The Emerald House

13

"What did you find?" I asked, thinking of the limbs of the straw men piled in the shed.

"The way he walks and his movements are very stiff, like zombies..."

"I found it," the middle-aged man said, walking to the bedside with two white pills as big as buttons in his hands. "This is for fever."

We were very close to the man, and there was a strong smell of alcohol on his body. When he opened his mouth to speak, I felt another strange breath spurt out from his mouth.

It was not bad breath, but a smell of firecrackers after burning and exploding.

Wendy thanked him, took the medicine, broke it into pieces, and put it into Sebastian's mouth.

I held up Sebastian's upper body and watched Wendy pour water into his mouth.

The man stood next to us and looked straight at Sebastian. He made strange sounds, like swallowing saliva or chewing something.

"He's hopeless," the man suddenly said.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I shouted at him angrily.