And then?—
There’s a cough.
Not the polite kind. Not the clear-your-throat-before-you-speak kind. It’s wet and tearing, like something has gone down the wrong pipe and clawed its way back up.
Alejandro leans back from his scope.
That’s the first thing I notice.
He isn’t aiming anymore. He’s watching the stage with the same expression he had in the locker room. Calm. Almost curious. Like he’s waiting for a clock to finish ticking.
I’m just starting to tighten my finger on the trigger when the cough comes again.
Harder.
Brutal.
Hartley bends at the waist, one hand gripping the podium as the other claws at his own chest. The microphone catches the sound this time, amplifies it, sends it rippling through the auditorium like a gunshot made of lungs and liquid.
Gasps ripple through the crowd.
I tear my eyes from Alejandro and lock onto the stage.
Hartley’s face is already changing.
His lips are losing color, draining fast, turning an unnatural gray-blue as he sucks in air that isn’t doing anything for him. His eyes are wide, whites stark, pupils blown like he’s staring into something only he can see. He tries to speak, tries to inhale, but whatever is inside him has turned his throat into a closed fist.
He gags.
Black veins beginto spider up his neck, branching and branching, crawling toward his jaw like ink dropped into water. His skin tightens, swelling subtly at first, then more obviously as his body panics and floods itself with every failed response it has.
Someone rushes the stage.
Then another.
Hands grab his shoulders, trying to hold him upright, as if posture will fix this. As if gravity is the problem. He retches violently, and thick, dark fluid spills from his mouth, splattering the podium, soaking his tie. It isn’t vomit. It’s blood, frothy and wrong, bubbling as if his lungs are trying to expel themselves through his throat.
The smell hits even from up here, sharp and metallic and unmistakably…sweet.
Hartley’s body convulses.
His chest heaves in short, useless spasms. Each breath is worse than the last, a wet sucking sound that makes people in the front rows recoil. His hands clutch at nothing now, fingers curling and uncurling, nails scraping uselessly against the podium’s polished surface.
His eyes roll back.
Someone screams.
The crowd surges forward and backward at the same time, a living thing breaking apart. People stand on their seats to see. Others turn away, hands clamped over mouths, faces folding in horror. A woman stumbles as she tries to flee, heels slipping on the carpet slicked with spilled drinks.
Hartley’s legs give out.
They don’t catch him in time.
He hits the stage hard, body slamming down like a dropped marionette. His back arches violently, a soundtearing out of him that isn’t human anymore. His abdomen spasms, and his bowels give way, dark spreading beneath him, mixing with blood and bile in a grotesque stain that no one can look away from.
Security is shouting. Medics are shouting. Someone is crying prayers into a phone.
Hartley swells further, face bloating, tongue darkening as it protrudes slightly from between his teeth. Blood leaks from his nose now, thin and steady, while his mouth works soundlessly, trying to form a breath that will never come.
