Worlds Apart

by Marlene Dotterer

  She took in the pinched, anxious faces of the parents, and found she had to reach deep for her professional demeanor. “The danger with diarrhea is dehydration. We're replacing his fluids with the IV, so it's just a matter of getting the parasite out of his system. Your breast milk will supply calories and antibodies that he needs. If he won't nurse, pump some milk, and give it to him with an eyedropper. Its antibodies and natural bacteria will help clean out his gut.”

  She changed the subject. “Neither of you has gotten sick?”

  They shook their heads. “No,” the father said. “We think he picked this up at daycare.”

  Tina couldn't repress the chill those words gave her. This would spread like wildfire.

  In the triage room, the television was once again playing the public service announcement she and Will had recorded with Mayor Ortega: use bottled water or boil your water before using, even for brushing teeth and for washing hands. Do not eat from your gardens. If symptoms begin, keep hydrated. Don't congregate.

  The last part was hard, with so many funerals to attend.

  Back in the waiting room, Sharon pointed her toward another child lying in her father's arms. “Put her in with the Carmichael baby, Doc. We're out of rooms.”

  ~~

  “That parasite you sent us is something new.” The voice on the speakerphone belonged to Dr. Grayson of the CDC, his call coming well before the sun put in an appearance the next morning. Tina continued to update charts as he talked, her desk lost beneath piles of notes, printouts, two of her stethoscopes, a new batch of thermometers, and somewhere—her cup of coffee. She should have been at the clinic ten minutes ago.

  “Green Roads is officially quarantined,” Dr. Grayson continued. “I've already talked to your mayor. She's getting that started. I'm sending a team out to you, headed by Dr. Karen Beauchamp. Her team will be investigating your soil and water, but you'll be happy to know I'm also sending a team of medical personnel to help with patient care. They should all be arriving by this evening.”

  Tina stopped typing and turned her burning eyes toward the speaker. “Thank you, Doctor. That's the best news I've heard in a week.”

  “You still healthy?” he asked.

  “I'm fine. Now that people have stopped eating the local food, and are treating their water, I expect new cases to drop off. It might take a few more days to make a difference, though. The incubation period seems to be about a week.”

  “Any more deaths in the last twelve hours?”

  “One.” Tina closed her eyes, seeing Will's haunted eyes as he told her of the latest patient to succumb—a three-year-old girl. She knew he was afraid for his own young son. So was she.

  “It'll slow down.” Dr. Grayson sounded professionally reassuring, and Tina smiled at the speaker.

  “I know,” she said. “Thank you, Dr. Grayson. Is there anything else?”

  “No, I'll leave you to it. Keep me in the loop until my teams get there.”

  “Will do.” She tapped the off button, took a deep breath, and began a search for her coffee.

  Chapter 12

  Damien slipped into town around noon a few days later, going in the back way and avoiding the road. Since he’d already explored the town while in wolf form, he didn’t have to waste time looking around now. Strolling past the houses that butted up against the mountain, he came out onto Main Street, and turned left toward the wood building on the corner.

  His entry into the pub did not go unnoticed. All movement and conversation came to a halt as everyone stopped to stare at him. He paused just inside the door, noting there were twelve people in the room, and that their interest in him was not due to hostility.

  They were astonished.

  Damien took quick stock of his form, afraid for a moment they could see the wolf inside him. But that was laughable, and he shook off his concern, instead glancing around with a raised eyebrow.

  He did not fail to notice that the pregnant woman was sitting at the bar. Perfect. He’d hoped she would be here. He proffered a lazy smile to the crowd as he walked to the counter. They continued to watch him and he let his confusion show as he spoke to the bartender. “Is something wrong?”

  The bartender glanced toward the woman. “Is this fellow one of the Atlanta docs?”

  She shook her head, placing her sandwich on the plate in front of her. She picked up her napkin and wiped her hands as she approached Damien. He straightened as he watched her, astonished at the aura that surrounded her. Not her own aura, but from the child she carried. No wonder he had sensed something strange while in wolf form.

  She stopped three feet in front of him, meeting his gaze with a stern authority that did not detract from her beauty. He made no effort to hide his interest as he nodded a greeting.

  “Where did you come from?” she asked. “How did you get into town?”

  He shifted his backpack to call her attention to it. “I came down off the mountain.” He glanced around the room, but brought his gaze back to the woman. “Is there some problem, ma’am?”

  “You mean you just walked in? You didn’t come down the road?” She turned to the bartender as mutters rose behind her. “Shit.”

  The bartender shrugged and the woman turned back to Damien. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Damien. Damien Fontaine. I’ve been hiking around the state for a while, and thought I’d stop in for a shower and some supplies. I hope that’s all right.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not, Mr. Fontaine. But there’s not anything we can do about it.” She gestured around her. “This town is under quarantine. If you’d come up the road, you would have been stopped several miles back. Now that you’re here, you’ll have to stay for a while. I’m Dr. Cassidy. Can you tell me where you’ve been in the last couple of weeks? Have you been ill at all?”

  Her eyes were a deep brown. Pretty too, despite the tiredness he could see in them. Damien bowed his head as he answered. “I’ve just been in the wilderness, ma’am. Couldn’t tell you exactly where, as I usually avoid maps. Haven’t been around any people, though. And I haven’t been sick, either.” He looked her up and down, then smiled as he glanced into her eyes again. “A little lonely, is all.”

  She ignored his flirting and tilted a head toward the bartender. “Eddie can give you a room. I’ll let the CDC know you’re here. Please don’t try to leave town. The good news is the illness is slowing down. We’ve isolated the bug, but haven’t figured out where it came from, so cancel any plans you have for the immediate future, and plan on playing lots of pool or checkers.”

  She indicated the tables as she tossed her napkin on the counter, and turned toward the door, already dismissing Damien.

  The bartender stopped her rush. “Uh, Doc?”

  She paused, eyebrows raised.

  He pointed at her plate. “Finish your sandwich, Doc. The clinic will still be there in five minutes. You can’t run on adrenaline twenty-four seven.”

  Damien watched with interest as Dr. Cassidy sighed dramatically, marched to the counter, and swept the sandwich off the plate. Making sure Eddie noticed, she stuffed a good portion of it into her mouth as she stomped back to the door and grabbed her coat from the rack, heading outside without bothering to put it on. Her act brought a few titters from the crowd, but Eddie seemed satisfied as he turned to Damien.

  “Eighty bucks a night, includes breakfast.”

  Damien loosened his pack, letting it slide to the floor. He pulled out his wallet. “I’ll take one night, but I wasn’t expecting to be stuck here. I don’t have the funds for a long stay.”

  Eddie shrugged. “Talk to the CDC folks. They’ll set you up with FEMA or something.”

  Damien handed him a hundred dollar bill, waiting to see if the bartender would call it a fake. It was fake, but his source had assured him it would pass for the real thing. Indeed, Eddie just held it up to the light then motioned Damien over to a computer at the end of the counter.

  Damien made up an address and phone
number, hoping he wasn’t too far off from normal Flatland practices. Eddie gave no indication he thought anything was strange, but Damien was relieved when Eddie handed him a key and his change.

  He didn’t head for his room right away. “So what’s got you all in this predicament?” he asked. “Do I need to watch for purple splotches or pox or anything?”

  “No.” The bartender stayed serious. “Some kind of food poisoning, they think. Just all the usual, lovely symptoms that go with that. I can guarantee the water and food we're using now are safe, so if you end up with it, it’s ‘cause you’ve already been exposed. Hope like hell you haven’t been. It's a bad one.”

  His final words were punctuated by a deep, tolling bell, reaching them from outside. Damien looked around as all the tavern's customers began to push away from tables or the bar, tossing money down. At his quizzical look, Eddie explained. “Funeral. We've been averaging three a week. This is a small town, mister. That's a lot of deaths.”

  Damien nodded, picking up his pack. He pointed to the stairs. “I'll get out of your way.”

  “Third door on your left,” Eddie said.

  ~~

  Once inside his room, Damien let the pack drop to the floor as he lifted both arms above his head. With a deep breath, he drew in the scents of fear and despair that hovered over the town. His heart rate sped up as power peaked inside him, making him gasp. He couldn't hold back the laughter that welled up, but he made it a quiet laugh, not wanting to give anyone a reason to think he was strange.

  Those pixies had done their job well. He'd make sure they were rewarded when he got back to Kaarmanesh. In the meantime, he was here, with a town full of victims, and a mystery so tantalizing he could taste it.

  Who was Dr. Cassidy? And how had it happened, that she carried a child of Kaarmanesh? Who had fathered her baby? He thought back to the indicted portal and the challenge left by the mysterious werewolf. It couldn't be him or she'd be dead by now.

  The keeper, perhaps? Or was someone else making regular trips from Kaarmanesh?

  Chapter 13

  Tina rolled over and sat up in one swift movement, awakening to stare into the darkness of her bedroom.

  “Shit. I never took the Plan-B pill.”

  She stared at the darkness a few moments longer, then forced herself to lay back down. There was nothing she could do about it now that couldn't be done in—she glanced at the clock—two hours, when the alarm went off at six o'clock.

  Go back to sleep, she instructed herself. God knows, she needed the rest, but her mind refused to settle. Her night with Clive Winslow had happened three weeks ago, but she'd gone from that straight into the epidemic, then the rock slide. She'd not had a moment to herself in all that time. It was no wonder she'd forgotten.

  Three weeks. Her period should have started four days ago. Tina realized she was sitting up again. She sighed and slipped from the covers. Sleep would not come back tonight.

  Ten minutes later, she flipped the light switch at the back entrance to the clinic. Ten minutes after that, she acknowledged what her eyes were showing her.

  A plus sign. She was pregnant.

  God damn. She put the indicator on the counter and laughed. “What an idiot. What a fucking idiot I am.”

  Three thoughts wrestled for prominence in her mind.

  One was her lectures to the teenage girls in town, to always use protection, and don't be afraid to ask for the pills if they did forget. The second was that she'd have to take a few days off to go to Portland and take care of this.

  Then she wondered if she could have the baby.

  Whoa. Where did that come from? I can't have a baby.

  Why not?

  The faces of the town's bereaved mothers floated into her mind, and she felt her heart skip a beat at the same time that her hand flew up to shelter her uterus.

  Why not?

  As the day progressed, Tina realized that the reasons why not were myriad. She knew nothing about Clive Winslow. She flirted with the idea of running her own tests, but discarded it. She could poke any other human on the planet, but she'd never gotten over her squeamishness about sticking herself with a needle. And there were all those CDC people showing up at odd hours and rummaging through her lab.

  Best to do it the ethical way.

  She met Will in his office for their weekly lunch meeting. He was setting out cups of tea, and the odor of toast and butter wafted from the microwave as he removed a plate. Tina leaned against the door and grinned. “You've been cooking.”

  Will kept a little bistro table in his office, and he set the plate there with a flourish. “Grilled Gruyere with Pesto sandwiches and tomato soup.” He pulled a chair out for her and offered her a sympathetic smile. “Marilyn packed it up this morning for our meeting. She thought we both needed to treat ourselves while we hashed out the latest crisis.”

  “She's a sweetheart. This is perfect.” Tina sat and flipped a sandwich onto each of their plates while Will poured the steaming soup from a thermos. Tina inhaled the fragrance. “Marilyn makes the best tomato soup of anyone around here.”

  Will joined her at the table, dunking a corner of his sandwich into the soup and taking a big bite. He closed his eyes as he chewed. “I've been looking forward to this all day.”

  Their rule was no business discussion until they'd finished eating, so Tina kept the subject light until crumbs littered their plates. As Will poured more tea, she held her breath, then jumped in.

  “I'm pregnant.”

  The teapot slipped, but he grabbed it with both hands and set it on the hot plate. Then he leaned back in his chair and regarded her with serious eyes. After a moment, he raised an eyebrow. “Congratulations?”

  She held her cup and chewed on her bottom lip, trying to figure out how to answer that.

  He leaned forward. “How far?” he asked.

  “Three weeks.”

  He nodded and sat back. “I assume you're telling me because you're thinking of having this baby?”

  The tears that stung her eyes surprised her. “I am thinking about it, yes. But the reasons not to have it are good ones. I don't know what to do.”

  “Fair enough. You know where I stand on that issue. But let's see if we can make sense of this. First, does the father know?”

  “He didn't even want a second date.” Tina heard the bitterness in her voice. “No, he doesn't know.”

  Will was silent and Tina didn't dare look at him. Whatever she saw—pity, anger, disgust—she knew it would be mixed with affection and hurt. She couldn't face it. Her fingers tightened on the cup. Will was religious, but he was her friend. He knew all about her, and even if he disapproved of some of her habits, he stayed her friend. She didn't care about his religious judgment of her. But she did value his friendship.

  He cleared his throat. “Has this ever happened before, Tina?”

  She heard the unasked “how many abortions have you had?” under his words. As her doctor, he needed to know that answer. She was relieved to shake her head. “No. It never has.” She sipped the tea and managed to look up at him. He had on his noncommittal doctor's face and she was grateful for the hours spent in medical school perfecting that look.

  “Have you ever thought it through before this?” he asked. “What you would do if you got pregnant? I would have thought your immediate response would be abortion.”

  “Me too,” she said. “Normally, I would have gone right to that and never looked back. But with all that's happened… all the deaths and all the funerals…” She took a shaky breath. “I see how the mothers in this town are suffering. How afraid they are. How determined they are to protect their children. I just realized I needed to do this. For me. For them.”

  She caressed her stomach, staring at her fluttering fingers. A certainty settled over her. “And why not, really? A baby. I can be a mother.”

  “Of course you can.” Will's voice was gruff, and she glanced up at him, surprised at the defiance she saw in his face. “You'll
be a wonderful mother, Tina. We'll all help you, too. You know that.” He hesitated, then touched her hand. “It's not a perfect situation. A baby needs a father, but we play the cards we're dealt. I can't pretend to condone the choices that led to this—either yours or the father's—but we can move on from there. I hope you'll allow Marilyn and me to be an extra set of parents. When you need us.”

  She couldn't hold back the tears and she swiped a sleeve across her face. “Thank you. I would have preferred to have a husband, you know. But I don't, and I believe I really want this baby. It feels right.”

  “Good.” He squeezed her hand and let it go. “So you're feeling all right?”

  “Fine. It's a little soon for symptoms, anyway.”

  “True, but you've been under a lot of stress. Start taking prenatal vitamins right away. We'll need to talk to the CDC folks. I don't want you exposed anymore.”

  She thought about that. “The rate of new cases has slowed. I think we're on the down side of this thing. I'm probably safe.”

  “You're not taking any chances, either.” Will picked up their empty dishes. “Doctor's orders.”

  Chapter 14

  Tina took on the assignment of caring for people not ill with the parasite. This was less than forty percent of the town, and she found herself with time on her hands. As the sun crept over the trees two weeks later, she loaded up her medical kit and set off to see Sebastian Ruth. He was due for a chemo treatment, but with the quarantine, he couldn't go to Portland, and she was worried about him.

  He was chopping wood when she drove up.