Desert Angels (9 page)

"Thank you, Brandon," Jack said to the boy, who had changed into some overalls Jack had given to him. He was by far the healthiest new arrival in the bunch, and was turning into something of an asset to the overworked Jack.

Garbo had not made a second appearance as yet.

By the end of the day, Jack could see that his clinic would have to be moved outdoors. There were too many people. He knew that there would be more in the days to come. The radiation levels just outside his facility, and for a distance of around a thousand yards, remained mysteriously low on the fallout level – a reality Jack had zero explanation for.

With Brandon's assistance, Jack took an hour off from treating folks and rigged three tents together just outside the front door of the Dome. More cots were produced, along with mattresses, pillows, blankets, whatever Jack could find in his underground storehouse that might make things more comfortable. Two hours later, and the bulk of humanity that had begun to overcrowd Jack's small laboratory was commuted to the newly fabricated clinic outside. No one complained; like sheep on their way to the slaughter, they obeyed Jack without question or protest.

Denise came up to Jack, looking stronger and no longer crying.

"Try and rest," Jack said. "I'll take care of your friend."

"Will her eyes get better?" Denise asked.

"I don’t know. It depends on how much damage was done to the retina when she saw the blast."

Denise shook her head and sucked in a lungful of air. "I want to help. You look like you could use it."

Jack turned to find Brandon handing out blankets.

"You can give him a hand if you'd like," he said.

Denise looked at Brandon and then at Jack.

"There's something you should know about Brandon, Doctor –"

"I already know," he said and smiled.

"Is he for real?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The skitso act," Denise shrugged. "I mean, is it dangerous?"

"You were with him for a couple of days. Did he hurt you?" Jack asked.

"Well, no, but it was hard to talk to him. It's like two different people. Brandon's a nice, sweet guy; and Garbo's this raunchy whore. Weird combo, don't you think?"

"Schizophrenia's more common than you think," Jack said, preparing a minor dissertation, then realizing that he didn't have the time. Also, given the fact that most of the world's population was no longer living, he was not sure how common anything was anymore. "It's a sickness; not a disease," he added.

"He saved us, you know," Denise said, biting her lip. A long time ago, before the war, Denise could have passed for beautiful, Jack thought. "Or
they
did, I guess. Brandon and Garbo, I mean. They make a good team. Mimi and I wouldn't have known what to do."

"None of us do," Jack said. "We didn't get a lot of practice for this."

Jack let Denise go and went to check on Mimi, whose vision was returning gradually. The retina in her left eye was badly damaged, but the other eye had been spared completely. For the rest of her life, she would see the world in a blur; but at least she would
see
it – and not a wall of blackness instead.

Jack had bandaged her eyes and she sat next to a big man who looked vaguely familiar to Jack. The man stared at Jack with tired eyes and smiled.

"I know you," he said.

The big man cocked his head and nodded.

"So you do. How are you, doc?"

His name was Jim Brown. He had lived in Ashwood, the town drunk by profession. Jack had met him through Dr. Mathias. Jim Brown had been an opera singer at one time in his life; Jack knew this because on the rare occasions he came to Ashwood for supplies in those last days, Jim was known to be singing
La Traviata
or
Carmen
in the streets – drunk, yet always on pitch. Jack recalled that Jim Brown had a terrific voice.

"Glad you made it," Jack said, examining Jim's eyes, nose and mouth. "We could use a good baritone here."

Jim Brown laughed a hearty laugh and then coughed up blood.

Another Special Type, Jack noted.

"What did we do to ourselves, Walter?" Jack said to Walter much later, at the end of the first day of the refugee arrivals. "What in god's name did we do?"

Walter stopped cooing.

Like Jack, Walter had no answer to that most somber question.

* * *

More Edenites arrived; more Special Types.

There was Mitch Walling, a carpenter who would later assist in making Eden’s outside tent township reasonably weatherproof and come up with a tent design that would enlarge Jack's outside clinic. Mitch Walling's carpentry skills were to be admired; but what made him truly Special (to Jack, and to most of Eden) was his capacity to fart in rhythm with Jim Brown's rendition of
La Donna Mobile
from the opera
Rigoletto
.

And then there was Molly Forsyth, a mud wrestler from Vegas, who would later assist a man called Ron Gleeson in instructing Edenites in the art of hand-to-hand combat. That Molly was a mud wrestler was not so unbelievable; she was hard, compact and feisty. That she was approaching seventy-something ("and none of your damned business how old I really am," she told Jack) was the truly phenomenal thing about Molly.

There was Gus Markin, too. A "healer" he called himself.

"Regular M.D.?" Jack asked hopefully. He was exhausted; after nearly four hundred new arrivals, only Brandon had admitted to any kind of professional medical background.

"Nope," Gus said tightly. "Just one of God's helpers. Don't worry, I'll do what I can."

Gus did not explain himself further. Jack immediately figured that Gus was well-meaning, but yet another Special Type; like Aunt Sheila, Jim and Brandon.

On the third day following Aunt Sheila's arrival, Gus proved himself to be more than just one of Jack's Special Types.

Three men staggered into Eden. One of them had lost a dangerous amount of blood; his arm had been gnawed off. Cliff Makowski, the biggest of the trio had explained.

"Me, Jiles and Roper here," he said to Jack, nodding toward the half-eaten Roper, "we was comin' back from the Angeles forest. We saw the bombs in the distance. We knew our families was dead. But we knew we had to try and find em.' We come off the hills into the desert."

"That's when them things got us," Jiles Rollin interrupted, his face contorted in disgust and anger. "People, I think, but all different. Cannibals, with teeth. Real awful. One of em' got Roper. Just got hold of him and started eatin'!"

"We killed a few of em'," Cliff said with clear regret in his voice. "I never killed anything more'n a deer in my day. Felt like I was a murderer. But I'm tellin' you, mister - them things ain't human anymore."

Jack frowned and nodded. "I know."

Roper Boone was a little hysterical. He was the youngest of the three men, all of whom were neighbors - or had been - in West Covina a million years ago or so.

"Am I going to turn into one of them monsters, doc?" he asked, clearly frightened. "I saw this movie once where this guy gets bit by a zombie and becomes one. That ain't gonna happen to me, is it?"

"I doubt it," Jack said, trying to stop the massive blood flow from Roper's arm, though in truth, Jack really didn’t have a clue. Was the transformation from human to Stiffer due to airborne radioactive contamination the only route to contamination? Or could the body be contaminated as well by Stiffer infection through something like a bite.

As yet, Jack simply didn’t possess enough empirical evidence either way.

"How long has it been like this?" Jack asked the other two men.

"Them things got him this morning. Couple of hours I guess."

"Maybe I can help."

Jack turned to find Gus Markin standing beside him.

"I don't think –"

Gus put both hands on Roper Boone's stump, blood geysering onto his hands. Jack was about to yell something about infection when he noticed that Roper's mangled limb suddenly clotted.

Gus Markin removed his hands.

Roper Boone was no longer bleeding.

"Think you can take it from there, doc," Gus smiled and walked off.

Later, Jack found Gus in another part of the clinic with his hands on Aunt Sheila's head.

"It's gone!" Aunt Sheila declared, looking at Gus with love.

"Yep," Gus said and moved away.

"Why, I've had that migraine forever," Aunt Sheila told Jack in disbelief. "I hope you're paying that man top dollar, young fellow."

Jack nodded and followed Gus.

"It started after the war," Gus said, when Jack pressed him as to how he could ’heal.’ "It's just something I knew I could do."

"Keep doing it, Gus," was all Jack said, wondering if Gus's talent - whatever it was - could be extended and applied to advanced cases of radiation poisoning.

But Gus' gift was limited; he could stop pain, curtail bleeding, make headaches go away, and otherwise make people feel less than dreadful.

Like Jack, however, he could not perform miracles.

Still, Jack was grateful. With Gus, at least, the ancient enemy of pain could be defeated – or at least partially attenuated.

Jack wished desperately that he had more Special Types like Gus Markin around Eden.

As with Walter, Gus's secret healing power was a mystery to Jack. Once more, Jack was prepared not to analyze such mysteries too closely.

* * *

Aunt Sheila was feeling a little better, though she wandered around most of the days as if in a trance, in search of Scrubby. Some of her strength had returned and she had not vomited since the previous afternoon. It had been three days since Scrubby's disappearance.

"Oh, when I find you, you bad dog, you're in for such a spanking," she would ramble, occasionally bursting out in giggles and offering anyone she ran into a glass of imaginary lemonade.

Scrubby would have been a Special Type in Jack's book, too, had he not disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Jack was not especially disturbed by the dog's absence; he supposed that the poor animal had slinked off into the desert to die. Animals did that sometime, he knew. Scrubby would not have lasted more than a few days, anyway. Jack forgot about the troublesome mutt.

He learned from Garbo (Brandon's alter ego) that Scrubby's abrupt departure was far from accidental.

"I took care of the dog," Garbo winked at Jack on that third day.

"Oh?"

"Yeah," Garbo winked again and walked off.

Later in the afternoon, Brandon as Garbo approached Jack with both hands behind his back. Jack was treating Mimi in the clinic, removing bandages from her arms and legs. Mimi's vision had improved and she looked considerably better and in Garbo's opinion, considerably cleaner.

"What have you got there, Garbo?" Jack asked.

Brandon/Garbo had a look of love in his eyes.

"I want you to know how grateful I am to you for taking care of us. All of us, I mean, not just me. You've been great." It was the first time Garbo wasn't sounding like a Special Type – an increasingly cruel euphemism, Jack realized, for someone who was too fucking weird for words; like Gus or Sheila - nice

people – but definitely in orbit around some other planet about three million light years from Earth.

"That's alright, Garbo. I'm glad to help out."

Brandon shrugged and began to blush. "Well, I got you a present."

Jack couldn't help but smile. "Really, that was–"

Brandon pulled his arms out from behind his back. Jack stared; Alice in Wonderland yet again.

There in Brandon's hands was the very stiff and dead remains of Scrubby. The dog had been gutted, (rather skillfully, Jack thought) and its skin dried. Scrubby stared at Jack with glassy dead eyes. Even in death, Scrubby looked like he wanted to bite something.

"Brandon used to work for a taxidermist in Berkeley," Brandon as Garbo explained. "Part time for tuition, you know. I learned a lot. Found everything I needed in your lab. Do you like it?"

Brandon/Garbo smiled in happiness, convinced that Jack
did
, in fact, like "it." Because Jack was absolutely speechless.

"You can use it for a doormat. Or a conversation piece. Poor little guy was already on his way out. I got the idea from a movie I saw once. The family dog died and one of the kids had it stuffed. Man, it was funny!" Garbo seemed to enjoy Jack's expression. "Real different, huh?"

At this moment, and not for the first time, Jack again felt like he was going insane. He felt like Alice in Wonderland. Nuclear war was one thing, but he was also surrounded by the Misfits of Toyland. Was it all part of the inexplicable alteration of scientific reality that seemed to afflict his strange little world of Eden, right down to the continued absence of significant radiation surrounding the mountain?

The sensation of madness passed after a few seconds, and he looked to Garbo.

“Yes, real different,” he muttered.

Mimi had a look on her face that might have suggested that she had recently been on the wrong end of a broomstick in the hands of a lumberjack. Her eyes were wide and staring, and her mouth was a perfect O of incredulity; she appeared to want to both laugh and cry at the same time.

"Was he dead when you found him?" Jack had to ask.

Brandon/Garbo looked momentarily sheepish.

"Well – no. But it wasn't like murder or anything. I watched him for an hour. He didn't stop barfing. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer. He was in so much pain!"

Jack didn't ask Brandon how he made Scrubby "pain-free." He could live with yet another mystery in his life.

"Besides," Garbo added in a sudden tone of superiority, "he was a
biter
. Remember? I thought I'd let him go easy before you might have kicked him to death."

"That was thoughtful," Jack said.

And then Brandon, as himself, was back. He screamed when he saw what he was holding.

"That bitch! She's done it again."

At that moment, Aunt Sheila stepped up to Jack. She screamed when she saw Scrubby, now in his immortalized state of stuffedness.