'Oh God,' he moaned, collapsing to all fours in the snow on the sidewalk and heaving a steamy mess of bile onto the accumulation. Grabbing a handful of snow, he shoved it in his mouth to try to chase the taste of feces from his tongue.
A streetlamp towered over him, beside it an overflowing trash can. The wind chased newspaper pages and plastic bags down the center of the snow-covered street, marred only by the sparse tracks of the few cars still left on the roads with gas prices as they were. Anders crawled until he could reach the wire-mesh receptacle and used it to drag himself to his feet. He vomited into the trash can and forced himself to continue down the street.
He had to move faster. This was an aggressive disease that waged an internal war on his body's defenses, which it was already winning handily.
Faceless people shuffled past him down the street, bundled in rotting clothing and fraying scarves, walking not because they had somewhere to be, but simply for the warmth that moving provided. Not so long ago, the apartments rising into the sky to either side of the road had been filled to capacity with waiting lists as long as his arm. Now, only the penthouse suites were formally occupied, while the street trash did everything they possibly could to crawl through broken windows and pry away the graffiti-laden plywood, if only to bed down inside for a single night.
Anders turned down the alley to his right. It was covered since it once served as the valet entrance to an upscale hotel. Where once uniformed bellhops stood sentry with gold-gilded dollies and valets in burgundy vests waited behind velvet ropes there were now heaps of humanity huddled together for warmth, buried in newspapers, towels, and blankets to the point that they looked like piles of refuse themselves. The front doors to the hotel were hidden behind sloppily-mortared walls of cinder blocks. The empty building ratted inside while the people shivering against the storm outside did the same.
Eyes opened and peered out from beneath trash covers, leering up from beneath wool caps pulled down nearly to the bridges of their noses, at the sound of the limping footsteps crossing from the snow onto the merely iced cement. Those who recognized Anders, those who weren't so stoned they couldn't move, arose from the ground and scattered like roaches into the shadows, willing to brave nature's wrath rather than be tempted by Anders's proposition. They all knew him... what he did.
'I have...' Anders said, doubling over and grabbing his stomach. He felt something warm drain into his shorts and down his leg. 'I have three thousand dollars.'
More faces appeared from where they were hidden in plain view, newspapers and blankets shuffling and sloughing off to confirm that he had their undivided attention. Usually, this was the point where one of the hardly- conscious zombies would trade his life for the cash to buy enough smack to overdose on anyway.
Anders fell to his knees and tried to puke, though this time the dry heaves brought only a strand of mucus and saliva to slap the ground.
'Will it be quick?' a woman's voice called from somewhere against the wall behind the others.
'Mommy, no,' a smaller voice whispered.
'Shh!'
Anders crawled forward and groaned as he rolled over onto his rear end, his head lolling back against his shoulders. He tried to remain focused and conscious.
'No,' he said plainly.
There was a moment of silence in which Anders feared he would need to crawl through the bodies until he found a junkie on his last legs to put out of his misery. He abhorred the prospect of giving such a terrible gift, but his was a power that brought life and hope to the desperate. That was enough to outweigh the fact that for each life he saved, another must be taken. Every disease he removed from the dying needed to be transferred into another body before it consumed his own. Hope was a dangerous thing, but it was infectious. And right now, as the world came down around their ears, it was the most valuable of all commodities.
'How long...?' the woman called. 'How long will it take?'
'Hours... days...weeks...There's no way of knowing for sure.'
'Does it...hurt?' she asked, rising to her feet. A small child grabbed her hand, gloved in a dirty sweat sock, and fought in vain to pull her mother back down out of sight.
Anders locked eyes with the woman across the shadowy alley.
'Yes.'
'Please, mommy.'
'It's okay, sweetheart,' she said unconsciously. She focused on Anders. 'Can you help my child find a better place to live? A better life?'
'Mommy!' the child screamed, but her mother's ears were deafened to her plight.
The woman stepped forward, her daughter wailing and pawing at her the whole while. Her straw-colored hair poked out from beneath her ski cap, crisp with frost. Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were bright red, her eyes sunken into pits of despair. She wore a wool overcoat that appeared to be of little warmth as she visibly shivered.
'Can I trust you to see that my child is safe?' she asked, her brittle lips cracked and bleeding.
Anders could only nod.
The woman searched his eyes for sincerity. Walking over bodies able to sleep through the bitter cold thanks to enough heroin to fell a horse, she strode up to Anders and stood before him.
'How does this work?' she whispered.
When he looked up into her eyes, tears streamed down her cheeks.
The little girl ran to her mother's side and wrapped her arms around the woman's leg.
'Perhaps you...would like to rethink your...decision,' Anders rasped. He knew that if she didn't decide immediately he would have to crawl over and take one of the zombie junkies to rid himself of the disease.
'No,' the woman said firmly, though her jaw quivered and her lips pursed. She slipped both hands beneath her child's chest and pried her away. 'Someone...please...'
An older man, gray and haggard like a Viking, stepped out of the darkness and walked over to her side without looking directly at either of them.
'C'mon, honey,' he said, wrapping his arm around the small girl's chest and lifting her from the ground. Though she swung her arms, kicked her legs, and screamed loud enough to rip the sky, the man managed to keep both arms around her so he could carry her down to the end of the alley.
'Do you swear you will make sure my daughter finds a better life?'
Anders broke eye contact and nodded.
'Swear it to me.'
'Your child...will no longer know suffering.'
'Will you take her tonight?'
'Tonight?'
'Please...I can't stand the thought of her watching me die. She's been through more than enough in her short life.'
Anders stared at her again, his eyes lingering within hers, and finally nodded.
The woman fell to her knees before him, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
'Make sure she knows how much I love her.' She had to stifle a sob.
'Come closer,' Anders whispered.
The woman leaned over his legs until their face were a scant foot apart.
'Just do it,' she said. 'Please.'
'Closer.'
She leaned even farther across him until he was able to raise a trembling hand to her chin. He turned it gently to the side and whispered into her ear.
'Thank you.'
'For what?' she asked.
'For restoring my faith. For giving me...hope.'
She turned and looked him in the eyes, confused.
'Reach into the left...left inside pocket of my...my jacket.'
She slid her hand between the flaps of the trench coat and felt around with a shaking hand until she found the pocket and reached inside.
