Plague

was just determined to pull a Mary and off himself. He was nowhere near the deadly fifteenth birthday, but Orc might one of these days pick a fight that would get him killed.
    Or he might just drink himself to death. And then what? What did Howard have if he didn’t have Orc?
    On a level still deeper was a genuine sadness that Orc would abandon him. They were friends, after all. Amigos. They’d been through everything together. Orc wasn’t just Howard’s main asset, he was Howard’s only friend.
    He cared for Orc. Genuinely cared for him. Obviously Orc didn’t care much about him.
    Howard took his time making the decision. Took his time and a fully clothed shower, too. But finally he made his decision and sauntered away from the cloud, soggy but moderately clean, unnoticed by frolicking kids.
    It wasn’t far to Albert’s place. He found the door open, and quickly located Albert. The young mogul’s eyes were closed. He definitely looked dead. Very definitely dead.
    He advanced cautiously, as though Albert might suddenly rise up and start yelling at him for intruding. He pressed two fingers against Albert’s neck. He didn’t feel a pulse.
    But he did feel warmth. The body should be colder.
    He squatted in front of Albert and with his finger pushed up one eyelid. The dark iris contracted.
    “Yaaah!” Howard said, and fell backward. “Are you alive, man?”
    No answer. Nothing.
    Howard was frustrated because he’d hoped—if Albert was still alive—to negotiate a deal. After all, if Howard saved Albert’s life then it stood to reason that he owed Howard a little somethin’ somethin’.
    Howard hesitated. He could do nothing and sooner or later Albert would be a hundred percent, stone-cold dead. Or he could try to find Lana. And maybe there would be some reward. Albert was tight with his money, but surely if Howard saved his actual life . . .
    “Okay, I don’t know if you can hear this or not, Donald Trump, but if I save your butt, you owe me.” He frowned and decided he’d better add, “And oh, by the way, this is Howard talking. So it’ll be Howard you owe.”
    Howard arrived at the so-called hospital to see a very disturbing sight: Edilio, shivering and muttering on the stone steps, ignored. He was just one of dozens of sick kids with various degrees of illness. Coughing, hacking, shivering.
    The last thing Howard wanted to do was get any closer.
    “Hey!” Howard yelled up the steps.
    No one answered. He winced, turned away, turned back, doing a little dance of indecision. Without even knowing what his reward might be, it was hard for Howard to decide to risk his life. A man needed to know what he was getting paid, after all.
    Kkkrrraaalff!
    A kid at the top of the steps suddenly coughed with a force Howard had never seen or heard or imagined. The cough blew the boy backward. He landed hard, head smacking granite with the sound of a melon dropped on a floor.
    The boy rolled over, got to his knees, then coughed a spray of blood all over a girl nearby.
    “No way,” Howard said. “No way.”
    The new kid, Sanjit, Helicopter Boy, appeared at the top of the steps. He rushed down to the coughing kid and grabbed his shoulders from behind.
    He spotted Howard standing there. “Give me a hand, I need to get him off these steps.”
    “I’m not touching that little dude,” Howard said.
    Sanjit shot him an angry look. But then softened, like he understood.
    Sanjit tried to walk the boy back up the stairs, but then the kid started coughing again with such violence that he threw Sanjit off and went flailing back again.
    This time he rolled down the stairs to stop at Howard’s feet. He lay there, shivering and moaning. A fountain of blood flowed at once from his ears and nose and mouth.
    Sanjit came down and stood over him. “Get out of the way,” Sanjit said to Howard. “I have to drag him across the street.”
    “Is he dead?”
    “No, he’s in perfect shape,” Sanjit snapped. He grabbed both of the boy’s wrists and started to haul him toward the plaza.
    “You see Edilio there?” Howard demanded.
    “Yes, I saw Edilio there,” Sanjit said.
    “Shouldn’t you . . .” Howard motioned vaguely.
    “Yeah, I should call for a stretcher and get him straight to the intensive care unit,” Sanjit said with contained fury. “I’ll get him on an oxygen machine and pump him full of antibiotics. Or maybe I’ll just see if he lives or dies because that’s really all I can do. All