“Right after this.”
“Will you be back?”
“Depends. Sometimes we solve these things at home. You’d be amazed at how much the computers can help. I don’t know how they ever did investigations without them.”
“Doc?” Brad asked in a more somber voice.
“Yes, Mr. Gale?”
“Do you have any idea how much worse it’s going to get? How many more kids are going to be affected?”
“He has a personal interest in this,” Bostwick explained. “I think I mentioned that.”
“A daughter,” Brad said. “She’s not six yet.”
And you better believe I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure she sees six . . . and seven, and eight, and right on up till I’m walking her down the aisle.
“Are we off the record, Mr. Gale?”
“I already said we were.”
“You understand we’re off the record?” Gosselin said to Rod.
“Yes.”
“Off the record, I don’t have the foggiest notion how widespread this will become. Until we know what it is, there’s no way I could even guess. I would say, however, that the absolute worst epidemic ever in any way accurately documented—the Black Death, in the fourteenth century—only claimed a third of its possible victims. Thirty-three percent. A terrible, toll, granted—especially if you had the misfortune to be in that percentile—but two thirds did survive. That fact is often lost.”
“It’s still not much consolation.” In fact, Brad thought, that’s the most insensitive, arrogant thing I ever heard.
“I realize that, Mr. Gale. And were I a betting man, I would bet the house that whatever we’re dealing with will pale by comparison with the plague.”
Good! Brad thought. Great! I can see the headline now: MORGANTOWN MYSTERY DISEASE FELLS ALL CHILDREN, BUT TOLL PALES IN COMPARISON WITH BLACK DEATH. CDC OFFICIALS GREATLY RELIEVED!
“If this ultimately affected even five percent of the people in this area,” Gosselin said, “we’d be talking a public health problem of historic and catastrophic proportions. You’d have the President personally intervening.
“More than that, I just can’t say yet. Heck, I admit that I came here suspecting three specific diseases, and there was very good reason to. While I can’t rule them out entirely until I get some lab results, I’ve seen enough to cast serious doubt on all three. Certain information I’ve gleaned here was not, ah, in the preliminary reports.”
“Such as?” Rod asked.
“Such as the sleep disorders. Such as the apparent concentration of cases on one side of town, the side near the mountain. Such as some other factors I’m not at liberty to disclose at this moment, not even to you, Mark. I’m sorry.”
“So what is it, Doc?” Brad demanded. “What the hell is it? Some bug escaped from an Army lab?”
Gosselin laughed—inappropriately, Bostwick and Brad both thought. This week Bostwick had had ample time to rediscover all those reasons he’d fallen out with his med school roommate. The guy, basically, was a jerk. Brilliant, but still a jerk. There was no way around it.
“There are those who believe that’s where AIDS came from, you know.” Gosselin went on more sternly. “Bad novelists and starving freelance writers, mostly. What are we dealing with, Mr. Gale? I’d put my money on infection, as opposed to poisoning or some kind of mass hysteria. I’m leaning toward bacterial cause, as opposed to viral, although I wouldn’t rule a virus out just yet. In some respects, it reminds me of Legionella. Heck, no one at first knew what was killing American Legion conventioneers in Philadelphia that summer of 1976. And while the responsible bacterium was not absolutely one hundred percent unknown—most people don’t know that—for all intents and purposes, it was a brand-new disease. Why did it pop up that summer in that hotel’s air-conditioning system at the exact time that group of people, most somewhat elderly and disease-susceptible, were there? That, I suppose, is a question for a higher power.
“The point is that whatever we’re dealing with here seems, at the moment, quite mysterious. And three years from now when we look back at the Morgantown cases, we’ll wonder how we ever could have missed it. We’ll wonder what the fuss was all about.”
You arrogant shit, Brad wanted to say. All we are for you is your next paper.
But he didn’t say that. Instead, he remarked, “There are all kinds of theories going around, you know.”
“I imagine there are,” Gosselin said uninterestedly. “Probably some pretty wild ones.”
“I made mention of an Army bug—that’s one popular theory.”
“Here and everywhere else.”
“Others think it’s something in the groundwater,” Rod added. “Some chemical, leaching from a hazardous waste dump.”
“At this stage, water as the mode of transmission is doubtful, but I couldn’t entirely rule it out. I think we can rule out hazardous waste. Tests of well water have turned up nothing. Neither does the EPA have a record of such a dump anywhere near here.”
“A few people think it’s radiation—like radon.”
“Those people obviously are even more ignorant than the norm. Nothing here even remotely resembles radiation sickness. And radon’s only known hazard is lung cancer, which invariably takes years, decades to be seen. Not to mention an entirely different range of symptoms.”
“The Indians even have a theory,” Brad said.
“American Indians?”
“Yes. Quidnecks. The area around Thunder Rise was theirs. There are still a few left. They say the disease is caused by an angry god. They—at least one of them—believe this god is stealing kids’ souls. Apparently that’s a slow and painful process. When they’re finally stolen, the kids die.”
“Charming, aren’t they, these Indians?” Gosselin said.
Brad and Rod nodded in agreement.
But Bostwick didn’t think it was so charming. He’d heard the old legend—was it from Brad’s friend, Thomasine, who’d also told Rod?—and he’d found it fascinating, in a morbid kind of way.
Now, for reasons he could not explain, he found it disturbing.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Friday, December 5
Gunny Ellis didn’t like the change in her half brother. Not one bit.
Charlie had always been intense, if that was the word. Always a nonconformist (that was Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s description), a man who placed his stock in the old Indian ways. She had always admired him for that—for the way in which he rejected the shallowness and greed of the late twentieth century for a set of simpler, more honest values. She’d fancied Charlie as something of a modern-day Thoreau, wandering the countryside in search of deeper truths.
Now, as he sat at her kitchen table, she didn’t think those values were so very noble anymore. She thought Charlie had gone over some philosophical precipice into a dangerous abyss. Or maybe it was simpler than that.
Maybe he’d just cracked.
His proposal . . . it was insane.
He was insane.
Charlie’s thoughts about Ginny were similar. He’d come over for dinner this evening and found the Ellis family in full-blown crisis. Making his bed this morning, Ginny had found a gun under Jimmy’s mattress. And not just any gun. It was her late husband’s over-under shotgun, a weapon capable of taking down a circus elephant. And it had been loaded. Jesus. Not only had Jimmy found the gun (that wasn’t too hard, Ginny had stored it in the garage loft), but he’d broken the lock on the trunk where the ammunition was stored and loaded it. When Ginny had found it, the goddamn safety wasn’t even on.
The gun had done it. Pushed Ginny over the edge. When Jimmy returned from kindergarten, she’d presented him with the weapon and asked him in a voice seething with rage just what the hell was going on. What the hell was this, his idea of a real-life Rambo? Hadn’t she made it clear he was never to play that again? Hadn’t the incident in the woods last summer been enough?
It wasn’t Rambo, he’d answered, quiv
ering with the response. “I don’t play Rambo anymore. It was the wolf. I wanted protection against the wolf. Please, Mommy. I told you, it’s back.”
Ginny was not into corporeal punishment. She’d never more than slapped Jimmy before—once or twice, and then only lightly on his bottom—but now she lit into him with a belt, raising welts on his back and buttocks and the backs of his legs. She was immediately overwhelmed with guilt. If she possibly needed more proof that her son was experiencing serious emotional difficulty, the discovery of the gun had been it. And what had she done? Whacked the shit out of him. She was so angry with herself it felt as if she might explode. Upstairs Jimmy finally was asleep.
For how long, Ginny couldn’t answer. The nightmares had been especially bad the last two nights. On top of that, his damn cold had returned, making his sleep restive and sweat-filled, despite the Tylenol with codeine she’d been pumping into him. A knot re-formed in her stomach as she thought of what might have happened if he had fumbled for that gun in the middle of one of his nightmares. The knot tightened as she remembered how she’d handled the discovery. “I blame you,” she said angrily to her brother.
“Me?”
“You. With all this . . . crap about wolves. I know you mean well, Charlie, I know how much you love him, but you’re just feeding into things. He told me you were going to help him keep the wolf away. He said you promised.”
“I never said anything about a gun.”
“Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you said, it’s been . . . feeding into it.” She stopped, her mind seeming to blank.
Charlie looked at the kitchen window. It was open. Listless air rustled the lace curtains Ginny kept so spotless. December fifth, barely a week after that blizzard, and now it’s warm enough to have the windows open, Charlie thought. Another bad omen.
Ginny’s attention returned to the argument. “And now you want to use him for this . . . ritual,” she said. “It’s crazy, Charlie. You’re crazy. To even think of taking him into a cave and doing . . . whatever the hell it is you want to do. It’s nuts. It’s more than nuts. It’s—it’s . . . illegal!”
“Things are out of control,” Charlie stated.
“And this will bring them back under control? Oh, yes, I can see that, Charlie. That’s easy to see. I don’t know why I didn’t see it myself. March my son into a goddamn cave and have him wave a spear around. That’s the obvious answer here!”
“You’re not being honest with yourself, Little Sis,” Charlie said gently, despite his temper rising. The last thing he needed was to lose it, the way he had with Brad Gale.
“Jimmy doesn’t have . . . it.”
“He’s had a fever for a week. You told me so yourself.”
“He has a cold.”
“He missed school Wednesday.”
“Of course he did,” she snapped. “I told you, he has a cold. A bad cold.”
“How many colds this fall?”
“I don’t keep track of something like that,” she lied.
“What about the nightmares?”
“Every kid has nightmares.”
“Not like this. You’re denying it, Little Sis.”
“I am not denying it!” she said. “Jimmy doesn’t have it, and that’s the end of it!”
Like that, her anger had burned itself out. The tears came, and she slumped into her chair, but not before refilling her glass with wine. Since Maureen McDonald’s death, her drinking had picked up considerably. She’d never had more than a glass or two of wine a day, but now she was polishing off an entire bottle before dinner.
“Charlie, I’m afraid,” she sobbed. “I’ve never been more afraid in my whole life. It wasn’t this bad even when Jim died.”
He sat across from her, his cigarette dangling from his mouth. He pitied her, and if he’d been someone else—a man not afraid to show his emotions—he would have gone over to her, draped his arms around her, smothered her with the blanket of human compassion until the storm had passed. She’d been through hell—and the real shit wasn’t even flying yet. That was what scared him most.
When her crying had subsided, he asked her again. He ran through all the reasons, and how it was her son who would be saved, not to mention all the other kids, and how he was convinced more than he had ever been convinced by anything in his life that there was no choice . . . no choice at all.
“For the sake of the kids,” he pleaded. “For the sake of the kids.”
“No, Charlie,” she declared. “I can’t let you.”
“Jimmy will die.” It was a savage thing to say, and he was almost ashamed for letting it pass through his lips. But he was past the point where mincing words was doing anyone any good. They had to deal in facts now, even if she didn’t see them as that.
“That’s . . . so . . . cruel,” she said, her eyes moistening again.
“I’m only speaking the truth. Please, Little Sis. I need him. For him.”
“No,” she repeated, the iron momentarily creeping back into her voice.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Saturday, December 6
“Wanna hear my part?” Abbie trilled.
“Which part?” Thomasine kidded. “Your hand?”
“Noooo!”
“Your arm?”
“You know what I mean,” Abbie said. “The part in my Christmas play!”
“Sure,” Thomasine said enthusiastically. “I’d love to hear that.”
“OK. I’m one of the Three Kings, and I have to sing a song.”
Saturday, and the damn weather seesaw had dropped them into the cold again. Only because they were a full week into December was it close to tolerable. Brad had gotten a fire roaring, and he’d cooked dinner, and after dinner Thomasine had insisted on making a holiday punch out of ginger ale, lime juice, oranges, and rum. It was very smooth stuff, and Brad had insisted they not let a drop go to waste. “Cheers,” he said every time he refilled their glasses—and there were a lot of those times in the two hours after dinner. “Cheers,” Thomasine responded. She was getting sloshed. Brad was getting sloshed. Both of them, happily and cheerfully getting sloshed . . .
. . . and looking forward to when Abbie was finally in bed.
Christmas was less than three weeks off. Jesus. It had crept up on them so fast; it always did. The only reason they were even aware of its approach was this morning, when they’d gone food shopping. Driving through Morgantown Center, they’d seen stores decorated with trees and elf figurines and tinsel and nativity scenes. When they’d gotten home, Abbie, with Brad’s help, had made out her Christmas list. Brad had written “MR. S. CLAUS, NORTH POLE” on the envelope, then stashed it by the phone in the kitchen cubbyhole. First thing Monday morning, he promised, he’d have it in the mail. Reindeer would probably carry it on the long journey to Santa, Abbie conjectured. You’re probably right, her dad agreed.
“You ready?” Abbie asked, taking center stage in the living room.
“Ready,” said Thomasine.
“It’s about the kings who came to see Baby Jesus. He was in a manger with Mary and Joseph.” Abbie pointed to the couch where Thomasine was. “Pretend that’s the manger,” she said, “not a couch.”
“OK.”
Abbie curtsied and began, not at all self-consciously, to sing.
Seeing her standing there, Thomasine was struck again by how pretty Brad’s daughter was. She remembered the first time she’d seen her, on Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s inn’s porch, how impressed she’d been by her curly brown hair and cat green eyes and the way she carried herself, confident but not obnoxious, at once grown-up and little-girlish. She remembered wondering where this striking little girl had gotten her looks, from her mom or from her dad. She remembered learning the answer when she met Brad. There could be no doubt: Abbie was her father’s daughter. Physically and in every other way.
And there was nothing whatsoever wrong with that.
Since Thanksgiving Thomasine and Brad had steadily moved forwar
d. She liked to think of their relationship as something living, something sweet and fragrant and sturdy, like wild flowers in late summer. Thomasine found herself savoring what they had at the oddest moments: in front of her computer, in the middle of interviews, on the phone to Brown. Almost three months we’ve known each other, she reflected. Two months we’ve been sleeping together. Long enough to find the skeletons in the emotional closets. The big ones, anyway. Except for that bitch ex-wife of his, there don’t seem to be any.
The only blemish on the face of things—Charlie—seemed to have faded. Since returning from her vacation, there had been no mention of him, or his tale, or the scene with him in the restaurant, or the creepy trip Thomasine and Charlie had made into the mine. With the passage of time, it was becoming easier and easier for her to believe that what had happened in there had just been her mind playing tricks. Brad’s right, she’d conceded after endless pondering. Good old cold, analytic Brad Gale, whose philosophy about such matters could be summarized: There are fairy tales, things that go bump in the night . . . and then there’s the real world. And while Charlie’s right, in a purely philosophical sense—all things are not as they seem—there are limits. Even an anthropologist has to recognize limits. Especially an anthropologist. If that’s cultural chauvinism, so be it.
She smiled, thinking of Brad and watching his daughter sing her Christmas carol. Abbie seemed genuinely to like her. That was good. Very good. In this kind of situation it was almost as crucial as the feelings of the man himself.
“You’re a star.” Thomasine complimented Abbie.
Abbie smiled and kept on singing. Brad, who’d been out at the woodpile, slipped in the back door in time to watch the end of her performance. He joined with Thomasine in a long round of applause.
“OK, critter,” he said, “time for bed.”
“Dad . . .” she pleaded.
“No ‘dads,’“ he said, about as sternly as he ever sounded. “It’s way past your bedtime.”
“What time is it?”
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