Dustin Thomason - 12.21

“You have subsisted for twelve moons, brother?” Chel asked Volcy slowly. “And have you kept that oath?”

He nodded.

“What the hell is he saying?” Stanton demanded.

Chel turned to him. “You said this disease came from meat, right?”

“All non-genetic prion disease comes from meat. That’s why I need to know what kind of meat he’s eaten. As far back as he can remember.”

“He hasn’t been eating any meat.”

“What are you saying?”

“He’s been on a subsistence diet. For our people that means no meat.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I’m telling you,” Chel said. “He says he’s been a vegetarian for the past year.”

VOLCY’S MOUTH, HIS THROAT, AND EVEN HIS STOMACH WERE AS dry as if he’d sowed plots for two days straight. Like the thirst Janotha said she had felt when she delivered Sama, a thirst that couldn’t be quenched. The lights flickered in and out as he opened and closed his eyes, trying to grasp how he’d gotten into the bed in the first place.

I’ll never see Sama again . I’ll die here, and she won’t know I took the book from the ancients for her, only for her.

When the drought came, the shaman chanted and made offerings to Chaak every day, but still no rain came. Families broke up, children got shipped off to relatives in the cities, elders died from the heat. Janotha worried her milk would dry.

But you—the hawk—would never let that happen—never.

When Volcy was a boy, and his mother would go hungry to feed the children, he would creep across the floor of their hut while his parents slept, sneak out of their house, and steal maize from a family with more than they needed.

The hawk, never afraid.

Years later, Volcy had heeded the call of his wayob when his family was in need again. While he fasted, the hawk heard the call that would lead him to the ruins. He and his partner, Malcin, traveled three days into the forest, searching. Only Ix Chel, goddess of the moon, gave light. Malcin was afraid they might anger the gods. But slivers of pottery were being sold for thousands to white men because of the coming end of the Long Count cycle.

The gods had led them to the ruins, and, between towering trees, they found the building with walls wrecked by wind and rain. Inside the tomb was glory: obsidian blades; stucco-painted gourds and crystals; beads and pottery. A head mask and jade teeth on skulls. And the book. The cursed book. They had had no idea what the designs or words on the bark paper meant, but they were mesmerized.

Now Volcy was alone in the darkness—but where? The man and the Qu’iche woman were gone. Volcy reached for his water glass again. But the glass was empty.

He threw his legs onto the floor and lurched away unsteadily. His limbs were failing him like his vision. But he had to drink. He dragged the pole he was attached to into the bathroom, got to the sink, threw the handles wide, and shoved his head under the stream, forcing gulps. But it wasn’t enough. Water doused his nostrils and mouth and ran down his face, but he needed more. The curse of the book was sucking him dry, parching every inch of his skin. He had let the white man’s obsession with the Long Count compel him to sacrifice the honor of his ancestors.

The hawk lifted up from beneath the faucet and saw his face in the mirror. His head was soaked, but his thirst was still there.

STANTON, ON THE PHONE with Davies, paced in the courtyard in front of the hospital. Red and blue lights flashed everywhere; LAPD had been called in to hold back the metastasizing press. The leak about John Doe and his mysterious medical condition had apparently come from an orderly, who’d overheard Thane talking to an attending physician and posted something in a mad cow chat room. Now every major news organization in the country had dispatched reporters here as well.

“What if John Doe is lying?” Davies asked.

“Why would he lie?”

“I don’t know—maybe his wife’s some kind of rabid vegan, and he doesn’t want her to know he’s been chowing down on Big Macs.”

“Come on.”

“Okay then, maybe he got sick before he stopped eating meat?”

“You saw the slides. He got sick much more recently than a year ago.”

Davies sighed. “Your translator said it’s possible he could have had cheese or milk, right? It’s time to start talking about dairy.”

They had only the testimony of one patient up against decades of research, and Stanton was still skeptical of a vector other than meat. But they had to explore the possibility. E. coli , Listeria, and salmonella had all been found in cow’s milk, and Stanton had long feared that prion could get into the dairy supply. Per capita beef consumption in the United States was forty pounds a year; dairy was over three hundred. And milk from a single cow was often used in thousands of different products over its life-span, making finding the source that much more complicated.

“I’ll see what infrastructure the Guatemalans have for tracking their dairy,” Davies said. “But we’re talking about a Third World health service investigating a disease they won’t want anyone to know came from inside their borders. Not a recipe for good epidemiology.”

“How’s the hospital search here going?”

“Still nothing,” Davies said. “Team called every ER in L.A., and I sent Jiao down to look at a couple of suspicious patients, but they were false alarms.”

“Have them check again,” Stanton said. “Every twenty-four hours.”

They hung up, and Stanton hurried around the edge of the building. The press weren’t the only ones crowding the parking lot; a cavalcade of ambulances was outside the ER, lights blazing. Paramedics swarmed, and doctors and nurses barked orders as patients were unloaded on stretchers. There’d been a major car accident on the 101 freeway, and dozens of critically injured patients had been transported here.

Stanton made another quick call as he headed back for the front door of the building. “It’s me,” he said quietly when he got Nina’s voice mail again. He glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “Do me a favor and throw your milk and cheese overboard too.”

INSIDE THE ER, Stanton squeezed himself against the wall to make room for gurneys from the car accident flying by. An elderly man, with his arm wrapped in gauze and a tourniquet, screamed in pain. Surgeons were operating in the non-sterile ER on patients too critical to get to the ORs. He gave silent thanks that triage wasn’t his area of expertise.

Back on the sixth floor, Stanton found Chel Manu in the waiting area. Even in her heels she was tiny, and he again found his eyes drifting down to the nape of her neck,where her black hair fell. It wasn’t just that she was attractive—she was clearly sharp too. She’d already managed to get key information from Volcy, so he’d asked her to stay.

“You want coffee while we wait for the nurses to finish?” he asked, motioning toward the vending machine.

“No, but I could use a cigarette,” Chel said.

Stanton dropped quarters into the slot, filling a Styrofoam cup. It was hardly Groundwork, but it would have to do. “Probably won’t find many of those in here.”

She shrugged. “Promised myself I’d quit by the end of the year anyway.”

Stanton sipped the weak coffee. “Guess that means you don’t believe the Mayan apocalypse is coming.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Me neither.” He smiled, thinking they were just making easy banter, but didn’t get one in return. Maybe it wasn’t something she wanted to joke about.