After the End: Survival (14 page)

"No takers. What else we got?"

"Aren't we in a hurry. Man who says his teeth keep falling out."

"Amy, I'm glad you're here today. The reason I was late, and you'll hear about it on the news later anyway, is that there was another girl killed."

"Oh, no! You know her name?"

"Laura Benchley?"

"Don't know her. Where'd she live?"

"Near Westover."

"You know, the last two nights we've started locking the doors. We've never had to do that before. The mayor said on the radio they’re going to catch him. When will that be?”

"Wish I knew. Let's go see the itchy butt kid."

Rene Padilla was an active two year old boy who loudly and enthusiastically objected to having sticky tape placed against his anus, which had several scratches around it from the boy's continual itching. Pete smeared the fecal matter he got from the tape on a slide and placed it under a microscope.

"Take a look, Amy."

Adjusting the focus, she peered into the eyepiece for a few seconds.

"Are those little round things eggs?"

"Yes, indeed. Mrs. Padilla your boy has pin worms. Not a big problem," he added quickly, "but I'll tell you, we don't have much medicine left. We have to make it work the first time or else Rene will just keep getting them over and over again, and if I run out of medicine he'll be in trouble. You need to wash all his clothes and bedding in boiling water and wipe down anything he might touch with a bleach and water solution. That'll kill the worm eggs that may have come out in his poop. Y'all use an outhouse?"

"Yessir."

"That's one area you'll really want to concentrate on. I'm sure you already keep it clean but you've got to use that bleach solution or else the whole family might get these nasty old worms.

"We’ll clean those little cuts he's got with some antiseptic and trim his fingernails so he doesn't scratch so hard. Make him wear jeans or something heavy so he can't hurt himself when he scratches. OK, let me give you some of these pills," he said, reaching up to a cabinet. Pouring some tablets out of a bottle onto a dish, he counted out fourteen, and put them in an envelope. The extras he deftly poured back into the bottle, and then handed the envelope to the mother.

"Two a day, every morning before breakfast. Could you help us please, while we wash those scratches?"

By this time Rene was tired of people looking at his butt and renewed his efforts to prevent further close encounters. He was almost successful but the odds favored the enemy, even his mother turned traitorous and held his flailing arms.

When it was over, Pete offered the weeping boy a stick of licorice. Rene glared at his bearded tormentor and grabbed the candy.

"There you go. Mrs. Padilla, bring him back in a week and we'll see how well we've done. See ya, Rene." Pete waved to the boy who was being carried out of the room by his mother. The child whipped his head around to the direction of the front door, intent on escape.

"Goodbye, Dr. Pete. Thank you," said the mother. She seemed almost as anxious to leave as her son and they hurried out.

"Amy, put our next victim in room two. Take his vitals, please. I'll clean up in here and be right over."

Pete spent a few minutes cleaning the exam table with diluted bleach, filling the room with a clean, chemical odor.

Walking into the next exam room, Pete shook hands with its occupant.

"Good morning. I'm Pete Wilson."

"The pleasure is mine, sir. Bob Smith."

He was in his fifties, slender, his thinning hair a mixture of brown and gray. Spidery purple veins covered both cheeks. His speech was slow and deliberate. He was wearing matching blue cotton work clothes, neat but soiled. His brown belt was about six inches too long, hanging down the side of one leg. The man smelled like a brewery.

"Bob Smith, Bob Smith," Pete intoned. "I'll bet you had a hard time trying to check into motels with a moniker like that."

Bob's face broke into a ragged grin. He was missing several teeth.

"That's a fact. But I never had any problems. I'd just use an alias. My favorite was Franco Stradivarius. Even had a few people ask me if I made violins."

Pete smiled and asked, "What brings you here today, Bob?"

"It's my teeth. They seem to be abandoning ship. I lost another one this morning so I thought I'd stop by and see if you could tell me why. I know I don't brush after every meal."

"Or see your dentist twice a year. I don't either. Turn toward the window and open wide. What are his vitals, Amy?"

"One thirty over eighty, seventy eight, sixteen, ninety eight two."

Pete looked into the man's mouth. About half of his teeth were missing. The gums around the remaining teeth were inflamed, receding and oozing blood from several locations.

"Bob, I need you to take your shirt off."

Bob very deliberately removed his shirt, carefully folding and placing it on a chair. His chest and arms had numerous bruises of various ages, livid against pale skin. His ribs were prominent, his abdomen was swollen.

"Lie down on your back, please."

"My joints have been giving me fits," he said, wincing as he eased on the exam table.

Pete gently probed the abdomen. He helped the man into a sitting position and listened to his chest with a stethoscope.

"Your lungs are clear, blood pressure and pulse rate normal. You don't have a fever. Bob, let me ask you . . . what did you have to eat yesterday?"

"Yesterday? Well, I had a couple of pieces of bread over at The Oasis. And I drank a few glasses of beer."

"And what about the day before?"

Bob thought about this for a while.

"I believe I may have had some canned luncheon meat."

Nobody said anything for a moment.

"I probably don't eat like I should," Bob added.

"No sir, doesn't sound like you do. The symptoms you've got are consistent with scurvy. Are you familiar with that disease?"

Bob closed his eyes. "Vitamin C deficiency, characterized by hemorrhagic manifestations and abnormal formation of bones and teeth." He opened his eyes. "You know," Bob continued, "in the days of the great sailing ships, sailors would go months without fresh food. And they developed scurvy. The English were the first to discover that if they carried limes on board and ate them when fresh food was no longer available, they could avoid symptoms of the disease. And to this day the English are called ‘Limeys’."

"I didn't know that," said Amy.

"It's a fact," he said, turning slowly to face her. "And you are a very intelligent young woman. I see great things ahead in life for you.

"Pete, I haven't been taking care of myself lately. It just seems to be too great an effort. I welcome any suggestions you might have."

"Bob, you're starving through inadequate nutrition. You have to make an effort to eat, concentrating on fruits and vegetables. Tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries and baked potatoes are all pretty rich in vitamin C, and right now, they're all in season. Go ahead and put your shirt on. Help him, Amy. I'll be right back."

Pete went across the street to the back yard of his house, to his "sunny" garden. He picked a dozen tomatoes, putting them in a plastic bag. From inside his house, he filled another small bag with potatoes. Then he walked back to the clinic.

"Bob, before you leave I need you to eat one of these delicious, vine ripened tomatoes. And I'd like you to come back in a couple of days so we can see how you're doing."

"Amy, is his advice any good?"

"Most of the time."

"A glowing recommendation."

Biting into a tomato, he winced. Some red juice ran from a corner of his mouth.

"Those supermarket tomatoes just can't compare," he said, getting up and slowly walking out the door. "I'm much obliged to you both."

"See you in a couple days, Bob," said Pete.

"That guy's pretty smart," remarked Amy, watching the man totter across the street.

"Why? Because he said you were intelligent?"

Amy slapped Pete on the arm.

"Well, I recognize him and actually he is pretty smart," said Pete. "Daniel Holtzmann. Three years ago he was the busiest cardiologist in town."

The morning was gray and cool and damp, a welcome respite from the August heat. A blustery north wind pushed down from the Great Plains. Most folks kept large gardens, and this morning they were out in force, inspecting the miracles a good rain could produce. They moved slowly among the rows of vegetables, effortlessly pulling weeds from the wet, loose soil.

"It was good for me," muttered the man, chuckling at his own clever double entendre. Besides the physical and emotional benefits he'd felt from an entertaining evening with little Laura, the rain had wiped out any traces of hoof prints. He'd spent the night in an abandoned mobile home.

He was standing on a low hill east of Amarillo, not far from the Claude community. Using binoculars, he scanned the area. A bedroll, saddlebags, and rifle scabbard were strapped to his horse, which was grazing peacefully on thin grass a few yards away.

The buffeting wind on the exposed hilltop rocked him a little, and he walked over to an isolated fence post to help steady the binoculars.

To the uninitiated, the landscape was desolate, but he knew it was home to a number of human residents, attracted to the steady source of clean water provided by existing windmills. Growing grain crops, raising poultry, swine, cattle and horses was hard work, but with ready access to nearby Amarillo, they could eke out a reasonable living. Plus, there was a certain pride in making your own way and not having to scrounge necessities from a stranger's house. Anyway, scrounging wasn't as easy as it used to be; most commodities were becoming pretty scarce.

A gulch cut through the plains like a scar, and it was this depression that interested the man. Muddy water rushed along, stained red from the clay banks.

He saw a small break in the redness, motionless, about a half mile away. Maybe a dead dog or fawn or some such, he decided, and continued to scan. After another five minutes, seeing nothing else of interest, he returned his attention to the gulch. He couldn't be sure but it seemed as though whatever it was had changed its position.

"Best go check it out," he said in a low voice. Walking to his horse, he returned the binoculars to a saddle bag and deftly swung up into the saddle.

He rode slowly, his brown western hat pulled down low, coat collar turned up around his neck. Seemingly nonchalant, he was in fact very attentive, looking for movement or anything out of the ordinary.

It wasn't until he was a hundred feet away from the still form that he was able to identify it as a child, a bare white leg visible from torn trousers.

Dismounting, he walked over to the edge of the embankment. Looking down, he saw a boy about four years old. The man slid down the muddy wall, losing his balance and almost falling into the muddy water.

"Shit," he muttered, "and these a new pair of boots."

He lurched toward the youngster, who was lying face down just above the water's edge. He bent over and shook the child roughly by the arm.

"Hey. Get your ass up."

The boy's arm was cold. His t-shirt was pulled high up under both arms, and the man saw several bruises along the ribs and spine, and a lump the size of a robin's egg on the child's forehead. Reaching over, he raised and closed an eyelid several times, and noticed the pupil changed diameter.

"C'mon boy. You’re not dead. My daddy done me worse plenty of times when I was your size. Move."

The boy remained motionless. The man stared at him a few seconds, and then blew air from his mouth in an exaggerated sigh.

"Shit.”

He picked the child up, slinging him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He made it up the twelve foot embankment on the third try, breathing heavily from the effort. Using a clump of grass, he was able to rub off the worst of the mud from his boots. Carrying the boy, he walked over to the horse and mounted up, arranging the boy so he was seated in front on the saddle. The man unbuttoned his coat and pulled the small form next to his abdomen, then buttoned his coat so the child was upright and protected from the cold. Turning the horse east, he began to ride.

Judy Gilliam, RN, was having a busy morning. She hadn't slept well at the Ambassador Hotel the night before, what with a strange bed and all. Then driving out to the Westover residence with Pete Wilson. She was upset with having to view that poor girl's mutilated body, knowing what the girl must have endured before she was killed. During the drive back to Claude, her SUV became mired in mud covering a low section of road. She tried digging out with the shovel she carried in the back of the vehicle but only succeeded in losing a shoe to the sticky red mess. Two men on horseback going to Amarillo happened along. By tying ropes to the rear axle they were able to pull her car out. Tying those same ropes to the front of the vehicle, they were able to pull it across the slick where the mud wasn't quite so thick. They assured her the road was fine the rest of the way into Claude and to have a nice day.

She walked through the clinic door at nine thirty, barefoot and muddy.

"Be right with you," she said, breezing past the half dozen people in the waiting room. Someone had already fired up the wood stove so the place was pleasantly warm. She walked upstairs to her living quarters, putting on clean clothes. Five minutes later she was seeing patients.

A little after ten, she heard the front door slam and a man's voice booming from the waiting room.

"Where's the nurse?"

She walked from the exam room into the waiting room and saw a man, medium height, about thirty, covered with mud, holding the limp form of a small boy. She took the child in her arms.

"Found him in a creek."

He wheeled around, facing the startled clinic patrons.

"Y'all need to take better care of your kids," he snarled, stomping out the door. It closed with a bang.

"Pete, this is bullshit. We have got to get some antibiotics."