Creature

Chapter Three

AndrewMacCallum, who had been known as Mac almost since the day of his birth thirty-two years earlier, gazed glumly at the stack of X rays on his desk. When Rick Ramirez had first been brought into the hospital nearly three hours before, Mac hadn't thought the boy looked too bad. Indeed, his first instincts were that Rick had simply been knocked out.

Now he knew better.

Two vertebrae in the boy's neck were broken, one of his kidneys was ruptured, and three of his ribs had been cracked. Two of the ribs had punctured his left lung, which had collapsed, and in the few hours since he'd been in the hospital, his condition had deteriorated to the point where he was now on life-support systems.

The job of explaining to the boy's mother what had happened had, of course, fallen to MacMacCallum. He left his office and turned down the hall toward the waiting room, then decided to have one more look at Rick. Perhaps, with luck, he might find some scrap of improvement that would soften the news he had to give to-he glanced quickly at the Next of Kin entry on the boy's chart-Maria Ramirez.

Susan Aldrich, whose shift had just been ending when the ambulance arrived with Rick Ramirez strapped to a stretcher, sat by the boy's bed. When Mac glanced at her questioningly, she only shook her head, her lips tightening.

Mac picked up the boy's limp left arm and quickly checked his pulse, then glanced at the array of displays on the monitors above Rick's bed. Nothing had changed: his pulse still erratic, his blood pressure low. Only his breathing, assisted by the respirator next to the bed, appeared normal. But Mac knew that without the machine, Rick's breathing would soon stop.

"No changes at all?" he asked, though he already knew the answer.

Susan shook her head again. "It's so strange," she said, her voice quavering. Her eyes wandered to Rick's face and she gazed silently at his calm expression, which seemed to indicate a peaceful sleep rather than a struggle for life itself. "I keep thinking he's going to wake up and say something, and everything's going to be fine. But he's not, is he?"

Mac shook his head. "I'd better go talk to his mother."

He gently closed the door behind him, then continued down the hall to the small waiting room where Maria Ramirez, her face pale, rose shakily to her feet as he entered. She looked so young to Mac-so vulnerable.

"Ricardo," she breathed. "Please-is he going to be all right?"

Mac gestured her back into her chair as his eyes shifted to the man who sat next to her. "You are…?" he began, deliberately leaving the question hanging.

"Bob Jenkins," the man replied. "I'm the coach of the Fairfield team."

"I see," Mac replied. "I wonder if I might have a moment alone with Mrs. Ramirez?"

But now it was Maria who shook her head. "It's all right," she said, her voice so low Mac could barely hear it. "He's been a good friend to Ricardo-to both of us…" Though her voice trailed off, Mac could read perfectly the situation as she gazed at the coach, who reached out and took her hand protectively in his own.

"I wish I could give you good news," Mac began, and winced inside as Maria Ramirez's eyes filled with tears.

"Ricardo," she whispered almost inaudibly. "He's…?"

"He's alive," Mac quickly reassured her. "But he's in a coma, and he has a lot of internal injuries." As gently as he could, he outlined the extent of the damage Rick Ramirez had sustained, but before he was done, Maria had buried her face in her hands and begun quietly sobbing.

It was Bob Jenkins who questioned him when he was finished. "What are his chances for recovery?" he asked, and the steadiness of his gaze as he met the doctor's eyes told Mac he wanted no temporizing.

"Right now, I'd have to say somewhat less than fifty percent," he replied. A small cry of anguish escaped Maria Ramirez's lips, and Mac swallowed the lump that immediately rose in his own throat. "But that's not to say things couldn't change radically by tomorrow," he added. "I'm afraid, though, that even if he survives, his chances of walking again are going to be very slim. The breaks in his vertebrae have damaged some of the main nerves."

Jenkins's eyes clouded. "But what about surgery?" he demanded. "I thought-"

Mac shook his head. "Right now surgery is out of the question. There's no way Rick's body could withstand the shock. Perhaps later-"

"No!" Maria cried. Her hands fell away from her face, and her eyes, wide and beseeching, fixed onMacCallum. "He can't be crippled," she pleaded. "Not my Ricardo. He's all I have… He-" But her voice failed her, and she collapsed against Jenkins, whose arm went around her to hold her close.

MacCallumwatched them in silence for a moment, then signaled Jenkins that he'd like to talk to him alone. When he was sure the other man understood, he went back to his office.

Five minutes later Bob Jenkins let himself intoMacCallum's office and closed the door behind him. "She'll be all right," he said, reading the unspoken question inMacCallum's eyes. He smiled tightly. "She's a remarkable woman. She's raised Rick by herself, and he was born when she was only fourteen years old." His voice hardened. "She never told anyone who his father was, and her own parents kicked her out when they found out she was pregnant. But she's never complained. She works as a waitress, and the last couple of years, since Rick's been old enough, she's been going to night school. She's absolutely determined that Rick should go to college, so she has to get another job."

"Jesus,"MacCallum whispered. He gestured Jenkins into the chair on the other side of his desk. "The boy's going to need a lot of care. If he survives, and something can be done about his spinal injuries, he's going to need a lot of physical therapy. But before all that begins, he's going to be in the hospital for a long time. Perhaps," he added, his voice dropping, "permanently. There's a good chance he won't come out of the coma at all. And if he does…" He spread his hands in an eloquent expression of unanswerable questions.

"All of which costs money," Jenkins observed, and Mac immediately nodded. "Well, Maria doesn't have any," the coach went on.

"Insurance?" Mac asked.

Jenkins shrugged. "Maybe a little, but I'm sure it won't be enough. And the school has some insurance, too, I suppose." His lips twisted in an ironic smile. "I'm going to be in an interesting position," he said. "I've been trying to convince Maria to marry me for two years, but she's always said she won't until Rick's through college. She said it wouldn't be fair to me. If only she'd married me, she and Rick would both be covered by my own insurance. So now I'm going to have to advise her to sue the school district I work for."

MacCallumpursed his lips thoughtfully. "Or sue Silverdale," he suggested. "After all, what happened, happened right here, didn't it?"

Jenkins hesitated, then nodded. "I'd already thought of that," he said. "Frankly, I didn't mention it because of you. I mean…"

He hesitated, clearly uneasy, andMacCallum suddenly understood the man's discomfort: Obviously Jenkins had assumed that he would automatically adopt the same defensive posture as Phil Collins had on the field.

Except that MacMacCallum had long since come to the conclusion that the Silverdale of the past, the Silverdale he had come to immediately after his residency, no longer existed.TarrenTech had changed it all-changed it beyond recognition-andMacCallum no longer felt any great loyalty toward the town. Indeed, if anything, he felt a deep resentment for the changes that had taken place in the village, and an even deeper anger toward the company that had brought them about.

"I don't work for the town of Silverdale," he finally replied. "I work for the county, and besides that, my only interest right now is Rick Ramirez. He's going to need a lot of help, and I intend for him to get it." He stood and held out his hand to the coach. "I've arranged to have another bed brought into Rick's room. I expect Maria will want to stay with him, at least for the moment."

Jenkins stood up and graspedMacCallum's hand. "Thank you," he said. "Maria and I both appreciate everything you've done-"

ButMacCallum cut him off. "So far, I haven't done much, and I'm not at all sure of what I'm going to be able to do. But I'll do what I can, and I'll call in anybody else I think we might need. It's going to be a long haul."

When Jenkins had left,MacCallum returned once more to the room where Rick Ramirez lay unconscious in the bed.

In the half hour he'd been gone, nothing had changed.

MacCallumwasn't sure whether that was a good sign or a bad one.

Phil Collins was stretched out in the recliner that was the dominant feature of his living room, his fingers idly pressing the buttons of the television remote, when suddenly a low growl rose from the throat of the big German shepherd sprawled on the floor next to the chair. A split second later the dog rose to its feet, its hackles rising, and Collins kicked irritably at the animal. "Shut up!" he commanded as the door bell rang. "We're not living in Chicago anymore." He tossed the remote control onto the table next to the chair, then stood up. With the dog still growling softly, and preceding him by half a step, he went to the door and opened it. On the porch, his face only half lit by the dim glow of the porch light, he recognized Bob Jenkins. Collins's brow rose a quarter of an inch, but he opened the door wider. "Down, Sparks," he ordered curtly, and the police dog obediently dropped to its haunches. "Come on in," he said. "I was sort of wondering if you might stop by. How's your boy?"

Jenkins's eyes glittered angrily as he stepped into the house, but he froze when the dog growled a warning.

"Don't worry about Sparks," Collins told him. "He's all talk and no action. Anyway," he added, a crooked grin half forming on his face, "I think he is. So far, nobody's had the guts to challenge him." The grin faded. "Your boy okay?" he repeated.

"My 'boy' is named Ricardo Ramirez," Jenkins said, his voice tight. "And no, he's not okay. His neck is broken, he has a lot of internal injuries, and he's in a coma. Which you would very well know," he went on bitterly, "if you or anyone else from your school had bothered to show up at the hospital."

"Hey!" Collins protested, his eyes widening. "How was I supposed to know? For all I knew, the ambulance took him back to Fairfield!"

"Don't try to act stupid," Jenkins snapped, his voice rising. The dog, instantly sensing a threat to its master, snarled dangerously. "And get that dog outside, Collins," he went on in a more reasonable tone. "You're not going to like what I have to say to you, and neither is your mutt. And believe me, it would give me great pleasure to sue you for every cent you're ever going to be worth."

Collins's jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Instead, he led the dog to the kitchen, returning with two cans of Coors, closing the kitchen door behind him. He offered one of the beers to Jenkins but wasn't surprised when the other man refused it. Popping the top of his own beer, he settled his heavy frame back into his recliner and indicated another chair for the Fairfield coach. But Jenkins remained on his feet.

"I came over here to tell you I'm going to be filing a complaint against your team, and JeffLaConner in particular," he said. "It seems like every year your team gets rougher, and now I've got a boy who's seriously injured."

Collins held up a conciliatory hand. "Now, hold on," he said. "I know you're upset, and I agree we better talk about this. But I don't mink you want to start talking about complaints, or lawsuits, or whatever else you've got in mind. Football's a rough game-"

"We know that," Jenkins said, his voice icy. "And no one expects that there won't be some injuries now and then. But this one was absolutely inexcusable."

Collins frowned. "It was an accident, Bob. You know it."

"It wasn't an accident," Jenkins objected. "I saw it perfectly. Your boy was going down, and he deliberately threw himself onto Rick."

Collins took a deep breath, then rose and walked to the television set, on top of which sat a video-cassette recorder. "Why don't we just take a look?" he suggested.

Jenkins gazed at the other man in surprise. "You're kidding. You mean you tape your games?"

"Every one of them," Collins replied. "How can you correct errors if you can't even show the guys what they did wrong?" He pressed the play button on the tape deck and a moment later an image of that afternoon's game flashed onto the screen. As both men watched, the penultimate play of the game unfolded before them.

"Right there!" Jenkins suddenly said. "Play it again. You got slow motion?"

Collins rewound the tape a few feet, then started the play over again, this time in slow motion. As they watched, they could both clearly see Rick Ramirez tackling JeffLaConner. Jeff twisted slightly, then collapsed heavily onto Rick. And for just a split-second, before the rest of the two teams piled onto the heap, both men could see Rick's head twist at an unnatural angle. They watched the tape again, and then once more.

"Well?" Collins finally asked.

Jenkins was chewing his lip thoughtfully, but Collins could see that much of his anger had drained away. "I don't know," he said at last, his voice betraying his pain at having to make the admission of uncertainty. "But it looks to me like he deliberately threw himself on Rick," he insisted.

"And it looks to me like he lost his balance," Collins replied, rewinding the tape yet one more time. "Let's watch it again." Once more the image came on the screen, and once more the two men watched in silence. When it was over, Collins spoke again, choosing his words carefully. "Look, Bob, I know what you're thinking, and I know how you feel. But all that happened there is that Rick-what's his name?"

"Ramirez," Jenkins replied almost tonelessly, his eyes still fixed on the screen, where Rick's head was frozen in a painfully grotesque angle.

"Ramirez," Collins repeated. "Well, it looks to me like he just did his job, maybe a little too well, and wound up underLaConner when he went down. But it wasn't anyone's fault."

Jenkins nodded slowly and finally turned away from the television set. "Maybe," he said softly, "I'll change my mind about that beer." He picked it up from the coffee table and jerked at the tab on its top, then took a long swig. "It's been a bad day. Rick… well, if I had my way about things, Rick would be my stepson."

"Oh, Jesus," Phil Collins groaned. "I'm sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am. If there's anything I can do-"

Jenkins abruptly met Collins's eyes. "There is," he said. "You can tell me what kind of insurance your school carries and if you'll fight a claim on this case. Rick's mother has no money at all and-"

But Phil Collins was already holding up a hand. "Enough said," he assured Jenkins. "I don't think any of us wants a lawsuit-mind you, I don't think the boy could win one, but I wouldn't want to have to fight it. All any of us wants is what's best for the boy. I'll start things rolling tonight and keep you posted. And if there's anything I can do personally, you just let me know. Okay?"

Jenkins hesitated a moment, then nodded, and standing, extended his hand. "I guess I owe you an apology," he began.

But Collins brushed it aside. "Don't even think about it," he said. He flopped back into his chair, then shrugged. "In a way," he went on, "I can't say I disagree with you. Sometimes I think thegameis getting too rough. And every year it seems like the boys are getting bigger and bigger. But what can we do about it? For a lot of the guys in this part of the country, football's the only way they're going to get to college, and they can only get there if they play for a winning team. So they keep trying harder. But you can bet," he added, "that my team will see that film and get a talking-to about dropping when they know they're hit. We shouldn't have accidents like today's."

A few minutes later, when Jenkins had gone, Collins picked up the phone and dialed the number of the principal of Silverdale High. As briefly as possible, he recounted the conversation he'd had with Jenkins. When he was done, Malcolm Fraser, whose concerns about the dangers of football were well known to everyone in Silverdale, clucked fretfully.

"I don't know," he sighed. "Perhaps we've been putting too much emphasis on winning-"

Collins cut him off. "Winning is the whole point of the game, Malcolm. If we're not out to win, there's no point in playing at all. So we'll just do what we can for Ramos, or whatever his name is, and forget the whole thing."

"Unless they decide to sue," Fraser replied.

"If they sue, they sue," Collins said flatly. "And that won't be our problem. That will be the lawyers' problem."

"I see," Fraser replied after a long silence. Then: "And what about JeffLaConner? What are you going to do about him? He's playing awfully rough, isn't he?"

Collins chuckled hollowly. "That he is," he agreed. "And if he keeps it up, I can tell you what I'm going to do. Name him Most Valuable Player at the end of the season."

He was still chuckling when he hung up.

CharlotteLaConner watched her husband open another beer and pass it over to Jeff, then pop the top on yet another can for himself. It was the third beer for Jeff, the fourth for Chuck, and finally she could contain herself no longer.

"What do you think Phil Collins would say about that?" she asked, nodding toward the Bud her son was emptying into his glass.

But Chuck only grinned at her. "Come on, honey," he protested. "It's a big night for Jeff! First game of the season, and a perfect pass on the last play! And it was Phil who told the boys to go out and have a good time."

Charlotte took a deep breath, then let it out again. There was no point in arguing with Chuck, not after he'd had a couple of beers. And the fact that he knew as well as she did that the coach hadn't intended to include drinking in his lifting of the training strictures that afternoon wouldn't make any difference. But still, the whole thing bothered her.

The image of the injured boy lying motionless on the ground was still strong in her mind, and though Chuck had insisted she was wrong, she still felt that as Jeff's mother, she should have gone to the hospital to see if the boy from Fairfield was all right. But Chuck had wanted to go out with the parents of some of the other boys on the team, and in the end, as always, she had gone along.

As always, Charlotte had sat in the group of celebrating parents, feeling terribly alone amidst the talk, which never varied from an unending replay of that afternoon's game. Finally she let her mind drift away entirely, and Chuck had to shake her out of her reverie when the group at last began to break up.

Then, when Jeff had come home an hour ago, it began again. Play by play, father and son had relived the game.

At last they had come to the moment when Jeff plunged through the line, dropped on the other boy, and disappeared under a heap of other players.

"Did you see it, Dad?" Jeff asked now, his eyes glinting with the memory, a wide grin spreading across his face. "Thought he had me, but I fixed him! Just twisted around and dropped on him. Put a knee right into his kidney!"

Charlotte felt her stomach tighten, and suddenly knew she could put it off no longer. Wordlessly, she turned and left the room, went to the bedroom and closed the door. Taking the phone book out of the top drawer of the nightstand, she riffled through it, then dialed the number of the county hospital.

"This is CharlotteLaConner," she said. "I'm calling about the boy who was brought in this afternoon. After the football game?"

There was a momentary silence before the voice at the other end spoke coolly and impersonally. "And what is your relationship to the patient?"

Charlotte hesitated, then replied tightly, "It was my son who tackled the boy."

"I see," the voice said tentatively. Then: "Perhaps I'd better connect you with the duty nurse."

A few moments later, after explaining once more who she was, Charlotte listened numbly as the nurse summarized Ricardo Ramirez's injuries.

'But-But he'll be all right, won't he?" Charlotte finally asked, the question coming out as a plea.

"We don't know, Mrs.LaConner," the nurse replied.

Slowly, Charlotte replaced the receiver, too unnerved to do more than sit still on the bed. Minutes passed as she tried to collect her thoughts. Then, when a raucous laugh echoed from the den, she made up her mind. She stood, straightened her back, and left the bedroom. She paused at the door to the den and waited until her husband noticed her. For a moment he seemed puzzled, but when he saw the expression on her face, his smile began to fade.

"What's wrong?" he finally asked. "You look like you just saw a ghost."

"I just called the hospital," she said. She turned to her son. "The boy you tackled. His name is Rick Ramirez."

Jeff frowned. "S-So?"

Charlotte licked her lips nervously. "He might die, Jeff. His neck is broken and one of his lungs collapsed." Despite herself, her voice hardened. "And when you put your knee into his kidney, apparently you ruptured it."

Jeff's eyes widened, and Charlotte could see his fingers tighten on his beer glass. "Jesus," he whispered. But then, as she watched, a curtain seemed to fall behind his eyes. "It wasn't my fault," he said, his voice taking on a note of belligerence.

From his chair a few feet from Jeff, Chuck shot her a warning glance, but Charlotte chose to ignore it. "Not your fault?" she asked, no longer trying to contain the anger she was feeling. She moved closer to Jeff. "I heard you say you deliberately kneed him."

"Well, what if I did?" Jeff demanded, rising to his feet. He was big, nearly six-foot-three, and he towered over Charlotte's five-foot-four-inch frame. "Shit, Mom, he'd just tackled me, hadn't he? What did you expect me to do? Just stand there and take it?"

Charlotte reached out to grasp her son's arm. "But that's part of the game, isn't it? You try to get through, and he tries to tackle you. But you don't try to hurt him on purpose…"

Jeff's jaw tightened and his eyes blazed with sudden fury. "And you don't know a goddamn thing about football!" he shouted. Abruptly, he shook his mother's arm off his own and hurled his still half-filled glass into the fireplace. The stein shattered against the bricks, then Jeff stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

"Jeff!" Charlotte called too late. Already the back door had slammed as well. A moment later they heard his car start up and roar down the driveway. Furious, she spun around to face Chuck.

"That's it!" she snapped. "No more football! On Monday morning he's quitting the team. I've had it."

But her husband was staring at her as if she had lost her mind. "Hey, slow down, honey," he said, standing up and moving toward her. "Maybe he shouldn't have yelled at you and thrown the glass like that, but how do you think he feels?"

"Him?" Charlotte blazed. "What about Rick Ramirez?"

"Jeff didn't mean to hurt him," Chuck replied. "In the heat of a game, these things happen. And whose side are you on, anyway? You just as good as accused him of trying to kill that kid. Your own son! How the hell do you expect him to react?"

Charlotte was silent for a second, and when she spoke, her voice was tight. "I expect him to behave the way we brought him up. I expect him to be a good sport and to keep in mind the fact that he's a lot bigger than most kids and could hurt someone. And if he can't do that, I expect him to stop playing football."

ChuckLaConner gazed silently at his wife, then shook his head. "You mean you want to keep him tied to your apron strings and you don't want him to grow up," he said. "But you can't do that, Charlotte. He's not your little baby anymore." Picking up his own empty beer glass, he left the room.

Charlotte, not quite certain of what had gone wrong, but knowing that she had mishandled the situation very badly, began to clean up the shards of glass scattered across the floor of the den.