“No ma’am—”
“Is this about the insurance?” Olive was clearly up for running interference for her sister.
“I’m here to offer some financial help, actually,” the man said with a smile.
Olive’s mouth bloomed into a reciprocating smile that suggested Mr. Three-piece-suit was just about the most welcome person in her world right now. I knew that look and felt vaguely sorry for this guy. Olive and her people had heard them all: promises of assistance, grants, loans, opportunities, future windfalls . . . promises that had evaporated, twisted into something else entirely, or had come with hidden daggers, snares, and pitfalls. Seeing the teeth in Olive’s smile reminded me that there are still tribes in the world who regard the act of smiling as a sign of aggression.
“I’m John Jones,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m with BioWeb.”
My third BioWeb employee within the hour. I wondered what Mama Samm would say. She did not strike me as a rabid adherent of coincidence. Maybe John Jones wasn’t his real name. Maybe he was one of the Red Lectroids ("It’s not my planet, monkey-boy!") or maybe he was J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter. Maybe his middle name was Paul and he had not yet begun to fight. . . .
Maybe it was time to go home and lie down.
“You want to help with Jamal’s hospital bill?” Olive asked, taking Jones’ hand. It was suddenly obvious that she wasn’t letting go until he answered the question to her satisfaction.
“Actually, yes. In fact, we’d like to cover all his expenses.” His smile stayed in place and he didn’t seem at all discomfited that Olive still held his hand in her grasp.
“Why?” Depend on Olive to cut to the chase. “You run some kind of charity program?”
“No ma’am. This is business. But good business for everyone, I think. May I sit?”
Olive nodded and released his hand. Jones sat and tucked his tie back down into his puckered vest.
“My company does medical research. We’re in the business of developing medical techniques and finding cures to improve the human condition.” He produced a couple of brochures from his briefcase and handed them to Olive and Claire. “This new strain of influenza that’s going around—well, we’re interested in finding a vaccine for it.”
“You want Jamal for a guinea pig,” Olive said bluntly.
“That’s not the way I would put it.”
“But I would,” Olive continued pleasantly, smile still in place. “So, let’s get down to it, Mr. Jones. You want to try some new experimental drug on my nephew?”
“No. No, nothing like that.” Jones had a smooth delivery, I’ll give him that: a little off-balance but barely rattled. “Before we can develop any kind of a vaccine, we need to understand the development of this particular strain. We want to be intimately involved in the case histories of as many people who have this flu as possible. The hospitals are only geared up to give their patients a relative degree of attention based on the severity of their individual conditions and just enough to make them well. We promise a level of involvement that will include around-the-clock monitoring and testing. Your nephew, ma’am—” he turned and nodded to Claire, “—your son, will have the best medical care available.”
“Tell us more about this medical care,” I said. “Specifics, I mean.” I’d been listening closely but now I specifically focused on subvocal stressors, clues that he might be lying on any specific points.
As Jones explained it, the deal that BioWeb proposed was that they would have twenty-four-hour access to Jamal for observation and permission to take the full spectrum of samples—blood, urine, stool, even breath—on a regular basis. In addition, non-invasive scans and tests would be administered regularly. BioWeb personnel would administer no unusual treatments or drugs without mutual agreement between the family and the hospital. That was the clincher: Jamal would remain a patient of the hospital and under their medical care. BioWeb would pick up the full tab for the privilege of testing and monitoring access.
The deal seemed foolproof. Jamal would receive hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional medical care and it wouldn’t cost the family a dime. Olive looked over at me and I nodded once, my assurance coming from my inability to pick up any false tones in Jones’ pitch. But, as Claire signed the paperwork and I headed back to my car, I felt troubled by the old proverb: “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
* * *
As I headed for the outer doors I passed by the emergency entrance and a wave of dizziness hit me. Seconds later I recognized the scent that triggered it: I turned and watched as paramedics rushed a stretcher on wheels toward one of the trauma rooms. An arm flopped loose from the restraining straps and a dribble of dark blood suddenly became a bright red arterial spray, spattering a column and linoleum tiles with a gory spoor. The wave became a tsunami, pulling me under into a hot, dark tunnel. I turned and ran blindly for the doors.
The sun caught me unprepared.
It was like running into a white-hot furnace. My skin felt as though it was starting to sizzle as I groped for my sunglasses. I was blinded by the light (revved up like a deuce) and my car was out of sight.
As I fumbled my shades into place I had the distinct impression that my hair was beginning to smolder. I yanked my hat down to my ears, the straw crackling as it gave way. At least I hoped it was the straw doing the crackling.
It took another minute for my eyes to adjust to the excessive amount of solar radiation, only partially blocked by my heavily opaqued and polarized lenses. I oriented on my car and set off at a run as the first blister appeared on the back of my hand. I jammed my hands in my pockets and all but danced at the crosswalk as I waited for the traffic signal to change. As I reached my car I knew I was going to have a bad time of it.
It wasn’t just the sunlight.
Think of the worst sunburn you’ve ever had and remember the sleepless night that followed. Multiply by ten. Bad enough. Not awful but more than a little unpleasant. And it wouldn’t be the first time: while there were some tasks that just could not be delegated or postponed until after sundown, I rebelled against my nocturnal condition by signing on for more than my necessary share of daytime excursions. Like today.
But it wasn’t just the sunlight.
The scent of human blood filled my olfactory epithelium, trickled across the gustatory cells at the back of my throat, and sent bright, hot golden threads of chemosensory hormones surging toward the limbic region of my chemically altered brain.
The Hunger was returning.
* * *
It was a good night to stay home.
An even better night to lock myself in and take a series of cold baths and showers until burning, buzzing, itching, crawling sensations receded.
Unfortunately I had a class to teach and, with a schedule of eight nights a month, a missed lecture was the equivalent of a week’s worth of day classes.
I lay beneath the icy waters of a full-drawn bathtub, holding my breath for ten minutes, and then climbed out like a hairless, blue-skinned polar bear. A pot of water had come to a slow boil on the stove and I padded to the refrigerator, leaving pawlike puddles of water in my wake.
No pig’s blood or mixed beef stock tonight. The Hunger had been triggered and those occasional stopgaps weren’t sufficient now—especially after taking solar damage. Maybe with extensive rest and meditation . . .
But tonight I had obligations: I reached into the crisper bin and retrieved two plastic pouches labeled “Bayou Blood Bank.”
I glanced at the clock: even with the water already a’boil, the microwave would be faster. But there are some things that microwaving ruins. After a half-dozen experiments I’d come to the conclusion that hemoglobin sat at the top of the list. I dropped the pouches into the roiling water and hurried upstairs to dress.
* * *
Once a teacher, always a teacher.
And the opportunity to teach again had seemed too good to pass up. As an adjunct professor at
the university I would not be required to teach in the daytime and the paper trail was less complicated.
On the other hand, there was the matter of the dead body in my classroom.
The amphitheater in Stubbs Hall is one of those inverted ziggurats that’s supposed to serve as a classroom and lecture hall. In reality it’s a chair-lined concrete pit whose ambience seems more appropriate to cockfights and bear-baiting than Intro to American Lit 101. Mr. DOA slumped in the middle seat on the third row so he sat right at eye-level where I couldn’t miss him.
I looked around as I opened the class roster but none of my students had yet noticed the corpse in their midst. That was hardly surprising given their attention to detail in last week’s pop quiz. And, to be fair, I’d probably had a good deal more experience with the “deceased but not quite departed” than the rest of them combined. The question was: what should I do?
I took roll.
And started the evening’s lecture on “Themes on Death in American Literature.” I almost smiled as I realized how ironic and apropos my preplanned lesson was, considering this new addition to my class. I wondered if he was auditing the course.
There are rules for dealing with the dead and I figured my best bet was to try rule number two, first: “Ignore them and maybe they’ll go away.”
Of course, rule number one ("Dead is dead") is such a joke that the rest of the rules are just as suspect.
“Maurice Blanchot writes that death is ‘man’s greatest hope’,” I began, “for it ‘raises existence to being’ and ‘is within each one of us as our most human quality’.” I paused to let the idea sink in and see if anyone might question why I would quote Blanchot in a course on American lit. Not that any of them would know the slightest difference between Maurice Blanchot and Maurice Chevalier. They were probably thinking of Maurice the ex-astronaut on reruns of Northern Exposure.
“Literature, on the other hand,” I continued, “ ‘manifests existence without being, existence which remains below existence, like an inexorable affirmation, without beginning or end—death as the impossibility of dying’.”
My gaze swept the lecture hall. They stared back at me, emulating rows of sightless corpses. The only eyes evoking any signs of thought processes were those of the dead guy.
“What does Blanchot mean by that?”
Thunderous silence met my inquiry.
“Anyone?”
No one moved: No one wanted to do anything that might draw attention to him- or herself.
“Bueller?” I called.
Nobody smiled.
I hunched my shoulders, settling down into the lectern as if anticipating a long wait. “Let’s hold that thought. We’ll return to it after we’ve discussed ‘A Rose For Emily’.” I looked around the room: nearly fifty faces deeply buried in their books. It was probably the first time they’d opened their texts this week.
“This was William Faulkner’s first short story to be published in a national magazine. Other than that, what makes this story memorable?”
I fancied I heard a cricket in the storeroom at the top and back of the lecture hall.
“What is Faulkner really writing about?”
I heard a creaking sound. Swear-to-God, the dead guy’s jaw actually creaked! “Death . . .” he intoned.
“Well, duh . . . !” someone murmured. I heard muted giggling.
“Well, obviously,” I agreed. “At least for those of you who actually read the story.” I sighed and mentally threw in the towel. “Okay, take out a sheet of paper: we’re going to have a pop quiz. A pop-essay-quiz!”
I endured the groans all around and despaired for this generation. By the time I had reached their age I had learned to volunteer answers for the professors’ early questions: it took you off the firing line with a presumption of intelligence once the questions got harder. And it usually provided proof against the number-one weapon in the professors’ arsenal of vengeance. This sorry lot would probably need another week before they figured out that a lack of response was always a prelude to another unscheduled, and potentially grade-point lowering, pop quiz.
I preferred the intellectual brutality of the essay test. Oral exams were for dentists and grad students surrounded by doctorates conducting their exit interviews. Other “written” formats, like multiple-guess or connect-the-dots, did little to rehabilitate the average “luck-is-my-copilot” slacker. If Pavlovian conditioning was going to work in a reasonable amount of time, I had to terrorize them into classroom participation. Oral avoidance, if you will: speak up and we won’t get around to today’s written essay. Maybe I could have them actually reading their assignments and involved in verbal participation by mid-semester.
In the meantime I told them to write a brief synopsis of the plot and then defined “synopsis” for those who looked hesitant. Then I asked for a succinct essay on what they thought the story was really about.
I thought about defining the word “succinct” as well but decided it was too demeaning.
To me.
The dead guy wasn’t writing. And, despite his condition, he was the only one who wasn’t buried in the text. He just sat there, staring at me. To say he stared strangely was a given under the circumstances. But I saw something in his death-slackened face, his clouded eyes, that indicated a strangeness of attitude. The majority of the dead I had dealt with so far had evinced attitudes of arrogance or rage or cold-blooded ruthlessness. Of course, the majority of the dead I had encountered hitherto now were vampires.
Student X appeared to be cut from another bolt of grave cloth: like Mr. Delacroix, this was one of the walking dead. Or sitting, anyways. And, like Mr. Delacroix, there was an attitude of respect in those cloudy, staring eyes. And that was the most unnerving aspect of this encounter.
So far.
* * *
I dismissed the class early: it was like—if you’ll pardon the expression—beating a dead horse. I sent them home (or to the bars, most likely) with additional reading assignments—Robert Frost’s “Home Burial,” selected poems by Emily Dickinson, and excerpts from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass—and the clearly articulated threat that there would be more essay tests and pop quizzes if they came to class unprepared to discuss the material. I had nearly forgotten how much similarity there was between freshman entry-level courses and boot camp. The temptation to yell: “Awright, you maggots; drop and read me twenty!” was overwhelming.
I skimmed the first couple of essays as the last of my students shuffled out the door. From the look of things I wouldn’t be spending hours grading this stack. When you haven’t read the assignment you basically have two options. And while this class had suddenly acquired a dead guy, I didn’t expect to find any psychics.
“Dr. Haim?”
I looked up. For a moment I thought the dead guy had brought a date. Then I realized she was one of my regular students. Third row, seat twelve: Theresa . . . something. Kellerman.
“Yes, Theresa?”
“Call me Terry.”
“All right, Terry. What can I do for you?” Most of my students had departed now and, as soon as the rest were gone, I intended to have a serious sit-down with my terminal transfer student. I glanced up at his chair and was startled to see that he was gone, as well.
“I was wondering—”
“Excuse me a minute,” I said.
There were only two ways out of the lecture hall: the main entrance just twenty feet to my right and the emergency exit at the top and back of the hall to the far left. I felt sure he hadn’t passed by me on the way out. But the alarm should have gone off if the fire door had opened. I ran up the stepped aisle and examined the crash-bar on the door: wiring had been ripped out of the latching mechanism. I pushed it open and stepped out onto the fire escape.
All together maybe twenty students were in view, some headed for the library, others headed for their cars in the parking lot. I refocused into the infrared spectrum and quickly counted eighteen heat signatures. Dropping back into
the normal visual parameters I did another tally: twenty-one. Three cold humans climbing into a—I started to laugh and nearly choked: a hearse!
Hello, Officer; I’d like to report some corpses—they’ve stolen a hearse and are out joy riding.
Sure, son, sure; ‘tis a grave violation of the local curfew and we’ll get right on it. . . .
I watched them pull out of the lot and drive leisurely down the street before I turned back to the fire door.
I see dead people. . . .
Where’s Haley Joel Osment when you need him?
* * *
Theresa was waiting for me by the lectern when I returned.
She wasn’t alone. The guy with her looked like a vampire wannabe. Come to think of it, both of them looked like cover models for an L.L. Goth catalog. Both wore long, black hair hanging past their shoulders in semi-permed waves, eye shadow and silver earrings. Both were dressed in black, though Theresa seemed intent on an understated look while darkboy’s ensemble screamed “The Crow rules!”
I was trying to decide who had more piercings when darkboy gave Theresa a shove. She staggered into the podium and rocked it. “Oww! Rod, cut it out!”
“That’s exactly what I’m gonna do, T, if you don’t come along now,” he said with a nasty smirk. “Haul out my shiny long-tooth and cut it right out of you. Won’t that be a tasty little feast?”
“Quit it!” I heard an overlay of anger in her voice but, underneath, a multilayered stratum of fear.
Feeling a subtle rumbling in my upper chest as I walked down the stepped aisle, I said with pleasantness that I did not feel: “Yes, Rod, quit it.”
He looked up at me, startled at my unanticipated presence. His eyebrows came down along with the corners of his lip-glossed mouth. “This is between me and my bitch,” he said in a studied attempt to be menacing. He needed to study more.
My chest rumbled again and, with a start, I realized that I was repressing an actual growl. My impromptu soup-in-a-pouch had taken the Hunger down a notch but this little jerk was pushing my predatory buttons. I had to resolve this quickly and without violence or my control would start to slip.
Dead on my Feet - The Halflife Trilogy Book II Page 10
