“Canjeero,”she said, plaintive.“Soor. Maya, Hilib. Hilib. Xalaal hilib. Baryo.”
The infection had spread. It would be coursing through her body now, attacking her tissues wherever it could get in. When it spread to her heart and her brain she would die. He could feel the heat radiating from her face. No, not heat. Something else. A sort of energy, but not anything truly palpable. Like the vibration you feel when a heavy truck rumbles by outside. Or the way your skin crawls when you know someone is walking right behind you but you can’t see them. A phantom sensation, barely liminal but there if you reached for it.
Garyreached.
“Fadlan maya,”the girl moaned, as if she could sense what he was doing. Then, angrier:“Ka tegid!” He didn’t know the words but he could guess the meaning. She wanted to be left alone. Just give me a second, he thought, knowing he could use some work on his bedside manner. Still, he had to know.
He didn’t so much study her with his eyes or nose or ears but with something else-the hairs on the back of his arms, maybe, which was standing up or the skin behind his earlobes that tingled with anticipation. Some part of his body was responding to this weird energy she was putting off. It made his toes curl. Energy, spark,pranja, vibes-whatever you wanted to call it. It coiled around her and spun off into the air like smoke or like embers exploding out of a bonfire. It warmed his skin where it touched him, irritated him a little in a good way.
To understand a little better he stepped over to where Dekalb and the other, healthy girls were sleeping, wrapped in their colorful woven mats. He stilled himself and tried to make himself as absorbent as possible. The energy was there, in all of them, but it was very different-a compact mass of it, pulsing on a low register, vibrating like a drum. Dekalb had a little more of it-he was bigger than the girls-but the energy contained in the girls felt more vibrant, more exciting somehow.
“Waan xanuunsanahay,”the wounded girl muttered.
Garyreturned to her, squatted before her. Whatever this energy was-andGary knew, knew with certainty that it was her life-it was leaking from her. Draining away. She would be dead within the hour, judging by how little of it was left in her. She would go to waste. What a strange thing to think, but there it was. She would die and she would go to waste.
Garybacked off and tore open the plastic wrapping of another slim-jim. Chewed on it pensively. He couldn’t-he shouldn’t look at her anymore, it was giving him bad ideas. He could control himself. It was one of the first things he’d said to Dekalb. He could think for himself. He didn’t have to obey every passing whim. That had been the point of the respirator, of the ice-filled bathtub. He had kept his mind, the rational part of himself. His ability to make plans and decisions.
He pressed one hand against the the windows. The dead outside glanced at his hand for a moment, then went back to pressing their faces against the glass, staring at the people inside. Back to wanting, to needing. He was like them, in so many ways, but he had this one difference. His willpower. His will. He could resist any urge if he tried hard enough.
“Waan xanuunsanahay. Hilib.”
He considered leaving, going out into the throng out there-they wouldn’t hurt him, he didn’t think. He was useless to them. Nothing that could concern them. He didn’t know how he could open the door, however, without letting hundreds of them push their way inside before he could get out and close the door behind him.
There was just no way out. He was stuck in here-trapped, with the rest of them.
“Biyo,”the girl begged.“Biyo!”