“What can I do now?” Jared asked, looking up from the now complete Power Rangers jigsaw puzzle he’d been working on since mid-morning.
“Why don’t you finish building your Space Legos?” She leaned forward to look at the finished puzzle. “That looks great.”
She and Roger had been taking turns, one keeping the boy occupied while the other took care of Liz. Neither of them discussed the President’s speech. The news had been too shocking.
“Okay,” said Jared quietly.
He got up and crossed the lounge to the corner of the room where his Lego space fleet sat in a neat formation. The boy seemed to be dealing with the situation amazingly calmly. Only once had he asked to go play out in the yard, and he hadn’t complained when his father said no.
Jared sat down with his back to Sandy and began sifting through the pieces of the toy space station. With his attention on the toy, she decided to check on Liz.
Roger’s face was a picture of worry as she entered the bedroom.
“She’s getting worse.”
Sandy hugged herself in the doorway as Roger placed another cool washcloth on Liz’s forehead. “The fever just won’t break. I don’t know what to do.”
“Have you tried reaching Dr. Laird again?”
“Yeah. I finally got through. The receptionist said he’s out making house calls. Seems a lot of people are sick. She said she’s had more calls today than she can ever remember.”
“Is he going to come?”
“She said she’d try and get him here as soon as possible, but he’s got eleven other patients to see.”
“That could be hours!” Sandy sagged against the door.
“I know. If the fever continues to rise…” Roger let the rest trail off.
“I don’t like this,” Sandy said gravely. “I think we should get her to a hospital before they enforce the curfew.”
“You’re right.”
WASHINGTON HARBOR COMPLEX.
3:01 P.M.
He was suffocating.
Lost in darkness, an incredible weight crushed his lungs and constricted his throat.
He was at the bottom of the sea, sinking into a deep crevasse, the water pressure beyond belief. Blood pounded inside his ears as he struggled against the weight, fought the blackness which sought to envelop him. Then a brilliant white light exploded behind his eyes and he was lifted upwards. Steadily at first, as if he were floating instead of sinking, then rapidly as if the light were drawing him towards it. But the pain inside him mounted, tearing at his insides, swelling his organs.
It was the bends. He was coming up too fast to decompress, veins and arteries swelling.
Then faces appeared in the light.
The mother he hardly remembered.
His Grandmother.
Billy Katz.
Suki.
Mitra.
Ryan.
The faces started to melt together into an amorphous, indistinct mass.
Corvino sat up, his breath rasping between clenched teeth. He shook his head to clear it, then doubled over in pain.
Hunger gnawed at his stomach like a rat trying to eat its way out of a cage. Moist, red visions of meat swirling behind his eyes.
Food.
He had to eat. Nothing else mattered.
He went to the kitchen.
He opened the refrigerator. A carton of yogurt. A bottle of Evian water. Tempeh. Tofu. Brown rice and mixed vegetables.
Meat. Need meat.
He hadn’t bought food since returning from…
Where had he been?
He’d been somewhere. A warm climate with a green sky at night. The smell of fresh limes on the breeze.
Where?
He couldn’t remember.
Burning pain lanced his guts.
“No!”
Food. He had to eat…meat.
But he was a vegetarian…he didn’t eat…meat…
The craving obliterated the thought, and he lurched from the kitchen towards the front door. He had to find something to eat.
Fresh meat. Bloody. Raw.
Rational thought was crushed by blind, obsessive desire.
Corvino stumbled from his apartment, leaving the door open behind him.
Fresh meat.
Where?
Food…
the apartments below. Fourth floor.
He called the elevator, his stomach churning with shards of broken glass as he waited.
The elevator arrived and he staggered inside.
Comeoncomeonecomeon!
The doors pinged open at four. Corvino bolted from the elevator. He stumbled in the hallway, clutching at his head. Without thinking, he heaved his shoulder against the nearest door. He tried again. The door wouldn’t budge. Reaching under his left arm he pulled his .45 automatic from its holster, firing twice at the lock. The boom of the reports echoed down the hall as he brought his foot up to kick the door in. It gave, the damaged wood splintering with the force of the blow, slamming against the wall and bouncing back on its hinges. He brushed it aside as he entered, gun up and ready.
The apartment was empty.
He ran to the refrigerator in the kitchen, almost wrenching the door off its frame. A pickle jar crashed to the floor.
Milk, eggs, a large Tupperware container of cold pasta and tomato sauce. He swept the contents aside, a carton of eggs tumbling to smash on the white tiles. Yanking out the cold meats tray, he found an unopened pack of bacon. Placing the gun on the counter, he bit open the plastic and sunk his teeth into the raw meat. He chewed for a while, then spat lumps of fat on the floor. It tasted disgusting. Hurling the slab of bacon aside, he reached into the compartment for a large, juicy-looking rump steak he spied at the back of the tray. He ripped the slice of flesh from its Handiwrap coating with relief. It smelled good, felt wonderful in his hands. He bit down, tearing at the flesh like a crazed dog, gulping down the pieces…
Then gagged, his stomach rebelling against the raw flesh.
He vomited onto the cracked eggs, his feet. Tears welled in his eyes. Tears of frustration as much as tears of emetic pain.
Can’t keep anything down!
The hunger continued to scrape at his stomach lining like a woman’s long fingernails clawing delicate silk.
Nononononononono!!!…
Flesh.
He needed flesh.
Human flesh.
No, not that. He…couldn’t. He’d witnessed many atrocities in his time, participated in some, albeit as a bystander—
Angola.
(the mercenaries raped her raped the pregnant woman one after the other as he stood guard as the shanty burned the woman’s screams piercing the clear sky blood flowing from her ruptured womb as rifle barrels bayonets penetrated her torn vagina the blood flowing into the dry cracked earth she screamed she screamed screamed the blood…)
Blood.
Human blood.
Flesh.
He…needed…to…taste…
Corvino dropped the raw steak, pounding his fists against the wall, then fled the apartment.
His mind slipped gears, stripping away the cogs of rationality. Blood pounded in his ears.
Blood.
Blood.
Flesh.
Blood.
Flesh.
Blood.
He ran to the elevator, punched the button.
As soon as the doors opened, he dived inside, pounding the first-floor button as he staggered, trying to regain his footing. He was sweating like a racehorse, but his skin was cold.
The elevator descended.
Get out.
He had to get out.
With a soft ping! the doors opened as the elevator glided to a halt. Corvino pushed through, stumbling into the entrance lobby, his head whirling like he’d just ridden an amusement park ride. The lobby was empty except for an overweight woman in a rust-stained floral print dress slumped on the floor in the space between the double set of glass doors. He was going to
collapse if he didn’t eat soon.
Slamming open the first set of glass doors he nearly tripped over the woman’s legs.
She looked up at him as he saw the body of Frank O’Barr, the doorman, lying prone next to her fat frame.
“I’m cold…where am I?”
Her voice was far away. Corvino’s eyes blurred for an instant and he toppled against the far wall, trying to focus.
“He cheated on me,” the woman mumbled. “He thought I didn’t know. And when I did, he didn’t care. He taunted me. But he’s mine, yes, he’s mine. All mine.”
She held up something small, pink, and bloody in her left hand.
“See? He’s mine.”
Corvino ignored her. His lungs jerked at the smell of fresh blood—the ripe flow from O’Barr’s torn larynx.
A section of his right cheek was gone, chewed away.
“I loved him.”
The fat woman peered up towards Corvino, an inquisitive child.
“See?”
She raised her hand again, unclenching her fingers to reveal a severed penis.
Disgust welled inside him.
He kicked out, the tip of his boot connecting with the point of her jaw. The woman’s head jerked with a loud snap on contact, the force of the blow smashing her teeth together. Enamel crunched. A low whimper crept from between her bloodied lips. Corvino hesitated, half realizing what he’d done, then bent forward to take her head tenderly between his hands.
Her eyes registered confusion, then hardened as if she suddenly knew, the force of the head kick clearing the fog. Imploring him to end the nightmare.
His shoulders heaved as he twisted suddenly to the right. Her neck cracked loudly in the claustrophobic confines of the space, and the woman’s eyes glazed as they rolled up into their sockets.
He shoved her to one side, then fell upon the fresh body of the doorman.
NEW YORK.
3:11 P.M.
Roger slowed the car as he reached the roadblock at the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge. Liz moaned deliriously in the back seat. Her temperature had reached 105 degrees in the last hour, and Sandy had insisted he take her to the emergency unit at Beth Israel.
Traffic coming off the bridge onto the Brooklyn Queens Expressway was heavy and slow-moving. There were National Guardsmen and cops everywhere, the police directing the traffic, trying to keep it moving, the guardsmen standing around ominously, guns at the ready.
A soldier approached the car, and Roger wound down the window.
“Turn the car around,” the soldier said. “Stay home.”
“My wife’s ill! I’ve got to get her to a hospital.”
The soldier peered in the back of the car. Liz moaned again.
“If it’s an emergency, go on.”
“Thanks.”
Roger eased the car forward past the military truck stationed at the bridge’s entrance. The lane heading into Manhattan was empty. It was weird; he’d never seen the bridge like this before Even late at night both directions were usually busy.
As he drove over the river, he noticed thick black plumes of smoke drifting over Manhattan. The news had said there was a major fire up in Harlem, and judging by the amount of smoke it must be an inferno.
He slowed as the exit ramp brought him down onto the lower East Side.
He came to another checkpoint, and the guards waved him down.
He explained why he was on the road.
The pale-faced corporal in charge nodded.
“Keep to the main avenues. I suggest you head up the Bowery to Third. There’s trouble in Alphabet City. Try and steer clear of the area.”
A flurry of gunfire punctuated the soldier’s advice.
“Thanks,” Roger said, and drove on.
He stopped at the red light at the junction of Delancy, the sudden scream of a fire truck making him jump.
The large red vehicle shot through the intersection, the driver doing at least forty. As Roger looked to the right in the direction of Avenues A, B, C and D, he saw a dense funnel of black, acrid smoke rising over the old buildings. Tenants were looking out their windows.
The light changed and he took his foot off the break.
His attention distracted by the smoke and the sirens, he didn’t see the Mercedes barreling towards him.
The car hit Roger straight on at sixty m.p.h., and the Toyota twisted around like a leaf in a strong wind.
He cried out as his head smashed against the windscreen, and the Camry flipped onto its roof.
Roger briefly registered the world turning upside down before his neck snapped on impact, killing him instantly.
BROOKLYN.
6:31 P.M.
The riot started in the street as Sandy was listening to Dan Rather.
Shots rang out, followed by an explosion.
She ran to the window, Jared following in her wake.
Sandy pulled him back as she saw flames blanket a car parked opposite the house. Then three youths, their features covered by head scarves, ran down the street. One of then halted, turned. Sandy saw him light a Molotov cocktail and throw it up the street as more shots rang out. Gunfire cracked loudly through the windows.
“Get down!” she snapped.
Jared squirmed in her arms, fighting to see what was happening.
One of the youths dropped suddenly as another volley of bullets flared.
A police car tore down the street. Sandy ducked down as more shots rang out.
Jared began to cry.
“Shh, it’s okay,” she said, holding him.
“I want Mommy,” he sobbed.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she continued, rocking him.
She dared to peer up over the window sill and saw more youths running down the street after the police car.
Another explosion came from up the block, and the police car’s siren was cut-off in mid-wail.
“Come on, let’s get away from the window,” she said, stroking Jared’s head, trying to sound as calm as possible.
As they crawled towards the hallway, a second police car screeched down the street. More shots were fired.
When they reached the hallway, she stood up, pulling Jared with her as she made for the kitchen. The door to the yard was unlocked.
“Stand here.”
She ran to the door, slipping the bolt in place.
Jared continued to cry.
“Come on upstairs. It’s okay.”
She took his hand and led him towards the bedroom.
NEW YORK.
6:27 P.M.
Red.
Why’s everything red?
(Dreaming)
No! I’m not dreaming!
(God, no)
Red.
Liz Weldon slipped in and out of consciousness as a veil of blood from a wound on her right temple flowed over her eyes.
Rocking…
(rockabyebaby…)
What?
Red.
(the world’s red, red all over, what’s black and white and red all over?…)
Blood.
(red)
Blood.
Bloo…
The Camry lay on its roof, the windshield a spider’s web of shattered glass through which the fires burning in the buildings of midtown Manhattan pulsed in incandescent rhythms like the beat of Liz’s heart. She opened her eyes to the red haze and blinked, the salty liquid stinging her pupils.
(God…wha…)
Vague shapes moved around the car, shambling, staggering, strobing the red-tinged darkness; screams, shouts, sirens clashing in the hot night air. Smells assailed her nose: burning predominated—burning wood, rubber, pork.
Pork?
(flesh…human flesh is…supposed to…smell like…)
Her awareness faded like a radio tuner slipping between stations.
Until cold hands reached in through the twisted door frame to claw her face.
She screamed as nails broke skin.
“Roger! What’s
happe—”
Rough, callused fingers found her throat.
And for a second she came face to face with—
Elvis.
A gray, unhealthy, dirt-smeared vision of The King grabbing her collar, pulling her pain-racked body against the seat belt which held her suspended upside down in the crushed spider’s web of the trashed car.
And she screamed again.
Screamed as loudly as her weakened lungs would allow.
“Mine!”
“No, mine!”
“Fuck off!”
“Love me tender, honey,” a rasping voice hissed.
“Mine!”
“Fuc—”
Liz’s world rocked suddenly, and exploded into stars as her head bashed against cold metal.
Roger! Where are you! What’s—
She felt herself pulled from the Camry, tarmac scraping the skin from her back.
So cold…
“Get the fuck off!”
She sensed rather than saw the figures fighting around her as the final darkness descended.
Then the feeding began in earnest.
ALEXANDRIA.
9:23 P.M.
As soon as he shut the door to the house, Nick collapsed on the couch.
He glanced around the living room, realizing it was probably the last time he would see the inside of his house. Orders had been issued that all officers were to move into their station houses. As each shift came off-duty, they were issued instructions—told to go home to get clean clothes and their loved ones if they had them.
All right for some. All he had to come home to was an empty house.
Then he noticed the red light on the answer machine was flashing. He reached over, pressing the replay button.
It was Sandy. Liz was very ill. Roger had taken her to the hospital, but that had been hours ago and she’d heard nothing. There had been a riot in the street. She was safe, but scared. She’d tried calling the precinct but had gotten the busy signal. She prayed he was safe and would call her.
The chaos appeared to have no end. He’d thought that Sandy might be safer in New York than in Washington, but now with news of rioting there, too, he was no longer sure. No one could see the big picture. Word at the precinct was that the Government had censored the news media, that they were trying to downplay the real situation so the population didn’t panic. But he doubted that any urban area could be safe. Maybe out in the countryside…
Wet Work: The Definitive Edition Page 17