by Sean Wallace
I was still studying the impossible cancers when they finally killed Randy’s parents. I put away my slides and my DNA reports for the funeral. The ceremony was strictly ceremonial: the bodies were taken by the NIH and kept on ice for careful examination. It was a long, long time before they were buried. Let’s be honest here, most of that was my fault.
The service was simple and straightforward, exactly what they would have wanted, and as always seems to be the case, it lead to a reunion of sorts. Most of the people who had been in the think tank our parents were a part of showed at the funeral. Some of them we hadn’t seen since leaving and others who had been in our lives to one extent or another for most of that time.
There were hugs and tears and a few smiles, too. Reminiscences of times long gone and promises to be better about staying in touch, most of which were lies even if we believed them right then.
And through it all, there was Randy doing his best to hold it together and the new woman in his life. Gwen was right there beside him. Randy was always one of the solid guys, one of the strongest men I knew emotionally, but everyone has their limits and his had been met and exceeded in the last few months. Having her there was like having a wall to lean on. I could see that in a matter of seconds, and I was both relieved that he had found someone to help him through the worst of it, and envious.
He’d told me about her, of course. I just didn’t expect her to be so damned attractive. I was there mourning the loss of people who were all but family to me, there to comfort my best friend in the world, and all the time I had to force myself not to stare at her.
I managed by remembering the puzzles I had ahead of me when I left for home. There were a lot of them, too. My biggest obstacle was going to be separating the enigmas from my feelings for Randy and his parents.
The people who had raised my best friend were dead. They, along with my parents, had been the closest things we had to a normal life growing up and they were gone, removed from the world with little to prove they had ever been there. The work they had done was secretive at best, and in many cases classified either by the government or by whatever company had paid them for their efforts.
Somewhere between the time they had met in college and around a year before their deaths they had acquired cancers that matched in impossible ways. And there was the problem. I had to know what had caused the impossible to happen if I wanted to prevent it from happening ever again.
I spent one week with Randy, being with my friend and at the same time researching everything I could about his parents through the documents they had around their home. I examined old bills, letters to family and friends, phone records and the other flotsam and jetsam that had become a part of their world for whatever brief period of time.
I was looking for clues as to what could have given them their mutual cancer. I was searching for the cause of the impossible. If I had been dealing with two strangers, I could have probably found the catalyst with relative ease, but a married couple is expected to do a lot of things together.
One week turned up remarkably little, but was long enough for me to half fall in love with my best friend’s girlfriend. Gwen was strong, and sharp and quick with a witty comment whenever the situation allowed her to show it. She was also good enough to know when Randy wasn’t ready for humor.
She had known his parents long enough to get a glimmer of what they had been like before the cancer, and while the pain of losing them was at best minor for her, the empathy she had for their son was a very real and defining emotion.
She loved him and he loved her and damn it, I grew infatuated with the woman. I could spend a hundred pages waxing poetic about my feelings for her, but that wouldn’t change anything that happened.
I fell for her but I was also smart enough not to fall too hard. She was with my best friend and there was no way in hell I could have lived with myself if I’d been the sort to throw myself at her. I could never be that mercenary where a friend is concerned.
We did not become lovers. She did not leave him to be with me. I never let us get into a situation where anything could have happened. Instead, I was the best man at their wedding two years later. I watched the girl of my dreams, or at least a few fantasies, marry my best friend and I couldn’t have been happier about it.
I studied the strange cancer that infested both of Randy’s parents with obsessive intent. Before I was done, the genome of the damned thing was mapped out as carefully as it could be. It was, not surprisingly, almost identical to the human genome. They had a similar point of origin, but somewhere along the way the changes had gotten intense.
Mutation. Depending on who you talk to, it’s the cause of all evolution and all life on the planet Earth. Well, that and the whole water plus breathable atmosphere thing. A few strokes of lightning in the primordial ooze, a spark of life and after that, everything comes down to evolution, mutation and survival of the fittest.
So what does it say about a cancer that decides to spread itself into human bodies without any noticeable point of origin? Simple. It says that as a species, the human race is very, very close to extinction unless something is done to find the source of the cancer and the cure for it, immediately.
Of course the same thing has been said a thousand times before, I’m sure. The difference is, cancer is harder to isolate than a virus or a germ. Cancer is a mutation, and very good at biding its time before it strikes again. Oh, and anything that will kill a cancer will normally kill the host, too. It’s just a question of which dies faster.
I would have kept working on the puzzle of those cancers for the rest of my life or until I solved them, but that decision wasn’t mine alone to make. There were other doctors who wanted to study what I had already deciphered and wanted to see what they could add to the equation. There were other puzzles I needed to look at as well, and so as much as I wished otherwise, I set the examinations on the back burner and got on with my life.
Eventually Randy stopped asking for progress reports. There was a short span where we were barely speaking, but he realized there was only so much I could do after a while. I suspect he had help from Gwen.
So for a couple of years we played the used-to-be-friends game. We sent cards at holidays and birthdays, etc.
Then it was my turn to bury family. My father died of a heart attack. It was unexpected. Really, I had always held a secret belief that the man would outlast me. He had always been in excellent shape. There were no warning signs that anyone was aware of. He just keeled over and died one day.
Randy and Gwen attended the funeral. Most of my time was spent being there for my mother, but we had time to reconcile.
I had time with my friend. Time enough to recognize the early warning signs that something was wrong with him.
Very, very wrong.
His face was the same as it had always been, but his expressions were a bit different. He talked the same, but enough time had passed since we’d been around each other that I could see the small things: I noticed that he spoke at a slower speed, and that he squinted a bit with his left eye when he was concentrating. None of the signs were large, but they were there if you knew how to read them. Lucky for him, I did.
I had to urge Gwen to send him in for a check-up. She in turn had to convince him. Randy had developed a dislike of medical facilities and procedures when he dealt with his parents’ illnesses.
Well, I say dislike, but maybe hatred was a better term. At any rate, Gwen was the one who convinced him to take the tests. I was the one who wrangled a consult on the results.
Turned out to be cancer, the same sort that had killed his parents.
I know, because I’m the one that ran the tests confirming that fact.
He took it better than I would have had it been me when I gave him the news. Instead of breaking into tears he sat on the sofa in his living room and nodded as I explained the facts as we knew them. Then he nodded silently and asked what had to be done.
We called specialists, and
like with his parents before him, I even arranged for most of his bills to be absorbed by the NIH as we looked over the results of those tests. I started making demands to see the end results of the autopsies on Randy’s parents, but that proved a useless gesture on my part. The investigation was ongoing. There would be no end result in the foreseeable future, because the very thing that had scared me senseless had the same impact on others as well.
I was given more raw data to study, which I promptly set aside to work more closely on making sure that my assumptions were right. I needed to know if it was environmental, or genetic or something stranger.
And in the meantime, we treated the cancer as aggressively as we dared, using every method that had been approved by the FDA and a few that had not. When chemo failed, we worked with radiation. When radiation failed, it was time for the removal of a single mass in a relatively safe area.
When I had the freshest samples from Randy, I compared them to the notes I had made and the continued examinations of the cancer that had killed his parents.
There was something I was missing in the details, you see. I could feel it, even when I couldn’t clearly see it. So I studied all of it again, desperate to understand what was happening.
Four weeks into the research and testing, Randy was looking a great deal worse for wear. He’d lost weight, and his skin had taken on a decidedly yellow tinge.
I went to visit my friend in the hospital where he was going through another battery of tests to see if anything at all had helped with the cancer. Nothing had.
Randy looked at me as I started going through the test results and shook his head. “Fuck it.”
“What?” I wasn’t shocked by the language. I was taken aback by the quiet venom in his voice.
“I said ‘fuck it,’ Alan. I’m done with the tests today. I need to get the hell out of here.”
I nodded my head.
“I can probably arrange that.”
“Well, that’s good because I’m leaving either way.” “Where are you planning on going?”
Randy looked at me for a long moment, studying me, trying, I suspect, to decide if I would aim to stop him. “Camping. I haven’t been camping since before Mom and Dad died.”
If ever there was a test of our friendship, that was it. Camping meant being away from the city, away from the medicines. It also meant having enough supplies to accommodate any serious changes in the weather, because the cancer had compromised his immune system enough already. A good old-fashioned cold could wind him back in the hospital for a very long stay, or in the morgue for a longer one.
“So, I’ll make it happen.” It was all I could say. Randy wasn’t a prisoner and he didn’t intend to be one. Was I opposed to his decision? Absolutely. But it wasn’t my choice to make.
And in the long run, I couldn’t really blame him. I wouldn’t want to spend my remaining time in this world in a hospital bed, especially if that time had dwindled down to weeks.
I worked it out. We went camping. I brought along a small pharmacy to make sure Randy was mostly pain-free, and a couple of books to keep me company while he and Gwen kept warm.
And I made sure I had a medical team on standby at the local hospital, which was only fifteen minutes away by helicopter. Oh, yes, by helicopter. I made sure we had one of those waiting, too.
For old time’s sake, I got us a campsite near Castle Creek, and a hotel room in Harts Bluff. It had been a long time since we’d been there, but unlike a lot of the world, little had changed in the area since we’d lived there.
It was a good time. I want that down for whatever might count for a record in the future. We had a damned fine time the first day and the first night.
We’d brought along plenty to eat, and we did everything old school. Strictly hot dogs, marshmallows and half-heated baked beans for dinner.
We talked about growing up together and Gwen drank in the details, absorbing the information as best she could between Randy and I both cracking up. We drank a few beers, but not enough to get anyone drunk. Just enough to let us get sentimental instead of maudlin, if you see my point.
Just before it was time for bed, I did a quick check of the camp to make sure everything was properly secured and that no stray embers were going to burn out the entire area, and then I headed for my tent.
Gwen stopped me outside of the tent, just as I was getting ready to climb inside. Her hand on my arm felt inordinately warm, and I had to hold back a gasp of surprise, because, honestly, I hadn’t seen her there.
“Listen, thanks.” Her voice was a whisper and I knew why. It had nothing to do with illicit affairs, much as I might wish otherwise, and everything to do with simply respecting the silence of the night.
“For what?”
“Being a friend, not just a doctor. For putting a smile on Randy’s face and for including me.” I looked hard into her eyes as she spoke, and thought about the words very carefully. Mostly because I was tipsy and I wanted to make sure I didn’t do anything stupid. See, I trusted myself around Gwen, but not so much when I’d been drinking. So I studied her hard and made damned sure I was listening to her words.
“He’s my friend. You’re my friend. It’s no big deal.” I felt those words worked much better than a declaration of my unrequited love ever would have.
Gwen stared long and hard at me, and I wondered for a moment if she’d expected something else to come out of my mouth. In the long run, she smiled quickly and then leaned in and kissed my cheek lightly.
I think the feel of her lips was still tingling there when I went to sleep.
A nice, if slightly unsettling end to a nice day.
The following morning everything that had been good and right the previous day went sour with a vengeance. I was just setting up for breakfast—coffee and scrambled eggs, along with flapjacks—when the couple came from their tent. Gwen looked the same as she had the night before.
Randy was a different story. His head was nearly painful to look at. The shape of his skull was wrong. His hair looked spotted and patchy, but that was only because his cranium had grown and warped out of proportion. The bones of his face were swollen or pushed aside by the cancer and I felt my blood freeze when I saw how much had changed overnight.
Randy had started off with the same cancer that had killed both of his parents, but believe me, I’d seen every report, examined the pictures of their bodies through the entire progression, and nothing that had happened to them had been as violent or as virulent as the changes he’d just gone through.
I stood quickly, ready to head for my tent and the medical supplies. Ready to call for the helicopter to take him to real medical attention.
Randy stared at me for a few seconds and then nodded his head. He understood the situation, probably better than anyone else. He’d been with his parents until the bitter end, after all. He’d watched them waste away. And something about that made me frown. I couldn’t place what it was, but the thought didn’t sit right with me.
“Make your call.” Randy shook his head. “Get your experts up here.”
Gwen was doing her best to keep him calm, to keep herself calm, but she was fraying around the edges. It’s one thing to nurse somebody you barely know through bad times and something else entirely to tend for a loved one. All those phases of denial they tell you about? You go through them when you find out about your own impending death, but you do it when it’s someone you love, too. I think she wanted more time, I know she wanted him better.
And I knew even as I made the call that he wasn’t going to get better.
Whatever had swollen his face was too strong, too aggressive. We all knew it. We were, I think, just going through the motions.
Fifteen minutes can seem like forever. I was pacing like an expectant father and staring at the sky, trying to force the ’copter to appear through sheer force of will when Randy moved closer to me.
“Mike, this isn’t going to end well.” He spoke the words in a flat monotone and settled h
is hand on my shoulder. His fingers gave a quick squeeze to make sure he had my attention, like there was any chance at all I’d have been talking to someone else.
I shook my head and felt the sting of tears. The night before I’d been positively optimistic and even then I knew he was as good as dead. Now, with the massive pressure that had to be building inside of his skull, he’d be lucky to last a day if something drastic wasn’t done to relieve the pressure. “No, Randy.” I felt like a fool, damned near on the verge of blubbering and I closed my eyes for a minute to stop the flow of tears from winning their fight for freedom. “Goddamnit, it’s not gonna end well.”
“So relax, Mike.” He tapped me on the shoulder and then sat down on one of the fold-up chairs we’d brought along. “They’ll get here. Relax a few minutes, bro.”
So I did. We spent ten more minutes pretending my best friend’s head wasn’t starting to look a bit like a pumpkin, enjoying the perfect weather and the black ink I’d made for coffee. After that it was all downhill, with a side of hell and damnation.
There wasn’t enough room in the helicopter, so Gwen stayed behind and so did I. I could have argued and managed to get myself on with the medical team, but the facts were simple enough. First, I’m a researcher and not a physician and all I would have done was get in the way and second, I wasn’t about to have Gwen try to drive herself to the hospital.
Even at my worst, I’m not that much of a bastard.
We watched them strap Randy in and stood side by side as they lifted off. I grabbed the medical supplies. The tents and everything else could blow away in the wind for all I cared. I was heading for the Jeep we’d come up in when I heard Gwen’s gasps for breath.