Noah

Trying to write this by the light of a booklight while still not disturbing Jason's sleep-

Thu, 09 Nov 2006 14:44:57 GMT

So much has happened today, I don't where to begin (was I actually a little bored this afternoon?).
I guess I'll start with the biggest things-

1) Jason is a WEREWOLF! But a good one- I'll go into that soon.
2) We have two more new people- Kayla and Jonas- they are friends and Kayla's a doctor, which has unfortunately come in handy already because
3) Brian was injured in another attack. More of those creepy bird-reptile-monsters like the one that bit Jason's leg last night attacked and it was pretty damn bad. I'd still be shaking if I weren't all cozied up in a nest of blankets on the living room floor with Jason snore-growling with his head on my lap.

And how did I get in this position- snuggled up to an injured werewolf? I put myself here. See, in my mind, Jason is really the single reason none of us is dead from the attack tonight- he was the first one to figure out that they were coming and he fought off at least three of them- might be five- things were so confusing. But, once we were sure the threat was passed, Jason, who'd changed into the wolf for the fight (that was a thing to see, for sure- one minute I'd getting a look at his pretty pale tushie and the next he's twice as big and covered in hair and big old teeth), once the threat was passed, Jason changed back to Jason and passed out from tiredness.

So, while Henry and Kayla did what they could for Brian (he's pretty messed up, but doing better than they had expected- he'll probably live if he survives the infection Kayla is sure he has), while they were fixing Brian up, Xander and I brought Jason inside. I cleaned him up, stitched up his worst cuts (thank God infection isn't a worry for him) and settled us here on the floor. (Since two of the three bedrooms are now open to the elements because of the windows being broken, and the other was probably going to be assigned as the infirmary, I left the couch open for whoever wanted it- the two of us wouldn't fit there anyway.)

I'm not sure if Jason would be sleeping better alone, but I don't like the idea of it. He'd seemed really pleased earlier (before the attack) when I said he could sleep in my room, that I couldn't imagine him wanting to be alone now. Maybe I'm projecting some- he is pretty high on my list right now, with the saving everyone's life thing he did. Also the way he trusted me, changing form in front of me like that. It's got to be a hard thing to let people in on, or he would have told us sooner.

Henry wasn't too happy to see us like this when he went by a little bit ago. He stood there across the room thinking about saying something, thinking about demanding I get the hell away from that monster, but he didn't say it, he didn't say anything because he knew I wouldn't listen- it's strange how well he judges me without having my thoughts inside his head.

I wonder if my customary green tea will be waiting for me in the morning tomorrow? Even if it isn't, I'm fine with that.

The men in my life-

Mon, 16 Oct 2006 02:41:10 GMT

Flirting with Jason this morning was fun, but I'm pretty sure he's not actually interested in me. (He just likes to have people look at him and want him, but...) Anyway, poor Jason came to us with nothing but the clothes on his back but, I got him all taken care of on that front. Pickings were slim, but Jason did look good in everything, so even the mild mannered, red state fashions Henry had found here in Spencer worked on that man.

More interesting than Jason's sexy new togs was the primer on Evil Nasties that Xander had given Henry. It is too creepy to contemplate, but Xander has faced it all. (He is so brave and hella sexy- I just want to do things to him.)

So, my plan now is to try and be behind both Henry and Xander if (when) anything really bad goes down again. I'll stand and fight all I can, too, but I want my two big strong manly men, who between them know how to handle anything, right next to me.

OCC: Drawing of the house in Spencer and guide to the town.

Sat, 07 Oct 2006 02:26:09 GMT

Considering we're leaving soon, this might be unneeded, but since we're planning to play out an attack in the area, I thought it might be helpful. Most of this is based on things mentioned in either the Spencer tags in the game, Noah's journal or Noah's biography in the OCC community.

There is a basement as well. It can be reached via the back staircase, which is spiraled and goes from basement to second floor. In the basement there is the boiler, water heater, large batteries for the solar panels on the roof, fuse box, washer and dryer, and a HAM radio.

The backdoor has a pet flap in it, currently nailed shut.

The house is littered with supplies Henry has gathered, any of which might be useful in a fight (or not).

The house is blue.

Three other houses (one on one side and two on the other) and several sheds nearby are being used to store anything Henry thinks might be useful for survival. The farthest of these houses (a white house) has a chicken coop and several bunny hutches in the backyard. The rabbits and chickens that were there are now dead.

Partial list of things Henry has gathered and stored in either one of the four houses or nearby sheds:

foodstuff, clothing, gasoline, propane, firewood, candles, medicines, firearms, ammunition, paper, pens, batteries, tools, building supplies, rabbits, seeds, whiskey, extra tires, towels, engine parts, toothbrushes, soaps, bedding, chickens, books, toilet tissue, boiled and bottled water, flashlights, shoes, bandages, salt- lots of salt, buckets, brushes, brooms, mops, buttons, needles, thread, scissors, pins, sewing patterns...

OTHER PARTS OF SPENCER

A few blocks away on Fifth Street is the spot where Xander's Saturn VUE popped a tire. It is parked in front of the hardware store, which has a broken front window. Henry has already been through it for supplies, but he didn't take everything.

There's a large craggy place in town where the mutant roaches congregate. There had been some kind of disturbance there during the Wave, since the sign just outside where the land is turned read "Spencer Area YMCA".

There is a lake across town, with several houses on the shore- Ash Street runs by the lake.

There is no hospital and at least one Doctor's office has been ransacked.

There is a wood outside town, where there might be a few more chickens.

In town there is a stationary store that Henry has been through, but he didn't take everything.

So, it's been an eventful day.

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 14:03:36 GMT

We have two new people here! Xander arrived around noon, just I time to be there when Henry was late getting back. And while Henry's not still sure about Xander, I've got a really good feeling about him. I just wish he'd shown the slightest sign that he was picking up on my interest. The fact that he isn't should tell me to squash my little crush, but when have I ever let common sense dictate what I feel?

The other new man, Jason, showed up in a terribly dramatic fashion when we were eating dinner, almost being eaten himself. He almost out did my arrival in Spencer, except he stayed conscious the whole time and it doesn't look like he'll be much different once he's wounds heal up. Neither Henry nor I have had much chance to get a bead on him, but Henry has decided that he'll take a wait and see strategy. He makes me a little nervous. I'm not sure why.

So, where's everyone now? Jason's asleep on the couch downstairs, hopefully the rest will help him heal sooner. I can hear Xander in the room next door, moving a few things around as he gets ready for bed. Henry's just come inside from counting his chickens (and bunnies) and about to take a shower. And I'm sitting on the bed in a room that used to belong to a fourteen year old boy, but you'd never know it now (the crazed redecorator strikes again), writing in the pretty journal Henry brought to me yesterday about the day my world population doubled.

All in all, I think it's a really good thing to have other people here. Henry and I were going just a little insane together.

Henry, Shawn and Spencer (the town, not the family)

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 13:14:50 GMT

All right, the family, too.

I've been thinking about why we're still here- here in the town of Spencer, not here on the planet, because why Henry and I both survived the Deluge and Fate's Handmaiden, why we found each other at all, is a set of questions I don't ever expect to have answers to. What it all comes down to is Henry's son Shawn.

The day Shawn was born was the best day of Henry's life. He had a son, a real reason for doing the work he did as a cop, someone to make the world a better place for. Yes, he still had Melinda- Lindy then, but his wife was strong and independent, she didn't need him the way a child would. Unfortunately, Henry's relationship with Shawn was all downhill from there. The boy cried every time Henry held him, hell- it was four months before Shawn let Henry hold him without crying or smiled at him. When he finally did, Henry thought- yes, now we're getting somewhere, but they then didn't.

Shawn was a lot like his mother, strong, independent and resentful of Henry and his desire to make everything right, to fix things for Shawn. Henry put his free time into helping Shawn learn how to do things the right way and Shawn resented every lesson, pulled against Henry every chance he got. Some of it stuck, despite that.

When he and Lindy broke up, Shawn left with her. Henry didn't blame Lindy, she had spent a long time as a cop's wife, which isn't easy, but losing Shawn- there wasn't any cure for that. Henry threw himself into his work for the next few years, working overtime shifts in order to not have to come home to his empty house.

It was only a few years until Henry reached twenty years on the force and got his pension. No that it was millions, but Lindy hadn't wanted much alimony and Shawn was grown (and off bungee jumping somewhere), so it was enough for Henry. Being in his house was painful, all the good and the bad that he'd lived through there kept ambushing him and things with Shawn were worse than ever. Henry decided to stop wallowing and took a job working behind the bar in Miami Florida. The place was owned by an old friend- his old sergeant, to be exact. It wasn't where he'd wanted to be for his retirement, but it was better than nothing. At least he had a few friends around.

Two years after moving to Florida, Henry woke up missing California. He was living in a little studio a block from the bar- it was not much and the super was an ass. Henry was the one who did most of the repairs in the building because that was the only way they were going to get done. Henry thought to himself, why am I here? Why am I fixing this damn building when I have a perfectly good house on the beach with my name on the deed? So he went home.

He didn't expect it to actually happen because he expected Shawn to resent it, just like everything else, be Henry spent his time in Santa Barbara getting the house back in shape so that he could leave it to Shawn. Not that Henry was planning on kicking off all that soon, he was only fifty, but that was when his hands were still strong, so that was when he did it.

Funny thing, the very same day Henry finished the last thing on his major repairs list (the minor repairs list was still full, of course), Shawn showed up at Henry's door. And he needed Henry's help. He knew it had nothing to do with the fact that he was setting the house right for Shawn, but it was a hell of a coincidence.

Months later, after the end of the world had come and gone and Henry was still around, he looked up at a road sign with his name on it . . .

It isn't something Henry is completely aware of, but he has this idea, a fantasy that somehow, of he made a place that is safe, a place that is made right inside all that is wrong with the world, Shawn would show up.

Instead, he got me.

So, even though we should be packing up supplies and at least making a few trips to nearby towns to look for survivors, Henry won't. He says that it's because we're safe here and there's no telling what's out there- could be far worse than the roaches. But, really it's about being here, where Henry wants Shawn to magically show up just because he'd gathered enough supplies to last us through a year or two, because he's made a home here for Shawn to come back to and he's not ready to give up that fantasy.

I didn't bother to act surprised...

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 02:16:22 GMT

Henry spent too long out yesterday and I could barely sleep last night for the nausea (let along eat anything). And what was he doing that was so important? Chasing chickens. He has set up a makeshift coop behind the white house that is two doors down from the blue one where we sleep. There's a couple of rabbit hutches there, too- ten rabbits and, now, seventeen chickens, including a rooster. Henry wanted me to help him round the chickens up from where they were flocking in the wood outside town, so I went along. Twenty minutes of trying unsuccessfully to grab poultry as they dodged, squawked and tried to beak me in self-defense and I hadn't caught one. Henry had caught three in the same amount of time. Clearly I wasn't needed, so I went home.

This morning, as an apology for making me sick, Henry presented me with an empty journal and a large complement of pens. He raided the stationary store and brought me the journal with the best binding and sparkly gel pens because he figured they'd be my style. They are perfect. He didn't actually say he was sorry, but then again, it wouldn't have taken a telepathic link for me to know it was an apology just the same.

Sometimes that cranky old man can be the sweetest thing.

Co-dependance-

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:55:47 GMT

So, while Henry and I are living in the same house, Henry does tend to keep his distance. I can't really blame him. He was used to living alone even before there were so few people. Not to mention, as freaky as it is for me, knowing everything Henry, it's really hard for Henry knowing that I know everything Henry. Still it means that every other day or so, Henry stays out too long and I end up going out to him because, if I don't, the shakiness turns to queasiness and I end up loosing my lunch. I know he doesn't do it purposefully, but he does tend to block it out when his hand goes numb (usually right around the same time I get twitchy). It's kind if strange that I can see things about Henry that Henry can't. I think it's a good sign, though. It means that we're still different people, that I'm still Noah and not some Noah/Henry hybrid.

There is no way to sum this up-

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 03:22:09 GMT

So much has happen that is unexplainable since I stopped in Ohio, I'm not sure I can begin to express it. In fact, I think I understand how Henry feels about all this better than I understand how I feel. That of course is the issue anyway. Maybe if I take a deep breath and focus on Henry's point of view, I'll be able to write it down in some way that makes sense.

I- no, Henry (I'm going to use Henry in place of I even though in my mind it's I, because they are Henry's thoughts, after all, even if they're in my brain and being written by my hand, and if that isn't hella confusing, just wait.)

Henry, who's from Santa Barbara, spent a couple of months in Winston Minnesota trying to help out the local sheriff and later being a medic amid all the destruction. As of several weeks ago, there wasn't anyone left to help, so Henry packed up a hummer that had been dispatched from Minneapolis-St Paul Air Reserve Station to help keep rioting down, with provisions, books and weaponry and set out for Chicago. Along the way, he encountered a large number of unearthly creatures, nasty beasties, which he mostly avoided because, well mostly because there wasn't anyone around to protect but him. He avoided them until he had stopped off in Spencer Illinois (he saw it on the map and figured what the hell, maybe the place will be lucky for a guy with the same name).

Henry was walking through the outskirts of town when he heard something he hadn't heard for days- a human voice (my- uh, Noah's voice to be exact). It was screaming. Henry thought it was a woman. He followed the sound of it and came upon a skinny man being chased by one of those big roach things Henry had seen a few times along his journey. Henry pulled his pistol and chased after them. By the time they were in shooting range, the roach was attached to the man's shoulder and it was, well it was doing something to him Henry couldn’t quite figure out. The man was face down on the ground, convulsing and keening in pain. Henry got up as close as he could, took aim and shot a bullet through the roach. It went still and the man below it went still, as well.

Henry was hoping that the poor guy was still alive, so he went over and tried to pick the dead bug off of him. As soon as Henry touched the roach, he lost feeling in his hand. He tried to pull his arm back, but the loss of feeling was working its way up his arm. Henry picked up his gun with his left hand, set the business end right up to the roach's shell and fired three more rounds into it. An instant later, the roach melted into a psychedelic rainbow puddle and was absorbed into the man on the ground. Henry's hand came free, but it was numb for days afterward.

Henry checked for as pulse. It was there, but weak, so he picked up the man. He was pretty light and Henry carried him to the hummer. There wasn’t a hospital in town and the one doctor's office, he'd found had been ransacked some time earlier, so Henry found an elementary school and brought him in there hoping that the nurse's office might have some supplies. It didn’t have much, but it did have clean cots, running water and bandages, so Henry decided to take it.

Three days later, the kid- he really was just a kid, maybe twenty three, maybe a little older, the kid woke up, vomited and passed out again. A couple of hours later, the kid- Noah woke again, ate a little canned soup, got washed up and told Henry his life story. To clarify: Noah told Henry, not Noah's life story, but Henry's; Noah told Henry Henry's life story. He also told Henry exactly what he was thinking right before he said it out loud. Henry though that the kid was running some kind of scam for a while, but he couldn't find any way how he could have been, and Henry did have a certain amount of experience spotting cons, both personal and professional. Eventually, he grudgingly admitted that maybe Noah really did hear his thoughts and have his memories. Hell, stranger things had happened in the last few months, that's for sure.

After a few days, Henry and Noah settled into a small house near the center of town and while Noah continued to heal and get used to having Henry inside his head all the time, Henry gathered things- foodstuff, clothing, gasoline, propane, firewood, candles, medicines, firearms, ammunition, paper, pens, batteries, tools, building supplies, rabbits, seeds, whiskey, extra tires, engine parts, toothbrushes, soaps, bedding, chickens, books, toilet tissue, boiled and bottled water, flashlights, shoes, bandages, salt- lots of salt, buckets, brushes, brooms, mops, buttons, needles, thread, scissors, pins, sewing patterns...

Wow! Henry went right round the bend with all that, didn't he? I'm writing from Noah's perspective again and, on rereading what's down here, Henry did miss a few things, like the fact that I can't stand to be more than a few hundred feet from him for more than an hour or I get the shakes, or like the really big argument I won about why we should be living in the same house instead of a few doors down from each other (it really helped to know where he was going with his reasoning before he got there), or how so very protective of me he is, or how even though he's a son of a bitch, I love him like family already, and he, much as he might deny it aloud, feels the same love for me. It's too bad he's straight, and old and not my type anyway, really.

Goodbye Lansdale-

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:47:27 GMT

I pulled the bed sheet up over Patricia Smith, the last ill resident of Lansdale Pennsylvania three days ago. I hadn't seen anyone else who could get up from bed for a couple of days, so I was sadly certain that I was alone in town. And unbelievably, still not sick. I decided that, as much fun as Lansdale has been for me, I'd better try to find somewhere else, somewhere where there might be a few survivors. I figured that the larger the population, the more likelihood of there being someone else who hasn't gotten sick, so I decided to head for the big, big city. Since both New York and Philadelphia were flooded, Chicago was the nearest big place to try.

I was packing up Dr. Chang's SUV with food and water, paper, pens and first aid supplies when I heard someone coming up behind me. It was Jack Breslin. He had an ax! He was shouting a lot of stuff that didn't really make sense and swinging the ax at me! I ducked and dug the keys out of my pocket. Jack hit the rear driver's side window instead of my head and safety glass went everywhere. He swung at me again as I got the key in the lock and I felt the ax dig into my shoulder. I'm not sure how, but I hit him with the door and that put him off balance long enough for me to get into the SUV and start it up. I drove as far as I could before the pain in my shoulder and the blood running down my back and arm convinced me to stop. I had gotten good at changing dressings during the time I was in Lansdale, but there is no good way to bandage your own shoulder. I stayed there a few miles outside Lansdale a couple of days waiting for my shoulder to heal enough for me to be comfortable driving, then I started out for Chicago. I've stopped for the night in Ohio and my arm is finally healed enough for me to write legibly.

It's all crashing down-

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:09:29 GMT

The whole strange thing with Jack Breslin hasn't exactly blown over, but the fact that nearly everyone in town is now sick, has made it not in any way important. Most people here have realized that we're all going; and does it really help anything to look for a reason why or someone to blame? People are forming prayer meetings instead of the angry mobs I was fearing Breslin would stir up. I've never been much for religion, but I went to one last night. I figured, it couldn't hurt.

I'm amazed that I haven't had any symptoms yet, considering the fact that right before the first cases of plague started showing up I spent about two days in the cold Atlantic. Really, I should have been one of the first to fall to it. With everything else, it's kind of a small thing, but the plane crash, while not the most horrible thing I've ever experienced, was personally the most frightening, especially watching Brandy literally burn into nothing. I'll probably rethink that position once I start coughing up blood, though.

Shouldn't we be way past bigotry and homophobia by now?

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 18:16:01 GMT

I know who I am and I know where I am, but I really didn't expect to encounter the level of ignorance and hate I've been met with since yesterday. There's a man here in town, Jack Breslin. He is holding me personally responsible for the deaths of his wife and son. I tended to both of them as they died. Poor Anna had to watch Jack Jr. die. I can't imagine that- losing a child, someone that grew out of your own body and you raised and gave everything to. I don't have my friends anymore, but I still can't imagine the pain is the same. The point is, Jack Sr. is trying to convince everyone in town that I brought Fate's Handmaiden here and that I got it through "unclean acts". I'm not sure how to handle it and I'm sure I won't know what to do if people start believing him.

Pitching in-

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 18:14:38 GMT

The doctors and nurses are starting to get sick here now. I've been drafted into doing nursing work. I have nowhere to go yet anyway. We had nineteen people die of Fate's Handmaiden in the last two days. Dr. Chang, the really cute one, thinks that the few antibiotics we still have aren't helping now, even with the early cases.

My three best friends-

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 18:11:55 GMT

I've been trying to write poems- memorials for Ricky, Alex and Chance because there really isn't any possibility of having any kind of funeral, but nothing I put down on paper is anywhere near to what I want to say or what I feel. I'll keep trying, but it may be years before I can get them right, if ever.

Sitting in the hospital corridor, scribbling my thoughts down-

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 17:47:47 GMT

I'm writing this on the back of some old order forms for medical supplies, with a borrowed pen. The forms are useless what with drugs being rationed or horded or "strategically re-distributed" by the government as they are, but the old forms were the best paper I could find in the havoc. I had to start writing again. I just had to.

I used to write because I felt that I had something interesting and important to say to the world, a point of view that was clearly underrepresented. Now I'm writing because I have to. There is so much that has happened, so much grief bouncing around in my head that I have to get it out. I Keep reaching for my cell phone- the one that was long gone before I even got to Lansdale. I keep reaching for it to call Ricky or Chance or Alex so we can have a good, long cry on the phone together. And then I have that moment when I don't feel my phone in my pocket and I can't breathe because they're gone. I can't cry with them, I have to cry over them. So now, after I catch my breath and wipe my eyes, I'm going to pick up my old, useless order forms and my borrowed pen and write until I am empty.

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 02:43:50 GMT

Character Info
Character Name: Noah Nicholson
Character Medium: Television
Character Fandom: Noah's Arc (Logo)
Brief Biography:

Noah is a young (25 years), gay, black, aspiring screenwriter from Los Angeles . He is kind and sweet, a hopeless romantic. He is very perceptive, but not as confident in his abilities as he could be. He is soft spoken, with a slight but muscular build, almost shoulder length curly hair, and a keen fashion sense. He's far more driven than he seems at first glance- he won't cheat or backstab to get what he wants, but he won't be pushed around either. He follows his passions wherever they lead. He expects others to be good people and is frequently surprised when they disappoint him. He forgives easily. He had a close knit group of friends, all of them other gay men. They served as a family for each other, helping make life decisions together, but none of them was romantically or sexually involved with each other.

Noah recently broke up with his boyfriend Wade, who helped him get his first writing job for a studio and was his writing partner for the script they just sold to the same studio. He carries a good deal of guilt over the break-up because he is the one who cheated (following his passion and hurting Wade). Despite that, he stayed with the studio deal for the script, even though the studio executive had cut Wade out of the deal, because most of what has stayed in the script is Noah's writing anyway.

Character History:

Noah was on a plane with one of the studio executives flying to New York City to meet with a certain hot actor and try to convince him to take the lead role in Noah's movie, when the Deluge hit. He watched the other people on the private plane burn and disappear into nothingness. The plane lost power and went into a dive immediately and Noah tumbled forward to the door of the cockpit. He pulled it open to find that neither of the pilots was still there. There was a large hole ripped in the nose of the plane and most of the controls were just gone as well. The plane went down in the area that used to be north-central New Jersey, but suddenly had become part of the Atlantic Ocean. As the plane filled up with seawater, Noah ripped off one of the seat cushion/flotation devices, opened the safety latch on the plane's door and jumped into the water. He watched the plane sink below the waves in just a few minutes and then looked around for shore. He swam for a day and a half to get to the faint bit of land he'd only just been able to see from the crash. He found himself on the Pennsylvania shore when he got to land. Funny, Pennsylvania didn't used to have a shore. Signs in the town told Noah that he had made shore rather ironically in the town of Lansdale, Pa.

Shocky, wet, cold and hungry, Noah found his way to the Central Montgomery County Medical Center and was treated there. Telephone service was out and the TV news said that just like the east coast, the west coast, including all of California, was under water. Noah mourned everyone he'd ever known. Without his support system of friends, Noah would have shut down but for the fact that there were so many people around him who were hurting, and the hospital was short staffed. He didn't have any medical training, but he did what he could to help the medical staff and comfort the growing numbers of plague victims.

By the end, Noah was the only one in the hospital, but not the only one left in town. Jack Breslin, a straight, white, ultra-conservative had spent much of the time since Noah's arrival saying that Noah was the one who brought the plague there- that he was a carrier and that Noah should be killed and burned to try and save the town. No matter what the doctors said, Breslin wouldn't believe that Noah wasn't carrying anything.

Breslin was the only other person left in Lansdale on May 18th. When all the others had died, he snapped and came after Noah with an ax. Breslin gave Noah a large slice on the back of his shoulder blade as he ran for a car belonging to one of the doctors (Noah had been using it to find supplies of food for the last of the plague victims) and managed to get in the car and out of town. He headed for Chicago in the hope that the very large city would have had some survivors. He found gas, food and water somewhere in small town Ohio and the car died just over the Illinois border. He started walking.

South of Chicago, Noah was chased by something strange and scary. He couldn't outrun it. It was a really large and weirdly blurry beetle. Maybe a beetle. It's edges seemed to blur, even when it was not moving. It caught Noah and latched onto his shoulder wound and sank something- claws, teeth, something, into him. Noah could feel everything, his energy, his thoughts, his spirit being sucked out through the wound. Then he felt lightning pain, not unlike the flash of the Deluge and passed out. He woke in an elementary school nurse's office with Henry Spencer sitting across the room reciting something out of a medical book. Thing is Henry wasn't moving his lips and Noah had no idea how he knew Henry's name, but he did.

Noah sat up and vomited because- Oh God, Shawn was dead! His son was gone. He was just beginning to do something almost useful with his life and they had just been starting to reconcile and Henry was so desperate with the pain of it. And Henry was shouting at Noah and really worried about him and pushing his head down between his legs and counting. Noah passed out again anyway.

The next time, when he came to, Henry wasn't there, but Noah could still hear him talking to himself very loudly from another room. Shawn was still dead, which made Noah shiver, but it didn't hurt so absolutely as it had before. Henry was talking about him- Noah, about how he is just Shawn's same age, but so very different. Henry was actually wondering aloud if Noah is gay and if he might be too weak to survive whatever the damn bug did to him and Henry was so damn tired of watching people die- goddamnit!

Noah realized that what he was hearing wasn't Henry's voice carrying from another room, but Henry's thoughts. Another moment's consideration and Noah realized that he didn't just know Henry's name, he knew Henry's everything. Everything about Henry- his feelings, his thoughts, his memories. It was as if the entire consciousness of a white, fifty-two year old, straight cop had been injected into Noah's brain. It was unsettling, to say the least. Somehow, someway, the blurry beetle thing that attacked Noah had changed him. It had to be the beetle, nothing else had changed since he'd been in Lansdale, but he'd never heard anyone else's thoughts before.