Days off vanished in the precinct. Lungs rattled like tin walls in high wind and vomit was dark green, and in the North End slums, they took to painting Xs on the doors of the contagious, and more and more people slept on the roofs. Some mornings, Danny and the other cops of the Oh-One stacked the bodies on the sidewalk like shipyard piping and waited into the afternoon sun for the meat wagons to arrive. He continued to wear a mask but only because it was illegal not to. Masks were bullshit. Plenty of people who never took them off got the grippe all the same and died with their heads on fire.

He and Steve Coyle and another half-dozen cops responded to a suspicion-of-murder call off Portland Street. As Steve knocked on the door, Danny could see the adrenaline flare in the eyes of the other men in the hallway. The guy who eventually opened the door wore a mask, but his eyes were red with it and his breaths were liquid. Steve and Danny looked at the knife haft sticking out of the center of his chest for twenty seconds before they realized what they were seeing.

The guy said, “Fuck you fellas bothering me for?”

Steve had his hand on his revolver but it remained holstered. He held out his palm to get the guy to take a step back. “Who stabbed you, sir?”

The other cops in the hall moved on that, spreading out behind Danny and Steve.

“I did,” the guy said.

“You stabbed yourself?”

The guy nodded, and Danny noticed a woman sitting on the couch behind the guy. She wore a mask, too, and her skin was the blue of the infected and her throat was cut.

The guy leaned against the door, and the movement brought a fresh darkening to his shirt.

“Let me see your hands,” Steve said.

The guy raised his hands and his lungs rattled with the effort. “Could one of you fellas pull this out of my chest?”

Steve said, “Sir, step away from the door.”

He stepped out of their way and fell on his ass and sat looking at his thighs. They entered the room. No one wanted to touch the guy, so Steve trained his revolver on him.

The guy placed both hands on the haft and tugged, but it didn’t budge, and Steve said, “Put your hands down, sir.”

The guy gave Steve a loose smile. He lowered his hands and sighed.

Danny looked at the dead woman. “You kill your wife, sir?”

A slight shake of his head. “Cured her. Nothing else I could do, fellas. This thing?”

Leo West called from the back of the apartment. “We got kids in here.”

“Alive?” Steve called.

The guy on the floor shook his head again. “Cured them, too.”

“Three of ’em,” Leo West called. “Jesus.” He stepped back out of the room. His face was pale and he’d unbuttoned his collar. “Jesus,” he said again. “Shit.”