“We’re rabid beasts, Basilio,” Eric muttered, knowing the dying sailor couldn’t hear him. “We turn on each other every chance we get. We can’t help ourselves! Take these shitty islands. What’s the first thing the survivors did? Kill each other! We’re on the brink of goddamn civil war, if you believe the media! Those monsters took away the little humanity we had left. At least die with some fucking dignity!”
The door opened behind him. He gave a mock salute and stepped into the little room. Although clouded by death, Basilio’s eyes followed him, his vision growing more and more blurred. His brain was dying, but coursing through his veins were thousands of tiny beings that were multiplying like crazy in his warm body. In a few hours, a new Basilio would arise. But Eric Desauss wouldn’t be around to see that.
The Belgian pressed the button and immediately the jet of disinfectant enveloped him. The liquid burned as it washed over the gash in his calf. He was shocked to see a large, bloody hole in the pant leg of the suit. His fingers clumsy in the hazmat gloves, he lifted up the torn fabric and inspected a string of evenly spaced puncture wounds.
The sweat on his skin froze. He muttered to himself, “One of those fucking beakers must’ve cut me. Yeah, that’s gotta be it. When that last SOB flew across the table, a million glass tubes broke. One of them must’ve sliced my leg. Yeah, that’s it.” His voice didn’t sound as confident as he’d like, but it made him relax a bit.
Breathing easier, Eric waited patiently for the disinfectant shower to end. When the red light went off, the Belgian pushed the outer door open and headed back into the hallway. Still wearing the suit, he slipped through the security door that Basilio had blown to pieces and walked calmly out of the demolished lab.
A few feet before he reached the guard post, he met up with a ragtag crew of civilians and military guards racing down the hall.
“In the lab! A guy with a gun! And a girl! They shot up the place! I got away but there’re still people inside!”
“Shit, not the Zoo! Hope they didn’t reach the Zoo!” The highest ranking soldier turned pale. “Are you all right, Doctor?”
“A bullet grazed the back of my leg,” Eric lied convincingly, pointing to his bloody leg. “It’s just a scratch. I’ll get one of the other doctors to take a look at it.”
“Of course, Doctor. They’ll patch you up on the next floor. The Froilists made a real mess, but everything’s calmer now.” The officer turned to his men. “Let’s go, but be careful. If the doors to the Zoo are open, shoot first and ask questions later. Got it?”
The group trotted off to the lab. With a smirk, Eric took off his hazmat suit, leaned it against the guard post, brushed his sweat-soaked hair off his face, then hobbled through the metal detector. The throbbing pain in his leg grew worse with every step.
Two minutes later, Eric went through the hospital doors. The place was in complete chaos. Dozens of soldiers rushed in and out, and long lines of patients in pajamas were crowded together on the sidewalk. Whistling through his teeth, he walked downtown, limping slightly.
Maybe I should disinfect it when I get home. What the hell, it’s just a fucking cut.
You know perfectly well it’s not a cut, asshole, howled the reasonable, logical part of his mind. It’s a fucking bite. And you know you should shoot yourself in the head right now, motherfucker.
No, I’m sure it’s just a cut. I clearly remember—some flying glass cut me.
You’re lying to yourself! yelled the little voice, but weaker this time.
Eric had heard voices since he was fourteen and had learned to tune them out. It can wait.
Eric realized he desperately needed a drink. What a fucking great idea! It was the Mother of All Brilliant Ideas. A couple of drinks would numb the pain in his leg. Maybe they’d even warm up his balls, which fear had turned to ice. And stop the voice in his head that wouldn’t fucking let him think straight, that was screaming about the millions of little shepherd’s crooks multiplying in his leg. Hell, it was worth a try.
For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost.
For want of a single, fucking nail.
41
The lower floors of that hospital were in shambles in contrast to the deathly serene bunker and command center the first floor had been transformed into. As Prit and I walked silently, side by side, I figured his mind—like mine—was crowded with memories of the day we ventured into Meixoeiro Hospital, exhausted and half-dead. It felt like we were returning to the scene of a crime.
Our dwindling group made its way quickly, only stopping for Tank to glance at his map. Occasionally we came across some Undead, but the soldiers on point mowed them down with lethal efficiency. From the center of the group, Prit and I didn’t have to fire our weapons once.
We made our way down one hallway after another until we came to the medical supply room. I figured it would have a heavy, armored door since those medications were valuable and scarce, but there was just a double wooden door with a simple lock that looked like it would fall open if you just looked at it. The soldier in the lead kicked that door wide open to reveal a vast room with rows and rows of shelves, and thousands of neatly arranged boxes of medicines.
“This is huge! There must be tons of medicines. We can’t take it all!” I protested.
“We don’t want to take it all,” Pauli replied as she rushed past me. “Just what’s on the commander’s list.”
Marcelo added, “Just the reagents.” His gaze flew down a shelf, then he tossed me a plastic bottle that I caught in midair. “They’re the most important.”
“Why?” I asked, cramming those boxes and bottles into my backpack.
“We need them to make our own medicines. If we take back a lot of reagents, we won’t have to come back here.”
“I’m all for that!” Prit’s mustache flapped up and down as he nodded and stuffed box after box into his backpack.
It took just fifteen minutes to fill our backpacks with medicines and the reagents. The list had a bit of everything on it: antibiotics, opiates, stimulants. I didn’t have a clue what most of those things were. To save space, we took the medicines out of their boxes and tossed them on the floor. The mountain of empties grew. Sitting on one of those mountains like a Buddha, Broto took bottles out of a bin, examined them, then pitched them over his shoulder. When he found what he was looking for, he shouted for joy.
“Great! I was afraid I wasn’t going to find these.” He leapt to his feet and came over to us, unscrewing the lid of a bottle. He popped a couple of nondescript, white pills into his mouth, looking very pleased with himself, then handed me the bottle.
“Want some? You’ll be glad you did.”
“What are they?” I asked suspiciously.
“Methamphetamines, my friend,” Broto said with a wink. “It’s the best buzz. You’re not sleepy or hungry or thirsty, and you’re more alert than an Indian scout.”
I didn’t want any drugs in my body, so I shook my head, but Prit eagerly took a couple of the pills. He swallowed one and held the other out to me.
“Don’t be stupid. Take it,” he said sternly. “If it helps right now, it’s a good thing, even if it’s speed. We don’t know what we’ll face in the next few hours.”
I understood the Ukrainian’s logic and swallowed the pill. I didn’t feel anything, but I assumed it would take a while to feel the effects.