone cold but he wasn’t picky.
Welsh soon returned and took control of the remote. Together, they watched the rest of the game but Welsh didn’t delete it when they were done in case Nash wanted to view the rest of it.
Tossing the last pizza crust into the box, Rhyne got to his feet.
“I’m calling it a night,” he announced. He carried the box into the kitchen, crushing the cardboard so it would fit into the trash.
Sucking up the last few drops of diluted blood from the bag, he started to throw it into the insulated backpack, along with the other empties, when he stopped himself.
He couldn’t explain why, but for some unexplainable reason, something was urging him to keep it. Not toss it among the others.
He’d had those strange feelings before. He’d learned that when he’d ignored them, there had always been a price to pay later on. But when he’d given in to them…
Resolute, he left the kitchen for his own bedroom, taking the bag with him where it was safely tucked into the top drawer of his nightstand.
“Tomorrow, I’m going down to the dollar store and get me one of those kiddie books they sell that teaches colors.”
Strangely enough, the idea actually had him looking forward to the coming day. Actually anticipating it like a kid eager about a forthcoming event.
And that hadn’t happened to him in a long, long time.