Necrosis they call it—the body rotting while the organism still lives.
The hairs on my arms rise. I should be suffering from this. No—I should be dead from it. Instead, I’m alive and healthy enough to watch this man succumb to it.
I take him in again, open sores and all. This sort of death has no business in the modern world. It’s the kind of thing that belongs in old horror movies and tales from Medieval Europe. Not here, where in recent memory, cars ran and planes flew, phones called and the Internet existed.
But the modern world is gone. Killed in the months that followed the horsemen’s arrival. And now everyone’s scrambling to get on with life in an age when we have lost almost everything.
Even though I want to run, I take a tentative step forward. I’m a firefighter, damnit. I’m used to seeing scary shit every day. Seeing it and fixing it.
I stride forward, noticing how the man’s listless eyes try to track me.
Alive and aware.
I crouch in front of him, smelling ammonia and human excrement. Pestilence might be helping me to the bathroom, but he hasn’t been so benevolent with our host—or whoever this man is.
Again I hesitate. A part of me worries that by trying to help, I’ll only hurt the man more. Not to mention that there’s a good chance I’ll catch the disease in the process, and this is not a good way to go. But then, I’ve been alongside Pestilence for longer than this man has. I’ve been restrained and shot and dragged through the snow and I’m still alive—alive and untouched by the Fever.
Somehow, it’s skipped over me.
But even if it hasn’t, even if I’ve simply managed to avoid it up until now, what’s the worst that’ll happen? I’ll be in pain? I dare the fates to give me worse than what I’ve already endured. And if I die? Well, then at least I won’t have to stomach more of the horseman’s presence.
I’m all for silver linings.
I crouch in front of the man, taking his hand. It’s hot to the touch.
He works his dry throat and makes a weak attempt at shaking his head.
“Shoun’t … toush … me … Siccc,” he whispers.
I squeeze his hand. “It’s alright,” I say gently. “I’m here to help you.”
He closes his eyes. “Allll … dea …” He moans this, his face grimacing. “I … lassst.”
My stomach plummets. That smell of rot might not just be coming from him. It might be coming from other people … people who are now just bodies.
And in all the time I’d been recuperating, I hadn’t noticed there were other people in the house.
You were asleep for most of it, I remind myself.
… And yet, maybe I had noticed. Maybe all of my fever dreams weren’t fever dreams at all, but the noises that were filtering into my room while I slept, noises my mind put faces to.
My attention returns to the man in front of me. He had to watch whoever else lives here fall ill, and then die. And somewhere at the back of his mind he might’ve been aware that he was going to die last, without someone to care for him.
I place the back of my hand against his forehead, then his neck. He’s burning up. And now that I look beyond the lumps and open sores that have transformed his body into a grotesquery, I can see that his lips are split and scabbed.
I stand suddenly and stride into the kitchen. Grabbing a hand towel, I run it under the kitchen faucet. Then, flipping through the cupboards, I pull out an empty glass and a bottle of Red Label I come across.
After I fill the cup with water, I take the goods back to the living room, trying and failing not to think about the fact that I got a bed in this house, but this man didn’t. Was that Pestilence’s doing? Was that this man’s?
Setting my items down on a coffee table resting near the couch, I grab the wet towel and begin to gently run it over the man’s face and neck. Meticulously I move down his body, trying to avoid what I can of the lumps and sores, which look painful to the touch.
I grab the glass of water and the bottle of Red Label from the coffee table. Holding the two up, I ask, “Which do you prefer?”
There’s not even a second’s deliberation. The man’s eyes go to the whiskey.
“Good choice.”
I dump out the glass of water right onto the carpet—because no one’s going to give a shit about a puddle in a house full of plague—and fill it halfway up with the liquor.
Sliding a hand under the man’s back, I lift his body up just enough for him to swallow, ignoring my own aches and pains that awaken with the exertion. Using my other hand, I hold the glass of whiskey to his lips.
He downs the liquid in five solid swallows.
“More,” he croaks, and his voice sounds stronger.
Again I fill the cup halfway up, and again he downs it. And then once more.
It’s enough alcohol to send me to the hospital, but I guess that’s the point. There’s no beating this plague. The kill rate of this thing is a hundred percent. At this point all either of us can do is manage this man’s pain.
Once he empties the third cup, I reach for the bottle again, but he lifts his hand up, just slightly. No more.
“Thank you,” he wheezes.
I nod, swallowing down the thickness in my throat. I take his burning hand and I hold it between my own. “Would you like me to stay?” I ask. I don’t bother adding, for your last few hours. Even staring death down, I can’t seem to acknowledge it by name.
The man closes his eyes, his body already relaxing from the effects of the whiskey, and he squeezes my hand once, which I take for a yes.
My thumb strokes circles into his skin, and softly I begin to recite Poe. “‘Lo! Death hath reared himself a throne, in a strange city, lying alone …’”
The words to “City in the Sea” rush out of me, words I’d read and memorized long ago. Once I finish reciting the poem, I move on, quoting Lord Byron’s “And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair” and then a few passages from Macbeth, pieces of poetry and prose I picked up here and there. The world might’ve stopped caring about these poets long ago, but their immortalized words are appropriate now more than ever.
Next to me, the man doesn’t open his eyes again, but every so often he tilts his head just a little in my direction, letting me know he’s listening.
At some point, he stops turning to me. His wheezy breaths slow as he nods off. I sit on my heels, holding his hand, and watch until the rise and fall of his chest fades to nothing. Even then, I hold his hand, not releasing it until his skin begins to cool.
I never got his name. I held his hand and eased his suffering, and the sight of his plague-riddled body will haunt me for the rest of my days, but I never got his name.
That’s going to bother me.
On a whim, I grab the bottle of Red Label and take several swallows of it. I tuck the bottle under my arm. I already know I’m going to need it again, and soon. There will undoubtedly be more torments ahead.
After all, my suffering is just beginning.
Chapter 11
We leave not an hour later after the nameless man expires. Pestilence leads me out with a hand on my shoulder, his golden bow and arrow never far from my sight.
Just a reminder of what he can do to me.
His steed waits for us, its reins not tied to anything, just standing there like the creature has nothing better to do then wait on its master.
Pestilence grabs the rope that’s been shoved into one of the saddlebags. Unwinding it, he wraps one end around my wrists, which are still covered in bandages.
All my aches and pains come roaring back at the sight of my bound hands.
Running again. I should’ve known.
But instead of tying the other end to the back of his saddle, he threads it through one of his belt loops.
I raise my eyebrows. That’s unexpected.