Watchers (69 page)

Read Watchers Online

Authors: Dean Koontz

Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction, #Thrillers

BOOK: Watchers
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As they hurried up the stone walk with Einstein, Dr. Keene opened the door before they reached it, as if he had been on the lookout for them. A sign indicated that the entrance to the surgery was around the side of the house, but the vet took them in at the front door. He was a tall, sorrowful-faced man with sallow skin and sad brown eyes, but his smile was warm, and his manner was gracious.
 
 
Closing the door, Dr. Keene said, “Bring him this way, please.”
 
 
He led them swiftly along a hallway with an oak parquet floor protected by a long, narrow oriental carpet. On the left, through an archway, lay a pleasantly furnished living room that actually looked
lived
-in, with footstools in front of the chairs, reading lamps, laden bookshelves, and crocheted afghans folded neatly and conveniently over the backs of some chairs for when the evenings were chilly. A dog stood just inside the archway, a black Labrador. It watched them solemnly, as if it understood the gravity of Einstein’s condition, and it did not follow them.
 
 
At the rear of the large house, on the left side of the hall, the vet took them through a door into a clean white surgery. Lined along the walls were white-enameled and stainless-steel cabinets with glass fronts, which were filled with bottles of drugs, serums, tablets, capsules, and the many powdered ingredients needed to compound more exotic medicines.
 
 
Travis gently lowered Einstein onto an examination table and folded the blanket back from him.
 
 
Nora realized that she and Travis looked every bit as distraught as they would have if they’d been bringing a dying child to a doctor. Travis’s eyes were red, and though he was not actively crying at the moment, he continually blew his nose. The moment she had parked the pickup in front of the house and had pulled on the hand brake, Nora had ceased to be able to repress her own tears. Now she stood on the other side of the examination table from Dr. Keene, with one arm around Travis, and she wept quietly.
 
 
The vet was apparently used to strong emotional reactions from pet owners, for he never once glanced curiously at Nora or Travis, never once indicated by any means that he found their anxiety and grief to be excessive.
 
 
Dr. Keene listened to the retriever’s heart and lungs with a stethoscope, palpated his abdomen, examined his oozing eyes with an ophthalmoscope. Through those and several other procedures, Einstein remained limp, as if paralyzed. The only indications that the dog still clung to life were his faint whimpers and ragged breathing.
 
 
It’s not as serious as it seems, Nora told herself as she blotted her eyes with a Kleenex.
 
 
Looking up from the dog, Dr. Keene said, “What’s his name?”
 
 
“Einstein,” Travis said.
 
 
“How long have you owned him?”
 
 
“Only a few months.”
 
 
“Has he had his shots?”
 
 
“No,” Travis said. “Damn it, no.”
 
 
“Why not?”
 
 
“It’s . . . complicated,” Travis said. “But there’re reasons that shots couldn’t be gotten for him.”
 
 
“No reason’s good enough,” Keene said disapprovingly. “He’s got no license, no shots. It’s very irresponsible not to see that your dog is properly licensed and vaccinated.”
 
 
“I know,” Travis said miserably. “I know.”
 
 
“What’s wrong with Einstein?” Nora said.
 
 
And she thought-hoped-prayed: It’s not as serious as it seems.
 
 
Lightly stroking the retriever, Keene said, “He’s got distemper.”
 
 
Einstein had been moved to a corner of the surgery, where he lay on a thick, dog-size foam mattress that was protected by a zippered plastic coverlet. To prevent him from moving around—if at any time he had the strength to move—he was tethered on a short leash to a ringbolt in the wall.
 
 
Dr. Keene had given the retriever an injection. “Antibiotics,” he explained. “No antibiotics are effective against distemper, but they’re indicated to avoid secondary bacteriological infections.”
 
 
He had also inserted a needle in one of the dog’s leg veins and had hooked him to an IV drip to counteract dehydration.
 
 
When the vet tried to put a muzzle on Einstein, both Nora and Travis objected strenuously.
 
 
“It’s not because I’m afraid he’ll bite,” Dr. Keene explained. “It’s for his own protection, to prevent him from chewing at the needle. If he has the strength, he’ll do what dogs always do to a wound—lick and bite at the source of the irritation.”
 
 
“Not this dog,” Travis said. “This dog’s different.” He pushed past Keene and removed the device that bound Einstein’s jaws together.
 
 
The vet started to protest, then thought better of it. “All right. For now. He’s too weak now, anyway.”
 
 
Still trying to deny the awful truth, Nora said, “But how could it be so serious? He showed only the mildest symptoms, and even those went away over a couple of days.”
 
 
“Half the dogs who get distemper never show any symptoms at all,” the vet said as he returned a bottle of antibiotics to one of the glass-fronted cabinets and tossed a disposable syringe in a wastecan. “Others have only a mild illness, symptoms come and go from one day to the next. Some, like Einstein, get very ill. It can be a gradually worsening illness, or it can change suddenly from mild symptoms to . . . this. But there is a bright side here.”
 
 
Travis was crouched beside Einstein, where the dog could see him without lifting his head or rolling his eyes, and could therefore feel attended, watched over, loved. When he heard Keene mention a bright side, Travis looked up eagerly. “What bright side? What do you mean?”
 
 
“The dog’s condition, before it contracts distemper, frequently determines the course of the disease. The illness is most acute in animals that are ill-kept and poorly nourished. It’s clear to me that Einstein was given good care.”
 
 
Travis said, “We tried to feed him well, to make sure he got plenty of exercise.”
 
 
“He was bathed and groomed almost
too
often,” Nora added.
 
 
Smiling, nodding approval, Dr. Keene said, “Then we have an edge. We have real hope.”
 
 
Nora looked at Travis, and he could meet her eyes only briefly before he had to look away, down at Einstein. It was left to her to ask the dreaded question: “Doctor, he’s going to be all right, isn’t he? He won’t—he won’t die, will he?”
 
 
Apparently, James Keene was aware that his naturally glum face and drooping eyes presented, merely in repose, an expression that did little to inspire confidence. He cultivated a warm smile, a soft yet confident tone of voice, and an almost grandfatherly manner that, although perhaps calculated, seemed genuine and helped balance the perpetual gloom God had seen fit to visit upon his countenance.
 
 
He came to Nora, put his hands on her shoulders. “My dear, you love this dog like a baby, don’t you?”
 
 
She bit her lip and nodded.
 
 
“Then have faith. Have faith in God, who watches over sparrows, so they say, and have a little faith in me, too. Believe it or not, I’m pretty good at what I do, and I deserve your faith.”
 
 
“I believe you are good,” she told him.
 
 
Still squatting beside Einstein, Travis said thickly, “But the chances. What’re the chances? Tell us straight?”
 
 
Letting go of Nora, turning to Travis, Keene said, “Well, the discharge from his eyes and nose isn’t as thick as it can get. Not nearly. No pus blisters on the abdomen. You say he’s vomited, but you’ve seen no diarrhea?”
 
 
“No. Just vomiting,” Travis said.
 
 
“His fever’s high but not dangerously so. Has he been slobbering excessively?”
 
 
“No,” Nora said.
 
 
“Fits of head-shaking and chewing on air, sort of as if he had a bad taste in his mouth?”
 
 
“No,” Travis and Nora said simultaneously.
 
 
“Have you seen him run in circles or fall down without reason? Have you seen him lie on his side and kick violently, as if he were running? Aimless wandering around a room, bumping into walls, jerking and twitching—anything like that?”
 
 
“No, no,” Travis said.
 
 
And Nora said. “My God, could he
get
like that?”
 
 
“If he goes into second-stage distemper, yes,” Keene said. “Then there’s brain involvement. Epileptic-like seizures. Encephalitis.”
 
 
Travis came to his feet in a sudden lurch. He staggered toward Keene, then stopped, swaying. His face was pale. His eyes filled with a terrible fear. “Brain involvement? If he recovered, would there be . . . brain damage?”
 
 
An oily nausea rippled in Nora. She thought of Einstein with brain damage—as intelligent as a man, intelligent enough to remember that he had once been special, and to know that something had been lost, and to know that he was now living in a dullness, a grayness, that his life was somehow less than what it had once been. Sick and dizzy with fear, she had to lean against the examination table.
 
 
Keene said, “Most dogs in second-stage distemper don’t survive. But if he made it, there would, of course, be some brain damage. Nothing that would require he be put to sleep. He might have lifelong chorea, for instance, which is involuntary jerking or twitching, rather like palsy, and often limited to the head. But he could be relatively happy with that, lead a pain-free existence, and he could still be a fine pet.”
 
 
Travis almost shouted at the vet: “To hell with whether he’d make a fine pet or not. I’m not concerned about
physical
effects of the brain damage. What about his
mind?
”
 
 
“Well, he’d recognize his masters,” the doctor said. “He’d know you and remain affectionate toward you. No problem there. He might sleep a lot. He might have periods of listlessness. But he’d almost certainly remain housebroken. He wouldn’t forget that training—”
 
 
Shaking, Travis said, “I don’t give a damn if he pisses all over the house as long as he can still
think!
”
 
 
“Think?” Dr. Keene said, clearly perplexed. “Well . . . what do you mean exactly? He is a dog, after all.”
 
 
The vet had accepted their anxious, grief-racked behavior as within the parameters of normal pet-owner reactions in a case like this. But now, at last, he began to look at them strangely.
 
 
Partly to change the subject and dampen the vet’s suspicion, partly because she simply had to know the answer, Nora said, “All right, but is Einstein
in
second-stage distemper?”
 
 
Keene said, “From what I’ve seen so far, he’s still in the first stage. And now that treatment has begun, if we don’t see any of the more violent symptoms during the next twenty-four hours, I think we have a good chance of keeping him in first stage and rolling it back.”
 
 
“And there’s no brain involvement in first stage?” Travis asked with an urgency that again caused Keene to furrow his brow.
 
 
“No. Not in first stage.”
 
 
“And if he stays in first stage,” Nora said, “he won’t die?”
 
 
In his softest voice and most comforting manner, James Keene said, “Well, now, the chances are very high that he’d survive just first-stage distemper—and without any aftereffects. I want you to realize that his chances of recovery
are
quite high. But at the same time, I don’t want to give you false hope. That’d be cruel. Even if the disease proceeds no further than first stage . . . Einstein could die. The percentages are on the side of life, but death is possible.”

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