Ashen Winter

by Mike Mullin

  He was rolling around under his blankets, moaning “’a’er, ’a’er” in a breathy voice. I figured out what he wanted and poured some water from the jug on the counter into a plastic cup.

  His hands were shaking so badly, he couldn’t hold the cup. So I propped him up with one arm and poured the water slowly past his lips.

  After he drank about half the cup, he started coughing. That went on for a while—a series of dry, rasping coughs that had to be painful with his fresh stitches. When his coughing subsided, he motioned at the water cup, and I helped him drink the rest of it.

  As I turned to put the cup away, he said in a surprisingly clear voice, “Thank you.”

  I put the cup down and came back to his bedside. “What’s your name?”

  “Ralph.”

  “You know where Bill got that shotgun?”

  He grabbed my arm, clutching it tightly enough to hurt. “The bones, they’re burning. Burning. White ends turn brown and blacken in the fire.” He levered himself partway upright and stared into my eyes. “The flame eats, but it’s never satisfied. It eats all night, every night, but there aren’t enough bones.”

  “What about the shotgun?” I pried his hand off my arm.

  He moaned, then whispered, “There are too many bones.” Then, abruptly, he fell back to sleep.

  Chapter 9

  Dr. McCarthy returned to the office early the next morning. He poked his head into the exam room, letting in a sliver of light. “You guys up?”

  I groaned. I’d barely slept. “I am now.”

  “Bring your breakfast into the office so we don’t have to light another lantern, would you?”

  “Sure.” I rolled out from under the blankets and groped for my coat. Darla was already up.

  Dr. McCarthy stepped into the room and raised the lantern. Darla grabbed a couple packages of ham from our pack, and I picked up our toothbrushes and the pail of washwater. A crust of ice had formed on it overnight. All three of us trooped into the hall.

  “I’ve got to check on the patient,” Dr. McCarthy said.

  Darla and I waited in the dark hallway while the doctor checked on Ralph. It took less than five minutes. “How is he?” I asked as Dr. McCarthy emerged.

  “Unconscious. Pulse and breathing are okay, but he’s running a fever.”

  “You think he’ll wake up today?”

  “No way to tell.”

  As we were eating breakfast, the mayor of Warren, Bob Petty, joined us. He was the only person I knew who’d retained his pre-volcano roundness—in his face, belly, and stentorian baritone voice. “Heard you’ve got a bandit here, Jim.”

  “They brought him in.” Dr. McCarthy tilted his head at Darla and me.

  “You catch him out at your uncle’s farm?”

  “Sort of,” Darla said. “We killed two of them. One got away.”

  “We can’t have his type here. I’ll send the sheriff to escort him out.”

  “You will not,” Dr. McCarthy said emphatically. “Bandit or not, he’s a patient. And he’s unconscious, hardly a threat.”

  “Folks are worried.”

  Dr. McCarthy stared at the mayor until the silence got uncomfortable.

  The mayor cleared his throat. “Well, he wakes up, you fetch me or the sheriff. We’ll talk about it then.”

  Dr. McCarthy changed the subject, asking about the latest news. The mayor had traded some pork for a handcranked battery charger and an emergency radio, which they were using to monitor the few shortwave stations still transmitting. Rumors and speculation abounded: The Chinese had annexed California, Oregon, and Washington, bringing in troops under the guise of humanitarian assistance. Mexico had closed its borders and started shooting American refugees. U.S. forces stationed in Afghanistan had left and were now occupying farmland in Argentina. Texas had seceded, and religious fanatics in Florida were agitating to follow suit. Half of Congress and four Supreme Court justices had resigned en masse and threatened to set up an alternate government. Some of them had been arrested. Black Lake, the huge military subcontractor that ran the camp where Darla and I had been imprisoned last year, had opened offices inside the Pentagon and White House.

  There was no way to know if any of the rumors were true, and it didn’t seem to matter much, anyway. The only news that mattered to me was news of my parents—and none of that came in over the shortwave.

  Belinda came in just as the mayor was leaving. She smiled and shook his hand, but her eyes were wary. When we’d cleaned up from breakfast, Belinda put us to work organizing patient files. All the office staff had left, so the filing was way behind. Having us work with the records was a violation of HIPAA rules, Belinda said, but she didn’t sound particularly worried, and I wasn’t sure what she meant by HIPAA, anyway. Each patient had a folder with brightly colored tabs that slotted into one of the open bookcases around the office. One entire bookcase, packed with records, had been marked DECEASED.

  After a while, I started looking inside the folders. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but the work was tedious, and I was curious. Every file ended with a sheet of copier paper, neatly torn in half. They all had the same handwritten heading: CERTIFICATE OF DEATH. Under that in smaller letters it read, “Prepared by James H. McCarthy, M.D.”

  Every sheet listed a time, date, and cause of death. The causes varied wildly: stroke, exposure, heart attack, periodontitis—whatever that was. Darla started looking in the files, too, and we called out causes of death as we worked: blunt trauma from a fall, chronic bronchitis aggravated by silicosis, pneumonia, renal failure.

  Then I heard a soft slap as the file Darla was holding hit the counter. “Jesus H. Christ,” she whispered.

  “What is it?” I asked, turning toward her.

  She didn’t respond, just slid the file along the counter to me.

  There were two death certificates stapled to the file. The top one was for Elsa Hayward. I’d never heard of her. Cause of death: hemorrhage during childbirth. I lifted it to read the second certificate. Jane Doe Hayward: suffocated in childbirth. A full sheet of paper protruded below the death certificates—Elsa had evidently been a patient of Dr. McCarthy’s for a long time and had a chart. The last entry on the chart read, “If she’d been born six months ago, I could have saved them both.” The last phrase was repeated, ground into the paper with such force that it had torn through twice. “I could have saved them both. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

  His scrawled signature was smeared, bleeding into the page. The paper rippled. I ran my finger across it, feeling it pop and crackle under my touch. Suddenly I realized what I was touching—dried tears. I pulled my hand away from the file and swallowed hard, deeply embarrassed, as if I’d opened a door and found Dr. McCarthy behind it, sobbing. I gently closed the file and set it in its place on the bookcase with the other records of the deceased. Darla hugged me, her eyes shining with unshed tears. After that, we quit opening the files.

  After lunch we hauled water for the office on Bikezilla. Warren’s water system had failed shortly after the volcano erupted. So we filled jugs and pails from the nearest working well, about two blocks away. Well water never freezes, even in the hardest winter, although the pipes and handpumps can.

  As I set one of the jugs on the counter, I must have winced, because Darla said, “How’s your side?”

  “It’s fine,” I replied.

  “Let me check it. I should change the bandage, anyway.”

  “I’m fine. Let’s see what else Belinda wants us to do.”

  “After I check your bandage.”

  I sighed, sank into a chair, and started taking off clothing.

  When Darla began removing the bandages from my side, I bit back a scream. I knew it would hurt—it had ever since I’d been shot, but not this badly. The three puncture wounds were swollen and oozing puss. Red streaks radiated from my side like cobwebs.

  “Wait here,” Darla said.

  Dr. McCarthy took one look at it and said, “Cellul
itis manifesting as severe erythema.”

  “Ery-what?” I asked.

  “The puncture wounds are infected.”

  “Can you treat it?” Darla asked.

  “Yes . . .”

  “But?” I asked.

  Dr. McCarthy shook his head. “But nothing, just a sec,” he said and left the room. When he returned, he was carrying seven large white pills and a cup of water. “Take one now and one every day until they’re gone. Should take two a day, but I don’t have enough for that.”

  There was writing on the pills, but I couldn’t make it out in the low light of the lantern. “What are they?”

  “Cipro. Full-spectrum antibiotic.”

  “That must have been hard to come by.” I took the glass of water and swallowed a pill, feeling the lump it made as it passed down my throat.

  “There’s a guy in Galena dealing in it. I don’t know where he gets it—I suspect he has access to the government stockpile.”

  “Why’d the government stockpile it?” Darla asked.

  “It’s one of the best treatments for anthrax. The stockpile was a civil defense measure.”

  “How much do you have left?” I asked.

  “Six tablets.”

  I picked up my jacket from the floor and pulled the bag of envelopes holding the kale seeds out of the inner pocket. I extracted two envelopes.

  Darla glared at me.

  “Use one of these to buy more Cipro,” I told Dr. McCarthy as I handed them over. “I don’t want anyone to go without because of me. I owe you one envelope for Ralph’s medical care.”

  Dr. McCarthy carefully tucked the seeds into his coat, frowning. “Thank you. But I’m going to repay your generosity in about the worst way possible. I need to clean and debride those wounds.”

  “Debride?” I asked.

  “Cut the dead flesh away.”

  “That’s not going to feel particularly pleasant, is it?”

  “Nope. Probably be the worst pain you’ve ever felt. I’ve been out of anesthetics for months, and buying more just isn’t as important as antibiotics, fever-reducers, antiseptics, and the like.”

  I didn’t trust my voice not to quaver, so I nodded.

  “If you’re lucky, you’ll pass out. We can numb your side up a bit with snow.”

  “I’ll get some,” Darla offered.

  “Get the cleanest snow you can find,” Dr. McCarthy said. “Fill one of the small buckets from the supply room. I’ll sterilize my scalpels.”

  While I waited for them to return, my mind wandered back to the last time I’d been in a hospital, before the volcano. I’d biked to taekwondo and forgotten my keys. Nobody was home when I got back, so instead of waiting, I tried to break into my own house. I pushed the lower sash of one of our old-style storm windows inward, and the upper sash fell, snapping my arm at the wrist.

  I called Mom, and she hurried home from a PTO board meeting to take me to the hospital. She prowled the waiting room like a caged animal, pacing until we were finally taken to an exam room. There she quizzed everyone who came near us about the best treatments for broken bones, the advantages of a sling versus a cast, and how to spot infection. Pretty soon, all the nurses were avoiding us.

  When we finally got home, Dad glanced at my brand-new cast, said, “Looks good,” and turned back to his movie. My parents. They drove me crazy, but I still missed them desperately.

  Darla returned to the exam room. I lay on my side on the hard metal table and bit down on Dr. McCarthy’s leather-wrapped stick. Darla packed snow over my wounds. She left the snow there until my side felt frozen and totally numb. But it wasn’t. Darla sat on my legs to keep me steady, but when Dr. McCarthy started carving on my side, I bucked so hard she nearly fell off.

  I hoped, wished—prayed, even—that I’d pass out. No luck. I heard a muffled trumpeting sound and was puzzled for a moment before I realized it was me, screaming around the stick clamped in my teeth. Some blood started to trickle from my side onto the table. I focused on the blood, watching it spread into a small, irregular pool.

  “The bleeding’s good,” Dr. McCarthy said. “Helps clean out the wound.”

  “Uh,” I moaned around the stick.

  “Almost done . . . there.”

  Darla reached up and took hold of the stick. I couldn’t unclamp my teeth from it.

  “Leave it there for now,” Dr. McCarthy said. “We’ll let the punctures bleed for a bit, then I’ll clean and bandage them. He’ll need the stick for that. I’m going to get fresh water and antiseptic.” He left the room.

  “Can I let go of your legs for a minute?” Darla asked me.

  I nodded weakly.

  Darla pulled her sleeve over her hand and used it to wipe the tears from my face. Until then, I hadn’t even been aware I’d been crying. “You’re a tough guy, you know?”

  “Uh,” I moaned.

  Darla gently wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pressed herself against me. She softly kissed my eyelids, right then left. “Love you,” she whispered.

  “’Uv ’ou ’oo,” I grunted back.

  Dr. McCarthy came back into the room carrying a basin of water and two small bottles. “I leave for thirty seconds, and you’re making out in my operating room? Teenagers.”

  Darla quit hugging me and glared at him, but he ignored her as he prepared to wash my wounds. I caught the hint of a smile peeking out of the corner of his mouth.

  Washing and rebandaging the wounds didn’t hurt as badly as the cutting had, but there were still fresh tears for Darla to wipe away. It took a couple of minutes for me to relax enough to release the stick from between my teeth.

  A wave of exhaustion washed over me. It was late afternoon, nowhere near bedtime, but I was suddenly so tired that I could barely sit upright. I stumbled to my feet. Darla grabbed my arm, concern plain on her face.

  “I’m okay. Just tired.” I didn’t want her to worry.

  She helped me down the hall to the exam room we’d slept in the night before, and I stretched out on the cot. My last thought before I drifted into unconsciousness: Why couldn’t I have passed out half an hour earlier?

  Chapter 10

  Darla’s snoring woke me. She didn’t snore all the time, but when she did, she sounded like a hibernating grizzly.

  She’d left an oil lamp burning as a nightlight. I watched her sleep for a while as she lay curled up on the exam table. Her face was gorgeous, golden in the lamplight, although the effect was ruined by the flutter her nostrils made with each rip-roaring snore.

  I thought about waking her—sometimes a gentle shake would be enough to end her snoring. But we’d both had a long day yesterday. And my side hurt badly enough that I didn’t think I could get back to sleep, anyway.

  I rolled out of bed. I was dressed, but my boots were propped upright beside the cot. Darla must have taken them off me. I slipped on my boots, picked up the lantern, and went to peek out the back door of the clinic. It was pitch black and bitterly cold outside—still sometime in the middle of the night.

  I closed the door and went back down the hall to the room the bandit occupied. He was curled on his left side under three blankets. Most of his face was hidden, covered by long hair and a scraggly beard. The one eye I could see was open, shining in the lamplight as he stared at me.

  “You ready to talk?” I asked.

  He tried to say something but started coughing instead. He hacked a huge wad of greenish phlegm onto the sheet. “Need to pee something fierce,” he said finally.

  I sighed. “Bathroom doesn’t work. You want to go to the pit toilet outside or use a bedpan?”

  “Try to get up, I guess.”

  “Okay.” I grabbed a rag from the desk and tossed it at him. “Wipe up your mess first so you don’t smear it everywhere.”

  He dabbed feebly at the phlegm, then dropped the rag on the floor. I scowled at him, picked up a clean corner of the rag with two fingers and tossed it into the laundry bin. He started to push himself upright
, got to about forty-five degrees, and cried out. He grabbed his right side and collapsed back into the bed. When he regained his breath, he said, “Better use the bedpan.”

  “Tell me when you’re done,” I said when I returned with it. “I’ll wait in the hall.” I left the door cracked so I’d hear if he tried to get out of the bed.

  It seemed like a long wait. I remembered having to use a bedpan while I was staying at Darla’s house after I’d been injured by Target the year before. Actually, what I used was her mother’s second-best bread pan. We never did tell her mother about that. The memory of Mrs. Edmunds sat heavy in my chest. I’d known her for less than three weeks before she was murdered, but still, I missed her.

  I’d be dead now if not for her. She’d shown me a kindness I could never repay—a kindness that moved her to welcome a bleeding stranger into her home.

  “Done,” I heard from the exam room.

  I went inside and took the bedpan from the bandit. It sloshed with urine so dark it was almost orange. I carefully set the stinking pan on the desk and lowered myself into a chair. “So, Ralph, you got that—”

  “Ralph? Who’s Ralph?”

  “You said your name is Ralph.”

  “I did? When?”

  “Last night.”

  “Don’t remember that. No, I’m Ed. My dog’s name was Ralph.”

  “Huh, wonder why you told me your name was Ralph?”

  He twisted his head and stared at the ceiling.

  “I need to know where you got that shotgun,” I said. “Blue Betsy, remember?”

  “Why am I here?”

  “Because I need to know where the shotgun came from.” This was getting old. “Trust me, I’d have preferred to leave you where you were. You’d have bled out or frozen to death.”

  “Might’ve been better if you had.”

  “Yeah. But—”