SARAH HAS IT
by Rycke Foreman
I want to go home.
Home.
Back to yesterday. They say that home is where the heart is. My heart is in yesterday. Today I haven't one. Not after what I’ve done.
How do I face Sarah? How do I explain to her? How do I tell her that I have...stepped out on her? An old flame, a good/bad situation. She needed comfort, and I gave...
I gave.
Good for her, bad for me.
But good for me as well.
Sarah’s been sick, deathly sick--like most everybody else--and it’s been hard. So goddamned hard. The worry; the stress; it’s enough to kill you. Weaken you. It weakened me. God help me it did.
Echoes, snapping off the buildings as my feet slap the sidewalk, ring hollowly through the empty streets. Not too many people out tonight--this epidemic has them scared. They stay inside, parked in front of their TV’s, waiting. Waiting for word that the sickness is over, or that a cure for it has been found, or...
Bodies have been disappearing. People want to know if that’s stopped. Two days now, that’s been happening--from hospitals, mausoleums, graveyards. Yeah, victims’ graves emptied--robbed? by folks afraid that the disease will mutate, change for the worse in the bodies of the dead? Even animals: three dogs, a cat and a hamster are gone from the vet’s. More people are sick, though, since the first cadaver vanished. And a lot of the new victims have unnatural...lacerations.
Other strange things happening. Weird rumors. A guy was arrested yesterday. Burned his wife. Said she was trying to bite him. Sure, maybe--the disease makes you do strange things--but she’d died earlier that morning. Turned out the guy was sick too. “Probably hallucinating.” That’s what the cops said.
Or the screams of the dying--you hear them every night, all night, more and more often. Only four days now, that the illness first showed up; a third of the city is already dead, and three-quarters of who’re left are shrieking. So people are afraid to come out--partially because of the crazies, like the wife-burner, but mostly due to fear of catching the mystery disease.
Me? I was afraid for a while, but...Well, Sarah has it--if she hasn’t infected me with it, who can?
The crazies? I can see one now, lurching and rambling in aimless circles. Don’t think he’s seen me yet, and he doesn’t look dangerous. Just confused, lost. And if he does see me, I’ll just pop into Café Joan's for a bit. Just right up the street, on the left corner.
Think I’ll go in for a while anyway. My house is only a few blocks away, and I don’t know if I can face Sarah yet. If she’s delirious--couldn’t stand that right now; I’ve seen to damned much of it. And if she’s awake and aware, she’d be able to read the guilt on my face. How do I explain that I was thinking of myself when she might be dying?
But who am I kidding? No sense in trying to fool myself. She is dying. No one’s recovered. No one will.
Besides, the night is cold, the breeze is sharp; it gets into your marrow and solidifies it. I can go in and get rid of that chill at least. About the chill inside of me? Well...
I’d be surprised if there’s more than three or four tables in use in there tonight. I’d be just as surprised if as many as half the staff has shown up. Even Joan herself is sick, so I hear.
Glassy, weary eyes stare at me--though no one actually makes eye-contact--as I push through the front door. Hamburgers, chicken fried steaks, French fries, coffee--those smells--along with a warm gust of air--wash over me; good smells, familiar smells, free of guilt and the shadow of death. These odors belong to yesterday and the day before, the week before, and they make me feel better.
I was right; three tables occupied by a total of five people. I see two waitresses as opposed to the usual four, and only one cook--Jim--when there are usually three. Joan isn’t here. For some reason I cannot put my finger on, that bothers me.
“Howdy, stranger.”
“Hi, Gayla,” I say. She looks like she’s glad to see me. I think she is. Not necessarily because it’s me, but it’s just good to see a familiar face, unmarked by the illness. I know how that is; I felt that way earlier this afternoon.
“Good to see you out and about.”
No it isn’t, I want to say, but instead reply with, “Thanks.”
“Coffee?”
“Yes. Please.”
I nod to Jim while Gayla pours me a mug. He winks, smiles, and goes back about his business. The waitress comes back, sets my coffee in front of me. I dilute it with a few ice cubes and some sugar, drink, and Gayla asks how I’m feeling.
“Like shit.”
Her eyes widen, and she takes and involuntary step backwards. The mild, almost nonexistent conversations stop altogether; a petrified hush falls across all eight people.
I laugh sharply. It’s like a dog’s lonely bark at 3 a.m. “Not like that, Gayla. Not like that. It’s just...the stress, you know.”
“Oh.” She smiles, relieved. She takes a half-step toward me--but only half a step; she doesn’t get as close as she was before. That’s okay, though; I’m not very comfortable having another woman so close right now, anyway.
As I finish my cup of coffee, it suddenly occurs to me what bothered me a short while ago. Yes, it is good--refreshing--to see a few healthy faces all together, but still, the diner is a reflection of the whole town: Without Joan’s gay chatter rising above the dull roar of the patrons, the laughter of a large group in non-smoking, the clinking of glasses, the hustling and busting, Café Joan's is...well, sick, too. And suspicious. Afraid.
I really don’t want to be here now.
But Gayla is refilling my mug. I doctor it again.
“You know, I hear it spreads through saliva.”
“Oh, really,” I say. “I guess I won’t share any of my coffee with you, then.”
I mean that as a joke, but again she takes that step back.
“Just in case,” I continue. “You know Sarah has it. Me? I feel fine; no symptoms or anything, but still...you never know. Some people might be carriers without ever getting sick, right?”
The waitress looks at me with distaste. Now they--the few customers and the fewer staff--want me here as much as I want to be here. Oh well, I simply spoke my mind, and that is something I think is important. After all, you might not be here tomorrow to do so.
She asks me, rather woodenly, how Sarah is doing.
“I don’t know,” I say, “but I’d better get back...home...so I can check on her.” But could I go home? No. Back to our house? Yes.
After all, home is where the heart is.
Our house is dark. As I unlock the door, I cannot help but reflect on the strange sights and sounds of the few blocks between here and the diner. Screams, of course; even more than last night. And a bonfire. That was two blocks back. I didn’t investigate it; I’d thought of that crazy wife-burner, and decided not to stray from the beaten path. I saw a German Shepherd carrying a tattered, bloody doll. Amazing, how real that doll looked--but I can’t bring myself to think of it as anything else. Or then, at the foot of our block, from the Willis house, I heard Tricia whimpering, “No Bob, no, no...Bob, you’re scaring--” Then a sad, almost pathetic gurgling that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Shaking those thoughts off, I make my way carefully through the dark living room. I’ve left the lights off--better to not attract attention, I think--and navigate past the furniture by memory. I listen for Sarah--signs of delirium or of a brief respite--but hear nothing as I ascend the stairs.
In the hallway. Still. Silence.
Sleeping? But where is the harsh rattle of her breath?
A silvery beam, fallen from the ancient moon, invades our bedroom. The white sheets glow eerily in the preternatural, lunar light, as does Sarah; her silken skin seems to be composed of soft phosphorescents. Seeing her, I feel a deep ache--or rather, an emptiness--within my chest. She looks so beautiful, so peaceful, alit in the cool blaze of the moon. She has kicked most of the sheets off.
Not wanting to wake her, but helpless to stop myself, I touch her. She is cold--too cold.
Oh God no, no...not this way. Not while I was...
Tears trickle down my cheeks, bitter and scalding. My knees buckle, and I fall alongside the bed. Kneeling, my hands clasped together as if in prayer, my head is lowered, forehead touching my frigid, clenched fists. An icy hand seems to close around my guts, squeezing. It touches what now passes for my heart.
I am shivering; I cannot stop.
I raise my head, to ask her silent forgiveness, but she is staring at me. And smiling.
I understand now: Why the empty graves, why the bonfires, why the strange, sad gurgling--the wife-burner. I now know what I must do with Sarah, but I don’t have the courage--the heart...
Ah God, I just want to go home, back to yesterday, where my heart
Originally published in Gaslight: Tales of the Unsane (v. 3, # 1 August 1994)
Also appeared in 69 Flavors of Paranoia (v. 2, #5 July/August 1998)
Also appeared at www.lilacbooks.com (2003)
An expanded version appeared in Nightblade (#6 December 2008)
