Infected: Lesser Evils (12 page)

Roan put the receiver back in the cradle, and looked at Dylan, whose sympathetic eyes told him he’d already heard the message. “I wasn’t sure how to brace you for that one.”

“There’s no prepping for the completely insane.” And it was, and yet, was he surprised? Things had been in a downward spiral, and nothing had broken it. Things never got any better, no matter what happened.

And now someone had declared war on the infected, and had drawn first blood.

The Blind House

R
OAN
knew he had to act. The problem was, what could he do? Seb was definitely not at work now, he was off shift, and if he called him at home he’d just wake him up. There probably wasn’t anything he could do until daylight. Too late.

Dylan noted his restlessness, and said, “You might want to get dressed first.”

Somehow he’d forgotten he wasn’t wearing anything except for a towel. “Oh. But a naked man ranting gets a lot of attention.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that. But probably not the kind of attention that would be helpful.” Dylan then turned toward the opposite nightstand and grabbed a magazine Roan hadn’t noticed there before. “Speaking of which, the article’s out.” He held it toward him with the full-page picture of him (he had no idea it was going to be a full page) side out.

“So this was what Luke was talking about.” It was actually a good picture, probably one of the best ones of him he had ever seen. His back was turned to the café window, so you could see the street beyond, overcast and gray, very noir. As for Roan himself, his hair was the color of dried blood, and shiny enough that it looked half wet, while his eyes were an unearthly green, the lids at half mast with either physical exhaustion or a general weariness with the world, although somehow he looked more alert than truly sleepy. The scars on his lip and eyebrow stood out ghostly white, little lines that could have been negative scratches on the photographs. Ironically, you could make out the words “Panic” and “Freak” on the T-shirt he wore, half covered by his leather jacket (it was his “Now Panic and Freak Out” shirt, so he’d set himself up for that). His face had a lean, almost feral look that he wasn’t sure he liked seeing.

“That is gorgeous,” Dylan said. “We need to get me a smaller version I can carry in my wallet.”

“I look… dangerous.” It was funny how that was the first thing that occurred to him. He thought he looked like a coiled snake in humanoid form. If he encountered the man in the photo, he would keep an eye on him.

“Yeah, sexy dangerous.”

So either Dylan didn’t see it, he was pretending not to see it, or Roan was projecting. He flipped the magazine over to see the beginning of the article. The header at the top of the column,
Future Leaders Of America #8: Roan McKichan, Leader Of The Pack.
“Well, at least he didn’t go for pride,” he muttered, reading the opening lines of the article:
There is no designated leader among the tens of thousands of infected Americans, no organized group. And the uninfected are lucky, because the most obvious leader is Roan McKichan, a man of such overwhelming magnetism and intelligence he would be unstoppable.
“Holy shit, is this a hagiography?”

“Kind of. He even says in the article he’s not gay, but your charisma is so powerful he found himself attracted to you. He has a huge man crush on you. And I’m super impressed you could use hagiography in a sentence.”

“I don’t have charisma. He’s in the closet.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Of course you have charisma. It’s why cute guys are always sniffing around you. Speaking of which, can I borrow your Taser next time we go out?”

“Knock yourself out.” He rolled up the magazine and wondered if it would make good kindling. “You know, this couldn’t have come out at a worse time. Good thing only three people read this.”

Dylan gave him a half smile. “Ah, he said that you were quick-witted enough that you could have been a comedian.”

“If this guy just wanted to blow me, he could have asked.”

“He didn’t?”

“Nope.” After a brief pause, which Roan hoped sounded natural, he asked, “He didn’t imply I had superhuman abilities, did he?”

“No, but he flirted with it at times. Still, he was so clearly crushing on you it could be excused as purple prose.”

“Good.” He gulped down the rest of the ginger ale and gave the magazine back to Dylan before standing up and putting his now empty plate and bottle on top of the dresser. The towel fell off, but he didn’t care, as he was already grabbing underwear out of the top drawer.

“Did you think that was a possibility?” Dylan was trying to sound casual, but clearly he was curious.

“Yeah. He pretty much told me he knew I wasn’t Human, and he wanted a comment. I refused to confirm anything.”

“You know, you don’t have to get dressed on my account.”

“Come on, I’m cold, and no one likes shrinkage.” He pulled up his shorts with a snap, and then started searching for a clean pair of jeans. Damn, he was behind in his laundry.

Dylan shifted on the bed, springs creaking as he moved into a more comfortable position to watch him get dressed. Roan noticed this as he stepped into his jeans, and when he went to the closet and pulled out yet another of his weird T-shirts. Finally, he asked, “What? Are you waiting for me to apologize? Okay. I’m sorry I didn’t call, I was a self-centered ass, I won’t do it again.”

“Good. But right now I wonder where you think you’re going.”

He decided on a Pansy Division shirt and pulled it on before answering. “I can’t just stay here and wait. I’ve got to go out and see if I can find out where the tainted burn is coming from.”

“Which means what exactly?” When Roan hesitated to answer, and started to search for his HK instead, Dylan guessed, “You’re going to go talk to some drug dealers, aren’t you?”

“I was thinking of talking to Kevin first, but I’m working toward that.”

“Let me come with you.”

That surprised him, but he didn’t know why. “Dyl….”

“I know who was the biggest pusher of club drugs at Panic. He was always hitting on me, trying to give me freebies, probably hoping if he got me high he could get into my pants. We show up tonight, I bet he’ll tell you all about burn distribution.”

Roan stared at him in genuine admiration. “Look at you, playing an angle. I’ll corrupt you yet.”

“Well, if you believed in certain tenants of Catholicism, we’re all born corrupt.”

“Actually, since we’re gay, most of the major world religions see us as corrupt and degenerate.”

He scoffed as he stood up. “Wouldn’t life be more fun if we were?”

“See, that’s my argument.”

While he finished getting dressed, Dylan changed his clothes from sweatpants and a paint-stained T-shirt to more presentable black jeans and a clean olive green T-shirt. Roan was sitting on the end of the bed, pulling his boots on, and he almost sat on the magazine. He picked it up and looked at the header again, and asked Dylan, who was now in the bathroom, “What Sisters of Mercy song has the lyric ‘In the land of the blind, be king’?”

After a toilet flush and water running in the sink, Dyl opened the door and said, “‘Dominion’. Why?”

He tossed the magazine onto the opposite end of the bed, really wanting to tear it up, but he figured Dylan wanted to keep it for some perverse reason. “I knew you were a goth.” The song lyric had just popped into his head for some reason, but he felt admitting that might let on how crazy he was.

“Well, duh. I was a tormented, angsty, artistic teen. If emo existed then, I would have been that.” He held up his wrist and pointed at it, even though it was currently covered by a watch. “I have the scars to prove it.”

See, they had that in common, except Roan didn’t have scars on his wrists. Everywhere else, sure.

It was like old home week at Panic. Mighty Mouse was working as bouncer on the door, and after giving them bone-crushing bear hugs waved them through. Once inside the very loud club, they were greeted with a very enthused reception as soon as the bartender and regulars recognized Dylan. They got drinks on the house as Dylan leaned over the bar and asked Jeremy if Hardy was around. He wasn’t, he’d been and gone, but one of the guys at the bar, a tall Japanese kid with long emo-styled hair (speak of the devil) dyed a pale brown and streaked with blue, said he could show them where Hardy lived. It was only a couple of blocks away.

There were introductions all around, and the kid, named Darby (really?), led them out, chatting the whole time. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-three, and he seemed wired, but drinking vodka and Red Bull could do that to you, especially if you combined it with something. Roan could smell chemicals coming from him, and asked what he took. “Adderall. Want some?” He told him he was more of a downer guy and declined. Darby went on to say he was only into “safe” drugs, like Ritalin and Adderall (safe to whom?), and he didn’t count booze or pot, ’cause they were harmless. (What the fuck…?! Obviously he’d never been called to a drunken domestic disturbance.) He said he’d heard about burn, that it took all pain away (which would explain its attraction to the infected), but he wasn’t curious enough to try it. The kid jabbered and twitched, but he seemed nice enough. Still, had Roan been this much of an idiot when he was his age? Maybe. He was dating Connor then, wasn’t he? So yeah, he was.

Hardy lived in a slightly run-down apartment complex called the Rochester, on the street where the gay part of the city joined the poor side of the city. A group of youths in baggy clothing with gang colors were huddled near the base of the stairs, smoking cigarettes laced with something chemical, and the young men eyed them warily as they went up the stairs, but didn’t do or say anything. Roan found himself wishing they would, just so he could burn off some energy.

Hardy’s apartment was on the top floor, and they could hear the stereo (and Roan could smell the drugs) in the stairwell about two levels down. Of course Hardy was having a party (it kind of rhymed—was that where the name Hardy came from?) and Darby didn’t bother knocking, he just walked in. A repetitive, simplistic bass line rolled over them, something rap, but the stereo was so loud the high tones had fuzzed out and he couldn’t figure out for the life of him who it was, and they had to shoulder their way through a crowd of half-dressed kids. Some looked no older than fifteen, and some of the women were already down to their bras, dancing to the wolf whistles of drunken, stoned men. There were a couple of girls on the couch kissing, faux lesbians who were being cheered on and urged by even more men. The place smelled like beer and sweat and testosterone, the light fogged by a miasma of pot and crank smoke, and much to his surprise, a girl in a crop top who couldn’t have been eighteen grabbed Dylan from behind and asked loudly if he wanted to do a body shot, while the jailbait in the bra who grabbed Roan wasn’t so subtle, she grabbed his crotch. He ripped her hand off and shoved her away—perhaps a little too violently—while Dylan just peeled the hands of his admirer off and said he didn’t drink.

Darby knew exactly where he was going, which was disturbing. As he led them to the bedroom, Roan noticed that one of the faux lesbians looked strangely familiar—a hooker? Yes. How many of these girls were working girls? Oh shit, the room was filled with women willing to fuck for drugs. Jesus.

The bedroom was pathetic. Just a mattress and box spring wedged against the far wall, an overturned crate serving as a table for a thrift shop lamp, and a pile of dirty clothes lumped next to a slightly deflated beanbag. Sitting slumped on the mattress in a pile of flat, stained pillows was a scrawny white guy with a dragon tattoo on his neck and a naked woman tattoo on his left pec. He had a shaggy mullet that looked like it hadn’t been cut or combed in a year, and while he had a bit of a beer gut, the fact that he was wearing nothing but a pair of low-riding board shorts revealed that he didn’t have a single scrap of muscle tone. Roan could smell his body odor from the doorway.

Sitting on the mattress with him were two girls—hookers? Or just junkies?—both exceptionally scrawny women, the white one down to her bra and panties, the Hispanic one wearing a miniskirt that could have been made out of a napkin and a tube top that was just barely covering her breasts. The white girl had track marks and a cesarean scar on her belly, while the Hispanic one had a tattoo of a heart on her calf. So was he bisexual? Must have been, if he’d dedicated himself to getting into Dylan’s pants. The guy—Hardy—had a glass crack pipe in his hands. “Fu Manchu, how ya been? ’Sup, Toby? You look awesome.” His eyes lingered on Dylan in a way that suggested obvious lust. Yep, bisexual, or just gay for Dylan. (Possible. He was that good looking.) “Who’s the dude?”

Roan volunteered, “Gob.” Dylan looked at him askance. What, he couldn’t make an
Arrested Development
reference?

Nobody got it. Darby said, “They wanted some burn.”

Hardy shifted on the mattress, idly scratched his ass. “Burn, huh? You guys don’t look like the type.”

“I’m infected,” Roan volunteered.

“Me too,” Dylan lied.

This seemed to change the dynamic in the room. Both girls moved back on the mattress, like they might get it from proximity, while Darby looked at Dylan in wide-eyed shock. “You’re infected? Wow, when?”

“Recently.”

“I’m outta burn,” Hardy admitted. “Want somethin’ else? Got some oxy.”

“Out?” Roan repeated in disbelief. “How can you be out?”

“Ever’body’s been wantin’ it tonight. Fuck if I know why.” He paused to fire up the crack pipe and take a hit. The smell was so astringent to Roan’s sinuses it made his eyes water, even from this distance. After exhaling the smoke with an almost orgasmic sigh, he added, “Try the church.”

“The church?” Dylan repeated.

“Divine Transformation?” Roan guessed.

Hardy nodded, passing the pipe to the white girl. “There’s some guys that have been selling to the kitty fuckers—’scuse my French—and they usually show up for whatever shit they’re doing. I shoulda thought of it, it’s a lucrative market, but it’s too late for me to branch out now. It’s Spaz’s territory.”