So it’s built on lies. So if she knew what I am, what I do, she’d slap her hands to her face, scream NOOOOOOOOO and run from the room crying for help. Or not. Being Evie, she might just kick me in the balls for lying to her. Then she might ask a lot of questions. Then she might ask me if having the Vyrus in her would kill the virus in her.

And I’d have to tell her the truth for a change.

It would. The Vyrus will kill what’s in her. It will kill anything that invades and attacks its host.

It will save her.

No more puking. No more hair loss. No more oral ulcers. No more loose teeth. No more chemo. No more Kaposi. No more AIDS.

No more cold showers. No more hand jobs. No more dry humping like the high school kid I never was.

Just me and her and all the time you could want, as healthy as a human being can be. Healthier. As healthy as something not quite human and not quite alive can be. For just as long as we can keep it together. For just as long as we can score and lay low and live with the constant scrabble to find the next hit. For as long as we can stay out of the sun.

It’s a life.

And who am I to bitch. I may not have asked to be infected, but I haven’t hurried to get out of the deal. Been over thirty years now, and I can bow out anytime. A bullet is still a bullet, whether it goes through your brainpan or mine. And dead is still dead. Or so I’m told. I’ll know for sure soon enough. Just like everyone else.

We’re all going the same place.

I’m just taking a different road.

If the scenery sucks, I can drive into a ditch whenever I want.

And I can take Evie with me. All I got to do is one simple thing. I just got to do what she’s begging me for. I just got to save her.

I get off the bed, stub my smoke out in the tray on the nightstand and throw down the last swallow of Old Grand-Dad in the water glass there. I take Solomon’s hogleg from my dresser and put it and the shells in my gun safe with a couple other pieces I’ve acquired in the last year. Used to be I had a pair of handguns that suited me more or less to a tee. The work I’ve been doing lately, I’ve found I go through them in a hurry. It pays to collect an extra or two when you get the chance.