Excerpts from
DR. JESUS AND MR. DEAD:
A Novel

Cooper Renner

Excerpt 1:

PROLOGUE:
PLEASANT WIMBERLEY, ENGLAND, 1349

A month ago the Death came. Only my father and I remain in the house, and he drinks ever more as he adds again and again the figures in his book. We have sent nothing out, not one pound of raw wool, not one bolt of cloth, and no one has come into town since St. Boniface's day. I stay in my room while it's light, reading the Psalter and the three songs I wrote down one night during carnival, while the adults had their pleasure and I listened from the window.
Oh, bang the drum
and oil the fiddle.
Henry Lee
and Mary diddle.
Alex used to sing it at night when we lay down to sleep, but Father and I buried him in the basement four days ago.
	"I won't have him thrown out and burned!" Father shouted. The doors and windows were shut, the house full of smoke from the herbs Father seared to drive away the Death. I wore nothing more than the rag knotted at my waist, but sweat rolled down my face and chest. We carried Alex's body down the dusty stairs and began to dig. My hands slipped on the shovel while Father cursed me. Then, after we covered Alex, he held me tight and kissed my hair. "We'll all die. God will have us all."
	I pressed my fingers into his shoulder blades. "No, Father, the worst is over. Everyone says so."
	He was silent. Then he muttered, "We're ruined," and went back to his books.
	Now I smell Alex even on the third floor, even through the reek of herbs. And elsewhere in the city hundreds of others decay or burn.
	It is almost sunset. I sit in the window watching the pink and orange tatters of the sky. High up, birds fly. Wind blows the smoke away. The stars begin to shine.

"If this plague comes from God, he sure has a wicked sense of humor."
	I teetered at the window, regained my balance, turned inside. "Lance! How did you get here?"
	"I popped the door-bolt," he said, showing me a foot-long blade.
	"Dear Lord. Where did you get that?"
	"It wasn't doing Master Miller any more good."
	"God. At least you're still alive."
	He patted my shoulder. "Of course I am. Don't cry. Buck up."
	"What did you mean? God has a sense of humor?"
	He held up the blade. "Who gave more to build the new church than Master Miller? He's gone. Mistress Eliza fed Barney Epps every day for twenty years. She's dead; he's not. The friars and Father Barnard died almost before anyone." He slipped the knife into a thong at his waist. "My mother died two days ago."
	"Is there-- Are you--"
	"Just me."
	"Then you have to stay here."
	He shook his head. "I could bring my house's death--"
	"It's already here. Only Father and I are left."
	He said nothing, but his hand twitched at my collarbone.
	The walls below echoed with the bell and the creak of wagon wheels. Lance's face twisted, and he spat out the window. In the quiet street, the spittle cracked as it landed. The death wagon stopped, and the driver looked up.
	"Good evening, young masters. Surely you don't blame me for the job I do."
	"I blame you when it causes you no pain!" Lance cried.
	"What do you know about pain?" the driver shouted. He pointed, his index finger an accusation bearing a ring I had never seen there before.
	"You burned my parents! My brother! All in the past week. God damn you!"
	"Poor little lord," Dedemon murmured, his voice mocking. "A whole week of sorrow in his little life." Then he began to roar. "Let me tell you about thirty years of pain. Let me tell you about being born in the stable with the shit of the asses. Let me tell you about bowls of rancid beans and maggots. Sitting in the doorway of the inn while your mighty fathers drank with the council."
	Lance spat again.
	Dedemon stood, his pointing arm rigid. "Beware me, little boy. I'll burn you both."
	I flinched.
	"Yes, you too, you bastard Frenchman. After I cut off both your cods and feed them to the birds."
	I stepped away from the window and pulled Lance with me. We waited till we heard the creak of the wheels again. In the shadows Lance patted his new blade. "We'll see who cuts."
	Then we knelt next to each other and murmured the Lord's prayer.

He was still asleep the next morning when I crept down to the first floor. Molded bread, a few spongy fruits, cheese.
	A cry startled me and I knocked over Father's chair. I turned, a piece of bread in my hand, but Father's door swung open.
	"Jonathan! Jonathan, my love!" He staggered into the kitchen. His face was bright, and there were packets of death, like pigs' bladders, in his armpits.
	"Father," I moaned.
	"Is that you, my love? I can't see through all the smoke."
	But the fires had burned out overnight.
	"Jonathan? Jon? Where is Olivia? My bed is empty. Where is your mother?"
	I took his right hand and led him back into his room. He lay down, but never stopped talking. "Why hasn't Martha cleaned the kitchen? What in God's name is that smell? Have you boys been making water in the basement again?"
	"No, Father, please. Be quiet. You're sick. Mother's at market. Let me bring you some bread."
	"Bread? Men eat meat and beer."
	"Yes, sir. Just give me a moment."
	I left the room, pulling the door shut. Then I leaned against the jamb and closed my eyes until I heard the brush of feet on wood.
	"Father," I whispered.
	Lance nodded.
	I was not even thirteen. I had not a single stiff hair on my body. I had never touched a girl. And I was going to die, just like everyone else.

The next afternoon Lance and I buried Father next to Alex.

When I was only ten, Dedemon had caught me outside the rear of the church on St. Godric's day.
	"Young master," he said, dipping his head.
	"Yes?" I stammered.
	"Are you afraid of me?"
	I didn't reply. He began to smile, putting a dirty hand to my shoulder. "You should be. Your father uses hundreds of men, just like me, to his advantage. We all of us hate him."
	"My father is an honest--"
	He slammed me against the stones of the church. As I fought tears, he rubbed the cloth of my shirt with his fingertips. "I've never had a shirt like this. Not in a lifetime. Don't go out at night, little lord. You never--"
	"Dedemon!" a voice called.
	He glanced over his shoulder.
	"Dedemon, where are those blocks?"
	He looked back at me, smiled. Fisted, then released the front of my shirt. "Don't go out at night," he whispered. "I hear the Jews are eating little Christian boys."

I woke, hungry. I reached across to the bed that had been Alex's and shook Lance.
	"We're out of food. We have to go out."

The smell oozed from every shop, every house, but no one moved in the streets. Birds circled overhead, afraid to light. In the center of the street, the sewage was green, festooned with flies.
	Near dePoitier's shop we heard shouting. Then a sharper roar. A crack.
	"Christ, let's go," Lance hissed in my ear.
	We moved in a half-run beneath the overhanging second stories of the buildings and stopped at the edge of the square. The death wagon rested near the entrance to the church, though Dedemon was nowhere in sight. Two bodies lay near each other just outside the town hall.
	Staying to the shadows, we went left, toward Bailey's tavern. The door was barred, but a window was unlatched. Inside, tables were turned on their sides, and benches leaned against the walls. Though we could not see them, we could smell corpses.
	"We won't find anything here," Lance said.
	But we were hungry, and we climbed in the window.

On the third floor, there had been some kind of fight. Dried blood on the walls, not all of it black and infected. In one room we vomited: there was a headless body on a bed. But there was also a money bag in the corner. Lance loosened the string and poured the coins into my hands: one pound sterling, two shillings, eight silver pennies.
	"God," I breathed.
	"We can leave," he whispered. "Go somewhere safe. . . ."
	"No place is safe." The pennies were so cool in my palm.
	"But Dedemon is still alive here!"
	I shuddered and dropped two of the coins.
	"Look," Lance said.
	Above where the coin had stopped rolling, just under the frame of the bed, a piece of cloth hung. Lance tugged up the corner of the mattress, then stopped. But the rank smell was not the Death. I reached in and pulled the white cloth out of its hiding place. Half a rounded cheese in its sock, two mouldering loaves of bread.
	"Dear dear Lord," Lance murmured. Then he grabbed my wrists and danced me around in a circle.

On our way home we crept into the silent church, the only place free of the stench. We let our eyes adjust to the low light, then walked toward the altar. When we knelt and crossed ourselves, Lance began to cry. I watched the tears spill through his fingers and splash the floor. Was he wondering how long it had been since his last confession? I was. But to what could I confess? Cursing my father for making me sweep floors while Alex learned to tally, watching through a crack in the neighbors' wall while Mary Elizabeth lowered the top of her dress to wash herself.
	Then the air shivered as the door crashed back. "God damn you!" a voice roared. "God damn you to hell!"
	Lance and I scrambled into the heavier darkness of a pillar and looked toward the light.
	Dedemon strode down the center of the church, swinging a heavy club. "Oh, great lord of light and mercy! Who blesses those already blest and curses the rest. Who gives and takes whatever he likes. Let your bread stink like offal in the sewer! I pour my wine on your altar!" And he opened the front of his trousers and released a yellow stream. Still undone, he roamed the church, smashing statues of the saints. Lance and I crossed and recrossed ourselves, then slipped away down the ambulatory when he attacked the crucifix.
	Outside we fled in full daylight, across the square and down the streets, fouling our legs with sewage as we ran.

I woke to Lance thrashing on his bed and calling to me in the darkness. His body gleamed with sweat. "Lance!"
	When he opened his mouth to answer, blood and bread erupted from him, splashing us both. "Bad bread," he murmured, "bad." He fell back against the mattress, clutching his belly.
	I cleaned him as well as I could, but I threw the mattress and our loincloths out the window. I led Lance to the room that had once been my sisters' and made him lie down. I knotted clean cloths on both of us, but Lance fouled his almost immediately.
	"Jonny! Oh, Jonny," he moaned. "Make me well!"
	I sat on the edge of the bed and held his hand till morning. He moaned for water, but would not allow me to leave him.
	By the time he died, I could not even close his mouth over his tongue. I laid a sheet over him, head to toe, then went downstairs.
	I sat at the table with the little book Father had given me and made a list:
Alexander des Lyons, elder 1308-1349, 41 years
Olivia Beurnogne des Lyons, elder 1313-1349, 35 years
Martha des Lyons 1330-1349, 18 years
Alexander des Lyons, younger 1332-1349, 16 years
Marie des Lyons 1334-1349, 15 years
Olivia des Lyons, younger 1335-1349, 14 years
Jonathan des Lyons St Pelagia's Day, 1336, 12 years
Then I drew a double line and wrote:
Lance Durham St. Simeon's Day, 1336-1349, 13 years
I closed the book, laid the pen aside, and cried.

Excerpt 2:

from Book One: Dr Jesus
Chapter 18: Cosden, N.M.
A few years ago

Derrick Lanham switched off the pickup in a swirl of dust, said, "Dammit," and got out. The trees rattled in the breeze. "Damn summer. Where the hell's the rain?" The cattle wore their ribs.
	"Get off my damn porch!" he shouted at the lump sprawled on his bench swing. He fiddled with his glasses, pushing them firmly up against his brow. "I said, get the hell off my porch!" He stamped up, his heavy boots echoing on the planks.
	"I said, get out of here." Lanham reached down to shake the boy. "You can get water at the pump. But I ain't feeding you, and I ain't giving you a place to sleep." He grabbed the near shoulder, shook, then caught the smell. "God! Sleeping in shit."
	The boy moved slowly under Lanham's hand. Rolled onto his back.
	"Good Lord in Heaven," Lanham muttered. "What the hell--"
	A blister as large as a goose's egg bulged from the boy's chin into his collar. His eyes were deep into their sockets.
	"What you done, sonny?" Lanham asked. He squatted next to the bench swing and rested one hand on the boy's leg. "Phew, boy, you shit yourself."
	The boy laid one hand at his crotch.
	"Yeah," the man said. "You messed yourself."
	Shaking his head, the boy touched the front of his jeans. "Sore. Sore."
	Lanham frowned. "That happens if you bang it too much. But what happened to your neck?"
	The boy sighed, his breath rancid. Lanham leaned back. "I have a lump here," the boy said, touching his crotch. "Just like my neck."
	"What? You got VD?"
	The boy laughed painfully. "I never done it."
	"But if your prick's all-- Public bathrooms! I knew they weren't safe!"
	"Not my prick. Here." The boy's hand lay just to the left of his genitals and a bit lower.
	"So what you been doing, boy? Screwing cows?"
	The boy tried to laugh again. "I slept in a cave two nights. No, three nights. No-- I don't know. I think there were bats."
	"What're you doing sleeping in caves for?"
	"The world-- It's ending. Soon. I want to be ready. I don't want-- to be in the city. Wait for God. Hills are where He wants to find us."
	"Oh, shit. Who told you that kinda shit?"
	"No shit. It's not shit. It's the truth. You can read the signs." The boy sighed again, struggling to sit up.
	Lanham helped the kid up. "If you'll just sit tight, I'll bring you some water. Then I'll call the ambulance. Lordy, we gotta get you to the doctors."
	"No." The boy clutched Lanham's sleeve. "I'll die there. They serve the devil. Take me to the healer."
	"What?"
	"Doctors can't help me. I went to school. I know what I've got. This is the plague. God sent ten plagues to Egypt. We're only getting one, but it's gonna kill us all. I let the devil lead me to the wrong cave. Please."
	Lanham touched the boy's face, slick with heat, practically beardless. "Son, I don't know no healers but doctors. Shit, we're wasting time here. Let me call the ambulance." He made to stand, but the boy held him.
	"Take me to Cosden," he whispered.
	"Cosden? There's no medicine man in Cosden. That what you want? You an Indian?"
	"No. Take me to the reverend. The healer. If he can't heal me, then God wants me now." The boy closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his head from side to side on the arm of the swing. He moaned once, touching the boil on his neck.
	Lanham pulled the boy's hand away. "I don't reckon you ought to do that."
	"I hurt so bad."
	Lanham stared for another moment, then stood. "Son, I'm getting a blanket to wrap you in. I'll be back."
	"Too hot." The boy opened his eyes weakly.
	"It's not for keeping you warm. It's for keeping you from infecting me."
	The boy gave a lean smile. "Yes, sir. I appreciate it."
	Lanham went inside.

Sean and Jonathan stood at the mirror in the small bathroom.
	"It looks like toothpaste," Jonathan said.
	"It's not. It'll hold your hair in place all night, and it won't feel like hair spray or that grease Dad uses. Just try it. I use it all the time."
	"Your hair looks all right anyway."
	"But the girls like the styling."
	"The girls aren't looking at me. They're looking at you."
	Sean sighed. "Haven't you noticed Melissa Quevedo? Every night she's moving closer and closer to you and Rudy."
	"To Rudy."
	"To you, pipsqueak. Shut up and try it."
	Jonathan shrugged. "All right. Do it. Quick-- before I bolt."
	"Before you bolt? Where'd you learn to talk?"
	"Just do it now."
	"No, sweet boy. You have to put it in yourself. You think I'm dying to run my fingers through your hair?"
	"Hellfire," Jonathan muttered. He held out one palm for the gel.
	"Now rub your hands together and--"
	"I watched you already!"
	Sean grinned as Jonathan smeared his slicked hands through his hair. "Now," Sean said, "watch and learn." He went to work with a brush, sweeping Jonathan's hair back on the sides, up and curving over on top. "See, with your hair up like this, you look taller."
	"But look at my forehead. It's a mile wide." Jonathan stared into the mirror.
	"It makes you look more grown-up."
	Jonathan snorted. "Does it look all right? Really?"
	Sean nodded.
	"But it looks all wet."
	"It'll dry in a couple of minutes. Then we'll comb it out, like mine, before we leave." Sean dropped the brush onto the top of the toilet tank. "Let's show Mom and Dad." He steered Jonathan into the kitchen.
	"Is this a kid, or what?" Sean asked as his folks looked up. "I brought him into the modern world."
	Jonathan made a face.
	"That's precious, Jonathan," Mrs. Evans said. "You'll be the hottest."
	"Hot?" Jonathan turned to Sean. "Will it run if it gets too hot in the tent?"
	"No, dork. But if you get it wet, you'll have to recomb it."
	"Great."
	Mr. Evans narrowed his eyes, laughed, then returned to his paper. After the boys left, he looked at his wife, standing at the sink with a cup of coffee. "He's not our son, Yvonne."
	"I know that."
	"Do you?" He watched her for a moment, but she said nothing else.

The gathered worshipers stilled as Dedmon ascended his platform. The breeze was down, and Dedmon's first motion was a blotting of his forehead with his handkerchief.
	Standing upright, rather than leaning close to the microphone as he normally did, he held one hand palm down, parallel to the ground. Silently he turned his arm, swiveling the palm upward. In a moment he rotated it downward again. Then up. Gradually increasing the speed of the reversal until his hand flipped back and forth in the universal sign of equivocation, he shouted, "It don't matter what I do, it don't matter what I say. The Lord of Judgment's coming any time now, any day.
		"It don't matter what I do, it don't matter what I say.
		The Lord of Judgment's coming any time now, any day."
His arm shot upward, the flat palm reduced to a pointing index finger, which rapidly plummeted.
		"I saw what I saw in a dream last night.
		The earth is all on fire and the people burning bright."
He smacked his palm against the podium.
	"Tell it," Joe Swindoll shouted.
	"I will tell it. I will tell it and tell it and tell it until the people listen or else the plague come!"
	Jonathan shuddered.
	"For the just retribution is coming. The trial by fire! Will exploding nuclear reactors set the earth on fire? Perhaps. Nothing can happen without the Lord's permission. Or will fires of disease burn us up-- cancer, AIDS, or something new, something we cannot imagine? Perhaps. The viruses, the microbes, the bacilli all obey the Lord's command. Will it be the strong delusion, so that all the weak, all the uncommitted, all who wish to pervert God's simple truth, will be burnt up in the satanic fires of the lie? The spiritual flames of Satan's service? Perhaps. For even Satan cannot prevail against the Lord!"
	His chin quivered as his arms flashed out to make this final point. "The Lord's rule is complete! He allows Satan rein because so many-- and perhaps some among us here-- want to pollute their bodies, their souls, their minds with the lie! And God allows it! He never forces man to obey. Man must choose to love."
	Dedmon shook his head, his body sagging.
	"Don't hold it back, brother!" came a shout from the darkness outside the tent. "Some of us are slow to learn."
	"Amen!"
	"Amen, indeed," Dedmon went on. "Hallelujah that we have a Lord who waits so long."
	"Preach it!"
	"Praise my Master!"
	Dedmon's hand moved apart and floated in the air above the corners of the pulpit. "The earth is on fire and the people burning bright. Where can they find the waters of salvation?"
	"Great Jehovah-jireh!"
	"Almighty God!"
	Then Walker Campbell began to chant, his whole body shaking in his white suit.
	"Hear the word!" Dedmon cried. "Hear it!"
	The reverend bent his neck back and clenched his eyes. His fingers flew out to his sides, then arced up to his temples. There they began to rotate slowly. The crowd sat motionless during Walker's ecstasy as his wife held firmly to his left arm and his right wheeled like a windmill. The tension increased, the believers' eyes bobbing back and forth from Dedmon to Campbell.
	Suddenly the preacher's lips split open and a rapid sequence of noises burst from him. Spittle flew. Then a high whining began, seeming to come directly from the reverend's throat without passing through his mouth. Jonathan rested one hand on top of Sean's. Otherwise even the children were still.
	"Eye hath not seen!" Reverend Dedmon cried. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard the judgment laid up for those who wander from the path of righteousness, whose chosen home is the valley of the shadow of death, whose hands covet wickedness, whose lips utter only lies! Woe, woe unto the shepherds who have not tended their flocks. Woe to the priests whose tables have never lain empty, though the people starve from lack of knowledge. Woe is me, if I do not warn you of the wrath to come."
	Walker dropped to his chair, eyes shut, body trembling. Dedmom fell silent, except for his panting. The congregants waited to hear what had else been revealed to the reverend, the message God sent through Walker Campbell's aging frame.
	"I have seen," Dedmon finally murmured. "Yes, my people, yes, holy people of the Lord, I have seen."

Every time the truck bounced on the rutted road, the boy groaned and Lanham looked over.
	"Are we there?" the boy moaned.
	"No, sonny. Hang on."
	"You'll take me to the reverend? Please?"
	"I promised, didn't I?" the old man said.
	The boy shrugged till the blanket dropped to his waist. He tried to scratch at his neck, but Lanham glanced over, took the boy's wrist and held it down against the cracking vinyl seat. "Hold my hand, Daddy," the boy said. "Hold my hand."
	Lanham grimaced, then shifted his hand over the boy's and curled his callused fingers around the boy's dirty ones.
	A bird flew too close across the front of the pickup. Lanham swerved, his heart jumping.
	"No," David cried, though his eyes were shut. "No! Don't hurt me!" He began to scream, thrashing his legs against the blanket.
	"Stop it, boy," Lanham said. "Hold still! You're gonna--" Trying to still the boy with his outflung right arm, Lanham veered onto the shoulder of the road, the tires squealing. Lanham let up on the pickup's accelerator, so that the truck had slowed by the time it hit the twisted trunk of an old mesquite. Lanham and the boy were thrown against the dash, the old man's head catching the rear-view mirror, the pus-filled sac on the boy's neck bursting and soaking the front of his shirt and the folds of the blanket.

At the pulpit Dedmon stopped and looked into the darkness outside the tent. "That sounded like a car!" a man at the rear corner of the tent shouted. "Brethren, let's help the helpless!"
	Several men joined him and they ran toward the road. There was a general rustle in the tent, the murmuring of questions.
	Reverend Dedmon held up his hands and began to pray. "Dearest Lord, in the midst of life we are surrounded by death. In the ordinary round of our days, we--"
	The congregants quieted though many of them still looked out, from beneath lowered brows, toward the commotion at the road. Raised, then softened, voices. A harsh cry. Then the sound of men retching.
	The tent grew utterly silent, except for Dedmon's voice. "We come here to prepare our souls for eternity, to prepare for the great and mighty day of the Lord's wrath, yet even here we are reminded that the hand of death is ever near. In the days of Noah, some-- like father Methusaleh-- died before the cataclysm. Some among us tonight may not live to see the great tribulation. Some of us may be called home--"
	The steps and lowered voices of the men who had gone to the road drew closer.
	"Lord," the reverend cried, "be with us, move among us so that we are always prepared to meet you face to face. Through Christ who saves us, the only perfect man who ever lived, amen!"
	"Amen, Reverend!"
	"Praise Jehovah!"
	As soon as the prayer ended, three of the men, with a fourth Dedmon did not recognize, came forward, holding the corners of a blanket. On it lay a wet and bloodied young man, barely out of boyhood, in jeans and soiled T-shirt.
	"Oh, dear Jesus," both men and women began to whisper. Handkerchiefs, sleeves, shirt-tails went to mouths and noses as the smell permeated the tent.
	The fourth man at the blanket bore a long welt across his forehead. He said, "Pastor, this boy believes you can heal him."
	A shudder ran through the tent. Jonathan's eyes grew large; his hand tightened on Sean's. The kids were shuffling and whispering, some of them moving in fear away from the podium. Jeanne VanSteeger stood and rushed out the side of the tent. Women hurried out the back as well.
	"He says he spent three nights in a cave, waiting for the Lord to return. He thinks bats got to him," Lanham said.
	"What is his name?" Reverend Dedmon asked. He stepped down to the powdery dirt, though he did not further approach the sagging blanket.
	"I don't know."
	"Who are you?"
	"I'm Derrick--" Lanham began.
	The boy interrupted, his strained voice cutting into the stillness. "I'm David Browning. I've been listening to the preachers. The Day is coming. I wanted to be ready, I wanted to--" His voice trailed off.
	"I think he's passed out," Lanham said. "I don't think there's much hope, Reverend. He made me promise I'd bring him here. I done that. Now I'll just head for the hospital." He nodded to the other men to return to the truck.
	But Lewis Rosten stood and shouted, "Don't you know, man? Haven't you heard? Eddie Hoskins can hear!"
	"That's right. You tell him, Lewis."
	"Speak it!"
	Lanham stopped, frowning. "Eddie Hoskins?"
	"The deaf boy," the man across from Lanham said. "The reverend healed him."
	"Not I," Dedmon cried. "Not I! Not by might, not by power, not by strength, but by the Lord." The hair on his body stood on end, and he pressed his palms together, raising them toward the sky.
	Jonathan crossed himself slowly, murmuring a prayer that set his lips in motion. Sean turned, blushing as Jonathan's hand moved across his chest. The older boy pulled the younger against him, one arm around his neck in a loose chokehold, shaking him. The kid took a deep, rattling breath, put his hands to his thighs. All around him he heard voices, believers urging the reverend to do the Lord's will. Even Rudy was caught up in the excitement.
	"You heard him!" Dedmon appealed. "He's been listening to the lie. Hiding in caves! Bats are creatures of the night, creatures of Satan. This boy is the tool of our enemy."
	"Maybe not, Reverend," Suzy Roberts begged. "He's just a boy. Maybe he's lost his way, but a true demon wouldn't ask to be brought to you. Please, Reverend, please. Let it not be too late for him. You have to help him."
	Dedmon's hands went above his head, followed by his eyes. Then his face twisted, and a string of unknown words pealed against the tent-roof. The reverend's arms quivered.
	The congregation gasped as blue light shot from the reverend's fingertips and seared a small hole in the peak of the tent. The preacher's hands separated till he stood, arms outstretched, cruciform, his face almost alight.
	"Not-- by-- might," the man whispered, hesitantly, his lips tight against his teeth.
	"He's not breathing, Reverend," John Hanks called. He leaned over the boy on the blanket and put a hand on the soiled shirt. "There's no heartbeat."
	Dedmon's eyes rolled until only the whites showed to the audience. His arms began to shake again, his palms toward the congregation.
	Then his hands began to bleed.
	The congregation sighed in terror.
	"Great Jesus!" Suzy shouted.
	"My Lord in Heaven!"
	From their angled position, the teenagers could see only Dedmon's back and the slight glow around his hair, as though he stood in an open door. Then Jerre Simmons screeched and pointed to his hands. The blood dripped in a slow but steady stream to the ground, where it vanished. The flow from the reverend's hands gradually paled, till a welling pool of white appeared in the cups of his palms. White drops glistened in the air, but only powdery dust spun upward, second by second, from the earth beneath.
	Jerre fainted.
	Quickly Matt and Henry laid her out, pushing the youngers ones back, placing her white hands on her stomach. Matt's jittery fingers gently held her wrist.
	Sean put his other arm around Elizabeth, who stared wide-eyed at Jerre. In a moment Mr. Simmons appeared. He went to his knees and lifted Jerre close.
	Then Winnie Frizzell moaned, "Sweet Savior in Heaven!" as Dedmon's unbuttoned coat flapped open in a sudden breeze, revealing a growing red spot on his white shirt, just under his ribs.
	"Praise Jehovah!"
	Derrick Lanham looked around at the havoc under the tent. Leaning down, he lowered his corner of the blanket. The other men followed suit. David Browning's motionless body, stained and suddenly too heavy, anchored the soiled cloth. The believers nearest the body kept their seats only by concentrating on Dedmon and holding their sleeves across their noses.
	The bleeding stopped and, in a moment, even the stain on the shirt was gone. Dedmon's arms fell abruptly to his sides, banging against his legs with a snap.
	Still only the whites of his eyes showed, and he made no sound.
	The tent grew unearthly quiet, filled with awe and the terrible stench.
	Then the reverend's eyes came into focus, on some point beyond the tent. In a low whisper he said, "He is not dead!"
	Shaking his head, Dedmon closed his eyes with his fingertips, rubbing small circles upon them. He repeated, "He is not dead. My God, what wonder dost Thou here?"
	There was a moment of quiet until John Hanks muttered, "He's breathing again." Under the man's hands, the boy's chest rose and fell deeply and evenly.
	Dedmon crossed the front of the tent, unimpeded by the hands reaching for him, tugging at his right arm, the tail of his coat. He rounded the corner of the front row of chairs and stood over the sleeping boy. "He is not dead," he said for the third time. "Take him to the doctors."
	Mrs. Pullen stood and began to sing "Take It All to Jesus." Gradually the worshipers around her joined in.
	Dedmon turned to the men lifting the battered young body. There remained a smooth shallow hollow in the dirt where David had lain in the blanket, but a wind came up and cleared the aroma of the plague away. As the flaps of Dedmon's coat fanned open again, the crowd saw once more the no longer bloody shirt. The reverend shook his head slowly.
	Finally he spoke, his voice low and forced. "Oh, my brethren! What hath God wrought?" The smile never made it to his lips.

Excerpt 3:
from Book Two: Mr Dead
Chapter 7: Cosden, N.M.

Carter Rosten was burning. His sheets were drenched, and every time his mother returned to the room, he had kicked the covers from his bed. The aspirin she had given him after breakfast had helped for a while, but now his fever was up again.
	"That was Dicky on the phone," she said.
	"What'd he want?"
	"I don't know, honey. I told him you were sick."
	Carter rolled to his side, groaned, and lay on his back again. "My arms hurt," he said again. "I mean, my chest. I mean--" His T-shirt clung to him with sweat.
	"Don't you remember doing anything? That might have strained you? When you and Dad were doing all that yard work the other day?"
	"No, Mom. That was easy stuff. That wouldn't make me sore."
	"Well, let's get your shirt off, and let me have a look."
	"All right." The boy sat up. He held his arms above his head, wincing. His mother tugged at the stretching, clinging cotton shirt. "Ow!" he cried, as the shirt caught at his armpits. "Dammit, Mama, that--"
	"You don't need to swear at me," she said mildly, though she pulled more carefully.
	"I'm sorry, but-- God, that hurts!" Carter's eyes shut tightly.
	"Oh, sweet Jesus," Mrs. Rosten murmured. The shirt was still tangled about the boy's head and arms, but his torso was exposed. "Oh, dear Lord."
	"What? Mama? My arms hurt!" He began to thrash against the clammy shirt.
	"Be still. You'll--" Mrs. Rosten took hold of his arms and forced him to calm himself. "Be still. I'll get it off." As she freed his arms of the shirt, she took his hands in hers and kept his arms above his head. "You need to be careful. I don't know what that is."
	Carter looked down. Under his left arm, nudging out of the short dark hair, was a glistening bump, a huge blister, perhaps as large as a plum. His right armpit was likewise blistered, though the area was much smaller. "What are they?" His chin began to quiver.
	"I don't know, son."
	"Are they boils?"
	"I don't know. But Dr. Baker's going to have to make time for you." Still holding her son's arms in hers, she looked down at the blisters, then at his face, red with fever, wet with sweat and tears. "It's going to be all right, honey. It'll be all right. Can you take a quick shower?"
	"I think so, Mama. I'm so hot."
	"Cold water, baby." She let go of his arms and bent to hug him gingerly.

Carter and Mrs. Rosten waited almost half an hour in the crowded waiting room. So near the beginning of the school year, kids needed physicals and booster shots. Carter was so obviously ill, sitting slumped beside his mother, that the other teenagers who knew him merely said hi and returned to their noisy conversation by the magazine table, leaving him in peace.
	"Baby, look at her knockers!" one of the boys hissed, a magazine opened across his knees.
	The other boys hooted quietly.
	"Do boys have to be so--" Mrs. Rosten started.
	"They're just talking, Mom. They're okay."
	"Just a little decency." She glanced over at him. "You don't look so hot now. Do you feel any better?"
	"Not really. I think it's just cooler in here."
	"Well, you know your dad likes me to keep the house at 78."
	"I know, Mama."
	She sighed. "You'd think Dr. Baker could make time for someone who's actually sick."
	"It's okay, Mama. Quit griping."
	She patted his cheek, but he reached up and took hold of her hand.
	"Stop that," he said. "The guys--"
	"I'm sorry."
	The receptionist glanced over at Mrs. Rosten. "The doctor can see you now."
	"Finally," Mrs. Rosten complained.

Mrs. Rosten remained in the outer office when Dr. Baker took Carter into the examining room.
	"Just have a seat there," Dr. Baker said, pointing to the examining table.
	Carter looked around. Cold metal scales, an array of drugs in the cabinets, hypodermics. It gave him the creeps. He sat on the table.
	"You've got quite a fever, from the looks of you," the doctor said.
	"Yes, sir."
	"Sorry about the wait, but what with all these physicals--"
	"It's okay." Carter kept his voice low and tight.
	"The nurse said something about blisters?"
	The boy nodded. The doctor, when he turned back to the boy, was wearing rubber gloves. "You want to get out of your shirt?"
	"Yes, sir." Carter began, somewhat stiffly, to undo the buttons. "My pants?" he asked.
	"Blisters down there?"
	"No, sir, I just thought you--"
	"Let me do the thinking."
	Carter looked down at his fingers. The last button undone, he moved out of the shirt slowly. "Can you help me?"
	The man took the shoulders of the shirt and let the boy slip out of it. Draping it over the scales, the doctor said, "Now let's see--"
	Carter raised his arms.
	The doctor leaned in toward the boy's left armpit. "When did you first notice that?" His eyes were large.
	"This morning, I guess. I'm not sure. I started hurting in the night, but I didn't get up and check myself."
	"Sore?"
	"Real sore."
	"What's your fever?" The doctor straightened and stepped back a pace.
	"It was-- maybe 102. Last time she checked."
	"Carter, have you been camping lately?"
	"No, sir."
	"What about wild animals? Dead animals? Hunting?"
	Carter shook his head. "Well-- Unless-- I had to kill a rat yesterday."
	"A rat?"
	"Yes, sir. It was in the wash room. I clobbered it with a broom. Then threw it out."
	"Did you touch it?"
	"Just the tail. To carry it out."
	"Good holy Lord." The doctor reached out for the boy's hands. He looked at the backs of them, then the palms. There were bites along the boy's right thumb, where the webbing wrinkled.
	"When did you get these bites?"
	Carter shook his head. "I don't know. Yesterday?"
	Dr. Baker left the examining room.
	"Doctor?" Mrs. Rosten said as he entered the office.
	He ignored her and went down the hall to the waiting room. "Listen," he shouted. "I want everybody out of here. Now! Call in the morning about your appointments, but don't come in before you call. Now clear out."
	The kids simply stared. The mothers wanted explanations. "Dr. Baker," Mrs. Hanks said, "you can't just--"
	"I have an emergency." The doctor turned to his receptionist. "You, too. Where's Mary?"
	"In the back, I think."
	"Get her, and get out of here. Call in the morning."
	The receptionist stood and began to close patient folders.
	"Leave them there!" Dr. Baker said. "Go!" He turned again to the mothers and children in the chairs. "Get out of here! Don't you have ears? Go!"
	"Come on, Bobby," one woman said. "He needs to learn some manners."
	"I'll say." Another woman pulled her daughter along.
	The high school football players shrugged and left. "Coach is gonna be so pissed," one of them said.

Dr. Baker caught Mrs. Rosten in the hall.
	"Doctor! What's going on? What are you--"
	"Call your husband. I'm taking Carter to Roswell now. You need to come too. We'll leave your car here."
	"Why? What is it? You ran all--"
	"Mrs. Rosten, I can't say for sure until we run the blood tests. But I think Carter's got the plague. Bubonic. If the rat was in your wash room, you're probably exposed too. And your husband and daughter."
	"Oh, Lord! My poor baby. Oh, oh--"
	"Hush, ma'am. Carter's going to need you." Dr. Baker took her hands briefly and squeezed them. "It's rarely as serious as we think. Don't let your imagination go wild. It's the plague, but it's not the Black Death anymore. It looks like we caught it pretty early."
	"Oh, doctor. What can I-- Can I see him now?"
	Dr. Baker shook his head. "I want you to call your husband. I'll get Carter ready to go. Then you can see him."

Carter's hands were clasped between his knees.
	"Come on, son," the doctor said. "Let's get your shirt back on."
	"I heard you. I'm going to die."
	The doctor put a gloved hand on the boy's shoulder. "No, son. You're not going to die. You're going to be mighty uncomfortable for a while, but you're not going to die."
	Carter's eyes filled with tears. "Where's my mom?"
	"She's calling your dad. We're going to the hospital in Roswell. Now listen-- let's get the shirt on, and then we'll take a few precautions."
	A few minutes later, Dr. Baker, Mrs. Rosten and Carter pulled out of the empty parking lot and turned east on the highway. All three wore white masks over nose and mouth, along with rubber gloves, though there was little evidence that bubonic plague spread casually. They were perhaps a third of the way to Roswell when they intercepted the speeding ambulance. The paramedics laid Carter out on a bed, hustled Mrs. Rosten inside and took off, Dr. Baker following in his car.

By the following afternoon, six more cases of bubonic plague were tentatively identified and rushed to Roswell. Among the cases were Dicky Raines, Mrs. Burke and Cynthia. Investigators from the CDC were arriving in the morning.

[All pages copyright 2011 Cooper Renner]