The Angels of Our Better Beasts

by Jerome Stueart

  Harlin argued against it, wouldn’t be reasoned with.

  “Look, if we just go and prove to them that your blood is fine, this will be over.”

  Harlin growled at him.

  Jacob smiled “Let them be stinking envious. You have to clear your name.”

  >?

  The nurse invites Jacob behind the desk and lets him read the report for himself.

  Harlin died on the transfusion table. His body is awaiting incineration. They have to burn it—an out of control BBD could infect so much of the population that it would be impossible to contain the spread. No, Jacob isn’t allowed to view the body. “Again,” she adds. Yes, he will have to be screened as well. Could he stop by the main floor and give a blood sample? He cringes at the lack of compassion.

  Looking at the document, Jacob is sure he will sue the hospital for negligence. There on the document is his phone number.

  “I never came in to see the body,” he tells her again. “I was never called.”

  She nods.

  He walks away from the nurse. She calls after him that there is a chapel and a counsellor on the second floor. But he’s not going there. Harlin wouldn’t be in the chapel.

  The elevator doors shut and he’s alone. He looks at his blurred reflection in the walls of the elevator. He’s angry at the hospital. What man, playing Jacob, came and saw the body? Who would do that? He’s angry at the nurse. He’s mad at Harlin. How could a man with an “unbeatable” immune system go and die during tests? And finally, as the elevator sinks farther and farther down, he thinks, I should have stayed. Then, thankfully, he finds a way to blame it on the Deputy Minister, and lastly, China, and this gets him prepared for the doors to open.

  He wipes his eyes with his sleeve. But he needn’t. An aerosol antibacterial mists the air. The spray is wet only for a second, but he feels it on his face, and when it evaporates it leaves his skin dry and the doors open to the basement, the morgue.

  “You can pull off anything if you’re confident enough,” Harlin told him before his first interview for the communications position with the government.

  “Yeah, they call that false confidence,” Jacob said.

  “Unjustified confidence,” Harlin smiled. “Who knows? You may be a whiz at it. Just act like it till it comes natural.” Harlin liked that he was transparent. “You’re an honest man,” he said. “You got no guile. But sometimes, buddy, you have to learn to fake it.”

  Press conferences are great testing grounds for faking it. And Jacob ended up in more than his fair share as the communications analyst for the Deputy Minister. But even when he learned to hide nearly everything in front of a camera, still Harlin would tell him, passing his hand warmly across Jacob’s face, “You can’t fool me. This face is a map. And I got the legend memorized.”

  >?

  On his way to the morgue, he passes three pathology labs and an autopsy room. He walks through the retracting door into the morgue. It is bland, sterile; he expects to smell formaldehyde, but there is no strong odour. A shiver runs through him. Harlin should be here.

  Silver panels line one wall. He imagines they have bodies tucked away behind them. There are tables with bodies on them in four rows, each draped with thin muslin. Should be plastic, he thinks. One table has the muslin, but no body. He looks around first, and then begins to uncover the faces of the different bodies.

  They don’t shock him. He’s determined to find Harlin, to see that white-haired, clean-shaven face, smiling even in death, underneath the muslin. He does it quickly: a flip off, a flip back on. The faces are peaceful. Nothing in their skin gives it away that they are dead. They’re pale, yes, but not blue-lipped. Some women, mostly men. They all have their clothes on. This is not at all what he expected. But he checks each one in turn until he has looked at them all. Harlin is not here.

  He looks up. He walks over to the computer controls on the wall. The silver panels are represented by a green LCD number display. On the main screen is a list of names, none of which are Moybridge.

  These are all the dead bodies in the room, and all the bodies in the slots.

  Where the hell is Harlin?

  In the back, he discovers a change room. Lockers. Showers. It makes sense. If the nurses burn their clothes because of disease risk, he can see why showers for pathologists might be available. He just didn’t expect them in the morgue.

  He expected Harlin.

  But if Harlin isn’t in the morgue, where is he?

  From the corner of his eye, Jacob sees something stirring.

  A body on a table moves, stretches. One of the dead bodies. He sees a hand come from underneath the muslin cloth, pulling it slowly down its face, and then its body. It exhales and then breathes in deeply.

  Jacob slips into the locker room. His breath is shallow and his heart races. He hears the squeak of the table where the body was as the person steps down. Jacob remembers the faces of the dead—still and peaceful. He hears them moving and feels trapped. He looks around the change room for hiding places. Lockers are too small, showers too open. And what about a weapon?

  He hears another squeak. “I thought Jardin was on today,” says a voice.

  “Jardin’s sick. I’m filling in,” says another.

  They’re conversational, casual.

  “He’s just a third year.”

  “Sad, isn’t it?”

  Jacob takes off his shirt and lays it on a bench. Maybe he can pretend to be someone, anyone, dressing after a shower. Maybe. He has his back to the footsteps as they enter the locker room. They’re talking, hardly noticing him. They pass by.

  “I don’t want to work today,” one says.

  “Are you third year?” There’s a pause. “Oh. Well, I can understand.”

  Jacob acts as if he’s just putting his shirt back on. He looks at his shoes, trying not to think about them.

  Two of them stop talking. “Hello?” one says.

  Jacob turns slowly. He remembers them from the tables, how they looked when they were dead. One is shorter, blond hair and stocky build; the other is taller and lean.

  “John Lake,” Jacob says, not extending his hand. “From St. Mary’s. In Omaha.”

  They introduce themselves, smiling. They seem to buy it. These dead people. He looks at their faces. He would not be able to tell they are dead. He starts to think maybe they were just asleep. But this is the morgue.

  “I’m here on a visit,” he adds.

  “Oh,” they nod. “How are things in Omaha?”

  What would they want to hear? He waits. It’s always good to wait in an interview to hear a follow up question. People clarify themselves. They do it all the time in press conferences.

  These two don’t. They shuffle awkwardly. The tall one looks at Jacob’s hands as he finishes buttoning the shirt, watching his fingers work the buttons. Will they notice his hair’s not wet?

  “About the same,” he says. “You know how it is.”

  The short one smiles weakly. “You kind of think it’s better somewhere else.”

  “Especially somewhere more rural,” the other one says. He turns and strips off his shirt. “Less people to worry about.”

  Jacob doesn’t say anything back. He’s hoping they find him aloof. Maybe they’ll shut up. He tucks in his shirt and turns to the door.

  “Did you leave your jacket in Omaha?” says the tall one. “You can borrow one here. I’m sure no one will mind.”

  They both approach him helpfully. They filter through a rack of red coats against the wall. “Jardin’s not here,” the tall one says, holding out one to size him up. “But you could probably use any that’s your size.” They are friendly. He doesn’t want to touch them; he wants to run, but nods politely and takes Jardin’s coat. It is a bit large; Jacob is a small-framed guy. “This is great. Thanks.” His shoulders are swallowed in
the coat.

  “Hmmm. Try this one. It was Eamer’s.” The short one gives him another coat and he slips it on. It fits. They both smile. “He’s gone now. It’s good to get some use out of it.” The shorter man brushes the coat down.

  “Thank you.” Jacob feels the need to explain himself. “I left mine.”

  The short one smiles. “Well, I hope you enjoy your visit.”

  Jacob wants to leave. He thinks he can smell death on them. But they are smiling; they seem sincere.

  A door opens behind him at the far end of the morgue. An older man walks in, already taking off his coat. “We need to wake up the others,” he says. “Dr. Esterhazy’s found a new donor. Impeccable blood, no impurity.”

  “No BBD?” the tall one asks.

  “No anything. Pure. Almost unheard of.”

  Jacob feels a lump in his throat. They have to be talking about Harlin.

  And donors can’t be dead.

  The shorter one turns to him. “Good day to visit, eh?” The two are beaming with pride as if they are offering Harlin as a miracle to be performed in an hour, something to break out the cameras for. Jacob can’t help but grin and his eyes start to water. If Harlin’s still alive, it is a miracle.

  The two turn to the older man as he comes into the locker room. “Dr. Lake from Omaha,” the tall one says.

  Jacob must look ridiculous, about to cry. Scared to death of this man approaching. Of these two men that have come from a room full of dead bodies.

  “Mercy?” the older man asks. He has thick black hair and bushy eyebrows. You can see the veins in his hands, and they look younger than his face.

  “Mercy, yes. It’s been a day,” Jacob says.

  “Mercy Hospital in Omaha,” the older man says.

  “St. Mary’s,” the shorter one replies for Jacob. “He’s up for a visit.”

  “St. Mary’s?” the older man asks, looking as if he’s trying to remember any hospital by that name.

  “A small clinic,” Jacob says, “big name. We aim to grow into it.”

  The doctor smiles, extends his hand. “Philip Gontard.” Jacob shakes it. It’s cold. The doctor seems surprised, holds Jacob’s grip, a curious look on his face that fades as quickly as it appeared. “Enjoy Sanctuary. There’s a lot to see. I’d suggest room seven ten in an hour.” He looks at the other two men, suddenly in a hurry. “We need to wake everyone. Esterhazy wants everyone there.”

  Jacob fades back through the morgue toward the door as the men proceed to wake the others. The older doctor moves to the console next to the silver panels and presses a few buttons. Jacob doesn’t want to see any more bodies come to life.

  Except one.

  And he already feels as if Harlin has risen, somewhere.

  >?

  The seventh floor. If you are infected with Baby Dee, you come here. The walls are white. All the doctors wear redcoats, as does Jacob. They are all specialists in blood identification: hematologists, hematopathologists, phlebotomists. The names of their specialties make him queasy. He hated needles as a child. His parents were like most—they believed in booster shots, flu shots, and in taking their child to the doctor as much as they could. With healthcare being free in the country, there wasn’t a reason not to. But, if he watched a needle approaching his arm, he fainted. “We got a fainter,” the phlebotomists would say, chuckling to each other, as if he was supposed to be okay with people drawing his blood. There was something unnatural about it.

  And yet, every time the government issued a health risk warning, his parents got “in line to get in line with the law,” as his father would say.

  Jacob followed rules, for the most part. But the blood, the needles, the alcohol smell—it still bothered him. Harlin, in some ways, gave him an excuse to run from the whole thing. As if they were playing a game with the medical establishment. “Let’s see if they can catch us,” Harlin said.

  There was a time without Redcoats. Before Baby Dee. Hospitals were scarier then. There was a sense of the unknown, of the unpredictable. Then, after Baby Dee, the WHO appointed all these specialists to treat BBD before it could become a global crisis. Smart-thinking, dedicated Redcoats were credited with averting disaster. “In the war for your life, Redcoats are the front line,” went the commercials. Jacob watched tv specials on their procedures—it looked like a common transfusion to him. But the transfusions—the frequency of them—were “the reason the world stays safe” the nations’ Presidents assured their citizens. The Redcoats found new treatments for several more blood diseases, and cured Leukemia. But BBD was a constant threat that the doctors could only contain. These doctors worked as a team, cooperating with hospitals all over the world. They earned the respect of the world, and most people revered them.

  Jacob was indifferent. He just wanted to avoid doctors and hospitals. But Harlin was skeptical—and adamant. “It’s a show,” he said. “Where’d all these specialists come from? Phlebotomists were the low man on the totem pole. Why’d they all of a sudden rise up the ladder? The medical profession is fulla secrets, Jake.”

  Well, now Harlin knows some of them. And so does Jacob.

  >?

  On the seventh floor, he sweats nearly through his red coat. He pictures every other doctor he meets lying under the muslin cloth on a shiny silver table. Dead. Or asleep. Who are they? What are they?

  He feels like a guided missile going through the hallway, reading the numbers on doors, smiling at people. He’s gone past confidence and has moved into determination. Harlin is alive. Or at least, he will be for the next hour.

  Jacob encounters more and more Redcoats. The hallways are flooded with them, plus a few white coats, floating in among the nurses and general staff. They look vibrant in the over-whitened space. He can’t take his eyes off them. They even look back at him as he passes.

  “Dr. Lake?” says a voice to his right. It’s the older doctor, Dr. Gontard, who now walks beside Jacob, matching his pace. “Could you assist me here?”

  The man’s heavy eyebrows overshadow the slits his eyes have become. The grin on his face isn’t pleasant. He grips Jacob’s arm, and Jacob feels small pinpricks as Dr. Gontard pulls him into a dark room with a central set of lights illuminating a patient on an angled platform. The patient, a man who appears to be his late twenties, looks unconscious; the light creates a rapturous expression on his upturned face.

  “Dr. Lake.” He says the name as if he’s savouring it, amused by it. “I need to conduct a transfusion and we need a hand.” He indicates another doctor in the shadows wearing a red coat, operating a tower of blinking lights and some cords, none of which are connected to the patient.

  Dr. Gontard walks over to the patient and climbs up onto his body until he is straddling the man. “This man has BBD. If we don’t transfuse him, he’ll eventually succumb to the neurological side effects: tremors, loss of muscle tissue, the general wasting away of a healthy individual. As you undoubtedly know,” he turns and looks at Jacob, continuing wryly, “transfusion is all that works right now, and this will eliminate 99 percent of the disease. We’ve never been able to totally cure an individual. All we can do is keep them as healthy as possible, despite the ongoing infection.”

  The man on the board isn’t strapped down except at the waist, to prevent him from sliding.

  Dr. Gontard places his hands beside the man’s neck, far enough away for Jacob to notice as the nails on both middle fingers elongate into needles, the tips sharpening into fine points.

  “This patient will eventually die of BBD if we don’t do something, but hospitals can’t handle the number of complete body blood transfusions, which is why they have relied on us for the past twenty years.”

  He inserts both needles into the man’s neck and cups the chin in his palms. His fingers puncture first the skin then the veins. He leans his own head back and sighs. “If only we could keep all the bloo
d for ourselves instead of just the nutrients. But I suppose our job is to purify as much as we can, and then return it.”

  Jacob steps back. The other doctor, the one by the blinking tower monitoring the situation, is behind him.

  “What does this have to do with me?” Jacob asks. He has to stop himself from backing farther away. Dr. Gontard’s fingers are fat sausages, red and flush with blood as the patient’s blood transfers through the doctor’s body. What are these people? He gulps. “I know all this,” he says.

  “Do you?”

  Jacob reaches into himself to extract as much confidence as he can. “I’ve performed these transfusions for fifteen years.”

  “Have you?” says Dr. Gontard. His head turns so that he is peering over his shoulder, eyes completely blocked by his oppressive eyebrows.

  “Well, I think you have this completely under control. As a guest, I do appreciate you showing me your technique; however, you didn’t need my assistance. I’m not sure your positioning is best for accomplishing a transfusion. In Omaha, we do our transfusions from the side of the patient so as not to restrict blood flow. Thank you for your time, Dr. Gontard. Perhaps we’ll . . . we’ll meet again.”

  Jacob turns to go, and looks directly at the Redcoat standing between him and the door. The man hesitates but eventually steps aside, and Jacob leaves the room.

  In the hall again, he feels sick. Faint. The hallways are filled with Redcoats. He wants a bathroom more than anything else. But instead, he scans the numbers above the doors, counting backwards. He weaves in among the medical personnel, hoping he won’t fall. If they’ve hurt Harlin already, Jacob doesn’t know what he’ll do. What he can do to people like this. If they even are people.

  He feels a rush of relief as he spots room 710 and pushes through the door.

  The room is small, empty of people. There’s a little desk that glows from the LCD imbedded in its surface, blinking lights and a tower, and rolling silver tray tables set against the wall. The room is a circle, in the centre of which, beneath a light, is a body on a table.