"Stick out your tongue and say --"
"Ahhhhh," I say before Donna has a chance to finish.
I wait as Donna scribbles something on a file that she's created for me, before telling me that I'm good to hop down.
"So?" I ask a moment later as I check out my reflection in the mirror. My hair has almost grown back save one spot just behind my left ear that is still fairly sparse.
"Well," Donna says and turns to me after she's closed her folder. "The sores in your throat are completely gone, but I am a bit concerned about the elasticity of your skin."
Being the only one in town to come as far south as I have means that unlike the rest who are healthy and bouncing along, I have a bit more healing to do.
Donna shows me how long it takes for my skin to return to its smooth shape after she pinches it; a clear sign of dehydration -- but not from lack of water. Dehydration on a cellular level from the radiation.
She prescribes some more pills and suggests that I claim a vacant house just down the road, but I refuse. There is something too permanent about being in a house when I don't really want to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary. Besides, I'm comfortable temporarily crashing in the hospital with Donna. It's good company, and seems to be off limits for Belinda and her crones.
"How much longer until I'm completely healthy?" I ask Donna as we walk outside towards tonight's campfire. In the distance a few people have begun to gather, but more will come once the sky is dark with night.
"It's hard to say -- there could be permanent damage. The body has it's own agenda. All I can do is monitor it." She tells me before taking a seat on a nearby log.
I like how matter-of-fact Donna is with me. No fakey fakey "everything's going to be fine" when it's not. I wish everyone would talk that way. Maybe I could bring that up in our next town meeting?
I try to file that thought in the folds of my mind, but it's been harder lately to keep hold of things that have no immediate relevance.
And just as the the last of the day's light slips behind the horizon and gives way to the first of the evening stars, so too disappears my thought. To be quickly replaced by a more pressing concern -- one that has caught everyone's attention and sends a chill through the core of my being.
A scream -- in the distance. By a women. Quickly muffled. Followed by an angry heard of footsteps. Pounding the ground into submission as they trample near.
