Parasite

  The bell over the door jingled as someone came inside. I turned, ready to tell whoever it was that we were closed but they could come back tomorrow, and stopped, a smile spreading across my face.

  Nathan smiled back. He looked tired, but that was nothing new; knowing him, he’d been awake for hours after dropping me off last night, and probably got out of bed before I did. “I thought I’d come and see if you wanted to get dinner, since we didn’t manage to keep our plans yesterday.”

  “This is more stalker behavior,” I said as I walked toward him, head tilted back for a kiss. “I’m building a profile. I think you’re going to be surprised by the strength of my case against you.”

  “I look forward to the hearing,” he said, and leaned down to kiss me.

  “You know, some people have really strange ideas of what constitutes flirtation,” said Tasha. “Do you think he’ll propose by sending her a subpoena?”

  “Inviting her to appear in the county clerk’s office on a specific date, yeah,” agreed Will.

  “Hey, now,” protested Nathan, breaking away from me to mock-scowl at my coworkers. “My family is very traditional. I’d never propose via subpoena. My father would never let me hear the last of it if I sent anything short of a full collections unit.”

  “Romance is not dead,” said Tasha blandly. “You out, Sal?”

  “Unless there’s anything left for me to do here, I think this is my cue.” I looked back at them, brows raised hopefully. “Am I done, Will?”

  “Get out of here. Don’t come back until tomorrow.”

  “You heard the boss,” said Nathan. He laced his fingers through mine and led me toward the door. I went willingly, relieved that I wasn’t going to need to call him after all. This conversation was going to be awkward enough without trying to have it over the phone. I wasn’t even sure where I would begin.

  The bell over the door jingled again as we left the shelter for the street, and the sweet, welcoming warmth of the late summer air. Nathan kept my hand until we reached the car, where he released me in order to unlock the doors. I was inside and buckled by the time he finished his approach of the driver’s seat.

  Nathan blinked when he opened the door and found me already settled. “Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?” he asked.

  “I’m in a hurry to get somewhere alone with you,” I said. “Do you think we could get takeout and go back to your place? I wanted to talk to you.”

  “You want to talk?” Nathan’s expression sobered, like he was steeling himself against the inevitable. “Sal, I know I’ve been pretty busy lately, but—”

  “What? No! This isn’t the breakup talk. Jeez, Nathan, I don’t even know how to have the breakup talk. You’re the only boyfriend I’ve ever had.” Sally had dated. Sally had dated quite a lot, as her checkered Facebook archives would readily testify. I knew I hadn’t been physically a virgin the first time I’d had sex. But none of that counted for me, not really; that was all part of another lifetime, one that I didn’t remember at all.

  “Then what’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you when we’re at your apartment, okay?” I looked at my shoulder bag resting against my feet, and managed to restrain the urge to pick it up and clutch it for dear life. Things were getting too confusing, too fast, and I didn’t know how to make them go the other way anymore. If there had ever been a way to make them go the other way—I wasn’t sure there had been.

  “Okay,” said Nathan, and started the car. “Indian okay?”

  “Indian sounds great,” I said, and closed my eyes.

  Thirty minutes later, we were seated on Nathan’s couch with takeout containers in front of us. By mutual unspoken consent, we unpacked and ate, sitting in comfortable if anticipatory silence. I hadn’t been able to break for lunch—things had been too hectic at the shelter—and I didn’t realize how hungry I actually was until I smelled food. Then all conversation, no matter how important, was put on hold in favor of calories.

  When we were both too full to eat another bite, we leaned back on the couch, surveying the ruins of our meal. “I think I’m going to explode,” said Nathan.

  “That would be messy,” I said. “Please don’t.”

  “The maid service would have to hose down the ceiling, not you.”

  I shuddered exaggeratedly. “That was a sentence I never needed to hear. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “Forgive me?” asked Nathan, and smiled.

  “Always.” I smiled back. Then I sobered. “Nathan, about before…”

  He paused, smile fading. “I wondered when we’d get back to this,” he said, and grimaced, sitting up. “Okay, Sal. What’s going on? I’m sorry if I pushed you last night.”

  “No, it’s okay; I understand. That’s sort of what this is about.” I sketched out the events of the day as quickly and economically as I could without leaving anything out; it was surprisingly easy, once I managed to get started. Nathan didn’t ask any questions. He just listened, expression solemn, until I finished talking myself out. For a moment, silence stretched between us like a thin wire, drawn tight and vibrating with the things that neither of us were saying.

  Finally, he asked, “Can I see the note?”

  I reached for my shoulder bag, pulled out the notebook, and handed it to him wordlessly. He’d read my journal before; there was nothing there that I was worried about him seeing. He flipped past the pages with my handwriting, slowing as he encountered the blank pages that followed. He stopped when he reached the note.

  “ ‘Knowing the direction doesn’t mean you have to go,’ ” he read aloud. Nathan raised his head, frowning. “You said the woman on the phone seemed to be quoting something. Do you remember what else she said?”

  “Um… something about maps getting you lost. I didn’t really understand it.”

  Nathan paled. “Was it something like ‘certain lines can’t be uncrossed; certain maps will get you lost’?”

  “Yes!” I sat up straighter. “How did you know that?”

  “It’s from a children’s book. Well, supposedly a children’s book. The older I get, the more I think that it was actually one of those books that’s meant to look like it’s for children but is actually a parody intended for adults. Someone shelved it wrong, it wound up in my library, and my mother read it to me every night before I went to bed from the time I was four until she left us.” Nathan shook his head. “It was called Don’t Go Out Alone. I’ve looked for years, but I’ve never found another copy.”

  “That’s… weird,” I said. Nathan didn’t talk about his mother much, beyond saying that they had been close, she had died when he was very young, and it had taken him years of therapy to get even partially over it. He had no pictures of her anywhere; I didn’t even know her name. Maybe that was strange, and maybe it wasn’t. I was never sure what “strange” meant when you applied it to real people, instead of to questions in a sociology textbook. My sample size was too small.

  “Definitely weird,” Nathan agreed. “The woman you spoke to was right about one thing: I want to go with you. Whatever this is, you’re not walking into it alone.”

  “I don’t want to,” I said, taking my notebook back. “Whatever answers she’s going to give me, I wouldn’t understand them without somebody with a science background there to translate. This woman has already proven that she’s not interested in explaining herself just because I’m not keeping up.”

  Nathan smiled, not quite managing to conceal his anxiety. That actually made me feel a little better. I didn’t want to be the only one worrying. “I guess it’s a good thing you have access to a man with a science background.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “It indubitably is.”

  Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Indubitably?” he asked.

  “Did I use it wrong?”

  “No. Not at all.” He reached over and tucked my hair back behind my ear.

  I put my notebook back into my bag before I scooted across the couch to fold myself against
him. Nathan put his arms around me, kissing me slowly, and for a little while—not long enough; it could never have been long enough—we were able to forget about everything but the fact that we were here, alive, and together. Until things changed, that would have to be enough, for both of us.

  You know, I’m just going to come out and say what everyone’s been thinking: the complaints about how the Intestinal Bodyguard™ was put through the FDA tests for a human-based drug and was thus never properly reviewed under the xenotransplantation regulations always seem to come from corporations with large biotech divisions of their own. You don’t see the consumer watchdog groups complaining, oh, no. You don’t hear from the parental oversight committees. No, they recognize a good thing when they see it. They see that the Intestinal Bodyguard™ has improved their quality of life tenfold, and they don’t complain that the government wasn’t hard enough on us during testing.

  We jumped through every hoop that was put in front of us. We fulfilled every requirement we were given. If some people feel like we cheated by getting there first, well. I’m sorry.

  —FROM “KING OF THE WORMS,” AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. STEVEN BANKS, CO-FOUNDER OF SYMBOGEN. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ROLLING STONE, FEBRUARY 2027.

  Shadows dancing all around;

  Some things better lost than found.

  If you ask the questions, best be sure you want to know.

  Some things better left forgot,

  Some dreams better left unsought.

  Knowing the direction doesn’t mean you have to go.

  The broken doors can open if you seek them on your own.

  My darling boy, be careful now, and don’t go out alone.

  —FROM DON’T GO OUT ALONE, BY SIMONE KIMBERLEY, PUBLISHED 2006 BY LIGHTHOUSE PRESS. CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT.

  Chapter 10

  AUGUST 2027

  The sound of Nathan’s phone ringing in the middle of the night pulled me most of the way back to consciousness. I rolled over, burying my face in my pillow as I heard him fumble to pick up. The ringing stopped, followed by Nathan’s bleary, “This is Dr. Kim.” There was a long pause before he demanded, much more loudly—and much more alertly—“What are you talking about?”

  I rolled back over, pushing myself up onto my elbows and squinting at him. He was sitting up, his bare back turned toward me. The hand that wasn’t holding the phone was covering half his face, like it was all that was holding him upright.

  “I see,” he said, tonelessly. “No, thank you for calling me. I appreciate the notification. I’ll be in within the hour. No, it’s not a problem. Yes, thank you.” He lowered the phone, but didn’t raise his head.

  Something about that didn’t seem right. Suddenly, I was afraid. “Nathan?” I almost whispered, sitting all the way up. I gingerly reached out and touched his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  “Devi came into the ER twenty minutes ago with her wife, Katherine. Katherine was nonresponsive when they arrived, and presented in the same fugue state that we’ve observed in other victims of the sleeping sickness. Devi was hysterical, and refused to leave her. The attending doctors were following established protocol for this sort of incident—” He stopped, uneasy laughter bubbling from his lips. “Oh, God, Sal, I just called Kate an ‘incident.’ Devi’s wife. I just called her an incident. Like she didn’t even have a name.”

  “Hey. Hey! You’re doing your job. That’s how you do your job.” I got up onto my knees to put us at more of an even level. “If you personalized everything, you’d never be able to save anyone. You’d be like one of those doctors on TV, where every person you had to work with was your brother or your best friend…”

  “Or my girlfriend?” he asked, with another unsteady laugh. “We met in the hospital.”

  “And I was never your patient. Dating me is more like dating one of those extras who only appears in one episode and then goes off to be on a different show.” I touched his cheek lightly with the back of my hand, doing my best to keep my own anxiety in check. Nathan needed me. I was going to be there for him. “You’re doing your job. Now what happened with Kate?”

  Nathan took a deep breath. “She was presenting with normal symptoms for the sleeping sickness. The EMTs who were working on her decided to let Devi stay in the room, because she wasn’t getting in the way, and it was easier than separating them. Devi wasn’t getting in the way. She was crying and trying to hold Kate’s hand when she could, but she understood that if she interfered at all, she’d be asked to leave.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “Devi’s dead.” Nathan made the statement without emotion or inflection: it was a fact, and he presented it as such. I dropped my hand, eyes widening. He turned to look at me, and there was no life in his expression. He looked as empty as his voice sounded. “She was holding Kate’s hand, and Kate attacked her.”

  “Wh-what?”

  “The EMTs didn’t have a chance to react. They’d never seen that kind of behavior from one of the sleeping sickness cases before. One moment, Kate was on the bed, unresponsive, and the next, she was sitting up and grabbing Devi by the throat. Her trachea was crushed. It broke her hyoid bone. They couldn’t react in time. She died before they even got her onto a table.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered.

  “Kate never even blinked. Not even when they were pulling her off her wife’s body. She never blinked. As soon as they got her away from Devi, she went limp, and returned to the base fugue state that they all seem to be in.” Nathan moved abruptly, standing and starting toward his dresser. “I need to get to the hospital. They need me. I’m really sorry to do this, but if I leave you money, can you take a cab to work in the morning? I’m not sure I’ll be back.”

  “Of course. This isn’t the time for me to insist you be the one to drive me.” Devi was dead. Katherine had the sleeping sickness, and now Devi was dead. I stayed on the bed, watching Nathan as he dressed, and tried to make my thoughts stop spinning wildly around those two poles: Devi was dead, and Katherine had the sleeping sickness.

  Whatever answers we might find, they were going to come too late for Devi, who had always been kind to me, and for Katherine, who had loved her wife very much. Even if they could find a cure for the sleeping sickness, how was Katherine ever going to recover from what she’d done? “I was in a coma, I didn’t know” didn’t seem like much of a justification. It wouldn’t have worked for me. It wasn’t going to work for her.

  Nathan crossed back to the bed and bent to kiss me quickly, whispering, “I’m sorry.” He thrust forty dollars into my hand. Then he was out the door, leaving me sitting on the bed and staring blankly after him.

  It wasn’t until the front door slammed that I actually turned and looked at the clock on his bedside table. It was a little bit after three o’clock in the morning. A new day had started. It hadn’t started particularly well.

  Instead of going back to sleep, I decided to go home. Beverly would need to be fed, and I could use the company. The taxi let me off in front of my house half an hour later. The driver insisted on staying to see me get inside, possibly because I’d tipped well before getting out of the vehicle. I didn’t mind. It was nice to know that there was someone at my back if I needed it.

  Beverly met me at the door, tail wagging wildly from side to side, mouth hanging open in a wide canine grin. She didn’t bark. Her previous owner had trained her well before the sleeping sickness had taken him away from her. For the first time, I looked down at my accidental dog and wondered if she missed the man she used to live with. Dogs were loyal. How much time did she spend wondering if he was ever going to come and take her home?

  I waved to the taxi before stepping into the house and easing the door closed behind me. If I was quiet, maybe I wouldn’t wake anybody else up. They all had things to do in the morning, and I had already e-mailed Will to let him know I wouldn’t be in. Nathan was going to need me when he finished his shift and finally allowed himself to think about the reality of what had happened.
Devi was gone. Devi wasn’t coming back. We both had to deal with that.

  Beverly followed me to my room, tail still waving. At least someone was happy about my unexpected return. I sat down on the bed, patting the mattress to encourage her to jump up. Not that it took much encouragement; with Beverly, keeping her out of the bed was usually a harder task. She hopped up and sat down next to me, tail wagging harder than ever. It kept wagging as I bent over, put my arms around her neck, and wept silently into her fur.

  About five minutes had passed when I heard my father clear his throat. I looked up to find him standing in the doorway of my room. The hallway light was on, turning him into a black outline of a man. Quietly, he asked, “Long night?”

  “Dad.” I straightened, wiping my eyes. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

  “That’s a good thing, since it looks like you told me you were going to be spending the night at your boyfriend’s house, and now you’re sitting on your bed crying on the dog. That’s the sort of thing that makes a father wonder whether he needs to give some lessons on manners to a certain young man.”

  I shook my head quickly. “No. Nathan didn’t do anything wrong. I came home because he had to go to the hospital, and he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to make it back. It seemed like a better idea for me to be here.”