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Suko stumbled out of the bedroom and slammed the door behind him. Something was rolling around and around in ther refrigerator, banging against the inside of the door. He almost went over to open it, only caught himself at the last second. He wasn't thinking very clearly. His head felt wrong somehow, his brain caught in a downward spiral. He did not understand what he had just seen. But he knew he had to get out of the apartment.
No problem, a voice yammered in his head. Stay cool. Chill out. Don't have a cow, man. He barely knew the meaning of the words. The American voice seemed to be receding down a long black tunnel; already it was so tiny and faint he could hardly hear it. He realized he was thinking in Thai for the first time in years. Even his native language was strange, a flurry of quick sharp syllables like little whirling razorblades slicing into the meat of his brain.
He fumbled with the complicated series of locks, yanked the door open and nearly fell into the hall. How had he entered the building?...Up a metal staircase, through a door at the end of the long hall. He reached it and let himself out. The hot October night seared his lungs. He could smell every poisonous particle of exhaust blanketing the city, every atom of shit and filth and blood baked onto the streets. Not like the ripe wet kiss of Bangkok, but so arid, so mercilessly dry. He felt his way down the fire escape and around the corner of the building.
The empty street seemed a mile wide. There was no sidewalk, only a steep curb and a long gray boulevard stretching away toward some other part of the city. There were no cars; he could hear no traffic anywhere. Even with his head feeling so strange, Suko knew something was wrong. L.A. streets were often empty of people, but always there were cars.
Far away at the next intersection, he made out a small group of figures straggling in his direction, bathed in a traffic lights red glow. For along moment he watched them come, trying to be sure they were really there, wondering what he should do. Then he started toward them. The blond man had done something awful to his head; he needed help. Maybe the figures would be able to help him.
But when he got closer he saw that they were like the things he had seen in the bedroom. One had a long fatty slash wound across its bare torso. One had been gouged in the face with something jagged; its nose was cleaved in half and an eyeball hung out of its socket, leaking yolky fluid. One had no wounds, but looked like it had starved to death; its nude body was all bone-ends and wasted hollows, its genitals shrivelled into the pelvic cavity, its blue-white skin covered with huge black and purple lesions.
When they saw him, the things opened their mouths and widened their nostrils catching his scent. It was too late to get away. He couldn't run, didn't think he would even be able to stand much longer. He stumbled forward anf gave himself to them.
The little group closed around Suko, keeping him on his feet, supporting him as best they could. Gouged Eyeball caught him and steadied him. Slash Wound mouthed his shoulder as if in comfort, but did not bite. Lesions nudged him, urged him on. Suko realized they were herding him. They recognized him as one of their own, separated from the flock somehow. They were welcoming him back in.
Miserably, Suko wondered what would happen when they met someone alive.
Then the hunger flared in his belly, and he knew.
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