As soon as she disappeared behind the door, Gabriel shuffled down the hall to Morris’s room. He cracked open the door and cautiously peered inside. The lights were off, and the odors of rubbing alcohol, blood, and decay wafted out.

Morris lay in the bed, hooked up to an IV and a feeding tube. A catheter bag dangled beside the mattress. The disgusting maze of black veins covering his skin occasionally throbbed, and every time it did, Morris let out a short, gasping breath that sounded like rocky sand passing through a metal pipe. But the eyes–those horrifying, satanic-looking balls of coal—were the worst part. Whenever Morris blinked, his eyeballs slithered.

“Hey, Detective!” Dana Kleznowski shouted down the hall.

Gabriel jumped a little and stepped back from the door. Dana was a cute twenty-seven-year-old LPN with obsessive-compulsive nail-biting habits, a willowy figure, and what might be anemia. She ran over and closed the door. Her round freckled face was flushed red.

“Dude.” She touched his shoulder. “It’s nice to see ya, but what are you doing up on North?”

He shrugged. “Observing.”

“Um, yeah. You know that we’re not supposed to let anyone near that poor guy’s room, right? And I don’t want you getting infected with that crap, too.”

“Understandable. I’ll go, then.”

He retreated back to South Wing. He tried to keep his feet on solid ground while his mind reached up to the clouds. He had to remain balanced, fair, and logical. He had plenty of thinking to do.

Chapter 10:

Coils

“You were right,” Gabriel said.

The lights were dimmed in Bright New Day’s front lobby. Gabriel was the only person in the room, and he stood before one of the bay windows, staring at the tumbling waves of the inaccessible beach below.

“Good,” the slug said. “If you don’t mind me saying so, it’s about time you came around to the truth.”

Gabriel rested his forehead on the cool glass, right next to where the leopard-printed slug had affixed itself. The half-moon painted a radiant white line across the ocean. Clouds threatened to overtake the moon, but its colorless light burned through them.

“Gabriel?” The slug wriggled its black antennas.

Gabriel glanced at it. While he had been staring out the window, the slug had been joined by a small group of friends, six of them, all different colors and sizes. Gabriel considered getting a nurse and testing to see if other people saw or heard the slugs, but he decided that would be too risky. Oh, poor Mr. Schist. You’re hallucinating? Maybe we should book you a room on Level Five.

“Is he even listening?” an albino slug whispered, shaking its white faceless head.

“Oh, he always listens,” Leopard Print replied. “He just doesn’t always reply. Isn’t that correct, Gabriel?”

“I swear, he’s not listening.”

“Don’t doubt the Schist man,” an inky black slug said. “He’ll make the right choices. You’ll see.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I can hear you. Unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately!” The black slug chortled. “Look at ’im go. That Schist man cracks me up.”

Gabriel’s knees jittered, and he leaned heavily on his cane. Two weeks had passed since the first incident of the Black Virus, and it was gaining traction. So far, there were six cases within the walls of Bright New Day. Strict quarantine was being enforced on all of them, and they weren’t letting any residents off the premises. A white van had been sitting outside the nursing home since John Morris got hit, and Gabriel suspected that it wasn’t going anywhere. He checked the news daily, and so far, there had still been no coverage.

The sixth case had occurred only a few hours ago. The new victim, a tiny old lady with a long chin and a frizzy perm, had been carried through the halls on a stretcher. Her name was Joan Michaels, but that didn’t matter anymore; the Black Virus robbed a person of their identity. All personal quirks and mannerisms disappeared. Once the violent initial reaction was done, she became the same bedbound zombie as the others. No one had actually died yet, but Gabriel imagined that the first death wasn’t far off.

“Look, he’s obviously not paying a lick of attention to us,” the albino slug said. “He’s just staring out the window again.”

“He’s thinking,” Leopard Print replied. Gabriel was coming to respect the slug’s serenity. “Gabriel is an introverted thinking type. What do you expect?”

“No. Look how dazed he is. Look how milky his eyes are.”

“He’s in there,” a yellow-spotted slug said. “He’s always in there. He’s a genius, remember?”

“Yeah, a genius. Oookay.” Albino groaned.

“I’m here,” Gabriel said. “I’m listening. I’ve been trying to get answers about this virus. I’ve been asking all of the nurses, and no one gives me a straight story because they’ve been ordered to call it a goddamn flu. Tell me, what the hell do you expect me to do?”

The slugs stopped moving around. They’d left slimy trails across the glass. All of their antennas turned up to him.

“Whoa,” Albino said.

“Gabriel, my friend,” Leopard Print said, “we’d all prefer that you don’t feign ignorance here. You’re far too intelligent to pull it off. You know exactly what you must do.”

Gabriel arched an eyebrow. “Do I? And, pray tell, why do a bunch of alien slugs care so much about humanity?”

Leopard Print inched closer. “You have to combat this Black Virus. You must—”

“Combat?” Albino laughed, its tone reminiscent of a troublemaking high school student. “Ha! C’mon. You make it sound like he’s picking up a sword and slaying a dragon. Combat. Yeeeeesh.”

“Go on,” Gabriel told Leopard Print. “And the rest of you keep quiet. Especially you”—he pointed—“the white one.”

Leopard Print crawled closer and raised its antennas. “Yes, Gabriel. As I said, you must combat the Black Virus. Research it with whatever tools are at your disposal. We want to protect humanity from this outbreak, but in order to stop the Black Virus, we need your help.”

“Help? How am I supposed to help stop a virus?”

“Because you are the one who created the HIV vaccine.”

“Yes, but that was a long time ago. I’m not that man anymore.”

“You’re still Gabriel Schist, aren’t you? You’re the Nobel Prize-winning creator of the Schist Vaccine, the only man in the world who has the astonishing brain needed to solve this problem. Should I go on?”

Feeling thirsty, Gabriel stepped back and glanced at the water cooler. He didn’t want to look outside anymore since the moon had finally been overtaken by the clouds. “Pardon my French, but this is absolute bullsh—”

“There’s no need to be coarse.”

“This is bullshit. Listen, slug. In case you aren’t yet aware, I have a degenerative disease. A cognitive disorder that has filled my brain with more holes than a wedge of Swiss cheese. I can’t…” Gabriel’s heart rate had gone ballistic. He took several deep, calming breaths and plopped down in the nearest armchair. He reached over and took a tiny paper cup from the top of the water cooler then filled it. When he took a drink, he found the temperature to be nauseatingly warm. It was pathetically unsatisfying. What he really needed was a beer.

“I’m sorry.” He refilled his cup. “I honestly wish I could do something. But I’m not capable of doing what you want me to do. You might as well ask any of the nutcases on the Level Five unit to handle test tubes, for all the good that I can do.”

“That’s not true. You’re far more capable than you feel you are.”

“Feel?” Gabriel snorted. “Feelings are irrelevant here. No, I’m actually far less capable than I think I am. Just this morning, I walked out of my room with my shirt on backwards.”

“Stop berating yourself. Self-debasement is an utterly narcissistic waste of time, and due to the nature of your particular mental disease, we don’t have much time to waste, now do we? So listen, Gabriel. I’m going to put this in terms you can better understand. We’re not favoring you out of any particular fondness. We aren’t some fan club. The fact is, you are the only one who can help.”