The Zero Antigen Theorem: Book 1 Read online

  She looked up at him. “Why is that? Have you been out of the country recently?” her clinical training kicked in.

  He laughed lightly. Even his laugh was musical. “No, no I haven’t.”

  Quinn stood up and walked around the side of the desk. “If you’d like to follow me back to have a look at the blood draw station, maybe it would set your mind at ease.”

  “You okay here sweetie?” Mandy asked.

  “Yes, I’m all right. Get out of here before Mr. Aguire makes you stay.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice.” Mandy smiled at the stranger and Quinn saw that she was struck by him as well. Mandy fumbled with the handle on the front door before shooting Quinn a devilish little smirk.

  Quinn led the way, and the man followed her back to her station. He walked very close behind her. She was certain he was saying something under his breath, but she didn’t dare turn around. He was much taller than she remembered. He was a full head taller than her making him about six foot. She stopped at the draw station.

  “It’s a quick process and almost painless. Most people feel the stick when we put in the IV but—“ Quinn stopped mid-sentence. She turned to look at him and his face was absolutely haunting. He looked sad and careworn. His shoulders were slumped downward and his skin had a sick pallid color to it.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “No,” he said bluntly.

  Quinn took him by the elbow of his jacket and guided him into the reclining chair. He sprawled out and closed his eyes. Quinn sat next to him on a rolling stool.

  “It’s ok to be a little squeamish,” she said. “I’ve had people pass out cold just talking about the process.”

  “It’s not that,” he said.

  “Oh no?” asked Quinn doubtfully.

  “I’m not afraid of blood,” he said. He turned his face towards her. The lines in his smooth skin softened and he looked more melancholy than sad. He reached out very quickly and took her hand in his. Quinn was shocked at how cool his skin felt. She stared into his deep brown eyes.

  “What is your name?” he asked.

  “Quinn.”

  “Quinn. That is a very lovely name.”

  “Thank you,” she said. Her breathing was shallow and she thought she might be the one to pass out on this occasion.

  “How old are you Quinn?” he asked.

  Quinn hesitated. It seemed like a very personal question. She wanted to answer, but couldn’t seem to find the words.

  “I’m sorry, I’m a little too forward sometimes.”

  “Twenty two,” said Quinn. “I’m twenty two.”

  He smiled and released her hand. He swung his feet over the edge of the recliner and sat up facing Quinn directly.

  “Forgive me, I don’t know how to put up false pretenses. I think you are quite lovely and I came in to try and talk to you. Not to donate blood.”

  Quinn was speechless.

  “Will you do me a favor?” he asked.

  “Uh, sure. Yes. Okay.” Quinn couldn’t seem to form a cohesive sentence and it irked her. She was no shrinking violet, she didn’t get tongue tied when talking to people.

  “Be careful. You are quite enchanting and I think I may not be the only one who knows it.” He stood up and brushed passed Quinn as he walked toward the front door.

  “Wait!” she yelled a bit too loudly.

  He turned and smiled a half smile, drawing up the corner of his mouth.

  “Who, uh, who are you?” she stammered again. “I mean, what’s your name?”

  He closed the gap between them in only three or four sweeping steps and took her hands in is again. He kissed the back of her hand and held it briefly.

  “My name is Roman. I am very happy to have met you Quinn.” He turned and strode out the front door.

  Quinn stood motionless for a long time before her heart rate returned to normal and she could organize the thoughts in her head. Everyone else had gone home. She gathered her things and went to her car.

  Roman.

  The name echoed in her head over and over again. Something about him set every inch of her skin on fire. She was enamored with him and she wanted nothing more than to see his face one more time.

  STRANGERS

  Those eyes like burnt umber, brown and fiery, stayed in Quinn’s mind all week. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed and while she wasn’t prone to thinking about her life in terms of destiny or fate, she didn’t believe in coincidence. At a time in her young life when everything was routine and monotonous, this stranger had shaken things up.

  She welcomed the extra bit of pep she felt when getting ready for work. She hoped to walk into the clinic and see him, Roman, waiting for her. He called her “lovely”, a term she had never heard anywhere except old movies and books, certainly she had never heard a man call her lovely. Brady had used words like hot and smokin’, never lovely.

  He probably couldn’t spell lovely. She thought.

  On Friday morning Quinn got to work early. She turned on the television in the donor waiting area and put new trash bags in all of the empty bins. Mandy arrived next followed by Sam and Mr. Aguire.

  Quinn sat behind the desk waiting for Roman. The minutes and hours ticked by as slowly as ever. By the end of the day Quinn began to feel as if she may not see her mysterious stranger again. She was disappointed in herself for getting so caught up.

  “Quinn sweetie, I need a huge favor,” Mandy’s sweet southern drawl broke through Quinn’s self-pity party.

  “Sure, what’s up?” asked Quinn.

  “I’ve got this terrible headache, sweetie and I just can’t shake it. Would you mind closing up for me?”

  Normally Quinn would have been highly annoyed at being asked to stay late, but she didn’t mind on this occasion. Maybe she’d have a chance to see Roman after all. “I’ll stay. No worries.”

  Mandy smiled half-heartedly. Mandy was honest, sometimes to a fault. Quinn could see that she did indeed appear to be in pain and so Quinn was happy to cover down for her for more than her own selfish reasons. Mandy gathered up her things and Quinn set about preparing Mr. Hammond’s weekly package of two bags of O negative blood.

  Quinn retrieved the two bags from the storage refrigerator and placed them in a cool-storage box. As she taped up the top of the box she noticed that someone was standing just outside the front door. Her heart skipped a beat.

  Roman.

  Quinn walked towards the door smiling. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw that it was, in fact, not Roman. It was someone else.

  He stood so still that Quinn wondered if her mind was playing tricks on her. His jet black hair was cropped short and his pale skin seemed stretched and thin, the blue veins underneath snaked down his neck like tangled ropes. He wore only a gray t-shirt and faded blue jeans. The skin on his arms was so white it was almost translucent.

  Quinn’s heart raced. She turned quickly and ran into her boss’s office and closed the door behind her.

  “Quinn, what are you doing?” asked Mr. Aguire, annoyed.

  “Sir! There’s a man outside! He’s, well, he’s… I don’t know.” She felt silly. What was she supposed to say? He was scary? Creepy?

  “Miss Santos, you need to calm down. We are a blood bank, maybe he wants to make a donation,” Mr. Aguire said curtly.

  “No!” said Quinn. She decided to be completely honest. “No, he was just standing there. He didn’t attempt to come in. He looked…sick.”

  “Sick?” something shifted in Mr. Aguire. “Has Mr. Hammond picked up his package yet?”

  “What?” Quinn asked. “No, no it’s still here.”

  “Where?” Mr. Aguire asked. His eyes were wide and Quinn could see a light film of sweat building on his brow.

  “At the front counter,” said Quinn.

  Mr. Aguire went to his office door and opened it slightly. He peered out without actually moving into the hallway.

  “Sir, what is going on?”


  “Shhh!” Mr. Aguire hissed.

  He leaned out into the hallway and then retreated back into his office closing the door.

  “Have a seat,” he said sternly.

  “Sir—“ Quinn started.

  “Sit.”

  Quinn sat down reluctantly, glancing back at the door.

  “Miss Santos, what we do here is very important. You understand that?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Quinn, confused as to why Mr. Aguire was giving her a lecture at that particular moment.

  “What we do here affects the lives of a lot of…people.”

  Quinn sat silently.

  “If you would like to continue working here I suggest that you stick to what you know. Do your job and don’t worry about anything else.”

  “Excuse me, but are you threatening me?” Mr. Aguire tried his best to put on an air of respectability, but it was hard to take him seriously with his sweat-stained button down and atrocious comb-over. Now, he seemed to be warning her and Quinn didn’t like his tone.

  “You’re not listening,” said Mr. Aguire. He sat down in his chair. “You think you’re the only one who is afraid? You think that they would hesitate to kill you and me both?”

  Quinn stood up. Kill? “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The people that run this place have a very specific agenda and they won’t allow anyone to get in the way of that,” Mr. Aguire whispered.

  “Who?” Quinn couldn’t think straight. “What people?”

  “I don’t know! They stay away and they send their people to make sure things are going to plan. Those pale people who look like they’re sick, they keep an eye on things.”

  “We should call the police!” said Quinn frantically.

  “The police? You have no idea who we’re dealing with. Go back out there and finish getting Mr. Hammond’s package ready and don’t bring this up to anyone. Ever. Do you understand me?”

  Quinn stared at her boss before quickly leaving his office. She stood in the dimly lit hallway, trying to figure out who would want to kill Mr. Aguire for not processing donations.

  Maybe he’s on something. There’s a huge problem with Meth in the area. Yeah, he’s high as shit. That’s gotta be it.

  She heard the lock click on the inside of Mr. Aguire’s office door. She looked towards the front door. No one was there. The man had gone. But she noticed that all of the lights and even the television had been turned off. The only light at the front of the clinic came from the flickering screen of the computer behind the desk.

  Quinn’s hands began to shake as she walked towards the front desk. A distinct and palpable sense of fear washed over her. Mr. Aguire was out of his mind and something was not right. She reached over the counter and picked up the phone.

  I’ll call the police.

  She began to dial 9-1-1 but before she could complete the call, she heard a noise. A voice, coming from the blood storage room.

  “Get all of it!” it said angrily.

  Quinn ducked down behind the counter, pressing her back into the wall. She heard footsteps emerge into the reception area of the clinic.

  “That’s all? It’s not enough!” said the first voice.

  “Check the box, I saw the girl put something in there.”

  The footsteps approached the opposite side of the counter. Quinn held her breath. She heard the box being torn open.

  “There’s two more in here!”

  “Is it open? It’s strong.”

  “No it’s sealed.”

  Quinn heard a loud pop and then a sound like liquid being poured in to a glass. She peaked her head around the corner and to her horror, saw that two men, one of whom was the man who had only moments before been standing motionless outside the clinic doors, were gorging themselves on the open bags of blood. They held the bags upside down allowing the vicious red fluid to run into their gaping mouths, which seemed to hang open unnaturally.

  Quinn pressed her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. Her efforts weren’t enough and a small shriek escaped her throat before she could stop it.

  The men froze and then, before Quinn could blink, they were standing right in front of her. They moved so quickly she couldn’t track them. One of the men grabbed Quinn by the throat and lifted her up high before slamming her down on the counter. She winced as the air was knocked forcefully from her lungs. Pain shot up her back and down her left arm. She rolled onto her side gasping for air.

  “It’s her! She’s a carrier!” shouted the one with the dark hair.

  “It must be our lucky day,” said the other man.

  The one with the dark hair leaned in close and put his mouth on the curve of Quinn’s neck. He inhaled deeply and began to laugh to himself.

  “Please,” Quinn gasped. The pressure the man was putting on her throat made it nearly impossible to speak. She clawed at his knuckles and kicked her feet furiously.

  “Get away from her!” shouted a familiar voice.

  The two strange men stepped away from Quinn. She scrambled to her feet, landing behind the front counter. Roman stood just inside the front door and Mr. Aguire had come out of his office and stood in the hallway.

  “If you leave now, I might not kill you,” said Roman so quietly Quinn could barely hear him.

  The two strangers stood in a semi crouching position as if they were poised to strike. Their movement was animal-like.

  “Kill us? You wouldn’t dare. Do you know who we are? Who we work for?” asked the sandy haired one.

  “I don’t care,” said Roman. As he spoke the façade of his statuesque face faded and in its place was one of the most frightening sights Quinn had ever seen. His brown eyes glowed and his jaw came unhinged like that of a snake, revealing a row of sharp, dagger-like teeth. His skin was covered with dark splotches and the sound bubbling up from his chest reminded her of the sound a tiger or a lion makes. She couldn’t move.

  The two other men seemed frozen as well. Mr. Aguire stood panting, sweat stains seeping through his button up shirt.

  The dark haired stranger spun around and grabbed Mr. Aguire by the neck while the sandy haired one advanced on Roman. They circled each other in a rhythmic clockwise dance, and then he pounced, grabbing Roman by the shoulder. Roman lifted his hand and sank his clawed fingers into the man’s neck. The man dropped to the floor instantly. Roman then walked toward the other man who stood holding Mr. Aguire in a vice grip.

  “Come any closer and I’ll kill him!” shouted the stranger.

  “Please help me!” stammered Mr. Aguire. “Take her! She’s a carrier!” He flailed his hand in Quinn’s direction.

  The stranger glanced at Quinn and then closed his hand around Mr. Aguire’s neck. Before his body hit the ground the stranger stepped toward Quinn. His face melted away to reveal one not unlike Roman’s, the jaw hung low and the jagged teeth jutting out.

  Roman appeared in front of her and reached out stopping the stranger in his tracks. Quinn only saw a black mass of liquid spurt out of the stranger’s neck before his lifeless body fell into a heap on the floor.

  Roman turned to face her and Quinn promptly fainted.

  THE TRUTH

  Quinn awoke in the darkness of her bedroom. She felt a searing pain in her back as she pulled herself into a sitting position.

  “Welcome back to the world of the living,” said a voice.

  Quinn squinted her eyes in the dark. She saw a man sitting in her rocking chair at the end of her bed. She froze.

  “I’m not going to hurt you I swear,” he said. “I’d tell you not to be afraid but I don’t think that’s a reasonable request.”

  The memories of what happened in the clinic came rushing back and Quinn felt as if she might be sick. A wave of nausea rolled over her and she closed her eyes in order to keep the room from spinning.

  “What is going on? How did we get back here?” she asked, eyes still closed.

  “I drove you,” he answered.

  “How do yo
u know where I live? How’d you get in?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. “I guess you could say I’ve become a little overprotective.”

  “Of me?”

  “Well, yes. Of you.”

  “Why? Are you staking me?”

  Roman stood up and sat on the edge of her bed. “Listen, I don’t want to frighten you any more than I already have,” he began. He leaned back resting on his elbow. “I’m afraid much of what I have to tell you won’t make much sense.”

  “Nothing is making sense to me right now,” said Quinn. “Who were those men in the clinic? Are they dead? What happened to Mr. Aguire?”

  Roman held up his hand in a defensive gesture. “Hang on.” He smiled a halfhearted kind of smile. “First of all, those men in the clinic were not men.”

  Quinn couldn’t argue with that. She had seen their faces change. She saw them drink the blood from Mr. Hammond’s box. They didn’t seem human but on earth could they have been?

  “If they weren’t men, what were they?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. She wrapped her arms around her waist. She remembered that she had seen Roman’s face change just as she had seen in the others. Whatever they were he was one of them.

  Roman sighed heavily. He seemed to be resigning himself to something, some internal struggle. “Quinn, I’m afraid that you’ve been pulled into something vastly more dangerous than you can imagine. Again, I don’t want to scare you but I feel I must be honest. If you’re willing to hear me out I will explain.”

  Quinn rested back against her headboard. She had reveled in the fact that Roman had injected a bit of excitement into her mundane existence, but she didn’t know she would be putting herself in danger. That wasn’t her intent at all but it seemed as if there was no going back. She felt herself standing at the presuppose of something profoundly more intense and meaningful than anything she had ever experienced in her life, and she allowed herself to fall into it headlong.

  “Tell me,” she murmured.

  Roman inched just a bit closer to her in the dark. “How long have you worked at the blood bank?” he asked.

  “Two years.”