Brian Keene - Terminal

Terminal
Brian Keene
BANTAM BOOKS

For Geoff Cooper, Michael T. Huyck Jr., and Michael Oliveri.
We are ka-tet. All for one and one for all...To many men life is a failureA poison worm gnawing at their heartThen let them see to itThat their dying is all the more a successFRIEDRICH NIETZSCHEThus Spake ZarathustraRejoice, young man, in thy youthBut know that God will bring theeInto judgmentECCLESIASTES 11:9Im going to kill the bastard!BABY FACE NELSON TO JOHN DILLINGERForget it and grab the money!JOHN DILLINGER TO BABY FACE NELSONFarewell happy fieldsWhere joy forever dwellsHail horrors, hail...JOHN MILTONParadise Lost

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Cassandra; Sam, who came along at just the right time; Anne Groell for the French Sushi; Josh Pasternak; Rich SanFilippo, for the bat and the murder ballads; Ed Gorman; Larry Roberts; Alan M. Clark; Duane Swierczynski, my partner in crime; Cullen Bunn; Judi Rohrig; Officer Tom OBrien (no relation to the main character); Maria Cotto, for the swearing lessons; Carl, for help with the drugs; Matt Warner (drop and give me 1,000); Gina Mitchell; Mark Lancaster, for once again being my eyes and ears; Adam Pepper, who read this on the back of scrap paper; John Urbancik, for reading this during the carnival instead of going to Heaven by answering three easy questions; and finally, to the memory of the foundry sage Robert Fitro, whose wisdom is not forgotten.Authors Note: Though Hanover, York, and many of the locat ions in this novel are real, I have taken fictional liberties with them. If you live there, dont look for your bank. You probably wont find it.

ONE

L ifes a bitch, then you die. Thats my philosophy in a nutshell, and it was reinforced that morning.Mr. OBrien, perhaps youd better sit down.That didnt sound good. Neither did the fact that we were doing this in his office, instead of the examination room.I shrugged. Its okay. I can stand.A fancy degree in an expensive-looking frame hung on the wall. I focused on it, wondering how much it cost him to go to medical school. How much money did he make? I bet it was more than I made working at the foundry.He cleared his throat, glanced down at the desk, and looked back up at me.Mr. OBrienHere it comes. My cholesterol is too high. I need to quit smoking and drinking and eating rare steaks and baked potatoes with a shitload of butter and sour cream or Ill be dead before Im thirty.you have cancer.I said nothing. I couldnt say anything, even if Id known what to say. There was a big lump in my throat, and it grew as he continued. My ears felt hot and began to ring. Something moved around deep down inside my stomach, a sloshing that made me queasy and afraid at the same time. The doctor seemed to shrink and swell in front of my eyes, and his voice echoed around the office. Everything started to spin and my head grew light, like Id stood up too quick or something.Ive conferred with several associates of mine, all of who specialize in this. The diagnosis is certain. The cancer is spreading throughout your throat, particularly the esophagus, as well as your jaw, chest, and lungs. Its gotten into your lymph nodes. Those are the lumps beneath your armpits. Worse, the disease is spreading at an alarming rate. Its what we term Grade Four extremely serious and very, very aggressive.I stared at him, then decided to sit down after all. If I hadnt, I think I would have collapsed. My legs felt like spaghetti. Outside, I heard the clackety-clack-clack as the receptionist banged away on her keyboard. The keys seemed very loud in the silence.Cancer. Well shit.Yes.That aint good.No.He folded his hands, sighed, and waited for me to speak.I was having trouble doing that. Fear kicked in, thrumming in my gut like a subwoofer.So am I going to have to get one of those holes in my neck? You know, those tracheotomy things? A voice box like that guy Ned on South Park?Mr. OBrien. Tommy. I know this is a shock, but I need to make sure that you understand.He removed his glasses, rubbed his forehead, and sighed again. Then he put the glasses back on, folded his hands neatly on the desk, and looked at me. I knew that look. It was a look that said Im not fucking around here.Your cancer is at a very advanced stage. At this point, chemotherapy and treatment on the throat lesions would be ineffective, as would removal of the tumors and steroid therapy. Truthfully, Id be hesitant even to do an exploratory on the growths at this point. As I said, a Grade Four tumor is very aggressive, and you have multiples. Literally dozens, in fact. To be honest, Ive never seen so many in a patient before. Im afraid the outlook is terminal. I am truly, truly sorry, Tommy. You have my deepest regrets. Had we caught it earlier He shrugged and found something to look at on his blotter.Shit, I said again. Terminal. Huh. It felt like somebody had hit me in the stomach.After a few moments, the doctor stirred.I dont understand, Tommy. Why didnt you come in earlier, at the first sign?I dont have any health insurance, Doc. The foundry keeps us below thirty-five hours a week so they dont have to pay for it. State law, you know? And my wife only works part-time at the Minit-Mart over on Eisenhower and Carlisle Street. She doesnt have any insurance either.The doctor nodded and fell silent again.Cant you cut them out? The tumors?It would be futile, Tommy. The success rate is very low and the surgery is quite invasive. The cancer has spread rather quickly, expanding into the rest of your body. Your esophagus is not good. The tumors in your jaw have sent tendrils into your brain, like roots, if that helps you to understand it better. Thats where the headaches are coming from. Several of the growths have fused with your spine. There is simply no way that we could remove them all, and even if we did, youd be horribly disfigured. We would literally have to remove your jaw and your nose. There are prosthetics for that, of course, but they are very costly. He stared back down at the blotter, fiddling with a pen.There was more, but I didnt hear it. The doctor showed me pamphlets that I pretended to understand. Even though he already knew the answers, he asked again if I smoked (I did), drank (only a few days during the week, Friday night after work, and on the weekends), used drugs (once in a while, but only weed), worked near radiation (nope, just foundry dirt and molten iron), family history (my mother had breast cancer), or had a father who was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam (my father was in Nam but came back as an alcoholic). He nodded as I confirmed each one.The doctor offered me some medication to make the nausea and pain easier, wrote a prescription for something (but I wasnt paying attention and didnt really understand what it was for), and asked me to come back in a couple days so we could discuss arrangements.What kind of arrangements? Whats there to discuss?He explained the difference between a hospital stay and a hospice, and told me that Id have to make some tough decisions. Hed be there to help me with them.Is that appointment going to cost money? Cause I dont get paid again for another two weeks.Well he seemed taken abackIm sure we can arrange something, Mr. OBrien.I was Mr. OBrien again, soon as he saw that he wasnt getting thirty bucks right away for another office visit.I know all about the difference between hospitals and hospices, Doc. Hospitals just fuck you in the ass. Hospices try to make you comfortable first, then they fuck you in the ass.Mr. OBrienJust tell me how long.TommyHow long, goddamn it?Outside, the receptionist stopped typing. The office was very quiet, so quiet I could hear my heart beat, pounding like a bass line in my favorite Snoop Dog song.Well, its hard to be certain of course, Mr. OBrien, but Id say you have approximately one month to live. Certainly no longer than three.That was it. He showed me to the door.Outside, the sun was shining, and it felt good on my face. I could smell the honeysuckle growing alongside the building. A bird hopped across the parking lot in front of me. Several more chirped and sang to each other in the trees. A gnat, the first one Id seen this spring, buzzed my ear. I resisted the urge to squash him, letting him live instead, so that he could fly away and bother someone else.Winter had come and gone, and now it was spring. The season of renewal. That magical time of year when Mother Nature takes her clothes off, puts on a thong bikini, and shouts: Lets party!Everything was coming to life while I was dying.I was terminal.That was when my knees gave out, and everything got dark.Next page