Four poker players sat around a table. Each of them frozen with the syndrome. One’s head tilted back, exposing his neck. Another’s face fell to the right, nearly to his shoulder. Two had plunged forward onto the cheap, green felt poker table. A fifth seat was empty. All were men, all, from the looks of it, at least middle-aged and two definite gray hairs. Two had puddles beneath them. The piss stench overwhelmed.
“It’s in here.”
Alex bent low and looked out a window to her right. “And that’s right out there.”
The night-lined outline of the bear moved across her view and to the door. It made a moaning noise, more foghorn than growl. A fat paw slapped at the door.
Jerry instinctively brought his shirt over his nose, wanting not to breathe in the disease or whatever it was. He took a step away from the macabre poker table to press himself against a wall. He tripped, and fell to his left, landing near another body, prone next to an ice chest. “Shit. It touched me. Shit!” He stood and scraped his hands on his chest and looked down at himself as if scouring for microscopic signs of evil. He took two more steps to the door. The bear let loose a fearsome moan.
“The window,” Jerry said. “We can . . .” He paused, looked down at his hand, remembering the gun. Where was the gun? Not in his hand. They all had the same recognition: he’d dropped it in the scramble to get inside.
“You knocked it out of my hand,” Jerry spat at Lyle.
Lyle appeared not to be listening, or he certainly didn’t care. “Rock and a hard place,” Lyle muttered—bear out there, syndrome in here. He scoped the room. Along the right wall, a stiff-looking yellow-and-brown couch beneath a window; to the left, a studio-style kitchen with faux-wood, cherry-colored paneled cabinets; directly across, an opening that led to what looked like it might be a small bedroom and bath. In the center, the poker table. Lyle walked forward. He focused on the man nearest him, head hung to the right beneath a fishing cap with a red fly-lure tucked into the brim. Spittle dripped from his lips. Lyle reached for the man’s carotid artery and then suddenly withdrew with a horrifying thought: he’d reached into the mouth of the man on the tarmac and the one in the airplane hangar and that had been a terrible idea! Now he realized these people might be experiencing something akin to a seizure, a paralysis state; they could have bitten his damn hand off. Foolish, rookie move, he thought.
He started at the table. In front of each man, a pile of yellow, red, and blue chips, and a cell phone. The phone nearest him was facedown. Gingerly, Lyle turned it over and saw that it was powered off. He moved to the next phone and turned it over. On the screen, a screen saver image of a lake in summer.
Then, struck with yet another thought, he turned around and saw that Alex was dragging the man from outside onto the yellow couch. Why wasn’t she more frightened? He caught Alex’s eye and she looked quickly down as he walked over and put his hand on this man’s neck. The skin was cold, unnatural.
“This one is dead,” he said.
“How did you know?” Alex asked.
“I just suspected. He’s been out there a long time,” Lyle said. “We’re running out of time.”
“For what?” Jerry asked. But it was obvious. How long could someone stay in a state like this, particularly in the snow? “Look, Doctor, you’ve seen this already. We need to get out of here.”
Lyle was already walking to the back of the mobile home.
“Hey, did you hear me?” Jerry barked. “We’re out of here.”
They looked at him, standing there beside the felled man near the ice chest. The man lay on his left side. He wore a green fishing vest. He twitched.
Then the comatose man’s arm shot up and grabbed Jerry by his left calf.
“Fuck!” Jerry shrieked. He leapt out of the grasp, smacking against the door. Behind him, the bear moaned.
“Interesting,” Lyle said.
“Interesting? Interesting! What are these, freaking zombies?”
“I doubt it,” Lyle said. He watched the comatose man’s hand slide back down. Lyle walked around, exploring, looking. “There’s got to be a comb,” Lyle said.
“Are you insane?” Jerry walked over to the window, near Alex. Clearly, he was looking for an exit. He looked like he might throw up.
“A comb, and a wool jacket.” They could barely hear Lyle; he stood in the tiny bathroom using moonlight to look on the edges of the sink, over the toilet, then inside the mirrored medicine cabinet. “Ah,” he said, finding a comb. Lost in thought, he hustled back to the main area, where he discovered that Jerry had disappeared. Of course, he’d gone back outside.
“The bear . . .” Alex started. “It is walking to the pickup.”
“Alex, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“You’re worried about the children.”
“Yes, I mean, of course. They’re terrified. They have no idea what to do.”
“You have kids?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry. Remind me, what brings you to Steamboat?” Lyle asked her and watched her reaction as intently as he might when taking a patient history, even as he walked to a man with a heavy coat draped over the back of his chair.
“Mountain retreat, like I said.” She gave him a smile that defied interpretation. “What are you doing?”
“Testing a theory. Do you understand anything about science?”
“Took it in high school.”
“You’re in tech, though.”
“Sales.”
“Uh-huh. Big company?”
“Google, actually. I thought I mentioned it.”
“They only hire the best. You must know something about electricity. You ever see the trick of rubbing a plastic comb against wool? It’s like walking with your socks on the carpet. You can get a good shock.”
He rubbed the black plastic comb against the wool jacket, back and forth, with increasing vigor. So much so that it threatened to tip the man out of his chair. All the while, Lyle stared at Alex. She met his gaze, then dropped it, looked up again, and there he was, still staring. His blank face gave away little of his thinking. Then he looked down at the man sitting in the chair with the jacket. This man’s throat was exposed. Lyle put the comb to the side of the man’s head. Nothing happened.
Lyle began rubbing the comb again, more vigorously still. Alex took two steps forward, mesmerized.
Lyle withdrew the comb from the jacket and placed it on the man’s exposed neck.
The man jerked. Alex stepped backward.
“Dr. Martin, you’re . . .”
He studied her face.
“You’re doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“You’re—”
A gunshot exploded from outside the mobile home. Then—bang bang bang—a knock on the door. Lyle stared at the man’s body, now back in its paralysis state but, clearly, something had happened. The man no longer smiled. His head lolled to the side. Some movement.
Jerry slammed the door open. “We have to go. Now!
“Hurry! Someone’s alive!”