"See for yourself. Aren't you a doctor, too?"
He opened his eyes. His chin touched his breastbone and he saw a red line traced down his chest and stomach. Panic constricted his breath as he raised himself up on his elbows. Where the red line ended, a drop of blood welled up, then curled like a snake into his navel, into a glistening red jewel there.
The doctor's hands pressed him back down to the examining table. "There's nothing to worry about…"
…
nothing to worry about
…
He fought to raise himself, but he couldn't, even after the doctor turned away, the rubber gloves dropping the scalpel with the other instruments.
"This is how we start…"
The doctor laid his hands on Mike's chest, the thumbs an inch to either side of the red line. The narrow face came down closer as the doctor pushed harder, his hands spreading apart. The red line widened.
"Really very simple…"
He grabbed the doctor's wrist, fighting to pull himself up from the table. "No-" He heard his voice cracking, the panic bending the words. "No, you don't understand-you didn't make the incision deep enough-
it won't work
-"
"Just relax…"
…
relax
…
"No-" Tears squeezed from his eyes as he ground his teeth together.
Dreaming, he told himself again. Dreaming, that was all it was.
The flesh parted between the doctor's hands.
He looked and saw the line, a red door now, widening as the doctor gripped and pushed. The breastbone cracked, and his ribs opened like the fan of a dove's wings. The lungs lifted upward, trembling; he gasped and saw them swell in response.
"You see…" The doctor's hand probed inward, delicately parting a nest of yellow connective tissue. "Simple…"
His moan broke out of him, his spine arching, his shoulders driven back against the table.
…
simple
…
Heart welling up in its soft nest. Alive, beating faster as the adrenaline of fear seeped into the tissue.
The doctor's hand cradled it, the fingers sliding beneath. "You see?" A different adrenaline had tinged the doctor's voice. "Do you see
now
?"
"No…" A whimper, a child's misery. He rolled his head back, away from the sight. Squeezing his eyes shut, blocking out everything…
…
everything
…
***
The dream broke. His eyes opened to nothing, to blackness. He heard himself struggling for breath, his heart flapping against his breastbone, as though to escape.
His face chilled under the sweat. A ribbon of moonlight slid through the nearest window. He looked down and saw Lindy's bare arm, the skin silvered, draped across his chest. In a convulsion of disgust, he pushed her arm away. She stirred beside him but didn't wake.
He crawled away from the damp nest of blankets. Drops of sweat smeared under him, the nails of his good hand clawing at the raw planks. When he reached the door, he managed to get through, the boards scraping at his stomach. Outside, he collapsed onto his chest, breathing the cooler night air in through the dust layered on the verandah. After a few minutes, he raised his head, then dragged himself down the steps.
The track of a crippled animal showed in the dirt behind him, as though his own carcass had been pulled across the ground. His mouth filled with salt; he spat it out and saw the thick blot sinking into the gravel. The mark spread out of focus, his head growing lighter. He looked up and saw the ridge of hills, black against the night sky. The animals with the red, watching eyes ran back and forth along the crest. Then the red sparks and the stars behind them blurred and tilted.
He crawled, his hand digging into the ground to pull himself up, the stones splitting his fingertips.
Rocks spilled down an incline. Dimly, he heard them rattling down the slope, until they were swallowed by the weeds. He raised his head, the side of his face crusted with dirt and sweat. The earth fell away before him, as though the hill itself had disappeared.
He turned onto his dead arm, looking back the way he'd come. For a few seconds, his vision cleared and he saw the building in the distance below him, down at the foot of the hills. The moonlight shone through the braced letters at the building's top story. The marks of his climb lay through the broken weeds and scrabbled dirt.
He'd reached the crest of the first low ring of hills. A dry wind, which had rolled across the miles of desert, touched his face.
A small shack was centered in an open space on the other side of the hills-he could see down onto the tar-paper roof. The blue light from the moon and stars etched the details. A stone basin, like the ones in the room inside the building, sat near the shack's door. A metal pipe stuck up from the ground at one end. It had a spigot: water gushed out and splashed into that already filling the basin to its crumbling rim.
He laid his chin on the hill's crest, holding his shallow breath. There was someone down there, in the water.
The old man-Nelder. He had his back turned toward the hill. But Mike saw who it was when the figure tilted back its head and the sharp outlines of the face were touched with the moon's blue light. The old man was naked, squatting down in the water, its dark surface coming up to his ribs, the white bones of his knees sticking up. He looked more like a skeleton with a thin cloak of flesh than before. Mike could see the articulations of his spine and shoulder blades, the stringy tendons of his arms. The skin looked translucent and luminous, as if it had never been exposed to the sun, but hidden in the deep caves of the earth.
Nelder cupped his large-knuckled hands underneath the spigot, leaning his face close. The water splashed and ran down his elongated forearms, trickling from the points of his elbows. On the pale skin, the wetness looked black, glistening with an oily sheen. Light shifted in the ripples around Nelder's stomach, as though the reflection of the stars was submerged inches below the surface.
The old man leaned back from the spigot, lowering himself full-length into the water. His mouth parted, the narrow face suffused with a trancelike pleasure. As Mike watched, unseen behind the hill's crest, Nelder cupped the water in his hands, raised them and drank. The water dribbled down his chin and neck, staining the skin like ink.
The water's smell drifted to Mike. Stronger than before, sulfurous and heavy. Not with things rotting, but from life hidden and curled in upon itself.
Down below, Nelder sat up in the basin. The dark water dripped from his arms as he raised them. His hands curled into claws, the lean muscles tensed. His head tilted back in silent ecstasy.
In the darkness at the edge of the open space, the darker shapes of the animals moved, the red eyes fastened upon the pale, glistening figure. One form separated from the shadows and sidled to the basin; it lapped up water from the rim. Then it raised its head, teeth bared, throat mirroring the angle of the man's a few inches away.
Mike pushed himself down from the hill's crest. Loose pebbles spilled from under him as he slid against the dirt, his one hand scrabbling for a hold to keep from rolling unchecked.
***
The flashlight, the one the kid had left with them, glared against the stone basins and the maze of pipes above them, casting a net of shadows into the room's damp corners. The mold patches soaked up the light, as though they were holes into the night outside.
Mike, still panting from the crawl down the hillside and then along the building's ground-floor corridor, raised himself onto the lip of one of the basins. The room's sulfur smell choked in his lungs.
Balancing his weight against the basin, he reached and tugged at the chain and padlock fastened tight around the spigot. Flakes of rust came away in his hand, but the chain stayed fast. His breath turned to sobbing as his fingers clawed at the links.
He dropped onto the floor, the paralyzed right arm caught beneath his side. The pain and dizziness washed over him.
The flashlight beam caught at something wedged in the angle of the wall and floor. He reached and closed his fingers around it, pulling it scraping across the tile toward him. He rolled onto his back, clutching a yard-long piece of rusted pipe to his chest.
A clang of metal bounced off the walls as he swung the pipe against the spigot. The impact wrenched the pipe from his hand; it skittered spinning across the floor. He crawled after it, shoving it back toward the basin.
Brownish-red flakes fell from the padlock with the next blow. He was panting with exertion, barely able to focus on the target of his swing. The next blow hit the wall beside the spigot, cracking the tile. He swung the pipe again, lurching forward to bring his weight with it.
The lock broke, dangling loose from one rusted link. He dropped the pipe and grabbed hold of the chain. He fell backward with it; after a moment's resistance, the chain rasped across the spigot handle. The metal clattered against the basin's stone side when he let go.
The handle wouldn't turn. "Come
on
-" An animal whine escaped from between his clenched teeth. "You fucking… motherfucker…" He picked up the pipe and laid another blow, the swing sending him sprawling beside the basin. The pipe hit against one spoke of the spigot handle, turning it a quarter inch. A faint noise whispered inside the metal.
Exhausted, he pulled himself back up onto the edge of the basin and grabbed the handle. He tasted blood welling from his lip as he bit down, his arm straining.
He felt the metal turning, the handle rotating another fraction of an inch. Rust scraped against rust; a fine reddish dust drifted down. Then the handle came free, turning halfway around. Frantically, he spun the handle. Nothing came from the spigot.
"Jesus… come on…" He laid the side of his face against the basin's edge. Tears pushed from under his eyelids.
The spigot rattled; the pipe leading to it shook against the wall. Then a black thread slid out, spattering against the stone beneath it.
He raised his head, hearing the wet sound. The thread doubled and blurred, then become one as he focused on it. Then a string, the pipe's rattle turning to a moan; a burst, rust flakes and hard debris exploding from the spigot… and the water gushed out, splashing into the basin.
The water coursed over his hand as he held it in the stream. It was warm, holding the earth's heat. The smell of sulfur-not nauseating now, but alive and intoxicating-built up in his head as he breathed it in, the taste of it strong on his tongue. A dark rivulet ran down his arm, transparent-he could see the paleness of his skin through it, as though it were diluted ink or a rippling grey cellophane. But where it pooled in the basin, already inches deep, the oily black turned opaque. Its surface glistened with the beam of the flashlight bouncing from the tiled ceiling.
It came faster, a frothing torrent from the spigot. The basin was already half full. As he watched, the dark water, lapping against the stone, rose toward the lip.
He lifted himself up, stomach dragging on the damp edge. He rolled shoulder first into the basin, the water surging around him. It broke over the rim and trickled down the side. Exhausted, he collapsed against the basin's sloped end. He turned his head toward his shoulder and saw the water oozing snake-like toward the drain at the center of the floor.
Eyes closed, he let his head fall back, the water touching his chin and the angle of his jaw. His mouth opened, the water seeping in at the corners of his lips. The sulfur taste pooled on his tongue, and he swallowed, feeling the warmth spread through his gullet. The water swirled around him, caressing his ribs and groin, dissolving pain. His limp arms floated upward.
For a moment, he couldn't breathe. He had slipped down far enough in the basin that the water had come to the level of his cheekbones. He coughed, sputtering, and pushed himself upright. His dead arm flopped out of the basin; the drag of the stone edge against the soft flesh of his underarm anchored him, head above the glistening surface. He relaxed again, the water flowing warm over his chest.
The back of his dead hand lay on the floor, the black snake trickling near as it ran to the drain.
His head had flopped back, eyes closed. He didn't see when the fingers of the hand outside the basin twitched, then curled slowly into a fist.
FIFTEEN
In the morning light, Doot worked the front wheel of the motorbike over the railroad tracks. The temperature had fallen enough during the night that wisps of steam floated off the pond at the side of the lane.
He gunned the bike toward the old clinic building. The red 'Vette was still parked out in front, like an enameled jewel set in the dirt. He didn't see any sign of that guy Mike and his girlfriend Lindy. He supposed they were still probably sacked out inside. If the guy hadn't up and croaked yet. It had been looking pretty iffy when he'd left them.
The debate about whether he should've come back out here at all was still going around in his head. It wasn't like the guy was stuck out here anymore; he had the girl and the car now. She could take care of him, whether that meant finally dragging him off to a hospital emergency room, or fetching whatever he needed while he laid up here.
Doot had spent an hour after he'd gotten up, pacing around in the kitchen of his dad's house and drinking instant coffee. Until he'd finally loaded up some stuff-a loaf of bread, a couple cans of Campbell's Soup, and another quart bottle of Pepsi-onto the bike's carrier rack.