by Curtis, Greg
Maybe that was what the doctor had done to him? Injected him with cow DNA?
“I understand William. I do. And what Reginald has done to you is wrong and difficult to deal with. When he comes back to worship I'll talk to him again, I promise you that. And I'll ask him to see you. To explain what he's done and fix it. I'll insist. But I don't know when that will be and I don't have a way of contacting him.”
Just as Will had always known, no matter how much his fear kept telling him the pastor was lying.
“Until then you just have to be strong. To have faith. To let some of the experts see if they can help you. And to remember that as badly as you're suffering others are suffering more. As frightened as you are, others are even more so.” The pastor laid a comforting hand on his shoulder as they sat there.
“And much as I hate to say it you don't look sick. A little odd perhaps with the eyes and the skin, but not really ill.”
“Thank you.”
Will meant it too. Not just for his advice, but for reminding him again that it wasn't the end of the world. He hoped.
“Besides, did you ever think that what you're eating is the very same diet doctors have been telling us we all need to eat for years. Fruit and vegetables and more fruit and vegetables!”
“But not raw Pastor! And not with the rinds on!”
Yet even as he objected a part of Will was finding the pastor's little attempt at humour amusing. Maybe this was all some insane attempt to make him eat right. No more hamburgers and ice cream for him. It seemed a little extreme, but at least there could be some medical reasoning behind what was happening to him.
“Who knows? The ways of doctors passeth beyond understanding. But I'll bet your cholesterol is pretty good!”
Chapter Thirteen.
The waiting area was fairly primitive. Just a few folding canvas chairs – actually quite a lot of them – and a plastic keg of water and some cups on a folding table. And all of it was of course under canvas. But Will had expected no more of the emergency hospital. And in one way it was doing better than he'd hoped for. The queue was short. Either they had a lot of doctors and nurses or else they were running out of patients. He suspected the latter. Los Angeles was slowly running out of people.
The other patients waiting to see the doctors were fairly much what he would have expected to see. They were the down and outs. The people who were trapped in the city for one reason or another. The ones who had no money to pay for private medical care. Or no transport to get to a private facility if they could pay. But then he was in much the same situation.
At least none of them were terribly injured. The chances were that those who had been badly injured had either been treated or had died. And those who were left were those with more minor injuries. A few were wearing bandages here and there. Mostly on their arms and legs. A couple more were wearing heavy clothes which he suspected covered their injuries, much as he was wearing the same to cover his own infirmities. Some had crutches with them to help them get about, which, when he thought about it, was one reason why they might not have been able to leave the city. It simply wasn't possible for them when the only way out was on foot.
There was one other thing about the waiting patients that struck him as odd. None of them had family with them. They were all sitting there on their own. But a moment's thought provided him with the obvious answer. If they had had family they would have had some one to help them escape the city.
“Mr. Simmons?”
An army nurse called him over and William looked up in surprise. After an hour of sitting there waiting he'd almost given up and considered leaving. Especially when the sitting was so hard on his back. Whatever was wrong with it, he would dearly have loved to get it tended to. Of course the other reason he was surprised was because she had referred to him as Mr. Simmons. It wasn't her fault of course. He had deliberately filled out all the forms they had given him that way.
It wasn't that he particularly distrusted the doctors here. It was just that he was beginning to feel like a freak and he didn't want his deformities to be made public. Not unless they could find him some answers. Some form of treatment. So, for the same reason he'd also given them the wrong address and a non-existent cell phone number. If this all went as badly as he secretly feared it would he didn't want to be known as a freak.
Will got up and followed the nurse into the medical tent and to the doctor who was hopefully waiting to see him.
Inside he was led to a small canvas cubicle where there was a bed and a table and chair with a doctor sitting down at it, reading his paperwork. A doctor who was looking somewhat puzzled. That didn't fill Will with confidence. But then he'd already been nervous enough before coming here and not that eager to see any more doctors. And Pastor Franks had been right. This was the smart thing to do. It was the only thing to do.
“Doctor.”
The nurse caught the doctor's attention as she brought Will into the cubicle and then promptly left to deal with her other duties. Which left Will standing there alone with the doctor, wondering what happened next. He had a worrying feeling that it wasn't only him wondering.
The doctor was on the youngish side, perhaps thirty or so, and with a look of curiosity on his face. Will however, welcomed those things. After his experience with Doctor Millen he didn't really want to see another more mature medic with hair turning grey and a dour look on his face. However, the doctor was dressed in scrubs for some reason, as if he was expecting to operate, and that did not seem quite so welcome.
“So Mr. Simmons you took part in a gene therapy trial that seems to have gone wrong?” The doctor didn't even get up from his seat. He just sat there, the papers in his hand, and stared at him. “And I can see some of what you mean.”
Of course he could. It wasn't that hard to spot his gold eyes and gold skin. Not even in a tent and when he was covered up like a skier. But still Will felt uncomfortable.
“Yes.”
“And there's more?”
Will nodded but said nothing. He didn't trust himself to speak.
“Can I see please.”
Will tried not to recoil the moment he heard those words. He had expected them after all. But still they made him feel extremely uncomfortable. Nevertheless it had to be done, and Will began by removing his cap. He'd worn it because the shade covered his face and made the changes happening to him less obvious. The moment he took it off he saw the doctor's face drop in surprise and he instantly wanted to leave. But at least the doctor said nothing. He just got up and started examining him.
“Jaundice?” Will asked because the pastor had suggested it. And because jaundice could be treated. But he wasn't that hopeful.
“No Mr. Simmons, that's not jaundice. In fact I've never seen anything like it.”
At least he was honest, Will thought, but it wasn't the answer he'd wanted to hear.
“You sure?”
Despite himself Will had to double check. He had sort of committed himself to the hope that it was. That it could be treated.
“I'm sure. In jaundice the skin turns a bit yellow, not gold, and the whites of the eyes turn yellow as well. But your whites are a perfect white. It's the irises that have changed colour. It could be some form of heterochromatic illness, but it's nothing like the few I've seen. And most of them are hereditary.”
“Oh.”
It was disappointing to hear, but unfortunately not completely surprising. Jaundice had always seemed an outside chance to him, especially when he didn't feel sick.
“I'm going to have to see the rest as well.”
The doctor pulled on a pair of surgical gloves as he said it and for some reason the sight made Will nervous. Still it had to be done, and so he awkwardly shuffled out of his bulky overcoat – it wasn't so easy to do when his back was so stiff – and then pulled off his sweat shirt.
The doctor gasped, though he was quick to contain his shock. And then he started examining him, his latex glove wrapped hands starting with the m
ost obvious of his deformities; whatever was happening on his back. He pressed his fingers into the raised ridges of tissue, pushing gently at first but then quite hard, while Will had to stand there hoping that the doctor had some idea of what he was looking at. But he didn't interrupt him in his work.
The doctor’s hands moved on, pushing into his back between the ridges and on both sides as if searching for something. The funny thing was Will thought he might have found something. When he ran his hands down his back Will could feel more ridges of flesh in his back. Raised lumps under the skin that were almost like little muscles. Muscles that seemed to squirm, to react to the pressure. He had no idea what they were.
“Any thoughts Doc?”
Will asked even though he'd intended to hold his tongue until the doctor had finished. But he was simply too nervous to do that.
“That this is no mere skin condition Mr. Simmons. There's what looks like the beginning of bone formation under parts of the ridges and small muscle attachments as well. We'll need to do a scan.”
Bones too? That shocked Will. But it didn't completely surprise him. He knew there was something happening with his back. Something that was fusing his spine. Preventing him from bending.
“Now tell me about this weight loss.” The doctor started examining his stomach, or these days what had become his lack of a stomach, his fingers running along the abdominals and from the look on his face Will suspected, finding more than they should. Still, Will told him what he wanted to know and held his questions. Suddenly he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answers. Not when the doctor was looking so shocked.
“I'll just check your heart if I can. With everything else that seems to be going on I'd be worried that it's placing a strain on your system.”
Suddenly Will was too. A heart attack was all he needed.
The doctor placed his stethoscope on his chest and listened while Will hoped that he found nothing else wrong with him. It would be terrible to die of a heart attack before he turned thirty. But as the doctor kept listening and moving the stethoscope from place to place on his chest, he knew that there were more problems. He could see it in the look of shock and horror on his face.
“Doctor?” Will asked immediately he finished. He didn't want to know, but he had to.
“There's changes to your heartbeat.” The doctor stared at him, his face grim. “And to your heart. Big ones.”
“At first I thought it was a murmur or an echo, but it's not. It's almost like you have a second heart a little higher up in your chest, beating away in perfect time with the first but slightly late. I've never heard anything like it. But the scan will tell us what's happening.”
“Two hearts?!”
“There's more. Your gut sounds are highly unusual as well, but I guess you knew that already. There's evidence that your rib cage is reshaping itself slightly and there's some sort of growth on your sternum. Your muscle development is unusual to say the least, and I can see – literally see because of your extreme thinness – extra muscles across your entire torso. Muscles you just shouldn't have.”
“I have no idea at all what Doctor Millen has done. But I know it's serious. Gross morphological changes like this could never be anything else. And while I don't know if it can be repaired, I do know that the best thing to do is get you to a hospital as soon as possible. A top line hospital with a specialist team in genetic medicine. The only way to treat this is if we can first work out what's happening to you.”
Will hesitated. “I don't feel all that ill.” Except of course for the constant churning in his guts and the pain in his back and the hallucinations. But suddenly they didn't seem so important just then. And the last thing he wanted to do was spend more time in a hospital.
“I'm sorry Mr. Simmons. I know this must be a shock to you. But whatever this is I think it's only going to get worse the longer we leave it. I think we need to fly you out of here in the next hour and get you checked in before the end of the day. I've got some forms for you to fill out. And the nurse will need to do a couple of quick tests before you go and get you hooked up to a couple of machines to monitor you. Just to make sure it’s safe for you to fly.”
“Surely the best thing is if you can find Doctor Millen?” That was after all the hope that Will had been clinging to for so long. And suddenly it was beginning to look like his only hope.
“Maybe. I don't know.” The doctor looked at him, his face filled with uncertainty. “But I doubt it. I don't know what he's done to you, but if it's some sort of gene therapy gone wrong then I don't know that he can fix it. I don't know that it can be fixed. And if this was intentional as you seem to think, then I don't think he would want to try. But worse than that, even if he was trying to do something specific, to physically improve your health by giving you two hearts maybe, the science is still only in its infancy. Whatever he was trying to do, I don't think he meant to do all of this.”
“The gold skin and eyes, the growth on your back, the alterations to your musculature, they don't serve any purpose. Not any medical purpose anyway. And I don't think that they're intentional.” His face suddenly grew very serious.
“I hate to tell you this, but most of this, maybe all of it, is a side effect of some sort. A botch up as the doctor played God. And all of it could kill you.”
“Besides which, human experimentation like this is outlawed by international law. Doctor Millen will go to jail for a very long time for this. He would have to know that. So I'd guess he doesn't want to be found. And unfortunately with everything else that's happened, he's not likely to be.”
“Your only chance is to let us help you. To try and fix whatever damage arises as it appears. I don't know that we'll ever be able to undo what's been done, but maybe we can treat the symptoms. Some back surgery to get rid of whatever's growing there, which should help with the stiffness. Drugs for the stomach upsets. Maybe some hormone supplements if that's what's causing your hair loss. There are even drugs for melanin removal which may help with your colour. And at the very least we can help with the pain you mentioned.”
Why was it that none of that sounded good just then? Will didn't know, although he was certain that the thought of surgery did not appeal at all. That, he didn't want. Although he guessed that the doctor was right. It might be the only way to free up his back again. But surgery? And then what if whatever it was regrew? But worse than that, the doctor didn't know if it would help. He'd freely admitted it several times. So they might not be able to help him at all. He could end up stuck in a hospital, doped up to the eyeballs and being operated on for the rest of his life, with no end in sight.
“Doctor?” A male nurse poked his head through the flap unexpectedly causing them both to turn.
“Yes?”
“General's in a flap in the admin tent. Something about reports. I think he needs to speak to you urgently.”
“Oh!” The doctor suddenly seemed less certain – maybe even nervous. Will had no idea why he should be though – he hadn't done anything wrong, had he? “I'll be right there.”
It was a relief when the doctor left after telling Will to stay there and consider what he'd said. It gave him a chance to do just that, and to decide if this was what he really wanted. Deep down he knew he didn't. There would be no more hospitals for him. Not unless he absolutely needed them. Not when they fell down sink holes and were staffed by mad scientists. And especially not when they were promising surgery.
That was enough to make Will's decision for him. Maybe he had developed some sort of phobia to hospitals and doctors. But the reality was that whatever was wrong with him it wasn't so terrible that he needed that – although the two hearts things was a shock. And they couldn't fix it anyway.
Quickly he started dressing again, covering himself up so no one noticed him, and then when he was ready he headed out into the main part of the tent, trying to walk calmly. Not to look as though he was fleeing. He was just a patient who had finished his consult.
No one th
ere paid him any attention, but then they were all busy with their duties and he was just someone leaving. The same was true outside when he wandered through the camp and found his bike still chained to the lamp post where he'd left it. Shortly after that he was gone, relieved he'd escaped.
But as he rode away he did suddenly remember two things about the visit that didn't seem quite right. Both of them were about the nurse who'd interrupted them. First, that he'd been standing there half undressed right in front of him, and the man hadn't even seemed to notice Will’s deformities. Why? Was he blind? People stared at him in the street even when he was covered up. The doctor had nearly fallen over when he'd seen him – and he'd been warned in advance from reading his notes.
And the other thing – the man had long white hair. Like the old lady in the hospital who might or might not have saved his life. Like the strange man who wasn't quite there when the lava bombs had been falling and the other ones he chatted to who also weren't quite there. That didn't seem right. White hair wasn't normal, especially in the young. And it was hanging freely, surely a violation of some sort of military dress code. But at least this one he'd actually been able to see.