INFECTED (Click Your Poison) (111 page)

Y
ou’re in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the days before
Carnaval
. You’ve only just arrived, less than three hours ago, but any travel weariness is replaced by the rush of Rio nightlife. You’re here on vacation with friends, ready for The Biggest Party on Earth, but right now you’re alone.

It might still be four days until the giant flotillas re-imagined as hummingbirds or jaguars parade down the street, covered in exotic, scantily-clad dancers like an infestation of glamorous fleas. It might be less than a week until the party
really
begins, but right now you can’t tell the difference. If this is merely part of the pre-festivities, this raucous, impromptu street party, you can scarcely imagine the pandemonium of full-blown
Carnaval.

In four days, the whole country will cut loose, but already the streets are packed with singing and dancing crowds, like a cultural flashmob unconcerned with cameras or irony. They’re here for the
samba
and for the
caipirinha—
sugarcane liquor with lime and more sugar. You’ve had some already, but thankfully, you’re far from drunk. Otherwise you might not be concerned that the crowd has swept you up in their current and dragged you away from your friends.

There’s not a familiar face in sight.

In fact, all you see are Brazilians. Either gaunt, hard-workers, temporarily enraptured by the glee of
Carnaval
; or those who live for the party and so tonight is simply another Monday. Black descendants of former slaves freed into lives of poverty and revelers with Portuguese heritage mixed with a flourish of native Amazonian tribesmen—their traditions now intermingled into one novel culture.

You snap a picture—the scene is amazing. Still, you look around for your friends, scanning each face, and appearing very much like the hopelessly lost tourist that you are. Maybe for the rest of the week you should tie a rope around the lot of you; anchor yourself together as if you were summiting Mt. Everest.

Now the avalanche of humanity takes you further down the street, the relentless drumbeats threatening to set you dancing. You seek shelter in an alleyway, catching your breath, wiping sweat off your brow, and taking a moment to get your bearings. The ground in the alley is typical of these concrete passages, speckled with black tar-patches of gum and other residue, and cracks in the pavement sealed with collective detritus. A bird’s nest of telephone and electrical wires hangs overhead, nearly within reach. It’s much cooler here in the alley, away from the pulsing heat emitted from the dancers in the street proper. The alley walls are claustrophobically close, and stretch way down around the corner; they’re red brick, lacquered with teal green everywhere an arm could reach. Your camera rises as a reflex action; you take a picture.

In the preview on the LCD screen, you notice there’s the beginning of a graffiti mural sticking out from the adjoining alley. You peek around the corner to see the full image. It’s an angel, larger than life and in stunning detail. His hair is long and his face is placid, much like a beardless Christ. Yet this is a dark angel; his wings, not feathered, are formed from two AK-47 machine guns divided in broad symmetry. Two snakes wrap around his legs, originating from behind his ankles and enveloping his lower half like the caduceus, their heads biting his wrists and spreading his arms. A nuclear mushroom cloud which serves as his halo bursts forth from behind his flowing mane. In stylized calligraphy, the caption above reads, “
Vou testemunhar
.”

Just as the shutter clicks on your camera, a wooden
slam
from behind injects you with a shot of adrenaline. You turn and, seeing only a door flapping loosely in the cross-breeze, let out a sigh of relief. But as the door swings wide once more, you find your spine tingling.

There’s someone lying there, recumbent on the floor. Another tourist, passed out from too much
caipirinha,
perhaps? The opening to the doorway glimmers crimson under the streetlights.

As you step forward, your unease gives way to a newfound terror—there’s blood, and lots of it. You lean inside the porthole and snap a picture of the room, just to be certain.

From your vantage point in the doorway, a woman’s shoe is illuminated, and a pale foot with painted toenails; that’s all you can see from this angle. Trembling, you step forward into the dark recesses of the room, careful not to tread in the blood. You want to call out, to ask if she’s okay, but right now concentrating on your breathing is the only thing fending off all-out panic.

And so you move forward in silence, teeth gritted and heart pounding. She’s not okay, you soon discover, not okay at all. More blood is spattered on the wall behind her. She is lying on the floor, facing away from the door, her blood pooled in a greater quantity than you realized was inside a human body.

When you come around in front of her, you see that her face has completely caved in under the force of some great trauma. You cover your mouth in horror at her injuries and quickly turn away.

Atop a large crate opposite the woman rests a snub-nosed, blue-metal revolver and a note that reads:

“PICK ME UP.”

•
 
Pick up the gun.

•
 
Leave it.

MAKE YOUR CHOICE