Pandemic Page 110

Cooper’s hands came up. He stayed as still as he could. He’d never had a gun pointed at him before.

He’d waited in the boiler room, hoping Jeff might return, but not for long — not after he found other cocoons in the shadows. Cooper had gathered up Jeff’s coat, then wandered the basement, looking for his friend, looking for a weapon.

When he’d turned a corner, he’d almost walked right into this gun-slinging girl.

Cooper bent a little, lowered his shoulders, tried to look as unthreatening as he could.

“Don’t shoot,” he said. “Please, put that down. I’m not one of them.”

Assuming she would know what them was, that he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing, that he hadn’t dreamed about his best friend wrapped up in a membrane, hadn’t imagined strangling a triangle-tongued man to death, hadn’t made up the people with inhuman voices and swollen, yellow feet.

Her trembling aim stayed fixed on his face.

“Mister, if you think I’m going to put this down, you’re fucking retarded.”

“Fine, just try to not aim it right at me, okay? The way your hand is twitching, you might kill me by accident.”

Her eyes shifted to the gun. Her eyebrows raised — she hadn’t realized she was shaking.

She lowered the gun, rested it against her thigh. She sagged a little to the left; her foot slid over quickly to maintain her balance. She was exhausted. How much blood had she lost?

The girl jutted her chin at him.

“Stick out your tongue,” she said.

The man in the boiler room, with the triangles on his tongue … she’d seen the same thing and was guarding against it. That meant she was normal.

“Thank God,” Cooper said. “Lady, you don’t know what I’ve—”

The gun snapped up again, the barrel’s tiny, black hole a window into death.

“Your tongue, asshole.”

And then Cooper realized that he had no idea if he had triangles on his tongue or not. He rubbed it against the roof of his mouth, trying to feel bumps … he couldn’t feel anything, but did that mean they weren’t there? And if he had them, was he going to wind up like the bald guy?

Give us a smooch …

She moved her right foot back, widening her stance. She straightened her arm. She moved with confidence, like she’d done it before — this girl knew how to use a gun.

Her hand stopped trembling. “Last chance, mister.”

Cooper closed his eyes. He stuck out his tongue.

“Open your mouth wider,” she said. “Stick it out farther.”

He did. He wondered if he’d hear the bang, or if everything would just end.

The girl let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay,” she said. “I guess you’re okay. Just don’t come near me. And if you try for the gun, I’ll put you down.”

Cooper’s heart thudded fast and loud, each pump-pump raging through his ears and temples. He opened his eyes.

“Sure,” he said. “We need to get out of this hallway, find a place to hide.”

She nodded. Her gunfighter’s stance had sagged. Her eyes fluttered. She took a step back, then stumbled.

He rushed forward without thinking, his right arm sliding around the small of her back, supporting her.

“I got you,” he said. “I got you.”

For a moment, her strength gave out completely; he was the only thing holding her up. Then she stood, pushed him away. She didn’t point the gun at him, but it was close enough.

“I told you to stay away.”

His hands returned to the palms-up position. “Sorry. You were going to fall.”

She started to say something, but somewhere in the basement a door opened, slammed open — the sound echoed through the hall. He couldn’t wait for her anymore.

“Lady, I’m finding a place to hide. Come with me if you want.”

He walked away from the noises, down the concrete hallway. They were still in a service area — laundry, storage, linens, maybe a kitchen. At the end of the hall he saw double doors, a rectangular window in each.

Cooper walked to the doors, looked through the glass … a carpeted hallway. He didn’t see any movement.

The noises from behind grew louder.

He pressed the metal latch that ran horizontally along the door — unlocked. He pushed the door open and stepped through.

His feet fell silently on the carpet. Little brass plaques hung to the right of the closed, wooden doors lining both sides of the wide hall.

He turned to call for her and almost knocked her over.

“Hey, chick with the gun, mind not sneaking up on me, for fuck’s sake?”

“Sorry,” she said. Then her hand was on his back, half urging him forward, half leaning against him for support. “Hurry, someone is coming.”

Cooper walked to the first door on his left. He pushed it open — inside, darkness, save for the light from the hall flooding in, illuminating a dozen tables covered with white tablecloths and surrounded by folding chairs.

He forced himself to enter.

Three steps in, he heard a soft click and the room lights suddenly flickered on. His eyes adjusted instantly, ready and expecting to see something coming for him, but nothing moved. A carpeted wall on the left, one of those sliding dividers on the right. The room was about twenty feet wide and forty feet deep.

Some of the tables had open laptops on them, along with pens and pads of paper embossed with the Trump Tower logo. Open bottles of water, half-full cups of coffee …

Chapter end