Чак Хоган - The Blood Artists

Maryk was already stripping off his jacket. Dr. Freeley emerged and the other agent was speaking into his tablet: “He’s moving. Hold positions and watch him all the way to the car.”

“Some hustler,” Maryk was saying. “Working for a quick fifty. Zero must have killed the first two to stop his disease from spreading.” He pulled his black bag out from under the counter. “Stay with her,” he told Dr. Freeley, who was about to protest, but Maryk was already gone, rushing ahead of the other agent to the exit in back.

Maryk sprinted with his bag at his side. At the end of the back alley he slowed and held up his hand to quiet the other agent’s approaching boot steps. He leaned forward and peered left around the corner. He watched the open end of the connecting alley where it emptied into the brighter street.

The kid appeared with the prescription bag in his hand and shuffled past.

Maryk jogged to that corner. The kid was turning right off the main sidewalk ahead of him and Maryk looked high across the street as he moved into the clear. He saw the yellow sleeves of his spotters’ contact suits moving along the rooftops and he strode past the unmarked vans parked along the street.

The kid disappeared around the corner and Maryk was after him.

Melanie hung by the checkout counter in front. Dr. Freeley stood at the entrance, trying to see down the street outside, then moved too close to the electric eye and set off the chime, and the doors slid open. Dr. Freeley ventured a step out into the night, now a yellow form bright against the black street, looking down the sidewalk. She glanced back into the empty store, and looked at Melanie, who looked quickly away. When Melanie looked back, Dr. Freeley was moving along the front windows outside, and the doors were sliding shut.

Melanie was relieved to be alone. She stepped out from behind the register, and a tension so constant she had forgotten it was there left her small lungs. She breathed free.

Her happiness brought her to the snack aisle, where the two kids were together now. They stifled their giggling when she rounded the corner, and Melanie remembered she had her cashier’s jacket on. She saw that the kids were stoned. The boy was trying to choose between two different bags of cookies, while the girl made fluttering movements with her hands, air-drying her fingernails, each of which she had polished a different color.

Melanie moved to the candy. She was hungry again and craved something sweet. The dong-ding door chime sounded, and she quickly grabbed a Hershey’s bar.

She stepped back from the kids and peeled off the foil, watching over the top of the aisle for Dr. Freeley’s approaching yellow hood. She snapped off a corner piece and the gratification as the milk chocolate sank into her tongue was immediate. She bit fast into another sweet chunk as she listened for Dr. Freeley’s footsteps, the shuffling kind, produced by the suits.

She got up on her toes and peered over the aisle. She did not see a yellow hood, and Dr. Freeley was tall. Another greedy bite, and then Melanie replaced the candy bar half eaten on the shelf and returned to the front, guiltily wiping her mouth with her fingers.

She saw no one at the entrance. She crossed the end of the first aisle and looked to the rear and it was empty, and that made Melanie slow. She heard noises then, like the sound of things dropping to-the floor somewhere in back. She crossed to the second aisle and saw nothing, and then to the third, from which she could see all the way to the pharmacy.

Zero was behind the counter. He was hunched slightly, his back to her, rifling through the shelves and bins of prescriptions.

She stepped back. At first she was too stunned to scream or move or do anything. She turned to the doors leading outside, and thought instantly of the telltale chime. Then she remembered the kids. She turned and ducked back to the snack aisle.

“Get out of here now,” she told them.

But she spoke so quietly and chokingly, they did not hear. The boy turned to her, eyes misty and narrow. “Do you have any pretzel chips?”

“We’re closed. Take what you have and leave right now.”

They looked at the snacks in their hands and at each other. “Sure thing,” they said as though discovering the phrase for the first time.

“There are people outside in yellow suits. Find them and send them here immediately.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

They cruised past her to the exit. She thought to slip out with them. Were they infected now? Her mind raced. Zero had been careful. He had watched to see if the prescription kid was followed. He had seen Dr. Freeley leave, so he knew that there had been a trap. If he knew Melanie was there, he would be killing her now instead of looking for the drugs he needed.

Too late. The chime sounded as the doors parted and the kids ambled out. The rummaging in back stopped.

Melanie ducked quickly to the open lane in the middle of the aisle. She counted to ten, then straightened just enough to see over the shelves and up to the pharmacy.

Zero watched the doors slide shut. He was scanning the store from there, his neck crooked at a curious angle. She could just see his face around the surgical mask, his red eyes. He was gaunt and twitchy. He was in pain. He was searching for Banix, and Melanie knew that there was none in the store.

She crouched and listened, trying to hear over the sound of her own labored breathing. She counted to ten again, and at thirty-seven inched to full height.

Zero was gone. The pharmacy area was empty. She thought at first he was somewhere in the aisles, coming for her, but then saw the light shining through the door behind the counter. He had gone out the rear exit.

She waited in relief and turned and started at once for the entrance. She wanted to get to Maryk, but realized she didn’t know exactly where he was. And once she did find him, it would be too late — Zero would be gone again. She stopped and felt the tightness return to her lungs. This had to end now. She could not let Zero get away.

She shrugged off her paper jacket and hurried back toward the pharmacy. She would find out where he was headed, she decided, then double back and sic Maryk on him. She crept up over the hollow step. His stink lingered behind the counter, and every part of her body was jumping. She listened for footsteps in back. Then she moved to the open door and looked inside.

The stockroom was bright and empty. She slipped past the manager’s office to the delivery bay, and found the door half open to the security lights outside. She pulled back before grasping the knob, and clasped her hands. She was not wearing gloves. She had to protect her glands and her blood.

She peered around the door edge and saw him in the alley, small and thin, half running, half limping away. His gloves, loose white nylon jacket, toque, dirty tan pants, and hiking shoes turned from the light around the corner of the alley, disappearing into a side street.

She shrugged off her wool cardigan, taking a preemptory hit off her inhaler before shoving it into her jeans pocket, then started out after him. She crossed the alley gingerly, careful not to scuff her sneaker soles against the tar.

The only lights on the side streets came from the high windows. There were no other people around. She saw him well ahead of her, turning right, crossing a one-way without looking back. This is crazy, she thought to herself. She was chasing a lethal virus through the streets of Atlanta. She rushed silently to the same corner and watched him move over a broken sidewalk farther away, toward a brighter corner, slowing there to a loping jog, then a hobbled walk. He stopped at a side street opening, and she watched him from a half block away.

His bony shoulders fell under his jacket as he stared down the unseen street. He appeared greatly troubled by what he saw there, and hesitant as to which way to turn now. With a sudden grunt that kicked off the dark, silent buildings, he turned and looked resolutely across to the bright, wide street opposite, and set off limping that way.