Robin Cook: Blindsight

Using his fingernails, Duncan began to scratch his arms in a frantic attempt to allow the insects to escape. They were eating him from within. Desperately he scratched harder, digging his nails into his skin until he drew blood. The pain was intense, but the itching of the insects was worse.

Despite the terror of the insects, Duncan stopped his scratching, as he became aware of a new symptom. Holding up his bloodied hand, he noticed that he was shaking. Looking down at himself he saw that his whole body was shaking, and the tremors were getting worse. For a brief instant he thought about calling 911 for help. But as the thought crossed his mind, he noticed something else. He was warm. No, he was hot!

“My God!” Duncan managed when he realized that sweat was pouring from his face. With a trembling hand he felt his forehead: he was burning up! He tried to unbutton his shirt but his tremulous hands were incapable. Impatient and desperate, he ripped the shirt open and off. Buttons flew in all directions. He did the same with his pants, throwing them to the floor. But it was to no avail; clad only in his undershorts, he still felt suffocatingly hot. Then, without a moment’s warning, he coughed, choked, and vomited in a forceful stream, spattering the wall below his signed Dali lithograph.

Duncan staggered into his bathroom. Through sheer force of will he got his shaking body into the shower and turned on the cold tap full force. Gasping for breath, he stood beneath the cascade of frigid water.

Duncan ’s relief was brief. Involuntarily a pitiful cry escaped from his lips, and his breathing became labored as a white-hot pain stabbed into his left chest and ripped down the inside of his left arm. Intuitively Duncan knew he was having a heart attack.

Duncan clutched his chest with his right hand. Blood from his abraded arms mixed with water from the shower and swirled down the drain. Half-falling and half-staggering, Duncan stumbled from the bathroom and headed for the door of his apartment. Never mind that he was near naked, he needed air. His broiling brain was about to explode. Using his final reserve of strength, he gripped the knob to his front door and yanked it open.

“ Duncan!” Sara Wetherbee cried. She couldn’t have been more startled. Her hand was poised inches from Duncan ’s door. She had been about to knock when Duncan yanked it open and confronted her. He was clad in nothing but soggy Jockey shorts. “My God!” cried Sara. “What’s happened to you?”

Duncan did not recognize his lover of two and a half years. What he needed was air. The crushing pain in his chest had spread throughout his lungs. It felt as if he were being stabbed over and over again. Blindly he lurched forward, reaching out to sweep Sara from his path.

“ Duncan!” Sara cried again as she took in his near nakedness, the bleeding scratches on his arms, his wild, dilated eyes, and the grimace of pain on his face. Refusing to be thrust aside, she grabbed his shoulders and restrained him. “What’s the matter? Where are you going?”

Duncan hesitated. For a brief moment Sara’s voice penetrated his dementia. His mouth opened as if he were about to speak. But no words came. Instead he uttered a pitiful whine that ended in a gasp as his tremors coalesced into spasmodic jerks and his eyes disappeared up inside his head. Mercifully unconscious, Duncan collapsed into Sara’s arms.

At first Sara struggled vainly to hold Duncan upright. But she was unable to support him, especially since Duncan ’s jerks became progressively more violent. As gently as possible Sara let Duncan ’s writhing body fall across the threshold, half into the hall. Almost the moment he touched the floor, Duncan ’s back arched up and his jerks rapidly coalesced into the rhythmical throes of a grand mal seizure.

“Help!” Sara screamed as she glanced up and down the hall. As she might have expected, no one appeared. Aside from the noise Duncan was making, all she could hear was the percussive thump of a nearby stereo.

Desperate for help, Sara managed to step over Duncan ’s convulsing and incontinent body. A glimpse of his bloody and foaming mouth appalled and frightened her. She desperately wanted to help, but she didn’t know what to do save for calling an ambulance. With a trembling finger she punched 911 on Duncan ’s living room phone. As she impatiently waited for the connection to go through, she could hear Duncan ’s head repeatedly thump against the hardwood floor. All she could do was wince with each sickening sound and pray that help would be there soon.

Pulling her hands away from her face, Sara checked her watch. It was almost three o’clock in the morning. She’d been sitting on the same vinyl seat in the waiting room of the Manhattan General Hospital for over three hours.

For the umpteenth time she scanned the crowded room that smelled of cigarette smoke, sweat, alcohol, and wet wool. There was a large sign directly opposite her that read: NO SMOKING, but the notice was roundly ignored.

The injured mixed with those who’d accompanied them. There were wailing infants and toddlers, battered drunks, others clutching a towel to a cut finger or slashed chin. Most stared blankly ahead, inured to the endless wait. Some were obviously sick, others even in pain. One rather well dressed man had his arm around his equally well dressed female companion. Only minutes before he’d been arguing heatedly with a rather intimidatingly large triage nurse who hadn’t been ruffled by his threats to call his lawyer if his companion were not seen immediately. Resigned at last, he too stared vacantly into the middle distance.

Closing her eyes again, Sara could still feel her pulse hammering at her temples. The vivid image of Duncan convulsing on the threshold of his apartment haunted her. Whatever happened tonight, she knew she would never banish the vision from her mind.

After having called the ambulance and given Duncan ’s address, Sara had returned to Duncan ’s side. Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d remembered that something should be put in a convulsing person’s mouth to keep him from biting his tongue. But try as she might, she’d not been able to pry apart Duncan ’s clenched teeth.

Just before the EMTs arrived, Duncan finally stopped convulsing. At first Sara had been relieved, but then she noticed with renewed alarm that he was not breathing. Wiping the foam and a bit of blood from his mouth, she tried to give him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but she found herself fighting nausea. By then some of Duncan ’s hallway neighbors had appeared. To Sara’s relief, one man said he’d been a corpsman in the navy, and he and a companion graciously took over the CPR until the EMTs arrived.

Sara could not imagine what had happened to Duncan. Only an hour earlier he’d called her and had asked her to come over. She thought he’d sounded a little tense and strange, but even so she’d been totally unprepared for his state once she got there. She shuddered again as she saw him standing before her in the doorway with his bloodied hands and arms and his dilated, wild eyes. It was as if he’d gone insane.

Sara’s last glimpse of Duncan came after they’d arrived at the Manhattan General. The EMTs had allowed her to ride in the ambulance. Throughout the whole hair-raising trip, they’d maintained the CPR. The last she’d seen of Duncan was when he’d been rolled through a pair of white swinging doors, disappearing into the inner recesses of the emergency unit. Sara could still see the EMT kneeling on top of the gurney and continuing the chest compressions as the doors swung closed.

“Sara Wetherbee?” a voice asked, rousing Sara from her reverie.

“Yes?” Sara said as she looked up.

A young doctor sporting a heavy five o’clock shadow and a white coat slightly splattered with blood had materialized in front of her.