Scott Sigler - Contagious

“I want my menu back,” Amos said. “Maybe I’ll order some Black Forest ham and flush it down the crapper.”

“Oh, Amos,” Otto said, smiling as if he’d just had the most helpful idea in the history of man. “Are you upset because you can’t see over the table? Should I ask the waitress for a child’s seat?”

“Like I haven’t heard that one a million times.”

Dew reached out and squeezed Margaret’s elbow, then stood.

“Where you going?” Amos asked.

“To see if Perry wants to join us for breakfast,” Dew said. “Margaret’s got to be wrong about something sooner or later, so let’s find out.”

“He won’t come,” Amos said.

“I bet he will,” Otto said. “Dew here can be very persuasive.”

“Twenty bucks says Dawsey doesn’t even leave the room,” Amos said.

Otto nodded. “You’re on.”

Margaret shook her head. “Is there anything you two won’t bet on?”

“I’m sure there’s something,” Otto said.

“Twenty bucks says there isn’t,” Amos said.

Margaret shook her head some more.

Otto smiled at Dew. “Well, go on and bring him here so I can win another twenty.”

Dew turned and walked out of the restaurant.

Bang-bang-bang.

A pounding at the door.

Each bang matching the pounding in his head.

Perry’s eyes fluttered open. Could it hurt to blink? Yes, it could.

Bang-bang-bang.

“Go away,” Perry said. Whispered was more like it.

Bang-bang-bang.

“Go away!” Perry screamed, and instantly regretted it. His hands shot to his head, palms covering his eyes. Why was his face all sticky? The bed reeked of stale beer.

“Get up, Dawsey. Time for breakfast.”

Dew Motherfucking Phillips. At his door at the crack of dawn. Perry sat up and looked at the glowing red clock on the nightstand.

8:45 A.M.

Okay, so it wasn’t the crack of dawn. It was still too damned early to be out of bed.

“Rise and shine, big boy!” Dew yelled. “Let’s go! Everyone is waiting for you, and my food is getting cold.”

God damn did his head hurt.

“Dew, go away,” Perry said. “I’m not kidding.”

Dew wanted to parade him around at breakfast so they could all have a good laugh at the freak’s expense? No way. Perry didn’t know what their game was, but he wasn’t playing.

“Come on, kid, I can smell the beer all the way out here. You bathe in the stuff?”

Perry stood and walked to the bathroom. He put the plastic ice bucket in the sink, then turned on the cold water.

“Hold on,” Perry said. “Let me get dressed.”

“That’s the spirit,” Dew said. “And if you smell like the rest of your room, you might want to take a shower. A quick one, though. I don’t have all day.”

Perry turned on the shower’s hot water and let it run. He grabbed the now-full ice bucket out of the sink and walked to the front door.

“Hey, Dew?”

“Yeah?”

“Hey, is it cold outside?”

“It’s the dead of winter in northern Wisconsin,” Dew said. “It’s friggin’ freezing.”

In one smooth motion, Perry opened the door and sloshed the ice-bucket water into Dew’s chest. He had a brief glimpse of Dew flinching before the water soaked him, then the old man’s eyes going wide with cold and surprise. Perry shut the door and locked it.

“I’ll pass on breakfast,” Perry said. “Rain check?”

Bang-bang-bang.

“Open the fucking door, you fuck .”

Perry started to lie down again, then remembered that his bed was soaked with beer. He pulled the blankets off and tossed them on the floor.

“You better go change,” Perry said. “Like you said, it’s friggin’ freezing.”

Bang-bang-bang.

“ Kid , I am going to beat your ass.”

Perry laughed, but that hurt even more than talking. He pulled off the sheets and tossed them on top of the blankets, leaving a naked mattress. It had a few beer-wet spots, but it would do. He’d passed out in his clothes—they were beer-soaked as well, so he took them off and lay down. The running shower helped drown out Dew’s shouts a little. Perry just closed his eyes and waited. If Dew didn’t go away soon, his clothes would freeze on him, and he’d catch pneumonia and die.

Either way, Perry won.

A wave of nausea hit him. He slid his head over the side of the bed and threw up on the floor. As if his head didn’t hurt enough already—was a hangover vomit not one of the worst pains in the world? And Perry Dawsey knew pain. He dragged his face back, using the corner of the mattress to wipe the puke away from his mouth.

The banging stopped, and he quickly fell asleep.

A knock at Dew’s door.

He was still shivering as he buttoned up a dry shirt. He should have hopped into the shower to warm up, but there just wasn’t time—too much work to do.

“Who is it?”

“Margaret. I brought your food.”

Dew hadn’t eaten yet. He’d been so pissed he hadn’t really noticed how hungry he was. He stuffed his shirt into his pants, buttoned and zipped, then opened the door.

Margaret stood there in the morning light. She looked good, as always, dark eyes staring back with that combination of kindness and an ever-present haunted look, the result of seeing too many horrors in too short a time. But what really made her attractive was the Styrofoam food container she held in her left hand and the steaming Styrofoam cup she held in her right.

“Double cream, double sugar,” she said. “That’s how you like it, right?”

“You’re an angel, lady,” Dew said. He took the container. “You want to come in?”

Margaret nodded and walked into the room. She looked around, eyes lingering on the suitcase placed neatly in the closet, at the shoes lined up next to the suitcase, and the wet shirt, sport coat and pants hanging on the clothes rack, each on its own hanger.

“What happened to you?” she said.

“I took your advice, that’s what happened.” Dew sat down and opened the container. Plastic utensils were in there, rolled up in a paper napkin. He pulled out the fork and shoveled eggs into his mouth.

She sat on the bed next to the nightstand. She looked at Dew’s array of weapons laid out there—the .45, the .38, the Ka-Bar knife, the switchblade, the collapsible baton—then casually scooted farther down the bed, away from them.

“So you were nice to Perry,” she said. “And then what, you went for a swim?”

“He opened the door and doused me,” Dew said as he chewed.

“You’re kidding.”

Dew shook his head. “Ice bucket, I think.”

“Looks like Amos won his twenty bucks back.”

“Those guys bet a lot?”

Margaret nodded. “They’ll bet on anything. That same twenty-dollar bill has traded hands at least a dozen times. Must be some guy bonding strategy.”

“It’s called having fun,” Dew said. “Guys don’t have bonding strategies , they just do stuff.”

“Like douse someone with water?”

“That’s not doing stuff,” Dew said. “That’s being a fucking asshole. Pardon my French. His room smelled like a frat house. I think he’s hungover. Bad.”

Dew stabbed the fork until it filled with the last of the eggs. “Kid is a fucking alkie,” he said just before he stuffed the eggs into his mouth.

“He hasn’t had enough time to become an alkie, Dew. It’s only been six weeks since he cut those things out of himself, you know.”

Dew swallowed half the eggs, then picked up a sausage and crammed the whole thing into his mouth.