112 – Infection

“Miss Agnes!” Mark banged on the door, harder than the first time. “Miss Agnes, can you hear me? Are you all right in there?”

Behind the rickety wooden slab he’d slammed his fist against, a dog was going absolutely berserk. If his knocking hadn’t managed to draw Granny Shroom’s attention, surely her mongrel’s racket had. Yet after waiting twenty seconds, nobody unlocked and tugged the door open to reveal a familiar, leathery face.

Mark cursed under his breath.

His first two check-ins had gone smoothly. Of course the last would break the trend. Maybe I should be happy for two of three, he thought grimly. Count your blessings, Mark. The heavens don’t look kindly on ingrates.

He pounded on the door one more time, the tiny dog inside losing its mind anew, and stepped back when he didn’t get a response. After a moment considering his options, he hopped off the porch and walked around the perimeter of the sagging cabin to try to peer through the slits in the windows. Fortune didn’t favor him: none of the windows were unlatched or ajar.

Returning to the front, he crossed his arms and frowned at the building.

He supposed Granny Shroom might be fine—just a monstrously deep sleeper, safe and snug in her bed despite the daylight hour. Or maybe she was out and about. In town, or working on her plant and fungus collection with the dedication for which she’d earned the nickname. Both seemed unlikely. The town was in lockdown, and she’d surely heard of the epidemic; she would be staying inside. She brought the mongrel with her when she left, too.

Even he wasn’t supposed to be out, but he’d needed to check on the locals who lived outside the town’s walls, since the guard had said they wouldn’t. Not that he could blame them… Bailiff’s orders. Lockdown was lockdown, and considering what was happening, maybe he should have stayed put no matter his concern.

But Granny Shroom, while a bit odd, had helped the people of Crestwood more times than he could remember. Everyone had favors they owed her. Same with the two others living beyond the town’s walls—they were as much a part of their community as anyone else, and he hadn’t been able to sleep last night wondering whether one of them had been abandoned to a horrible, and worse, preventable fate.

If one of them had been infected, they needed to be brought back, restrained, and treated. He didn’t know what terrible sickness had invaded Crestwood, but surely help from the city would arrive soon, and the situation would be resolved. Surely his mother would be fine. They just had to hold out.

Deliberating over his options, he decided that he would break in through the window. Less costly than kicking down the front door. He tried knocking one more time out of misplaced hope before groaning and accepting his fate. He swerved around the building and forced the window open, the latch exploding with surprisingly little effort. Old and rusted metal was halfway to blame, but also his strength. Still caught him off guard sometimes—he’d only recently made silver rank. Can’t imagine being gold, or even higher than that.

Unfortunately, his levels granted less agility than they did strength, and his trousers snagged on something as he vaulted over the windowsill and into the cabin. He crashed in, toppled over, and smacked his head against the floor. Some pot or other shattered next to him and threw dirt everywhere.

Meanwhile, the mongrel—Prince, because Granny Shroom had a twisted sense of humor—spasmed around and screamed at him like the world was ending. To be fair, Mark had broken into the dog’s home.

“Oh, shut it, fleabag,” he growled back, climbing to his feet and rubbing at his skull. He shot an embarrassed look at the window he’d so gracelessly tried to hop through. “You know me, even if we don’t like each other. Stay back. If you bite me, I swear…”

Thankfully, while the creature was going ballistic and posturing like it would leap forward and latch its teeth into him at any moment, the dog made no such actual movement. Little coward, he thought. He swiped his boot forward, and it yelped and scampered back.

He didn’t want to terrorize the animal; he just had no choice in the matter. He loved dogs. Chester, his family’s fluffy golden-haired canine, was the closest thing to a pure and unburdened soul that existed in the world. But this thing wasn’t a dog, even if it might be, literally speaking. With its spotty fur and rat tail, the creature was the inbred spawn of some wolf-monster hybrid born in the demon lands, he was certain. Heavens only knew where Granny Shroom had found the devil, much less why she cherished it so much.

“Miss Agnes?” he called once more. His gaze flicked around the interior of the cluttered cabin; she wasn’t anywhere he could see. Bedroom?

Taking a calming breath, he strode forward, tense as he ignored the yapping of the mangy monster staying out of reach of his leg—not that he would ever kick it, but he had to pretend he would. He knocked on the bedroom door and repeated himself. Again, he received no response.

“I’m coming in, then,” he called.

He waited hopefully for a second, then sighed and braced himself. He shouldered open the door—

—only for a weight to immediately slam into him.

The way he flew backward was more from shock than the strength of the tackle. Worse, he tripped over the damn dog that had taken up a post behind him, barking its head off.

A leathery old woman lurched after him, movements jerky, awkward, and unnatural. He stumbled away, and her grasping hands missed him with plenty of distance to spare. Her wrinkled face was slack, mouth ajar, and eyes vacant. More disturbingly, her skin was reddish and purple, bulging in the corner of her forehead—a grotesque sight twice as upsetting for his familiarity with what she should look like.

Oh, no. Not you too, Granny.

He scrambled away to dodge another swipe. He thought he’d braced himself for this possibility, but clearly not. Dismay hit him hard enough that his thoughts almost shut down. Only training kept his limbs moving—or maybe animal instinct. He jumped right to avoid the next clumsy and erratic pursuit, and his mind sprinted in circles as he tried to decide what to do.

He had to subdue her. But how, without hurting her? She was further gone than he’d feared. Not as bad as the worst cases, but not in the early stages where he might mistake the symptoms for an especially nasty cold. That was what he’d been expecting in the event she had been sick.

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If the little devil had been noisy before, with its master shambling around and attacking him, it truly did lose its mind. Despite the added nuisance, Mark didn’t grow more annoyed; instead, pity filled him. Only natural for a dog to be worried for its master. Even this little monster had loyalty. Admirable, really.

That pity evaporated when the dog stopped faking and pounced forward to sink its teeth into Mark’s leg. His attention had been on dodging Granny Shroom. He shouted and barely kept himself from kicking out to send the thing flying. Devilish creature though it might be, the idea of hurting an animal defending its master repulsed him.

He had no choice but to shake it off hard enough to send it skidding across the floor, though. He tried to be gentle about it, at least. A heartbeat later, he slapped away Granny Shroom’s arms and hurried back, looking around and orienting himself in the cluttered cabin—there was a lot to trip over, and not much room to navigate in.

Too chaotic. What did he do? His eyes flicked to the open window, and he hesitated.

Could just leave.

That would be the smart thing, but he dismissed the idea. He had to bring her back somehow. Yet while he was stronger, faster, and fully in control of his wits, not only did he need to worry about restraining someone who had lost her mind to the sickness, but he would have to do so without risking exposure. He didn’t know what caused the infection to spread, but he imagined that if anything guaranteed it, a bite to the shoulder would. How else did possibly magical plagues leap around?

A scuffle ensued in which he fought off an old woman and a small scared dog. Put like that, it wasn’t one of the valiant adventures he’d envisioned when choosing this career.

“I really don’t want to hurt you, Miss Agnes,” Mark panted. “But you’re not giving me much choice here.”

Only as he was grimly coming to terms with the fact that he might have to bash the poor woman over the head—a potentially serious injury for anyone, much less a decrepit old lady who weighed less than a sack of flour—did the situation resolve itself magically, no involvement on his part.