Chapter Three
       page 10

REVEAL YOURSELF
RECORD ALL REACTIONS
ALL SUBJECTS DIE NATURAL DEATHS

This was followed by what looked like a legal disclaimer statement:
     “All agents doing human research fully acknowledge the risk involved. They remain subject to the penalty of death following any physical contact or known exposure to possible infection from this species.” Edna hung up the phone.

enry was unconscious in the driveway. He lay face down, covered with blood and dirt. Edna picked him up and carried him into the kennel. She lay him on his back on the counter. She washed him and flushed his wounds with a Nolvasan solution. With cotton thread and a sewing needle, she stitched closed the worst gashes. She used only enough sutures to close the openings. She had a splint that had been used when one of the dogs had a broken leg. It fit Henry's leg reasonably well, cradling it from behind. Thus stabilized, the leg was then wrapped in a thick layer of cotton and bandaged with Vetrap. The bone seemed to have been broken cleanly in two and the skin over it was abraded but not broken.
      The end result looked terrible. He was a tiny Frankenstein. Feeling exhausted, dizzy and filthy, she nevertheless checked him for...for what? Weapons, drugs? She wasn't sure herself, but she checked his pockets and removed his belt and shoes.
      She made him a little den in an empty dog run. From his earlier reaction, she was quite sure he would try to escape when he woke up. She covered her biggest winter dog bed with a clean sheet. Laying him on it, she covered him with a blanket and turned a heat lamp on overhead. Because of the place on the back of his head where the scalp was torn, she had to position him slightly on his side. Propping a fifty-pound bag of dog food against the inside door to his run and wedging the wheelbarrow against the outside gate, she then tended to the dogs' needs. When all were washed, medicated and fed, she headed for the house.
      Edna planned to go back and watch Henry until he regained consciousness. When she got out of the shower she felt so exhausted, she thought she would lie down for a few minutes. It was daylight when she woke up.

n the quiet light of a new day, Edna knew she had made a big mistake. The computer notes and all the events of the last week and a half now looked deluded, not frightening. But she was stuck; she couldn't take him to the hospital with all those homemade stitches. If Henry developed any complications she would be guilty of more than just practicing medicine without a license.
      However, since she had samples of Henry's blood she could at least prove to herself conclusively that Henry was human. She mailed one of the bloodstained towels to a friend who worked at the State University. In her enclosed letter she explained that the dogs had found this in the woods. She wondered if he could find somebody in one of the departments who could tell, possibly from DNA, whether this was animal or human blood?
      Henry did not try to escape. He was passive and acted depressed. He insisted on dressing his wounds himself while she waited outside the door, but otherwise he made no demands. When Edna peeked through the door at him, she always found him curled up with his face to the wall. If she looked for more than a few seconds, he would pull the blanket over his head. She had removed the barriers from his doors. As the area remained clean, she guessed he was able to go some distance to relieve himself but he always came back to his little nest in the kennel.
      For a week they ignored each other. Edna left his food, bandages and Amoxicillin pills (‘borrowed’ from the dogs) outside his door. In a few hours she would come back and collect the dishes.
      On the eighth day he didn't eat his food. There was a note on the floor. It said, “I need to contact Oscar. Will you attach my computer to a phone jack downstairs and leave the front door open this afternoon?” It was the first time he had asked for anything. Combined with the loss of appetite, Edna feared the worst. Consequences or not, she was going to have to take him to a hospital. She pulled the car over to the front of the kennel. When she looked in his run, he was not there. She checked the crawl space and under the deck. She took the dogs and scoured the woods but found no trace of him. He did not come back that night.
cont. on page eleven

Copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich. All rights reserved.
All photographs copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich
jay@arraich.com