“There are two types of Ripley,”
“There are two types of Ripley,” Henry said, stating as fact what he only believed . . . but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. “Call them Ripley Prime and Ripley Secondary. I’m pretty sure that if you didn’t get a hot dose—in something you ate or inhaled or something that went live into an open wound—you can get better. You can beat it.”
Now they were all looking at him with those big doe eyes, and Henry felt a moment of surpassing despair. Why couldn’t he just have had a nice quiet suicide?
“I’ve got Ripley Prime,” he said. He unknotted the tee-shirt. None of them would do more than glance at the rip in Henry’s snow-powdered jeans, but Henry took a good big look for all of them. The wound made by the turnsignal stalk had now filled up with byrus. Some of the strands were three inches long, their tips wavering like kelp in a tidal current. He could feel the roots of the stuff working in steadily, deeper and deeper, itching and foaming and fizzing. Trying to think. That was the worst of it—it was trying to think.
