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.
The Crooner didn’t respond, but his eyes twitched. Somewhere within that withering, black-veined corpse, Matthew seemed to have had heard him.
“Matthew, can you understand me?”
Matthew raised his head and gasped with a series of putrid exhalations. Gabriel took the man’s face into his hands and gently cradled the cold, clammy, tissue-paper-skinned skull, not sure why he was doing it but feeling that he needed to. Looking down at the face of a man who, not so long ago, had been singing, hollering, and full of life made Gabriel feel as if he were wading through mud. He stared into those black eyes, looking for a sign of recognition or a spark of life.
“I’m here,” Gabriel whispered. “I’m going to help you. Please, just stay alive. Don’t give up. I’m going to help you, I’m going to… going to—”
Matthew’s charred eyes became moist. Tears escaped from their corners.
Gabriel’s own eyes welled up. “Don’t give up, Matthew.”
Matthew emitted a sharp breath that sounded as if shards of glass were passing through his lungs. Gabriel gripped the man’s head in the crook of his precaution gown-protected arm and squeezed Matthew’s skeletal hand. “I’m here, Matthew.”
The Crooner’s eyes widened into near-lidless circles. Matthew’s lips struggled to move, and his darkened tongue rolled around in his open mouth like an eyeless worm.
“Talk to me, Matthew, please.”
The Crooner’s eyes narrowed. His tongue pushed forward, licked his lips, then slid back in. The poor man relinquished his valiant struggle. He became motionless, nothing but a corpse with a heartbeat.
“No!” Gabriel cried. “Goddammit, you old fool. Don’t give up. Don’t—”
Heavy footsteps pounded outside the door. Gabriel swung around and accidentally kicked the leg of the bed. His toe throbbed. The door swung open and crashed against the wall with the impact of an earthquake.
“Gabriel Schist!” Natty shrieked. The short, obese woman stood in the doorway, hands planted on her hips. She moved into the light, her thick finger pointed at Gabriel like a dagger. “Get away from Mr. Lecroix right this instant!”
She had a new tattoo on her wrist, a cursive “imma do me.” Gabriel took off the gown and gloves. He dumped the protective wear into the wastebasket. Natty glared at him as if he were a dog that had left his personal detritus on the rug.
“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said.
“Oh? Are ya?”
“I need to wash my hands.”
Natty groaned. She crossed her meaty arms and tapped her foot. Tanya approached from the other side of the hallway, but Natty waved her away.
Gabriel pulled Matthew’s curtain back into place then went into the bathroom and washed his hands in scalding-hot water. “I don’t know what came over me.” He grabbed a paper towel to dry his hands. “I thought—”
“That’s a very mean thing you were doing to that poor man, sweetie,” she said in a nauseatingly saccharine tone. “Torturin’ the poor guy when he’s sick. C’mon, Gabe. How would you feel if he did that to you?”
Gabriel scowled. “I wasn’t—”
She groaned. “C’mon, honey pie. Let’s leave your friend alone for the night, okay? How about we getcha back to your room, and we lay you down for a nice cozy nap?”
Natty stretched on a pair of gloves, stomped over, and put her hand around Gabriel’s back. She started pushing him out the door.
He grabbed his cane on the way out. “Natty, I was just trying to see if Matthew was—”
“Yeah, Gabe. Sure. A nap would be real nice, wouldn’t it? It sounds wonderful to me.”
“Look, Natty—”
She grabbed his hand and began walking him down the hall. “Quiet, honey. It’s bedtime now. Here, follow me. Just—”
Gabriel threw her gloved hand away. “Get the hell away from me,” he snarled.
“Oh, honey—”
“My name is Gabriel, goddammit! I’m a human being.”
