NightScape

On a long narrow table in the middle of the corridor, there were tokens of affection left by loved ones of other patients: family photographs, a baseball glove, and a guitar pick. Anthony's father had left the disc of the computer game that he and Anthony had been playing. "We'll play it again," he'd promised.

It was Anthony's father's birthday. He was forty-nine. He had gray in his sideburns, wrinkles in his forehead. I'll soon look like Anthony did when I woke up from being frozen and saw him leaning over me, he thought.

He couldn't subdue the discouraging notion that one of these days he'd be the same age as Anthony when he'd been frozen. But now that he thought about it, maybe that notion wasn't so discouraging. If they found a treatment that year, and they woke Anthony up, and the treatment worked…We'd both be sixty-six. We could grow old together.

I'll keep fighting for you, Anthony. I swear you can count on me. I couldn't let you die before me. It's a terrible thing for a father to outlive his son.

Douglas €. Winter is a fiction writer (Run), critic (books about Stephen King and Clive Barker), anthologist, and attorney. His first anthology, Prime Evil (1988), is one of the great collections of the macabre. In the mid-1990s, he phoned to tell me about a second anthology he Was pla

If I Should Die before I Wake

It wasn't the first case, but it was Dr. Jonas Bingaman's first case, although he would not realize that until two days later. The patient, a boy with freckles and red hair, lay listlessly beneath the covers of his bed. Bingaman, who had been leaving his office for the evening when the boy's anxious mother telephoned, paused at the entrance to the narrow bedroom and assessed immediately that the boy had a fever. It wasn't just that Joey Carter, whom Bingaman had brought into the world ten years earlier, was red in the face. After all, the summer of 1918 had been uncommonly hot, and even now, at the end of August, the doctor was treating cases of sunburn. No, what made him conclude so quickly that Joey had a fever was that, despite the lingering heat, Joey was shivering under a sheet and two blankets.

"He's been like this since he came home just before supper," Joey's mother, Rebecca, said. A slim, plain woman of thirty-five, she entered Joey's room ahead of the doctor and gestured urgently for him to follow. "I found his wet bathing suit. He'd been swimming."

"At the creek. I warned him about that creek," Joey's father, Edward, said. Elmdale's best carpenter, the gangly man still wore his coveralls and work boots and had traces of sawdust in his thick, dark hair. "I told him to stay away from it."

"The creek?" Bingaman turned toward Edward, who waited anxiously in the hallway.

"The water's no good. Makes you sick. I know 'cause Bill Kendrick's boy got sick swimming in it last summer. Breathed wrong.

Swallowed some of the water. Threw up all night long. I warned Joey not to go near it, but he wouldn't listen."

"The creek through Larrabee's farm?"

"That's the one. The cattle mess in the water. The stuff flows downstream and into the swimming hole."

"Yes, I remember Bill Kendrick's boy getting sick from the water last summer," Bingaman said. "Has Joey been vomiting?"

"No." Rebecca's voice was strained.

"I'd better take a look."

As Bingaman went all the way into the room, he noted a baseball bat in a corner. A balsa-wood model of one of the Curtiss biplanes that the American Expeditionary Force was using against the Germans hung above the bed, attached by a cord to the ceiling.

"Not feeling well, Joey?"

It took an obvious effort for the boy to shake his head "no." His eyelids were barely open. He coughed.

"Been swimming in the creek?"

Joey had trouble nodding. "Shoulda listened to Dad," he murmured hoarsely.

"Next time you'll know the right thing to do. But for now, I want you to concentrate on getting better. I'm going to examine you, Joey. I'll try to be as gentle as I can."

Bingaman opened his black bag and leaned over Joey, feeling heat come off the boy. Joey's mother and father stepped closer, watching intently. Joey's cough deepened.

Ten minutes later, Bingaman put his stethoscope back into his bag and straightened.

"Is that what it is?" Edward asked quickly. "Bad water from Larrabee's farm?"

Bingaman hesitated. "Why don't we talk somewhere else and let Joey rest?"

Downstairs, the evening's uneaten di

"But what do you think it is?" Rebecca asked the moment they were seated at the kitchen table.

"How serious is this?" Edward demanded.

"His temperature's a hundred and two. His glands are swollen. He has congestion in his lungs."

"My God, you don't think he has diphtheria from the water." Rebecca's anxiety was nearing a quiet panic.

Edward stared at the floor and shook his head. "I was afraid of this."

"No, I don't think it's diphtheria," Bingaman said.

Joey's father peered up, hoping.

"Some of the symptoms are those of diphtheria. But diphtheria presents bluish-white lesions that have the consistency of leather. The lesions are surrounded by inflammation and are visible near the tonsils and in the nostrils."

"But Joey-"

"Doesn't have the lesions," Bingaman said. "I think he may have bronchitis."

"Bronchitis?"

"I'll know more when I examine him again tomorrow. In the meantime, let's treat his symptoms. Give him one-half an adult dose of aspirin every six hours. Give him a sponge bath with rubbing alcohol. Both will help to keep down his fever. When his pajamas and bedding get sweaty, change them. Keep his window open. The fresh air will help chase the germs from his chest."

"And?" Joey's father asked.

Bingaman didn't understand.

"That's all? That's the most you can do?"

"That and tell you to make certain he drinks plenty of water."

"If he can keep it down. It's water that got him into this trouble."

"Possibly. Did Joey tell you if any other boys went swimming with him?"

"Yes. Pete Williams. Ben Slocum."

Bingaman nodded. He not only knew them; he had delivered them, just as he had delivered Joey." Take Joey's temperature every couple of hours. Telephone me if it gets higher or if other symptoms appear."

"Mrs. Williams, this is Dr. Bingaman calling. This might sound strange, but I was wondering – is your son, Pete, feeling all right? No fever? No swollen glands? No congestion?"

He made another call.

"Nothing like that at all, Mrs. Slocum? Your son's as fit as can be? Good. Thank you. Give my regards to your husband. Why did I telephone to ask? Just a random survey. You know how I like to make sure Elmdale's students are all in good health before they go back to school. Good night. Thanks again."