Page 112 of Lethal Game

She followed him, watching a number of people from the hospital and the camp beyond it run past them toward the sound of the airplanes. They skirted the path most of the people seemed to be taking, headed toward the hospital at an oblique angle then kept going until they were fifty yards away.

The smell hit first, like a punch to the gut, rotting meat and far, far too much old blood.

Con gagged and thought about taking his mask off so he could puke.

“Breathe through your mouth, not your nose,” Sophia said to him. “It’ll take a few minutes, but the smell will get easier to tolerate.”

“I forgot, you doctors have to work with a lot of corpses.”

“Yes. In medical school it’s common to name your cadaver. I called my first one Reginald, because he looked so uptight and British.”

“You give them names?” That was a disturbing thought. “It’s not like they’re pets.”

“You’d be surprised what some medical students do with their cadavers. One guy took his to a frat party dressed as a clown. The stiff made a hundred bucks in tips.”

“That is a very weird kind of awesome. I’m oddly impressed. Did you do anything like that with yours?”

“No, not really.”

“Not...really?”

“There was one guy who used to torment me because I was only sixteen. I removed the testicles of his cadaver and put them in his shoes.”

“Youwhat?”

“He kept calling me a ballbuster. I figured he’d put his foot in one of his shoes andsquish. Then I could callhima ballbuster.”

“Holy shit.” He shouldn’t find that funny, not with so many dead bodies lying in front of them, but it hurt not to laugh.

The dead had been stacked like logs in a pile reaching about three feet high and stretched for about twenty feet. Most of the bodies were wrapped in cloth, but not all of them.

Sophia looked at the bodies, walked around the pile, then pointed at a wrapped one, whose head was easy to access.

Con cut the cloth away, then sheared off the back of the skull with the big knife he had strapped to his left thigh. Sophia took a sample of brain matter, screwed the cap on the sample container, then quickly pointed out a second body.

Con repeated the process and she had her second sample in about the space of a minute. He cleaned his knife and slid it into its sheath. The two of them walked calmly past a corner of the hospital, glancing at the people inside. Most of the healthy staff and helpers were missing—gone to the air-drop—leaving only the sick and dying.

Every cot was taken. A few people lay on crude pallets on the sand around the edges of the hospital. Not a problem now, but when the sun was higher in the sky, it would be. Anyone not in the shade would probably die of dehydration and sun exposure very quickly.

When they got back to their tiny territory, Smoke and River had returned and were playing guard by standing in plain view with their rifles in their hands. Henry was with them and the three had set up a reasonable perimeter around their two tents.

Smart. Let all the people coming and going from the air-drop see sufficient guards to keep them wary of trying anything stupid.

Sophia walked straight to her lab tent and disappeared into it.

“Any problems?” Con asked River.

“Not so far. We’re not as interesting as we were a few hours ago. That air-drop might do more to keep the refugees from mobbing us than anything else.”

“Satisfy a few basic needs and people are always happier and less willing to take risks.”

“Did you get what you need?” River asked, glancing at the lab as he spoke.

“I think so. There’s a lot more people in the hospital than there were last night.”

“How many is a lot?”

“They’re bursting at the seams.”

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