She sat him down against the makeshift sandbag barrier on the northwest corner. His legs had pretty much given out an hour or two before and any and all strength that remained had vacated his extremities. His mouth was still running a mile a minute, though she doubted that anything short of a stroke would ever relieve him of his gift of gab.
“You’ve been a dear, and don’t forget that,” he said, his voice still strong but increasingly hoarse. “Although Lord knows others, likely far wiser than you, would have called a stop to this some, oh I dunno, days ago.”
“Least I could do,” she puffed, not quite sharing his enthusiasm for the art of conversation, especially at the moment.
The stairwell to the roof was a steep doozy of a climb. Having to haul a motor mouth and a rifle up three flights of dimly lit concrete steps only exacerbated the situation.
“If it makes you feel any better I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” he went on. “I’ve noticed that other people tolerate you more when they know you’re ‘on the threshold,’ so to speak.”
She chuckled at the notion, though it was hardly more audible than a breath. “Well, they may be sucked in by the hype but I haven’t seen you do anything other than abuse your newfound popularity these last few days,” she retorted.
“True, very true. I’m a sucker for attention, always have been, but at times like these who can blame me?” Cautiously, stiffly, his hand moved to scratch the open score on the nape of his neck. It had gone green and gangrenous in the last day or so but the sawbones downstairs didn’t see much point in bandaging it, given the patient’s present condition. Yet he compulsively scratched at it as any child would with a scab.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“Could be worse. As of now I can’t much feel anything between my lower neck and the small of my back but I’m still moving so it can’t be that bad.”
And so he kept on scratching, trying to satisfy an itch he couldn’t feel in the first place and, for the first time in who knew how long, he kept his trap shut. As if to fill the void, the drone rose up from below, a clamour of dissonant, cacophonous moaning that was the closest thing resembling traffic in this age.
The din somehow brought a smile to her face. “In the early spring, I forget how long ago, these chickadees would nest outside my apartment window,” she said. “They’d never shut up when you would most want them to but, all things considered, I’d take their incessant tweeting over this.”
“Nah, that sounds like how a Disney movie would begin. This, though, this has character. Very Dante, sixth-circle-of-hell-ish.” He coughed, sending a tremor through his whole body, though this time he did not wince. Whichever nerves had registered the pain had shut off by now.
This fact had evidently crossed his mind as he said: “Usually I’d be doubling over by this point. Guess this is how it feels to be one of them.”
He was silent again, hugging his chest, pallor seemingly getting greyer by the minute.
“Sam,” she started, but he wouldn’t have any of it.
“Fuck it. Anticipation was always my least favourite Carly Simon tune.”
The shot could be heard throughout the plaza, echoing between what buildings remained. This hollow roar persisted for seconds long before diminishing, and as if in response the dead returned to their ceaseless droning.