Suffer the Children (20 page)

“He never stops moving, day and night,” she told him.

Charlie steeled himself for bad news. “So what do you think, doc?”

“The baby moving is good,” said David. “But Shannon’s anemic.”

“That’s it? Are you sure?”

“I’m as sure as I can be, Mr. Donegal. All her symptoms point to iron deficiency.”

Charlie appeared frustrated that he wasn’t hearing something worse. “What about the thing with the paper?”

“Another symptom of iron deficiency. What you’re seeing is called pica. She may also like to chew on ice or some other things besides paper that aren’t food.”

The man laughed with relief. “That’s right!”

“Our bodies’ red blood cells use iron to make hemoglobin,” David explained. “That’s a protein that carries oxygen to where it’s needed throughout the body.” He turned to Shannon. “During your pregnancy, your body has been producing more blood—right now, you have fifty percent more than you usually have. Your body has also been using iron to build the placenta. You need about thirty milligrams of it every day. You’re not getting enough.”

His diagnosis wasn’t exactly bulletproof. Anemia made sense only if Shannon were nourishing a baby that was alive in any normal sense. The weight loss added to the mystery. He suspected Shannon had stopped eating altogether, which suggested she was depressed, or she’d lost some blood. Perhaps her body had begun to reject the undead thing inside of her.

Which was all speculative, of course, since nothing about Herod’s syndrome was normal. All he could do was treat the symptom. If her condition worsened, he might recommend stronger measures. For now, there was nothing more he could do.

“So what’s next, doc?” Charlie asked him. “How do we fix it?”

“Iron supplements and vitamin B-twelve.”

Charlie scowled. He wasn’t buying it.

“I’ve been taking my vitamins,” Shannon said in protest. “Every day.”

“Have you been eating regularly?”

“I’ve been so tired, but yeah.”

“Have you been bleeding at all?”

The question startled her, made her alert. “No. Not at all.”

David frowned. There was another possibility, one he considered extremely unlikely, tainted as it was by wishful thinking.

Maybe Nadine is right. Maybe the children are regaining signs of life.

This would suggest Shannon’s body was undergoing some sort
of change to support this process. Something that would explain the weight loss and surging demand for iron.

“I’m going to do one more little test,” David said. He limped back into his office and returned with the fetal Doppler. “Just to see.”

He placed the microphone against her womb.

There it was—the unmistakable
whoosh
of a second heartbeat.

“I don’t believe it,” he breathed. If only Nadine could hear this.

“What?” said Charlie. “What’s happening?”

“I’ve got a heartbeat. Strong and steady as a horse. The baby is alive. Really alive.”

Shannon hugged her swollen belly and smiled. “I knew he was alive. I told you.”

The dead had not only come back. At least in this case, they were coming
back to life
.

“But it’s incredible!” David laughed. “There was nothing three days ago. Then he kicked. Now his heart is beating. It’s nothing short of miraculous.”

“That’s why I’m naming him Jonah instead of Liam,” Shannon said. She gave her belly a gentle pat. “In the Bible, Jonah spent three days in the stomach of a whale like he was dead, and was then reborn. It’s funny on two levels.”

David laughed as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

15 hours after Resurrection

Ramona stared at the needle. She hated needles.

Nadine pulled on a pair of gloves. “Are you anemic?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“When was the last time you menstruated?”

“A little over two weeks ago.”

Nadine checked her blood pressure. “One twenty over eighty. Normal.”

Ramona swallowed hard. “That’s a big needle.”

“You’ll feel a mild sting as it goes in. The actual procedure won’t cause you any pain as long as you relax and keep still. Drink this.”

Nadine handed her a glass of water, which she drank slowly.

“Now lie back. Once I start the procedure, it’ll be over in about ten minutes. Your body and gravity will do all the work.”

“How much are you going to take?”

“Between four fifty and five hundred milliliters. Once it’s mixed with the anticoagulants in the bag, it’ll end up five hundred, or a unit of whole blood.”

“Five
hundred
?”

“Don’t worry. It’s about a pint.”

“A pint,” Ramona echoed. She visualized a pint of milk.

“How much do you weigh?”

“One fifteen, I think. It’s been a while since I weighed myself.”

“You have about eight and a half pints of blood in your body. You’ll be keeping nearly ninety percent.”

Ramona frowned. It didn’t sound very reassuring.
After this, ten percent of me will be gone.
“You sounded really concerned about my iron.”

“Hemoglobin, actually. It carries oxygen from the lungs to cells throughout the body. The minimum level is a hundred twenty-five grams per liter. You’ll have lost about ten grams when we’ve finished. If you drop below one ten, it could cause a bit of a problem.”

“Like what kind of problem?”

“You could become anemic. You’d feel grouchy and tired, get headaches, and find it difficult to concentrate and think.”

“Sounds like a fancy medical term for motherhood,” Ramona joked.

Nadine didn’t laugh; she was all business. “It’s not recommended
to give blood more than once every fifty-six days. It takes that long for the average healthy body to regenerate the lost red blood cells. Take too much, and the body starts to shut down.”

“But I’m not anemic. So I’m going to be okay.”

“You haven’t been eating, drinking, or sleeping properly in days. This could feel a bit rough. Ideally, I’d take a drop from your finger and run a hemoglobin test, but I can’t do that here. You should understand there are risks. Do you want to keep going?”

Ramona forced down the last of the water and handed the glass back. “Let’s get it over with.”

Nadine tied an elastic band around her upper arm to form a tourniquet. The vein in the crook of her arm bulged.

“Make a fist. Good. Now let go.”

The tourniquet, she explained, increased blood pressure. Opening and closing her fist increased blood flow. She tapped Ramona’s vein and swabbed her inner forearm with a prep pad to sterilize it. Then she got the needle ready.

“Wait.” Ramona pulled her arm back. “I don’t want to do this. This is crazy.”

“I told you everything I know and saw with my own eyes. The treatment worked with Kimberly. It worked with another patient I visited before I came here. I’d like to help Josh. I believe I can. But it’s your choice. Do you want to stop?”

Ramona’s internal timer went off.
I need to check on him.

Josh didn’t need checking. He couldn’t hurt himself. Couldn’t get lost. Couldn’t do anything, in fact, except lie there.

You promised you’d do anything. You promised you’d put him FIRST.

Besides, she couldn’t take the constant stress anymore. The stress of not knowing if he was going to wake up again. The stress of not being able to help him. Nadine had told her she could cure Josh. She’d already helped two children become normal again. She’d said that.

But maybe she was lying. Maybe she was giving out false hope.

Maybe this woman is flat-out, bats-in-the-belfry, off-her-rocker nuts.

Which was more likely? It didn’t matter.

You want to know what’s nuts? This whole situation. The children dying. The children rising from the grave. You still have to try. False or not, it’s still hope.

“Ramona? Do you want to stop?”

“No,” she whispered.

“I saw the pictures taped to the wall in Josh’s room. Does he like to draw?”

“Yes,” said Ramona, drawing it out into a hiss as Nadine slid the needle into the vein.

Tricked me. Ouch.

The blood began to flow. Dark, thick whole blood filled the tube and began to pool within the plastic bag on the floor.

Nadine gave the bag a quick shake to mix the incoming blood with the anticoagulants. “Remember we were talking about iron? It’s the stuff that makes blood red.”

“I don’t want to look,” Ramona said.

“Blood is beautiful. It’s life. It goes around and around inside our bodies, twelve thousand miles a day. Make a fist for me again, slowly. Now open your hand again.”

Ramona’s lips tingled. “I’m feeling a little sick right now.”

“That’s normal considering the condition you’re in. Just stay calm.”

“Normal,” she said, as if she’d never heard the word before.

She tried not to think about the blood draining out of her body and into the bag.

“Dizziness is the result of a drop in blood pressure. A little bit of your life is flowing out of you. We’re going to put it into Josh and try to cure him. Focus on that.”

Nadine made it sound like a routine clinical procedure. Almost normal.

“I hope you’re right.”

The nurse nodded. “Hope is good.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

The nurse removed the tourniquet and asked her to make a fist again. “You may.”

“Dr. Harris has a picture of a boy on his desk—”

“We lost Paul a year ago.”

“He didn’t—”

“No one who died of anything other than Herod’s has returned.”

Ramona opened her eyes and saw Nadine looking out the window, eyes burning with anger. Like a cat ready to pounce and tear much larger prey to pieces.

“I lived alone with all that grief,” Nadine said. “No one understood. Not even David. Not really.”

“I’m so sorry, Nadine. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Now everyone understands. Everyone knows my grief, but I still feel like an outsider.”

Ramona shook her head. “We’re all the same. The only difference is the timing.”

“Your boy came back,” Nadine said. “Mine didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Ramona said quickly. “I didn’t mean—”

“Everything happens for a reason. Maybe Paul passed on so I would understand your loss and be able to help you reunite with Josh. Maybe I was meant to do this.” She added bitterly, “Like Moses, leading people to the promised land but unable to enter himself.”

Nadine withdrew the needle and pressed her finger against the venipuncture site.

“Thank God that’s over with,” said Ramona. “I feel like crap.”

The nurse taped a cotton ball over the wound. “You need to rest for about ten minutes. Here, have this.”

She handed Ramona a lollipop. It was orange.

“I want to see Josh.”

“You need to rest first. Eat something. Drink some juice. I’ll get something for you.”

Ramona sat up. A wave of nausea pushed her back down. She tried again, succeeded.

“I need to see Josh. I need to see if the cure works. Please.”

“All right.” Nadine helped her to her feet. “Now lean on me.”

They entered Josh’s room. He lay in the exact position he’d been left in. Ramona knelt on the floor while Nadine filled a syringe with blood.

“Josh, I’m going to give you a little medicine.”

Josh’s eyes flickered to stare at the syringe.

“It’s okay, little man,” Ramona said.

“Yes, it’s a syringe,” said Nadine. “But there’s no needle, see? So there’s no reason to be afraid. Inside is a special medicine. You drink it. See, like your friend here.”

She picked up Josh’s favorite stuffed animal, Graham the Bear, and mimed feeding it to him. She looked like a mother feeding her baby a bottle.

“Yum, yum,” said Nadine. “Do you know the story of Pinocchio?”

“We’ve read Pinocchio together, haven’t we, Josh?” said Ramona. Her voice was shaking now. The suspense was killing her.

I don’t give a shit about Pinocchio! Just do it!

“Pinocchio didn’t want to just exist,” Nadine said. “He wanted to be truly alive. He wanted to be a real boy. This medicine will make you a real boy again. Just like Pinocchio. Would you like that?”

Josh’s eyes flashed to meet Ramona’s. She saw hunger in them.

Yes, he would like that.

The nurse opened the boy’s mouth and inserted the syringe. She pressed the plunger. Fifty milliliters of blood flowed down his throat.

“Down the hatch.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed.

He’s swallowing it.

Ramona had wanted so hard to believe, but now that it was happening, she couldn’t.

He gulped the next syringe. The awful sucking sounds made her feel nauseous again. She turned away in fear and revulsion.

“You can look now,” said Nadine when she was done.

Ramona turned back hopefully. “Now what?”

“Now we wait.”

Nothing happened. Seconds ticked by.

“How long does it—”

Josh’s face began to swell.

He screamed. The scream pierced the air, loud and throaty.

She glared at Nadine. “What did you do?
What’s happening to him?!
”

The nurse said nothing. She stared at Josh with a manic gleam in her eye. He appeared to deflate. Skin rippled across his face.

“Oh, Josh, I’m sorry!” Ramona cried.

The screaming stopped. Josh sucked in a massive lungful of air and coughed. A dense, noxious stink filled the room. His body twitched. His slack cheeks filled out.

“Oh my God,” Ramona said.

Josh sat up, looked around, and fixed his gaze on his mother. His eyes sparkled with life and intelligence. His cheeks burned with health and youth.

He licked his lips and said, “Mommy, can I watch
Little Bear
?”

17 hours after Resurrection

Digging the children out of their graves was exhausting, backbreaking labor. By the end of the day, Doug was cold, tired, hungry, and fed up. But he didn’t want to go home.

Archaeologists had been called in to supervise some of the digging. The rest of the crews, including his own, were simply told to be careful. They didn’t need to be told.