Al couldn’t help but recoil in shock. During his former career he he had seen and experienced numerous facets of human pathology, but what he just saw defied everything he knew.
Mei lifted her head and locked eyes with him for a second. Her face was contorted in pain, but her clear green eyes conveyed a deep sadness.
“Seriously doc,” she whispered with obvious effort. “Can’t fucking hold it. Get away. Please.”
Next thing he knew, she jumped up like a deer and bolted through the bar and inside his office at the far end of the room. He saw the door slam shut, and heard the key turn in the lock.
Nonplussed Al grabbed hold of a chair and pulled himself up with considerably less grace than Mei had just demonstrated.
“What the hell is going on here?” he mumbled to himself. “Maybe we are both delusional or something.”
His mind was feverishly working on creating a context that would help make sense of Mei’s sudden reaction. But so far all he knew was, that this crazy naked girl was suffering from some kind of weird seizure and had locked herself inside his office after fucking him. And despite knowing about his medical qualifications, she vehemently refused his help to the point, where she deliberately fled from him.
Well, he was gonna help her whether she wanted him to or not, Al decided. Normally it wasn’t in his nature to impose himself on people, but this was one situation that he simply couldn’t let go. The girl had obviously lost it and could possibly even be a danger to herself.
With firm resolve he grabbed the spare key from the cash register and knocked on the door.
“Mei? Hang on. I’m coming in!”
The only reply was a soft moan and some thrashing as if stuff was being pushed around on the floor.
Resolutely he unlocked the door and entered.
At first he was unsure of what he saw. There was a shape on the floor vaguely resembling Mei, but it was contorting and moving in ways that no human body had ever been capable of. There were crunching and popping sounds like joints and bones being pulled apart, and something dark and gooey was flowing over her skin slowly encasing her. Al grabbed hold of what he assumed was an arm, but it writhed and bulged in his hand so he was unable to hold on to it. There was a faint electric tingle too.
A wave of terror and helplessness washed over him, and he staggered backwards to the couch. As a doctor he had seen, or at the very least heard of, most of the worst diseases that humans could suffer from. But what was happening right here on the floor in his office made absolutely no sense to him. For the first time in ages Al felt completely baffled, and that realization scared the hell out of him.
He briefly entertained the idea of calling an ambulance, but what could a paramedic possibly do that he couldn’t? He was supposed to be a fucking doctor for Christ sake! They’d be even more useless and add to the panic and confusion. And the police was a definite no. He’d had his fill of gunshot wounds for the night.
So he simply sat passively on the couch staring at the thing that used to be Mei, but now increasingly resembled a slimy beanbag chair.