“Oh?” Yvonne raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, he is! Gabe here, he’s a li’l bit older since he started late, but he’s taking classes to be, uh… some kinda scientist, right?”

“Sure.” Gabriel lowered his gaze, tearing loose a section of his orange and eating it. “Yes, I’m studying immunology, virology, and applied mathematics. I have a—”

“He wants to cure a disease that doesn’t even exist yet! How cool is that, huh?”

“Um, yes, I believe that we’re inches away from the beginning of a new epidemic, and I want to halt it in its tracks. So as a result… well, okay, so I have a special interest in a concept called autopoiesis.”

Yvonne could barely contain her glee. “Autopoiesis, huh?” The surfer-turned-scientist had instantaneously jumped from a fun fling to a potential soul mate.

Though the other two boys had sat across from Yvonne on the sand, the scientist was still awkwardly stepping back and forth as if he’d missed his opportunity to sit with them. “Do you know of it?” he asked.

“Nope. Tell me?”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “Well, autopoiesis is a complex idea.”

“So? I’m always up for gaining new knowledge. What interests you about it?”

“I want to figure out how I can apply the concept to modern medicine.” His eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “I’ve been studying the immune system since I was a kid. It’s fascinating stuff. I’m more than ready to get the ball moving on my research, but without the proper funding that would be available to me if I had the right degree—” He suddenly stopped speaking.

She wondered why until she looked at the faces of his two friends. Their expressions were bored, and they were obviously completely uninterested. They admired his talents, but they didn’t want to actually hear about his boring subject. Yvonne resisted the urge to snap at them for making him feel bad, just as her friends in Wyoming had always done to her. Even though she’d just met him, she felt intensely protective toward him.

“But mainly I just like drinking,” he said, smiling weakly. “Having a good time, partying, getting drunk.” He reached down into the cooler for a can of Budweiser, popped it open, and took a big swig. “Yeah.”

But he didn’t fool her. She’d seen behind his shield. There he was, a man with a fiery passion, and no one wanted to listen. No one understood. He was alone. She knew exactly what he felt like.

“Well, hey,” she said, standing. “I have to run, guys. Sorry. But before I go…” She pulled a notepad and a pen out of her bag and wrote down her new number. She tore off the slip of paper and handed it to Gabriel. “Give me a call sometime.” She touched his bare arm. “I want to hear more about your studies.”

His face lit up like a rising sun. She spun and hurried away, laughing and letting her beach wrap trail behind her like a cape. She knew the two other boys would probably think she was insane. They wouldn’t understand. But the other one just might.

She stopped to look back. Gabriel was looking at her as if she was the most beautiful, most amazing thing he’d ever seen in his life.

“Hey!” she called out. “Mr. Scientist, sir! When can I expect to hear from you?”

He grinned. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Chapter 12:

Dissonance

Spring 2018

The rooms of the infected were flagged. Their closed doors were marked with a simple black circle cut from black construction paper and affixed with scotch tape. No one explained the circle or even talked about it, but everyone fully understood what it represented.

Since his conversation with the slugs, Gabriel had spent the last hour wandering the darkened corridors of the nursing home until his knees felt rusty and broken. The hallway lights went off at nine thirty, as usual, and the halls took on a dark, ghostly appearance. Most of the other residents were in bed, and those that wandered at night, like him, weren’t communicative.

Growing tired of his restless search for a cognitive lightning bolt, he returned to South Wing. Tap. Tap. He walked by Bob Baker’s room and glanced inside.

Baker had a blanket pulled up over his face and was busy shouting at the imaginary voices in his head. “Nooooope! I’m tellin’ you this for the third time. I don’t want no goddamn third pillow. Noooope!”

As Gabriel passed Edna’s room, he was startled by a feeble, piercing cry.

“Mommmmyyy… Mommmyyy… please, Mommmmmyyy…” Edna had thrown her wrinkly white legs over the side of her bed. Her eyes were milky-colored moons, devoid of their usual intensity. The nighttime cries were common behavior for Edna. Her cognitive issues always worsened in the late hours, a tendency among dementia patients that the nurses referred to as sundowning. Gabriel looked over his shoulder, but he didn’t see any LNAs to flag down.

“Mommmyyy. I’m gonna miss the school bus, Mommy.”

He considered helping her back into bed, but with all the nurses on pins and needles over the virus, going into a woman’s room at night would only get him in trouble. He went back down the blue corridor, took a left turn, and almost ran into Tanya, a tall, athletically built LNA from Jamaica. She had wood-brown eyes, dark hair pulled into a tight bun, and cheekbones cut from granite. He pointed down the hall.

“Edna again?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Thanks, Detective.” She went down the hall and disappeared around the corner.

Gabriel sighed and slumped against the wall outside the Crooner’s room. He rubbed his crumbly, cottage-cheese-feeling knees. He was ready to lay his head on a pillow. He’d close his eyes in real life, open them in his dreams, and block out the sound of the Crooner’s nighttime singsong routine.

Wait. Why isn’t the Crooner singing?

A dreadful thought slunk down from his mind, plummeted down his throat, and knotted up his intestines. He hadn’t heard the Crooner sing that day, not once. He couldn’t recall if the man had sung last night, either.

He put his ear to the wall. Not a single “la-la-la” could be heard. Maybe the Crooner was actually sleeping for once, or perhaps he’d gone out with his family for the weekend.

Then he noticed the black circle taped to the Crooner’s door, next to the nametag reading “Matthew Lecroix.” Gabriel squeezed the handle of his cane as his legs nearly buckled. Peering around to make sure no one was watching, he cracked open the door. The room was almost pitch black.

Entering the room would be stupid and dangerous. He could have some of his privileges revoked, or worse, he might get infected. He was pretty sure the virus wasn’t airborne, but close contact was risky. He looked down the empty hallway again. Tanya was in Edna’s room, and Natty, the other LNA on duty, was taking her break in the communal kitchen. His curiosity was red hot, and the ridiculous harassment of the slugs had only intensified it. If old Father Gareth had still been alive, he would’ve cheered him on.

Go for it, Gabriel. He slipped into the dark room. His violently beating heart rose into his throat, where his Adam’s apple caught and retained it before it could go any farther. He took a deep breath, walked over to the bureau, and switched on a lime-green Tyrannosaurus lamp. The Crooner’s bed was surrounded on all sides by an opaque blue curtain.

“Hello?” Gabriel whispered. “Matthew?”

Gabriel inched forward, tapping his cane as quietly as possible. His stomach sank deeper into his abdomen with every step. C’mon, Matthew. Be okay. Be alive. He pulled back the curtain. Gabriel stared into the Crooner’s black eyes, and his legs trembled. After a few seconds, he looked away, swallowed the acid reflux in his throat, and then turned back.

Matthew was lying on his back in a johnny gown, breathing in sputtered gasps. He had the same ghostly pallor to his skin as the other victims, as well as the rope-like black veins winding through his body as if they were living creatures instead of desecrated blood-pumping vessels. He wore an oxygen mask, a feeding tube, and a catheter.

Well, a few things were different. Unlike other victims of the Black Virus, all of Matthew’s hair had fallen out to the point where his body, what Gabriel could see of it, was as bald as a naked mole rat. The other victims had been greasy, but Matthew’s skin appeared dryer than sandpaper and crusty, as if his epidermis would rub off with minimal pressure. His fingers were bright purple where all of the blood had collected in the tips.

“I’m sorry, Matthew.” Gabriel turned back toward the door. If he lingered any longer, he might get caught. No matter what nonsense the slugs had told him, he wasn’t insane enough to think he could cure such a ghastly ailment.

But those eyes… He couldn’t leave yet. He had to know what would make a person’s eyes turn black.

Gabriel leaned his cane against the wall and opened the top drawer of the bureau next to the door. He took out a precaution gown and tied it around his neck. After pulling up the collar to cover his mouth and nose, he grabbed a pair of disposable gloves from the box on top of the bureau and snapped them on.

Hands shaking, Gabriel put two fingers to Matthew’s black-veined wrist. the pulse was slow, twenty-eight at most, but with random bursts of the most chaotic arrhythmia Gabriel had ever seen. It skyrocketed to eighty, ninety, one hundred ten, then slowed back down to thirty. The cycle repeated several times before he removed his hand. He wanted to write down the information, but touching his pen was a contamination risk.

“Are you all right?” Gabriel asked.