Plague Factor: Reflections in a Storefront Window

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

The thing that had been Davin Morse stumbled and coughed down the litter-strewn street, his prize rolled up in a greasy paper bag and clenched tightly in his fist. Port Oakes storefronts that fifteen years ago would have reflected back to him a cocky young punk, ready to take on the world, were now, thankfully, boarded up or so coated in the city's grime that they showed him nothing. He'd have been thankful, but he was too focused to care. He crossed his arms over the greasy brown bag and tried to walk a little faster, get to his destination a little sooner.

He knew what the windows would reflect now. The ruin of a man, a monster made in a modern Frankenstein's lab. That good lookin kid now all grey and covered with veins. That fine brown head of hair gone, just a bald death-cap left; two yellowed eyes grimacing out of a skeleton face. Way worse if he happened to have his mask off. Tatters of a mouth left, and fuck if the tatters didn't have scars on em. Still looked better than he felt, though. . .

An itching crawled inside his chest, and he was stopped, stooped over and coughing into the rag of a discarded surgeon's mask he kept tied around his face. With every cough, nearly paralyzing pain ran up his legs and back, but if he held back for long, his lungs burned like fire. So he wheezed and coughed and cursed in between wheezes and coughs. The paper bag swung limply from a hand that was encased in a yellow latex glove, more trash he'd scavenged to try to hold off against getting any sicker. Like there was any point to that.

He pulled the mask down over the ruined lower half of his face and spat, supporting himself with the yellow-gloved hand that held his prize pressed into the wall above his head. The wave subsided, his air came back, and he slipped the mask back over his face. He rested his hands on his knees for a second then, waiting for his pain to subside a little, and pushed himself upright with a grunt.

He caught something out of his peripheral vision. A pair of outcast punks had spotted him, were walking at him taller and straighter.

Ah, no, he thought, fuck no.

He avoided eye contact and shuffled up the street, tucking the bag and its contents into his shirt. He knew if those guys got hold of him it wouldn't matter, they'd beat the shit out of him and take whatever they wanted. He also knew he wasn't going to outrun them. They were close enough now that he could pick out their footsteps individually, almost feel them closing on his back. Yeah, this was definitely fuckin' happening.

Well, there was a little somethin' chumps like these never factored in: this plague he had, whatever it was he'd caught in that fucked up lab job. They might beat him good, but he had a little more fight in him than he looked like. He reached a side alley and spun on his heel.

Maybe five yards away, one of the outcast flinched. A corner of Davin's mouth quirked up under his mask. If he hit the other guy first, maybe that one would beat it. He might get out of this in one piece after all, relatively speaking.

If I don't fuckin' pass out, he thought. There was a momentary darkening of his vision, like a shadow passing over everything. Then it was gone, and he was holding a weakened arm out toward the stronger looking of the punks, reaching down into his own pain for something . . .

POP!POP!POP!

The younger of the pair whirled around, a rosy mist poofing out of one shoulder. On down the street a pair of rips had their sights set on the punks that had been on his trail. Guns appeared in the punks' hands and one jetted across the street, trying to widen the cops' field of fire, gie them wider targets. Davin dropped his arm, boggled for a second, and the paper bag he'd tucked into his ragged shirt slid out over his ribcage and hit the ground. He stooped to retrieve it and a bullet whizzed just over his head.

He hit the side alley at a dead run, clinging to the paper bag at all costs. He was breathing hard almost instantly, wheezing within seconds, but at least he was close to home now. By the time those cops finished rolling the punks, he'd have them lost among the piles of garbage and debris littering the maze of alleyways.

Four or five turns and forks later, he wheezed to a stop, leaned over and braced himself on his knees again, and listened. Nothnig but rats and worse scuttling around the trash. He coughed a couple more times, chest burning from hauling ass, now, and again the darkness. Weird, now that it was all he had to pay attention to. Like all the shadows were jumping and waving.

Probably a fuckin stroke, he thought. Maybe today's the day.

He doubted it, though, doubted he was going to die anytime soon. There was a time he'd been scared of that, but that was, what, two years ago? Two years sleepin' with the fuckin' rats, livin' with this day-to-day pain and sickness, and nothin' changed. Hell, ther'd been nights he'd wished . . .

The paper bag was still balled up in his rubber gloved hand. He shuffled off toward a shortcut to his flop, tried to jump a fence and fell onto the rubbish on the other side. Finally he was there. He wedged himself into a corner between brick wall and dumpster and unrolled the bag, digging out his prize; a little rectangular can with a yellow lable and a lighthouse. Sardines! He drooled under his mask and made a kick at an advancing rat as he scrabbled to get his rubber clad finger under the pull ring. The rat squealed and it seemed that he heard a whipered "eww!" from somewhere. He leaned out of his corner and looked around, but saw nothing. His hunger, maybe more than his pain, distracted him. Finally he clawed the top off.

His mask was down and one of the salty, fishy mustardy things was in his mouth. He chewed loudly through his exposed front teeth. The food was disgusting, maybe, but it was the first he'd eaten in . . . three days? The first that regular folks would even marginally call food in maybe that many weeks. The first one slid down his raw throat satisfyingly, and he decided to take his time with the second, sliding its silvery skinned body just past his teeth and nibbling off a bite. Hell, it wasn't so disgusting, really, when you got used to it. He started to take another bite.

A huge WHUMP! shook the dumpster beside him, and he jumped up, sardine can clattering to the ground, and spun to see what had happened.

One of those snake-man things was laying . . . dead? . . . on top of the now nearly collapsed dumpster. It had pretty clearly taken a spill from one of the four story buildings that made the alleyway.

Wonder if there's good meat in that tail, he thought to himself, studying the big thing. It stirred, and suddenly flipped and jumped upright, looming over Davin, looking him dead in the eye.

The snake flicked its tongue. Davin stood tense, mask down and half a sardine poking out like the butt of a cigar between his teeth. They stood that way for a second, just facing off.

Without so much as a twitch of forewarning, the snake launched itself forward. Darin leaped, taking the top of the dumpster as the snake left it. He turned as he landed, pushing yellow hands toward the snake.

His own stomach churned as he lent the snake a measure of suffering. It curled reflexively into a ball as Davin's gift made its stomach muscles contract. Davin jumped down and approaced, kicking the sardine can aside.

"Make a <wheeze> sick fucker miss his dinner?" Davin thrust his hands toward the snake again, cramping its muscles. "Teach you some fuckin' <wheeze> manners . . ." Again he poured it on. The snake lost consciousness. Darin underwent an internal debate for a second or two. His hand was resting on his one decent posession, the straight-razor in his pocket, when he heard three soft thumps and a lot of alarmed hissing behind him.

"Guess today is the fucking <cough> day." He faced the three snakes, not bothering to draw his razor at all. Fuck it, he'd put up a fight. Not that he had a lot in him. One snake, maybe a couple punks,okay. Three snakes, no way. He was gonna lose.

The biggest one reared waaaay up above him and flared its hood out. Davin put everything he could into giving the snake the mommy of all headaches, made its gut wrench at the same time, and started to move back. He abruptly tripped over the tail of the snake he'd just rendered unconcious and fell flat on his bony ass.

And then the darkness again.

This time, though, the shadows leaped out and tore at the snakes, pounded them. They hissed and snapped and whipped in circles, trying to find the source of the attack.

Fuck me, am I doin' this? He boggled. Either way, it gave him an edge. He climbed up, gave the unconcious snake a slug to the jaw to make sure it stayed that way, and started flinging symptoms into the knot of snakes, focusing on the big cobra. The shadows continued to leap and twist and strike. Davin's pain continued to get worse as he threw more at the snakes. Within a couple of minutes, the snakes were on the ground with the first. Davin blinked at the scene, exhausted, and joined them.

As he lay on his side, coughing into the garbage of his squat, a girl stepped out of a knot of shadows pulled up against one of the alley wall. No, she didn't step out at all . . . they kind of peeled back from her. She was young, too cute to be within miles of this rotten place, except maybe for her skin. It was as grey as his . . . Then she was beside him.

"Hey, man, are you alright?"

It'd over a year since anyone had asked.

"Fit as a <cough> fuckin' fiddle," he managed through the pain. "Who the fuck <wheeze> are you?"

He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and looked at the girl sideways.

"I'm Jess. Hey, you need to come with me, alright, Sickly?"

Davin looked around his flop. A couple of the snakes were starting to move already. He might not have much reason to trust this chick, aside from her maybe just pulling his ass outta the fire . . .

"You do this?" he motioned around the alley with his head, almost caught up on breath now. The girl just nodded.

"Alright," he wheezed, struggling to his feet and waving her off when she tried to help him up. "Where?"

She turned down the alley.

"Got a warehouse spot . . . you oughtta get cleaned up." A smile flashed back over her shoulder.

Davin stood for a second, split between following her and going the other way. Something about her walk, that cocky smile, maybe, made him think about that boy those storefront windows used to reflect back at him. That kid he used to be.

Besides, he thought, girl like that says follow, ya fuckin' follow.

So he did.