THE RED WAKE

Chapter 40

Then, two nights after the attack in Kansas, sometime in the early hours just before dawn, Stanford was struck by a fit of hallucinations.

They'd pulled into an abandoned campsite for the night. As Alan and the others gathered around him to offer assistance, the physician opened his eyes. His face was ghostly in its pallor as he stared into the flickering flames of their campfire. With a shock, Alan saw that Stanford had lost a startling amount of weight in the short time since the attack.

"Margaret? Margaret?" he whispered. "Margaret, why... why don't you answer me?"

Alan winced. The physician's advancing delirium was cruel to him. Margaret was Stanford's ex-wife. She had divorced him ten years ago, after a painful separation. Stanford never told Alan which of them had strayed. But the infidelity had only exacerbated other problems in the marriage. Now, as Stanford cried out his ex-wife's name, Alan heard the familiar echoes of his own regrets.

"Get the boys into the boat, Maggie. I want to be back by midnight."

Eugenia shouldered the men out of the way and bent to Stanford's side. She made a gentle shushing sound, tenderly stroking Stanford's brow even as she made him lie back on the palette they'd cobbled together. And she listened as the older man addressed his phantoms.

"No no, you're beautiful, sweetheart. Oh, please don't leave me here. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

Abruptly, Stanford seemed to switch gears, laughing weakly, even as his voice grew thinner.

"That's funny, son. Richie, you'd... you better not let your mother hear... We'll...Where's Josh? Is he with the boat? Where is he...?"

Stanford broke into a fit of coughing. His chest heaved and he gasped for air, clawing at his throat for a moment before his breathing quieted.

"Daddy... I hope you're with mommy now. I hope you... you're together now... I hope..." he whispered. Sweat and tears wet his cheeks. "We'll both be in the doghouse if she hears you, boys," he said smiling.

Eugenia wiped away his tears, whispered soothing words into his ear, as the others turned away, helpless. And she sat with him that way for the rest of the night.

Alan grimaced at his friend's condition. Stanford's hallucinations had started the night after the scavenger attack. They never took him by day. He seemed to suffer their attentions only after sundown.

*

The next morning, they were seventy miles from the Grand Canyon when Stanford, awake and seemingly in improved spirits, requested that Eugenia pull over.

Unsure, Eugenia stared at Alan.

Alan shrugged and nodded. Eugenia pulled over to the shoulder, a habit she had been unable to break. They had seen little human traffic on the roads since leaving Illinois. As she threw the truck into park, Stanford asked to be taken outside.

Moving the makeshift litter they used to carry him in, Alan and Gordy had barely set him on the highway before Stanford asked Gordy to "bum a smoke." He'd told Alan that he'd quit smoking sometime after completing his residency. Then, with a strange intensity, he asked Gordy to let him speak with Alan privately.

As the two men sat together, staring at the sunset colors which splashed the mountain peaks around them, Stanford rallied enough to sit up on his own.

"This is as far as I go, my friend," he said.

For a moment, Alan was confused.

"What?" he said.