“Oh? What makes you say that, Paul?”
Paul took in a deep breath. “Well, I read a lot. I’m a good reader and a quick reader, so I can put away a book in a day or two, and I’ve been reading since I was about four years old. And every day, Meg, every day, I see a different book under your arm. So, anyway, now I’ve got these whole different worlds my head travels in, worlds I really can’t talk about to other people. And I thought maybe you had worlds, too, and maybe we could share those worlds.”
Meg was quiet for a moment. “Paul, that’s a wonderful thought. Yes, I do like to read. And these days, you don’t get too many people who enjoy immersing themselves in books. But is that the only reason you asked me out?”
“Heck, no!” blurted Paul. “I think you’re the sexiest, most wonderful girl in school!” He was immediately embarrassed and he was glad of the darkness, because he knew he was blushing.
Meg laughed. “Whew. For a moment my faith in the male of the species was being shattered.”
“No. But it’s true about the books, it’s not just a line, Meg.”
She patted him on the knee. “I know. Just teasing you, Paul.”
A nice glow filled him, and he took a moment to look over at her, outlined in the glow from the headlights. Nice silhouette. Along with her perfume and the sense of warmth near him, Paul realized that his heart was pumping with excitement again.
“Paul, watch out!” she cried. “There’s a man running across the road!”
Paul swiveled his gaze back immediately. A figure was jumping out of the shadows to the side of the road up ahead and was headed straight for them!
Paul slammed on the breaks and swerved, honking the horn to warn the guy. The man angled, but instead of moving away, he ran straight into the path of the car. All this happened in just a split second, so Paul wasn’t able to do anything else.
Then the brakes locked.
Bang! The front of the Toyota connected with the man, barely clipping him. The man bounced off the car and curled up on the ground to the side.
Paul brought the car to a halt.
“It’s not your fault, Paul,” said Meg. “I saw it, he ran right into you.”
“We’ve got to help him.”
They jumped out of the car.
The man lay in the middle of the road, holding himself and moaning. Just as Paul was approaching him, he saw a another figure rush from the woods onto the road, puffing. In the still-lit headlights he was able to make out that the figure was that of Brian Flagg.
Paul knew Flagg, although more by reputation than anything else. They weren’t enemies, but neither were they friends. Brian Flagg was simply the school’s primo hood, with a juvie record, yet—a bit of an outcast. So it was natural that Paul should think that this poor old guy on the pavement here was running away from him.
“Flagg! Jesus Christ, what did you do to him?”
Flagg knelt down beside the old man. He turned to find that the person who had addressed him was Paul Tyler. “Hey. I’m not the one who bounced him off my car, pal.”
“Right,” said Paul, approaching cautiously. “But you chased him into the road!”
“Stop it, both of you!” Meg protested, striding out between them. “Can’t you see this man needs help?”
Paul knelt down to the side of the old man and helped Brian Flagg to sit the guy up.
“Careful,” said Flagg. “He’s got some kind of corrosive shit on his hand.”
“Hey, I’ve seen this fellow!” said Paul, when the grizzled head swung into some light. “This is the Can Man. He—”
His words were stopped by the sight of the man’s hand as it came into the light as well. It was dim, so he couldn’t see the hand clearly, but there seemed to be some kind of slime all over it. Slime and blood, with a hint of bone!
“Oh, God,” said Meg, seeing it too.
“What the hell is that?”
“Don’t look too close or you’ll lose your cookies,” said Flagg. “I don’t know what it is, but old Can Man needs a doctor.”
“We’re not far from the clinic!” Meg said, pointing toward the town.
“Yeah, that’s where we’ll go, then,” said Paul as they helped the guy toward the Toyota. The man smelled of sweat and blood and bad stuff that Paul couldn’t identify. Halfway to the car the old man started shivering and trembling, as though from fever. “Take it easy, mister. We’re gonna get you some help, okay?”
A moan bubbled from the man’s lips. “From the sky… ! Fell from the sky.” His voice was like sandpaper on sandpaper.
“What? What’s he saying?”
“He’s in shock!” Meg said.
Paul remembered the special class he’d had a couple years ago in CPR and related emergency procedures. You needed to keep victims of shock warm, didn’t you? Yeah. “There’s a blanket in the back of the car.”
Meg pulled open the door, reached in, grabbed the blue wool blanket, and gave it to Paul. Flagg helped him wrap the Can Man up, and then they eased him carefully into the backseat. Meg assumed her position in the passenger seat, and Paul was about to run around to the driver’s side when he noticed that Brian Flagg hadn’t moved from the side of the car.
“C’mon, get in!”
“What for?” Flagg asked.
“There’s going to be a lot of explaining to do to the doctors, and you’re part of it. Now, you gonna get in or do I make you get in?”
Reassuming his tough-guy role, Flagg pretended he was dusting some dirt from Paul’s shoulder. “What’s wrong, Tyler? Worried about a little insurance claim on Daddy’s car? Maybe I will come along, just to make sure you don’t lay the whole thing off on me.”
Meg stuck her head out the window. “Are you two done? Will you hurry? We’ve got an emergency here!”
Paul circled around and got in the driver’s seat. When he slammed the door, he saw that Brian had pushed Meg over and was sitting beside her, closing the door behind him.
“Hey, Flagg! Get in the back,” Paul demanded.
“What?” he said. “Hell, I ain’t sitting in the backseat with that thing on the Can Man’s hand!”
Flagg stretched out and draped his hand over the back of Meg’s seat. He smiled at Paul. “Whenever you’re ready, pal.”
Gritting his teeth, Paul turned the engine over, stuck the car in gear, and got going.
He drove fast and he drove well, as Meg guided and Brian explained how he’d just been fixing his bike when he’d bumped into the Can Man, totally out of his mind.
“He was trying to hack his hand off with this hand ax. You shoulda seen it!” he said.
Meg shuddered. “I’m really glad I didn’t.”
“Yeah, so I tried to stop him, but I when I got a gander at the stuff on his hand, well, that kind of took the wind outta my sails. So then, he just took off, with me chasin’ him. All in all I guess it turned out for the best. You guys might not have stopped if he hadn’t run right in front of you.”
“I just hope that the doctors at the clinic can help him,” said Meg, looking back at the old man in the backseat.
“Yeah! I mean, who’s gonna take care of Morgan City’s can problem if the Can Man kicks the bucket?” said Flagg.
The Aubrey Daniels Medical Clinic was a flat long brick building just outside of Morgan City on a fairly isolated stretch of road. An ambulance sat in the driveway, beside a parking lot empty except for two cars. Paul drove right up to the front of the building and, with the help of Brian Flagg, hustled the Can Man—still wrapped in the blanket, his eyes blank and glassy—into the glaring strip lighting and linoleum of the emergency room.