One of the doors was wide open, and sure enough, when Santiago tried the key in the lock it was ours. I was relieved. Nobody died in hotels, I told myself.
Before we put Cooper on the bed I tied another compound press over the one that was already saturated with blood. Then I gently set my gear down in a corner of the room and began to look around.
I found a young girl in the closet. Her shirt barely covered her belly, and she was wearing nothing more than a dirty pair of underwear with a piece of rope tied at the waist to hold them up. She was climbing all over me in no time. She smelled like piss and onions.
“Can you get rabies from these things?” Zeller asked, poking a child away from the door.
All the children were laughing and pointing at me.
“They like you, Stantz,” said Santiago.
Suddenly they were barking at me like dogs. Apparently I was destined to be a leader of dogs in this country. Then they started another game, holding hands and dancing wildly.
We quickly shooed out all the children except the first little girl. She wouldn’t let go of my arm. I asked her to warn me if anyone with a gun approached the room, but she didn’t understand a word. Then I told her to scream if she saw someone with a gun, acting it out by pointing my weapon and letting out a little yell. She practiced screaming for me between laughs. “That’s nice,” I told her, but there was no use. She obviously didn’t understand. Finally, she ran off looking for the other children.
We left the door to the room open. Zeller sat in the doorway on guard duty. Children strolled up and down the hall, peeking into our room as they passed.
Just off the main room was a tiny room with a pipe in the floor and shit on the walls. It smelled like the end of the world, so we closed the door on it.
I could hear afternoon prayers echoing in the street. I’d heard them the day before from the rooftop, but now they seemed louder and more threatening. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d said a prayer.
We decided to open the windows to let some air in for Cooper, but when I tried them they were all stuck.
“Jesus Christ,” Zeller said, pushing me angrily out of the way. He struggled with the first window, but then it shook loose and opened. The other ones were no easier.
The compound press on Cooper’s chest was black with blood and dirt. He had a satisfied look on his face, as if someone he loved was whispering to him. The corners of his mouth turned up in a faint smile, and his face was darkened by a thin beard and heat rash. I thought about holding his hand, but instead I just let it hang off the edge of the mattress, palm up and open. I should have folded them across his chest.
Santiago stepped up next to him, poured some water on an extra T-shirt, and pressed it to Cooper’s forehead. His eyes were open and shot with blood. Santiago asked Cooper to drink, but he didn’t respond. Then Santiago started asking him about New York City, in the kind of voice people use with young children. Finally he took his hand and felt for a pulse.
Blood seeped slowly from under the edges of the compound press, collecting dirt and sweat as it moved down his arm to gather in his palm. I was reminded of the dams my brother and I used to build in our dirt driveway. We’d turn the hose on at one end of the drive and build stream beds and dams to contain the flood. The water balled up with the dirt, and the balls of mud looked like mercury. But in this case Cooper’s blood was seeping slowly into the mattress.
Santiago paced the room while I sat in a corner on my rucksack. We took our helmets off. The band in mine was stained dark brown from all the sweat. As the day grew hotter the sounds of the street gave way to nearly total silence, as if the city were empty.
“What do we do now?” Zeller asked, stepping in from the hallway.
Santiago shook his head. “We wait for dark.”
“We should find help,” I said. “There have to be doctors in this city. Maybe we could ask the owner.”
“Too many people already know where we are,” Santiago said. “We don’t know who’s who in this city. If we go to the wrong person it’s over for all of us.” Then he stopped pacing and put his hand on the wall opposite me, next to the window.
We had a corner room so there was plenty of city to see. Directly across from the hotel was another building that looked to be abandoned. Then there were just small houses lining a road yellow with dust.
“We need to keep moving,” I said. “He’s not going to make it much longer.”
“We fucking stay here until we figure something out,” Santiago said. “No shit we got to move, but how?” He was leaning against the wall, his M-16 slung across his back. “You tell me, what do we do?”
“We steal a car,” I said. “It doesn’t matter, we have to move. We can’t wait for them to come back for us.”
“I know,” Santiago said quietly. “Trust me, I know. They’re definitely looking for us. But we need to rest so we can move out later. Clear our heads.” He looked over at Zeller. “I don’t think Cooper can take the move anyway.”
Zeller turned to us from the door. “Do you know where we are?”
“No,” Santiago said. He looked at me. “You?”
“I couldn’t keep track,” I said. “This
