Daniel Åberg - Virus - Stockholm - S2

At first, the man does not appear to react to the question, or at least does not want to answer, but Amanda takes two steps forward and forcefully pushes the automatic weapon into the open wound. She shudders as she feels the barrel hit his ribs, a shudder that transforms into panic when she realises the front sight has wedged itself between two ribs and the man is about to faint from the rapid rush of pain. Only when she twists the weapon slightly does it release, with a popping noise as it leaves the wound.

Amanda glances worriedly in the direction of the buildings – there’s still no sign of life as far as she can see. But the house is largely concealed by the barn, which also means you can’t clearly see what’s happening from the field. Still, they take it as a no-brainer that the shooting and whistle signal have been noticed.

The pressure cooker that Iris has turned into during the night is about to explode. She kicks the man. He groans loudly, increasing the flow of blood even more in his wound.

“Where is she? Where is my daughter?!”

Iris kicks him again. He raises one hand, wanting to signal to her to stop, and replies in a wheezy voice:

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been on a mission since early yesterday morning.” His breathing is shallow and he’s panting. “Please, it’s true, I don’t know.”

It’s clearly difficult for him to speak and he seems to be finding it hard to get air into his lungs.

Then they hear a bang go off somewhere, and Iris looks around nervously.

“Are there more women with your lot – more than Linda?”

He doesn’t appear to understand the question because Amanda can see him frowning through the eyes of the gas mask.

“What’s happened to Linda?” he asks, groaning.

Iris emits a muted shriek of frustration.

“Answer the question!” she hisses. “Are there only men up there or are there women too?”

Iris is close to losing it now. Even Amanda is stressed – they can’t stay there any longer. More soldiers will arrive and whether or not Sigrid is here, they will have to try to save Dano. She interprets the fact that they haven’t heard any more shots as a sign that he’s still ok.

The man shakes his head.

“No, we’re not just men, we have…”

“Good”, Iris interrupts, bending forward to use her good hand to root around under the man’s polo neck. She gets hold of the rubber edge of the gas mask and starts tugging and bending it to pull it off him.

He reacts violently, flailing his arms to stop the attack, and when she resolutely braces one foot against his wounded chest, he gives a muffled shout and stops struggling. After another few seconds of wrestling with the blood and saliva-soaked rubber, she has the mask in her hand.

They stare at the man’s exposed face. He’s relatively young – twenty-seven, twenty-eight perhaps; he has short, light blond hair and a few days’ worth of stubble. His gaze shifts wildly between them in confusion and terror.

“You have a password,” says Iris. “We heard the other guy ask you. What is it? She’ll stick the barrel in your chest again if you don’t answer.”

They don’t get an immediate response but the young man keeps switching his gaze between them.

“He’s scared”, says Amanda. “Scared we’re going to infect him.”

Iris keeps staring at the man. Her no-compromise attitude frightens Amanda but it is effective. The guy isn’t just scared – he’s terrified.

“Answer now and we’ll clear off – and with a little luck, you might just survive. Otherwise I’ll sit down and kiss you. Then you’ll soon be dead no matter how wounded you are.”

“Anthrax”, he whispers, in resignation. When he coughs, blood stained slime bubbles up out of him.

“Anthrax?” Iris sounds sceptical.

“A disease is fitting, don’t you think?” he says weakly.

More blood comes out of his mouth and Amanda can see it mingling with the pool that has formed underneath him – the bullet must have gone straight through his chest and out of his back. The air around them is starting to fill with the acrid smell of iron.

He’ll be dead soon, she thinks, and despite everything that’s happened, the thought isn’t without sadness.

“Thank you”, says Iris and turns towards Amanda. “We can’t leave him here. If they find one of their men dead in a field without a gas mask on, everything will go to hell.”

“What d’you mean? He’s alive!”, Amanda exclaims, but when she looks down at the man she sees his eyes have closed. His chest is still moving up and down but much more slowly now, and the dark pool underneath him is rapidly getting larger.

“There’s nothing they can do to save him. Besides, I don’t even think they’ll even go near him when they don’t know whether he’s been infected or not.” Iris gives Amanda a resolute look. “Drag him to the barn wall. He won’t be visible from the farm there.”

Amanda stares at Iris. She doesn’t want to be involved in this, but she gives the automatic rifle to Iris, grabs the man’s arms and starts dragging him off to the wall where Dano had just been sitting. She swallows in disgust as she sees the lifeless body leave a sticky red trail behind in the grass.

Dano tumbles down the slope by the sand dune at the water’s edge. He manages to get his arms up at the last minute to break the fall but still hits his head hard on the dewy sand and loses his breath. His body rolls several times before finally coming to rest.

But he has to get up again. He hears his pursuer coming, the quick, hard footsteps of his boots and loud huffing and puffing – the man probably isn’t used to running with a gas mask on.

Dano gets to his feet. Left or right along the water? To the left there’s forest, but it’s further to go than to the elevation he can glimpse in the other direction: some bushes by the outflow of a large ditch. Perhaps he’ll be able to get there before the man who shot him reaches the slope.

He’s just about to start running when he discovers that he’s leaving clear footprints in the sand. At first, he is seized with panic before he realises this might help him. He runs along the beach for five or six metres in the direction of the forest and is careful to strike hard with his feet to leave a clear trail of prints. Then he turns off at a diagonal down to the shallow water, still clearly in the direction of the bathing spot and the forest. Once the water reaches his knees, he turns and wades off as fast as he can in the opposite direction. His splashing can be heard but the guard’s gas mask should muffle most of the sound and anyway, the waves are constantly lapping the shore – the ripples he makes in the water should disappear fast.

It’s hard work running like this and he has to keep looking nervously up towards the field to check if the man’s menacing form is towering up against the dawn sky. Amanda and Iris did tell him that the military people in the helicopter were wearing masks but seeing it first hand was much scarier than he could have imagined.

Finally, he reaches the hillock and throws himself headlong over a thorny bush. He puts his arms up to protect himself from the fall but instead crashes head first into the ditch behind him, which is much wider than the one he crawled through in the field. What’s more, it’s filled with water. In sheer surprise he takes a breath and his lungs feel as though they fill with liquid. As he comes up to the surface again, he spontaneously spews it out.

Quiet now, he thinks, don’t cough anymore. Keep your head down and shut up.

He has stomach cramps but he’s keeping his mouth closed. Getting hold of a thick branch, he pulls himself towards land. Iris’s phone in his trouser pocket crosses his mind – no, not in the water – he manages to get hold of it, fumbles and loses his grip but manages to knock it mid-air so that it bounces down into the bushes in front of him. Relieved, he pulls himself up onto the shore.