Chapter 6: Arguendo
When Kirby woke again, he felt much better. He saw Dr. Lau laying out things on the bedside table. She wore a black T-shirt and skinny jeans, moving her hands with an awkward energy as she worked. Today, her short hair stood straight up in spiky points. Her slim figure did not so much have curves as it did hints of curves but, despite feeling better, he was in no shape to appreciate those. She leaned over to inspect the dressing on his chest. “Morning,” he said.
“Good morning, dude. I was just about to have a look. Wanna see?” She pointed to the gauze pad taped to his chest.
“Sure.”
“Let me.” He had intended to pull back the bandage himself, but the bandages on his right hand made him think better of the attempt. He noted that he no longer had an IV needle inserted in his left arm, and he glanced to see the IV stand several feet away against the wall. He used his left thumb and peeled the edge of the tape up before she pushed his hand aside and took it from there.
Beneath the bandage was an ugly sight—and not at all what he should have seen there. A large bite was missing from his chest. His left nipple should have been there, on an area of his body that was now missing. It was the most significant injury he had ever suffered, and it should not have looked that good. It should have been raw, ragged, and angry looking. Instead, it looked like it had been healing for more than a week, maybe longer. He had seen people get hurt, seen people recover from wounds. This was not what a wound like his ought to have looked like after only two days.
“What the hell?” he asked. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Miss Adelaide called me late Wednesday night, the night you were attacked,” she told him. “You woke up yesterday afternoon. Now, it’s Friday morning.”
He shook his head. “No. No fucking way. I shouldn’t be healed this much. The wound has contracted substantially. Hell, it looks like there’s already scar tissue forming!” His tone was somewhere between incredulous and accusatory. Dr. Lau looked at him evenly but did not reply. He continued. “And it doesn’t hurt. I don’t feel drugged. I can feel the scratches on my chest and belly, but I can’t feel the bite.”
The doctor opened her mouth to respond, but he cut her off. “And don’t tell me it’s a local anesthetic. It doesn’t feel at all like that. There’s just no pain.”
“And yet it’s only Friday, Jeffrey,” came Adelaide’s voice from behind the doctor. She stood in the doorway in an elegantly fashionable sun dress that likely cost more than he made in a week. “Amy, dear, why don’t you go and get something to eat? Brunch has been served.”
“Yes, Miss Adelaide.”
“I could eat,” Kirby announced.
“And I’ll have something brought to you just as soon as we have our little talk,” she said. There was a hint of apprehension in her voice. She sat on the bed next to him, legs together, hands primly in her lap. Her posture was perfect, and she radiated wealth and authority. He guessed she was in her late fifties. Her face and figure were still quite attractive. She wore tastefully expensive earrings and her blond hair carried a hint of silver. “It’s only natural that you have questions and I will try to answer them. Much of what I need to tell you is going to be difficult to understand—and to accept.”
Her apprehension made him sympathetically uncomfortable. He attempted to deflect the awkwardness, asking, “Am I finally going to learn where babies come from?”
“Wonderful!” She sounded genuinely pleased. She smiled. “You’ve kept your sense of humor. After what you’ve been through, some people would have lost theirs. A sense of humor is the surest sign of a supple mind, and a supple mind will serve you well now, Jeffrey. Never doubt that.”
“Okaaaay,” he drawled. “I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, Adelaide. I’ve seen some, er, unusual things since I first met you. I’m confused. I’m freaked-out. I need some answers here, or I’m probably going to lose my shit.”
“Well, I certainly think you’ve earned some answers,” she assured him. “First, let me ask you a question. The Aybssal wolf, the wolf-thing that bit you, can you describe it?”
“Terrifying. Black. Unnatural—”
She leapt upon the word. “Yes, exactly! Now, what made it unnatural?”
“It... ah...it was too black, even its eyes and its teeth. I kept hitting it in the head with the tire iron and it should have died two or three times before it finally did. It didn’t seem to follow the rules for things that are, uh, part of nature.”
“So, you will concede that there might be things that are ‘unnatural,’ not part of nature?”
He knew this logical technique. He had used it himself many times with his students. She was driving in the thin end of a logical wedge. Which of my mental schema is she trying to pry open?
“Let’s assume, arguendo, tha—”
“Arguendo?” She smiled brilliantly as she interrupted him. He was starting to get the feeling that he would have to get used to interruption when talking to Adelaide. “You’re full of surprises. I hope you’ll forgive me, Jeffrey, but at first glance you don’t present the image of a highly educated man. I’m sorry I judged you by your appearance.” The expression on her face was genuinely contrite. It seemed there was more to the older woman than wealth and authority. She had manners and the good grace to use them to own up to her mistakes.
He nodded, acknowledging her apology. “I’m a teacher. I have an undergraduate degree in Classical Studies and a Master’s in Literature, both of which are pretty useless—unless you want to be a teacher.”
“I could disagree,” she countered, “but you’d likely find that predictable, so we can table that discussion for another day.”
They smiled at each other then as an understanding passed between them, each acknowledging the other’s point, and more than that. Each recognized the other’s intelligence. It elevated the anticipated plane of their discussion.
“Let us assume, arguendo,” he repeated, “that the wolf-thing, the Abyssal wolf—wolves—as you called them, are unnatural, that they are not of nature. The assumption is made.”
She studied his face as she spoke again. “If we posit that the Abyssal wolves are unnatural, is it not possible that other things unnatural might exist?”
“I certainly can’t prove that no other unnatural things exist,” came his limited concession. “Of course, it’s impossible to—”
“Prove a negative,” she finished for him. “If you’re going to tutor me in Logic 101, brunch will likely be cold before we’ve finished our talk.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Being didactic is an occupational hazard for high school teachers. I will concede that if one unnatural thing exists, then one or more other unnatural things might also exist.”
“Quite so,” she acknowledged his concession. “Once you open the floodgates and let a statement like ‘unnatural things exist’ pour through the dam your rational mind has built, you’ve got to be worried about drowning, eh? It’s a scary proposition, isn’t it? Where you thought you had some idea of the general shape of what is real in your world—and what is not—you might have, instead, no idea at all what things might be real, might be possible.”
He did not answer. He watched her as she studied his face, unsure of what she was looking for and even more unsure of how to respond to what she had just said. Long moments of silence stretched out. Finally, he said, “I won’t attempt to deflect what you’re saying by arguing that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The rational part of my mind doesn’t want to admit it, but Occam’s razor works in favor of what you’re saying with regards to that thing—those things—that attacked us. But I can’t seriously consider the ramifications of rearranging my entire conception of reality on an empty stomach. I... I don’t know if I can do that at all. I was hoping that you were going to explain away the wolves, offer some natural, logical explanation. I wasn’t expecting this—whatever this is.”
“Fine,” she said. “Let me ask you this: if some natural things are generally considered useful or beneficial and others are considered harmful or dangerous, isn’t it possible that—if unnatural things exist—some might be considered useful and others dangerous?”
He chuckled. “Well, the point you seem to be trying to make is that I might have absolutely no idea what is or isn’t possible, so I’d have a hard time arguing against the proposition that different unnatural things might have different properties. I’ve only known one unnatural thing, that wolf-thing, and it was terrible. If the unnaturally terrible is possible, the unnaturally wonderful might be too.”
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“Well said,” she told him, and she patted his leg. “But you’ve neglected to note this,” she pointed to his wound, “among your encounters with the unnatural. You were right. Your wound should be incredibly painful, and it should be ragged, inflamed, and raw. Not to put too fine a point on it, it should have killed you for reasons I cannot explain but will simply describe as ‘unnatural.’ Amy used unnatural means to save your life, to remove your pain, to help your body to heal itself at an unnaturally accelerated rate. I would offer this as partial proof that the unnatural might offer benefits as well as hazards.”
He opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it. He almost opened it again but thought better of it. How the hell do you respond to something like that? Shrugging his shoulders was all that he could think of to do, so he did. He was acutely aware of the complete lack of pain from the wound in his chest.
She nodded and stood, patting him on the leg once again. “Of course. You need time to process. I can certainly sympathize. I’ll ask Amy if you have any dietary restrictions and I’ll have someone bring whatever she says is fine for you to eat. “We’ll talk more later,” she told him before leaving.
He lay back and studied the ceiling. It was a paler shade of the warm, sunny yellow that graced the walls. The crown molding, when one studied it, was impressive as hell, he thought, but with the twelve-foot ceilings it seemed almost understated. Perhaps the same could be said about his host. The more he tried to add up what little he knew of her, the more she seemed impressive, intimidating, but her manner made her come off as understated. In his life thus far, Kirby had never managed any sort of elegance and he rather envied the casually effortless elegance the older woman exuded.
The room’s furnishings were obviously expensive, expensive in a way that his limited experience could not readily quantify. He realized that any guesses he had as to the value of the bed he lay in, with its ornately carved headboard, would be conjectural at best. It could have cost a thousand dollars or a hundred thousand. Neither amount would have surprised him. The nightstand, dresser, and other pieces of furniture were all topped with white marble and were constructed of the same dark, ornately carved wood as the bed’s headboard, a matched set.
A tall servant with a ruddy complexion entered, bearing a tray with a covered dish and a glass of milk. She was easily recognizable as a servant because she wore an outfit that seemed to him to be an only slightly updated version of those he had seen on Upstairs, Downstairs as a kid, a dark blouse and skirt with white cuffs and lace-trimmed collar. A white apron with decorative stitching and a tiny white cap that contained the bun of her hair completed the ensemble. She placed the tray on the nightstand and helped him sit up, placing some of the bed’s unused pillows behind his back and head.
“Here we go,” she announced as she placed the tray on his lap and removed the cover.
The plate held sausages, scrambled eggs, bacon, and ham. The aroma made him salivate. His stomach gurgled. The hollow place inside him shouted for him to fill it, but he resisted it for the moment. “An all protein diet?” he inquired of the maid.
She nodded once in affirmation, saying, “Doctor’s orders.”
He removed the napkin from the sterling silver ring and placed it on his belly, then abandoned all resistance, picking up the surprisingly hefty silver fork with his left hand and digging in, devouring more than half the plate before he even became aware that the servant had left the room. There were two different kinds of succulent sausage. The bacon was thick-cut and cooked as perfectly as any he had ever eaten. The ham was sweet and salty, tender—a near-miracle of charcuterie. The eggs aren’t bad, either.
The fork had barely hit the empty plate before another servant, wearing a uniform identical to the first, came to remove the tray. He held up a finger and she paused so he could finish the milk and put the glass back on the tray before she took it. This servant, shorter than the one who had brought him the tray, had a dark complexion and dark eyes. She curtsied with a smile before taking the tray and withdrawing from the room.
He settled back onto the pillows. That might hold me for a while. Might.
On the wall opposite the bed was a painting, a seascape, that seemed almost petite in comparison to the enormous, ornately carved gold frame that held it. He studied it. Waves splashed against a rocky shore, sending up spray. On the horizon, the sun colored a low band of sky and left pink-gold reflections on the waves. It was so masterfully executed that the waves almost appeared to be moving. It was incredible, and it was familiar. He had seen it before, or one very much like it, perhaps in a museum or an Art History class.
There was a rattling noise, the sound of cutlery on china, and someone said, “Dammit!” then “Shit!” Dr. Lau walked in with another serving tray. The glass was on its side, however. Milk splashed from the corners of the tray with each step she took. She set it on the nightstand with a final splash.
She turned to him and an angry frustration still clearly shone on her face. He could see her breathe deeply and to calm herself. “Sorry about the mess,” she said, “but would you care for some more to eat?”
“Yes, please,” he said.
She removed the cover and lifted the plate. Taking a handful of tissues from the box on the nightstand, she wiped away the milk that dripped from the bottom of the plate and handed it to him. Three thick slices of ham were piled upon it. He placed it on his lap, then folded a slice in half and took a hearty bite.
“Sorry, but the bacon and sausage were all gone. They’ll probably cook you some more if you want it,” she told him.
He waited to reply until after he had swallowed. “No, no,” he assured her, “this will probably do me for now.” After another bite he added, “This ham is so damned good!”
“Well, human flesh is the sweetest. What could be more natural to help your body’s healing process?”
He looked at her, no hint of humor, of irony, on her face. She stared at him out of innocent brown eyes, her expression unmoving. His mind and his stomach both began to recoil. Unnatural! Was it—
The doctor’s deadpan expression shattered in a fit of laughter.
“Ha!” she exclaimed. Laughter, free and unashamed, leapt from her throat, not stopping until she bent over, small hands resting on her bony knees, and forced herself back under control. She straightened, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “Gullible,” she said. “So fucking gullible!”
He was, he realized, and he felt like a chump. It would have been great to enjoy the moment with her, to see the humor she felt, but it was too close on the heels of his near-death experience for him to appreciate. “Ha.” The monosyllabic monotone perfectly matched the unamused expression on his face. “Ha.”
She started laughing again, more tears running from her eyes. “So gullible,” she repeated. “All kidding aside,” she seemed to lie, as a smile continued to play about her lips, “how do you feel?”
How do I feel? Certainly, he was not as hungry as he had been. His wound did not hurt, but the scabbed-over scratches still stung mightily. His legs felt okay, and he flexed them a bit and wiggled his toes. His arms, well, he had been using his left one to eat and it seemed to work just fine. He raised his bandaged right hand. It did not hurt. He wiggled his fingers and felt them move within the confines of the wrappings with no pain.
“What’s wrong with my hand,” he asked.
“Almost nothing.”
“’Almost nothing’ isn’t nothing, doc—and it’s bandaged. What’s up?”
“Miss Adelaide has asked that I let her explain that to you. Let’s wait until she gets back, then I’ll be happy to take off the bandage.”
“Gets back?”
“Sure. You don’t expect a woman like her to put her life on hold to sit here and hold your hand all day, do you?” The doctor’s words came out harshly, perhaps a bit more harshly than intended, because she added, “Sorry. She told me to tell you that she would be back soon and that the staff and I should do anything we could to make you comfortable.”
Kirby finished the piece of ham he was holding and picked up another. “Well could you open the curtains, then, doc? I wouldn’t mind a little more light in here.”
She nodded and walked to the expensive-looking drapes that hung from an ornate curtain rod near the ceiling, cascading down almost to the floor. Heavy, they blocked most of the light. Only a faint glow spilled in from around the edges. The doctor opened the curtains to reveal gauzy sheers bright with diffused light. She opened these to reveal a window-sized niche in the wall and pressed a button. The light went out. She stepped aside to reveal a panel studded with a grid of dark dots. “It’s an LED rig that emits visible light on the same wavelengths as sunlight.”
“What the fuck is wrong with windows?”
“You’re in Miss Adelaide’s safe room. It’s underground. You’re safe.”
An unreasonable panic rose in him and he looked from the “window,” to her, and to the door. Looking back to the window, his gaze skipped past her and landed on the door again.
The doctor noticed, held up her hands, and told him, “Wait! You can leave any time you like but let me take out your catheter before you do.”
My what?
The confusion showed on his face. She explained, “I’ve been putting first plasma, then saline into you since Miss Adelaide brought you in. Your bladder has got to empty sometime, and Miss Adelaide would prefer it wasn’t on her umpteen-zillion thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. So, I catheterized you.”
“But I don’t... I mean, uh, I’ve never been...you know...before,” he hesitated. He popped the last bite of ham into his mouth, then reached down under the covers. There was a pause. “But,” he finally said, after confirming for himself the presence of a plastic tube emerging from his penis, “I really don’t feel anything. I had assumed there would be some discomfort.”
“Oh,” she shot back, raising an eyebrow, “discomfort like one might experience after recently having a giant bite of flesh torn from your chest? How’s that feeling?”
He took the plate from his lap and placed it on the milk-filled tray on the nightstand, then sagged back onto the pillows. “Touché, doc," he said. “You’ve got me. Now what?”
“Well, first,” she began, “you’ve got to know that I wasn’t kidding when I said you can leave anytime you want. It wouldn’t be the smart thing to do—and everybody here would try to talk you out of it—but no door in this house would be locked to you and Miss Adelaide would throw herself under a bus sooner than allow anyone in her household to try to physically restrain you.”
He gave her a very dubious side-eye.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped. “I am utterly serious. Anyone in this house who raised a hand to stop you from leaving if you wanted to go would cause Miss Adelaide great embarrassment, tremendous shame. I don’t know that she would literally throw herself under a bus, but she’d probably want to. It’s the way she is. She follows a code. Heck, if you told her you wanted to leave and you wouldn’t wait for her to pass along the potentially life-saving information she very obviously wants to share with you, she’d probably offer to give you a lift—or even give you one of her cars.”
His mind acknowledged the strangeness of the situation or, at least, it tried very hard to. It was a lot to try to take in. He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Uh, okay.”
“Great!” she said with a smile that may have indicated as much relief as happiness. “Now, how about we remove that catheter, Jeffrey?”
“Look, before Wednesday night nobody on earth called me Jeffrey. Some of my friends sometimes call me Butch, but--”
She snickered. “Yeah. No, I don’t think so.”
“Why the hell not?”
“It's too on the nose. I get what's wrong with 'Jeffrey'? Do you go by 'Jeff'?”
“Nah, my old man called me that and I never liked it. My last name is Kirby. Most of my friends just call me Kirby. Your position as my personal physician gets you into that select group. Call me Kirby, please.”
“Fine. Now, how about we take care of that catheter, Kirby?”