Chap 27

The inside of the shelter was bright and sturdy, light colored, block walls freshly painted, industrial gray carpets beneath, a few, block glass vases of flowers arranged around windows. Youths, younger men and teens, were studying or silently reading at desks and lounges in most of the rooms he could see. There were filled bookcases in every room and, as they passed, the wheels under him squeaking over the low, tough carpets, eyes occasionally glanced up, but without judgmental stares. He heard a television far off, a murmur of voices talking, but it was more like a library than any shelter he had ever known. There was no yelling or cussing or fights breaking out over who would get what cot that night. Jesse had grown so used to violent noise and tension over the last, endless months that the calm was unnerving, especially here where chaos was expected. He closed his eyes a moment.

The pastor was grumbling to himself, more with concern than anger. "We don't really have the right facilities…" Jesse heard him say.

"Alright, maybe this will do. Please take… Jesse through here, Yael." He heard the wheel clatter change as they slid over something smoother than carpets, bumping a little more than before.

The pastor grabbed a bunch of towels from a bin, folded them, and arranged them on the large shower tiles. He then went away for a minute, came back quickly with a basket of paper towels, alcohol, a first aid kit, some other small items, and a few bottles of water. Jesse was almost falling asleep when he realized they were trying to take him out of the shopping cart without putting any strain on his arms.

"I can stand up," he said, his throat on fire, and then found that he couldn't.

They both tried to lift him as gently as they could, the muscular, but shorter pastor taking most of the weight, and it was more a matter of kicking the cart away once they had him up than trying to fully take him out. They managed to put him down on the towels, and Jesse felt like his head was going to explode from the change in pressure.

"Wait, stop…" he said, now feeling unbearably dizzy and nauseous, the room turning in a tight circle.

"Here, sip this." The bottle at his lips had a small spout in it, and a cooling stream of water flowed into his mouth. He let it drip mercifully down his blazing, parched throat, it felt like thick, but honeyed dew in the desert. His nausea began to subside.

"Let him drink slowly, Yael. I have to check his wounds. Did he say what was wrong with his arms? Are they broken?"

Yael was too busy looking into Jesse's face. His look was so intense it was as if he were trying to make him feel better out of sheer willpower. He outlined Jesse's face lightly with his fingers, traced his lips after each drink.

"Yael?" the minister repeated.

"He said they hurt bad."

The pastor frowned, then smiled widely at the addict, patiently. "Anything else?"

He tried to concentrate. "My boy said it was his hands." He never looked away from Jesse, who had stopped drinking, and gently wiped the trickles of water from the sides of his mouth and his cheeks. "Can you help my boy, Father?" He combed his gray fingers through Jesse's sodden hair.

The minister had never seen Yael anxious over someone before. He had seen him incredibly angry, vicious, wild - had not asked if he had hurt people, hurt them badly, as he suspected he had.

"Did… did you do this, Yael?"

"Do what… Father?"

He didn't ask the question again. It really didn't matter right now.

"Jesse?" The pastor shook Jesse's shoulder slightly. "Jesse. What is wrong with your hands?"

Jesse took a deep breath. "Broken. Everywhere."

"Jesse, I'm going to cut off your casts. They are wet anyway, and not doing you any good. I have to look at what's going on underneath them, though I really won't know what I'm even looking at." He let out a breath in frustration. "Are you sure you want me to keep my promise?"

He heard a small, hesitant yes from him.

Ok, I've mended broken bones before from runaways who refused to go into a hospital. I can do this.

He was afraid he wouldn't be able to cut through the strange plaster and elastic contraption with only kitchen shears and wire cutters at his disposal, but the wet mess came away easier than expected.

Even the experienced pastor, steeling himself, gagged when he saw what was underneath.

All the ticks and fleas in the crack house seemed to have crawled beneath the casts, lying in fat, black lumps along his skin.

The casts were soiled with blood and sweat inside, had grown gray and fuzzy in the heat.

There were lines of red and raised skin where insects had laid rows of eggs. He could see the ends of some of them writhing to get deeper.

Suture lines went entirely around each wrist, and around and in-between many of his fingers.

He looked for red and blue patterns crisscrossing over his arms and hands. He knew that would be a dangerous sign of infection, and something far beyond his abilities. That would have been the most dangerous thing of all. He saw red patches, and just did not know if that showed blood poisoning or not.

Yael cried out, looked away while cradling Jesse's head. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for hurting my boy. I'll never make you do anything you don't want again."

Jesse tried to mumble something. He said it again as Yael bent his head closer to him. Part of it sounded like a defeated, "…it's alright, Yael, I'm used to it." The pastor's frown deepened.

Heat radiated from Jesse's blotchy skin. The next step they would have to take would be to cool his building fever down. The ancient remedy, an ice wash, would do that, but would mostly be superficial, he wouldn't be able to tell what was happening inside his blood.

"Yael, will you do something for Jesse? It'll take a little time because you have to be careful, but also quick. Watch what I'm doing." Yael looked intently at him as the Father struck a long match alight on a matchbox, let it burn a second, blew it out and quickly applied the hot, blackened head against a fat tick. The tick released its death grip and fell away limp. He did it a few more times until the match head became cold. "You have to do that with each black lump you see. You can't just pull them off or you'll rip off the head and the jaws will still be there. That would be bad. Let me watch you. Do you think you can do that?"

He watched as Yael did as shown. He was fast, and did not burn Jesse. "I've done it to myself, Father, when I remembered to," he said.

"I have to make a phone call, maybe a few, but I will keep my promise." He turned to Jesse. "Jesse, will you let me get you some medications? I won't tell them for what exactly, or who, and the people I'm calling are used to these anonymous requests. Will you allow me that?"

Jesse mumbled something that didn't seem a protest. His arms felt like they were on fire, but he couldn't even scratch at them. The minister could almost read his mind. "Jesse, don't ask Yael to touch your arms, even though they hurt and itch horribly. I'll get you something for that as soon as he finishes getting rid of the bugs. We're going to make you more comfortable, okay?"

Jesse was out of adrenaline and he couldn't stay awake any longer. The world went away for a little while. He thought of that last playground with the children in the swings, the kindness a child did for him at a water fountain and the big smile he gave Jesse after he did it, so pleased with himself that he could help… and wondered if he would ever see Brock again.

"~~~~~"

"The neighbors think she hasn't been home for a while."

"Well, you know, people are allowed to go away for a few days after their husbands have died, and it has been a number of months. They don't even have to tell others where they go."

"You know the mental state Marie's in."

"Marie now, not Mrs. Schrader?" His boss eyed him quizzically. "She's actually been pretty okay as far as law enforcement is concerned. She's gone back to work, talks to family and friends, has been very generous and cooperative with us, of course has a vested interest in finding her husband and inquires on an appropriate and regular basis."

"What? Because she's been quiet and not yelling crazy conspiracy theories at us everyone thinks she's fine and not absolutely on the edge?"

"Well, yes. That's mostly how the law works. We can't go running into everyone's lives. They actually have to Do something unlawful first."

"I can't believe you're saying this. You liked A.S.A.C. Hank. Of all people, I'd da thought you wanted me to keep an eye on Mar… Mrs. Schrader?"

"Yes, keep an eye, even a close eye, on her, but if she wants to be alone for a bit and even told her work she wanted some more time off, you're going to spend a great deal of department time trying to watch her every step? That might sound fun for you, but it is not appropriate. Do you really think someone's carried her off or something? We have her biggest threat, and as far as we can tell, everyone else is dead or dying? That is what I want you to concentrate on, Blue Death. Ask him about that, not some wild goose chase I think he is trying to lead everyone on."

"Wild goose chase? You don't care about finding…"

"He's dead. He's dead versus an increasing number of people dying in my district. Get him to stop that. He invented it, he can change it, he can figure it out. THAT's what I want. Poor Henry… can wait."

Well, She's not going to wait. I know that, you fuck.

"Ok, you're da boss."

"~~~~~"

"I hurt bad, Yael. Please. I need something." Jesse was lying in a real bed again, not a hospital trundle, not even a cot, but an honest to god bed. There seemed to be so much room. It was only a minor comfort to the agony he was in now.

"Father already gave you things. Do you remember the needles? He said it would take the fever away, make your blood better." Yael bent down and kissed the top of Jesse's exposed forearm. He sniffed the lovely smell of clean, soft, breathing skin, and scratched Jesse's arms very, very delicately, despite what father had told him. They had cleaned him while he was asleep, years of debris seeming to come off, though it couldn't have been more than a few days. They had cut off almost all of his hair. Yael had seen the deep scars on his back, couldn't help feeling them, the words, though Father told him to stop, and to never touch the terrible a-bomb-in-nations again.

Jesse was so beautiful. He could never stop wanting his boy.

He moaned, and Yael applied more of the cooling, white ointment on his skin.

"I hurt everywhere… please… get me something?" Jesse sounded uncertain, almost as if he was arguing with himself.

Yael placed his own, clean hand over the top of Jesse's stomach, could feel the rapid thudding of his pained heart through the soft clothes. He wiped away a few, embarrassing tears that escaped Jesse. He, for some reason, wanted to be stronger for Yael's sake.

"I can get you the Blue. No one seems to want it right now."

The blue, that would be an irony. Funny, after making literally tons of it, he had never tasted the stuff he had made alone. They told him it was exceptionally sweet, though they didn't indulge at the compound.

"Yes, I want that."

"Okay. I can get a lot now, I think. We'll go dream together a while, even though Father won't like it."