Desert Angels (8 page)

Such toothy desires were realized half an hour later, while Jack was treating Sheila for minor cuts in the lab. Sheila, despite the pretensions at prettiness, smelled of vomit and feces; she had not been kidding, Jack reflected sadly, when she said that she had been "upchucking a little."

"Oh, I guess he doesn't like you, doctor. I'm sorry," Sheila twittered sincerely, as Scrubby proceeded to attack Jack's leg.

Jack tried to ignore Scrubby's assaults; but the dog was unrelenting. Blood soaked through Jack's pant leg. He was not happy to notice that Scrubby's aim was getting progressively more accurate; nor was he thrilled to see that Scrubby was becoming less satisfied with striking parts of his anatomy beneath the knee. The dog began jumping, biting Jack's thigh. Scrubby seemed to sense his own prodigious advance. It was not long before Jack's crotch was under fire.

"Stop that, Scrubby," Sheila admonished with no great effort. She had begun to feel dizzy and she had vomited once already. Jack had administered a substantial dose of penicillin – though he was pretty sure that Sheila was only a few weeks away from death and that nothing, even concentrated antibiotics, would save her. He did not know then that Sheila was as tough as nails and would outlive much younger competition.

Scrubby continued to be a problem.

"Poor thing, he hasn't been himself," Sheila said.

"I see," Jack said, trying to be kind.

Five minutes later, Sheila was sedated. Five minutes after that, and three more future Edenites appeared at Jack's front door. Jack met them, with Walter still perched on his shoulder and Scrubby nipping at his heels. Two women, young and badly burned and one man, slim, about twenty years old wandered into the Dome. The two girls were crying. All three of them, Jack would discover, were as sick as Aunt Sheila.

It was appearing to Jack that the Guardian Angel's prophecy was being fulfilled. Company had definitely come a calling!

Scrubby seemed to like the three visitors, because he ignored them and continued his unrelenting attack on Jack's leg. Jack knew he would have to deal with the dog soon; he knew his pecker was the Milk Bone Scrubby was ultimately after. He knew that with time and chance on his side, Scrubby would eventually get the prize. Jack kicked at the dog, missing.

But dealing with Scrubby would have to wait. The two women and the young man needed immediate medical attention. Jack led them into the lab and told them to take off their clothes. They complied, slowly and painfully.

"We're dying, aren't we?" the boy asked, looking at Jack with great brown lazy eyes.

Jack picked up a Geiger counter and pointed it in the direction of the two girls. The needle showed a millisevert reading well above the ceiling of permissibility for human survival. The need rested in a quadrant of blood red on the gauge – a dangerously high level of contamination indicated. Jack then pointed the Geiger at the boy. The needle remained at 100.

"You've all been exposed to a lot of radiation," he said, running the machine over the discarded clothes and frowning. "What you're experiencing are the initial symptoms of radiation poisoning."

"Which means we're dying," the boy said dully, standing in his underwear.

"Which means that you're lucky to be alive," Jack mumbled, feeling the boys swollen glands in his neck and wincing.

Scrubby continued to bite. Jack no longer felt restrained in kicking the dog. He knew that Aunt Sheila - now unconscious - would not protest. Walter flapped on Jack's shoulder, fighting for balance as Jack simultaneously examined his new patients and kicked Scrubby.

"You shouldn't hurt him like that," the boy objected.

"He's hurting
me
!" Jack raised his voice a notch, and kicked at Scrubby again. Scrubby sunk his teeth into Jack's boot and pulled.

"He's just an animal, you know," the boy sounded petulant. "Do you kick your bird when he bites you? Kicking things – be they animals or people – probably got the world where it is now!"

Probably you're right, kid, Jack mused. He wanted to add, but didn't: I wish this fucking dog could see it that way, too.

"Stick out your tongue," Jack snapped. Walter clucked.

Jack continued feeling glands, staring down mouths and examining eyes. When he was sure the boy wasn't looking, he delivered a quick kick to Scrubby. Despite the kick, which Jack had meant to be more frightening than painful, Scrubby persisted.

"What's your name, son?" Jack asked the boy, who was looking at him languidly.

"Brandon. What's yours?"

"Dr. Jack Calisto," Jack said, moving over to the two girls, who had thus far not said a word. They were clearly in shock.

Brandon, Jack learned, was twenty-seven years old and from San Francisco. Three years at Berkeley Medical School had convinced him that he did not want to be a doctor when he grew up; it was too demanding, he explained, and the responsibility was too great. In fact, he had never wanted to
be
a doctor in the first place; but his mother, who had died just recently, had made him promise that he would try. A gifted student, Brandon had indeed tried. But after three years of preparation for "doctorhood" (as he put it) he realized that such a destiny was not in the cards for him. Doctors were leaders, Brandon felt; like generals in a battle, wielding the weapons of knowledge and surgery against the demonic forces of pain and disease.

"I admire doctors, doctor," Brandon said to Jack. "But I could never be one."

Brandon explained that his disposition was simply too gentle; he was not a leader. And unlike Jack, not a warrior. Thus, he would not be a doctor. Yet Brandon knew that he wanted to help people. That much was very clear to him.

"So I decided I would be a nurse. Nurses are important, sometimes more so than doctors. Don't you think?" he asked Jack, who shrugged. Probably Jack thought Brandon was overestimating the value of nurses, though they were, he knew, very important. In a few days, he would know just
how
important nurses were, or at least a nurse like Brandon, who was to be Jack's right hand man in all clinic affairs.

Where medical school would never have the good fortune to benefit from Brandon's talents, a good nursing school surely would. Or so Brandon felt, as of about three weeks ago. Considerable research in the location and quality of nursing schools around the country had convinced Brandon that a place called the Ames Nursing Academy in Prescott, Arizona was the school for him; it was there that he would commence his "life's work," as he put it to Jack. He notified faculties at both institutions (Berkeley of his departure, Ames of his arrival) and packed his bags. He left the Bay Area twenty-four hours before it was blasted off of the map.

Broke, with no transportation or support from his only living parent, a father in Eureka, California (because of a "family difference," Brandon said) the future would-be-doctor-turned-nurse hitched his way down the state and into Nevada. He had met his two traveling companions just outside of Tonapah. That had been two weeks ago – just before things started blowing up.

"What about them?" Jack asked Brandon, as he lifted the chin of the nearest girl. She was no more than sixteen, pretty once and small. Her mouth hung open, like a hot dog's in a summer day; she smelled of vomit and week-old Kool Aid. He had missed it earlier (distracted by the prick-eating canine, he thought) but Jack now could determine that the girl he was examining was blind. The other girl was crying softly and biting her lip.

"That's Mimi," he said, his lower lip trembling. He suddenly hugged himself in pain. And then he began to cry. "She looked at the window when it went off. She –"

He didn't finish. Long, tortured moans of something between agony and horror racked Brandon's body.

Jack let Brandon cry; he knew there was nothing he could say to ease the anguish. He had tried that before with himself. There was no way to make the insanity go away.

"What's your name?" Jack asked the girl on Mimi's right. She was trembling and a single tear rolled down her cheek.

"Denise," she whispered back to him without enthusiasm.

"Is this your sister, Denise?" Jack asked.

Denise looked at Mimi and nodded. "No. Just a friend."

"We met in Tahoe," Brandon began again, sniffing and pawing at his nose, trying to get a handle on coherency. "I guess it could have been worse."

Jack nodded. "Yes."

He gave them all injections, sedatives to let them sleep. The two girls were out in a few minutes; but Brandon wanted to talk. The drug was taking effect, but there was an urgency in his voice; as if to sleep now and lose the sound of his own voice might promise that he would never awake again.

"What happened? Jesus Christ, what happened?" he asked, crying again, his eyes searching Jack's for answers Jack didn't have.

"Nuclear war, Brandon."

Brandon nodded his head. "I never believed – you know, that it would, that they would do this. Not in the 21
^st
Century. Jesus, this is Cold War stuff. Russkies versus us. Makes no sense. Maybe it was one of those limited things, you know?"

Jack went to check Aunt Sheila. "No, it's everywhere. I've tried to reach every major city in the world. Not even a peep."

Brandon stared at the floor. He had stopped crying. Now he began to yawn. "Everyone I know. Dead. Everything I planned, all the things I wanted to do . . ."

And finally, he fell asleep.

Scrubby barked and bit Jack again.

Jack lunged at the mutt and caught it by the scruff of the neck.

"Outside, my friend," he snarled, as Scrubby growled and whined.

After he deposited the indignant Scrubby outdoors, Jack returned to the lab.

He found Brandon sitting up on the table, staring at him.

"Hello, handsome," he said.

And with that, Jack decided that Brandon was ready to be admitted to the ranks of the Special Types.

* * *

Jack went over and checked the syringe which he had used to deposit the sedative into Brandon's body. For an awful moment, he thought he had poisoned the young man. Brandon was smiling and, if Jack wasn't mistaken, flirting with him.

"Brandon's gone, honey. Just me now," Brandon spoke in a very bad falsetto.

Jack searched for Walter; the pigeon was on a favorite ledge, squatting and watching. Jack cleared his throat.

"And who are you?" Jack had to ask.

"Brandon's better half, scrumptious. Call me Garbo."

Oh boy, Jack thought.

"How do you feel, Garbo?"

Brandon/Garbo began to cry. "Horrible. And I'll bet I'm a sight, too!"

Jack just stared.

And then Brandon was back.

"Oh, God, she was here, wasn't she?!"

Schizophrenia, Jack determined immediately. "Yes," he said.

Brandon looked suddenly afraid. "I know, you think I'm crazy. But it's not me;
she
does it to me. I can't get away from her."

"Garbo, you mean," Jack said calmly.

Brandon nodded. "She's a good woman, doctor; but she doesn't behave. Are you going to make me leave?"

Jack saw the terror in Brandon's eyes; in the world before the war, Brandon had probably not lead a very easy life.

"No, I'm not going to make you leave, Brandon. You and Garbo can stay."

For one brief, frightening moment, Jack thought Brandon was going to leap forward and try and kiss him. But he didn't; he just let out an enormous sigh, one a little larger than the one Jack let out.

"You're about to get that education in nursing, friend," Jack said. "Think you're up to it?"

Brandon smiled broadly.

Realizing a dream at last.

* * *

An hour later, Sheila awakened. She discovered that the lab had become more crowded since last she had seen it. Fifteen or so people had discovered Jack and Eden and now lay on the floor or on tables or on cots. Most were badly burned. All suffered from severe radiation poisoning. Two people, an old man and a six year old girl died in the first half hour after they had entered Jack's clinic. There was nothing that Jack could do to save them. They had died before he had even been able to examine them.

When he discovered them dead, Jack had cried.

He felt suddenly helpless (a feeling he would come to know well in the future, yet never get used to). But this tragedy did not slow him down; he pushed himself harder than ever. He worked furiously, moving from body to body, dispensing medicine, blankets, food, whatever was needed. Everyone seemed to be in shock; there was no conversation in the clinic, no quiet rumble of discussion as to who Jack was, or where it was they had arrived, or how it was that Jack had survived the bombs and the radiation. The future Edenites that Jack was treating simply allowed themselves to be taken care of by him, mostly in silence. They had seen too much in the past few days; many could not accept what had happened. Aunt Sheila, Jack guessed, was one of those who had retreated into safer corners of insanity rather than stare into the raging abyss of reality. He couldn't blame her one little bit.

Aunt Sheila was awake now. She watched Jack work. And then she began looking for something else. Scrubby.

Scrubby, however, was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Scrubby?" Sheila asked. "Where's my dog?"

Jack came over and put a blanket over her.

"I don't know," he said, suddenly remembering that he had not seen the dog in several hours. He could hardly say that he was sorry. His leg still throbbed from Scrubby's earlier attack. "He's probably running around outside someplace. I wouldn't worry."

But Aunt Sheila became agitated.

"No, no, he never leaves me. Never! I want my Scrubby!" Aunt Sheila was screaming; her eyes were vacant circles of madness. Jack knew that Aunt Sheila was screaming for much more than Scrubby; she was screaming for what had happened to her world, to her life; probably her family and friends, too, who might very well be dead – or worse. Jack had a sudden impulse to scream with her.

The impulse passed, and he reached for a syringe on a tray Brandon was handing to him, measured the contents, and inserted the needle expertly into Aunt Sheila's arm. Aunt Sheila stiffened for a moment, then drifted to sleep.