Pandemic Page 115

Sofia went rigid. Her unblinking eyes stared at him.

She was burning up. A fever. Not as bad as Jeff’s had been in the boiler room, but still, a bad one.

Cooper let go of her head. He helped her to her feet. She winced as she stood. He pointed to the man in the cook’s uniform.

She leaned in close, spoke in a hissing whisper. “Is he asleep?”

“I think so.”

“Shoot him.”

“What? No, we need to get out of here. If we shoot him, it’ll make noise, maybe bring others.”

The sleeping man coughed again, this time much harder, the lung-ripping sound pulling his body into a fetal position.

Cooper thought about throwing Sofia over his shoulder, making a run for the door. He thought about it a moment too long: the cook sat up.

Cooper drew the pistol and pointed it at the man’s chest.

Just shoot him, just shoot him now — but what if he’s not one of them?

The man had reddish-brown spots all over his white uniform. Cooper knew those stains weren’t from preparing some dish in the kitchen.

The man looked at the gun. Then at Cooper. Then at Sofia.

“Are you guys friends?”

That word again. Friends. When the bald man had thought Cooper was his friend, everything had been fine. Maybe Cooper could bulls.h.i.t his way through this — maybe he wouldn’t have to murder this man.

“We’re friends,” Cooper said. “We’re all friends here.”

The man wiped his white sleeve across his nose; the fabric came away streaked with red. Sweat gleamed on the cook’s face and forehead. He sniffed deeply, the sound choked by snot clogging his sinuses.

“I’m all stuffed up,” he said. “Can’t smell a thing. If you’re a friend, why you pointing that gun at me?”

The man had obviously come in here looking for a place to sleep. He hadn’t bothered to look behind the tables — Cooper and Sofia had been lucky.

“My name is Chavo,” the cook said. “What’s yours?”

Chavo. Cooper hadn’t wanted to know the man’s name, hadn’t wanted to think about him as a person.

“Don’t worry about our names,” Cooper said. “How long have you been in here?”

Chavo shrugged. “Since sometime last night. We were taking care of business.” He smiled when he said it. Taking care of business meant killing people.

He stuck out his tongue, showing the blue triangles that dotted the pink surface. The man’s smile widened as his tongue slid back into his mouth.

“See? I can prove I’m a friend.”

Cooper felt Sofia squeeze his arm.

“Shoot this f.u.c.ker,” she said.

Chavo started coughing again, his fist at his mouth, his body nearly convulsing, yet his eyes never left Sofia.

He pointed at her. “She’s not a friend.”

The man lifted his right knee and planted his foot as if to stand.

Cooper leveled the pistol at Chavo’s face.

“Don’t you f.u.c.king move.”

Sofia’s fingers dug into his left bicep, so hard they felt like dull metal needles that couldn’t quite penetrate the skin.

“Shoot this f.u.c.k,” she said. “Waste him before he calls for help!”

Her hands let go of his bicep; Cooper felt them grabbing for the gun.

He used his free arm to keep her away. “Sofia, stop!”

Chavo stood and ran for the door. His hands reached for the horizontal bar, hit it, knocked the door open.

He made it one step out before the gun fired twice, bam-bam, the second shot surprising Cooper even more than the first.

The man lurched forward, landed hard on his face and chest.

Cooper felt stunned … he’d just shot a man in the back. He hadn’t thought, he’d just done it.

Chavo wasn’t dead. His arms came up, hands pressed against the floor — he started to crawl. Two spots of red spread across the back of his white uniform.

Cooper saw Chavo’s chest fill with a big breath, saw the man’s head tilt back …

“Killlll them! They’re in here!”

He shouldn’t be able to scream, I shot him in the back, he should be dead …

Sofia yanked the gun from his hand.

She limped toward the door, one hand pressed to her side, the other holding the pistol.

Chavo crawled a little farther. His belly left smears of blood on the carpet.

Sofia reached him. She put the gun to the back of his head and fired. Chavo’s face flopped onto the carpet. He stopped moving.

Cooper ran to Sofia, stood next to her. Blood soaked into the carpet beneath Chavo’s face — or what was left of his face — a thick stain that slowly spread outward.

Sofia sagged against Cooper, weakly held the gun up for him to take. “You’ve got five bullets left,” she said. “Try not to be … be such a p.u.s.s.y … okay?”

She started to fall; he slid an arm around her waist, held her up. He could feel her heat even through her clothes. He had to get her to a hospital, find a doctor or something.

Cooper took the gun from her hand. He stared down at the dead man.

Then, he heard the roar.

It was a sound both human and not, a sound that carried through the hall. It came from somewhere off to the right. Then, from the left, a man answering with a guttural shout.

Cooper again looked at Chavo’s body. The blood streaks pointed back to the door, like an arrow that said the people you want to kill are in here.