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“Shoun’t … toush … me … Siccc,” he whispers.

I squeeze his hand. “It’s alright,” I say gently. “I’m here to help you.”

He closes his eyes. “Allll … dea …” He moans this, his face grimacing. “I … lassst.”

My stomach plummets. That smell of rot might not just be coming from him. It might be coming from other people … people who are now justbodies.

And in all the time I’d been recuperating, I hadn’t noticed there were other people in the house.

You were asleep for most of it, I remind myself.

… And yet, maybe Ihadnoticed. Maybe all of my fever dreams weren’t fever dreams at all, but the noises that were filtering into my room while I slept, noises my mind put faces to.

My attention returns to the man in front of me. He had to watch whoever else lives here fall ill, and then die. And somewhere at the back of his mind he might’ve been aware that he was going to die last, without someone to care for him.

I place the back of my hand against his forehead, then his neck. He’s burning up. And now that I look beyond the lumps and open sores that have transformed his body into a grotesquery, I can see that his lips are split and scabbed.

I stand suddenly and stride into the kitchen. Grabbing a hand towel, I run it under the kitchen faucet. Then, flipping through the cupboards, I pull out an empty glass and a bottle of Red Label I come across.

After I fill the cup with water, I take the goods back to the living room, trying and failing not to think about the fact that I got a bed in this house, but this man didn’t. Was that Pestilence’s doing? Was that this man’s?

Setting my items down on a coffee table resting near the couch, I grab the wet towel and begin to gently run it over the man’s face and neck. Meticulously I move down his body, trying to avoid what I can of the lumps and sores, which look painful to the touch.

I grab the glass of water and the bottle of Red Label from the coffee table. Holding the two up, I ask, “Which do you prefer?”

There’s not even a second’s deliberation. The man’s eyes go to the whiskey.

“Good choice.”

I dump out the glass of water right onto the carpet—because no one’s going to give a shit about a puddle in a house full of plague—and fill it halfway up with the liquor.

Sliding a hand under the man’s back, I lift his body up just enough for him to swallow, ignoring my own aches and pains that awaken with the exertion. Using my other hand, I hold the glass of whiskey to his lips.

He downs the liquid in five solid swallows.

“More,” he croaks, and his voice sounds stronger.

Again I fill the cup halfway up, and again he downs it. And then once more.

It’s enough alcohol to send me to the hospital, but I guess that’s the point. There’s no beating this plague. The kill rate of this thing is a hundred percent. At this point all either of us can do is manage this man’s pain.

Once he empties the third cup, I reach for the bottle again, but he lifts his hand up, just slightly.No more.

“Thank you,” he wheezes.

I nod, swallowing down the thickness in my throat. I take his burning hand and I hold it between my own. “Would you like me to stay?” I ask. I don’t bother adding,for your last few hours. Even staring death down, I can’t seem to acknowledge it by name.

The man closes his eyes, his body already relaxing from the effects of the whiskey, and he squeezes my hand once, which I take for a yes.

My thumb strokes circles into his skin, and softly I begin to recite Poe. “‘Lo! Death hath reared himself a throne, in a strange city, lying alone …’”

The words to “City in the Sea” rush out of me, words I’d read and memorized long ago. Once I finish reciting the poem, I move on, quoting Lord Byron’s “And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair” and then a few passages fromMacbeth, pieces of poetry and prose I picked up here and there. The world might’ve stopped caring about these poets long ago, but their immortalized words are appropriate now more than ever.

Next to me, the man doesn’t open his eyes again, but every so often he tilts his head just a little in my direction, letting me know he’s listening.

At some point, he stops turning to me. His wheezy breaths slow as he nods off. I sit on my heels, holding his hand, and watch until the rise and fall of his chest fades to nothing. Even then, I hold his hand, not releasing it until his skin begins to cool.

I never got his name. I held his hand and eased his suffering, and the sight of his plague-riddled body will haunt me for the rest of my days, but I never got his name.