Infected (20 page)

“He was another story. Quite rude.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, I called him to follow up, and as soon as I told him I was from the CDC, he asked me…let me check my notes here…Yes, here it is. He said, ‘If you show your fucking face around here, you fucking spy piece of shit, I will cut off your fucking balls and shove them in your fucking mouth. I’ll kill anyone you send. Fuck you.’ Then he hung up. Needless to say, he’s low on the list of people to interview.”

“Any others?”

“None in the past six months.”

“Send me those case files, and do it now. Do you have addresses for Nguyen and Hester?”

“I told you, we have a database, Doctor Montoya.”

“Thank you, Doctor Cheng, you’ve been most helpful.” She hung up, then immediately dialed Murray.

DRIVIN’ & DRINKIN’

Doom swirled before Perry’s eyes like the tender flakes of snow gracefully kissing his windshield. He drove through town, down Washtenaw Avenue, heading for the hospital.

The University of Michigan Medical Center was supposed to be one of the best hospitals in the world. Lots of innovative research, new techniques, top-shelf doctors—if there was any help to be had, that was the place. But that was a big “if.”

It was all over, really. What were the doctors going to tell him, anyway? Maybe they could tell him
something.
Better to go out knowing his killer than to just sit in the apartment and waste away to nothing. But more than likely, he knew, the doctors would look at him, examine him, poke him and prod him, then announce that this disease was a “new development.” And somehow, even though they would know as much about the disease as the Pope knew about making hard-core porn, the doctors would still try to sound intelligent. Doctors were like that, always trying to come across as wise men, never for a moment losing the charade of competence.

He slowed to turn right on Observatory, but had to wait for pedestrians to cross the slushy street. He was on campus now, and U of M students were renowned for their lackadaisical attitude toward cars. They lazily strolled through crosswalks, even on busy streets, immortal in their youth and confident that cars would slow for them. They were college students, and for most of them the concept that they might face a quick and unfair death had yet to hit home.

“Your day will come,” Perry said quietly to the bundled and backpacked students as they passed in front of his car. “Mine sure as hell has.” He finished his turn onto Observatory. Now he was only a few blocks from the medical center.

Perry realized he had yet to call work. What difference did it make if he called in, anyway? A lot of good his three years of devotion did at this point. Never late once, and would that help him survive?

“Fuck ’em all,” Perry said quietly. His coworkers would hear about it soon enough on the news. He could hear the teaser now: “Michigan man dies from new disease, which is named after his doctor, who is still very much alive and getting pretty frigging rich on the lecture circuit. Story at eleven.”

He stopped for a red light at Geddes. East Medical Center Drive was just up on the right. Cottony clumps of snow swam in the fluctuating wind, hanging weightless and spinning one second, whipping about as if on an intangible roller coaster the next. Despair filled his skull more tightly than even his own brain. All around him were cars filled with normal people. Perfectly unaware of the disease turning Perry’s body inside out. Fucking normal people.

Or…or
were
they normal? How did he know they weren’t suffering from the same condition? Maybe they sat in their cars, fighting the urge to itch, to scratch until their fingernails came back bloody. How was he to know if the people around him were normal or infected?

It hit him, suddenly and solidly, that it was highly unlikely he was the first person with this disease. And if he wasn’t the first, a disturbing question reared up to confront him:
Why hadn’t he heard of this before?

A horn blast sounded behind him, jerking him back into awareness. The light was green. Heart racing, mind drowning in a sea of strange questions, he pulled through the intersection, then off to the side of the road. On his right was a snow-covered cemetery. How friggin’ perfect. Traffic rolled along behind him, the people who might or might not be normal going on about their business. He gripped the steering wheel to keep his hands from shaking.

Why hadn’t he heard of this before?

He had fucking
blue triangles
growing under his skin, for the love of God. The disease seemed so unusual—the media would have reported such a thing long ago, wouldn’t they? Of course they would have. Unless…unless the people with this disease went
into
the hospital, but never came
out.

Perry sat very still, staring out the windshield, the cold air filtering into the car and chasing away the artificial heat. What if the hospital was waiting for people like him? Maybe they wouldn’t even try to help him. Maybe they would just study the triangle, lock him up like a prisoner so they could watch him die. And maybe they’d just kill him and dissect him like some lab animal.

It was the only thing that made sense, or he’d have heard of this
somewhere.
There was more to this situation, much more. It wasn’t just a simple disease, after all; he was marked for death sure as if he were in a Nazi concentration camp and the triangles were Stars of David sewn onto his clothes.

But if he couldn’t go to the hospital, what was he going to do? What the hell
could
he do?

Fear slowly sank its claws into his consciousness, squeezing out his breath, joining with the biting cold to make his big body shiver.

“I need a drink,” Perry whispered. “And just a little time to figure this out.”

He did a U-turn and kept driving. He didn’t stop until he reached the Washtenaw Party Store. The pay phone was not in use, for once—he didn’t talk to anyone, he didn’t look at anyone, he made his purchase and left.

TURKEY SHOOT

Perry shambled back into his apartment carrying two bottles of Wild Turkey—one full, the other already half empty. The promise of violence hung off his frame like the potential energy of a safe hanging fifteen stories over a crowded street.

Friday night, and it was party time.

Perry calmly set the bottles on the kitchen table, then strolled into the bathroom. The floor there was crusted not only with dried vomit, but with dried blood as well. He noticed a good three inches of water remained in the tub, still and dead like stagnant pond water, disturbed only by the
plunk
of occasional drops from the shower head. Chunks of the thick orange skin clogged the drain. Smaller parts floated on the water’s filthy soap-scum surface. He heard a faint trickle slipping down the drain, filtering past the disgusting clog.

He hadn’t even thought about it when he’d showered. The orange skin apparently came off on its own. His free hand gently touched his collarbone, fingers tracing the slightly too-firm outline of a triangle. It felt more defined, the edges slightly more discernible to the touch. The blue looked a bit more pronounced, still faint, but now clearly visible with a color like that of a faded tattoo.

He walked back to the kitchen. He grabbed a fork and then a knife out of the butcher’s block, eyes once again lingering on the thick-handled, thick-bladed chicken scissors. He was dying. So many things yet to do, to experience. He’d never see Germany, never go deep-sea fishing, never visit the Alamo or all the historical sites of colonial America. He’d never get married. Never have children.

It wasn’t all bad. He’d lived a full life. He’d been the first in his family to attend college. He’d played Division I football, been on ESPN, lived his childhood dream of being a Wolverine playing in front of 112,000 screaming fans at the Big House. But above all, he’d escaped his father’s life of violence. He had surpassed his environment, surpassed his heritage, fought and clawed his way into respectability.

But for what? For nothing, that’s what.

He sat down at the kitchen table, set the knife on the tabletop, then took a long pull from the half-empty fifth. It tasted awful and seared his throat, but those sensations barely registered on his brain. He knocked it back as if it were water. The Wild Turkey was already roaring through his head. By the time he finished the bottle he knew he’d be three sheets to the wind. Ripped. Drunk-ass wasted.

He’d be
feeling no pain.

Tears of despair tugged at his eyes. It wasn’t fair. He refused to cry. His father hadn’t cried once during that whole cancer ordeal, and if Dad hadn’t, Perry wouldn’t, either.

Good old “Dirty Bird” carried a kick as severe as its taste. Perry felt light-headed and his toes tingled. His thoughts seemed thick, syrupy. He sat for a few minutes more, fighting back the tears, the Wild Turkey worming its way into his brain.

He picked up the knife.

The blade was almost ten inches long. The kitchen’s fluorescent ceiling lights seemed to glint off of each and every tiny serration. When he cooked chicken or beef, he used the sharp butcher knife to cut through the

no no no

raw meat with little effort. Perry doubted that the knife would be any less effective on human flesh, particularly the thin skin atop his shin.

His eyes blurred a little and he shook his head. He realized he was about to cut into his own body with a butcher knife. A little Wild Turkey goes a long way. Yes, he was going to cut himself, but there was something in his body that

no no no

didn’t belong.

He was going to die, sure, so be it, but he was taking these fucking triangle things with him. It was time for the Big Six to lose a member. Perry laughed out loud—anytime you drop players from the lineup, you have to make a
cut.

He polished off the last of the fifth, the liquid searing its way down his throat. He tossed the empty bottle aside, then used the knife to cut right through his jeans. The denim offered little resistance to the blade. In a few seconds, his pant leg hung in two long, ragged strips, exposing his tree trunk of a leg.

Perry lifted his foreleg and laid it on the kitchen table like a pot roast served at a family dinner. The wood felt cool against the back of his calf. The Wild Turkey buzz droned through his mind like a horde of lazy bumblebees. He knew if he didn’t act soon, he wouldn’t be able to do anything but babble, drool and pass out.

It was time to get down to

no no no kill

business.

Perry steeled himself with a few deep breaths. He was acting crazy, he knew that, but what difference did it make to a dead man? He poked at the triangle with the fork. Nothing had changed since his earlier examination.

“You’re going to kill me?” Perry said. “No-no-no, my friend, I’m going to kill
you.
”

He pushed the fork into his skin, just firmly enough to hold the triangle in place. The three metal tines made deep indents in the bluish skin.

Small flecks of rust dotted the knife blade. He’d never noticed them before. He noticed them now. He was suddenly noticing a lot of things about the knife, things like the nicks in the wooden handle, things like the two silvery rivets that fastened the comfortable wooden handle to the blade, things like the grain of the wood, like a hundred little minnows forever trapped mid-swim in a soft, warm, brown stream.

He’d made the first cut before he really knew what he was doing. He found himself staring drunkenly at a two-inch gash. Hot, tickling blood spilled down the side of his calf, spreading across the tabletop, then falling in thick red splatters against the white linoleum floor. He heard the dripping of the blood before he felt the pain, which was severe but distant—separated, as if it were pain seen on TV while Perry was curled up on the couch under a fuzzy blanket with a cold Coke in one hand and the remote control in the other.

no kill no please

no kill

He felt as if he were on autopilot, gliding through this bizarre action like a spectator. Who knew there would be this much blood? It covered his leg, smeared against his pale skin, made it difficult to see the triangle’s edge, yet he pushed down hard on the fork, put the knife blade perpendicular to his skin and made another fast cut. More blood spilled across the table and onto the floor. The pain didn’t feel distant now, not at all. Perry ground his teeth in an effort to control himself, to finish the job.

The blood somehow found its way up the knife blade and onto his hands. He heard the steady stream-drip of his own blood pattering to the floor below.

“How’s it feel, you little fucker?” Perry’s words were slow and slurred.

“How’s it feel? Do you like that? Kill me? No-no-no, I’ll kill
you.
You’ve
got
to have discipline.”

Perry steeled himself, forcing his vision to clear once more and his mind to center on the next task. Despite his drunken state, his hands remained amazingly steady—he’d definitely missed his calling in life.

no kill please no

kill no

His face furrowed in confusion. Something tickled at the edge of his mind, like a dream trying to crawl in and stir up nocturnal secrets. He violently shook his head, then stared with new focus at the bloody fork and knife. The second cut had left one side of the triangle in place, like a door hinge—he slid the blade under the angular flap and flipped it back like a bloody piece of raw bacon.