The Dominant Gene

The Rules:
  Opens July 6th, 2010 and closes October 16th, 2010 @ 11:59 pm WDC (Eastern Standard) Time.
  This contest is for short stories only.
  All ratings are allowed.  Items must be submitted in bitem format.
  Minimum word count of 1000 and a maximum of 20,000.  Please include your total.
  Stories must be newly created to qualify.  Anything with a creation date before July 6th, 2010 will not be considered.
  One entry per author only.  Give me your best!

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The Dominant Gene

By Indelibleink

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes!" Gene Lamont threw down his cell phone, slammed on the brakes of his F-350, and nearly ran an oncoming car off the road with a hasty u-turn. It was a good twenty minutes to Southeast General - at normal driving speeds - but Gene wasn't inclined to worry about any traffic laws immediately after hearing that his precious daughter Laura - his only child - was being prepped to undergo emergency surgery.

What the hell could have possibly happened? Probably kids just doing something stupid. At 16, Laura was at the age where listening to Dad wasn't always the first choice. And it hadn't been easy the last couple of years, particularly after losing her mother to cancer in the spring. Laura certainly would have benefited from the presence of a mom at times...

Of course, Gene would have been the first to acknowledge the potential impact in some of the problems confronting today's youth. With a pair of alcoholic parents, his own childhood was peppered with abuse at the hands of his folks. Then there were his own encounters as a teenager with alcohol and the subsequent decision to abstain from alcohol entirely. In fact, there were plenty of things he had done while "under the influence" that Gene had tried to forget, and in many cases had been successful in suppressing. As far as he was concerned, it was his only shot at being what he considered "normal."  In fact, just the thought of revisiting that time in his life had caused Gene's brow to bead with sweat, and his hands were now chilled upon the steering wheel. His eyes became glassy as he began to drift back...

The sound of ambulance and rescue sirens coming from the nearby hospital broke Gene from his trance-like state, which was fortunate as traffic was becoming more congested and there was a traffic light just ahead. Gene realized sweat had consumed most of his flannel shirt, and his thoughts quickly returned to Laura. He located a spot just adjacent to the entrance to the emergency room, and he quickly parked and ran through the ER doorway.

As soon as he identified himself to the ER personnel, he was asked to have a seat for a moment. He protested, but in less than a minute a man in a suit emerged from one of the operating rooms and approached Gene, and extended his hand.

"Mr. Lamont? I'm Barry Jamis, Detective, Farmington Valley PD, Violent Crimes Division..."

Gene immediately tried to move around - or over, if need be - Detective Jamis. "Violent Crimes Div...What the hell happened to my daughter? Where's Laura? I have to see my daughter!" Gene tried to make a burst toward the room from which Detective Jamis had just emerged, but was restrained by Jamis and another officer who had been standing nearby.

"I know it's a bad time, Mr. Lamont, but understand that your daughter's injuries are not life-threatening, and that she is in good hands right now..."

"You're damn right it's a bad time, Jamis! What the hell happened to my daughter? Why can't I see her?" Again, Gene made a move for the operating room, and again, he was restrained by the police.

Detective Jamis turned Gene so that the two were facing each other eye-to-eye, sighed, and with his hands on each of Gene's shoulders, began to speak, slowly and deliberately. "Mr. Lamont - Gene - from what we have been able to gather, someone followed your daughter home today as your daughter walked home from school. Laura was attacked - violently..."

"You mean she was..."

"Raped? Yes. She was also beaten quite viciously. She is undergoing reconstructive surgery for a shattered cheekbone right now. She also suffered a broken arm and dislocated shoulder..."

Gene Lamont's eyes quickly filled with both tears and rage. "That rotten son of a bitch...You give me 2 minutes with that rotten bastard, Jamis, that's all I ask...2 minutes!!! What kind of monster could do such a thing?"

Detective Jamis once again placed his hands on Gene's shoulders and gripped them tightly. "We have surveillance video from your home. It was a kid, a teenager, and based on the school jacket he was wearing, he was not from your area. But, our detectives expect to get an ID on him soon. They said from the way he was acting, he was high on something. Probably meth, coke, or just booze...who knows?"

Gene slumped down onto a gurney that sat in the hallway. "What kind of bastard...After I get hold of that kid, I'm going to get hold of that son-of-a-bitch's parents. They must be real proud..." Gene looked up at Jamis. "Can I see my baby daughter now?"

Jamis motioned to the other police officer to go check on Laura's status. After a couple of minutes, the officer came back and nodded affirmatively to Jamis. The detective got up and nudged Gene, whose head had been buried in his hands, and, after donning surgical masks and latex gloves, the pair entered the room occupied by Laura Loomis. Laura was obviously unconscious, swathed in bandages. A female doctor was attending to Laura, and she walked over to greet the two men. She nodded at Jamis, and then extended her hand to Gene.

"I'm Elaine Redding. I'll be taking care of Laura while she is at Southeast."

Gene warmly shook Elaine's hand. "I am so grateful for everything you've done, Doctor. I'm Gene Lamont."

Doctor Redding reacted to the name as if she had just been punched in the stomach - almost collapsing into Jamis' arms.

"Doctor, are you okay?" Jamis asked.

Redding nodded, and replied, "Yes, Detective, I'm fine now." Then she looked back at Gene, and said, "Detective, could you give the two of us a minute? I want to share some information with Mr. Lamont about his daughter..."

"Certainly, Doctor. I'll be right outside if you need me."

Once the detective had left the room, Doctor Redding drew close to Gene. "You don't remember me, do you, Gene?"

With the surgical mask hiding most of her face, it was hard to tell, but Gene did think there was something familiar about her eyes, and the voice was vaguely familiar, but he was still having trouble placing her...She drew even closer, and slowly pulled her mask down, revealing a mole above her upper lip to the left, and a small horizontal scar to the left of her mouth. "It's coming back now, isn't it?" she asked.

Indeed it was: The former Elaine Hastings, who Gene dated in high school - once - but it was a memorable night. After attending a local high school football game on a Friday night, Gene had convinced Elaine to stop over at his house for a drink - he knew his parents would be in bed and passed out  - and he had really wanted to get Elaine alone for a long, long time. And hell, that might have been his only shot. So, while she was in the bathroom briefly, he had downed a ridiculous amount of booze. In fact, he became so wasted that night he didn't remember all of the happenings of the evening, but enough from certain sequences to know that: 1) He viciously raped Elaine, 2) He hit her with a closed fist which caused the cut, 3) The last time he ever saw her, which was that evening, he had both hands around her neck and swore he would kill her if she ever spoke a word of what happened to anyone. She never returned to that school, and he'd heard she'd moved away soon after that night, which was fine with him. It made the forgetting easier - until now.

Now it was Gene who felt like he had just been kneed in the gut. He didn't know where to start. What the hell do you say to someone under these circumstances? He tried, but nothing came out.

"You know now, don't you Gene? You know, I thought for a long time that you'd be dead by now, the way you drank, and frankly, I didn't care one way or the other. Boy, it's a small world, isn't it Gene? By the way, I feel terrible for your daughter. I guess you could say that I can relate to what happened to her, though, can't I, Gene?"

Finally, some words began to come from Gene's mouth. "What happened...to you...after?"

"You swore you'd kill me, Gene, and I believed you. I wanted out, but bad! My parents were on the outs, so I went and moved a couple counties over with my aunt. Took my aunt's last name. I started my life over - wiped the slate clean. Did well in school, got a scholarship to medical school, and here I am...With regular visits to the therapist to deal with the memories of you, and now with Ricky."

"Who's Ricky? Is that your husband? Boyfriend?"

"Ricky is your son, Gene!" Elaine tried to suppress a laugh from behind the surgical mask which was now back in place. "No husband - no boyfriend. You really of soured my taste for relationships, Gene. But I'll tell you what: he's a spitting image of you...dark hair blue eyes, good looks. He also acts just like you, unfortunately. Now he's starting to drink just like you. In fact, I told him that if he was going to act like you then he should try to locate you and live with you. Which reminds me, he told me he did an Internet search for you a few days ago and found your name. I don't know if he's going to actually come visit you. Now that I think about it, he'll probably have to get all juiced up before he pays you a visit - you know - to work up the nerve...just like you did. That reminds me, he didn't call after school like he usually does. I hope he didn't go and get himself in trouble."

Suddenly Gene felt an incredible sense of nausea grip his entire being. He stood up. Zombie-like, he turned to face Elaine. "You say he knows my address? And he should be almost eighteen, right? And he was going to visit me? And he's drinking..." Gene collapsed to the floor in a heap, and began pounding the floor with his fists, with a fierceness that resulted in the cracking of bone so loud that people outside the room were peering in the slightly-open curtains to see what was going on. Elaine was now entering into a state of shock; partially from watching Gene, and partially from the realization of what Gene was becoming sure of...

At the same time, Detective Jamis was approaching the room with a hand full of 8x10's that were obtained from Gene's surveillance camera video during the attack on his daughter. He motioned to Elaine to come outside, while sending in some officers to attend to Gene and his now-disfigured hands.

Elaine took one glance at the surveillance photos, shrieked out the name "Ricky" and passed out.

Jamis approached the sobbing Lamont, who was now having his hands attended to in the emergency room next to his daughter's. "Good news, Gene: We've identified the kid who did this to your daughter. You're not going to believe this, but the kid is the son of the Doctor Redding. She fainted when she recognized her son, but when she comes to, we'll find out who the father is. With any luck, he'll still be in the area, and we'll track the son-of-a-bitch down. Then, maybe we can work out that two minutes that you wanted alone with the kid and his parents. That guy must be a walking world-class gene pool to grace humanity with a kid like that, right, Gene?"

"Gene?"

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Word count: 2060