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“Promise?”
Either he didn’t answer, or the water muffled his reply, but the next thing I knew he was gone. I thought about washing my hair a second time, just for the excuse of lingering in this shower another twenty minutes, but I didn’t want my groom to return to a shriveled-up prune.
I toweled off and pulled on a robe, then glanced out the window at the street below. We were on the third floor, kinda lousy for city views, but fairly excellent for people-watching. Directly beneath our windows was the red awning of the hotel entrance. From habit, I found myself picking out random passersby and trying to ascertain everything I could about them from physical details: their clothes, how they walked, their body tics. Examples: The middle-aged guy hate-chewing a piece of gum and wearing an ill-advised “trendy” jacket? Recent divorcée trying to kick a nicotine habit because younger women in the dating pool tended to avoid smokers. Oh, and the attractive slender woman wearing the designer dress and zip-up stiletto boots, keeping her face visible to the passing crowd? Most likely a prostitute. Her face is her billboard, and she’s hoping to attract the attention of a wealthy tourist staying in the nearby five-star hotel (the boots are sexier than flats and less work than strappy high heels).
After a while, I shook myself out of it—if I was going to settle down to a “normal” life, I was going to have to learn how to unplug this part of my brain.
To distract myself, I unpacked our luggage. We both traveled light; I’m sure we’d both read the same articles on how to live for a month out of a suitcase that fits in the overhead bin. At one point, I’d reached the master level of packing for a week in the Middle East in a single oversizedpurse.
So unpacking took me all of three minutes.
A half hour passed. At least I think it did—my watch was still DOA. I turned on the flat-screen TV, then flicked it off again. Kevin was surely taking his time with those wine and flowers. Unless… he was surprising me with something else, which would very much be a Kevin Drexel thing to do. Months ago, I’d made myself turn off my internal lie detector around Kevin, so the poor guy could actually surprise me from time to time.
While I waited for Kevin to return, I figured I’d go do something practical. Like find a new battery for my watch or a charger for my phone, so I could finally feel grounded in this city. I quickly dressed, pulled my hair back, slipped on flats, and headed out the door.
Kevin’s body was sprawled out in the hallway.
CHAPTER 4
EVERYONE EXPERIENCES SHOCK differently. For some, it’s crippling. For others, galvanizing. I like to think of myself as belonging to the latter category.
Right now, I was all about saving my husband’s life.
“Kevin! Can you hear me, baby!?”
I dropped to my knees and felt Kevin’s neck for a pulse. There was none. Checked his mouth and airway; no visible obstructions. His skin was cold and clammy. I pushed away the fear and told myself this didn’t mean anything.I can still bring him back.
But as I prepared to give him CPR, a strange array of sensations overcame me. My head spun. It felt like my heart was trying to jackhammer its way out of my chest. My arms and legs tingled as if they’d fallen asleep, yet my fingers felt completely numb.What was going on?If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were classic symptoms of shock.
“Come on, Kevin,please…” I begged, then shouted, “Help! Please, call an ambulance!” hoping someone in the adjoining suites would hear me. Then I repeated it again, this time digging deep in my memory for the German words: “Hilfe! Einen krankenwagen, bitte!”
But as I glanced down the hall, I realized our next-door neighbors were in no position to phone for help either. Sprawled out just inside the open doorway leading to the next suite were two other people: a gray-bearded man and a young woman, maybe in her twenties. Their limbs were akimbo, like puppets whose strings had been quickly clipped, leaving their bodies to fall to the carpet in awkward heaps.
As I fought a wave of nausea, I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Was this some sort of outbreak? An electric shock running through the corridor? A gas leak?
Once I knew the source of the problem, I’d know how to save Kevin.
But I couldn’t focus. My brain felt fogged over. Even my vision was starting to blur. The numbness in my fingers spread throughout my hands. This wasn’t shock. This was something else.
Only then did I realize that whatever happened to the three of them…was now happening to me.
CHAPTER 5
THIS CAN’T BEit, I remember thinking.This cannot be how our lives end—just at the very moment they were truly beginning.
The animal part of my brain screamed at me to crawl backward, away from Kevin, away from all traces of this invisible killer. There was a strange scent in the air, one that cut through all of my other symptoms and stirred up a violent nausea.Was this what had taken my husband and the strangers next door?
But I hesitated. I had to take a mental snapshot of the hallway, as awful as it was. If this was the last time I was ever going to see my husband, I wanted every detail burned into my retinas.
Something here just wasn’t right—well, aside from the obvious. Something not right about Kevin’s body… what was it? What was I missing?
There was one detail that gave me hope: I was still conscious. Whatever mysterious agent had killed Kevin (and was working on me) hadn’t finished the job. But my only chance at survival was getting out of this hotel hallway as quickly as possible.
In the end, the animal inside of me, the part that wanted very badly to survive, took control of my limbs. I crawled backward, out of the hallway and into our suite.
Going back out into the hallway was not an option. And as much as I’d loved the shower, hiding in there would likely do nothing to protect me. I’d just be dying in a place that was slightly easier to clean.
No, there was only one way out.
