But then they went quiet, too, and stared at the strapped-down bodies.
Shy pulled Carmen by the wrist and they moved from one body to the next, looking for Rodney. The patients were in various conditions. Some seemed alert and shouted at Shy and Carmen. Others had vomit all over their shirts and they moaned and twisted in pain. Others clawed frantically at their own thighs.
A few weren’t moving at all.
“No,” Shy started mumbling as he and Carmen continued through the rows of patients. “No, please.”
The men were after them again, shouting: “We have to get out of here before they come back!”
“There!” Carmen shouted. She was pointing to a cot in the far corner, where Rodney was lying, and they both rushed toward him.
Rodney’s face was turned toward the wall.
His eyes seemed open, but when Shy shook him he didn’t respond. Carmen turned Rodney’s head toward them, and Shy’s entire body went cold. The whites of his eyes were entirely red and fixed on nothing.
Carmen continued shaking Rodney and calling out his name, until Shy grabbed her by the wrists and said: “Let’s go.”
As the men dragged Carmen and Shy back through the room, Shy stared at each body they passed. Everyone in the penthouse was infected with Romero Disease. And some, like Rodney, were already dead.
And they’d been left there to rot.
46
Two Paths Along the Cliffs
After the two men led Shy and Carmen out of the penthouse, they hurried down the stairs together in shock. “How’d it get way out here?” Carmen said. “And why has nobody told us?”
“I need to get the duffel bag,” Shy said. “And find Christian. The shot we got has to have something to do with the disease. Like a vaccine.”
“There is no vaccine.”
“Then why haven’t you gotten sick?” Shy said. She glanced at him as they continued down the stairs, but she didn’t say anything. Nothing made sense. A few minutes ago they were excited to be going home. Now there were people on the island with Romero Disease. And Rodney was gone. And they’d just left him there.
“The bag had pills, too,” Shy said. “Maybe it’s the kind of medicine they gave my nephew.”
“What’s happening!” Carmen shouted. “Did you feel how cold Rodney’s arm was? Did you see his eyes?”
Shy stopped her as they got to the bottom of the stairs. “I know where Shoeshine hid the duffel. We have to get the meds on the ship or the rest of the patients will die before we get home. I’ll get Shoe. He has to know more than what he told me.”
“I’ll find Christian,” Carmen said. “He’s about to explain why everyone’s been lying to us. I’ll get Marcus, too.”
Shy looked out across the lobby, where a few passengers were lounging on the couches, talking, laughing. They had no idea that people just a few floors above them were dying. “I’ll meet you back here before six, okay? So we can line up for the ship together.”
Carmen nodded. “It doesn’t make any sense, Shy. Why would they lie to us?”
All he could do was shake his head.
Before leaving the hotel, Shy hurried to Addie’s room and knocked on the door. Her dad’s company had to know about the disease. How else would there be a bagful of the vaccine and medicine? And Shy was sure that was what he’d found on the motorboat. He remembered Addie saying LasoTech made hospital equipment. But if they had scientists who worked in a lab, it only made sense that they’d make drugs, too. Maybe they’d been working on a way to protect people from Romero Disease.
He knocked again and called out: “Addie, open the door! It’s Shy!”
When there was still no answer he hurried back through the lobby, pushed open the doors and went outside. He made his way back to the top of the stairs, where he saw the helicopter slowly lifting off the ship. He watched it lean to the side and start moving away from the island; he wondered who was in there and why they’d be leaving ahead of the ship.
Shy skipped down a few stairs and sifted through the bushes where Shoeshine had hidden the duffel bag, but it wasn’t there. Someone had taken it. Maybe Shoeshine.
He stood up again and watched the flight of the helicopter, trying to figure out what was happening. He kept picturing Rodney’s lifeless face. His blood-red eyes. And everyone else who was strapped down to cots in the penthouse. The minute he’d found those dead scientists in the ocean he’d known something bad was happening here. But he never would’ve guessed it involved Romero Disease.
Shy took the trail beyond the gazebo, which led him higher up the cliff, through dense trees and bushes, around large boulders and exposed roots. He had no idea where he was going, he just knew he needed to find Shoeshine. And the last time he’d seen the guy he’d been headed in this direction.
He came upon a few of the researchers, who were spraying the bushes and trees with some kind of squirt bottle. They didn’t even look up, so Shy scooted right past them. When the path broke off into a Y, he chose the route that led farther up the hill. His lungs burned as he climbed. His legs felt like Jell-O. But he had to make sure the duffel bag got on the ship. And he had to talk to Shoeshine.
Shy glanced up as he ran. The sun was already dropping from the sky. He only had about an hour and a half before he had to get back to the hotel. He tried to pick up his speed.
The land leveled out and the path began to narrow. Shy kept running, ducking under tree limbs, leaping over puddles. The faster he ran, though, the more his mind flooded with questions. How had the disease gotten all the way out to the island? Was someone on the cruise ship sick? One of the hotel workers? And where were the two scientists going on that motorboat with the duffel bag? And who shot them?
Shy didn’t notice that the path came to an abrupt end until the last second. He tried to stop, but his momentum made him slide through the dirt. At the very edge of the cliff he grabbed a thick tree branch to keep himself from falling.
He looked down, his heart climbing into his throat as he watched the rocks he’d just kicked tumble fifty, sixty feet, into the ocean. He’d survived giant waves, a sinking cruise ship, circling sharks, only to almost fall off a cliff. He squatted down to catch his breath.
There was a large clearing to the right. A cement platform that looked like a helicopter launchpad. To the left he saw what had to be the flooded lab sticking up out of the ocean. A tall security fence wrapped all the way around it.
No sign of Shoeshine.
Shy doubled back to the Y in the path and was starting down the other route when he heard someone calling his name. He stopped and turned around. It was Bill, limping up out of the brush, using a stick as a cane. “Shy! I’ve been looking all over for you!”
“Me?” Shy answered. “Why?” He looked around to see if anyone else was there. Even after the nice things the guy had said about him during lunch, Shy still didn’t trust him.
“I wanted to thank you personally,” Bill said. He was wearing a generic baseball cap now and a green backpack. He looked kind of scratched-up from walking through the brush. “I meant what I said back at the restaurant. I wouldn’t be here if you and your friend hadn’t pulled me out from under that chandelier.”
“Anyone would’ve done it,” Shy said cautiously. He needed to shake this guy and continue looking for Shoeshine.
“But it wasn’t anyone. It was you.” Bill pulled off his cap, ran his fingers through his hair and put it back on. “What’s the matter, Shy? You seem upset. Everyone else back at the hotel is so excited to be going home.”
“That’s ’cause they haven’t been up to the penthouse,” Shy fired back. He was sick of all the secrecy. It was time for people to start being straight with each other. “There are people dying up there, man. And nobody’s telling us shit.”