He looks down at the Arab’s wet face and can tell right away that his condition has actually taken a turn for the worse. While it’s true he’s not thrashing about anymore, and has stopped muttering incoherently, his brown skin has taken on a greyish hue which Finn finds very alarming.
“God damnit,” he groans, kneeling down.
“Is something wrong?” Lone calls from the kitchen.
Finn ignores her and takes a closer look at the bandage. It’s dark red from dried up blood, but the skin right next to it has turned almost green.
Blood poisoning. But how the hell could it have come on so fast? Poor guy must have been infected before he cut himself on the glass.
Finn stares at the bandage and recalls the sight of the wounded hand. The stump where the fingers had been was bloody and all torn up. Not exactly an injury you would attribute to the clean cut of broken glass. In fact, the hand looked more like the guy had stuck it in a blender.
Maybe something bit him … maybe he got into a fight with a big dog.
If that’s the case, what’s happening to the guy could be rabies or something similarly aggressive. Finn puts his palm on the Arab’s forehead, feeling to his surprise how cold the skin is.
Huh! The fever must have broken.
Normally, Finn would take that as a good sign; however, in this case, he’s pretty sure it’s quite the opposite. The Arab’s body seems to be giving up the fight against whatever is attacking it. His breathing has turned short and shallow.
If they’re not here within minutes, he’ll go into cardiac arrest.
Finn closes his eyes and breathes heavily for a moment. What a day this has turned out to be. Not half an hour ago he was out in the garden trimming hedges, his only worry was the ache in his back. Now he’s sitting with a dying man.
Lone calls from the kitchen: “They’re here! Finn, they’re here!”
Finn notices the sirens. He gets to his feet and goes to the kitchen. He sees the ambulance come to a halt and two paramedics jump out.
“Go and see to him,” he says, starting for the entrance hall. He opens the front door just as the paramedics come running. “It’s in here! Hurry up, he’s not doing very well. In the living room!”
The two men squeeze past him without any questions and head for the living room.
“Finn!” Lone calls from the living room, her voice shrill. “Finn, come look at this!”
Finn strides back into the room, almost bumping into the paramedics, who have stopped dead in the doorway. When he sees what they’re seeing, he too stops abruptly.
Lone is standing next to the couch. The Arab is sitting bolt upright, his mouth slowly opens and closes, a stream of drool running from his lower lip. But Finn only sees the man’s eyes. They’re wide open, staring at nothing, and both pupil and iris are completely gone. Looking at the guy, Finn is reminded of those fish that live deep down near the bottom of the ocean, their eyes blind from living in eternal darkness.
Lone is the first one to speak. “I … I think he …”
She’s interrupted as the Arab suddenly moves with striking speed. He twists to the side, reaches out his arms, grabs Lone’s blouse, pulls her down, opens his mouth and bites down hard on the side of her neck.
Lone screams shrilly, more surprise than pain, and the paramedics jump back to life.
Finn, however, finds himself utterly unable to move. It’s like someone pulled the plug on his old body, and he can only stand there and watch everything that happens in front of him through a veil of shock.
The living room turns into a tangle of flailing arms and snapping teeth. The paramedics manage in a joined effort to wrench the Arab free of Lone, but he comes away with a massive chunk from her neck, and the blood immediately starts gushing. A second later the Arab has instead clamped down on one of the paramedics’ shoulder, causing him to yell out and stumble over his own feet, reaching out and grabbing hold of the other paramedic in an effort not to fall down, but only managing to pull his colleague down with him.
The noises only come through to Finn in a muffled drone. The shouts of the paramedics, Lone’s screaming, the animal-like growl of the Arab, the crash of the coffee table being flipped on its side as the paramedics scramble frantically to hold down the Arab while simultaneously not being bitten—which proves impossible, as both of them quickly suffer bloody wounds as the Arab’s teeth tear through their uniforms.
Lone is the last person standing, but only for a few seconds, as she tries in vain to stop the blood from pouring out of her neck, her tiny, shaking hands getting soiled in no time. Her eyes sweep the room, distant and dreamy, and for a moment they connect with Finn’s. Later, he will swear that he saw her smile; that his beloved wife of almost fifty years summoned her last effort of will to send him one last smile. Then, she collapses and disappears from view behind the couch.
Finn blinks hazily and turns his gaze back to the Arab, who’s now on top of one of the paramedics, the poor guy screaming and fighting to get him off, while the other paramedic is rolling around the floor, clutching his jaw, which is missing most of the skin. The Arab is the only one who hasn’t slowed down; he’s still biting at everything within reach, desperate like a predator who has gone hungry for weeks.
So, this is how it ends, Finn thinks very soberly. Part of his brain is trying to convince him it’s all just a bad dream, but the more rational part knows better. It knows Lone is dead
