Free Immortal Stories: Eve by Gene Doucette Page A

was getting any better, but the last time they spoke he promised he felt better, and was sure he was turning a corner.
    She hoped this was true.  But the same feeling she had so much trouble describing to Rick was also telling her that the elf had gotten worse, and that was the reason she hadn’t seen him again.
    “An instinct, then,” he said.  “A gut instinct.”
    “I suppose.”
    They were on a highway and traveling at a preposterous speed.  It was late afternoon, so the road was heavily trafficked by people who had gone into the city to work in the morning and were now evacuating.  Given the distances involved, the whole concept struck her as ridiculous.  She knew of entire civilizations whose citizens never traveled as far in a lifetime as one commuter here might go in a day.
    “I’ll tell you how it feels,” she said.  “Imagine you enter your home one night.  All the lights are off and you live alone.  Something isn’t right, but you can’t figure out what, until you notice one end of your couch has been moved backwards by a hand’s width.  That’s what it feels like.”
    “Okay. Okay, that’s a start.  Let’s call that confusion and dread.  And the world is your living room?”
    “This world is someone else’s responsibility.  But I know where all of the furniture is.  Metaphorically.”
    “Yeah, okay.  And the rest of that story is, if I’m in my living room and my couch has been moved, and I didn’t do it, maybe there’s someone else in my living room.”
    “Yes.”
    “Got it.”
    The electronic woman in the car’s front panel informed Rick that they were nearing their exit.  Eve understood that the woman was a talking map, but that didn’t make her comfort with this technology any more manageable.  Maps used to have borders, and beyond those borders were exciting new lands.  The woman’s cold certainty couched in a United Kingdom accent only the map’s borders had run out of monsters.
    This could be why I’m chasing a vague feeling , she thought.  Something new.
    “I’m sorry,” she said.  “I shouldn’t have involved you in something like this.  I’m sure I am overreacting to a simple thing.”
    “Hey, no, this is fun!” he said, as they took the correct, clearly marked and fully expected highway exit.  “I just wanted to make sure I understood all the pieces, in case you were, I don’t know, forgetting to tell me anything.”
    “I don’t believe I am, but I am unaccustomed to sharing information as well, so… I apologize if I seem that way.  I didn’t intend on staying so long.”
    “I told you, stay as long as you like.  Just keep in mind there’s probably a bunch of things you don’t know I don’t know.  But I enjoy having you around just the same.”
    She smiled.  Rick liked having her to take care of.  She didn’t mind terribly being taken care of, but also knew that no matter how he felt about it, this was a temporary arrangement at best.
    The road exit led to a large main street, and then—following a lengthy series of talking map commands—along side roads and into what appeared to be a residential neighborhood.
    “You’re sure about this?” Rick asked.  “This is pretty Leave it to Beaver out here.”
    “I don’t know what that means.”
    “I mean this doesn’t look like a… oh, hey, never mind I guess.”
    The termination of the directions was at a house on the corner of two streets.  The lawn extended to the sidewalk, and there was a sign embedded in the lawn, which bore the doctor’s legend next to an artfully rendered caduceus.
    “There’s your doctor’s office,” Rick said.  “Guess I shouldn’t have expect something that looked like a hospital.”
    *   *   *
    The entrance to the medical office was through a side door leading to what might otherwise have been a basement apartment.  They were greeted there by a tall, thin, older (human) man with a warm smile and a cold handshake.  He introduced himself