Silent Nights

Red, swollen, painful: all signs of possible infection. But what kind of infection it is remains to be seen.

I dab at the dried blood crusted on the girl’s arm, and the she winces. Matt, perched on the edge of the tub with the girl in his lap, squeezes her hand, both reassuring and keeping the arm immobile. The girl leans into his chest when he tightens his other arm around her waist and leans his chin on her head. My cheeks burn and I suddenly feel like I’m intruding on something I shouldn’t have. I should have just let Anna do this.

“Sorry,” I say, wiping away the last of the scabs, but after so many repetitions it sounds hollow. She drops her teary gaze to the floor, but not before flickering to the door, again. I toss the mostly bloody shirt-turned-rag into the sink and pull the lantern closer.

Now that the gross, blood-crusted sleeve has been cut away and the dried blood cleaned off, the slightly bleeding cuts are starkly visible against the girl’s pale skin. I try not to notice the hand-shaped bruise, or the sickeningly obvious spacing of the four angry slashes. But it’s clear how this happened. And now that I can see them closer, it’s clear that they are, in fact, infected. The only real question is whether this was made by a who or a what.

We- or rather Matt- have had no luck getting any details. The girl refuses to say anything at all, and when Matt started asking about her arm the waterworks began anew. It’s possible, of course, that a human did this, and that it’s infected because it wasn’t taken care of. On the other hand…

I move the lantern to the edge of the tub, as close as it can get to the girl’s arm, and lean in to make sure the cuts are completely clean. I grab a new t-shirt and dab at the fresh blood. The swelling, the redness, even the bleeding are perfectly normal. Those I can deal with. I shift forward off the closed toilet seat to crouch on the floor beside the tub, hoping not to find the damning evidence that this was not a human’s doing.

“What are you doing?” Matt asks quietly. I look up briefly at him- carefully avoiding the girl’s teary eyes- but I don’t answer. I dab at the cut again, trying to get a clear view of what looks like dirt in one of the deeper cuts.

But it’s not dirt. And it’s all along the inside of the cut.

I choke on a gasp and try to cover it up as a cough. By the sudden tensing of Matt’s arms, it’s obvious I’m not successful. I quickly sit back on the toilet seat and grab a tube of antibiotic. Ignoring slightly desperate, pleading look and the helpless burning in my throat, I slather on the antibiotic cream. The girl doesn’t wince this time, only further confirming what I’d hoped not to find.

The necrosis is setting in. And I can’t do anything to save her.