Pestilence: A Medical Thriller Page 14

  “She told me about you,” Mike said, leaning behind his ear from the backseat.

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said you cheated on her mom and got divorced after.”

  Howie glanced into the rearview mirror. “It was… I don’t know. I don’t even know. I put myself in a spot I shouldn’t have, and I couldn’t resist. The only way to avoid it is to not even be in a place where you can fumble.”

  “We’re weak when it comes to that stuff,” Mike said. “You still with the woman you cheated with?”

  “No. It was a one-time thing. My wife only found out about it because she saw a package of condoms in my car. I tried to cover for it, but she could tell I was lying.” He paused. “She sat in her room from sunup to sundown and cried. Didn’t eat, didn’t drink. She cried the entire day.”

  “That’s fucked up.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe it was for the best?”

  “No, it wasn’t. I screwed up the best thing in my life real good. And you don’t even realize it until later. I saw it tonight when she hugged my leg. I felt a glimpse of what I was missing out on. No amount of pussy is worth that.”

  The state line wasn’t far. Excitement tingled Howie’s belly, and the stars were even beginning to sparkle above them, providing a dim light. A tinge of morning was in the warm air, which wasn’t as warm as it had been a couple of hours before.

  “Daddy?”

  “What is it, sweetheart?”

  “Your nose is bleeding.”

  He checked his nose in the mirror. Sweat glistened on his face, and underneath his nostrils a thread of blood was pooling at his upper lip. He wiped it with the back of his sleeve.

  “It’s nothing, sweetheart. Just the dry air.”

  She didn’t move for a time, though he could tell she wanted to hug him. But her anger wouldn’t let her. She had so much of it that she was blinded to everything else. He put his hand over her shoulders, careful to touch only her clothing. But that made him uncomfortable, and he withdrew his hand and put them both on the steering wheel.

  “Go back to sleep, Jess. We’ll be in Las Vegas soon, and we’ll get a hotel room there and a big breakfast.”

  “Can I have coffee and a waffle?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  He glanced over at her, and she smiled as an explosion rang in his ears and the jeep spun nearly upside down, gliding through the air like a monstrous bird.

  Howie put his arm against Jessica to prevent her from flying out, but her seat belt held her in place. Mike wasn’t wearing one. He flew out of the jeep and rolled on the ground, narrowly missing the ton of steel that came crashing into the earth.

  The jeep rolled once, groaning to an upright position. The motion jarred Howie’s neck, and a wave of pain shot into his head.

  When it had straightened out, he turned to Jessica, who was crying. He put his arms around her and told her that it was all right, that they must have hit a batch of rocks. A trail of blood dribbled onto his sleeve and into her hair. He frantically wiped it out of her hair with his hands and then the sleeves of his shirt.

  “What’re you doing, Dad?”

  He didn’t respond. Terror gripped him, and he wiped at her face and hands until she pushed him away.

  “Stop it. Stop!”

  He sat back, breathing heavily. His acute anxiety was causing his chest to tighten like a walnut about to be cracked. They sat staring at each other for a moment before he realized that an acrid smell was filling the air. He glanced at the engine and saw flames.

  Howie tugged at Jessica’s seat belt, but it wouldn’t loosen. He reached down and tried to unclip it, but the metal clip was jammed and the button wouldn’t depress. He felt the hilt of the knife he’d stolen earlier pushing into his abdomen. He pulled it out and cut through the belt. But before he could pull her out, a noise startled him.

  The flames blew the hood off the jeep and reached into the front seats.

  45

  Samantha leapt out of the elevator, unsure of what floor she was on. A flood of memories of the past month overtook her senses so profoundly that she thought she might faint. But she kept running. Not until she was standing at the windows, staring down at the parking lot, did she know she had arrived at the top floor.

  She ran into one of the rooms and shut the door behind her. Then she ran to the bathroom and shut that door. Samantha stared at it as though it would explode off its hinges at any moment. She backed away and sat on the toilet, nearly falling off. Putting her hands to her face, she sobbed.

  After a few moments, the emotions passed. She took a deep breath and thought about what to do next.

  Duncan and Jane were downstairs, and Samantha couldn’t be certain that man didn’t know about them. She didn’t know how to help either of them. Robert Greyjoy had known everything about her before they had even met.

  She stood up and walked to the door. The shooter had come for her. She didn’t understand why she knew that, but she could read the unspoken understanding between them, like a crackling energy. He was the hunter, and she was the hunted. Maybe if he killed her, he would leave Jane and Duncan alone.

  She opened the door, stood there a moment with her eyes closed, and stepped out into the room.

  A woman was in the bed. Her closed eyes were turned toward the window, and a beeping monitor echoed in the small space. Samantha walked to the bed. The woman’s face was wrinkled and gray.

  Samantha wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but eventually, she sat down in a chair against the wall. The woman’s hair was thin and missing in spots. She seemed so weak and fragile that death couldn’t have been far off. Tears swirled in Samantha’s eyes, but she didn’t wipe them away. Instead, she put her hand over the woman’s and sat quietly, listening to the rhythmic beep of the machine and the deep, grainy breaths that the woman pulled into her thin body.

  Finally, Sam rose and walked out into the corridor. She shut the door softly, then glanced down both directions before walking to the front desk. She wasn’t going to run anymore. She didn’t see a point to running. If he was like Greyjoy, he would catch up with her.

  She quickly jumped on the elevator and went down to her floor.

  When she got off, the floor was empty and quiet. She went into Jane’s room, and there, standing next to the canopy, was the shooter. His weapon hung at his side between relaxed fingers.

  “I knew you’d come here,” he said.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want you to die.”

  She shivered and averted her eyes, turning them to Jane. “What about her?”

  “Make it easy, and she lives.”

  Samantha nodded. Ian raised his weapon, aiming for her heart.

  46

  He didn’t have much sensation at first, just a general numbness and anxiety. As Howie Burke took his daughter in his arms, he grasped that he shouldn’t be holding her and withdrew. The jeep was upright but severely damaged. He sat up, ignoring the pain in his back and arms, and he thought about trying to start the vehicle but decided against it.

  The fire was rising over the seat at a steady but slow pace. He pulled Jessica away from the vehicle.

  He heard tires in dirt and the shouting of men. Headlights swarming them, he impotently watched the terror in his daughter’s eyes. He had no words of comfort for her or explanations. Instead, he turned away from her and saw Mike a little behind them. His head had been crushed so thoroughly that it was only a slick in the dark, a black puddle in front of a fully-grown male body.

  “Who are they?” Jessica asked.

  Howie watched the jeeps. Five of them roared to a stop near them, and men in uniforms jumped out, pointing terrifying black weapons at them. They shouted orders, but Howie couldn’t hear them. He couldn’t hear anything but a soft buzzing sound, and he wondered if Jessica had really spoken or if he’d imagined it.

  The men were closing in around them, their lips moving, their faces contorted with r
age and fear. One of them was young, maybe eighteen. He was trembling and sweating, and in the headlights of the jeep, Howie saw that his fingers were turning white from gripping his rifle too hard.

  Other men were next to Howie, closer than the boy. But Howie saw only him. They were on the same frequency somehow. The two of them knew what was about to happen; this incident was between them, and everyone else was just there to witness it.

  Neither of them averted their eyes as they stared into each other. The soldier’s eyes were wide, and he didn’t blink, despite the droplets of sweat rolling into them.

  And in an instant, both their lives changed.

  “Run, Jessica!”

  Howie sprinted. The first soldier was only a couple feet away, and Howie grabbed his rifle and kicked the soldier in the chest, sending him to the dirt. The other soldier swung at him, but Howie tackled him before the butt of the rifle impacted his face. He slammed his fist into the soldier’s jaw, but the soldier barely seemed to notice.

  The young soldier, horror written on his face, aimed the rifle. His hands trembling worse than before, he fired a single shot, and Howie was suddenly staring up at the sky without any memory of the motion that had put him there.

  He lay helplessly on his back as two soldiers slapped handcuffs on Jessica. He screamed for her but couldn’t hear the words that came out of his mouth.

  47

  Carrie Mendelsohn had been feeling unwell for over twenty-four hours. A slight fever, alternating with cold sweats and shivering, had been burning away in her, and her skin was sensitive to almost everything. Even wearing clothing made her itch until she had scratched her skin raw. Her throat hurt, and her stomach felt as if it were about to shoot vomit out of her any second.

  She sat by the outdoor pool at the Monte Carlo Hotel, thinking that maybe cooling off in the water would help. She rose and went to the pool. Her swimsuit was rolled up too far on her thighs, revealing the bottoms of her buttocks. As she went into the water, she pulled her suit down to cover herself, though she hardly cared, considering that some of the people there were almost topless. She floated around, kicked a few times, and then lay back and closed her eyes. The water was warmer than she’d thought it would be, and she dipped beneath the surface, then came up, slicking her hair back with both hands. The water in front of her was discolored.

  Her nose was bleeding. At least a hundred people were in the pool, and she was so embarrassed, she quickly jumped out and ran to her pool chair, where she toweled off before going inside.

  Her sorority had booked a room on the sixth floor, overlooking the strip. She swiped her card and went inside. Her clothes were all over the room, interlaced with the clothing of three other girls, and she ruffled through a few piles before finding shorts, a tank top, and Calvin Klein sandals, which she took into the bathroom and laid on the back of the toilet. Her nose still hadn’t stopped bleeding, so she shoved toilet paper up both nostrils. She jumped into the shower, lathered herself, and rinsed. Then she did it again because she couldn’t remember if she’d done it already.

  As she got out of the shower and reached for the towel, she happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Blood was running from both nostrils, soaking the toilet paper red, and going down over her mouth and breasts before dripping onto the floor in small uneven circles. She placed the towel over her nose and leaned back to slow the bleeding, but she was bleeding so much that she felt as if she were drinking the stuff. She leaned forward again. Pressure couldn’t slow the blood anymore. A dam had broken, and she could do nothing but wait until all the liquid flowed out. She reached up to scratch her itchy ears, and her fingers came away wet with a reddish-black, syrupy fluid.

  Carrie started to get dressed so she could go to the hospital when an intense pressure grew inside her stomach. The muscles convulsed violently, and before she could get a drink of water, hoping that would calm it, vomit erupted out of her mouth as though it had come from a fire hose. Because she kept her mouth closed, it sprayed through her teeth and came out her nose, choking her. It had the texture of oatmeal—a thick, black oatmeal, mostly liquid with mushy patches made of something she couldn’t identify.

  And the pain—it swept through her like an electric current. Every cell in her body had caught fire at the same time. But her head and her stomach were the worst. Her stomach was churning and growling, and every time she vomited, she felt as if the convulsions had torn a new hole in her stomach lining. And her head was pounding from a migraine that made her see stars. The light above her seemed harsh, and she flicked it off, then collapsed onto the bathroom floor in the dark.

  Michelle Billings finished up at the pool and went to the bar set up outside to have one more shot of tequila. A cute guy she’d been flirting with all day had gotten her room number, and they were going to meet up later for some time out on the strip.

  Of all the casinos, Michelle liked Caesar’s Palace the best. She thought the way the old statues and the neon flashing lights came together was cool, like a weird nightmare. But they’d stayed at the Monte Carlo because someone’s father was able to get them their room for free.

  After sucking on a lime, she threw the rind into her empty shot glass and headed back to the hotel room she was sharing with three other girls. Sharing a queen was not exactly the ideal situation for her, but it was kind of fun. It reminded her of sleepovers she and her sister had when they were kids.

  She walked into her room and shut the door behind her. “Hello?” No reply came, so she went in and collapsed onto the bed with a loud sigh. She closed her eyes and began to drift to sleep, but then she smelled something awful. The scent was like warm vomit that had been left out for days. She heard something from the bathroom.

  “Hello? Heidi, is that you?”

  She rose and walked over. The lights were off, and a streak of fear overcame her, giving her chills. Someone was on the floor. She flipped on the lights and screamed.

  Carrie was lying on her back in a pool of blood that didn’t seem real. The blood had spread across the bathroom tile like a wet rug and filled the corners. Congealed and curdling, it looked like gelatin.

  Carrie quivered, and a stream of blood came out of her mouth and ran down her already-bloodstained neck. Only the whites of her eyes were showing, and she was trembling.

  “Carrie!”

  Her body convulsed so violently that she kicked her legs. They hit Michelle in the ankle and she slipped on the blood and fell forward on the sink. Black vomit spewed from Carrie’s mouth, over Michelle’s back.

  Michelle pulled herself up using the sink and slipped in the putrid fluid, coating herself in it. Getting to her hands and knees, she crawled to the doorway and scrambled out of the room with an ear-piercing scream.

  48

  “Wait.”

  Samantha’s heart beat against her ribs like a sledgehammer. She was still young enough that the actual concrete fear of death hadn’t settled over her yet. She’d always been trying to prevent it in others or comforting those who had already lost people. She’d never had time to contemplate her own death. That one day, her life would be extinguished as easily as turning off a light had never entered her mind, until Robert Greyjoy was standing over her a month ago, telling her she was going to die. She had that same feeling again. Fate would flip a switch, and everything she was wouldn’t exist anymore.

  She had seen so much death in her life that it didn’t seem tangible. She’d seen entire villages wiped off the face of the earth by a single virus that could barely be seen under the most powerful of microscopes. Samantha had watched hemorrhaging children suffer for weeks in hospital beds with open sores before dying, and it had never dawned on her that it could happen to her. She thought she was immune from it somehow because she was the one taking care of them.

  She thought back to a young child in Nigeria who had lost both his parents to Ebola. He had watched them die and had still asked where they were days afterward. His mind had erased that memory because o
f the acute pain it caused. She wondered if any memories like that were floating around in her mind—things she repressed because she could not face the possibility that life could be nothing more than cruel, random chance.

  And, with a gun pointed at her heart, she wondered if she had led the life that she truly wanted.

  “Do you need a moment to prepare?” the man asked.

  “Would you give it to me if I did?”

  “Yes. I’m not a monster.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  He grinned and lowered the gun. “People always ask me why I’ve chosen them. Why they’re going to die. But you didn’t ask. It’s such a funny thing to see people expect good things in their life, that everything will turn out all right. We’re parasites drifting through black space on top of a rock, and people are shocked when bad things happen to them. I think it would be more appropriate if people were shocked when good things happened to them.”

  “I wouldn’t want to live that way—without hope.”

  “Hope was what was left in Pandora’s box. Maybe people’s lives aren’t meant to have hope.” He was silent a moment and then glanced back to Jane. “She’s quite lovely, even like this. They gave her a sedative after I came in here and she saw the gun. I told them I was her husband. She called out for you.”

  Emotion tugged at her, and she swallowed, hoping to keep it down. “Leave her alone.”

  “I only take a life when I’m paid or when it amuses me. Taking the life of an unconscious convalescent wouldn’t amuse me, and no one’s paying me to do it.”

  “How much are they paying you to take my life?”