Rant: The Oral History of Buster Casey

Dr. David Schmidt: In all fairness, I can't blame all the infections on that one boy, but we haven't had a single case of rabies since Buster Casey left town.

LouAnn Perry: Loads of girls went rabid my exact same way. Maybe half our class, freshman year. Brenda Jordan blamed her rabies on bobbing for apples during a Halloween party, taking her turn behind Buster, but fact is—she kissed him.

Buster Casey was for some girls what snakes was for him. A kind of place your folks tell you never to go. But a kind of small mistake that'll save you from a bigger mistake later on.

Mistakes like kissing Buster, most times it's a worst mistake if you don't make them. After a good-looking boy gives you rabies two, three times, you'll settle down and marry somebody less exciting for the rest of your life.

Echo Lawrence: For our second date, Rant wanted to rake up leaves in a park. One of the surefire ways to contract rabies is to mess with bats. Look under enough leaves and you'll find a bat to bite you. Keep that in mind the next time you go to jump in a pile of dead leaves.

LouAnn Perry: History is, that boy was very popular. Except maybe with his daddy.

Shot Dunyun: How weird is that? A sexually conflicted thirteen-year-old rattlesnake- venom junkie with rabies—well, it's safe to say that's every father's worst nightmare.

LouAnn Perry: History is, Buster Casey was the kind of mistake a girl needs to make while she's still young enough to recover.

Bodie Carlyle: Us out in that desert, three horizons apart from the rest of the world, Rant's still looking into my eyes, saying, 'You feel a heartbeat?'

Me, feeling fur. Petting fur. Underground. Buried. That hand of me still pale as bone. Slippery with the smell of meatloaf grease.

Me in the sun, sunburned, I still nod yes.

Rant smiling, he says, 'Don't pull out.'

The feel of that fur, soft and warm, until—kah-pow—the punch of something pushing through the slack between my thumb and next finger, that web of skin there sunk through with something sharp, and my arm shaking so hard it hammers the tunnel walls already tight around my elbow, far up as my shoulder, me collarbone-deep in pain and trying to pull out.

Rant's hands around my chest from behind, hauling me out of the ground.

The hole in my hand, not two punched marks. Not the little horseshoe of a coyote bite. The blood's pulsing out just one hole, big and straight across.

Rant, looking at the blood and the dripping straight-across hole, he says, 'You been bit.' He says, 'Jackrabbit bit.'

Both of us trickling blood out of little holes in our hands and feet, watching our blood leak out in the sand under the hot sun, Rant says, 'This here,' he says, 'far as I'm concerned, this is how church should feel.'

10–Werewolves

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D. (Epidemiologist): Among the oldest superstitions practiced by ancient cultures was the warning to never drink from a pool frequented by wolves. Nor did our ancestors scavenge from any game animal—say, a deer or an elk—which had been felled by a pack of wolves. Either of these transgressions—or simply being bitten by a wolf—it is believed would transform one into a legendary half-human, half-canine monster, bloodthirsty and savage: a werewolf.

In the same manner that Old Testament prohibitions against eating pork and shellfish no doubt saved ancients from a miserable death by trichinosis or salmonella, these early wolf superstitions warned them away from any trace of saliva most likely to carry the Lyssavirus, a genus of morphologically similar, negative-stranded RNA viruses historically infecting mammal reservoirs worldwide.

Denise Gardner (Real Estate Agent): I can still see Margot stomping out the door to meet her friends. All of them dressed up in black lace and fishnet stockings, like every night was Halloween.

The little creature would be hanging on her sweater like a furry accessory. A brooch. Those horrible little claws of it, clutching the wool of her black sweater, or some nights Margot would pin up her hair and let the bat nest on top, or swing alongside her face like a single earring. All her goth friends wanted them…Leathery little vermin—I mean the bats, not Margot's friends. Bats made the perfect creepy little pet for a vampire teen. All her friends had them. Shame on us, but we didn't know any better. Pet shops couldn't sell them right next to the puppies and kitties if they weren't safe. That's what Sean, my husband, said.

Sean Gardner (Contractor): Our daughter's name was Margot, but her little vampire friends called her 'Monster.' She named the bat 'Little Monster,' then she shortened it to just 'Monty.'

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: Prior to the Casey epidemic, the largest outbreak in modern times had been due to an oversight in import protocol. Under the Foreign Quarantine Regulations (42 CFR 71.54), it is illegal to sell bats as pets within the United States. Imported bats are restricted to accredited zoos and research institutions. However, in this one-time incident, a procedural error allowed a shipment of several thousand Egyptian tomb bats (Rousettus aegypiacus) to enter the country in 1994 for sale through pet stores.

Sean Gardner: We bought Margot the bat as a Christmas present. Correction: She bought the bat. Her mother and I paid her back. It cost three hundred dollars, from Egypt or some godforsaken place. The food cost another arm and a leg. Bat Chow or Bat Meal. Some ridiculous crap. Her mother wouldn't go near it.

That Little Monty smelled awful.

Phoebe Truffeau, Ph.D.: Of the total humans infected each year, only 20 percent report being bitten or scratched by an animal. A typical case, from March 1995, involves a four-year-old girl in Washington State in whose bedroom a bat was discovered. Because the child reported no contact with the animal, no prophylactic treatment was initiated. Subsequently, both the child and the bat were found to be infected.

Among groundhogs, the disease spreads when one animal simply enters a den previously occupied by a sick animal.

Because the virus is transmitted primarily through saliva, something as minor as a cough or a sneeze can infect those in the immediate vicinity. Certainly within an elevator or an airliner cabin. Mechanically speaking, contracting rabies is as easy as catching a cold. But with a cold you immediately begin to present symptoms.

Denise Gardner: Her teachers complained that Margot acted antsy. They said she seemed fidgety. Distracted. Anxious, sometimes. She was our problem child. All her little goth friends acted the exact same way, always surly and impolite. Just awful. It never even dawned on us. Finally, when Margot brought