Hardly resembling a man anymore, the thing on the bed
jerked and thrashed like a nocturnal creature dragged into
the light of day. His eyes had filled with blood and
rolled back into his head, so only crimson orbs glared out
from behind swollen, bleeding lids. Black flecks stained
his lips, curled back from canted teeth and blistered
gums. Blood poured from nostrils, ears, fingernails. Flung
from the convulsing body, it streaked up curtains and
walls and streamed into dark pools on the tile floor.
Despesorio Vero, clad in a white lab coat, leaned over the
body, pushing an intratrachael tube down the patient's
throat; his fingers were slick on the instrument. He
snapped his head away from the crimson mist that marked
each gasp and cough. His nostrils burned from the acidic
tang of the sludge. He caught sight of greasy black mucus
streaking the blood and tightened his lips. Having
immersed his hands in innumerable body cavities--of the
living and the dead--few things the human body could do or
produce repulsed him. But this . . . He found himself at
once steeling his stomach against the urge to expel his
lunch and narrowing his attention to the mechanics of
saving this man's life.
Around him, patients writhed on their beds. They howled in
horror and strained against their bonds. Vero ached for
them, feeling more sorrow for them than he felt for the
dying man; at least his anguish would end soon. For the
others, this scene would play over and over in their minds-
-every time an organ cramped in pain; when the fever
pushed beads of perspiration, then blood, through their
pores; and later, during brief moments of lucidity.
The body under him abruptly leaped into an explosive arch.
Then it landed heavily and was still. One hand on the
intratrachael tube, the other gripping the man's shoulder,
Vero thought mercy had finally come--until he noticed the
patient's skin quivering from head to toe. The man's head
rotated slowly on its neck to rest those pupil-less eyes
on the doctor. With stuttering movements, as if a battle
of fierce wills raged inside, the eyes rolled into their
normal position. The cocoa irises were difficult to
distinguish from the crimson sclera.
For one nightmarish moment, Vero looked into those eyes.
Gone were the insanity of a diseased brain and the madness
that accompanies great pain. Deep in those bottomless
eyes, he saw something much worse.
He saw the man within. A man who fully realized his
circumstances, who understood with torturous clarity that
his organs were liquefying and pouring out of his body. In
those eyes, Vero saw a man who was pleading, pleading . . .
The skin on the patient's face began to split open. As a
gurgling scream filled the ward, Vero turned, an order on
his lips. But the nurses and assistants had fled. He saw a
figure in the doorway at the far end of the room.
"Help me!" he called. "Morphine! On that cart . . ."
The man in the doorway would not help.
Karl Litt. He had caused this pain, this death. Of course
he would not help.
Still, it shocked Vero to see the expression on Litt's
face. He had heard that warriors derived no pleasure from
taking life; their task was necessary but tragic. Litt was
no warrior. Only a monster could look as Litt did upon the
suffering of the man writhing under Vero. Only a monster
could smile so broadly at the sight of all this blood.
© 2003-2026