The Touch

by F. Paul Wilson

  Very per sis tent, that woman.

  But he loved her. No doubt about that. She made him feel good about himself, good about her, good about the whole damn world. He hated leaving her, even for the few days it would take to go through this clinical investigation here at the Foundation. He had come as much for her as for himself. That had to be love.

  Because he hated being here.

  It was a nice enough place. Rather impressive, actually, with its steel and granite exterior and that huge art-deco lobby. But beyond the lobby all twenty stories had been refurbished and furnished with state-of-the-art medical equipment.

  The decor didn’t make him feel the least bit comfortable, however. He hated being probed and studied and looked at and treated like an experimental lab rat. None of that had happened as yet, but it was coming. He could feel it coming. He had signed a waiver of liability and had agreed to sleep here and stay within the confines of the Foundation building for the duration of his testing in order to minimize the variables that might otherwise be introduced.

  He sighed. What choice did he have? Either go on as he had been and lose his license and his reputation as a reliable, conscientious physician, condemned to practice miracle medicine on the fringes as some sort of quack or tent-show healer; or let someone like Axford do a hard-nosed, nitty-gritty scientific work-up under controlled conditions, get hard data, replicate the results, and document first the existence of the Touch, and then the whys and wherefores of it.

  Alan wanted to know—for Sylvia, for the world, but mostly for himself. Because the Touch was doing something to him. He didn’t know exactly what, but he knew he wasn’t quite the same person as when he started with this back in the spring. Axford’s conclusions might not be good news, but at least Alan would know, and maybe the knowledge would help him re-assert some modicum of control over his life. He sure as hell hadn’t had much lately.

  The digital LED display on the desk clock said 7:12 when Axford returned.

  “Are you quite ready now?” he said with his haughty air.

  “Won’t know for sure until I try.”

  “Then let’s try, shall we? I’ve kept my secretary and a few others after hours on your account. I trust you won’t disappoint us.”

  Axford led him down an elevator and into the opposite wing of the building, talking all the while.

  “A man you shall know only as Mr. K. has agreed to allow you to ‘examine’ him. He knows nothing about you—has never heard of you, never seen your picture in the paper, knows nothing other than the fact that you are another physician who is going to examine him and possibly contribute something to his therapy.

  “Pretty much the truth, hmmm?”

  Axford nodded. “I don’t lie to people who come here for treatment.”

  “But you’re also trying to avoid any hint of placebo effect.”

  “Bloody right. And we’ll have the room miked and you’ll be on videotape to make sure you don’t try to sell him on a miracle.”

  Alan couldn’t help but smile. “Glad to see you’re taking no chances. What’s the diagnosis?”

  “Adeno-CA of the lung, metastatic to the brain.”

  Alan winced. “What’s been tried so far?”

  “That’s a rather involved story—and here we are.” He put his hand on a doorknob. “I’ll introduce you and leave you alone with him. From then on you’re on your own. But remember—I’ll be watching and listening on the monitor.”

  Alan bowed. “Yes, Big Brother.”

  Mr. K was tall, very thin, and his color was awful. But his eyes were bright. He sat shirtless and stoop-shouldered on the examining table and showed more empty spaces than teeth when he smiled. He had a two- or three-month-old scar, one inch long, at the base of his throat above the sternal notch—mediastinoscopy, no doubt. Alan also noticed knobby lumps above his right clavicle—lymph nodes swollen with metastasized cancer. Mr. K wheezed at times when he spoke, and he coughed intermittently.

  “What kind of doctor are you?”

  “A therapist of sorts. How do you feel?”

  “Not bad for a dead man.”

  The reply startled Alan. So casual, and so accurate. “Pardon?”

  “Didn’t they tell you? I got cancer of the lung and it went to my head.”

  “But there’s radiation therapy, chemotherapy—”

  “Horse shit! No death rays, no poisons! I’ll go out like a man, not some puking wimp.”

  “Then what are you doing here at the Foundation?”

  “Made a deal with them.” He pulled out a pack of Camels. “Mind if I smoke?”

  “After I examine you, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind.” He put them away. “Anyway, I made a deal: Keep me comfortable and out of pain.” He lowered his voice.

  “And grease the chute on the way out when the time comes, if you know what I mean. Do that and I’ll let you study me and the effects of all this cancer. So they’re gonna keep giving me tests to see what happens to my mental function, my moods, my—what they call it? Oh, yeah—motor skills. All that shit. Never did much with my life these last fifty-two years. Figure I can do something on the way out. Man’s gotta be good for something sometime in his life, ain’t he?”

  Alan stared at Mr. K. He was either one of the bravest men he had ever met or a complete idiot.

  “But you know all this already,” Mr. K said. “Don’t you?”

  “I like to find things out on my own. But tell me. If for some reason your tumors just disappeared and you walked out of here a healthy man, what would be the first thing you’d do?”

  Mr. K winked at him. “Quit smoking!”

  Alan laughed. “Good enough. Let’s take a look at you.”

  He placed a hand on each side of Mr. K’s head. There was no waiting. The shocklike ecstasy surged through him. He saw Mr. K’s eyes widen, then they rolled upward as he went into a brief grand mal seizure.

  Axford rushed into the room.

  “What in bloody hell did you do to him?”

  “Healed him,” Alan said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  It was time to wipe that smug, superior look off Axford’s face.

  “You son of a bitch!”

  “He’s all right.”

  “I’m fine,” Mr. K said from the floor. “What happened?”

  “You had a seizure,” Axford said.

  “If you say so.” He brushed off Axford’s attempt to make him lie still, and got to his feet. “Didn’t feel a thing.”

  “Check him out tomorrow,” Alan said, feeling more confident of the Touch than ever before. “He’s cured.”

  “Tomorrow, hell!” Axford said, leading Mr. K to the door. “I’m hauling in the on-call techs right now! We’ll see what a chest X-ray and brain CT scan have to say tonight!”

  36

  Charles

  It’s a mistake! It’s got to be!

  Charles sat before the light boxes, staring at the chest X-ray. The PA view on his left was two months old; it showed an irregular white blotch in the right hilar area, a mass of cancerous tissue. The view in the middle had been shot a week ago; the mass was larger, with tendrils reaching out into the uninvolved lung tissue, the hilum swollen with enlarged lymph nodes. The third film, to the right, was still warm from the developer.

  It was normal. Completely clean. Even the emphysema and fibrosis were gone.

  They’re having me on! Charles told himself. They’re pissed at being called in at night so they’ve stuck in a ringer to give me a scare!

  He checked the name and date on the third film: Jake Knopf—known to Bulmer as Mr. K—and today’s date were printed in the upper right corner. Then he checked the film again and noticed an irregularity of the left clavicle in the third film—an old fracture that had healed at a sharper-than-normal angle. A glance at the other two studies almost froze his blood—the same clavicle abnormality was in all three!

  “Wait a minute now,” he said to himself in a gentle to
ne. “Just wait a minute. No use getting your knickers in a twist just yet. There’s got to be an explanation.”

  “Did you say something, Doctor?” a voice said from behind him.

  Charles swiveled his chair around. Two men, one blond, one dark haired, both in white lab coats that were tight across their shoulders, stood inside the door.

  “Who are you?”

  “We’re your new assistants.”

  Assistants, my ass! These two were goons. He recognized one of them from the senator’s personal security team.

  “The hell you are. I don’t need any assistants and didn’t ask for any.”

  The blond fellow shrugged. “This is where we’ve been assigned. This is where we’ll stay. Personally, I’d rather be out on the town, but the orders came straight from the senator’s office.”

  “We’ll see about that.” He jabbed at the intercom. Here he was, faced with the most astounding puzzle of his medical career, and he had to put up with interference from McCready. “Marnie—get me the senator. Now.”

  He was glad he had had her stay tonight; it would save him the trouble of tracking McCready down.

  “Uh, Dr. Axford?” she said, uncertainly. “He’s already on the line. He called about a minute ago and said you’d be calling him very shortly and he’d hold until you did.”

  Despite his anger, Charles had to laugh. That sly bastard!

  “He’s on 06,” Marnie said.

  “Right.” He picked up the handset.

  “I was expecting your call,” McCready said without preamble. “Here’s why I must insist on Henly and Rossi staying with you: You are aware no doubt of Dr. Bulmer’s penchant for publicity; I want to make sure that none of his test results leak out until you are completely finished. I will not have him use the Foundation and some inconclusive data as a springboard to greater heights of notoriety. And I won’t have any of the staff tempted into leaking some of these results to the outside.

  “Therefore, Henly and Rossi will be on hand to see that all—and I do mean all—records of Dr. Bulmer’s stay remain locked in your office files until you and the Foundation are ready to issue a statement.”

  “You really think all this is necessary?”

  “I do. And I ask you to cooperate with me.”

  Charles thought a moment. It would be a pain in the ass to have these two characters traipsing around after him, but if all the data were to be confined to his office, where he could have access to it at any time, then how could he object?

  “All right. As long as they don’t get in my way.”

  “Thank you, Charles. I knew I could count on you. Any results yet?”

  “Of course not! I’ve only just begun!”

  “Very well. Keep me informed.”

  Charles grunted and hung up. He edited Henly and Rossi from his mind and studied the X-rays again. There had to be a mistake there. Somewhere along the line somebody had either screwed up or was trying to make a fool out of him.

  He’d find out which, and heads would roll.

  Charles just missed Mr. Knopf at the EEG lab.

  “He’s on his way to radiology,” the tech told him.

  Charles picked up the thick, fan-folded EEG record and spread part of it out on a desk. He felt his mouth go dry as he unfolded more and more of it from the stack.

  It was normal. None of the typical irregularities signifying an underlying mass, no hint of a recent grand mal seizure. He had the tech pull out a previous tracing. Yes, all the usual signs of brain tumor had been there. All gone now.

  He rushed down to radiology, idly noting Henly and Rossi entering the EEG lab after him and gathering up the tracing he’d been reading.

  Knopf was already in the CT scanner. Charles paced the floor in front of the monitor. He was sweating, whether from the extra heat thrown off by the machine or from tension, he didn’t know. The radiologist wouldn’t be in until morning, but that didn’t matter.

  Charles could read the scans himself. As the films rolled out of the developer, each with four radiographic cuts of Knopf’s brain, he grabbed them one by one and slapped them up on the view box.

  Normal! One after the other: Normal!

  He was almost frantic now. This was a nightmare! Things like this just didn’t happen in the real world! Everything had an explanation, a cause and an effect! Primary tumors and their metastases simply didn’t disappear because some balmy faith healer put his hands on a head!

  He saw that the red light over the door was out so he rushed into the scanner room. Jake Knopf was sitting on the edge of the roller table.

  “What’s up, Doc?” he said. “You look like you need a transfusion.”

  I do! Charles thought. Straight vodka!

  “Just want to check your neck, Jake.”

  “Sure. Check away.”

  Charles pressed his fingers above Knopf’s right clavicle where the lymph nodes had been swollen and knotty. They were gone now. The area was clean.

  Nausea rose up like a wave. He felt as if his world were coming apart. He lurched away and hurried toward Bulmer’s quarters.

  It was true! Knopf was cured! And Bulmer had done it! But how? Jesus H. bloody fucking Christ—!

  He cut himself off with a bitter laugh. If Bulmer’s power was possible, then anything was possible. Even Jesus Christ was possible. Better watch his tongue. He might really be up there. Or out there. Or somewhere. Listening.

  “Nope,” Bulmer said with a slow, deliberate shake of his head from where he sat by his room window. “Can’t do it.”

  “Why the bloody hell not?”

  “Too late. It only lasts for an hour and then it’s gone.”

  “How convenient.”

  “I’ve got no control over it.”

  “So when will it be back?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Sometime tomorrow morning, probably, but definitely somewhere around eight tomorrow evening.”

  Axford sat down on the bed. He suddenly felt exhausted.

  “You’re so sure?”

  “Been keeping track of it for months.” He indicated a manila envelope.

  “Records?” Charles said, feeling his lethargy lift slightly. “You’ve kept records?”

  “Sporadically at first, but pretty consistently lately. You want to use them, you can have them. I mean borrow them. I want them back.”

  “Of course.” Axford sifted through the contents—there were index cards, scratch pad sheets emblazoned with the logos of various pharmaceutical companies, even prescription blanks with notes jotted on the back. There were a few audio micro-cassettes, too.

  “What’s all this?”

  “Names, dates, times. Who, what, where, when—when the Hour of Power started and when it ended.”

  The Hour of Power—sounded like one of those Sunday-morning gospel shows.

  Charles could feel his excitement growing. Here was something he could deal with—dates, times, data! He could work with these. He could understand and toy with and analyze these. But Jake Knopf…

  How could he deal with what had happened to Jake Knopf today?

  “You haven’t asked about Mr. K.”

  “Who?” Bulmer looked genuinely puzzled.

  “The chap with the brain metastases. You saw him a few hours ago.”

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” Bulmer smiled. “He’s fine, I’m sure. A remarkable ‘spontaneous remission,’ no?”

  “You read minds, too?” Charles blurted in surprise. That had been exactly what he had been thinking.

  Bulmer’s smile was laconic. “I’ve heard that one a few times before.”

  “Right. I’ll bet you have.”

  He looked Bulmer in the eye and hesitated before asking the question. The question. Because he was afraid of the answer.

  “Is all this for real?”

  Bulmer held his gaze. “Yes, Charles. It’s for real.”

  “But how, dammit?”

  Bulmer went on to tell him about a former Vietnam medic who ev
entually wound up in the Monroe Community Hospital, where he touched him and died.

  A fantastic story, but certainly no more fantastic than Jake Knopf’s remission. He studied Bulmer. The man’s bearing, his laid-back manner, the pile of notes in the envelope, all indicated a sincere man.

  But it can’t be!

  Charles stood and hefted the envelope.

  “I’m going to sift this stuff through the computer and see if any correlations fall out.”

  “There’s a definite rhythm to the Touch, but I haven’t been able to figure it out.”

  “If it’s there, we’ll find it.”

  “Good. That’s why I’m here. You’re going to do a work-up on me, aren’t you?”

  “Starts first thing in the morning.”

  “Do a good one. The works.”

  “I intend to.” He noticed Bulmer’s grim expression. “Why do you say it like that?”

  “Because there’s something wrong with me. I don’t know if it’s stress, or if it’s something else, but I can’t seem to remember things the way I used to. I can’t remember even half the people I’ve cured. But I cured them. That I know.”

  “Short-term or long-term memory?”

  “Mostly short-term, I think. It’s pretty spotty, but there’s definitely something wrong.”

  Charles didn’t like the sound of that, but he reserved judgment until he had some data to work with.

  “Rest up tonight, because tomorrow and the next day you’re going to be tested like you’ve never been tested before.”

  As Charles turned to go, Bulmer said, “You do believe me just a little now, don’t you?”

  Charles saw something in his eyes at that moment, a terrible loneliness that touched him despite his desire to prove Alan Bulmer a cheap fraud.