He took a moment to scan his surroundings in all directions, cautious of what might be hidden there. Finding nothing, he eased the S-150
ahead in a crawl, weaving carefully through the makeshift obstacle course that blocked his path. On the bridge, nothing moved. He began to cross, passing bodies with arms and legs flung wide, fingers clutched in agony, heads thrown back and necks stretched taut. Then he saw the first of many faces turned black and leathery, and he knew.
Plague.
This strain was called Quick Drain for the speed with which it stole life from the body. It was carried on the air, a human-made recreation of what centuries earlier had been labeled the Black Death. It was chemically induced, contracted through the lungs, and fatal in less than an hour if you weren’t inoculated against it beforehand or treated afterward at once. From the quickness with which it had obviously overtaken those on the bridge, it must have been a particularly virulent variety. It would have dissipated by now, its life span short once released. There was no way of knowing where it had come from, whether released on purpose or by accident, whether by attack or mistake.
It was deadly stuff; he had seen the results of its work several times before when he was still with Michael.
He drove on, trying not to breathe the air, even though he knew it didn’t matter by now. He drove on, and as he did so his thoughts drifted to an earlier time.
*
HE LIES IN his bed, so hot he can barely stand his own body. Sweat coats his skin and dampens his sheets. Pain ratchets through his muscles in steady waves, causing him to jerk and twist like a puppet. He grits his teeth, praying for the agony to stop. He no longer cares if he lives or dies; he will accept either fate willingly if only to put an end to the pain.
His eyes are squeezed shut, but when they blink open momentarily he is still in darkness. He hears voices drift through the partially opened doorway from the adjoining room.
“.. . should be dead anyway . . . fever too high . . . can’t understand what’s keeping him ...”
“. . . tougher than you . . . seven days now, when anyone else would . . . just keep him warm and ...”
One of them is Michael Poole, the other Michael’s companion, Fresh.
But which is which? He cannot tell. The fever clouds his thinking, and he can’t match the voices to the names. It is ridiculous. He knows Michael the way he knows himself, has been with him now for almost eight years. He knows Fresh almost as well as Michael. But the voices blend and the words shift so that they seem one and the same.
“. . . recovery from this doesn’t happen . . . as you know better than most . . . better to let things take their course instead of flailing about with all these ...”
The voice drones on, lost in the buzzing in his ears, in the hiss of his own breath through his clenched teeth, the in the sweep of his jumbled thoughts.
He has the plague. He doesn’t know which strain and doesn’t care.
He has had it for days. He can’t remember how he contracted it or what has happened since. He drifts in and out of consciousness, out of dreams and into reality and back again, always fighting for breath because his throat is so swollen that his windpipe has all but closed up. The pain keeps him breathing because it keeps him awake and fighting for his life. If he sleeps, he thinks, he will lose consciousness and die. He has never been so afraid.
“. . . have to move camp soon , . . dose, and no stopping them once they know ...”
“. . . can’t just leave him to die, damn it. . . know what they would do, animals ...”
“. . . what do you expect us to do if things don’t. . . sacrifices have to be made . . . one against the many ...”
He hears only these snippets, but he gets the gist of the conversation nevertheless. They are arguing over what to do with him, still so sick, perhaps contagious to the others, a danger to them all. They need to move camp because they are threatened anew by the demons that track them, searching constantly for a way to trap them once and for all. One of them is arguing for leaving him behind, the way they have been forced to leave others—for the good of the whole.
One of them is arguing for waiting to see if his constitution is strong enough to pull him through. The argument is low-key and rational, not heated and intense. He finds it odd that the matter of his living or dying is being talked about so calmly. He wants to tell them how he feels about it. He wants to scream.
Suddenly there is silence. He squints through a tiny gap in his eyelids and sees that the light in the doorway is blocked. They are standing there, looking at him. He tries to speak, but the words become lodged in his throat and emerge as groans. The pain sheets through him, and he shudders violently.
“See?” says one.
“See what? He fights it.”
“A losing fight. It consumes him.”
“But hasn’t yet overpowered him.”