Chapter 7
Shane ran toward the elevator, punched the call button. The elevator was still on his level, and the doors opened immediately. He got in and hit the button for the main floor. Before the door closed he caught a glimpse of the noob in the black hoodie, headed his way.
The doors opened to the ground floor before he had time to consider that. He ran across the floor toward the fallen man.
Flannel Man had ended up with his head under the table, his legs stretched back from it, and the chair lying on top of him. Shane could see his arms moving, but the other chairs blocked his view.
“Wait, wait!” Shane called, halfway there. “Try not to move! You might have hurt your back.”
The chair nearest the man abruptly tipped back and fell, as though it’d been shoved. Shane slowed to a stop, dumbstruck.
He saw the man’s right arm come around, fingers digging into the carpet for purchase. He’d folded sideways at the waist like a bendable drinking straw. The other hand came down beside the first, driving the fingers in like claws. The man was pulling himself out from under the table, dragging his feet behind.
He was pulling himself out from under the table, toward Shane.
Shane stood rooted to the spot, captivated by the sight. The man drove one hand in after the other, pulling himself forward arm by arm, propping his torso up on his forearms as he crawled. His legs dragged behind him, completely limp. His lifted face showed no sign of pain. His eyes, fixed on Shane, were just as dead as ever.
Flannel Man opened his mouth again, and moaned.
Shane found himself backing away, moving toward the elevator. He reached back to press the call button, never turning away from the crawling man. The elevator dinged and its doors slid open, throwing light over Shane’s shoulders. He stepped back into it, pressed the button for the fifth floor. He kept his eyes on the crawling man until the doors closed, cutting him off from view.
The elevator made no noise as it climbed. The silence wrapped around Shane like a cocoon. On the fifth floor it stopped, the doors opening with a ding.
Shane stepped out onto the landing, peering into the gloom, his eyes having difficulty readjusting because of the comparative brightness of the elevator. He turned to his right and looked at the white couch. The leather was still smeared with blood, but Terrance was nowhere to be seen.
“Terrance!” Shane called out. “Terrance, where the fuck are you? I need your help, man!”
He walked to the railing, looked over the side. It was dark, but he thought he could see Flannel Man down there, dragging himself across the ground floor.
“Terrance!” he called out again.
He looked across the space. The ZapPow! CEO had his office on the far side, a glass-walled room that took up all of the landing along the far wall. Two other offices, for the company president and the chief of operations, were built along the longer wall of the landing. The couches and chairs near Shane were a waiting area of sorts, divided from the rest of the floor by the senior secretary’s desk. Behind her desk was another meeting area, with a wet bar the CEO kept stocked with expensive liquors and champagne—the guy liked to pop corks, and he took every game launch or earnings report as an opportunity to do so.
Shane’s eyes darted around the area, straining to see in the darkness. All the little glowing lights—from computer screen savers and power strip bars, from the buttons on the dishwasher built into the wet bar, from the message-indicator lights on the phones—all the little lights burned like sparse Christmas bulbs, in green and red and blue. But the single brightest source of light was a harsh white shining forth from the bottom of the bathroom door, on the near side of the chief of operations’ office.
“Terrance!” Shane called out again, making his way around the secretary’s desk.
He reached the bathroom door, shoved it open. The brilliant light in the room, bouncing off the white walls and floor, blinded him. He flinched his face away, raising his hand to block the light. The hangover that had faded to a dull headache roared back to full skull-crushing force.
A second later, when the throbbing in his raw brain dimmed enough to let him see again, he dropped his hand and looked. Terrance was sprawled on the white floor tiles near the toilet, his face resting in a puddle of blood.
“Terrance!”
Shane dropped to his knees by his coworker, grabbing his shoulder. He rolled him onto his back, saw the crusted blood beneath his nose, the chunks of vomit caught in the stubble on his chin. Terrance’s eyes were closed, and as Shane rolled his face to the light, he squeezed them tighter shut, raising his injured arm to shade his face. A low groan slipped out between his full lips.
“Terrance!”
Shane planted a foot on either side of Terrance’s chest, grabbed the front of Terrance’s coveralls with both hands, and hauled him up to a sitting position, his back propped against the wall.
“Terrance, talk to me, man!” Shane said. He shook Terrance gently.
Terrance groaned again, but still didn’t open his eyes.
“Fuck this,” Shane said to himself. “I’ve gotta call 911.”
He stood up and turned toward the bathroom door. Before he got his hand on the handle, he heard a horrible retching sound. He turned back toward Terrance, saw that his coworker had vomited again, a chunky red mess that sprayed over his legs and ran down his chest. Before the last of it dribbled from his chin, he tipped sideways and fell, striking his head against the wall.
And then Terrance went into a seizure.
At least, Shane assumed it was a seizure. He’d only seen something like it once before, years ago, while riding a bus to a poetry reading in North Beach. An old Chinese man had started rocking in his seat, head pressed against the window. One of the other passengers had been a nurse, and he’d turned the guy onto his side and shoved a leather wallet between his teeth, to keep him from swallowing his tongue.
There was no nurse there now. If anyone was going to keep Terrance from swallowing his tongue, it had to be Shane.
He let go of the door, dropped to his knees at Terrance’s side. Terrance jerked and rocked violently, repeatedly bending at the waist as if he were doing crunches. His lips pulled back in a grimace, his teeth clacked together. Shane reached his hands toward Terrance’s mouth, to try to keep him from biting his tongue.
And then something clicked in Shane’s head.
Terrance had been in a fight that morning, and the person had bit him. The drunk yuppie Shane had encountered on his way to work had tried to bite, too, as had the flannel-clad hipster he’d knocked off the second floor.
Shane froze, his fingers less than six inches away from Terrance’s face. Terrance had been bitten, and now he was sick.
Shane jerked his hands back, his heart beating so hard that he felt lightheaded. He stood up and took a step back. The room seemed to spin around him.
But Terrance was still there, on the floor, convulsing. A pink froth had gathered at the side of his mouth. His eyes were squeezed shut, his face a mask of agony. He jerked at his waist as if someone were kicking him in the stomach repeatedly.
“Fuck, man,” Shane said, raising both his hands to his head. “Fuck, Terrance.”
A flow of tears started running from Terrance’s squeezed-shut eyes. A wet, gagging sound forced its way out of his throat. His face looked grey.
“Fuck!” Shane said, again. He pulled his rubber gloves from his pocket, jammed his hands into them as he desperately looked around the room. The first thing that caught his eye was the plunger, standing beside the toilet.
Shane grabbed it, stepped on the rubber bell and jerked the handle free. He dropped to his knees beside Terrance, forced the side of the handle into his mouth like a horse’s bit. Terrance’s teeth clamped down on it, sinking into the wood, making fibers of the wood buckle.
Shane put his hand on Terrance’s forehead, pressed it back gently, tilted his head back so th
at his throat was less constricted. He put his other hand on Terrance’s shoulder, squeezed it, tried to brace him.
“Come on, Terrance,” Shane said. “Come on, breathe.”
The violence of Terrance’s jerking seemed to fade slightly. The wet gagging sound stopped. A moment later, he went still, limp. The grimace disappeared from his face, though his complexion still looked sickly grey. His neck relaxed until the side of his head rested on the ground, and the plunger handle dropped from his mouth.
“Come on, Terrance,” Shane said, voice tight. “Breathe, man. Breathe!”
Abruptly, Terrance grimaced again, and coughed hard. He coughed all the air out of his lungs, gasped in a breath, and went on coughing. After a minute, the coughing fit passed, and he started drawing long, deep breaths. Another minute later, his eyes opened.
“Shit,” Terrance murmured.
Shane dropped back onto his rear end, holding his head in his hands.
“Oh thank God,” he said.