I need a hole.
The blue sawhorse barricades are still in front of the school on 9th, but the cop car is gone. Five-thirty A.M. traffic is on the streets, but I can't worry about that; I'm less than an hour from getting burned down. I edge between two of the sawhorses and walk hunched over to the door. There's a new chain and padlock. I'm far too weak to break it or to force the thick double doors. I won't be scaling the side of the wall, either. Maybe if I didn't have the cramps I could shimmy up a drainpipe. If I try it as I am I'll probably get hit with a cramp halfway up and fall a couple stories onto my head. That might be just enough to solve all my problems. Instead I start checking the ground floor windows. The steel screens on almost all of them have suffered some form of abuse over the years. It doesn't take long to find one where the lower right bracket has been wrenched from the brickwork.
The corner of the screen can be pulled up, but only a few inches, not enough for me to squeeze through. I squat, get a grip on it with both hands and push up with my legs and arms. The screen is made from heavy-gauge steel that's gridded in a pattern like chicken wire, the edges sharp prongs. They dig into the palms of my hands, popping holes through the photograph I hadn't realized I was still holding. The screen starts to bend. From down the street I hear the rumble of a sanitation truck. Just a few yards away from me on the sidewalk is a huge mound of trash. A cramp hits and tries to cut my legs out from under me. My knees buckle slightly and the screen starts to spring back. The truck's air brakes blast and squeal as it slows, approaching the abandoned school. I squeeze my eyes shut, muscling the screen upward, and its spiked edge pops through the skin of my hands just like it did the photograph. The cramp bundles my organs, trying to curl me into myself. The screen wrenches upward, leaving a gap perhaps large enough for me to wriggle through. I pull my hands free of the prongs as the truck grinds to a halt behind me, smash them against the window, grab the jagged-edged sill and pull myself up. Broken glass digs at my belly, offering awful relief from the cramps. My upper body flops inside and my pants get caught on the screen. I tear them loose, using my forearms to pull myself along the floor and into the empty schoolroom. I writhe to my knees on broken glass and peek out the window at the sanitation guys climbing off the truck. I reach out and lace my fingers through the holes in the screen and pull. It's easier to drag back down than it was to push up, and I get it close enough to the window that maybe it won't be noticed from the street. That done, I stick my fingers past the broken shards of glass and pull the bloody photograph from the bloody barbs.
Then I fall down.
The cramps have become a huge hand that tangles its fingers in my intestines and balls itself into a fist. I crawl, leaving bloody smears on the floor from my oozing hands, and find the basement door. I look at the stairs, then let gravity tumble me down. I want to stay at the foot of the stairs in a tangled mess of blood and glass and cracked bones. Instead I take advantage of the fist relaxing for a moment and get to my feet. Anyone coming into the school will see the bloody handprints on the floor and follow them to the basement. I need my hole. I stuff my hands into my armpits to keep more blood from dribbling on the floor, and memory leads me through the rank blackness. I make it to the old storage room, shoulder the door open and fall behind a pile of the broken and graffitied desks, just as the fist squeezes closed.
Fuckmefuckmefuckme. Please! Makeit! Stop!
– Hey?
Stopstopstopstopstop!
– Hey.
Pleasepleasepleaseplease!
– Get out of here.
Nonononono!
– This is my place, you got to get out.
– No. Just. Just fucking leave me aughhhlone!
– No, asshole, you have to get out. I… Shit, you're fucked up.
The fist starts to relax, my intestines slowly slipping from its fingers. I open my eyes.
She's squatting a few yards away, shining a flashlight on me; the girl whose picture is clutched in my lacerated hand.
She points at my face.
– The cops do that to you? '
– No.
– No?
– No.
She points at the top of my head.
– What's that?
I reach up to feel whatever she's pointing at and the loose cuff hanging from my left wrist knocks me in the chin.
She shakes her head.
– But the cops didn't do that to you.
– No.
– Uh-huh. Well, whatever. You still have to get out of here.
– You got the lease on the place?
– Yeah, right. No, I don't have the lease. But it's my hideout. Find your own.
I touch my face.
– Can't really see myself walking around much right now.
– Why? You said the cops aren't after you.
– I need to stay here.
She stands up.
– You are being such an asshole. Look, you can't stay here. OK?
– I. Hungh.
The fingers start to tighten again. I pull my knees up against my chest.
– Oh, maaan. You're a junkie aren't you? You starting to jones? Here.
She pulls something out of her pocket and holds it out to me. A twenty-dollar bill.
– Go get a bag and fix. Just do it somewhere else.
– I. Uhn. I'm not. Augh.
She takes a step back.
– Don't throw up in here. Do not puke in here!
I clench my teeth, shaking my head back and forth; not at her but at what's happening inside me. She steps closer, shoves the toe of one of her Nikes under my ass and starts trying to shove me toward the door.
– Out. Get out!
My gut ripples and I heave up a final dribble of bile that lands on her sneaker.
– Gross! So gross! Get out!
She's kicking me now. The point of her toe hitting the side of my stomach is a new agony. I reach out to block her foot and the picture falls from my hand and cartwheels to the floor. She looks down at it, at the blood-smeared image of herself. I hold a hand up.
– Aughm! Amandahungh.
She bolts for the door. I grab the cuff of her jeans. She stops, lifts her other foot and steps on my arm.
– Let go!
I keep my grip and she tries to rip her leg free and trips herself onto the floor.
– I'm gonna scream! I'm gonna!
She starts screaming and reaches down, clawing at my hand, trying to pry my fingers loose from her jeans. I grab her wrist.
SNAP!
She stops screaming and stares at the cuff I have ratcheted onto her, chaining her right wrist to my left.
– That is so wrong.
– Take it off.
– I don't have the key.
– Gaaaud. So lame.
We're sitting next to each other, our backs against the wall. The cramps haven't hit me for five minutes and I'm starting to hope I might be in the lull.
– Let me see that.
She reaches for the photograph still lying on the floor.
– Don't touch it.
Her hand stops.
– Why not? It's of me.
– The blood, don't get it on you.
– Whatever.
She picks it up by the edges. It doesn't matter, really. The Vyrus can't survive outside a host. But it bothers me, seeing her fingers graze the blood, knowing what was recently living in it.
– I can't believe they gave you this.
She drops it on the floor.
– How'd you find me? You talk to that Dobbs creep?
– Sort of.
– Talk about lame. That guy doesn't have a clue.
– No, he doesn't.
– Doesn't matter. I'm not going back.
I rattle the cuffs.
– Yeah, you are.
She rolls her head to the side and looks at me.