Read Crusade (Eden Book 2) Online
Authors: Tony Monchinski
Crusade (Eden Book 2) (30 page)
“Shoot.” Singh held up his hands like he was warding off a blow. “No pun intended.”
“Oh, you’re a funny one. One of the women we met yesterday when we…her name is Lauren.”
“I don’t know her. Like you pointed out, there are close to two thousand people living here. I know a lot of them, maybe most of them. But not her. Why, is she cute?”
Mickey smiled. “Heck, yeah.”
The doctor smiled. “Take care of yourself. Come and see me in two or three days or I will come and see you.” He opened his door. Bear was sitting in one of the chairs in the hall, dwarfing it. “Come on in, please.”
Bear entered silently and Singh shut the door.
“Why don’t you start by stripping down to your underwear?”
The doctor made some notes on a clipboard while he disrobed.
“You probably get a lot of comments about your size,” Singh said when he stood in his drawers.
He shrugged.
“Don’t feel uncomfortable. I did not mean that in a sexual way. What are you, about six-two?”
“Yes.”
“You have a name, aside from Bear?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it?”
“Jimmy.”
“
Jimmy
. Well, Jimmy,” Singh frowned, “you look more like a
Bear
than a Jimmy to me. I guess that’s why they call you Bear.
“These tattoos. You were part of a motorcycle club at some point in your life?”
“Yeah.”
“Which one? Angels? Mongrels? No, I see, Pagans.”
“How’d you know that, doctor?”
“This tattoo.” He indicated the ink on his back. A deity sat on the sun holding a sword. In red, white and blue the word
Pagan’s
was above the god and the initials
MC
beneath. “This is Surtr, fire-giant. I used to read about one-percenters when I was a little boy in Mumbai. I was a big Chuck Zito fan. Was he as bad-ass as was claimed?”
“I wouldn’t know. I never crossed paths with him. But I wouldn’t mess with him.”
“Few would.”
“You know what that tat on my back means, then you know what the tear drop under my eye and the spider web on my elbow mean.”
“You’ve killed men.”
“I’m not proud of that.”
“You carry this much muscle naturally?” He noted how the doctor deftly changed the subject. “Insipid question, yes? Of course you do. You’re a natural meso-endomorph. Were you a bodybuilder?”
“Powerlifter.”
“Well, looks like you could have had a career as a bodybuilder if you’d wanted.”
“I used to be a heavier than I am. Fatter.”
“Lost a lot of weight, have you?”
“Starvation will do that to you.”
“Well, no one starves here,” Singh said. “What do you think about our town?”
“It’s…it’s great.”
“You’re a man of few words, huh?”
Bear shrugged.
“Your friend, Mickey? He’s worried about you. Told me you’ve been getting quite taciturn of late.”
“That’s what you were talking to Mickey about?
Me
? Isn’t that against doctor-patient confidentiality or something?”
“I was talking to Mickey five minutes ago. Five minutes ago you weren’t my patient. Now you are. I won’t talk to Mickey about you any longer. You look fine, by the way, physically. Those scars on your torso, multiple stab wounds?”
“Somebody took me for a pin cushion once.”
“How do you feel?”
“With my hands.”
“Oh, very clever, yes. No, really?”
“Tired.”
“You slept well last night?”
“I slept twelve hours last night. I slept like I haven’t slept in a long time.”
“That’s good. So when you say you feel tired, it’s more a physical or an existential feeling?”
“Both.”
“Let’s discuss the existential aspect then. You can sleep another twelve hours tonight.”
“You an M.D. or a shrink?” he asked in a neutral tone.
“I’m an M.D., but I’m also a human being who cares.”
“That must be nice.”
“Why, don’t you care?”
“I used to, a lot more than I do now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel the same anymore. I don’t feel…I don’t feel like I used to.”
“How so?”
“I can’t really say. I used to feel, I don’t know,
closer
to people.”
“Which people?”
“My club. The people in my church.”
“You’re a religious man?”
“Not much anymore. If at all.”
“You don’t feel close to anyone anymore?”
“The woman, Julie, I guess. The baby.”
“You carried Buddy in here yesterday. I’m told you’d been carrying him for two days.”
“Off and on.” He shrugged.
“Maybe you’re depressed. Maybe you’re just exhausted. When we were downstairs, you knew about the parietal lobe of the brain. You have some background in medicine?”
“I was a home health aide for a long time.”
“A caring profession if there ever was one.” Singh smiled. “What kind of clientele?”
“The elderly. I’ve seen old men and women with parietal lobe strokes, not able to say a thumb is a thumb.”
Singh nodded. “Agnosia.”
“Yeah.”
“That kind of work still interest you?”
“Why? You need another nurse around here?”
“Actually we do. But most of the men and women who work as nurses in this center are also interning with Malden and myself to become doctors.”
“No kidding?”
“We’re teaching them everything we know and they’re teaching us and each other everything they know.”
“What if someone doesn’t want to be a doctor? Only wants to be a nurse.”
“Then they can be a nurse. No one’s forced to be something they don’t want to be. Julie and the baby—you or Mickey or Buddy the father?”
“No.”
“It’s tough,” Singh said. “For Julie. She’s lucky she had you to get her here.”
“I started to wonder if we really were going to get here.”
“I’d like to talk to you about your friend, Buddy.”
“The way you talked to Mickey about me?”
“Yes. The way I talked to Mickey about you. Your friend Buddy has had a major disconnect with reality.”
“He’s psycho, isn’t he?”
“We’re trying to figure that out. He’s schizophrenic, that’s for certain. Those empty medicine bottles he had in his bags? They contained psychoactive medications. Panas said Buddy made a few comments over time, things that made him—
Panas
—think Buddy might have been imprisoned, yes?”
“He told me he was Inside. I don’t know for what.”
“Well, let’s assume your friend was in some kind of prison before the zombie outbreak, yes?”
Bear nodded.
“You know, it wasn’t uncommon for men and women in prison to have mental issues.”
“I’ve been there, doctor. I know.”
“Either they developed their issues in the institution or they were there because of them. Who’s to say? The rates of mental illness, drug addiction, HIV infection, all that was quite high among prison inmates, compared to people outside of prison.
“So it’s not inconceivable that Buddy was, one,” Singh held up an index finger, “imprisoned before the outbreak, and, two,” he held up his middle finger, “is suffering from a severe mental illness. Yes? Now, one thing that the state or federal government would have done for him while he was in prison would have been to medicate him—”
“And then he gets out of prison and no medicine.”
“No medicine,
correct
. So what happens to your friend? Well, once the meds are out of his system, he’s gripped by whatever mental illness the medications were keeping at bay.”
“Damn.”
“Yes.”
“So, what’s he, what’s he experiencing?”
“Right now we’re trying to figure out what medications he needs. It’s a process of trial and error, really.”
“Is he, does he
know
?”
“Here’s some of the things your friend has probably been dealing with. Dr. Malden knows a lot more about this than me, so you should talk to him later. He’s probably experiencing auditory hallucinations—voices in his head.”
“Does he see things?”
“Visual hallucinations are rare, except in cases of brain damage, but Buddy doesn’t seem to—”
“He tried to strangle Mickey.”
“I know. Julie told us. It’s uncommon among schizophrenics to harm other people. They’re much more likely to be self-injurious. Which is what makes Malden and myself think there’s some co-morbidity at play here.”
“Co-morbid with what?”
“You asked me before if Buddy was a psychopath? I think he might be a sociopath.”
“A sociopath.”
“No regard for others. No sense of remorse or guilt. Sociopaths appear to lack what we call conscience. Their activities are completely self-serving. They exhibit a disregard for rules, for social mores and laws. They put themselves and others at risk.”
“But he’s so…nice. Usually, I mean.” He thought of that night he had to pull Buddy off Mickey.
“Yes, well that’s where Malden and I are trying to figure it out. Are his symptoms more typical of a sociopath or a psychopath? A psychopath can mimic behaviors that make them appear normal, but they have no empathy. Some are outright sadistic.”
“No,” Bear said, thinking of the Buddy he knew, the way he treated people, treated him, treated Harris, the way he had come back to Eden for them. “He was…He is genuine. He isn’t fake.”
“Which may be his real personality,” Singh pointed out. “Or it may have been the medication covering up his mental health issues. It’s hard to tell.”
“Man...”
“Yes. I should also point out that delusional thoughts are very common among schizophrenics. Very
involved
, intact beliefs that bare no semblance whatsoever to reality but seem very real to the person having them. Stress can trigger them.”
“Is that why he tried to kill Mickey?”