Shadowfires

she who had rejected
him, she who had sent him into the path of death. He almost burst out
of the trunk, then heard a man's voice, hesitated. Judging by the bits of inane conversation he was able to overhear, and because of the noise of a gas-pump nozzle being inserted into the fuel tank, Eric realized that Rachael had stopped at a service station, where there were sure to be a few-and perhaps a lot of-people. He had to wait for a better opportunity.
    Earlier, back at the cabin, when he had opened the trunk, he had
immediately noted that the rear wall was a solid metal panel, making
it impossible for him to simply kick the car's rear seat off its pins and clamber through into the passenger compartment. Furthermore, the latch mechanism was unreachable from within the trunk because of a metal cover plate fastened in place by several Phillips-head screws. Fortunately, Rachael and Shadway had been so busy gathering up the copy of the Wildcard file that Eric had been able to snatch a Phillips screwdriver off the tool rack, remove the latch plate, climb into the trunk, and close the lid. Even in the dark, he could find the bared latch, slip the blade of the screwdriver into the mechanism, and pop it open with no difficulty.
    If he heard no voices the next time they stopped, he could be out
of the trunk in a couple of seconds, fast enough to get his hands on
her before she realized what was happening.
    At the service station, as he waited silently and patiently within
the trunk, he brought his hands to his face and thought he detected
additional changes from those he had seen and felt at the cabin.
Likewise, when he explored his neck, shoulders, and most of his body,
he did not seem to be formed quite as he should have been.
    He thought he felt a patch of… scales.
    Revulsion made his teeth chatter.
    He quickly stopped examining himself.
    He wanted to know what he was becoming.
    Yet he didn't want to know.
    He needed to know.
    And he couldn't bear knowing.
    Dimly he suspected that, having intentionally edited a small
portion of his own genetic material, he had created an imbalance in
unknown-perhaps unknowable-life chemistries and life forces. The
imbalance had not been severe until, upon his death, his altered
cells had begun to perform as they had never been meant to perform,
healing at a rate and to an extent that was unnatural. That activity-
the overwhelming flood of growth hormones and proteins it produced-in
some manner released the bonds of genetic stability, threw off the
biological governor that ensured a slow, slow, measured pace for
evolution. Now he was evolving at an alarming rate. More accurately,
perhaps, he was devolving, his body seeking to re-create ancient
forms still stored within the tens of millions of years of racial
experience in his genes. He knew that he was fluctuating mentally
between the familiar modern intellect of Eric Leben and the alien
consciousnesses of several primitive states of the human race, and he
was afraid of devolving both mentally and physically to some bizarre
form so remote from human experience that he would cease to exist as
Eric Leben, his personality dissolved forever in a prehistoric simian
or reptilian consciousness.
    She had done this to him-had killed him, thereby triggering
the runaway response of his genetically altered cells. He wanted
vengeance, wanted it so much he ached, wanted to rip the bitch open
and slash her steaming guts, wanted to pull out her eyes and break
open her head, wanted to claw off that pretty face, that smug and
hateful face, chew off her tongue, then put his mouth down against
her spurting arteries and drink, drink…
    He shuddered again, but this time it was a shudder of primal need,
a quiver of inhuman pleasure and excitement.
    After the fuel tank was filled, Rachael returned to the highway,
and Eric was lulled into his trancelike state once more. This time
his thoughts were stranger, dreamier than those that had occupied him
previously. He saw himself loping across a mist-shrouded landscape,
barely half erect; distant mountains smoked on the horizon, and the
sky was a purer and darker blue than he had ever seen it before, yet
it was familiar, just as the glossy vegetation was different from
anything he had ever encountered as Eric Leben but was nevertheless
known to some other being buried deep within him. Then, in his half-
dreams, he was no longer even partially erect, not the same creature
at all,