by Tina Mikals
Chapter 27
The Poison in his System
From somewhere, May heard the high pitched whine of a cicada sing out in the midday heat. She knelt down and peered at Carlisle with the intensity of a cat watching a bird.
He shifted uneasily as he saw her expression out of the corners of his red-rimmed eyes.
Under the streaks of rusty mud clinging to his face, his skin was as white as milk. Even in the late afternoon heat, Carlisle had his jacket buttoned up, and he was shivering.
She said the first words that erupted in her head. "It's a darn good thing you get cranky when you're sick. When were you planning on telling us?"
"It's nothing to worry about. I caught a chill is all," he said, forcing out a pathetic cough.
"A chill, huh?" she repeated, peeling back the collar of his shirt.
At the base of his neck, the scratch left by the ogre was festering. The wound was red, inflamed and oozing pus. The whole side of his neck was angrily flushed.
He pulled away gently from her intrusion, and the collar slipped from her grasp.
"Ugh. Well, that is wicked disgusting," she said. Then she was suddenly mad at herself. "Those nasty, filthy nails; I should have known." She had saved a small piece of anger for Carlisle as well. "Were you just going to wait for gangrene to set in before you said something?"
The man looked guilty daggers at her but held his tongue.
She pressed her hand against his forehead, causing the back of his head to thump against the tree behind him. With crossed eyes and an annoyed look, he focused on May's thin wrist.
She clucked like a mother hen, removed her hand and wiped it on her pants. "The shirt's gotta go."
He scowled a refusal.
"To state the obvious, it's got pus all over it. It's unsanitary, and not to be too vulgar, I might add, it's starting to smell."
His face withered.
"Sorry, but it's true." When his expression didn't change, she asked, "You aren't that shy, are you?" She closed her eyes and tossed her head a bit. "Well, it doesn't matter. Okay, I'll compromise with you. We'll cut the collar off."
"Oh no you won't. It's my favorite shirt."
"Doesn't it have Fowler's blood still on it?" she asked, disgusted.
He looked down as if he could see the white garment through the wool of his coat and vest. "Actually, the Zephyr's got every spot of that out," he said, sounding impressed.
"And what about the ogre's?"
"I got it right away with cold water, you can't hardly see it." He placed his palms on his chest in an act of protection for the maligned garment. He said in an obstinate tone, which invited no further argument, "You can't have it."
Getting nowhere on the tack she was on, she began again in a roundabout manner, "Okay. I would like you to remember that I do have an older brother. I would also like to add that I've seen him without his shirt like a zillion times—but—I'm going to go talk to Sheila for a bit. You can put your coat right back on after you're done. I'll be expecting to have that shirt in my hand when I get back. Then Sheila and I will wash it as best we can. We won't hurt it, I promise. Agreed?"
For an answer, he crossed his arms again and without looking at her, he nodded once, then tilted his head, waiting for her to leave.
Sheila had the Red Sox sweatshirt off and was busy using a wet sleeve to clean her face when May returned. "What is it? What's wrong," she asked, seeing May's face.
May said quietly, so as not to alarm her too much, "Didn't you notice? He's sick." She kneeled down and washed her hands in the stream.
"How bad?"
"That scratch on his neck is infected."
"Oh, that's all." Sheila sounded relieved. "Well, he'll be okay then, right?"
"I don't think you quite get it," said May. "It's not exactly like I can run to the drugstore and get some Bactine. I don't even think that would help now, anyway. What he could really use is an antibiotic. All we can do now is to try to stop the infection from getting any worse and hope that his body will fight the rest."
"What's he doing now?" asked Sheila.
"Removing his shirt; we're going to have to wash it. God Sheila, I feel awful. You know how I am about this kind of thing. I can't believe I didn't think to check on that stupid scratch. You think the idiot would have said something though."
"You just forgot about it is all, and he probably didn't want us to worry."
"Yeah, maybe," she said, scowling down at the clear stream flowing by her feet. "We'll wash the scratch out with water, whatever good that'll do. I wish we had some fire. The water really ought to be boiled."
"It doesn't taste bad," said Sheila.
"You've been drinking it?"
"Well, yeah. And he had some too."
"Just great. If he gets sick, he'll be even more dehydrated."
"Well, so far, I feel okay." Sheila began emptying the satchel and gutting the contents.
"Can you hand me the water bottle?" asked May.
"I thought you didn't want any water?" said Sheila, removing the empty bottle from the bag and handing it to her.
"Not for me. Since you elected yourself guinea pig, keeping drinking it. If you still feel okay in a few hours we can give some more to him. He's going to need a lot of water to fight that infection."
May rinsed out the bottle and began filling it in the stream.
Sheila shook her head as she dug through the satchel. "This is way too heavy. Eew. All the fruit is bruised and mushy now. Let's see how the moon cakes did. They're probably all squished," she said, removing the folded white napkin from the bottom of the leather sack.
May was about to cork the bottle when she heard Sheila let out a high pitched scream.
Sheila tossed the napkin away from her, found her feet quickly and backed up, smoothing down her jeans with her hands as though casting off whatever might have landed there. Her lip was curled into a snarl.
May looked down at the napkin on the grass and shot to her feet as well. On the yellow-stained linen squirmed several dozen creamy white maggots, freshly hatched. No longer in the peaceful darkness feeding contentedly on moon cake, they struggled around pitifully, trying to avoid the stabbing bright sunshine.
"That painting—they must have come from that disgusting painting," said Sheila.
Carlisle looked over from the oak tree and attempted to get up.
May waved him back down with both hands. "Don't worry," she called to him. "She just saw a snake. It's nothing."
"Let's get rid of them," Sheila said, flicking a few maggots back onto the napkin with a stick. "We'll throw them in the woods." She noticed a maggot too close to her foot and stepped on it with a mixture of nausea and hatred passing over her angelic features.
"Oh no we won't," said May, taking the stick from Sheila and poking some more of the writhing hitchhikers back onto the cloth. "Did you know that the Roman soldiers used to use them to treat wounds? And they've been using them in the jungles for years especially in wartime. Even some hospitals have started putting them on sores that won't heal normally." She rolled in the last maggot onto the cloth and tossed the stick away.
Gathering up the napkin delicately by its four corners, she suspended the bundle out in front of her at arm's length like a baby in a stork's bill.
Sheila's face was spectral. "You can't mean—! You're not going to put maggots on the poor man, are you?" she asked, with her voice rising to an impressive, shimmering thread of a note, worthy of any opera diva.
"Yes I am. And you're coming with me, because I don't expect he'll be too happy about it either. I could use some reinforcements. Come on." May motioned with her head, her hands being otherwise occupied. As they walked toward Carlisle, she whispered, "Try to put it to him delicately. You know how bad I am at that."
He opened his eyes and squinted at the both of them approaching with May smiling like the bearer of glad tidings. He ogled the dangling napkin suspiciously.
May kneeled down on one side of him, and Sheila sat o
n the other. His eyes trailed from one to the other of them and back again distrustfully. May gave her friend an encouraging nod, and Carlisle, his energy low, but his curiosity now very much aroused, turned his attention on Sheila.
"Mr. Carlisle?"
"Yes, Sheila?"
"We would like to put maggots on your wound."
"Well, I could have done that," said May.
"You'd like to do what?" he asked, uncertain if he'd heard right.
May put the napkin down and unfolded it on the dry leaves next to him.
She didn't know how he did it, but Carlisle managed to go three shades whiter than he already was. He furrowed his brow and yelled, "The deuce you will!" and by force alone, with only his backbone, attempted to bore himself bodily through the oak tree behind him. Above him, the squirrel in the tree chittered in protest as the surrounding landscape faintly echoed back his words.
"It's all we've got," May explained. "If your wound isn't treated, you could very well die."
"Die?" said Sheila. "He could die? You didn't tell me—"
"Now stop being a big baby. From what I've read, it doesn't hurt at all. The maggots just nibble at the infected tissue. You'll hardly feel a thing."
Still with his forehead in a knot, Carlisle closed his eyes, and with a queasy expression on his face, rocked his head back and forth against the tree trunk stubbornly.
"Did you hear me? I said you could die. In fact, you probably will die if we leave that thing festering like it is. Do you understand?"
"Oh please, Mr. Carlisle," pleaded Sheila.
May continued haranguing him, "You're just being silly! A great big man like you afraid of a few measly little worms. It's totally ridiculous."
He opened his red-rimmed eyes and attempted to glare at her, but it was a pathetic look. She felt a little pity for him then and softened her tone. "I know they're yucky. But we don't have anything else. Will you please just try? The Roman soldiers used to use them on the battlefield," she coaxed.
He said, "I had an uncle that died from a cut on his finger."
"Good!" she said brightly. Standing up, she untied the sweatshirt from around her waist. "I'll need to rip my shirt for a bandage since I don't think you'll give up your favorite shirt. I'd ask for your tie, but somehow I don't think I'd get that either." He didn't argue.
May ripped several strips off the sweatshirt as well as two larger pieces. She put one of the strips aside, took the rest of the rags in her hand and started walking to the stream. She said over her shoulder, "I'm going to get these wet. I'll be right back."
At the stream, she doused the pieces of green sweatshirt in the water, saturating them completely. She cupped the dripping wet cloth in her hands and dashed back to the oak tree with them. "Wash your face," she ordered, wringing out one of the rags until it was only just damp and handing it to him.
As he cleaned his face, the small amount of ruddy color the scrubbing brought to his skin receded quickly and was replaced by a sickly pallor that even the last few days of bronzing by the sun couldn't disguise.
She picked one of the leaves off the oak tree above her head and with another pushed six or seven of the maggots onto it. Peeking up from her near-sighted concentration on the leaf and its writhing passengers, she nodded to Carlisle. "Ready?"
He inclined his head sideways and looked in the opposite direction, exposing the base of his neck to her. He had a nauseous sneer on his face in anticipation of the sickening physical sensation to come. He caught sight of Sheila and held up the white shirt in his hand. "Sheila, dear, would you be so good as to wash this for me?"
"I'd be glad to," she answered quickly, taking the shirt and sprinting to the brook with it.
"She never did have a very strong stomach," said May, preoccupied with her gruesome task.
"I can't say I blame her on that score." He let out a huge sigh.
"Well?" she asked. "Do you feel anything?"
"You didn't already—?"
"Yes," she said with a smile. "And the little guys look pretty happy, too, I might add. What's it like?"
He paused to appreciate the feeling on his skin. "It tingles. Tickles really," he said with distaste but a kind of pleasant surprise as well.
"See! That's not so bad, is it? Hardly worth making a fuss about at all." With repelled attraction she watched the larvae feeding on Carlisle's diseased tissue.
He observed her expression out of the corner of his eye. "You can't bear to see a dog lick my face, but this doesn't bother you?"
"Oh, it is revolting, but I have to admit, it's fascinating, too."
"This sort of thing really does interest you, doesn't it? Medicine, I mean."
"I probably get it from my mother. I can't hardly sneeze without her checking my forehead. It's my fault, I guess. I got pneumonia when I was two, and I had to be in an oxygen tent for more than a week. Since then my father says she's been kind of scared."
"In a what?"
"I had to be in the hospital for a while."
"That's too bad," he said.
"Oh, well. It's not like I remember it anyway," she shrugged. Slowly, she refolded the napkin. "I sure wish you'd said something earlier. As it is, I'm still pretty mad at myself. You would think that me, of all people, would have known better."
"You shouldn't blame yourself. I certainly don't blame you for anything."
"Well, I still should have known better. I should have known right away what to do when I saw the blood. Maybe it wouldn't have come to this. I could kick myself."
"It's not your fault."
"And it was so cold, too—and damp. I'm sure it aggravated your condition."
"You're not blaming yourself for that, surely? How could you have known how cold it would be?"
"Or damp," she made sure to add.
"Or damp," he agreed.
"You're right, of course. I just feel it's my fault somehow. God! I hope you don't—" she shook her head and didn't finish the thought. "I should have realized sooner. Maybe then I could have done something about it. I guess I was just so preoccupied with everything else going on."
"I'm sure you were. You're being too hard on yourself."
"Do you really think I'm being too hard on myself?"
"Yes, absolutely."
"I suppose you're right. After all, who am I kidding? It's not like we had anything to treat it with anyway. Not even a lousy bar of soap to wash it out, get rid of the germs."
"There you go. No sense in blaming yourself, see." He gave a small weak smile and closed his eyes.
"You're right, of course. Then again, if I were home, no question about it. I would have been able to treat it with something. I could have brought you to the doctor, and she would have given you something for sure. Nowadays there are lots of medicines to treat diseases they had absolutely no idea how to treat back in your day."
He opened his eyes and watched her face from under purple, hooded eyelids.
"Maybe they just hadn't figured out what caused them or maybe they just hadn't developed the medicines they needed yet. So, I think you're right. I really shouldn't blame myself for you getting sick. I shouldn't blame myself at all."
"May?"
"Medicines, vaccines, antibiotics. Did you know that people don't get the mumps hardly at all anymore? Or whooping cough? Or ... or measles, even? And there's others, too. Take tuberculosis, for instance."
"May."
"They used to think that it was an inherited condition, but nowadays we know that it's actually infectious and can be—"
"May!"
"Yes?"
"I know what you're doing. I'm not entirely stupid," he said.
"I know that," she said. "You're not stupid at all."
"You've got no business poking about in matters that don't concern you."
"Weren't you the one who told me that if you stand too close all the time, things get out of proportion? I'm just trying to get you to back up."
"I was talking about paintin
g; it's hardly the same thing. And I don't appreciate my words being thrown back at me by a little snit of a girl."
She picked up a strip of sweatshirt material next to her. "Well, it's just a good thing this little snit of a girl knows you're sick and cranky and all, and isn't one of those people that takes everything personally because, boy-oh-boy, she would be pretty offended right now!" she said as she wrapped the cloth around his neck.
"Hey," he yelled. "Easy!"
"Oh, did I hurt you? I'm sorry," she said pleasantly, neatly tucking in the ends of the strip around his neck.
"Wait," he said with his eyes large. "You aren't actually going to leave those—those creatures on, are you?"
In the same tone she would use for a three year old, she explained, "The maggots have got to feed on the infected tissue."
"How long?" he said, touching the bandage gingerly with his fingertips.
"I don't know. Long enough. I'll keep checking on it. Later tonight, I'll put some more on. These guys should be pretty full and bloated by then. I guess they'll die happy."
She balled up the remainder of the torn sweatshirt, put it down for a pillow behind him, and patted it. "Get some sleep."
"You'd make a good nurse," he said.
She snorted a laugh. "Yeah, right."
"Though your bedside manner could certainly use some improvement."
"I think you meant to say 'doctor'. And thanks but 'no'. Just in case it had escaped your notice, I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a people person. But it has occurred to me that I might not mind stabbing rats for a living."
"Come again?"
"Research. Lab work."
He grimaced. "May, do me a favor and don't just close yourself up in a little room somewhere. You'll end up some scrawny, dried-up old-maid." He illustrated his point by pruning up his face and hunching his shoulders. Then he winced in pain and touched his bandage.
"You deserved that. I think I liked you better when you kept your opinions to yourself. Now get some rest. Lie on your side and take a nap. Let the little guys do their work."
By the stream, Sheila started singing as she shook out the wet shirt and picked a branch to hang it on to dry. Carlisle looked over at her almost dreamily.
"Oh, did I forget to mention? She sings like an angel, too." May screwed up her face. "Though I think I need to talk to her about her song selection." Right then Sheila was singing the chorus to American Pie.
"No, don't," he said. "I like it." He placed his head on the bunched sweatshirt, closed his eyes and asked, "What's a 'Chevy'?"
"Just a kind of carriage. Get some rest."
May returned to Sheila and slipped the napkin back into the satchel.
Sheila broke off her song about the time the men were drinking whisky and rye. "Oh tell me you're not saving them!" she said.
"Well, duh, for when we need more. Keep singing, by the way, he likes it. He's falling asleep." May washed her hands in the stream.
"Can you believe how much cloth is in this thing?" said Sheila, pointing at Carlisle's shirt fluttering in the breeze over a tree branch. "It's practically a dress."
"Let me see that for a second." May got up and wiped her hands on the sides of her thighs. She snatched a sleeve out of the wind and turned the cuff inside out. "Hand stitched. The man sure has an interesting way of wearing his heart on his sleeve. Three guesses as to who made it and the first two don't count. We must be getting close to his wife's picture, don't you think?"
Sheila said dejectedly, "I don't know what to think. I'm not even sure we're going through every painting anymore."
"What?"
"I remember seeing that—that ogre painting on the living room wall before you came over. I know because that one painting is so disgusting, and I keep hoping my mother will get rid of it, but she never does and it looks horrible wherever she puts it. I remember when she hung it in the dining room—no one could eat anything. She said she thought it would be good for her diet. Anyhow, I just know it wasn't next to yours. Yours was behind the rubber tree plant in the corner."
"Great," said May. Well at least she didn't have to worry that anyone would see it.
"Right before that ogre was some kind of crazy black and white painting—all twisted up and sad looking. It made me want to cry." Sheila pursed up her lips and wrinkled her forehead. "This is really strange, but I remember it had a light bulb in it."
"Guernica?" said May.
Sheila shrugged. "Whatever you said."
"It's a good thing we didn't end up in that."
"You believe me then?"
"Of course. Why wouldn't I? But that means—"
Sheila finished May's thought in a forlorn tone. "We might not end up going through his wife's painting."
May didn't say 'I told you so', but she was thinking it. And what's more, Sheila knew she was thinking it too. She sighed. "All we can do is just keep going the way we're going. We don't seem to have any control over it anyway. What do you think?"
"What do I think?" Sheila mulled over the question as if it were a novelty. She answered slowly, "I think that sounds good."
May nodded. "We'll just have to hope for the best."
"I'll go look for a door," said Sheila.
"Alone?"
"We shouldn't leave him by himself."
May didn't like the plan, but they couldn't move Carlisle in the state he was in, and they had to get out of here. She could feel it starting to get cold again. "I want you back by dusk."
"Yes, Mom," said Sheila, heading for the woods.
