After a few rings and no response from anyone, I dragged myself out of bed and to the phone. Unfortunately, by that time, the person on the other line had given up and there was no response from that end of the line. I sighed, to awake now to go back to sleep, and went to see how Mike and Peter were. I headed into the spare room.
Peter was still asleep. He looked a little pale, and he still had a fever, but other than that he appeared okay. Mike had fallen asleep in the chair next to him and forgotten to call Micky or I to take over. I tapped him on the shoulder and told him to go to sleep. Then I took his arm and dragged him up the stairs to his bed. He collapsed into bed and fell asleep before his head hit the pillow. I went back downstairs to make myself breakfast. As I was making myself some scrambled eggs, I heard a moan coming from the room downstairs where Peter was. I turned off the stove and headed into his room. He was still sleeping, but was moaning. I felt his head and noticed that he was burning up. I went back to the kitchen and got a cold washcloth to put on his head. Then I sat next to him for a little while, holding the washcloth in place. He moaned and groaned a little.
Then his eyes opened. He looked at me. "Huh?" he moaned. I brushed his hair off of his forehead and held the washcloth there. "It's okay, Pete. You're gonna be fine," I said, soothingly, but Peter had already drifted back to sleep. I left him there and went back to my eggs.
(3 weeks later)
"Davy, Micky, we've gotta do something about Peter," Mike said. I looked up at Mike from where I was sitting on the floor, reading a magazine. Micky looked up from the television.
"Whaddaya mean, Mike?" Micky asked.
"Well, he hasn't changed at all in the past three weeks. He's still got a fever, he's barely awake, and he's getting weak. He hasn't eaten in a while,"Mike answered.
"What do you think we should do?" I asked. "Take him to a doctor?" He nodded.
"He can't stay this way forever," Mike pointed out. So we agreed that later that night we would drive Peter to town to see a doctor. However we'd forgotten something.....
That night we borrowed our landlord's car to drive into town. Micky and I carried Peter out to the car and piled him into the back seat where he lay, slumped over. Micky climbed into the front before I could say anything, leaving me in the back with Peter. Not that I minded, it was just that I would have preferred the front. And Peter took up most of the back. I sighed, deciding that now was not the time to start a fight.
As we drove into town with Peter, I sat back and looked out the window and up at the night sky. The sun was going down, and out at the beach was a beautiful sunset. I looked at Peter and sighed.
The sunset was absolutely beautiful, but I wasn't really able to enjoy it. I was worried about Peter. And something else clawed at my brain; something I was supposed to remember, but couldn't. I tried to remember, but it was just beyond my reach.
The drive was a long one, since the doctor we were going to take Peter was about a half-hour from home. There was a bit of traffic, too, and this also slowed us down. Mike wasn't completely sure where he was going, so he wasn't about to race along unfamiliar roads.
After we'd been driving for about fifteen minutes, the car began to bump and shake a lot. I heard a noise outside the car.
"Mike, I think we got a flat tire," Micky said. Mike nodded.
"I think so, too. Darn it," he muttered, and decided to pull the car over to the side of the road. As he was looking for a suitable spot, I noticed Peter began to moan.
"Davy?" he asked me. I leaned over to him. "I've got to tell you something." His voice was barely above a whisper. "What is it Peter?" I asked, hoping he wasn't going to tell me that his time had come and he was going to die soon.
"Look out the window," he moaned. I gave him a puzzled look. "Just do it. You'll understand why," he said, and closed his eyes. I decided to do as he said. I looked out the window of the car. And there, in the night sky, shining brightly above all the lights of the cities, was the full moon.
"Um, Mike?" I asked, but Mike didn't notice. He was too busy arguing with Micky. It normally would have been amusing to see someone else arguing other than us, but, at the moment it was frustrating.
"I'm telling ya, man, you coulda pulled over right there," Micky was saying. "And there, too,"
"No way. These cars are in the way," Mike said. "If I could pull over, I'd switch places with you and let you pull over, since you seem to be the expert." Eventually, he did find a spot to pull over, and he got out of the car to examine the tire. Micky got out, too, eager to lend his expertise to the matter. Remembering the moon, I decided I'd get Peter out of there, too,though I wasn't sure how I'd do that myself.
"'Ey, fellahs, wanna give me a 'and 'ere?" I asked Mike and Micky, but they were busy looking at the tire, which was obviously flat. I tried again. "'Ey, Micky, Mike, 'ow 'bout 'elping me 'ere?" I asked, a little louder.
"What're ya doin'?" Micky asked. I gave him a "what-kind-of-a-dumb-question- is-that,-isn't-it-obvious-Look and yanked Peter's arms. "Why are ya pulling him outta the car?" he asked, finally getting what I was doing but not understanding why. I jerked my head upward in the direction of the moon. He looked up but failed to get the message. He didn't see the moon, because there happened to be a tree in the way at the moment.
"What, you're afraid the tree is gonna come down on the car?" he asked. I gave him a Look, and he finally agreed to help me, though not understanding why. Just then there was a noise from the other side of the car, where Mike was getting the spare tire out of the trunk.
"Ow, man, that hurt," he moaned to himself. He'd just dropped a Lug wrench on his foot, and it hurt. He bent down to pick it up, and as he was doing that, he felt a sharp pain in his stomach. He stood up, though pained, and looked up at the sky. Then, just as he lost control of the human aspect of his vocal chords, he saw the full moon.
"NO!" he wanted to wail, but the pain overwhelmed him and he couldn't alert Micky and I.
