The white dude was saying something, but Marcus wasn’t hearing. He had the pump back in his hands. Ray Ray turned just as Marcus raised up. The white dude was moving faster, but not fast enough. Now it was Ray Ray counting exhales. But he wouldn’t get to three. Marcus unloaded into his boss’s chest. Left the face alone. It was just business.
CHAPTER 41
I held the gun steady on the boy. When he looked at me, I felt my life turn to ash. Marcus had another shell chambered, and I wasn’t going to shoot him. And he knew it.
“Drop it,” he said.
“Maybe you’re gonna have to shoot me.”
Marcus shrugged. Instead of firing he picked up the gun they were going to kill him with and put it in his belt. Then he turned the shotgun around and offered it to me.
“Take it,” Marcus said.
“Why?”
“ ’Cuz if you don’t, I’m gonna pop you in the knee and call the brothers over here to show ’em how you killed Ray Ray.”
“And if I do?”
“You take the gun and split.”
“It looks like I killed the three of them. And you’re the hero who fought me off.”
“You getting it. And this time it’ll work. Now take the pump.”
“Why don’t I just shoot you?”
“Ain’t got the grit, old man.” Marcus paused. Then pulled a purple notebook from his back pocket. “Take this, too. Now get your ass moving. They gonna be here soon.”
He was right. I was out of conversation and time. I took a last look at Ray Sampson, sprawled and crooked in the church’s sainted shadow, life leaked out of his eyes. Marcus had picked up the gang leader’s NBC mask. He’d also taken one off Jace. Now he stood over them both, counting bullets. The King was dead. Long live the King.
I left the street of cobbles and didn’t look back.
CHAPTER 42
I walked six blocks without seeing a soul. In the middle of a burned-out strip mall on West Madison, I found what I was looking for: Rosehill’s Wine and Liquors. Its front door had been reduced to a smoking hole. I racked a round into the shotgun Marcus had given me and blew out the remnants of what had once been the front window. Three kids jumped out a side door and streaked down an alley. Inside, the floor was sticky and littered with broken bottles. The cash register had been emptied, three lottery machines and an ATM cracked open. I found a pint of Early Times wrapped in brown paper and stuck on a shelf under the front counter. I drank some of the raw whiskey and sat on the floor, Marcus’s shotgun across my knees. Ray Sampson ran through my head, along with the two I’d killed-the one called Jace and the one I knew was in the doorway without understanding exactly how. I let the faces filter into my bloodstream, where they mixed with the liquor and washed downstream. The pint bottle danced a jig in my left hand. I reached over with my right and covered it. In the back of the place was a bathroom with a mirror. My reflection was clouded and looked like every other killer I’d ever met. I washed my hands and ducked my head under the cold tap. Outside, I broke the shotgun into pieces and threw them into a Dumpster. Cook County Hospital lay on the other side of the Ike, a mile and a half due east. I took out my handgun, chambered a round, and began to walk.
Some of the blocks I walked had already been torched. Others stood silent, more red eyes watching through drawn shades as I passed. A half block from Cook, I came up on a temporary fence that cordoned off the hospital. There was an uneasy crowd massing near a gate. Women pressed to the front, holding children over their heads, hoping it might gain them admittance. Someone on a loudspeaker was telling people to go home, turn on their TVs, and wait for instructions. A second announcement directed anyone who might be sick to proceed to a red zone, wherever that might be.
Molly told me the NBC suit and tinted faceplate would serve as both protection and my ID. I slipped into a doorway and put the suit back on. There were two guards inside a booth, manning one of the checkpoints. Each wore a mask with a clear faceplate and carried a rifle. I hit the audio button on my suit and told them I was a scientist from CDA. I threw in Molly’s name. Then Ellen’s. One guard gave me a quick up and down and waved me in. The other never took his eyes off the crowd behind me.
I passed through two lines of fences and into Cook County’s ER. The first thing that struck me was the smell. Just inside the front door, I saw the reason why. They’d bagged the dead and laid them out in two rows. I followed the trail, winding down a twisting green hallway and into the bowels of the hospital. A couple of people in NBC suits hustled past, stepping over body bags like so much furniture. I read the ID tags on the bags as I walked. Three bodies from the end, one of the tags caught my eye.
THERESA JACKSON AFRICAN AMERICAN, FEMALE 32 YEARS OLD 2302 WEST ADAMS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
I touched the bag with a gloved hand and thought about the woman inside it. Two nights earlier she’d smiled and laughed while she patched up my ribs in the ER. Now she was cannon fodder for the guns of the pathogen.
I walked the rest of the way down the hallway. At the very end I found Ellen Brazile, staring through a window into an isolation room. Three bodies lay inside, each on a gurney, in various states of postmortem undress.
“Did you draw more blood?” Her voice was muffled by a clear faceplate and hood. A technician looked up and nodded.
“Get it to the lab as soon as you can.” She turned away from the makeshift morgue and saw me standing there.
“Can I help you?”
“It’s me,” I said. “Kelly.”
Ellen moved closer. “How did you get in?”
“Took a walk through the hot zone.” I glanced toward the bodies on the tables. Two were men. One looked like he was asleep. The other’s face was covered in a sweat of blood. The body in the middle was that of a young woman. She had skin like chilled cream and long black hair.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” I said.
“Who told you?”
“Molly.”
She nodded toward the window. “That’s Anna. We’re taking some samples.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I heard you the first time. Come on.”
Ellen led me down a short hallway, through two sets of doors, to an empty room.
“I need to ask you a few questions,” she said, gesturing to an examining table. “Did your suit suffer any ruptures while you were outside?”
“I was exposed if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s what I’m asking. For how long?”
“Pretty much the whole time. A couple of hours at least.”
“Were you inside any buildings?”
“Yeah, but everyone I met was dead.”
She began to pull supplies out of a cabinet. “This area of the hospital is sealed off and scrubbed-that means
