Death of Connor Sanderson: Chap 1:Part 5.

Chapter One: Part 5.
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His muscles relaxed and he gasped for breath, dry heaves racking his chest as he hung his head, and as he squeezed his eyes tightly shut a vision darted across his retina like a faded slideshow. He saw his own body lying there on the trolley, with his vacant eyes staring up at the white ceiling, and his muzzle and upper torso covered in blood. The dried blood on my chest? No!
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A sudden breeze feathered over his cheek as a whisper stroked through his brain. “You are feeding too soon...your heart has not stopped yet.”

His eyes snapped open and a gray shadow snatched at his peripheral vision, jerking his head swiftly around...who said that?

Finding nothing there, he twisted quickly in the other direction. No one. I am going crazy.

“You will see...I will show you.”

Fear rode a turbulent tide of frustrated anger that rushed up through his tensed thighs and gripped the girdle of his pelvis in a cramped embrace. It fizzed along his spine as a flare devouring a fuse wire, and forced a bellow of pain from his throat. Rearing up and raising an arm, he accelerated one fist downward in the driving arc of a hammer blow...and punched a hole in the metal trolley.

Shock stole every thought and movement as he stared at the torn metal; the fractured pieces folded back in an inverted parody of flower petals in bloom. The clinician fought with the superstitious fool, and self-preservation found the comfort of explanations he could believe in. The voices...the smells... hallucinations and violent behaviour, and incredible strength. Delusion clung firmly to his shoulders, and his mind embraced the tunnel of vision that would save his reason.

“Hebephrenia, of course. Voices, smells...classic presentation...that’s it.” It was sanity of a kind, dressed in insanity, but it helped. “I’ll find, Reggie,” he muttered, “His uncle knows about this stuff.”

He wheeled around and headed blindly towards the door, ignoring the rumble of laughter that filled the air, billowing like a rolling cloud of acidic poisonous gas that singed his nostrils. His long forceful strides were the blur of a comet trail had the dead eyes of corpses been able to see. Connor yanked the door open and another shower of dislodged porcelain fragments hit the floor as a thundering avalanche. Shouldering his way up the stone steps, he ricocheted from the walls as, despite his fear, he fought against a magnetic compulsion to turn around and go back.

As he emerged through the door into the hospital corridor, he paused and tidied his appearance. Performing the actions by rote, his splayed fingers combed his hair back into place, checked that his black neck tie still fitted snugly beneath his starched collar tips, and shot his cuffs to ensure the correct margin of three eighths of an inch of white shirt extended from his jacket sleeves.

For the first time, he did not run his palm over his pocket watch. He knew it was there, he could feel the vibration of the spring rocking inside its silver shell. He straightened his jacket, smoothing his palms over the soft fabric that now felt like wire wool to his sensitive fingertips.

Connor set off at a determined pace. Though, his brisk walk soon dwindled to a frustratingly slow stroll as anything faster drew surprised looks from nurses and fellow medical students. It took him less than a minute to register that the nurses were bustling as industriously as ever, with the crackling of their starched aprons a symphonic accompaniment to their movements. It is me...that is faster.

A frown settled on his pale features as he gathered the threads of this morning's experiences...was it only two hours...and tried to weave the events into a picture that he could understand. Normalcy seemed the best place to start, so he headed for the lecture auditorium where he would find Reggie. I hope he slept better than I did. Connor’s lips crimped in a determined smile at his own humour...is there a subtle way to ask him about his Uncle Edgar’s opinion on insanity, and this new-fangled electro-shock therapy?

Connor was lost in the aromatic world of becoming a vampire. Suddenly fascinated that every nurse he passed along the corridors smelled differently. Not their perfume, they were not allowed that in any case, and certainly not their brand of soap, it was so much more. It was the ph balance of their skin, and the food they had eaten that day, and finally, the amount of iron and vitamins in the bloodstream. All Connor knew was that some nurses made his mouth water...but he had no idea why.

Connor smelled him before he saw him. His hair pomade had an oily odor that Connor had always found irritating, but now, it thickened the air around its wearer like the dense pea-soup smog which was the scourge of London. Apple pulp and lard are a truly nauseating combination. Connor preferred a sparing application of beeswax ointment.

“Well, if it isn't, Sanderson. The blue-eyed boy.”

Stopping in his tracks, Connor turned on his heel to look into the mud brown eyes of Rufus Clare.

The sarcastic tone marred the young man’s face with a spiteful sneer. “Been licking Sir John’s boots again, if your sour expression is anything to go by.” His slick hair glistened like polished, beaten copper, and his face was devastatingly attractive.

Connor’s frosted regard was hard with barely veiled disgust as he savored the wash of confidence that rolled as an electric storm through his mind. It short circuited his confusion and fear for a moment as he embraced the prospect of sparring with an adversary of whom he had the measure. Rufus’ companion, Lester, instinctively hung back a step, and Connor absorbed his aroma also, as a sheen of nervous perspiration broke out on the young man’s skin. Wise man, perceptive it seems.

Throwing up his hands in a parody of startled surrender, Connor said, “Clare...I didn’t see you there, been hiding in any linen closets lately?” He grinned, enjoying his new-found sensitivity for a moment as his senses were assaulted with delicious odors. Rufus’ salty, dopamine-soaked sweat as he started and rocked back on his heels was enticing, as was the hot rushing tide that shunted up his carotid artery as a ruddy flush stained his tight cheek muscles a dull red.

Connor stared Rufus down as his barb hit home and angry annoyance clenched his opponent’s fists. The faint purple line of a broken nose cut across the perfection of the mask as Rufus hung onto the remnants of a malicious smile.

Taking a step closer, Connor looked down at the six-foot tall Rufus, who suddenly looked much shorter as he recoiled under the weight of Connor's stare. “Do you want me to break your nose again? I’m sure Mary would thank me.”

Connor’s words spawned a subconscious gesture as Rufus’ index finger dragged down the side of his healing nose and swept along the fading bruise on his cheekbone. The malicious smile became fixed and brittle as he said, “I’m sure she would. Was she suitably thankful last time? Spread her thighs for you did she? Was she..?”

Scorn stiffened Connor’s smile as he closed a fist around Rufus’ shirt front, effectively strangling his words. He froze as his cold knuckles dug into the young man’s throat, and his own chest echoed with the cadence of the pumping current of blood that massaged his clenched fist.
To be continued...