There was nothing more to be done that night. I went home, took a hot bath, then fell asleep as soon as I lay down on the bed.
Nightmare time. I'd have expected something to do with werewolves and goblins, but it wasn't like that at all. I was at the bottom of some desert valley in which the colors were all wrong; low, green plastic sky, gray cactus and sagebrush, purple sand and stone. I was surrounded by figures that looked like people, but weren't. As if to confirm my suspicion, one of them pulled back his lips to reveal long snake-fangs. Slowly, in ballet-unison, all of the figures lifted their arms and wriggled their fingers: suddenly the air was filled with the deadly, rustling song of rattlesnakes. Then the figures began to change into snakes. A few, unable to complete the transition, exploded soundlessly. The rest completed their metamorphosis-almost; I was ringed by rattlesnakes with human faces.
It was all too absurd to take seriously. I knew I was dreaming, and I decided to wait patiently until I woke up.
My patience became a little strained when the snakes started to crawl toward me. Dream or not, the human faces on the scaled, limbless bodies repulsed me. I didn't want to be bitten. I instinctively reached out for a rock; one of the snakes hurtled through the air and buried its fangs in my right thumb. It hurt far more than such dream-things should, and I was relieved to feel the heavy-lidded, swirling sensation of vertigo that was always my passport to consciousness. The screen inside my head went blank and I slowly became aware of my bed, my pillow, the sheet over me, the hum of the air conditioning.
I was definitely awake, but my thumb still hurt. Something was wrong.
Something was gnawing on my thumb.
Tiny needles of fire and ice were vibrating in my flesh, grinding down to the bone. I sat bolt upright in bed and shrieked when I saw the dark, fluttering shape hanging from my thumb. I jumped out of bed and violently shook my hand, but the thing wouldn't come off. Bony, cold wings flapped against my hand, and I knew with sudden, chilling certainty what it was-and what was wrong with it.
Groaning aloud with revulsion and terror, I reached over with my left hand, wrapped my fingers around the bat and yanked it off my thumb. It took all my willpower to hang on to the writhing animal, but I knew I had to keep my head. My entire body was quaking, oozing sweat, but I managed to walk across the room, turn on the light and examine the bat. It had worked one cold, skin-covered wing free and was flapping it against me in a mindless, disease-powered frenzy. Its body kept churning, and I could feel its tiny, clawed feet scratching against my palm and wrist. The maw with its tiny needle teeth was covered with froth and blood. The flesh on my right thumb where it had been chewing was shredded; blood and flecks of saliva covered my hand.
I gagged and tasted sour bile in the back of my throat. Desperately hoping that it was all a dream-within-a-dream, I screwed my eyes shut and waited to wake up. But I was awake. The tiny, muscular body squirmed; I could feel its soft, throbbing belly, wirelike veins, slimy feces lubricating my hand. In a few more seconds it would wriggle its way free.
Fighting off a strong compulsion to vomit, I staggered back across the room and used my free hand to remove the pillowcase from my pillow. I dropped the bat into it, then beat the shape to death with a shoe. Groaning and whimpering like a maniac, I kept pounding the stained pillowcase long after the creature inside it was dead.
I wrapped the package in plastic, washed off my hands with alcohol and bandaged my thumb as best I could. I tried to keep my mind off what I knew was inevitably before me as I dressed, picked up the plastic bag and went down to my car. I couldn't stop shaking. With the bundle on the seat beside me, I careened through the night streets of Manhattan to the university Medical Center. I didn't want to die that way, and I tried not to think of the deadly germs coursing through my system at that very moment, being carried by my bloodstream toward my brain.
Chapter 11
"It's rabid," Joshua Greene said. "I'm sure you suspected it."
I gripped the edge of the examining table on which I was sitting, winced as pain streaked through my freshly cleansed and bandaged right thumb. I was in my shorts, and felt cold. "Of course," I said. "Healthy bats don't normally make a habit of chewing on people's fingers."
"You know what has to be done, don't you?"
"Yeah. I know. How many shots am I going to need?"
"I'm not sure. We'll start off with one a day, vary the dosage and take blood samples as we go along. Maybe we can get away with six or seven. I'll start you off, and your regular doctor can give you the rest."
"My doctor's away for a month. I'd just as soon you took care of it, if you don't mind. I'm beginning to feel at home here. How's my little friend?"
"The same," he said stiffly. "My team of specialists is setting up a new battery of tests for this afternoon. Right now, let's concentrate on you."
Greene asked me questions about my height and weight, then left the room for a few minutes. He returned with a hypodermic needle that looked at least nine inches long. He prepared the syringe and came toward me. I lay back on the examining table and stared at the ceiling.
"Antirabies serum is injected directly into the abdominal wall, Dr. Frederickson-"
"Yeah, yeah, I know all about it. If you're going to start sticking needles into my gut, you may as well start calling me Mongo."
"Very well. And if you're going to continue an investigation on behalf of one of my patients, you may as well call me Joshua. Now that we've broken down the social barriers, let's get back to the matter at hand."
He paused, narrowed his eyes and stared at me hard. "There is no cure for rabies once the symptoms have appeared," he continued. "That can be anywhere from two to eight weeks, depending on how well the victim handles himself. No cure. I emphasize this because I suspect you could be a difficult patient."
I sighed, shook my head. "You've got to be kidding. Order a stool specimen, and I'll meekly ask you what color you'd like."
"Good. You sound very cooperative. Since there's no cure for rabies, we use the classic Pasteur treatment. I'll be injecting a weakened rabies strain into you. Your system will then build up antibodies in time to defeat the main strain that the bat infected you with. The serum I'll be giving you is prepared from duck embryos. We have some synthetics, but I still consider this the best."
"Lord love a duck."
"Please listen," Greene said evenly, but with absolute authority. I listened. "The point is that you must rest in order to let your system build up the necessary antibodies. Do you understand?"
"I understand."
"Good. You've probably heard that the shots you're going to get are painful. It's true. Besides pain, you'll probably experience nausea and extreme fatigue as a result of the injections. As I said, you should rest as much as possible if you want to get away with the minimum number of shots; but then, you'll probably be happy to. Here comes Number One."
I put my hands behind my head, closed my eyes and clenched my teeth as Greene daubed on some local anesthetic, then slowly slid the tip of the needle into my abdominal wall. He worked slowly, expertly, negotiating the needle through the tough, striated muscles. When he had the needle properly inserted, he slowly pressed the plunger. My stomach felt as if it were being filled with hot metal. He finished, slowly removed the needle. When I started to get up, he put a hand firmly on my chest.
"Take it easy for a few minutes," he said. "You'll be able to contain the nausea if you eat small amounts, fairly often. If your stomach hurts, take aspirin."