GRENUN: When The Air Killed Us

Chapter 8: The Cough

 

The silence inside the Apotheke drops like a heavy lead weight.

SKRRR-HHHH. SKRRR-HHHH.

The sound of my own breathing inside the Dräger respirator feels entirely too loud, too mechanical, cutting through the damp, chemical-smelling gloom of the pharmacy. My fingers remain clamped around the handle of the yellow emergency box, my knuckles aching from the pressure.

Jonas doesn't move. He stands two paces away, his massive frame blocking the narrow aisle between the overturned glass display cases, his fingers tightening around the cold iron tire iron until his knuckles turn white. His eyes—bloodshot and rimmed with grey soot—stare past my shoulder, fixed entirely on the closed wooden door at the back of the prescription counter.

From behind that door comes a sound that freezes the blood in my veins.

COUGH.

It isn't a sharp, sudden hack. It’s a wet, rattling heave—the sound of someone trying to force air through lungs half-filled with thick, greasy fluid.

"Jonas, shut up," Mara says, her voice low, steady, and sharp as a razor. She keeps her 12-gauge shotgun leveled, not at me, but halfway between Jonas and the back room. "He just came in from the alley. He didn't bring anything in."

"The hell he didn't!" Jonas spits, his voice rising, cracking with a frantic, desperate panic. He takes a heavy step toward me, the tire iron swinging dangerously close to my ribs. "Look at him! He's carrying a bio-tech lab box and three sealed bottles while the rest of us are rationing rainwater! He crawled out of the same zone where the gas leaked! That cough... that cough started three hours ago, right when the air turned yellow!"

"My brother has had a chest infection since the winter storm," Mara snaps back, her hazel eyes flashing with a dangerous warning. "Don't you dare, Jonas."

"He was outside the perimeter!" Jonas yells, stepping past Mara, pointing the rusted iron directly at my mask's clear visor. "Take it off, kid. Let’s see your skin. Let’s see if those veins are starting to crawl up your neck yet."

 

My heart hammers against my ribs like a trapped bird.

One-two, one-two, one-two.

I lean back until my shoulders hit the metal shelving unit behind me. My left arm locks tighter around the yellow box, pressing the hard plastic casing against my sternum. If Jonas swings that tire iron, he could shatter my mask's seal or crack the intake valves. If the seal breaks in this unventilated room—surrounded by three people and a closed door hiding a wet cough—I won't last forty seconds.

"I passed her test," I choke out through the rubber cup, my voice muffled, desperate. "I held my breath for thirty seconds in the open rain. If I were carrying the Regen-4, my eyes would have clouded over before she unlocked the bolt."

"Thirty seconds ain't enough!" Jonas snarls, his face twisting into an ugly mask of grief and fury. He’s not just angry; he’s terrified. He knows what happens when someone in a safehouse starts coughing. He knows the 60-second rule. "You could be carrying it on your coat! On your boots!"

"Jonas. Enough."

Mara steps directly into his path, her boots sliding smoothly across the tile floor. She doesn't yell, but the cold, absolute authority in her voice makes Jonas freeze. She cocks the shotgun with a sharp, crisp CLICK-CLACK, the muzzle stopping two inches from the center of his leather jacket.

"One more step toward him, and I clear the room," Mara says quietly, her eyes locked on his. "We share rules here. No talking, no coughing without a rag, and no killing each other over paranoia. He passed the air-lock test. That means he stays until high tide."

Jonas stares at her, his chest heaving, his jaw working as if he wants to spit. For a second, I think he’s going to swing the iron anyway. The tension in the room is so thick I can taste the copper-flavored sweat inside my mask.

Slowly, Jonas lowers the tire iron. He glares at me, his eyes burning with a deep, personal hatred.

"If my brother doesn't make it through the night," Jonas whispers, his voice dropping into a flat, chilling threat, "I’m throwing you out into the Hauptstrasse without a mask."

 

He turns on his heel, his heavy boots thumping against the floorboards as he stomps away toward the corner barricade, collapsing onto an overturned medical cot with his face buried in his grease-stained hands.

Mara lets out a slow, controlled breath, though she keeps her finger resting safely near the trigger guard of her shotgun for a long moment before lowering it. She turns her gaze back to me.

"Get up," she says, her voice softer now, though still stripped of any warmth. She gestures with her chin toward a wooden stool behind a low counter. "Sit over there. Keep that yellow box off the floor. And keep your mask sealed—our reserve filters are down to the last four."

I nod, my legs shaking as I push myself up from the tile. I wade through the dim, amber light cast by the battery-powered lanterns, keeping my eyes away from the closed wooden door at the back of the room.

COUGH.

Another muffled, wet heave comes from behind the door. It sounds heavier this time, closer to the frame.

I sit down on the stool, pulling the yellow emergency box across my knees. My fingers trace the raised black biohazard seal on its lid. The plastic is still warm—too warm for a metal-lined case sitting in a cold, flooded basement. It feels like it’s generating its own internal heat.

Mara walks over to the counter, setting her shotgun down within arm's reach, and pulls a crumpled map of Greifswald out of her tactical pocket, spreading it across the glass surface.

"You came from Sub-Level 3 of the Bio-Chemical facility," she says, not looking up from the map. It's not a question.

"Yes," I reply quietly through my filters.

"Then you know why the containment seals blew." She looks up, her hazel eyes fixing directly on my visor. "Was it the earthquake? Or did someone override the pressure valves before the tsunami hit?"

The air in my throat catches.

I think of the computer simulations I ran with Elena on Floor 2. I think of the safety clearance papers bearing my crisp blue signature: Silas Brandt, Junior Systems Tech. I think of the red warning lights I ignored three weeks ago because the grant deadline was looming.

Before I can form a lie—before I can tell her it was just the tectonic shift—a sharp, metallic clink echoes from the back room.

The wooden door slowly clicks open an inch.

A pale, grey hand, long-fingered and slick with sweat, reaches out from the dark doorway, gripping the splintered edge of the frame.