The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,96

a cup of coffee, which he wasn’t supposed to have, though people did. He’d spilled a Dr Pepper. Couldn’t be sorrier. That was what he’d say.

He also wasn’t really sick, he could tell, not the way the signs made it sound. He was sweating under his shirt, but that was just the panic. As he watched the bucket fill and then hoisted it, reeking of chlorine, from the deep well of the sink, his body was telling him so in no uncertain terms. Something else had made him toss, something in the dream. The sensation was still in his mouth, not just the taste—a too warm, sticky sweetness that seemed to coat his tongue and throat and teeth—but the feel of soft meat yielding under his jaws, exploding with juice. Like he’d bitten into a rotten piece of fruit.

He yanked a few yards of paper towel off the dispenser, got a hazard bag and gloves from the cabinet, and carted it all back to the room. The mess was too big just to mop it, so he got on his knees and did his best to soak it up with the towels, pushing the bigger pieces into clumps he could pick up with his fingers. He put it all into the bag and cinched it tight, then spread water and bleach over the floor, working in circles. There were some chunks of something on his slippers and he wiped those off, too. The taste in his mouth was different now, like something spoiled, and it made him think of Brownbear, whose breath got like that sometimes; it was the only thing bad about him, how he’d come back to the trailer reeking of week-old roadkill and stick his face right up close to Grey’s, smiling that dog smile he had, his gums pulled back at his molars. Grey couldn’t hold it against him, Brownbear being just a dog, though he didn’t like that smell one bit, and not in his own mouth like it was now.

In the locker room he changed quickly, shoved his scrubs in the laundry bin, and rode the elevator up to L3. Davis was still there, leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the desk, reading a magazine, his boots bobbing to some song playing on little earphones tucked in the sides of his head.

“You know, I don’t know why I even look at this stuff anymore,” Davis said loudly over the music. “What’s the point? I’m never getting off this iceball.”

Davis dropped his feet to the floor and held up the cover of the magazine for Grey to see: two naked women in a winding embrace, their mouths open and the tips of their tongues just touching. The magazine was called Hoteez. Their tongues looked to Grey like slabs of muscle, something you’d put on ice in a deli case. The sight sent a fresh current of nausea churning through him.

“Oh, that’s right,” Davis said when he saw Grey’s expression. He plucked the buds from his ears. “You guys don’t like this stuff. Sorry.” Davis sat forward and wrinkled his nose. “Man, you stink. What is that?”

“I think I ate something bad,” Grey said cautiously. “I gotta go lie down for a while.”

Davis flinched with alarm; he pushed away from the desk, widening the gap between them. “Don’t fucking say that.”

“I swear that’s all it is.”

“Jesus Christ, Grey.” The soldier’s eyes were wide with panic. “What are you trying to do to me? You got a fever or anything?”

“I just tossed is all. In the can. I think maybe I ate too much. I just need to get off my feet for a bit.”

Davis took a second to think, eyeing Grey nervously. “Well, I’ve seen you eat, Grey. All you guys. You shouldn’t shovel it in like that. And you don’t look so hot, I’ll say that. No offense, but you look like crap. I really should call this in.”

They’d have to seal the level, Grey knew. That meant Davis would be stuck down here, too. As for what would happen to him, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to think about it. He wasn’t really sick, he knew that much. But there was something wrong with him. He’d had bad dreams before, but nothing that ever made him puke.

“You’re sure?” Davis pressed. “I mean, you’d tell me if there was something really wrong with you?”

Grey nodded. A drop of sweat slithered the length of his torso.

“Man, what a fucking day.”