Pandemic (45 page)

When he’d turned a corner, he’d almost walked right into this gun-slinging girl.

Cooper bent a little, lowered his shoulders, tried to look as unthreatening as he could.

“Don’t shoot,” he said. “Please, put that down. I’m not one of them.”

Assuming she would know what
them
was, that he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing, that he hadn’t dreamed about his best friend wrapped up in a membrane, hadn’t imagined strangling a triangle-tongued man to death, hadn’t made up the people with inhuman voices and swollen, yellow feet.

Her trembling aim stayed fixed on his face.

“Mister, if you think I’m going to put this down, you’re fucking retarded.”

“Fine, just try to not aim it right at me, okay? The way your hand is twitching, you might kill me by accident.”

Her eyes shifted to the gun. Her eyebrows raised — she hadn’t realized she was shaking.

She lowered the gun, rested it against her thigh. She sagged a little to the
left; her foot slid over quickly to maintain her balance. She was exhausted. How much blood had she lost?

The girl jutted her chin at him.

“Stick out your tongue,” she said.

The man in the boiler room, with the triangles on his tongue … she’d seen the same thing and was guarding against it. That meant she was
normal
.

“Thank God,” Cooper said. “Lady, you don’t know what I’ve—”

The gun snapped up again, the barrel’s tiny, black hole a window into death.

“Your
tongue
, asshole.”

And then Cooper realized that he had no idea if he had triangles on his tongue or not. He rubbed it against the roof of his mouth, trying to feel bumps … he couldn’t feel anything, but did that mean they weren’t there? And if he had them, was he going to wind up like the bald guy?

Give us a smooch …

She moved her right foot back, widening her stance. She straightened her arm. She moved with confidence, like she’d done it before — this girl knew how to use a gun.

Her hand stopped trembling. “Last chance, mister.”

Cooper closed his eyes. He stuck out his tongue.

“Open your mouth wider,” she said. “Stick it out farther.”

He did. He wondered if he’d hear the
bang
, or if everything would just end.

The girl let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess you’re okay. Just don’t come near me. And if you try for the gun, I’ll put you down.”

Cooper’s heart thudded fast and loud, each
pump-pump
raging through his ears and temples. He opened his eyes.

“Sure,” he said. “We need to get out of this hallway, find a place to hide.”

She nodded. Her gunfighter’s stance had sagged. Her eyes fluttered. She took a step back, then stumbled.

He rushed forward without thinking, his right arm sliding around the small of her back, supporting her.

“I got you,” he said. “I got you.”

For a moment, her strength gave out completely; he was the only thing
holding her up. Then she stood, pushed him away. She didn’t point the gun
at
him, but it was close enough.

“I told you to
stay away
.”

His hands returned to the palms-up position. “Sorry. You were going to fall.”

She started to say something, but somewhere in the basement a door opened,
slammed
open — the sound echoed through the hall. He couldn’t wait for her anymore.

“Lady, I’m finding a place to hide. Come with me if you want.”

He walked away from the noises, down the concrete hallway. They were still in a service area — laundry, storage, linens, maybe a kitchen. At the end of the hall he saw double doors, a rectangular window in each.

Cooper walked to the doors, looked through the glass … a carpeted hallway. He didn’t see any movement.

The noises from behind grew louder.

He pressed the metal latch that ran horizontally along the door — unlocked. He pushed the door open and stepped through.

His feet fell silently on the carpet. Little brass plaques hung to the right of the closed, wooden doors lining both sides of the wide hall.

He turned to call for her and almost knocked her over.

“Hey, chick with the gun, mind not sneaking up on me, for fuck’s sake?”

“Sorry,” she said. Then her hand was on his back, half urging him forward, half leaning against him for support. “Hurry, someone is coming.”

Cooper walked to the first door on his left. He pushed it open — inside, darkness, save for the light from the hall flooding in, illuminating a dozen tables covered with white tablecloths and surrounded by folding chairs.

He forced himself to enter.

Three steps in, he heard a soft
click
and the room lights suddenly flickered on. His eyes adjusted instantly, ready and expecting to see something coming for him, but nothing moved. A carpeted wall on the left, one of those sliding dividers on the right. The room was about twenty feet wide and forty feet deep.

Some of the tables had open laptops on them, along with pens and pads of paper embossed with the Trump Tower logo. Open bottles of water, half-full cups of coffee …

… and a body.

A bloody
mess
of a body, a man, still wearing a black suit, facedown, arms spread out across blood-streaked carpet. His head looked dented, smashed and cracked beneath a wet mop of black hair. In front of him lay a folded metal chair, the side of the seat streaked with blood and matted with bits of that same hair.

Cooper heard the door quietly close behind him.

“We have to hide,” the girl said. “Fast, they’re coming.”

He heard noises outside the door, had images of a horde of villagers storming down some gothic German street, torches raised high as they came to kill the monster — except
he
was the monster they wanted dead.

Hide? There wasn’t any place
to
hide. He was in a hotel conference room.

“Please,” the girl said. “I … can’t stand. Help me.”

He turned to look at her. So pale. The pistol hung heavy in her grip, as if it was all she could do to keep it from falling to the floor.

So easy to take it from her …

He pushed the thought away, moved to the back of the room. He tipped two of the round tables on their edges, tops facing the door. Tablecloths fell into wrinkled piles. The tables’ metal legs kept the round tops from rolling.

The end of the world had come, and his defense against the boogeymen was a child’s fort.

He rushed back to the woman. “Come on,” he whispered. “We can lie back here. If they do open the door, maybe they won’t see us and they’ll move on.”

He helped her walk behind the tables.

She stared down at them doubtfully. “This is the best you can do?”

“I left my army tank in my other pants.”

He helped ease her down gently. As soon as she sat, he saw her relax, the last of her fight slipping away.

The girl looked at him through half-lidded eyes. She whispered: “What’s your name?”

“Cooper,” he whispered back. “Yours?”

“Sofia.”

“That’s a sexy name.”

He gave his head a sharp shake. What the hell was he doing? Was he hitting on this girl?
Now
? Or maybe it was a nervous thing, an impulse to make this insanity feel at least a tiny bit normal.

“That’s funny,” she said, “I don’t feel all that sexy right now.”

The noises outside the room grew louder. Whoever it was, they were coming close. It wasn’t just the sound of people talking loudly — Cooper heard doors opening.

Sofia lifted the gun again, but this time butt-first. She offered him the handle.

He took it. His hand slid around the grip, his finger felt the cool reassurance of the trigger.

The room’s lights went out — the sensor that detected motion didn’t pick up their movements from behind the tables.

Cooper made himself as small as he could. Gun in hand, he waited.

The room door flew open, letting in dim light from the hall. Cooper gripped the gun tighter … should he pop up and fire? No, no he would wait just a moment more, maybe the person would leave.

On the other side of the overturned table, just fifteen feet away, someone was standing in the doorway.

Cooper waited.

Seconds later, that angular swath of light narrowed, narrowed, blinked out accompanied by the door latch’s soft
click
.

Cooper leaned to the side, peeked out under the edge of the round tabletop.

It was too dark. He couldn’t see anything.

His right hand held the gun out in front of him. With his left, he reached up above his head and waved.

The lights blinked on: the room was empty.

“They’re gone,” he whispered.

She leaned against him. “Thank God.”

Sofia slid down to her side, rested her head in his lap. He started to stroke her hair, an automatic movement. Then he realized that while she had checked him for triangles, he had never checked her.

“Your tongue,” he said. “Let me see it.”

She didn’t complain. She looked up at him, opened her mouth wide and stuck out her tongue.

Normal.

“Thanks,” he said.

She put her head back in his lap. He resumed stroking her hair. They were
two strangers trying to deal with the incomprehensible, finding small comfort in physical contact.

“Cooper, you got a phone?”

He nodded. “You?”

“Battery’s dead,” she said. “I called 911 about a hundred times. No one answered. I called all my people, same thing. Think maybe I could use yours to call my son?”

Cooper pulled his phone out of his pocket: his battery icon showed one bar out of five. Not much power left. He handed it to her.

She took it, gratitude in her eyes. She slowly dialed a number, put the phone to her ear.

Cooper watched, waited. Sofia’s face held only a shred of hope, a shred that didn’t last long. Cooper heard the mumbled words of someone’s voice mail, then the
beep
.

“Baby, it’s Momma,” Sofia said. “I’m still alive. If you get this, call me at this number, okay? Please, baby. I love you.”

She disconnected but held the phone to her chest. “I’m sorry to ask this, but do you mind if I hold on to it? I … I just wouldn’t want to miss the call, if it comes in.”

Cooper started to say no, but who was he going to call? Jeff wasn’t answering. Neither was 911. Cooper didn’t know a soul in Chicago. If it gave this woman some comfort to hold on to the phone, that was fine, as long as they stuck together.

“Sure,” he said. “Listen, I’m not a doctor, but maybe I should look at your wound.”

She nodded. She reached down to pull up her bloody shirt. He helped her.

Cooper had never seen a gunshot wound before. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at, what he was looking
for
, but despite the blood it didn’t seem that bad. The bullet hadn’t gone
through
her as much as it had ripped off a chunk of her side.

He gently put a finger near the wound, not on it, and pressed.

She hissed in pain. “How’s it look, Mister I’m Not a Doctor?”

He shrugged. “Don’t really know. Don’t think you’re going to die, but we need to stop the bleeding.”

Cooper looked around, saw the piled-up tablecloth. He grabbed a handful and dragged it over.

“Sofia, this is going to hurt.”

“Can’t hurt any worse than it already does. Go for it.”

He gently laid the tablecloth on her side, then pressed down. Her body stiffened. She hissed in an angry breath.

“
Shit
,” she said. “Guess I was wrong.”

“Direct pressure,” Cooper said. “I have to—”

“I know, I know. Just talk about something else, okay? You from around here?”

“No,” he said. “Michigan.”

“Lions fan?”

“Unfortunately, yes. All my life.”

“Sucks to be you,” she said. “Go Bears. I work here. Front desk, hospitality.”

Cooper remembered calling for security after seeing the wounded teenage kid outside his room.

“Did you work with a woman named Carmella?”

He felt Sofia nod.

“I think she’s infected,” Cooper said. “I called down earlier, she said some awful things.”

“That doesn’t mean much,” Sofia said. “Even before this started, Carmella was a real bitch.”

They sat in silence for a moment. The lights clicked out, once again drenching them in darkness.

“So,” she said, “what brings you to town?”

“Work. I mean, a postwork celebration kind of thing. We work on a boat and just finished up a big job.”

“We?”

“My partner and me.”

“You gay?”

“The other kind of partner.” Cooper thought of telling her about the cocoons, but if he did, she might think Jeff was something to be shot, not someone to be saved. “He was gone when I woke up this morning. I can’t find him.”

They fell silent for a moment. He stroked her hair, felt her relax a little more.

“This shit is insane,” Sofia said. “I heard the president was saying something about it a couple of days ago, but I have two jobs — who has time to follow
politics, right? Yesterday morning we got a delivery of that inoculant gunk she was talking about. It was meant for the rich guests. I sneaked a bottle, drank it. Maybe that’s why I’m not sick.”

Cooper remembered the speech, remembered Blackmon talking about some kind of medicine.

“Is there any more of that stuff here?”

He felt her shrug. “I don’t think so. Most of it got delivered to the top floors, the suites.”

Blackmon’s medicine had arrived in time to help make a difference, and the one-percenters got priority? It infuriated him, but he knew he shouldn’t be surprised: some things never change.

He felt Sofia’s blood cooling in the damp tablecloth.

“How’d you wind up getting shot?”

She paused, seemed to gather herself.

“This morning, all this shit was going on outside,” she said. “Explosions, fires. These two pigs came in. We thought they were there to take care of things, you know? But they just started shooting people. Peter, a guy who was working with me, they shot him in the head. They got a couple others too, I think. I don’t know for sure, because I ran.”