“Paul …”
The voice is Irene’s. She’s lying next to him, her blanket halfway on the floor, her skin glistening with sweat. She’s frowning and turning her head. “Paul, watch out …”
“Irene,” he croaks. “You’re dreaming, sweetheart.”
His wife doesn’t wake up, but keeps whispering incoherently in her sleep. He reaches over and shakes her gently. Still, she doesn’t awaken. Her skin is flaming hot. Could it be a fever?
Paul sits up with a sigh. It’s stifling hot in the bedroom, even though the window is open all the way. The summer sure is merciless this year. But this night feels even hotter than the many previous ones. Paul gets the silly notion that it’s Irene giving off heat and raising the temperature in the room even further. Ridiculous, of course.
“Please, watch out, Paul,” she whimpers.
He sits up and looks over at her nightstand. The pills are right next to a glass of water, but he remembers her taking them before they went to sleep, so it can’t be the chemo bothering her. They’ve had many sleepless nights since she started the second round of treatment, but fever has never been one of the things tormenting her. He reaches over and takes the glass.
“Irene, drink some water, you’ll feel better.”
He tries putting the glass to her lip, but she thrusts her head sideways, hitting the glass with her chin and causing him to spill most of the water over her neck and chest.
“Ah, goddamnit,” he moans.
To his astonishment, though, the splashing water doesn’t wake up his wife.
He notices her hand, lying restlessly on her stomach. It’s swollen like a rubber glove full of air, the fingers thick as hot dogs, and—doesn’t the skin look weird? It’s hard to tell in the darkness, and Paul isn’t wearing his glasses, but he’s pretty sure Irene’s hand is greenish.
His eyes fall on the Band-Aid a few inches above her wrist.
What did she say happened? Whiskers scratched her, I think.
That stupid cat. Paul has never trusted it. Had it been up to him, that cat would have been put down a long time ago. He would even have been happy to do it himself, using his old hunting rifle. But Irene loved that arrogant little beast, so …
He recalls her complaining about the scratch marks itching before they went to bed. She cleaned it thoroughly using hydrogen peroxide, like she used to do back when the kids were small and would fall and scrape their knees. So the scratch marks couldn’t have been infected—could they? Maybe some resistant bacteria got in when Whiskers scratched her. God only knows what that nasty animal might have had its claws in. A dead bird, probably.
The Band-Aid seems to be bulging a little. Paul grabs her twitching arm and pulls off the Band-Aid carefully. He lets out a gasp as he looks at what is no longer a harmless scratch, but a throbbing, oozing boil.
“Bloody hell,” he snarls, jumping out of bed. “Wake up, Irene! We gotta get you to the ER!”
“No, Paul,” she whispers, and for a moment he thinks she’s awake, but when he looks at her face, her eyes are still closed. Her demeanor is calmer now, like she’s falling into a deeper sleep. “Watch out, Paul,” is the last thing she says, before falling silent.
He stands there, looking at her for a moment. He’s not sure why, but he’s struck by a sense of grief. The thought of everything she’s been through this past year. First it was the cancer, and now this traumatic experience with the policeman sawing off his own leg right outside in their shack. The thought that Irene had to see that … It took the police most of the evening to get everything cleaned up, after they had taken pictures and done tests and whatnot. Paul is not sure he’ll ever be able to go in to the shack again without thinking about that.
And now this … some infection in her hand which probably got a hold of her because her immune system is already weakened by the cancer treatment.
Paul turns and strides into the living room, looking for his phone. But he can’t find it anywhere. Then he remembers he brought it into the bedroom. He usually never does that, but he wanted to be sure he heard it in case the police called them.
He walks back through the house, brooding. The thought of going to the ER in the middle of the night doesn’t exactly make him ecstatic, but he doesn’t want to take any risks concerning Irene’s health, so they have to—
He stops abruptly as he almost bumps into Irene, who is standing in the open bedroom door, her eyes closed, her body swaying uncertainly.
“Irene?” he asks. “I think you’re sleepwalking, dear. Come back to bed, all right? You need to sit down.”
He takes her by the shoulders. As their skin touch, he’s surprised to feel how cold she is. The heat has completely left her body within a few minutes.
Then, just as he’s about to turn her around, Irene opens her eyes wide, and Paul can immediately tell there’s nothing left in those eyes of that woman whom he’s known and loved for most of his life. He just has time to think one last amazed thought: She’s dead.
Then Irene lunges at him.
DAY 3
THE FOLLOWING EVENTS TAKE PLACE ON
MONDAY, JULY 28
ONE
William puts on the headphones as soon as the doors to the elevator close.
He’s strictly speaking not allowed to hear music at work, but come on—how else is he supposed to make it through his shift? Besides, the basement is usually empty, except for the other porters, but none of them will tell on him. Well, maybe Thorsten, that old, grumpy bastard.
William turns up the volume as the tunes of Custard Pie fill his ears. The doors open and he pushes the stand down the deserted hallway, smiling
