Vigil (22 page)

The ICU doors opened with a swishing sound, and a young doctor with her hair in a bun and skin the color of cinnamon came over to where they were sitting. Carter looked up at her, more dread than hope in his eyes.

The doctor must have seen it, too, because she quickly nodded and gave him a small smile. “Now don’t expect too much,” she said, “but your friend is conscious.”

Carter took a second to accept the news.

“That’s very good news—isn’t it?” Beth said. “I mean, if he’s awake now, and talking . . .”

“I didn’t say he was talking yet,” Dr. Baptiste interrupted. “Are you a relation?” she asked Beth, her voice carrying the lilting hint of the Caribbean.

“No, this is my husband,” she said, squeezing Carter’s shoulder. “We’re his friends.”

“The only ones he has, really,” Carter added, “in this country.”

“Then you should really find a way to contact his family, wherever they are; decisions may have to be made, at any time.”

“Decisions?” Beth said.

“About his care and treatment.”

“Can’t you just talk with Joe himself about . . . whatever?” Carter said.

“Your friend, you must understand, is still in a critical state. We can’t count on his remaining lucid long enough to make informed decisions. Right now we’re just concentrating on getting and keeping him stable. Later on, after we’ve had a chance to reassess all the damage—he has third-degree burns over no less than twenty-five percent of his body—we’ll decide how to proceed.”

Third-degree burns? As far as Beth knew, that was as bad as burns got.

“But for now,” Dr. Baptiste said to Carter, “I think it might help him to see a friendly face. Would you like to see him now? You can only stay for a few minutes.”

“Yes. Absolutely,” Carter said, rising from his chair.

Beth started to get up, too, but Dr. Baptiste motioned her to stay seated.

“I’m afraid we can only let in one visitor at a time in this unit.”

“I’ll stay here with the bag,” Beth said to Carter. “Go on.”

Dr. Baptiste led the way, and Carter disappeared behind the glass-paneled doors of the ICU.

The air in there, Carter noticed almost immediately, had a colder, crisper feel to it than the air in the hallway outside. There was a low, constant hum in the air, from all the machinery and equipment running beside the various patients’ beds. At the nurses’ station, a semicircular counter loaded with softly glowing monitors, Dr. Baptiste gave Carter a paper face mask.

“We have to make sure no infections of any kind complicate the situation,” she said, as Carter put the mask on over his nose and mouth. “Also, make sure you don’t come into any physical contact with Mr. Russo. No hugs, no handshakes, nothing.”

Then she turned, and Carter followed her to the other end of the ward. As they approached the last bed, almost entirely concealed by an opaque white curtain, Carter felt his heart race. What was Russo going to look like? Would he be alert enough to recognize Carter? Would Carter himself be able to discern his old friend, under whatever bandages he might be swaddled in? He braced himself.

Dr. Baptiste was standing beside the bed, checking one of the IV lines; there were several, along with a host of other attachments, all connected to monitors and machines ranged around the bed. Russo himself was barely visible. A sheet appeared to be tented a few inches above his body—was that because even cloth would be too painful against his scorched skin?—and only his head poked up above the top of the sheet. He was wearing a sort of paper hat, shaped like a crown, and his face, coated with what was probably some kind of antiseptic unguent, glistened. His eyes were huge and dark, and filled, it looked to Carter, with a frustrated need for expression. The moment Carter came near the bed, the eyes fixed on him.

“Hey, Joe,” Carter said, softly.
Jesus, what happened in that lab?
Carter didn’t know what to say next. He was still reeling from the sight of his friend in this horrible condition, but he didn’t want his reaction to show. He was grateful for the paper face mask.

“I’m sorry,” Carter said, simply. He started to reach for Joe’s hand, which was resting outside the sheet, but Dr. Baptiste quickly reminded him, “No touching, please.”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“And I’m afraid your friend won’t be able to answer you right now.”

Why was that, Carter wondered? He was quite clearly conscious. Then he saw the breathing tube inserted between Joe’s burnt and flaking lips.

“If he’s up to it,” Dr. Baptiste said, “he can try using this.” She handed Carter a white, shiny board and a Magic Marker. “But he’s under such a heavy load of sedation and painkillers, he may not be completely coherent.” She finished checking some things, then said, “Don’t stay more than five minutes,” and left.

As soon as she was gone, Russo made a low grunt and threw a glance at the small board. Carter handed it to him, and Russo raised his other hand—the nails, Carter could see, were just black half-moons—and took the Magic Marker.

As Carter helped hold the board steady, Russo wrote a word, in incongruously cheerful green ink. When he dropped the marker, Carter turned the board and read
Bill?

Bill Mitchell. Carter shook his head. “He didn’t make it.”

Russo’s big eyes blinked once. Then he took the marker and wrote the word
laser
on the board.

What about the laser? “It’s gone, too. The fire destroyed everything.” Including, of course, the fossil. Still, if Carter could avoid going into that just now, he would.

But Russo shook his head gently, and tapped the word again.

The laser? Then Carter got it. “Was the laser on when the fire started?”

Russo nodded.

“Did the laser cause it?”

Again, he nodded.

But Russo would have known better than to try the laser without Carter’s help; Russo had had trouble just making sense of the English used in the instruction manual. Carter wiped the board clean. Was he saying that it was Bill, Bill Mitchell . . . “Was Mitchell the one working with the laser?”

Russo’s eyes closed in assent, then opened again.

“He’d gotten into the lab somehow, on his own?”

Russo gave an almost imperceptible nod, then picked up the marker and scrawled
fossil.

So much for Carter’s hopes of avoiding that issue just now. “Everything in the lab,” Carter repeated, slowly, “was destroyed.”

Russo shook his head no, and his gaze this time held Carter’s steady.

“It wasn’t?” What could he mean? “Did you manage to save something?” Carter knew, thank God, that they’d already taken tiny specimens of the fossil and the rock, specimens that were still safely secured and undergoing tests in another lab, but Russo seemed to be indicating something else. “I’m sorry, Joe, but I’m not following you.” Maybe the sedatives were kicking in again.

Russo picked up the marker—his hand was trembling a little this time—and wrote
alive.

What did that mean? Carter could only assume that Russo was referring to himself. “Yes, you’re alive,” Carter said, smiling, “and one of these days, believe it or not, you’re going to be back doing everything you used to do.” Carter wondered if that was true. “Even scuba diving.”

But the look in Russo’s eyes grew even more troubled. Carter had not gotten it right. Joe tapped the word
fossil
with the end of the marker, then tapped the word
alive.

When Carter didn’t respond, he did it again, harder.

Now there was no mistaking his meaning, however implausible. “You’re trying to tell me that the fossil was alive?”

Wrong again. Russo grunted, and furrowed his brow. The exertion showing on his face, he picked up the marker again and scrawled something between the two other words remaining on the board. When Carter read the completed message, he saw that it now said
fossil
is
alive.

And Carter knew that there was no use trying to communicate anymore that day; Joe had to be feeling the effect of the drugs. And that was probably for the best.

“Okay,” Carter said, “I’ve got it.” He smiled reassuringly and nodded. “The doc told me not to spend more than five minutes today, but I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

Carter put the board and the marker on the nightstand beside the bed. When he looked back at Russo, his friend’s face looked wearier and more tormented than ever. Carter worried that he’d done more harm than good with this visit.

“Don’t worry about the fossil or the lab or anything,” Carter said. “Just try to get some sleep now.”

Carter gave him the most encouraging smile he could and turned away from the bed. Though he hated to admit it, it was a relief, even for a second, not to have to look at him. He went to the door, then glanced back. Russo’s eyes were still fixed on him. He raised a hand in good-bye, but there was no response. And he had the impression that Russo wasn’t even seeing him; he was staring past him—through him—and into something very dark and very deep.

The corpse had been moved. He had watched, from
the shadows, as it was covered and carried out.
What were they going to do with it? Why were they doing this at all?

It was put beneath the flashing lights and taken swiftly away.

So many of them.
He still couldn’t comprehend it.
This world was teeming with life, all around him.

He took a breath, savoring the air.
Tastes and odors he didn’t know, and could not yet recognize. But soon he would. Soon he would know them all. Already he was learning.

At the place he’d been released, he watched from a dark corner. If he had been freed from within that place, then perhaps others were still imprisoned there.

Others like him
.

He had watched as men, more and more of them, came and went. They carried tools and lights and showered the place with water. The smoke eventually diminished. Watching, he learned quickly. And quickly understood what they were doing.

On and on it went, all through the night, and then the sun had come up, and he had retreated again, farther into the darkened doorway. He had pulled the red cloak up around his face. And waited—the blink of an eye, it seemed, he had waited. No more. And then it was dark again.

And, watching, he had seen a man come there, where no one else now went, and then come out again. The man ran from the place—his scent carried fear and sorrow—and because it was now night again, he had been able to follow him easily. Through the streets. The lights. The people.
So many of them
. And to a place not far away.

Where the other one, he now knew, was being kept.

The one who had been told his suffering was a gift.

The one who was still alive.

Were these his enemies,
he wondered
, or his friends?

The air. The air here was rich, redolent. He turned. Behind him, there was a fence with twisted wires, like a cage, and behind the wires another place—a building. With no one in it; he could tell. Made of bricks, red like his coat, with openings covered with wood and glittering, broken . . .
glass
. That was it.

He was learning. He had heard that word, too, used by the men at the place where he had been freed. He not only watched . . . he listened. Language had once been a gift his kind had bestowed. Now, he reflected, it was being returned—and that was just as it should be. It was fitting.

The dawn began to creep across the sky. He turned to the twisted wires and with his long, nearly perfect fingers—only the end of the middle finger on his right hand was missing now—pulled the wires apart. Then he stepped through the hole he’d made, and into earth and water.
Mud
. He mounted the crumbling steps and peered inside, through the rough boards that sealed the windows. Within, he could see emptiness. Shadows. Darkness. Solitude.

All of which drew him.

But even more than that, it was the air inside this abandoned place that pleased him. The air was old, and filled with scents he knew . . . of blood, and tears, and death. Years and years of it.

Nothing, of course, in the great scheme of things. Nothing at all.

But for now, for this strange world in which he had awakened, good enough. This place could serve as his . . .
refuge
. He smiled. That was a good word, a new one, plucked from the very air around him.

There was so much, he reflected, that he wanted, and planned, to take.

Carter had never written a eulogy before, much less
for someone he knew as little as he knew Bill Mitchell. What made it even worse, of course, was the fact that he’d never particularly liked the guy—and now it was his job to extol his virtues and talk, he guessed, about all the bright promise that he showed. Somehow, from the articles in the paper and the circumstances of his death—in the lab that Carter had personally set up—it was assumed, far and wide, that they’d been not only professional associates, but close buddies. And there was no way, now, after the dreadful way in which his life had been cut short, that Carter could very well say anything different.

The last time he’d worn his dark blue suit, it had been to the faculty dinner at which he’d been officially awarded the Kingsley Chair. He’d been nervous enough on that occasion, but at least it hadn’t required him to do anything more than stand up at a dais, graciously accept a plaque, and thank the assorted professors and administrators for bestowing on him this great honor. Now he not only had to make a speech, he had to make sure it honored the memory of a guy who’d gotten himself killed—and at the same time gotten Carter’s best friend maimed beyond recognition—all because he couldn’t keep his hands off equipment he did not know how to operate.

“I’m not sure I’m going to be able to carry this off,” he’d confessed to Beth.