Part 29 (1/2)
Cholera? That sounded bad, but... ”What can I do about it? I'll be out in a few minutes.”
”Uh-huh, but the real problem is that Richard is downstairs with a gun and refusing to let any of the twenty-odd people who've come back from Penn into the building. I think he's going to shoot someone.”
Lauren shot upright in the tub. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
G.o.d hates me.
”Okay,” I replied in shaky voice, ”I'll be right out.” Getting out of the tub, I said to Lauren, ”We'll finish this later?”
She nodded but reached over to turn Barry off and got up out of the tub with me.
”I'm coming with you.”
For just a moment I allowed myself the pleasure of watching her naked, wet body climb out of the tub.
”Don't forget to put a mask on.”
Day 17 January 8.
”HOW ARE YOU feeling?”
”Groggy,” replied Chuck, ”but good. You still think we need criminals in society?”
I laughed. ”Not so much maybe, no.”
After three days of slipping in and out of consciousness, Chuck had come back to the land of the living. He was up and talkative, playing with Ellarose and Luke.
We purposely left him out of the loop while he was recovering, and I hoped whatever was making him ”weak and achy” wasn't the same thing that the rest of the people in our building were coming down with.
”So what did I miss?”
Susie was sitting behind him on the bed, holding Ellarose and gently rubbing Chuck's back as he sat up. Lauren was sitting beside her, and Luke, of course, was running around the room.
”The usual-plague, pestilence, an armed standoff, and the decay of Western civilization, but nothing I can't handle.”
Last night had been a surreal juxtaposition, jumping from a dreamscape of steam and candles and Barry White, and into a nightmare straight from a zombie apocalypse-a darkened lobby lit by headlamps, screaming and cursing, guns being waved around while a ragged, dirty gang of humans pressed against a gla.s.s wall, banging, begging to get inside.
Thankfully, when I'd let them in, no brains had been eaten.
But Richard had had a good point.
If cholera had broken out at Penn Station, and they'd been there, then letting them back into the building was risking infection for all of us. On the other hand, forcing them to stay outside was tantamount to a death sentence given the subzero temperatures.
In the end, I'd convinced Richard that we could quarantine them on the first floor for two days, well past the incubation period for cholera. I'd looked it up on the phone app on infectious diseases Chuck had given me.
We'd gone back to using the face masks and rubber gloves, and brought down a kerosene heater and sequestered them in one of the larger first-floor offices off the main lobby. When I'd gone down to check on them this morning, everyone there was sick and aching, and so was everyone in the hallway. The symptoms weren't anything like cholera, though; they seemed more like a cold-or the flu.
I explained the situation to Chuck, and he started shaking his head.
”Have you been ventilating properly? You've been mixing diesel with the kerosene to make it last longer, right?”
”I had to close the windows yesterday because of the cold,” I admitted, immediately realizing what I'd done. How could I have been so stupid? The hunger made it difficult to think coherently.
Chuck took a deep breath.
”Carbon monoxide poisoning has symptoms a lot like the flu. We're not sick in here because we're using the electric heaters, but everywhere else is using the gas heaters?”
I stood up and opened the door to the bedroom and yelled out, ”Vince!”
Even feeling ill, he was still manning his computer control station, monitoring the hundreds of images an hour that were arriving from all over the city and routing emergency messages to Sergeant Williams.
Vince's head appeared through the main door to Chuck's place. I'd made it clear he wasn't allowed in here, so he tentatively peered around the door frame, his eyes puffy and red.
”The sickness, it's probably carbon monoxide poisoning,” I explained. ”Open some windows and text everyone downstairs, and tell Tony.”
Vince brought one hand up to rub his eyes and nodded, and without saying a word he closed the door. He was tired.
”They'll be better by tomorrow. No lasting damage,” said Chuck. ”But keeping the ones who were near Penn Station quarantined was a good idea.”
I nodded, feeling stupid.
Chuck rubbed the back of his neck while he swung his feet off the bed. ”My G.o.d, cholera.”
Susie rubbed his back as he leaned forward.
”Are you sure you're feeling well enough, baby?”
”A little woozy, but not bad.”
”That was a close call,” I said. ”That guy that attacked us was no random accident. It was one of Paul's guys.”
Chuck sat back down from standing halfway.
”What?”
”We have a picture of the attack-”
”You stopped to take a picture?”
It was easy to forget that, after being out of it for a few days, Chuck had only seen the start of the meshnet. Vince estimated that over a hundred thousand people were now connected.
”No, not me. Someone watching took a picture. It's what people do now, how we're helping keep things under control.”
Chuck stopped and stared at me for a second, absorbing what I was saying.