The Touch

by F. Paul Wilson

  Chac stood and showed Hai, who embraced him, then went to the door and opened it.

  The hall was filled with people. It looked like half of the city’s Southeast Asian population was on the landing. They gasped in unison at the sight of Chac’s normal, upraised hands, then broke into a babble of singsong voices, none of them speaking English.

  Chac turned to him and dried his eyes. “I thank you. And I wonder if you would be so kind as to let the Dat-tay-vao heal others.”

  Alan didn’t answer.

  Why me? he wondered for the thousandth time. Why should he wind up with responsibility for the Dat-tay-vao? To decide whether to use it or not? He vaguely remembered being told that it was hurting him, that he paid a personal price every time he used it.

  Do I want this?

  He looked across the table at the happy little boy sitting with his grandmother, alive and well this morning instead of dead or on a respirator. He saw Chac flexing and extending his new fingers again and again. And he saw Mr. K’s empty cigarette pack.

  This was what it was all about: second chances. A chance to go back to when and where the illness had struck and start fresh again. Maybe that was the answer to Why me? He wanted to provide that second chance—give them all a second chance.

  “Doctor?” Chac said, waiting.

  “Bring them in,” he told Chac. “Bring them all in.”

  Alan waited in anticipation as Chac went back to the door. This was going to be good. He could be up front about the Touch here. No worry about newspapers and hospital boards and conniving politicians. Just Alan, the patient, and the Dat-tay-vao.

  He motioned to Chac to hurry. There would be no holding back today, no pussyfooting around. The Touch would recede in an hour and he wanted to treat as many as he could.

  Chac brought the first forward: a middle-aged man with both arms locked at right angles in front of him.

  “The Cong broke his elbows so that he would go through life unable to take food or drink by himself.”

  Alan wasted no time. He grabbed both elbows and felt the familiar shock. The man cried out as his arms straightened at the elbows for the first time in years, and then he began to swing them up and down. He fell to his knees, but Alan gently pushed him aside and motioned a limping boy forward.

  On they came, in a steady stream. And as the Dat-tay-vao worked its magic on each one, Alan felt himself enveloped in an ever-deepening cloud of euphoria. The details of the room faded away. All that was left was a tunnel view of his hands and the person before him. A part of him was frightened, calling for a halt. Alan ignored it. He was at peace with himself, with his life. This was as it should be. This was what his life was about, this was what he had been born for.

  He pressed on, literally pulling the people toward him and pushing them aside as soon as the pleasure flashed through him.

  The haze grew thicker. And still the people came.

  The flashes of ecstasy stopped coming but the haze remained. It seemed to permeate all levels of his consciousness.

  Where am I?

  He tried to remember but the answer wouldn’t come.

  Who am I?

  He couldn’t even think of his name. But there was another name surfacing through the haze. He reached for it, found it, and said it aloud.

  “Jeffy.”

  He clung to the name, repeating it.

  “Jeffy.”

  The name ignited a small flame within him. He turned his face northeast. He had to find Jeffy. Jeffy would tell him who he was.

  He stood and almost fell. His left leg was weak. He called for help, and shadowy figures babbling gibberish propped him up until he was steady. As he began to walk toward the door, gentle hands tried to hold him back. He said one word: “No.” The hands fell away and the figures parted to let him pass. He came to a set of stairs and paused, unsure of where his feet were. He tried to reach out for the banister with his left hand but could not raise it high enough. It was so heavy.

  “Help,” he said. “Jeffy.”

  Hands and arms lifted him and carried him down and around a number of times and finally brought him into the bright, hot sun where they set him on his feet again.

  He began to walk. He knew the direction. Jeffy was like a beacon.

  He moved toward it.

  “Jeffy.”

  49

  Sylvia

  Sylvia sat on the library couch where she and Alan had made love last week and patiently listened to the noon news, waiting for further word on McCready. There was nothing new. She rose and reached to switch off the weatherman when the camera abruptly cut away from him to the anchorman.

  “This just in: Senator James McCready is dead. We have just received word that the senator has died from complications of a long-standing illness. We will break into our regular programming as more details become available.”

  Her heart pounding, Sylvia strode forward and spun the dial. She searched across the band, hunting more details, but heard only the same information in almost exactly the same wording. All the stations must have received identical releases.

  She flicked off the set.

  Complications of a long-standing illness.

  That was a relief. She had worried that the senator or his staff might try to lay the blame for what had happened on Alan. Normally such a fear would never have crossed her mind, but after what had happened lately….

  The realization struck her: Alan could come home!

  She checked the slip of paper that Ba had given her and called Chac Tien Dong’s number. It went four rings before it was answered by a Vietnamese woman. Sylvia could barely hear her over the wild babble of voices in the background at the other end of the line.

  “May I speak to Dr. Bulmer, please?” There came a confusion of noise over the wire. “How about Chac?” Sylvia said. “Can I speak to Chac?”

  More confusion, then a male voice.

  “Yes? This is Chac.”

  “This is Mrs. Nash, Chac. May I speak to Dr. Bulmer?”

  There was a long pause, then Chac said, “He not here.”

  Oh, my God! “Where is he? Where did he go? Did someone come and take him away?”

  “No. He leave all by self.”

  That, at least, was a relief. It meant that none of the Foundation people were involved.

  “But why didn’t you stop him?”

  “Oh, no,” Chac said. “Never stop Dat-tay-vao! Very bad!” Alarm spread through her like a cold wind. Ba said he had warned Alan against mentioning the Touch. How did Chac know?

  “Did he use the Dat-tay-vao?”

  “Oh, yes! Many times!”

  Sylvia slammed the receiver down and shouted, “Ba!”

  50

  Ba

  Ba pushed his way through the thinning crowd in the tiny apartment to where Chac was standing and waving his reborn fingers in the air. His anger must have shown in his face, for the older man looked up at him and paled.

  “I couldn’t help it, Ba!” he said, retreating a step.

  “You promised!” Ba said in a low voice, feeling hurt and angry. “You said you would keep him from all eyes except your family’s, and here I find a party!”

  “The Dat-tay-vao! He has the Dat-tay-vao!”

  “I know that. It was why I asked you to hide him.”

  “I didn’t know that! Perhaps if you had told me, it would have made a difference!”

  “Perhaps?”

  “Little Lam Thuy would have died if he hadn’t been here! Don’t you understand? He was sent here! He was meant to be here at that very moment! The Dat-tay-vao knew it would be needed and so it brought him here!”

  “I brought him here! And I’m glad with all my heart that he saved Lam Thuy, but that does not justify inviting the entire community to come here!”

  Chac shrugged sheepishly. “I boasted. I was so honored to have the Dat-tay-vao in my home that I had to tell someone. The news spread. Like fish to the spawning ground, they descended on me. What coul
d I do?”

  “You could have turned them away.”

  Chac gazed at him reproachfully. “If you had heard that someone with the Dat-tay-vao was down the street when Nhung Thi was dying of the cancer, would you have been turned away?”

  Ba had no answer. None, at least, that he wished to voice. He knew that he would have fought like a thousand devils for a chance to let the Dat-tay-vao work its magic on his withering wife. He sighed and placed a gentle hand on Chac’s shoulder.

  “Tell me, old friend. Which way did he go?”

  “He was looking northeast. I would have kept him here, but he was seeking someone. And as you know, one never impedes the Dat-tay-vao.”

  “Yes, I know,” Ba said, “but I’ve never understood that.”

  “‘If you value your well-being/Impede not its way.’ What more is there to understand?”

  “What happens if you do impede its way?”

  “I do not know. Let others learn; the warning is enough for me.”

  “I must find him for the Missus. Can you help me?”

  Chac shook his head. “We did not follow him. He was under the spell of the Dat-tay-vao—he was not walking right and his thoughts were clouded. But he kept saying the same word over and over again: ‘Jeffy.’ Again and again: ‘Jeffy.’”

  Spurred by a sudden and unexplainable sense of danger, Ba stepped to the phone and dialed the Missus. He now knew where the Doctor was going. But if he was walking and if his mind was not right, he might never reach his destination. Ba would do his best to find him, but first he had to call the Missus.

  Glancing out the window, he saw the first thunderheads piling up in the western sky.

  51

  During the Storm

  Sylvia had watched the gathering darkness with a growing sense of foreboding. Her longtime general fear of all storms paled before the dread that rose in her minute by minute as she watched the billowing clouds, all pink and white on top but so dark and menacing below, swallow the westering sun. Alan was out there somewhere. And he was coming here. That should have thrilled her; instead it filled her with an even greater unease. Ba had hinted that Alan wasn’t quite in his right mind. Alan and the storm—both were approaching from the west.

  The phone rang. Sylvia rushed to it.

  It was Charles. He seemed to have regained his composure since yesterday. Quickly, Sylvia relayed what Ba had told her.

  “The bloody fool!” he said. “Did Ba say how many people he worked his magic on before he wandered off?”

  “He wasn’t sure, but from what he could gather from Chac, maybe fifty.”

  “Good lord!” Charles said in a voice that was suddenly hoarse.

  Sylvia pressed on, hoping that if she kept feeding information to Charles he might be able to give her an idea of what had happened to Alan.

  “Chac also told Ba that Alan was walking funny—as if his left leg wasn’t working right.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “That poor stupid bastard! He’s gone and knocked out part of his motor cortex! God knows what will go next.”

  Sylvia felt as if her heart were suspended between beats. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that this Touch or what ever you call this bloody power of his has apparently used up most of the nonvital areas of his brain, and now it’s moving into more critical areas. No telling what will go next if he goes on using it. If it hits a vital motor area, he could wind up crippled; if it knocks out a part of the visual cortex, he’ll be partially or completely blind. And if he should happen to damage something like the respiratory center in the brainstem, he’ll die!”

  Sylvia could barely breathe.

  “God, Charles, what’ll we do?”

  “Isolate him, keep him safe and happy, and don’t let him go around touching people when the tide is in. Given time, and, assuming he hasn’t caused too much damage, I think his brain will recover. At least partially. But I can’t guarantee it. Of course, the first thing you’ve got to do is find him.”

  “He’s coming here,” Sylvia said with a sinking feeling.

  “Well, good. No problem then.”

  “He’s coming for Jeffy.”

  “Oh, yes, he mentioned Jeffy at the Foundation.” There was a lengthy pause, then: “That does present a problem now, doesn’t it? A moral dilemma, one might say.”

  Thunder rumbled.

  Sylvia couldn’t answer.

  “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Charles said. “Anything. I owe that man.”

  Sylvia hung up and corralled Jeffy from the now dark sunroom. She pulled the drapes closed across the tall library windows, then sat on the couch and snuggled with the ever more placid Jeffy as she listened to the growing din of the storm.

  On the Five O’Clock News, Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle were extolling the courage and integrity of the late Senator James A. McCready. Sylvia tuned them out.

  What am I going to do?

  She knew the choice that faced her and she didn’t want to choose. According to the chart, it would be high tide off Monroe at 10:43 tonight. If Alan arrived then, she would have to make a decision: a meaningful life for Jeffy against brain damage, maybe even death, for Alan.

  She hugged Jeffy against her and rocked back and forth like a child with a teddy bear.

  I can’t choose!

  Maybe she wouldn’t have to. Maybe Ba could intercept him and bring him to Charles or someplace where he could rest and become himself again. That would rescue her from the dilemma of either letting him go ahead with what he thought he had to do, or standing in his way and delaying him until the hour of the Dat-tay-vao passed.

  And later, after Alan had had days and weeks to rest up, and if he recovered the parts of his mind he had lost over the past few weeks, and knew what he was doing and was fully aware of the risks involved, then maybe she could let him try the Dat-tay-vao on Jeffy.

  But what if the Dat-tay-vao was gone by then? Sylvia squeezed Jeffy tighter.

  What do I do?

  She looked at the old Regulator school clock on the wall—5:15. Five and a half hours to go.

  Alan realized he was wet. The water poured out of the sky in torrents, soaking through his clothes and running down his arms and legs. His feet squished in his shoes as he walked.

  He had been walking as fast as his weak left leg would allow him for a long time. He wasn’t sure where he was, but he knew he was closer to Jeffy. He had crossed a bridge over a river and was now walking down a narrow alley between two run-down apartment houses. He came to a spot where an overhang gave shelter from the downpour. He stopped and leaned against the wall for a rest.

  Two other men were already there.

  “Beat it, asshole,” one of them said. Alan strained his vision in the dim light to see the one who had spoken. He saw a filthy man who wore his equally filthy long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, dressed in torn jeans and a T-shirt that might have been yellow once. “This spot’s taken.”

  Alan didn’t know why the man was so belligerent, but he took it as good advice. He had to keep on moving. Had to get to Jeffy. Couldn’t let a little rain stop him. He started for the end of the alley toward which he had been heading, but tripped and almost fell.

  “Hey!” said the other man. He too was wearing dirty jeans, and his greasy, gray sweatshirt cut off at the shoulders exposed crude tattoos over each deltoid. His hair was short and black. “You kicked me!”

  In a single motion, he levered himself off the wall and gave Alan a vicious shove. Off balance and stumbling backward, Alan’s wind-milling arms caught the wall, but his left leg wouldn’t hold him. He went down on one knee.

  “Bad leg, ay?” Ponytail said with a smile as he stepped forward. Alan felt a stab of pain in his good leg as the man kicked him. He went down on the other knee.

  Hurt and afraid now, Alan struggled back to his feet. He saw that both men had identical tattoos in their thumb webs—a spidery, stick-limbed fig
ure he’d seen before. He turned away.

  “Hey, gimp! Where y’goin’?” one of them said from behind.

  “Jeffy,” Alan said. How could they not know that?

  “What he say?” said the other voice.

  “Dunno. Didn’t even sound like English.”

  “Hey! A foreign dude. Let’s check him out!”

  A hand clamped on his shoulder and spun him around. “What’s the rush, pal?” Ponytail said, grabbing his arms and pinning them to his sides. Sweatshirt came up beside him and rammed his fingers into Alan’s left rear pocket.

  “Fucker’s got a wallet!”

  A vaguely female voice shouted from far above. “Hey! What’s goin’ on down there?”

  “Eat me, sweetheart!” Sweatshirt yelled, almost in Alan’s ear, as he struggled with the button on Alan’s rear pocket.

  “Jeffy!” Alan said.

  Ponytail stuck his face almost against Alan’s. His breath was foul. “I’ll Jeffee your head, asshole, if you don’t shut up!”

  Alan freed his right arm and pushed against him.

  “Jeffy!”

  And suddenly Ponytail began to gurgle and writhe in his grasp. His eyes rolled upward and a swollen tongue protruded from his mouth.

  “What the fuck?” Sweatshirt shouted. “Hey, Sammy! Hey!”

  He pulled on the front of Alan’s shirt and Alan fended him off, grabbing his wrist with his newly freed left hand.

  Sweatshirt began to shudder uncontrollably in Alan’s grasp, as if suddenly struck with a malarial chill. His short black hair began to fall out and rain down on Alan’s arm.

  Alan glanced back at Ponytail, now swaying drunkenly. Lumps had appeared all over his skin; as Alan watched, they swelled, pointed, and burst, oozing trails of purulent, blood-tinged slime down his quaking body.

  Reeling in confusion and shock, Alan tried to loosen his grip but found his fingers locked. Sweatshirt’s knees crumbled under him. As Alan watched, the man’s stomach began to swell, becoming enormously distended until it ruptured, spewing loops of his intestines out of the cavity to drape over his thighs like strings of boiled sausage.