by Darrell Bain
I began my story. “You said I was hot and you're right, but it's not the law I'm running from, it's Homeland Security. I was drawing blood from an injured patient at the hospital in Lufkin where I worked and got stuck with a needle. The same night, Homeland Security agents or someone masquerading as them, burst into the lab and confiscated all the blood I had drawn, except some I had saved. While they were doing that the patient I drew the blood from escaped. Later on the doctor and nurse who had worked on him were murdered by those same agents, I think. They didn't come after me at first and I had a chance to look at the blood I had saved. The patient was infected with something weird, something I've never seen in all my years in the lab. When I looked at my own blood, it turned out that I'm infected with the same thing."
"And now I guess I am too. Oh, goddamn, what next?” She expressed her feelings as though this were just another catastrophe in a long line of disasters in her life.
"The disease may not be as bad as the rest of it,” I said. “I barely escaped being picked up. As I was leaving Lufkin, I saw a squad of agents breaking into my apartment with guns drawn. I don't know if they would have killed me then or not. Probably not. The doctor and nurse reportedly died in a car accident, and a fire afterward that burned them beyond recognition. Hell, it might not even have been their bodies for all I know, but I suspect they were and the accident was staged. I think they would have taken me away and killed me later, after finding out everyone I had been in close contact with."
I paused, waiting on her reaction. “And you got infected by just a needle stick?"
"Yes."
"How come they didn't grab you right off?"
A very astute question. I smiled grimly. “Because I didn't tell anyone. I figured if I had caught something like AIDS, reporting it wouldn't have helped me anyway. Not right then at least."
"All right, now tell me whether we're going to die or not. From the disease, I mean."
"I haven't got a clue Mona. I feel fine right now; in fact, I feel better than I have in a number of years. But if you got infected from that trace of blood you wiped off my face, and you react like I did, then pretty soon you're going to go into sort of a coma. I couldn't move out of bed for two days, but after that I felt fine. In fact, I still do.
Mona shifted her position on the bed and glanced at her watch. “Who took care of you while you were ill?"
I explained to her how I had not actually felt all that sick, but had simply been in a semi-conscious state and unable to move from my bed.
"Who took care of you? Your wife?"
Whoops! She remembered that I first told her about a wife and she was still suspicious even after my retraction. “I'm divorced,” I assured her. “When she left, she left for good."
"Not to change the subject, but would you mind telling me why?"
I shrugged. “Probably as much for reading at the table as anything else."
Mona forced a smile. “Well, I've been guilty of that myself. So, didn't two days in bed leave sort of a mess, or could you manage that much?"
"No, I couldn't do anything except breathe. I could barely move, but I never felt the urge the whole time I was in bed."
"That's hard to believe,” she said.
"Yeah, I'll grant you that. I can't explain it, but that's how it happened. However, that was just my reaction. You might have different symptoms altogether for all I know-or maybe none at all. You can't generalize from one occurrence."
"Spoken like a scientist. All right, you've scared me, but you've been straight with me so far. How about sticking around just in case I get sicker than you did?"
I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge, but I felt a responsibility for her since I was the one who had infected her. I really didn't know how I could refuse her. However, the feds were still after me.
"How about a compromise?"
"Like what?"
"I'll stay with you, but let's go somewhere else, just in case I was traced to Dallas and then to here."
"Deal. How about Cedar Hill? Do you know where that is?"
"Sure.” Cedar Hill was a small city on 69 South, about fifteen miles below Dallas. I knew the area pretty well because my sister had lived there for a long time before her stroke. She went into a nursing home and died from a second stroke a year later
"I have a little place there,” Mona said. It's not much, but it should be safe."
I hesitated. “I'm not sure that's any better than here. If they've traced me to Dallas, they'll find out we left that bar together and who you are. After that, it will be just a matter of getting your address in Cedar Hill.” I decided not to ask what she had been doing in a dirty bar in Dallas trolling for customers looking for fake ID.
She grinned, and a shadow of the little girl she once was showed through it. “Yes, I'm sure they could find us if the place was under my right name, but it isn't. I used an alias and paid cash for it. So far as that goes, Mona isn't my real name either. It's Molly, but don't use it in public okay?"
"I like Mona better anyhow,” I said, and meant it. Stranger and stranger. I was finding odd depths to Mona I hadn't expected, but I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, I owed her. “Okay let's go, but there's one other thing I want to do on the way out of Dallas."
"What's that?"
"Dispose of my car so thoroughly that it can't be found. It won't take long."
CHAPTER SIX
I took down Mona's address in Cedar Hill in case we got separated, then she followed me as I drove south. I then took an exit from I-35 that led into the heart of Oak Cliff, a city in itself and ninety per cent peopled by blacks and Hispanics. I simply parked the car in a poor, drug ridden neighborhood, left the keys dangling and walked away from it. In a very short time, it would either be stripped down to the frame or taken whole and shipped south to Mexico. Either way, it wasn't likely to be traced. And if Mona were telling the truth, we wouldn't be either, not for a while. For the first time in over a week, I felt relatively safe.
Mona's place was a duplex, not too run down yet, but heading in that direction. I wondered why she had been staying in Dallas when she owned a home here and why she had bought the little place under an alias and how she had come by the money to do so, but all those questions could wait; besides I knew for sure she was at least marginally involved in the forged identity industry. Anyway, by now it was almost dawn and I was ready for a drink and some sleep just as if I were coming off my night shift. I imagined Mona was ready to pack it in too, depending on when she normally retired.
I carried her small amount of luggage inside. I had very little to bring in, just what I normally kept in my car for emergencies, such as a change of clothes, a poncho and windbreaker and so forth. It sure wasn't much. I would have to go shopping before long.
Mona pointed me to a room at the front. “This is the guest bedroom. You'll find an extra comforter if you need it. Bathroom right next to it. You can find things to eat or drink if you like. Right now, I'm sleepy. Anything you need, look in the kitchen. Knock on my bedroom door around ten if I'm not up."
"What if you pass out before then?"
"Oh yeah. Here. Just in case anyone comes calling, this is my name here. She scribbled on a piece of note paper. “I'll leave the bedroom door open. It's back behind the kitchen and laundry room. Check on me once in a while, and I'll try to call out if I start feeling funny.” She waved casually at me and headed off to bed. I looked at the note. Her alias was Betsy Collier.
The kitchen was separated from the den by a bar running halfway across the room. I walked around it and rummaged around in the refrigerator and pantries and shelves until I found some canned juice to go with a shot of vodka from an opened bottle. I took my drink back to the den and looked around, searching for something to read. There was a fair selection; a lot of best sellers, some histories and historical novels, reference books, several stacks of Discover Magazine and Southern Living, along with books in accounting and business law, a whole she
lf of past issues of PC Magazine, an old set of encyclopedias and a shelf of science fiction. There was a state of the art PC in an alcove. I ran my eyes over some of the fiction titles of the genres I liked to read. They were mostly hard science fiction, i.e., that subgenre where the author actually tries to provide the reader with plausible science so far as the story line will allow. The historical fiction and nonfiction were by authors I had mostly read and liked. There were no fantasies or space opera, but there were two stacks of popular science fiction magazines. I had just picked one up, intending to find a short story to read with my drink when I heard her call. I ran to her room.
Her reaction to the infection came much sooner than mine, and was much more severe. She was already in distress, but her last words to me before she became unable to talk were “Whatever you do, don't send me to a hospital.” Her eyes tracked me as I moved, her gaze still sharp even when she couldn't move any other part of her body. I could swear she was using them to plead for me to follow her request. Whatever or whoever she was hiding from it had obviously scared her almost as badly as the Homeland Agents had me. I guess we made a good pair.
Mona suffered chills and fever, first one then the other. Her face became very flushed and the butterfly shaped rash, the stigma of SLE, spread across her nose and cheeks. I couldn't get her awake enough to give her aspirin or Tylenol for the fever. It spiked very high, as near as I could tell by feeling her forehead, but fortunately it never lasted long. When I noticed how much she was sweating and felt the heat from her forehead, I pulled back the bed covers and swabbed her neck and shoulders and arms with some alcohol I found in the master bathroom.
After that first round of fever I left her long enough to get some coffee going; it looked as if I were going to be awake a good long while. That's exactly what happened. By that evening I was reeling, but then she became violently ill and I couldn't take time to rest.
She hadn't the strength to sit up. I had to pull her upper body up on two pillows and turn her on her side so that she could empty her stomach. I brushed her lips with water but didn't dare let her try to drink; she might have strangled. I knew that much from my own experience. As soon as she settled down a bit, I moved the chair in the bedroom over beside her bed and took her hand in mine so I could stay in contact with her when I dozed off, as I inevitably would even with the coffee.
Sometime during the night I came abruptly awake. She was squeezing my hand but the pressure was very weak, more like a touch than anything. I had kept the bedside light on and could see twin tears trickling down her face. Her lips worked, twitching uselessly. I knew she wanted something but couldn't figure out what. Then I saw beads of perspiration pop out on her forehead. I felt it; she was burning hot again. I peeled back the bed covers. I stopped with them down to her waist and looked at her. I think she tried to nod. I peeled the covers completely off her and amazingly, she managed a smile before her eyes closed again. I swabbed her neck and arms and legs again with the last of the alcohol. If her fever spiked again, I would have to use ice water.
I poured myself more coffee from a carafe I had found and filled to keep it fresh and sat back down, knowing that soon she would become chilled again and I would need to cover her. Waiting, an oddity stuck me; her body didn't appear nearly as old as her face. She was carrying very little excess weight and her breasts weren't trying to slide off her chest as they would have in an older woman. Be damned. She was probably only in her thirties; it was just the ravages of the Lupus that was making her face look old. I wondered idly whether the weird disease I had infected her with would affect her skin like it had mine and make her look a few years younger—and feel even younger than that, but very shortly I became unconcerned with that aspect of it; I was wondering if she would survive at all. Whatever it was I had passed on to her, the Lupus was obviously making her reaction to it much worse than mine had been. Or maybe females just reacted differently to it. Hell, I didn't know. I didn't know anything about it other than it hadn't killed me yet and that Homeland Security was being very nasty about trying to contain it.
The next twelve hours were very bad. She went into convulsions several times and I had to hold her down. The fever came back, higher than ever, then violent shivering from chills and followed again with fever. Her muscles twitched in odd motions as if her joints were hurting. Probably they were, but I had nothing to give her for pain that she could swallow and I'm not sure she could have tolerated it if I had because her breathing was already slow and irregular. The ice water I used to bring the fever down increased her respiration rate a bit, but is soon slowed again and then stopped completely.
I think that if the phone had been on my side of the bed and if I had had the time to dial 911, I might have done so a couple of times despite her orders. But I was far too busy pounding on her chest and trying to clear her airway to even think of it. She had periods of retching after I got her heart to beating again. She became very pale, then almost blue as her heart stopped for the second time. When I finally got her going yet again, she took in a great breath of air, let it out and finally began to breathe almost normally. That was enough for me though. I went around the bed and reached for the phone. Something stopped me from picking it up, an impulse of some sort. Or perhaps I heard a very thin cry, like that of a newborn kitten, but I'm not sure of even that. What really stopped me was that when I looked down at her, I saw the barest of smiles play across her moist face, like the faint shadow of a thin cloud passing across a meadow. I decided to wait. While I was waiting, I fell asleep.
It was her voice that woke me, weak but definite.
"Mike? Mike, wake up please. I need help."
I started and jerked my body upright.
"Mike?"
I looked down at her. Her nightgown was soaked for about the tenth time. It stuck to her like a transparent film, leaving nothing to the imagination. She raised her head slightly and I came to my senses. I reached an arm under her neck and shoulders and helped her sit up. She tried to speak again. Her voice came out in a croak this time. She licked her lips and it finally got through to me. She was thirsty.
I poured water for her and held it while she drank.
"Enough. Let me lay back down."
I eased her head back down onto the pillows. She closed her eyes and drifted off.
I wanted to change her nightgown and the bed clothes but she was too far gone, not so ill now but more like I had been, simply unable to move. I watched her for a while then went out to make more coffee, leaving the bedroom door wide open. I got the coffee going quickly and came back to the bedroom while it was brewing. Afterward, I sat beside her, dozing off then waking up and checking her pulse and respiration before sipping more coffee and dozing off again. Twelve hours later she came out of it completely, sooner than I had, but she had experienced a much rougher time of it than me.
I was awake when her eyes blinked open. She smiled widely while reaching for my hand. She squeezed it hard and said “Wow, watch out for that first step; it's a booger!"
I grinned back at her, vastly relieved. “How are you feeling?"
She didn't answer for a moment, obviously taking stock of herself. “Be damned. I feel pretty good actually. Did my heart really stop or was that a dream?"
"It stopped twice,” I told her.
"Lord. I'm glad you stayed with me. Thank you."
"No thanks necessary. I'm the one that got you in this fix to begin with. I'm just glad you pulled through."
She laughed. “So am I.” She sat up without effort and swung her feet over the bed. “Right now, I'm going to get a shower. If you don't mind, wait here until I'm finished, just to be sure."
"I will.” I figured that she wouldn't have any more problems if my experience was a guide. Once I came out of the illness, I felt fine. No long recovery period necessary. Nevertheless, I waited.
She walked to her closet and grabbed some clothing and disappeared into the bathroom, leaving the door partially open. Presently I heard t
he shower going. With nothing else to do but wait, I stripped the bed of the wet sheets and covers and made a pile of them at the end of the bed, dry parts down. I felt the mattress cover and of course it was wet too. I pulled it off as well. Surprisingly, there was some plastic sheeting beneath it on the side she must customarily sleep on so the mattress was dry. Probably something to do with Lupus, I thought, but I wasn't up on all the symptoms and as I remembered, they could vary tremendously anyway.
I knew where the utility room was but I couldn't leave to start washing the bedclothes, just in case she wasn't as fully recovered as she thought.
She was though. Shortly, she reappeared with a big towel wrapped around her. She started toward her closet then saw the heap of wet bed clothes.
She smiled, making her look very young now that all the makeup was gone-and there was no sign of the butterfly pattern. “Thanks. I should have done that first, but other matters were a bit more urgent. You can go ahead and get cleaned up now if you like. I'll be fine."
She didn't have to tell me twice. I took my spare set of clothes into the other bathroom and showered and washed my hair, using a little bottle of hotel room shampoo she had left for guests. The shower made me feel better but what I really needed was something to eat and some sleep. My eyes were trying to close and my stomach was rumbling.
Mona may as well have been reading my mind because when I got out of the bathroom, clean and dressed in fresh clothes, she had bacon, toast and scrambled eggs waiting. I barely remember eating, but I believe I thanked her before I collapsed on the bed in the guest room, stopping only long enough to remove my boots. That was the last thing I remembered for a while.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When I woke up, I had no idea whether it was daylight or dark, and I had lost all track of time. I didn't even know what day of the week it was. I remembered Mona's illness vividly, though. I switched on the bedside lamp, dimly visible in the faint glow of a night light. I sat up and pulled on my boots and went out to face the day-or night, whichever it was.
