11

 

As I came to, I once again found myself lying on a bed—but this time it was evident that I was in a hospital. The private room I was in was filled with the customary farrago of medical apparatus, as well as a whiteboard with cryptic abbreviated messages scribbled on it, a smallish television set mounted high on a wall, and a multi-paned window looking out on a grassy field that I recognized as part of the landscaping of the recently renovated Dunsmuir Hospital on the northern part of town.

Once I gained some clarity of vision, I saw my mother sitting in a low chair next to my bed, wringing her hands obsessively and peering up at me with a quizzical expression. As I made her aware that I was conscious, she leaped up and seemed about to embrace me, but then realized that such an act might not be good for me, so she abruptly refrained.

“Oh, Alison!” she cried, tears suddenly filling her eyes. “You’re awake!”

“Yes, Mom,” I said wearily, not sure she had used the correct word.

“How are you feeling?” she said anxiously.

“Fine, just fine,” I said without enthusiasm—but the curious thing was that I felt exactly that. Exhausted, dazed, a bit sore, but otherwise surprisingly well.

My mother, fluttering around me nervously, now dashed out of the room, feeling the need to inform a nurse of my changed condition. Presently a crisply dressed middle-aged nurse stalked in, my mother trailing ineffectually behind, and began examining various parts of me without the slightest by-your-leave. There was, in fact, not much to examine: I assumed that much more rigorous tests had been made on me when I had first been brought in (last night, I gathered), and the nurse was now only going through the motions. I myself felt no pain, and not even any true discomfort.

The nurse was disconcertingly silent while poking and prodding me. At last I was impelled to say: “Is there anything wrong with me?”

Without glancing at my face or ceasing her probing, she said blandly, “Doesn’t seem so.”

“Then can I leave?” I wasn’t sure I was quite up to the task, but I had no inclination to stay here any longer than necessary.

Now the nurse did look at me. “Best to stay here another night. Precautionary.”

With that, the laconic creature strutted out of the room.

My mother continued to hover uselessly in the general vicinity of my bed, asking me pointless questions about whether I wished something or other. When I made an effort to get up, her eyes widened in horror, as she seemed to think it was some kind of lèse-majesté against hospital protocol; but as I was not connected any equipment (neither IVs nor breathing apparatus), I felt no compunction in ambling about. My backside was already aching from lying so long on my back—something I had never done for sleeping purposes—and I wanted to test the strength of my legs for purposes of locomotion.

I really did seem fine. It was absurd that the hospital wanted to keep me here another entire day, and I was tempted just to pack up my belongings—whatever and wherever they might have been—and get the hell out of here.

But before I could do that, Conrad Brashear walked in.

He probably lived only a short distance from this hospital, and who knows but that that tight-lipped nurse had at once notified him that I was once more in the land of the living? When my mother saw him enter, her jaw dropped as if she were in the presence of royalty. I almost thought she would bow or curtsy or some such thing. But he didn’t give her a chance: extending a hand, her grasped hers firmly and shook it, then said:

“My dear Mrs. Mannering, how good of you to be here! But I wonder if I could have a private word with your daughter?”

The mere fact of her name passing through his lips seemed to stun her into silence, and she drifted out of the room like a sleepwalker without a backward glance.

I was in no mood to match his geniality.

“You tricked me. You tricked me and tried to kill me.” I said those words with an unnatural, sotto voce calm that I was far from feeling.

He had the good grace to blush. “I did, Alison, and for that I apologize. I told you at the time that I didn’t know what else to do, given the serious and urgent situation we were facing. And I cannot begin to tell you how glad I am that you are still alive.”

“Don’t give me that!” I shot back. “You don’t give a damn about me.”

“Au contraire, mademoiselle,” he said with self-parodic gallantry, “but I do. You—or rather, what happened to you—has changed everything.”

“What do you mean?” I said, confused.

He inclined his head in a supremely irritating gesture of patronizing concern. “I imagine your experience has prevented you from thinking clearly on the incredible nature of what you have gone through. You say I tried to kill you. And”—he gave a sudden look around the room and lowered his voice—“you are absolutely right. So why exactly are you not dead?”

The question was not rhetorical. He was gazing at me with fierce intensity, like a college professor seeking to tease out a difficult answer out of a favored student.

He repeated the question: “Why are you not dead right now?”

My mouth dropped slowly as realization overwhelmed me. “You mean…like my father—like all the men who had been sent down that horrible chute, to be burned to a crisp down to their bones …”

“Yes, like all the men.”

There was no mistaking the emphasis he put on that noun.

Staggered with inconceivable thoughts, I remained silent, and he went on.

“Throughout the history of this mine, virtually all those who have worked in it have been men—and, by necessity, all those who ‘won’ that lottery were male. Believe it or not, we have had a handful of female miners, but none of them lasted long enough to be eligible for that lottery. Women, as you know, have a bad habit of leaving employment for such escapades as marrying, having children, and so forth. All to the good of the human race, no doubt, but not helpful to the advancement of their careers in this dirty and now dying industry.”

I didn’t appreciate his sardonic humor, but I kept mum.

“When I—I had you consigned to that chute, I gave no thought to your gender. I will be frank in saying that my chief concern was the forlorn hope that sending a human—any human—down into the creature’s maw would somehow cause it to retreat into itself as had happened, albeit under less spectacular conditions, in the past. And I don’t deny that the thought of ridding myself of someone who had learned so many intimate secrets about the functioning of my business entered into the equation. But the result was far greater—and more beneficial—than I or anyone could have imagined.”

“You mean—?” I managed to croak.

He made an expansive gesture with his arms. “You can see for yourself that the earthquake has indeed subsided. And what’s more, I had my technicians conduct a somewhat crude and hasty examination of the creature—and you will be pleased to hear that it has apparently dwindled by about a quarter of its total girth. We don’t have exact numbers at this early stage, but you seem to have been both good and bad for it.”

Although my mouth opened, I could not utter a word.

“You see,” he went on as if giving a lecture, “we don’t really know anything about this creature. It seems absurd to think that the mere fact that a woman rather than a man gets sent down into its midst would have an appreciably different effect, but such indeed appears to be the case. Who can say why? Men and women are different, of course—biologically and psychologically. Is it something about your hormones, your brain chemistry, your, um”—he blushed again—“sexual organs that either tempted it or, conversely, repelled it? It’s all a mystery. All we know is that it works. You may be the key to the future of the mine!”

His triumphant conclusion sickened and appalled me. With immense effort I said, “You can’t really be serious …”

“Oh, but I am,” he retorted. “You have emerged remarkably unscathed. True, your hair got a little singed, but that’s it. I’ve been kept keenly aware of your condition since you were brought here last night. Trust me: the doctors have examined you with the minutest care, inside and out, and you have an incredibly clean bill of health. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were actually better off now than you were before your, er, encounter with—”

“You’re insane!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, rushing around the room as if looking for some means to escape. Brashear himself was all but blocking the door, and it was quite clear he wasn’t going to let me out—not, at least, until he had had his say.

“Alison,” he said softly, and the mere placing of my name on his tongue sent a wave of revulsion through me, “you have to understand the situation. There is now a whole new dispensation. Don’t you see what has happened—and what will happen? You are the savior of the mine—or, at least, the people in it.”

“What—what are you saying?” I said, temporizing, although I knew exactly what he was saying.

“I’m saying that there’s no reason why we need to hold this dreadful lottery anymore. There is no need to sacrifice any of the men who have toiled there for so many long, arduous years. They can retire in peace and comfort—I will assure you of that. Now that we have the secret of taming the creature, of minimizing its growth, the miners can continue without the spectre of death hovering constantly over them.”

“But—but that means—” I sputtered.

“Yes,” he said, his voice oozing with sympathy, “it does mean that you will periodically have to—to go down that chute again. Perhaps every six months—maybe less often than that. Surely a few minutes of your time every six or eight months is worth the life of a hard-working miner.”

“Oh, you evil man!” I said venomously. “Don’t you try to put that kind of guilt trip on me! I’m supposed to have my body flung into that creature’s clutches twice a year for—for how long? The rest of my life? I’m supposed to—”

“Well,” he interrupted, almost chuckling while doing so, “I suspect that you can retire gracefully once you reach menopause. There really does seem something about your active sexual organs that causes the creature to react as it did. We may have to do more tests on that point.”

“Fat chance!” I said heatedly. “I’m getting the hell out of here.”

I opened a closet door, found the clothes I had been wearing the night before, and—heedless of displaying my nudity to Brashear—tossed off my hospital gown and began dressing.

“Alison,” he said in a subdued voice, “I’m disappointed in you. So selfish—so little concern for others.”

I wheeled on him—something not so easy to do while struggling to put my tight jeans on. “But why me? Why not any woman? Why—why not Andy Kroeber?”

I won’t say that I wasn’t ashamed at making such an immoral suggestion, but at this point I was desperate.

“I think you know why Andy won’t serve,” he said. “She is what one used to refer to as a virgo intacta. You know that yourself, surely.”

I was long past the point of wondering how Brashear got the information he did. “Yes, I know that,” I muttered.

“Now,” he said almost whimsically, “I suppose you could arrange for her to be relieved of her tedious virginity, although at the moment she seems disinclined to go along. But I’ll leave that up to you.”

I could do nothing but level a sneer at him. “Why not some other woman of your acquaintance? Your wife, for example?”

“I’m not married,” he said placidly. “It’s long past the time when I should have done so and produced offspring; what with one thing or another, the opportunity has not presented itself. But there is still time.”

Then a strange gleam entered his eyes. “You know, Alison, I would be happy to have you live in the comfort of my home for an indefinite period. Your services to the mine are eminently deserving of substantial recompense. And perhaps, as we become better acquainted …” He trailed off wistfully.

An enormous lump filled the pit of my stomach. Choking down my anger and my bile, I said shortly, “I’m leaving.”

And I did.