F. Paul Wilson - The Touch

I do ! Charles thought. Straight vodka !

"Just want to check your neck, Jake."

"Sure. Check away."

Charles pressed his fingers above Knopfs right clavicle where the lymph nodes had been swollen and knotty. They were gone now. The area was clean.

Nausea rose up like a wave. He felt as if his world were coming apart. He lurched away and hurried toward Bulmer's quarters.

It was true! Knopf was cured! And Bulmer had done it! But how? Jesus H. bloody fucking Christ—!

He cut himself off with a bitter laugh. If Bulmer's power was possible, then anything was possible. Even Jesus Christ was possible. Better watch his tongue. He might really be up there. Or out there. Or somewhere. Listening.

"Nope," Bulmer said with a slow, deliberate shake of his head from where he sat by his room window. "Can't do it."

"Why the bloody hell not?"

"Too late. It only lasts for an hour and then it's gone."

"How convenient."

"I've got no control over it."

"So when will it be back?"

He glanced at his watch. "Sometime tomorrow morning, probably, but definitely somewhere around eight tomorrow evening."

Axford sat down on the bed. He suddenly felt exhausted.

"You're so sure?"

"Been keeping track of it for months." He indicated a manila envelope.

"Records?" Charles said, feeling his lethargy lift slightly. "You've kept records?"

"Sporadically at first, but pretty consistently lately. You want to use them, you can have them. I mean borrow them. I want them back."

"Of course." Axford sifted through the contents—there were index cards, scratch pad sheets emblazoned with the logos of various pharmaceutical companies, even prescription blanks with notes jotted on the back. There were a few audio microcassettes, too. "What is all this?"

"Names, dates, times. Who, what, where, when—when the Hour of Power started and when it ended."

The Hour of Power —sounded like one of those Sunday-morning gospel shows. Charles could feel his excitement growing. Here was something he could deal with—dates, times, data ! He could work with these. He could understand and toy with and analyze these. But Jake Knopf…

How could he deal with what had happened to Jake Knopf today?

"You never asked about Mr. K," he said to Bulmer.

"Who?" Bulmer looked genuinely puzzled.

"The chap with the brain metastases. You saw him a few hours ago."

"Oh, yes. Of course." Bulmer smiled. "He's fine, I'm sure. A remarkable 'spontaneous remission,' no?"

"You read minds, too?" Charles blurted in surprise. That had been exactly what he had been thinking.

Bulmer's smile was laconic. "I've heard that one a few times before."

"Right. I'll bet you have."

He looked Bulmer in the eye and hesitated before asking the question. The question. Because he was afraid of the answer.

"Is all this for real?"

Bulmer held his gaze. "Yes, Charles. It's for real."

"But how , dammit?"

Bulmer went on to tell him about a former Vietnam medic who eventually wound up in the Monroe Community Hospital, where he touched him and died.

A fantastic story, but certainly no more fantastic than Jake Knopfs remission. He studied Bulmer. The man's bearing, his laid-back manner, the pile of notes in the envelope, all indicated a sincere man.

But it can't be!

Charles stood and hefted the envelope.

"I'm going to sift this stuff through the computer and see if any correlations fall out."

"There's a definite rhythm to the Touch, but I haven't been able to figure it out."

"If it's there, we'll find it."

"Good. That's why I'm here. You're going to do a work-up on me, aren't you?"

"Starts first thing in the morning."

"Do a good one. The works."

"I intend to." He noticed Bulmer's grim expression. "Why do you say it like that?"

"Because there's something wrong with me. I don't know if it's stress, or if it's something else, but I can't seem to remember things the way I used to. I can't even remember half the people I cured. But I cured them. That I know."

"Short-term or long-term memory?"

"Mostly short-term, I think. It's pretty spotty, but there's definitely something wrong."

Charles didn't like the sound of that, but he reserved judgment until he had some data to work with. "Rest up tonight, because tomorrow and the next day you're going to be tested like you've never been tested before."

As Charles turned to go, Bulmer said, "You do believe me just a little now, don't you?"

Charles saw something in his eyes at that moment, a terrible loneliness that touched him despite his desire to prove Alan Bulmer a cheap fraud.

"I don't believe in believing. I either know or I don't know. Right now I don't know."

"Fair enough, I guess."

Charles hurried out.

It was late, but Charles made the calls anyway.

He had looked through Bulmer's notes and couldn't believe that the man would put all this down in black and white. He had listed dates and times. He named names! He even listed other physicians caring for the patient! If he was a phony, he was either a very naive or a very stupid one. It would be so easy to trace these people and check out their medical records.

But, of course, if Bulmer was completely caught up in a delusional system, he could be expected to record his imagined data rigorously.

Charles couldn't say exactly why he had looked through Bulmer's manila envelope before sending it down to data processing, but now that he had, he was compelled to call at least one of the other doctors mentioned within the mess to check out a "cure" Bulmer described.

He picked one at random: Ruth Sanders. Acute lymphocytic leukemia. He called information, found the number of the hematologist Bulmer had listed, and called him. After blustering his way past the answering service, he got Dr. Nicholls on the line.

The hematologist was instantly suspicious and very guarded. And rightly so. He did not want to give out privileged information over the phone to a voice he didn't know. Charles decided to lay his cards on the table.

"Look. I'm at the McCready Foundation. I've got someone here who says he cured Ruth Sanders' leukemia three weeks ago. I'm looking for proof that he's bonkers. I'll hang up. You call me back here at the Foundation—that way you'll know I'm really calling from here—and ask for Dr. Charles Axford. Then give me a few straight answers. I promise you they'll go no further."

Charles hung up and waited. The phone rang three minutes later. It was Dr. Nicholls.

"Ruth Sanders' leukemia is in complete remission at this time," he said immediately.

"What protocol were you using?"

"None. She had refused further treatment due to side effects."

"And her peripheral smear is suddenly normal?"

"It happens."

"What about her bone marrow?"

Dr. Nicholls hesitated. "Normal."

Charles felt his throat go dry.

"How do you explain that?"

"Spontaneous remission."

"Of course. Thank you."

He hung up and pawed through the envelope for more "cures" that listed consultants. He found one that Bulmer apparently wasn't sure about: a teenage girl with alopecia universalis—bald as a billiard ball when she came and left the office. He called her dermatologist. After going through a similar rigamarole with the consultant, he finally got the man to admit reluctantly:

"Yeah. Her hair's growing back. Evenly. All over her scalp."

"Did she tell you about a Dr. Bulmer?"

"She sure did. According to Laurie and her mother, that quack will be raising the dead next."

"You think he's a rip-off artist, then?"

"Of course he is! These guys make their reputations on placebo effect and spontaneous remissions. The only thing about this Bulmer character that doesn't fit in with the usual pattern is his fee."