Monster Nation(77)

Mael might own most of her soul, she decided, but not all of it. The dog had done nothing to hurt her. She wouldn't kill it just for being annoying.

Still. The damned dog wouldn't stop barking. Someone would come looking to find out what was going on.

She got up and she moved, taking the boy's brown baseball cap with her. She thought it would shade her eyes and help hide her face. She moved quickly, almost running'faster than she'd been, more nimble than since the day she died. The boy's life energy thrummed through her, his gold coursing down the wires of her nerves. She stuck to the shadows, trying to look inconspicuous whenever she passed through a patch of streetlight.

Behind her in the darkness the dog stopped barking. She heard gunshots'the boy. They had found the boy she'd eaten, what was left of him, and put him down like a rabid animal. She only hoped no one had recognized him before they started shooting.

She felt an irrational urge to go back and check. Stupid, she knew. She kept moving, though she spared a glance over her shoulder to see if anyone was pursuing her. Nothing there but dim shadows and the watery reflections of streetlights in dull windows, the orange pulse of aDON'T WALK signal that suddenly turned white. She turned around to get moving again and'

'Hey! Hey, you, come over here!'

Nilla froze in place.

Three men wearing brown caps stood at the back of a panel truck. The lettersLVCC had been stenciled on the driver's side door. Two of them men wore surgical masks and latex gloves. The other one was staring at her with hot eyes.

'I f*cking told you, get over here! I'm not waiting around all night while you figure that one out, *. Come on.'

Nilla moved toward him. He had scars from a childhood illness all over his face and very long eyelashes. He had a gun holstered at his hip. If she didn't act fast enough, if she didn't strike hard enough he was going to kill her and even then, even if she took him down she had to worry about his two friends. This was it'the chainlink fence at the end of the dark alley. Endgame.

'Here,' he said, and shoved something at her. A mask and a pair of latex gloves. 'You're on Plague Patrol tonight. I don't care what you were doing before, I'm three men short and I've got a schedule to meet.'

Nilla had no idea what was going on but she pulled the mask over her mouth and nose. Maybe he wouldn't be able to see what she was through the thick paper. She fumbled with the gloves but managed to get them on somehow.

'Okay, up there, the balcony there. You take units B through G. It looks like it's going to be a bad one, tonight.' A feathery thin layer of sympathy in his voice startled her. 'St. Rose Dominican is already full up. We'll need to take this bunch all the way out to UMC.' Nilla looked up and saw a split-level apartment complex with a red tile roof. The doors looked close together, each separated from the next by a single rectangular window. Blue flickering light came from most of the windows'probably the wavering campfire glow of television sets.

'I'I've never'' Nilla stammered.

'Christ, you've never been on Plague Patrol before? Well, it's pretty simple. You go in there and you see somebody who's sick, you drag them back down here and they go in the truck. They give you any trouble and I'll shoot them for you. Think you can handle that?'

Nilla nodded, knowing she couldn't handle it at all but also knowing she wasn't being given an actual option. She turned away without further comment and started up the stairs to the complex's second level.

'Jesus Fuck. The Chamber will take anybody these days, won't they?'

He wasn't talking to her. Nilla approached a door markedB and knocked. There was no answer but she could hear the television set inside blaring away so she knocked again, much louder. Finally she tried the knob and found the door unlocked. She stepped inside onto seafoam green shag carpeting littered with twists of paper tissue. Blood flecked some of them a dark rose red.

The tv played an old cowboy movie. John Wayne or somebody shooting two-handed from the back of a horse. Its ghostly blue light was the only illumination in the room.

Nilla moved through a filthy kitchenette'dishes in the sink full of dried-up rice grains, refrigerator chugging unhappily'and down a short hallway toward a bedroom. 'Hello?' she called out. No answer, of course. The bedside table was covered in plastic bottles of over-the-counter medication.

Mael had mentioned 'poisoning the waters' with Dick. Was it really this bad, that armed thugs had to cart off the sick to avoid massive outbreaks of disease? Nilla could think of few things worse than the dead coming back to life to devour the living. A widespread pandemic of disease might fit the bill.