~ The Lethe Gene ~

by

M. A. Mogus

Keri St. Cloud knew it was another of the dreams. In this dream she stood in the darkness of the Sonora desert of Mexico. Instead of the cold air that should have cloaked the scene, she felt the desert’s hot breath rake her body as mercilessly as if it were midday. A thin sheen of sweat covered her, plastering her khaki slacks and blouse to her skin with soggy hands. A sizzling pencil of volcanic fire was slowly threading a path along her spine, threatening to explode in her head.

Keri glanced to her right and saw the full platinum moon resting on the top of a distant mesa. Not that distant, she thought, for she could see the outline of the mesa and the large wolf that sat atop its summit. The wolf howled, calling her to some task that she could not quite understand. Keri blinked and shivered as a cool wind now twisted around her, suddenly drying her sodden clothes and body.

As she watched, the wolf rose and walked across the mesa, its tail still waving in the wind. The wolf was swallowed by the shadows of the surrounding rocks. But its chestnut colored tail was still visible.

“Imagine that, a wolf with a chestnut tail,” she whispered to the empty landscape.

The tail continued to wave in the wind as if it had taken on a life of its own. Keri suddenly became aware it was no longer the tail of a wolf she was watching but the waving hair of a woman, one large enough to be seen atop the mesa against the bright platinum moon. Keri, trained in science all her life, studied the new apparition with the care she gave each artifact she examined from a dig. The naked woman squatted in a position Keri had seen long ago in an art text. The woman’s left hand was flat against the mesa floor while her right hand held a large, upright staff. Her chestnut hair flowed like a living presence around her head. The wind ceased. Silence reigned.

Keri squinted at the woman just as the being raised her face. Eyes containing the secrets of the universe locked with Keri’s. An electric shock passed through her as she blinked away the twin pools of knowledge. When she looked again at the woman’s body she noted it was covered with the tattoos of animals. On closer inspection Keri realized that she was not seeing tattoos. Instead the woman’s body was constructed of animals, millions of them making up her skin, bones, hair, teeth, even the staff she held.

The Lady of the Animals, Keri thought, not knowing where the thought had come from or why she was seeing the apparition.

“Keri,” the vision spoke. “You must remember.”

~ * ~

Keri blinked awake. She lay on her cot inside a stifling tent pitched on the outskirts of an archaeological site in New Mexico. She was certain of that one fact. Her body was drenched in sweat, yet her bedclothes were damp and chilly.

“Hey, Keri,” a disembodied voice called from outside her tent. “It’s Blake. You have a telephone call.” There was some muffled stamping followed by the comment, “Damn, I wish you’d turn on your cell phone when you sleep.”

Keri laughed, despite the dream still clinging to her mind, filling her with unwanted energy. She tossed aside the damp blanket and sat upright on her cot. She took a deep breath to steady her before replying.

“Who’s the call from?” She ran her fingers through her hair.

“Ray,” Blake said with just a tinge of hesitation.

“Ray?” She could almost see Blake wince as he mentioned the name of her ex-husband. “What the hell does he want?”

“Don’t know, but he’s running up my bill. Will you take the call?”

“No,” she replied. “I need a couple of minutes. Tell him to give you a number where I can reach him and I’ll call back.”

Blake stomped away. Keri sat for a moment on the edge of her cot, her mind still awash in the dream and its meaning, if any. She sighed. It was too early to begin menopause, she thought. Her mother had not had hot flashes until she was fifty-six. But Keri was having night sweats and rushes of what felt like energy coupled with unwanted dreams that even the prescribed hormone replacements would not dispel.

“I’m too young for this,” she muttered. “I won’t be fifty-two until September.”

The thought of aging no longer depressed her, though she laughed at what she considered the media’s sudden preoccupation with aging. Everywhere she looked she saw the offers for herbal and nutritional supplements, lotions, creams, potions, and exercise therapies. Maybe part of it is just having good genes, she thought. Her mother had had good genes. She had died two years ago at ninety-two. She would have lived longer if she had believed in doctors. Caught in the early stages, her cancer had been curable. Keri had vowed not to follow in her mother’s footsteps, consulting a physician when the night sweats started.

“I have the number,” Blake called from outside her tent wrenching her thoughts back to her surroundings.

“Give it to me,” she echoed, and reached for the notebook she had begun keeping on the camp table beside her bed in order to jot down her increasingly bizarre dreams.

Blake recited the number, and Keri dutifully recorded it. After which she recorded her dream. Finished, Keri took her cell phone and called Ray in Washington. As the connection was made, she thought about her ex-husband, Raymond Glover. She had not taken his name when they married, preferring to keep her own for professional reasons. She wondered if even then she had known the marriage of ten years would not last.

“Agent Raymond Glover, speaking,” he answered, his voice filled with the usual bland professionalism.

“It’s, Keri, Ray. What is it that can’t wait until a decent hour in this part of the country?” As she listened, her eyes traced the outline of a fold in the beige ceiling.

“Keri, it’s good to hear from you.” Ray’s smooth, boyish tone now filled her ear.

“You called me, remember?” She could picture his hair, still dark with help from a bottle, wavy about his craggy face. It was heat that had drawn her to him she decided. The only person Ray Glover loved was himself.

“Yes. Still all business I see?”

“Since the divorce,” she prompted.

“Even before,” he said.

It annoyed her that he couldn’t resist a sting, no matter what he needed from her. “Well, what is it? I have samples to run from this excavation. They’re paying me and my lab by the day, and you know money’s tight on most digs.”

“Let’s not fight.”

Keri gritted her teeth. She felt her blood pressure inch upward several points. “What is it you want?”

Ray cleared his throat. “The Bureau needs your help in identifying some remains.” He offered it as a tidbit. She could hear the dangling carrot in his voice.

“Ray, there’re at least a dozen people as qualified as I am to do skeletal identification.”

“Not skeletons. I’ve got four bodies, maybe five if the Pennsylvania State Police find the body of Dr. Jillian Spavich. The FBI needs someone who can read as much as possible from the crime scene. That’s your specialty.”

Keri dropped the pen she had been toying with and stared at the wall of her tent. “Do you think this is the work of a serial killer?” A tiny knot formed in her stomach.

“If it is he’s got some very dark tastes considering the state of Dr. Chenowith’s body.”

Keri shivered. “Helen Chenowith? The noted molecular biologist?”

There was a pause before Ray replied. “You know her?”

“Only professionally, but I’ve read her work on DNA analysis. Even used some of the techniques she invented. I sent her samples of my DNA when we met at a conference this past January. I thought she was working for a private company on the East Coast.”

“She was. A place called V-Gen in New Jersey. I’ve arranged for you to fly east. Tickets are waiting for you at the airport in Albuquerque. The flight’s to Newark Airport via Chicago. Sorry I couldn’t get a direct flight.”

“You’re so sure I’m willing to give you a hand on this?” She knew she would take the job, if only to learn what had happened to a respected researcher.

“Keri, let’s not play games,” Ray said. “You like these challenges.”

“I’ll see you as soon as I can get there.” She cut off any of his usual retorts. Ray was great at manipulation, but she no longer always responded as he wished. “It may take a day or two to arrange things here.”

“As soon as you can. The tickets are open,” Ray replied and broke the connection.

Keri sat on her cot staring at her cell phone. Her mind raced with last-minute tasks she needed to complete before taking her Jeep into town. Lauren and Blake should be able to finish up at the excavation. Blake was completing his thesis and could take over for her in the lab while she was gone. He had done so before. She had better let him know of her plans.