“Where to?!”
The young, eager sergeant shouted, shoving his face through the half-open window of the vehicle, filling the cabin with his foul breath. On both sides of the road, encircling my car parked in front of the lowered barrier, an entire squad of balaclava-masked soldiers, rifles at the ready, eyed me with tense glances.
“Journalist,” I replied casually, motioning to the PRESS tag on my ID hanging around my neck like a cowbell.
“So what?” he shot back.
“Easy there, Sergeant. I’m on assignment. I’d appreciate it if you told your guys to lower those barrels. They’re on edge, I can tell, and we wouldn’t want any twitchy trigger fingers.”
The non-commissioned officer peered into the car’s cabin, noticing a semi-automatic Kalashnikov carbine and a Shadow 2 pistol on the back seat, and leaned back into my face.
“An armed journalist?”
“Look, Sergeant, would you head in that direction unarmed? Besides, I have all the necessary permits for this gear, don’t worry. If you need to see them, they’re right here, in the glove compartment.”
Saying that, I made a measured move toward the glove compartment to show the suspicious soldier that everything was in order. But he stopped me.
“It’s fine. No need. But are you aware of where you’re heading? There’s no one left out there; everyone’s already evacuated.”
I gave him a meaningful look.
“Everyone?”
He shook his head in lieu of an answer and signaled the soldiers to lower their weapons.
“Lift the barrier!” he commanded loudly.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You won’t be thankful for long,” he replied.
“If you have to go there, who am I to stop you? But just know, when you come back…”
“I know everything,” I interrupted.
“You know, yet you still go?”
“I must,” I replied.
“You’re digging your own grave,” he said, giving the roof a couple of taps to signal I could proceed.
I shifted into gear and pressed on the gas. The car took to the road. I grabbed the Shadow from the back seat and placed it on the passenger seat. The road ahead was deserted and cleared. No one had traveled this way in days.
The opposite lane, to my left, was clogged with abandoned cars, discarded bags, torn bundles, and suitcases. Their owners, I assumed, had snatched only the essentials in a frantic rush, cramming them into backpacks and plastic bags, hoping to make it across the checkpoint I’d just passed before the administrative hour struck.
The administrative hour—a government euphemism for the moment when barriers would fall, and everything left on this side of the wire would no longer have a chance to cross. Soldiers would shoot, without warning, on sight.
As if wires, barriers, and bullets had ever been able to hold back the plague. Perhaps they had, once, when the plague was small and confined to a single place or a few settlements.
Now, with the plague everywhere, I feared that, by clinging to outdated protocols and relying on their own demagoguery, politicians would merely buy themselves time, or rather, a negligible bit more time. And that’s it.
Hope is an old whore’s daughter, wooing with a gentle voice, persuasive, enchanting, seductive. Which mortal of flesh and blood could resist her? Politicians certainly couldn’t.
Neither could I.
Who knows why that’s for the best?
I glanced at my phone. The signal was strong. The antennas were still operational, meaning the power hadn’t been cut off yet, and wouldn’t be for a while. Not until the inevitable corrosion of time caused the systems to fail and drag the territory I was driving through into digital darkness.
Without worrying about traffic, as there were no other vehicles on the road, I tapped the smartphone screen and opened WhatsApp. The last message I’d sent her had been delivered, judging by the two gray checkmarks, which I hoped would turn blue. Her phone was on, but she hadn’t read the message.
The text she’d sent me earlier had terrified me. I was to blame for that. I’d written to her that beyond the newly established boundary, there was no more multimyelin. That the entire medical industry, what remained of it within the enclaves, had bent itself to producing immunovirox, and that we, the rare and peculiar cases, in numbers so small we couldn’t even qualify as a statistical anomaly of a statistical anomaly, had been sentenced to death by the state, sacrificed for the future of humanity. A big thank you to the homeland for making us unwilling heroes, saviors of mankind, in whose honor, someday, they’ll erect a monument or name a school or hospital after us, until, in the long flow of time, new generations arise for whom we’ll become a distant past and who, ungrateful as they inevitably are, will remove our names from institutions, renaming them after some new heroes or villains of their time.
Panta rei.
“For me, the word ‘multimyelin’ meant life itself. It was a miraculous drug that completely halted the progression of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, ALD, and many other neurological disorders. With regular therapy, those suffering from these ailments could function normally, without any symptoms or side effects, but without the drug, the illness would advance rapidly, making every moment unbearable, as if they were walking barefoot on a scorching beach. That was the only downside of multimyelin. Once treatment began, it couldn’t be interrupted.
When I blurted out to her about the shortage of the drug, she responded with a resolute and unwavering tone, one filled with empathy, love, and a tragic, perhaps even unnecessary, heroism. For had I truly earned the right for someone to risk so much on my behalf—completely, and to the end?
I read her message over and over again.
HANNA (06x…)
“There might be some here. Maybe. I’ll find it.
Staying a few more days.
Can’t write now, it’s chaos.
XOXO!”
Guilt gnawed at me. She was stubbornly determined to stay behind and use her corporate connections to find the drug.
There was nothing left for me to do but set out immediately. I grabbed my prep bag, packed with everything necessary for three days of survival: water, food, medication, various small gear, a change of underwear, and ammunition.
I also took a hunting rifle—actually, a semi-automatic AK rifle in 7.62×39 caliber, and my trusty 9mm CZ Shadow 2. I drove for hours, not stopping until I encountered the barrier separating civilization from what would soon cease to be the world as we knew it.
The phone buzzed. The annoying ringtone and vibrating sound snapped me out of the dark thoughts I had been swimming in. My resolve to fix the problem resurfaced, the rational part of me triumphing over melancholy. The screen didn’t show “Hanna.”
But the name displayed stirred a glimmer of hope.
BAUER. (06x…)
Bauer wouldn’t be calling unless he had information. My brother Bauer, the old intelligence man, never fully retired, never entirely out of the loop. For better or worse, I always got the truth from him, the plain, unvarnished truth.
One click, then another, and his voice came through the Bluetooth speaker.
“Brother!”
“Hey, man, what’ve you got for me?” I asked.
“If it weren’t too late, I’d talk you out of this idiocy. But as it is, here we are.”
“How do you know it’s not too late?” I laughed.
“Brother!” Bauer replied.
“You know me. My sources told me you passed the checkpoint a minute ago.”
“You know I can’t turn back. I had to…”
“I know. I’d do the same. Did you bring your gear?”
“Everything loaded,” I replied.
“She’s not answering?” he asked.
At that question, an indistinct dread, like a cold stream of foreboding running down my spine, shook me to my core. I held my breath briefly.
“How did you know?”
“Listen. An hour before the administrative hour, the air force sprayed gas thirty kilometers deep along the separation zone. A chemical agent based on carfentanil. It’s a…”
“Opioid. The Russians used a similar gas during the Dubrovka Theater hostage crisis,” I interrupted.
“Something like that. Only this gas is stronger. It was designed to put all life to sleep across large areas. They told me the poisoned will sleep for hours, almost an entire day. When they wake up, they’ll be dazed,” Bauer explained.
“That’s a dangerous toxin. You’re not bringing me good news,” I said.
Bauer was silent for a few seconds before speaking again, this time with a confident and decisive tone.
“If she doesn’t have any heart issues, she should be fine. Look, brother, her signal is coming from the Skyline Hotel. She’s in suite 907. The key card is still in the slot, meaning she’s in the room. The hotel has a diesel generator, so it’ll have power for another twenty hours or so. I’m sorry, but that’s all my contacts could gather.”
Sorry? Bauer had found everything, literally everything I needed to know. I laughed. That modesty was so typical of him.
“Thank you immensely,” I said.
“Brother, if I could, I’d be going with you. You know that?” he said, and in his voice, I caught a barely noticeable note of regret.
“You don’t have to tell me that. Listen, if we don’t see each other… If… well, you know,” I started to say, but my voice faltered. I couldn’t get the words out.
“I know,” he said, and ended the call.
He didn’t like farewells. I knew that somewhere, deep down, he didn’t believe people could truly leave one another forever. He didn’t believe he wouldn’t see me again. Neither did I. Not with her waiting. I knew we’d make it out somehow. I’d figure something out—I always did. I’d never failed to solve a problem before.
“I’ll handle this too,” I reassured myself.
The dual lanes of the road emerged from the shadow of the forest, no longer shielded from view. Noise barriers and tall walls flanked the sides, muting the hum of car engines. Soon, the first red rooftops of the suburbs appeared, followed by gray facades of increasingly taller and more imposing buildings as the road sank into a trench. In the opposite lane, the line of stopped vehicles grew thicker. I glimpsed sleeping people inside some of them. Suddenly, in my lane, a figure in a yellow raincoat lay sprawled across the road. I swerved and managed to avoid it. Adrenaline pulsed, raising a lump in my throat. I slowed down and drove more cautiously, grabbing a can of soda with my right hand. The gas hissed as I popped the top, and I took occasional sips, keeping an eye on the road.
The first pillar of the bridge loomed through the gray haze. Soon, I was on the other side and turned onto the road that led to the hotel. A huge sign with an arrow reading “Skyline” told me I was close. A few minutes later, I stopped the car at the raised barrier in front of the hotel entrance.
The wind whipped piles of scattered papers across the abandoned parking lot. I sat in the car for a full minute, staring at the revolving doors, trying to catch a glimpse of anyone inside through the glass reflections. I watched the hotel entrance in vain, hoping to catch any sign of movement. Everything was still, like a photograph.
I’d have to take the risk. I holstered my pistol, grabbed the rifle, and cautiously exited the car. Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I headed silently toward the hotel lobby.
A man in a sharp suit was asleep in an armchair behind the reception desk. He looked like management. The nameplate confirmed I was right: he was the hotel manager. The poor man seemed so attached to his title—granted by the hotel chain, a corporation he’d likely dedicated his entire life to—that he hadn’t realized real power isn’t delegated; it’s taken. Or maybe it wasn’t ambition. For some people, being important is the only thing that matters. I nudged him aside and rummaged through the wide drawers under the reception desk, sifting through stacks of identical key cards, searching for a copy of the chipped key for Suite 907. I kept glancing at the sleeping manager. The foam at his mouth told me that this tormented, sleeping soul might not be a pleasant sight upon waking. Reporters had covered the crisis since it started, tracking how it all escalated from a single bite—from rats to plague in one step.
The plague, that sinister creature of legend that steals children and the frail from their homes, didn’t come from dirty dishes or down chimneys like the old tales said. The hag with bulging eyes, foaming mouth, and a wrinkled, scowling face came from basements and sewers, from the dark, damp places beneath cities, where grotesque rats, immune to almost every known disease, ruled their own domain. These faithful companions of human civilization, feeding on human waste and outnumbering poor Homo sapiens a hundred to one, had finally ended their symbiosis with humankind.
“Ninth floor,” I thought.
Avoiding the elevator, I took the stairs, trusting neither the power generator nor the elevator itself. If the power failed and the elevator got stuck between floors, that cabin could become my coffin, with no one around to pull me out of that box.
I carefully peered up each staircase landing as I ascended. I climbed quickly and soon found myself on the ninth floor.
The carpet was red and gray, plush under the soles of my sneakers, designed to dampen any sounds from the corridor for guests seeking peace in their rooms. Everything was plush, quiet, and soft, with thick walls that muffled sound.
Silence. Not even a fly buzzed.
I stopped in front of Suite 907. Slipping the rifle over my shoulder, I drew my pistol. I inserted the key card into the slot. The lock buzzed; the red light switched off, replaced by a green one.
I cautiously pressed the handle and cracked the door open. The rifle barrel entered first, followed by my anxious gaze.
The dim entryway led into a spacious living room, empty and still. The room was deserted. I saw Hanna’s suitcase, open on a low dresser. Her belongings, hastily pulled from the suitcase, were scattered across the couch.
It was then that I heard a faint sigh from the bedroom. I crept forward, relying on the dim emergency lights casting a faint glow through the suite. The wide double bed was empty. The breathing sound came from the space between the bed and the window, obscured by a heavy woolen curtain. I took two more cautious steps and saw her sleeping on the floor. I approached and found a switch on the headboard. A bedside lamp flicked on, banishing the darkness. The light warmly lit the room, dispelling my anxiety and allowing my mind to savor the luxury of the five-star “Skyline.”
I looked at her, checking her pulse and temperature. Everything seemed normal. The closed windows and the air filters had reduced the amount of agent sprayed over the border zone by the state’s “generous” measures. The small dose of toxin had put her to sleep, but there seemed to be no risk of severe side effects like heart failure or waking psychosis.
I lifted her gently from the floor to place her in the plush bed.
She blinked, her eyes briefly meeting mine with a distant look before closing again.
“Darling, you… I can’t wake up,” she murmured softly.
She managed to lift her arm and wrap it around my neck. A shiver of warmth shot down my back.
I settled her into the bed.
“Why did you come? You’re crazy,” she whispered, shifting slightly.
She wouldn’t let go of me. I knelt there, bent over her, feeling her warm breath on my cheek.
“Why did you stay, silly? You shouldn’t have. Not for me. You’re amazing,” I whispered.
“You’re the amazing one. And I… I found out where…” She trailed off, drifting back to sleep.
“What did you find out?” I asked.
She rolled onto her side, pulling me close.
“Lie here…”
I lay down beside her, holding her. Our foreheads nearly touched.
“What did you find out?” I repeated.
“Ehhhh…” she mumbled teasingly.
“Tell me, please.”
“Multimyelin. Enough to last you three lifetimes…”
“Where?” I asked.
“Neurology clinic. The storage is in the basement,” she whispered before slipping back into a deep sleep.
“Hanna,” I gently shook her.
She couldn’t wake up again. The gas had a narcotic, exhausting effect, as the brain continuously fought the pull of sleep, draining her energy. I’d read once that those with strong constitutions, who could resist sleep for long periods, often suffered the worst during testing. Many, after a day or two of intoxicated wakefulness, unable to tell dream from reality, experienced mental breakdowns, and some even developed paranoid schizophrenia upon waking. Those with existing mental issues, depressives and sufferers of night terrors, invariably emerged from intoxication as lunatics.
I didn’t try to wake her again.
I lay close to her, gazing at her gentle face. The calm radiating from her as she slept reassured me she wasn’t dreaming anything bad. How many times had I sent her the acronym “SWDW” in messages?
Sleep well, dream well.
My dear.
I never could have imagined we’d end up in a situation like this.
We were close. I can’t quite explain how, but it happened astonishingly fast. From the moment I first caught her gaze, somewhere in one of those synthetic, characterless offices where the corporate elite spend their lives, instinct told me she wasn’t like the rest. There was something in her—something unknown, yet unmistakably good and humane.
Intuition often led me to stay guarded, more than I wanted to be, while reason quickly justified the bad things that, over the years, I’d had to do as part of my career. I had kept many secrets—at first, other people’s, and eventually my own. Because anyone who keeps others’ secrets for too long inevitably makes them their own.
That’s the moment you stop trusting people.
She was different. So much so that it drew me in like gravity. I felt I could trust her, and I trusted that feeling. In our occasional, and then increasingly frequent conversations, I discovered many of her wonderful qualities. We uncovered a myriad of tiny synchronicities and similarities between us—so many that at times it was almost eerie. We had known each other less than a year, yet it felt like we’d known each other forever, as if we’d existed in the same time and space, and for each other, since we were born. I surrendered to that feeling despite the obstacles my overly cautious rational mind threw in the way.
In the end, I simply crushed that resistance. I forbade reason from interfering in my relationship with her, ejecting it like an unwanted guest from a party where only my emotions were left dancing.
I didn’t know how she felt. I sensed, or wanted to sense, that she felt the same or at least something similar.
She felt something—she was here. And I was here for her.
There was nothing I could or would do differently.
I loved her.
And that’s that.
And now she lay here, right beside me, and in that moment, I didn’t have the mental strength to let go, to get up.
“Get up,” I thought.
“She’ll be here when you return,” I told myself.
Then I started to lift her arm from around my neck. She tightened her hold, as if refusing to let me go.
“Stay…” she murmured.
“I dreamed something beautiful.”
“I’ll be back, my love,” I told her, placing her arm gently on the bed.
In the next moment, her breathing had already deepened.
I turned off the bedside lamp and slipped out of the bedroom, closing the door silently behind me.
I pulled the heavy curtains across the windows in the living room and turned on a lamp. Moving her suitcase off the dresser, I cleared a few scattered pieces of clothing from the couch just enough to sit down without wrinkling them.
Setting the rifle aside, I placed my backpack on the coffee table and began organizing my gear. Then, in the corner of the room, beneath the TV stand, I noticed the mini-bar.
The next moment, I was back on the couch, holding a glass into which I poured three fingers of pear brandy. As I began sipping, my hand found the remote.
I turned on the TV and switched to the state channel.
Not a word about the gas in the separation zone.
Of course not.
Instead, they were running yet another tedious, endlessly rehashed retrospective of the pandemic crisis we were mired in.
The plague devoured children, the elderly, and the working population across Europe. The virus was neurological. Similar to rabies. But incubation took weeks, not months or years. At first, symptoms appeared as depression—light avoidance, isolation, withdrawal, all fitting that profile. But then, the infected would begin having suicidal thoughts.
Many never got past that stage. The bodies of those who took their own lives piled up. The rats fed. The rats got infected. They attacked humans, cats, dogs, and other domestic animals, spreading the infection.
The horror grew, spreading in concentric circles, like ripples on the water’s surface disturbed by a falling stone.
Those who survived the suicidal phase soon became aggressive, mindless, often attacking their fellow citizens.
Opiates were the only treatment, as drugged patients weren’t aggressive. They calmed down, but in their narcotic haze, they refused food and water, dying of dehydration within three to four days.
There was no effective cure. The infected scratched, bit, chewed, and ultimately, overdosed, ended their lives in sedation.
Yet, in hospitals, they were kept alive much longer than the disease allowed, feeding them through tubes, IV drips.
I grabbed my phone and typed out a message to Bauer.
I took a few more sips, then began taking equipment out of my backpack.
Ten minutes later, as I finished securing the pouches to my bulletproof vest and slid the chest and back ballistic plates into their pockets, my phone rang.
I lunged for the device, irrationally afraid the ringing might wake her.
It was Bauer.
“Brother,” he greeted.
“You saw the message. Did you find anything out?” I asked.
“Yes. The neurology ward wasn’t evacuated. Dozens of critical patients are being kept on life support. They’ve been experimenting with different drugs to see if any combination is effective. I found the pharmacy inventory list. According to the records, there’s a substantial supply of your medicine there. They haven’t had anyone to administer it to since the pandemic started,” Bauer relayed, knowing I didn’t have much time.
“Thank you,” I replied.
“No need for thanks,” he responded.
“Listen, make sure you come back from that hole safe and sound. And soon. Here, listen carefully,” he said.
And I listened. My good Bauer. He’d done everything he could to save my skin. He’d done it well.
I checked my gear one last time, ensuring every strap was secured, and my vest fit snugly over my chest.
I glanced at my watch, grabbed my carbine, and peeked once more into the dim bedroom.
Her breathing was steady, barely audible. She floated in a realm of deep, dreamless sleep.
“Kisses,” I thought.
A minute later, I was descending the hotel’s staircase. The manager was still sound asleep in the armchair. The foam at his mouth had turned into a little drool, soaking his lapel.
I stepped into the empty street. A strange feeling of emptiness washed over me, and then I understood why. It was the terror of loneliness. I felt as though I were shrinking, dwindling compared to the massive city around me. A city packed with sleeping residents, some of whom would soon wake as enemies. Hundreds, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people and animals might go mad within hours.
I glanced again at my wristwatch.
The wind howled between the buildings, occasionally whistling like in a horror film.
When you walk through a city devoid of its usual hum, the rumble of engines, the buzz of electricity, and the background noise of all that blended together, you get the feeling each of your steps echoes, drawing the eyes of the world.
My palms started to sweat. Gripping the rifle nervously, I tried to move as quietly as possible, heading toward the hospital complex about a kilometer from the hotel.
Clever Hanna, sharp as a tack.
She’d chosen the hotel closest to the hospital as her base of operations.
My Hanna. Could I dare think of her in that way?
Only her own, Hanna.
Slowly but surely, I walked toward my destination, avoiding the gaping entrances of hospital buildings.
The medical complex was vast.
And deserted.
On the parking lot, among the ambulances, overturned and scattered, lay stretchers. The wind lifted discarded face masks and rolled along used plastic infusion bottles.
Yellow and green medical tents, erected in the yard, added to the eerie scene. Passing too close to one of these monstrous tents, I heard a faint gurgling. The sight at the entrance froze me. On the cots, bound and hooked up to expired IVs, lay those unlucky enough to have come face-to-face with the plague.
From the dark depths of the green tent, the gurgling grew louder. I didn’t want to check further. Like a ghost, I slipped past the entrance. On the nearest cot, dressed only in the bottom half of hospital pajamas, lay an old man. His withered, desiccated body was restrained by broad straps tied to the field bed. Sparse, thin gray hair fluttered in the draft, and his stubbled beard was matted with dried foam at the corners of his mouth. The tips of his fingers clutched the sheet, revealing bluish nails, while his still, sunken eyes, clouded by the reflection of death, stared upwards, disappearing into the olive-green fabric.
I continued, avoiding the tents and weaving between numerous cars and ambulances.
Ten minutes later, I found myself in front of a spacious atrium, at the center of which rose a towering century-old tree. Beneath its sprawling branches, I noticed the sign on the right wing of the building: “Clinic for Neurology and Psychiatry.”
The old wooden door creaked on its ungreased hinges. Beneath my boots, I felt a crunch—the dust of old paint crumbling from swollen doorframes, mixed with bits of plaster from a ceiling painted over countless times. The contrast of damp, chilly outdoor air meeting the warm interior of the small lobby caused condensation, making the plaster peel off in flakes as it dried.
I moved cautiously. Light and shadows shifted, playing across the walls like a Japanese shadow theater, with the branches of the large tree in the atrium, driven by the wind, conducting this eerie dance.
Something stirred—a voice, or perhaps someone. A human voice called out to me. I turned quickly, pointing my barrel into the darkness of a glass counter slit where I’d heard the voice.
“Hey! Take it easy. Hey!” he called out, his voice edging on a whine.
“Show yourself!” I ordered.
“Alright, alright. No need to get jumpy,” he replied reluctantly, his tone nasal and unsure.
I took a few steps back. He cautiously opened the door to the counter room and stepped out into the hallway. The young man wore a filthy green hospital uniform with short sleeves, torn latex gloves, dusty white pants, and clogs.
A sharp nose and thin, arched eyebrows hung over his tired eyes, which were darkened by rings underneath, giving him a worn-out look, while a few days of stubble cast a darker shade on his ashen face. His hair was scruffy, thin, and short.
“Hey, man. What’s up?” he asked, as if my arrival at this abandoned place was entirely normal.
“Don’t come any closer,” I said sharply.
“Alright, alright, chill out, dude. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“Buddy, I’m not lowering the gun. Keep those hands visible, no sudden moves, and you won’t get shot,” I warned.
“Okay, okay,” he replied.
“How come you’re not asleep?” I asked, suspiciously.
“I dunno, man. I slept, then I woke up. Everyone else either left or is asleep, and I can’t wake them. They’re like somnambulists or something. I don’t know.” He gestured nervously and incoherently around him as he spoke.
That’s when I noticed the numerous scars on his arms—both old and fresh puncture marks that told me everything I needed to know.
“This guy’s an addict,” I realized. “That’s why he woke up early. He’s been hooked on dreams, nodding off on opiates for years. His body’s used to it, so it’s no wonder he came out of the gas-induced sleep sooner.”
“On morphine?” I asked.
“Nah, man. Well, yeah, now I am. Normally it’s something else, but morphine whenever I can steal some. How’d you know?”
My gaze fell to his arms. He looked down at them too.
“Oh, right. Yeah, well… damn, dude,” he muttered.
“It’s fine,” I said, curtly.
He fell silent, staring at the puncture marks for a few seconds as if in a trance, before raising his head to give me a curious look.
“So, what are you doing here?” he asked.
“Who are you anyway? A doctor?” I countered with a question.
“Nah, man. An orderly. Medical tech, you know.”
“Well, I need multimyelin,” I said.
“Wait, I think I got a bottle or two somewhere,” he said, a bit lost.
“Just gotta remember where. Where? Saw it in… some cabinet, I think,” he mumbled.
“Someone sick, huh? That’s rough. I’m sorry.”
“Stop,” I ordered.
“What? I told you, I have some. Just gotta find it. Somewhere around here,” he replied, confused.
“What do you mean, a couple of vials? I need at least ten packs. A thousand doses. I heard there’s a storage room in the basement.”
“Yeah, in the basement. That’s right. The storage room and the cold storage. We keep it refrigerated, you know. If it’s frozen, it lasts longer. Frozen, it could last for decades. It’s in the cold storage,” he babbled.
“Fine. Take me to the cold storage,” I said.
“Sure, yeah. This way,” he said, gesturing for me to follow him down the hall.
He led me down a narrow staircase to the basement. Passing through a few empty rooms, we reached a larger staircase that descended into a dimly lit basement.
At the bottom of the stairs, we were met by iron doors with small, round windows. The rusted hinges groaned as they opened, followed by a distant murmur, and then silence returned. I stepped forward, my boots crunching against the linoleum floor. The sound of my footsteps masked the absence of his. By the time I realized he wasn’t behind me, it was too late.
With a manic cackle, he slammed the iron doors shut. I heard the clang of metal on metal as he slid the latch across. In three swift steps, I was at the door, banging on it and shouting threats for him to open up.
His laughter echoed through the building as he disappeared up the stairs, muttering nonsensically.
“There you go, folks. A live one. Defective, but big. For when they wake up. Yes, for when they wake up,” he rambled.
I listened until the hospital fell back into an uneasy silence. I turned around and looked down the hallway. A few doors on the left, a few on the right, and further down, at the end, where a dim neon light flickered from a faulty starter, the corridor veered to the right.
I aimed my rifle down toward that faint light, feeling a sense of security.
A false sense of security.
“If I fire here, without ear protection, I’ll be deaf for days. I could also risk a ricochet in these concrete walls. But if I put on ear protection, I’ll be deaf to any dangers around me.”
I adjusted the sling and let the rifle hang at my side, drawing my CZ.
“Nine mil may be quieter. Then again, a supersonic carbine round is a lot more powerful. No matter. Less energy means less chance of a ricochet, and the Parabellum will kill just as well if it comes to that. If I’m going to be deaf, at least I won’t risk a fragment in my skull.”
Bolstered by the feel of the weapon in my hands, I stepped firmly down the hallway. A faint hissing noise from behind the last door on the left caught my attention. I nudged it open, peering into an empty room.
A furious hiss beneath my feet startled me. I jumped back in shock as an animal darted out into the hallway.
A cat.
Just a disheveled, ordinary cat, its fur bristled and frothing at the mouth, fled around the corner where the corridor veered right. I chased after it and saw it slip behind a set of wide sliding doors.
Approaching the doors, I noticed a panel on the opposite wall, filled with fuses and switches, along with a diagram of the basement. The sliding doors led into the “oxygen room,” which then connected to the storage room and cold storage.
About ten meters further down the hallway, I saw an elevator.
I checked the fuses. They were all in place. Every switch was in the “off” position, except for one labeled “emergency lights.” The rest were marked with floor numbers, devices like X-ray machines, MRI, diesel generator, and elevators.
“Elevators. Is he really that dumb?” I thought.
I flipped the switch labeled “basement” to the “on” position. The hallways lit up. The hum of machinery and a faint hiss, like white noise, filled the space.
Not wanting to waste time, I grabbed the handle of the sliding door and pulled it open, stepping into the “oxygen room.”
Ahead, a wall of medical screens stood as a makeshift partition. I moved toward it to pull it aside when the crunch beneath my boots stopped me cold. I looked down to see what I’d stepped on—dried-up rat corpses, half-decayed, gnawed like apple cores. On their withered, gray bodies, I could make out the unmistakable marks of human teeth.
Beyond that fabric wall, a dull sound echoed—a rasp, then the horrific scream of a wounded animal.
I kicked the screen aside. It fell, revealing a scene straight out of a nightmare.
Hospital beds, about a dozen, lined both walls. Patients lay restrained in them, writhing silently, held down by wide hospital straps. The sheets beneath them were filthy. Their faces were an unnatural shade of purple-red, eyes sunken into hollow sockets, hair disheveled and greasy. Men in torn pajamas, scratched raw, with unshaven beards and filthy mustaches matted with brownish mucus and foam, stared at me. A few nurses wandered among the beds in a trance-like state. One nurse sat beside the nearest bed, rhythmically jabbing a needle from an empty IV bag into a patient’s hand, as if in a daze. Oxygen hissed from masks hanging uselessly above their heads.
In the middle of the room, a man in a white coat lay on the floor, clutching the cat that had startled me minutes earlier. He was biting into its back, eating it alive, while the infected animal struggled and gasped its last breaths.
All those empty eyes were suddenly fixed on me.
A wave of terror washed over me.
The gaunt nurse with the needle clicked her tongue, licked her cracked lips, and set the needle aside.
“Doctor, shall we delay the saline infusion a bit?” she croaked, her voice raspy with dehydration.
The man with the cat spat a clump of fur out of his mouth.
“Yes, that’s right. Finally, lunch has arrived for the patients. We’ve been waiting all day. Untie them so they can eat,” he said, his gaze locked on me as his mouth twisted into something between a grin and a grimace, his eyes suddenly feverish.
I took a few steps back. The nurses quickly loosened the straps restraining the unfortunate souls, and the doctor began advancing toward me, slowly but steadily.
Panic overtook me. I moved backward, unable to take my eyes off the horrid creatures.
I backed into the hallway and had barely covered a few meters when the doctor and nurses, followed by the patients, came rushing after me. I stumbled, fell onto my back, and dropped my pistol. The impact and pain momentarily banished fear, leaving me in a state of adrenaline-fueled shock.
I grabbed my rifle, aimed down the hallway, and fired. I pulled the trigger, sending bullet after bullet into the grinning, twisted mass of monsters. The gunfire echoed off the concrete walls in waves, creating a deafening noise that pounded in my ears. All I could hear was a relentless ringing. Thin trails of smoke drifted from the barrel and gaps in the rifle, filling my flared nostrils.
The corridor was littered with bodies stretching from my feet to the room’s entrance. Some stilled instantly, while others, less fortunate, gurgled and writhed in small pools of blood, like fish flopping out of an aquarium. One gasped with a labored hiss, each breath creating an unpleasant wheeze that I could hear even through my muffled ears. It was a sign of a collapsed lung, a pneumothorax. Soon, he fell silent. His heart had given out.
After that, all was quiet.
I lay there for a few minutes, trying in vain to hear any sound, murmur, or shuffle from behind the door. I was half-deaf. My hearing loss was temporary, but in this moment, it was crippling.
I shuddered, gathering the strength to rise from the floor despite my weakness. The adrenaline slowly drained from my body. I retrieved the pistol I’d dropped during the fall and holstered it. Then, almost reflexively, I ejected the empty magazine from my rifle.
“Clear, unload!”
Training doesn’t fade. Actions repeated hundreds of times are etched deep within, surfacing precisely when needed.
“Ready!”
The loaded magazine clicked into place, and as I pulled and released the bolt, it surged forward, chambering a round with the sound of metal colliding.
I took a cautious step forward, moving around the bodies of the creatures I had just put down.
“Creatures? More like patients. Sick people.” A wave of cognitive dissonance hit me, my survival instincts clashing with my conscience.
There was no time for guilt. I brushed those thoughts aside and focused on the dimly lit room filled with hospital beds. I walked past the screen and down the length of the room, stopping in front of a door marked “Morgue.”
This was the cold storage the junkie “brother” had mentioned. I reached for the vertically positioned handle, resembling the kind found on an old lead refrigerator. The door was heavy, made of thick metal. Surprisingly, the hinges didn’t creak; they slid open with a soft hiss.
On the wall opposite the door were compartments arranged like grim, oversized “Lego” blocks. Between the morbid “human fridge” and the door stood an autopsy table, equipped with a faucet and a panel for medical instruments. Over the table bent a tall figure in a surgical gown and hospital scrubs. The gown was torn at the back, revealing a hairy hump with cracked, bleeding skin that stained his clothes.
He turned slowly, giving me ample time to take in the horror of his deformed face, pus-covered body, snarling teeth, and feverish, deranged eyes. He lumbered forward, hunched over, shuffling. Only then did I notice the human remains on the autopsy table—a grotesque collection of butchered internal organs, a skull with dangling skin, hair, and part of the scalp, a hand with chewed-up fingers, and a foot. Amid this gruesome scene lay opened, emptied bottles of multimyelin. From his arms and neck protruded IV lines, ending in infusion bags hanging from medical stands.
“Multi…” he croaked, trying to clear his throat.
“Multimyelin,” he repeated, louder this time.
I said nothing. Between him and me was an automatic rifle and thirty rounds.
“Is thirty rounds enough?”
“Do you understand?” he asked.
I summoned the strength to respond.
“No. What?”
“This is like rabies. Yes, well… it’s a virus similar to that. It spreads along neurons until it reaches the brain. This drug, this multimyelin, regenerates neurons and…” He coughed.
“It repairs them after they’re damaged, but it seems the virus is mutagenic, altering cells. You see, it didn’t kill me. And I discovered, yes, I discovered why. The prion protein, found in every cell membrane—if it doesn’t break down, if the virus doesn’t… It won’t mutate. It won’t complete the mutation, and then it won’t kill.”
“Prion? Like a prion disease?”
“Prion diseases are slow,” he replied. “They won’t kill for years, even decades. But the virus, this virus, kills much faster unless…”
“Unless what?” I asked.
“Unless there’s balance. The virus damages and mutates, but the multimyelin and human prions slow the virus and stop the mutation,” he explained.
It dawned on me. This man, this doctor—or what was left of him—had discovered how to halt the disease in its tracks. He understood how to survive the lethal, mutagenic virus whose mutations the public hadn’t seen only because it killed its victims faster than cellular changes could become visible. His method was straightforward. To repair what the virus damaged, he took multimyelin to restore neurons and slow the virus, and by consuming human tissue, he absorbed prions that partially repaired damaged cell walls.
I wondered again if this monster, whose nerves had been so altered by the virus and multimyelin, would go down after a few rounds. Or all thirty.
Thirty rounds in the rifle. Eighteen more “nines” in the CZ. Seventeen, actually, in the CZ.
If the creature stayed on its feet after all of that, the last bullet would be for me—and may it choke on one of my tiny bones afterward.
I let my gaze follow the sights to a point on his chest, pulled the trigger, and my heart pounded like a metronome as I fired.
The bullet whizzed through him, ricocheting off the fridge door and shattering into pieces that went scattering who knows where.
In the instant I pulled the trigger, he looked as though he was about to say something else, but I cut him off forever.
His body crumpled to the floor, lifeless. He died instantly.
Fear can conjure strange fantasies. The atmosphere of horror had driven my mind away from rational thought, pulling it into Hollywood-style scenes—a cinematic pop-art horror.
But life is simpler and more brutal in its banality. However complex or resilient a being may be, a small lead bullet encased in copper can halt it in its tracks. It carries such tremendous energy that, when it transfers it to flesh and blood, the body cannot withstand it.
In real life, people don’t fly five meters backward when shot, and cars don’t explode when riddled with bullets. A carbine bullet to the chest is rarely survivable.
And here I was, foolishly wondering if thirty rounds were enough.
I fired another shot, hitting him again in the chest, and one in the head. Just in case. Then, stepping around the autopsy table and the body of the tormented cannibal doctor, I began searching the compartments for the drug. In one of the storage units, I quickly found hundreds of boxes of multimyelin. I packed ten boxes into my backpack, wrapped them in some bubble wrap, and, with the pack secured on my back, cautiously left the morgue. I activated the elevator fuses and used it to escape the basement.
The freight elevator crawled lazily toward the ground floor. As soon as it stopped, I peeked out carefully, spotting an empty hallway stretching toward the far end of the building’s other wing. My memory of the layout told me I should head right. Moving stealthily from room to room, I eventually found myself back in the same reception area where I had first encountered the sickly orderly who had locked me in the basement.
There he was again. He looked surprised to see me. I debated whether to shoot. The basement had muffled the gunshot, but now I was on the ground floor, surrounded by thinner walls and windows. A shot could attract unwanted attention.
“Aaaaaaa…” he screamed, rushing at me with clenched fists.
In an instant of wild imagination, I saw all the scenes from earlier flash before my eyes. He had wanted me to be eaten. He’d been feeding his colleagues with rats.
And humans.
Just like before, the rifle erupted, sending the lethal bite of a 7.62-millimeter round.
The body crumpled to the floor.
I stepped over him and ran, searching for an exit from this hospital hell. The sharp air outside cleared my mind. I navigated the paths I’d come by, heading back toward the hotel at a brisk pace.
Breathless and flushed from the speed I’d set for myself, I stopped only when I reached the reception desk of the luxurious Skyline once again. On the leather armchair where the hotel director had rested his sleepy head, I found a fresh, slimy stain—but no director.
The dutiful corporate employee had vanished.
On the reception computer screen, I saw that all rooms were marked green except one. Room 907 was outlined in red, with the label “occupied” underneath.
I rushed to the elevators. All cabins were stationary on the ground floor except one, displaying the number nine. I decided to take the risk and rode up.
I drummed my fingers nervously on the trigger guard as the elevator ascended to the ninth floor. I spotted him standing in front of her room. He was completely still, as if hypnotized. I crept up, my footsteps silent on the plush carpet.
He was muttering to himself, seemingly oblivious to my approach.
“The hotel is evacuated. Yesss… evacuated. All guests must vacate their rooms. One guest still in Room 907. I must ask the guest to, yes, to leave the room. The hotel is evacuated…” he rambled.
He noticed me too late. I had closed in enough to strike, and without hesitation, I whacked him on the forehead with the rifle butt. He went down efficiently, some might say expertly, though it was more of an amateur blow—I’d never had cause to try it before.
One learns as long as one lives.
Good hotels have a storage room on every floor where housekeeping keeps linens, cleaning supplies, towels, and toiletries.
I dragged the unconscious man into the supply room, tore a few pillowcases into strips, and fashioned sturdy cords to tie his hands and feet. I stuffed his mouth with a wad of that fine cotton.
No sooner had I trussed up the unfortunate hotel manager like a sausage than my phone buzzed in my pocket.
Her name lit up on the screen.
HANNA. (06x…)
My heart pounded harder.
A cardiologist would call it arrhythmia. Maybe it was, but who cares about the doctor’s diagnosis right now? She was calling. Her voice was just a green icon away. I quickly swiped over the little phone icon and spoke.
“I’m here.”
“Hey, you,” she said in a thin, sleepy voice.
“Hey,” I replied.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Not great, not terrible,” I replied, borrowing the familiar meme from that near-post-apocalyptic TV series we’d watched a few years ago.
“How convenient.” She laughed.
I was walking quietly toward Room 907.
“And you?” I asked.
“Mmm… I had the strangest dream. I had to call you right away.”
“What did you dream?”
“I dreamed of you.”
“Was it a good dream?” I flirted.
“Yeah, like… you were here, in my room, and you were trying to wake me up, but I couldn’t wake up. Then you left to get the medicine, and I told you you were wonderful because I dreamed of you. Like a dream within a dream, you know?” She tried to explain in her drowsy voice.
“Do you think I’m wonderful in real life? Because I think you’re wonderful, you know. And I think about you a lot. Constantly. You’re so dear to me that I could, I don’t know, just appear right outside your door,” I teased.
“Don’t mess with me.”
At that moment, I stopped in front of her door.
“I’m not messing with you. You know I mean what I say. And I’m honest.”
“I know, I feel that, but you’re still kidding,” she said, laughing.
“If you don’t believe me, why don’t you get up and open the door to Room Nine-Zero-Seven,” I replied, playing it cool.
She laughed, and then started to piece it together.
“Wait, how do you know I’m in 907?”
“Open the door,” I said.
There was no answer, but after a few seconds, I heard a rustling from inside her room.
She flung the door open wide, like someone trying to catch someone in a lie, or hoping to prove nobody was really there. She looked as though she expected to triumphantly say, “A-ha, see, you can’t just appear here!”
“See, my dear, I told you I was telling the truth.”
Her eyes, full of disbelief, took me in like a portrait framed in the doorway of Room 907 on the ninth floor of the Skyline hotel.
Her enchanting, disarming smile was intoxicating. I stood there, like a fool, unsure of what to say next.
She wrapped her arms around my neck, saving me from my momentary awkwardness. I hugged her tightly, feeling her long, delicate fingers glide through my short-cropped hair. Her lips grazed my left cheek, just enough to send a jolt of sensation through my neurons. Instinctively, I turned my head and stole a kiss.
The next kiss didn’t need to be stolen. We stood in the doorway, craving the tenderness that drew us together like gravity.
The collision of emotional gravities was the crescendo of our long journey of discovering all those little, and not-so-little, synchronicities that we chose to see as signs.
I loved her, in my thoughts, in spirit, in that point where we had found each other so deeply, despite the short time, irrationally, without any way to explain it logically.
It just was.
I hoped the feeling was mutual.
I wanted to believe that this, too, was simply the way it was.
Time lost its meaning in that dance.
The orange disc of the sun was already setting behind the city’s western edge, softening the silhouettes of the distant buildings, when we decided to get up and look for something to eat.
She slipped into loose leather pants and a pair of cute white sneakers.
“I’m starving now.”
“I’ll cook for you,” I said.
“You’ll cook?” She looked at me with a curious squint.
“I told you I’m a great cook.”
“Sure.”
“I’m serious. I wasn’t bragging. Well, I was bragging, but I wasn’t lying.”
“What are you going to cook?” she asked.
“Something simple and quick. Beef and mushroom risotto in carbonara sauce. What do you think?”
“Now I’m curious.”
“Deal,” I said.
We found the restaurant adjacent to the kitchen.
A hotel kitchen is a paradise. Until yesterday, a small army of sous chefs and cooks had been crafting dozens of dishes, appetizers, soups, and desserts.
Now, all those top-quality ingredients were ours alone.
I found fresh mushrooms, cut a fine piece of beef ribeye, garlic, cream, eggs, seasonings, and rice.
“Wow. You really look like you know what you’re doing,” she said, leaning on her elbows, watching me clean the mushrooms, trim the garlic, and prepare the spices.
“You could help me. We’ll cook with four hands. What do you say?”
“What should I do?”
“Put the rice in a pot to cook, then chop the mushrooms into quarters. I’ll get the meat ready in the meantime.”
We worked in sync, so seamlessly that an invisible observer might think we were employees in that restaurant.
I poured a bit of olive oil into two cast-iron skillets and turned on the gas burners.
“The secret to well-prepared mushrooms is high heat and quality olive oil. Only after the water evaporates and they start to crisp up do the real flavors emerge. Salt, pepper, garlic, a bit of butter, and a sprig of fresh rosemary are added only at the end,” I explained the recipe to her.
“And when will you chop and add the meat?” she asked.
“I won’t. I’ll sear this one whole, and we’ll slice it afterward.”
A good beef steak needs marbling. Why? Because it’s cooked in a scorching hot skillet, with just enough oil to let the fat from the meat melt and form a micro-layer between the pan and the steak. This transfers the heat to the protein and creates a crispy crust where all the flavors reside. The heat will penetrate deeply, cooking the meat while the crust locks in the juices. Three minutes on one side, two on the other. Then, as with the mushrooms, a pinch of butter, a crushed garlic clove, and rosemary—fifteen seconds per side.
“Cooking is chemistry, but it requires the mind of an alchemist, someone who believes they can turn lead into gold,” I said, lost in my inspiration, as if I were revealing some profound truth.
To the mushrooms, I added a spoonful of cheese, cooking cream, salt, and egg yolk. While the sauce simmered, I cut the rested steak into pink slices, mixed them with the rice, and then combined everything with the sauce.
Dinner was ready.
The pop of a champagne cork startled me, and the sparkling wine spilled, spraying the stovetop.
“This’ll get me tipsy,” she laughed.
“I thought you didn’t like white wine?”
“Champagne’s different,” she said.
And indeed, champagne is something special. Legend has it that when French monk Dom Perignon first tasted the bubbling drink he couldn’t get rid of the bubbles from, he said, “My God, I’m drinking stars!” The story was a marketing trick to sell sparkling wine. But even so, the stars, trapped in sugar in that unique wine, were indeed spectacular.
Especially tonight.
I loaded everything onto a restaurant cart.
“Would the lady be so kind as to join me for dinner in Room 907?”
“Maybe,” she replied, giving me a seductive look as she cheekily swiped a bit of risotto with her finger.
“Hey… no stealing.”
“Mmm, it’s good. I accept the invitation.”
The evening slipped by as we sat on the floor, leaning against each other, savoring the last bites of the creamy risotto. Not long after, we made our way through a second bottle of champagne. I told her how brilliantly she’d come up with the plan for me to get the medicine, that I’d found it exactly where she said it would be. I left out what happened in the hospital basement—those details had no place in a night like this. The events of that afternoon would stay with me, part of a personal vow of silence, my own omertà. I confessed about the hotel director, promising her I’d untie him when the time was right.
And so, the conversation came full circle, and we found ourselves back on the topic of dinner. I was proud of my cooking. I couldn’t resist boasting a little more.
“I’ll have to note in the guest book that this hotel has an exceptional chef.”
The alcohol was dissolving my inhibitions, and I wanted to keep bragging, but she placed her finger on my lips.
“The suites here also have exceptional jacuzzi tubs. Huge, huge tubs,” she said.
In the next moment, the sun was high in the sky again.
But even the rays, tracing patterns through the only window we hadn’t covered with the heavy woolen curtains, failed to wake us.
A buzzing from my phone on the nightstand finally dragged us from our hazy sleep.
I answered, still half-asleep, not bothering to check the caller.
“Hello? Who is it?” I asked in a hoarse, dehydrated voice.
“Are you out of your mind? Now tell me that, brother,” came Bauer’s voice, angry yet concerned.
“Don’t worry, we made it. I found enough of the medicine yesterday,” I explained to him.
“Listen, listen… You were supposed to leave immediately.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Are you out of your mind? Did you watch the news last night? Tell me you didn’t. It’ll make me feel better.”
“I didn’t,” I said, casting a glance at her as she opened her eyes, gradually waking up.
She was stunning, even in the haze of early morning.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because the border has fallen apart. The sick woke up during the night, and all hell broke loose. The ones left on that side pushed through, both healthy and infected, if any healthy ones are even left. There were riots, attacks, the military opened fire, and by morning, many posts had stopped reporting back. It’s a breakdown, my friend, a complete breakdown.”
“So what now?”
“I heard from my people that they’ll spray the border region again to contain it. Then, two kilometers on either side of the border, everything will be leveled by artillery. And that’s just the beginning. Get out of the city because I’m not sure they won’t try to ignite fires there. Bombers will be dropping incendiary bombs,” Bauer said, his voice tense.
“These people have lost their minds.”
“It’s public now. That’s the official line. They’re panicking. The truth is, they can’t contain it. This is happening across Europe, but our government is staying silent.”
“What about you? Where will you go?” I asked.
“Brother, I don’t know how else I can help you. Just head south. Only small islands will be spared this horror. I can’t offer better advice than that.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant, what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me, brother. We’ll see each other again.”
“Alright, my friend. Thank you, truly, for everything,” I said.
“Don’t mention it. See you. Love you, brother.”
He ended the call abruptly, the same way he had started it.
Hanna understood everything instantly. Within ten minutes, we were ready to go.
I slung the backpack over my shoulder, grabbed my rifle, and just then remembered I’d forgotten to untie the hotel director.
I’d promised I would, and I keep my promises.
The poor man was foaming slightly at the mouth from the cloth I’d stuffed in. He was jerking around like a fish out of water, struggling to free himself, but he was too weak to break the ties I’d bound him with.
I met his gaze. His eyes weren’t feverish.
“Do you understand me?” I asked.
He nodded.
I reached for the cloth in his mouth.
“Let me go… I’m not infected, really,” he pleaded.
“You are,” I told him, pointing to a spot on his left leg where his fine trousers were torn and bloodstained.
“No, please, I’m not,” he protested, trembling.
“Let’s not argue. Look here.”
I showed him a vial of multimyelin, along with a syringe and needle.
“This might help temporarily. Keep you coherent for a few more days. In the basement, in the morgue of the neurology clinic, there’s a fridge full of this medicine. But trust me, I saw with my own eyes that the illness has other consequences, horrific and likely painful mutations. And it’s even worse if you’re still aware.”
“What should I do?” he asked, his voice breaking.
“I’m already losing my mind for half an hour at a time, and then I’m clear-headed for a couple of hours. My joints ache, and my skin hurts. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
I felt sorry for him. He’d likely spent his whole career as a diligent cog in the corporate machine. His small dreams were tied to someone else’s grand ambitions, hoping for security for his family, perhaps a good school for his children, a larger apartment, a better car, a wider TV screen, and maybe an annual semi-exotic vacation. For that one taste of luxury, he was willing to sacrifice the rest of his life.
Did I see a past version of myself in him, or even my present self, stripped of the corporate context, feeling a deep empathy with him? I wasn’t sure.
All I knew was that I didn’t mind parting with my CZ. I left it on the floor, gave him a dining knife, and looked at him meaningfully.
“With this, you can cut yourself free,” I said.
“Th-thank you,” he stammered, confused.
“Don’t follow me. I won’t hesitate to kill you if I see you again. Stay here for half an hour, and think about whether you really want to wait for the illness to take its course, even if you use this medicine. Think carefully. If I were in your position, well…” I didn’t finish the sentence but gestured to the pistol I’d left in front of him as a gift, or perhaps an act of mercy.
“Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“Goodbye, and forgive me.”
I fled from him, but not from the image of desperation on his face.
We descended to the ground floor and reached the car. We tossed her suitcase and my backpack into the seats, and soon we were speeding toward the road out of this doomed city.
The infected roamed the streets like specters, disoriented, with vacant stares, like a sad congregation of a post-apocalyptic church, waiting in vain for a messiah in the form of the state, science, or society.
All those concepts were now devalued, devoured by the inevitable biological inflation rooted in a completely different kind of “invisible hand” of the market—a microorganism, with new and severe rules that had arrived. A failure of regulations.
I drove fast, in the opposite lane, as the one leading in our direction was completely blocked. Playing the Englishman on the wrong side of the road, I saw in the distance the checkpoint I’d passed through yesterday. It was deserted. The barrier had been moved aside, and there was no sign of the guards.
Just as we sped past the blockade, a faint mist started settling on the windshield.
“Carfentanil,” I thought.
I switched off the AC and instinctively pressed the window buttons to make sure they were all sealed.
I knew the car wasn’t a tank and couldn’t be hermetically sealed. Eventually, we’d fall asleep; we were already breathing the poison.
But Bauer’s words kept me alert: if we stopped now and stayed in the zone the authorities would soon bomb in a panic, we’d end our journey here.
Fighting sleep, I pushed to keep a solid ten kilometers between us and the checkpoint.
She was already yawning uncontrollably as I caught myself drifting off for a second or two at a time. I believed I’d put enough distance between us and the city, so I decided to stop the car at the first rest area I saw.
“I’m fading… slipping away,” she muttered, her voice dragging.
The opiate was taking effect.
I had a thousand doses of medicine that would slowly dissolve in the vials. If there was no electricity where we were headed to run a freezer, all of this was in vain. The serum would last a year, maybe two, before its potency faded.
“Two years with her? That’s anything but pointless. I’d trade all certainty for those two years. This is good.”
I hugged her, pulled her close, and kissed her, ruffling her silky hair.
“Don’t worry, my love. Everything will be okay. Now, we’ll sleep a little.”
“And after?”
“When we wake up, we’ll head south. I hear the small islands in the Aegean Sea are beautiful.”
“I love…” she mumbled.
“Sleep well and dream something beautiful and bright,” I whispered to her as my eyes closed, and my thoughts spiraled in a haze of drowsiness.
She didn’t have the strength to answer. The last thing I heard before drifting into sleep was a soft, very soft “SWDW.”
Author: Ivan Djikovic