Sara Reinke - Backwoods

O’Malley uttered another of those throaty cawing sounds, ending abruptly in a gulp as he spewed again, this time splattering Andrew’s shoes.

“Jesus,” Andrew said, seizing a waste can from across the room and shoving it unceremoniously beside the bed. “Here, man. Get it in this.” He tried to get his arm around O’Malley, the sour stink of stomach acid making his own gut roil. He could feel more of those weird, knot-like growths on the Corporal’s back through his shirt. What the hell are those, boils or something? Tumors?

“Lean over the side of the bed.” Grunting, he tried to lug O’Malley closer to the edge of the mattress. It was like trying to drag a fallen telephone pole out of the middle of the road. “Help me out here.”

When O’Malley hurled again, this time he hit the can, much to Andrew’s relief. He also seemed to emerge somewhat from the haze of semi-consciousness into which he’d lapsed, and he blinked up at Andrew, vomit hanging in dangling, thick strands from his chin, his eyes glassy and dazed.

“Hurts,” he groaned, spitting weakly, trying to dislodge those tenacious strings of phlegm.

“It’s alright.” Moved with sudden pity, Andrew pulled the towel loose from beneath him and tried to wipe his mouth. O’Malley’s skin felt like molten wax, blazing with heat, sticky with sweat and spattered bile. “Hang on.”

Andrew left the bedside, hurrying to the bathroom sink. Turning the cold tap open full blast, he stuffed the towel into the basin, letting it soak up the water. Carrying it, soaked and dripping between his hands, he returned to O’Malley, mopping his face with it.

“What’s…wrong with me?” O’Malley whimpered.

Andrew shook his head. “I don’t know.” He had a sudden, horrifying flashback in his mind—his sister Beth, lying in her hospital bed on the day she’d died. She’d had that same glazed look in her eyes, that frightened, helpless, hopeless sort of light.

Hey, Germ.

The door to Dani’s room flew open wide and she rushed in, followed closely by Suzette.

“He threw up again,” Andrew said, stupid and unnecessary, considering the smell was ripe and thick in the air, and he was still pretty much soaked from the chest down with puke. If he’d been expecting animosity from Suzette, he was surprised when instead, she was the portrait of consummate professionalism. Brushing past him without as much as a glance, she hurried to O’Malley’s bedside, rolling the younger man onto his back.

“Can you hear me, Corporal?” Suzette asked, leaning over. Using the pad of her thumb, she gently peeled back O’Malley’s eyelids, looking down into his eyes. “How long has he been unconscious?”

“Not long,” Dani said, shied near Andrew, her eyes enormous and glossy with tears. “He was awake when we got him out of the bathroom. He passed out right before we helped him into the bed.”

“He woke up a little bit before you got here,” Andrew said. “He told me he was hurting.”

“Look at his skin,” Dani said. “He’s got some kind of rash all down the left side of him, those bumps.”

“ Erythema marginatum,” Suzette said. “It’s a type of skin inflammation, pretty characteristic of rheumatic fever.”

“Rheumatic fever?” Dani asked.

“He had it as a child,” Suzette said. “I talked to him earlier, when he first started feeling bad, and he told me. It can recur throughout your life once you’ve had it, an uncommon complication of a streptococcus infection. Strep throat.”

Andrew cut Dani a surprised and dubious glance. That’s caused by strep throat? he thought, staring back at the stricken Corporal. He hadn’t smelled any alcohol on Suzette’s breath—surprising in and of itself—but he wondered now if she wasn’t drunk after all, as crazy as her diagnosis sounded.

“Once you’ve had it, you’re prone to recurrences in adulthood,” Suzette said. “It’s rare, but it happens. I’d suspected this was the cause and gave him some antibiotics from the infirmary. I should have tried something more aggressive, stronger.”

She awarded Andrew a brief once-over. “The strain of streptococcus that can lead to rheumatic fever is contagious. You might want to change your clothes, take a shower.”

She said this with a brittle edge to her voice, the sort that clearly imparted she’d just as soon have him catch whatever ailment had affected O’Malley, if only so she could enjoy letting it go untreated.

To Dani, she added in a far more amiable tone, “Specialist Santoro, you’ll want to wash your hands, too, and see me later on. I’ll get you started on some preventive antibiotics, just in case.”

“I’m sorry,” Dani said to Andrew at the doorway to her room. Suzette had gone to the infirmary long enough to get a rolling stretcher, the sort carried in ambulances, and return with it in tow. Andrew and Dani had both helped drag O’Malley from the bed to the litter by grabbing handfuls of the bedclothes beneath him and using them as a rudimentary sling.

“These will need to be burned anyway,” Suzette had remarked of the sheets and comforter. “It’s all contaminated now. You two go get cleaned up.”

“I need to let Major Prendick know what’s going on,” Dani had said, but Suzette had shaken her head.

“I’ll take care of it. He’s still helping Moore search the grounds for Alice. I can handle things from here.”

“It’s alright.” In the corridor, Andrew reached up to caress Dani’s cheek, brush her hair back behind her ear, but realized he still had O’Malley’s vomit drying on his hand, sticky on his sleeve. With a wince, he dropped his hand again, moved to wipe it on his pants, realized these were soaked, too, and grimaced.

“I can’t leave,” Dani said. “Not now, not with Thomas so sick.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry.” Her brows lifted. “I know what you said about Dr. Moore, what he’s doing to Alice, but I just can’t leave Thomas.”

“It’s alright,” he told her again.

“Let me see how he is in the morning,” she said. “If he’s stable enough to transport somewhere, it could be the excuse we need to smuggle Alice out of here.”

Andrew frowned, thoughtful. “I can’t keep her in my room for too much longer. Moore thinks she’s in the lab. Suzette said he’s tearing it apart looking for her. But sooner or later, he’ll check the barracks. You know the compound better than me. Is there someplace I can bring her for tonight? Someplace safe where Moore won’t think to look?”

Dani shook her head, then her eyes widened. “Wait a minute. There’s a bathroom in the back of the garage. It doubles as a storage closet, so it’s pretty big.” She shoved her hand into her pocket and he heard the jangle of metal on metal as she pulled out a small key ring. “It’s one of the only doors in the whole complex with a keyed lock.” With a wink, she added, “And I’ve got the only key.”

She dangled them in the air and when he held out his hand, she let them fall noisily into the basin of his palm.

“God, I love you.” He said this with a laugh, meaning it playfully, but the moment the words were out of his mouth, his smile faltered. He hadn’t said I love you to anyone since Lila. For some reason, though, instead of sounding foreign and strange as they lingered in the air between Andrew and Dani, they seemed right somehow.

But when she stared up at him, visibly surprised, offering nothing in immediate reply—not the I love you, too, which would have admittedly been nice, or even a What the hell are you thinking?, which would have admittedly been called for—he found himself abashed and awkward. “I’m sorry.”