Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Claire and Aaron

Claire had hoped her encounter with the mystery man would be more eventful but when she jumped down to say something, he ran off without another word. She wanted to talk to him. He didn’t even turn to look at her; he heard her voice and bolted. She went back to her hotel room with a strange feeling in her stomach. She was curious if he had a tracking device too, or if she was the only lucky one who got one. When she considered the possibility of him having a tracking device she was worried that she may have to leave. She had been at the same motel for 4 months. She had a job, friends, she didn’t want to leave. Was she going to have to bolt because this other person may or may not have had a tracking device implanted into the back of his neck? She went back to her room and decided to think about it more before she went to bed. When she got there she saw him standing in her hotel room waiting for her. He had the blood on him from the squirrel he had devoured in the woods. She kept her eyes on him as she closed and locked the door.

“How did you get in here?” asked Claire.

She waited a couple minutes, no response. “Hello, can you hear me? How did you get in my hotel room?”

Still no response, she walked over to him and tapped his shoulder and he turned around. His face was bloody, but not from the squirrel, he was beaten, and recently. Claire began to back away slowly; he looked directly into her eyes and mouthed the word run. Claire turned around and was about to bolt when her path was blocked by her old resident and the other man who was chasing her when she was leaving her parent’s house. How did they find her? She had been so careful, or so she thought. She was trapped. So she did what she did in a similar situation. She lunged towards her old resident and took a bite out of his throat and spat his flesh into is face. He was choking on his blood so she looked at the other man; his face was riddled with terror and he started to back away. She wasn’t going to let him get away that easy. Slowly Claire got off of her resident and moved towards the other enemy, he was backing away but she backed him into a corner. She attacked him and went for the throat; since his partner was incapacitated she decided to enjoy this throat more. She was chewing on his flesh, taking bite after bite and swallowing his flesh and blood until she was full. She got up then to see the mystery man looking at her, bewildered. She didn’t know what to do so she grabbed his arm and ran. She was almost to her car when she heard a shotgun. She turned around and saw there were two other people there, waiting for her to come out of her hotel room. She was going to attack them too but they had to leave. She told her companion to climb into the passenger side. She briskly opened the driver side and started her dad’s car. She could have backed straight out, but she wanted to slow their new friends down. Claire ran down the one with the shotgun and knocked the other one down as well. She put her car into drive and floored it.

 

      They were on the highway now and neither of them had spoken the whole way. Claire was still in shock, how did they find her? She looked over at her companion and finally she spoke, “What is your name?”

He looked at her and then quickly looked away again. She looked in her rearview mirror and saw she still had the blood of her resident and man who was on the board of directors. She pulled over than to clean herself off, she quickly wiped off the blood with her shirt, it wasn’t efficient but it got most of the dried blood off.

“Tell me your name.” Claire warned. She wasn’t going to hurt him, but she needed more information from him.

“It’s Aaron.” He answered quietly.

“Okay Aaron, what happened? Tell me everything.”

He only hesitated for a moment and then the truth came out. He had been part of Dr. Crane’s experiments. He was at Mayo a few weeks before Claire had started her internship. He said that he was there for a week before he was able to get away. They didn’t realize that the more they cut off and the more he regenerated, the stronger he got. So every limb he lost and grew back he grew stronger. Dr. Crane had cut off both his hands, feet, legs, arms and his precious jewels. He cut off his hands and feet in four days, one at a time. He wanted to make sure they would grow back. After Dr. Crane saw that they would grow back he cut off both his arms. Next day, both of the legs; and the last day Aaron was there he attempted to make him sterile, lucky for Aaron, those too grew back. Dr. Crane was about to try and cut off his head when Aaron broke the restraints that were holding his right arm and he grabbed Dr. Crane by the throat and threw him against the wall. Dr. Crane passed out and Aaron was able to undo the rest of his restrains. Unlike Claire he was able to run out the front door. No one was waiting for him and he hot-wired a car and got away. He was on the run for a while but he thought he was safe to stay in Oregon. But then he saw Claire in the woods and he knew he was screwed. They had ambushed him when he bolted from Claire. Beat him senseless, knowing he would regenerate, and told him to wait for her in her hotel room. He said they tracked him using the tracker in his neck, but they couldn’t find Claire. That was who they really wanted, was Claire.

      When he was done with his story Claire reached behind her to grab a knife she had bought with her second paycheck. She told him to turn around and she took the tracker out of his neck. She knew that they knew her and Aaron knew about them so she threw it out her window and turned the car back on. She had gone about a mile away from where they stopped when she announced to Aaron, “I killed Dr. Alexander Crane.” She looked at him after she said it and he had the same look that he had when he saw her attack those men. “I had to. He had cut off my foot and I couldn’t think of any way to escape. I tricked him. I told him I wanted to watch my foot regenerate, and that I wanted to sit up to watch it. He leaned over me to increase the incline of my bed and I bit his throat. I made him untie me and then I kept eating his throat until he stopped moving. I stole his clothes and ran.”

      Claire hadn’t looked at him the entire time she said it, partly because she was driving but mainly because she was ashamed of what she did. When she was done she didn’t look at him until he said, “Wow, I wish I did that.” For the first time in a while, Claire laughed out loud and Aaron joined in. They laughed for a bit until Aaron asked, “So what now? They’re obviously still looking for us. Where are we going to go?”

“I don’t know. I thought I was safe in Oregon. I got rid of my tracker and it had been months, I thought they gave up.”

“Well, they could have found you because of me. I had my tracker still. I didn’t know I had one until they ambushed me” Aaron replied, his voice filled with remorse.

Claire took a look at him and saw he that he was looking out the window; regret was all over his face. She didn’t know what to do, how to console him. So she said what anyone would say, “I don’t blame you, and it wasn’t your fault.”

“How else would they have found you, you got rid of your tracker.”

Claire went red then, she didn’t get rid of her tracker, she just put it somewhere else. “Actually…I put my tracker in a rabbit in the woods a few miles from my hotel room,” admitted Claire.

Aaron chuckled and said “Well that explains it.”

They both smiled and then stayed quiet for a long time.