There were proverbs on the walls.  Little blue banners with white letters stitched on providing small splashes of color to the otherwise drab room. Even though the shelter was at ground level, there was a murky, subterranean quality to the light that made it feel like a basement.

Three men sat at the table closest to the door playing gin. They spoke loudly, but the room still felt hushed, as if there were an oppressive silence trying to drown out all joy.

The other two tables only had one person sitting at each of them. Behind the card players was another man just as grimy as they were, although significantly older. At first, Denton thought he was being stared at, but the man's eyes were just fixed blankly on the door, as though he had been waiting for someone for so long, he had forgotten who he was expecting and why it mattered. Spittle clung to his gray whiskers, and every now and then his body would be racked with convulsions, as he broke into a coughing fit. He made no attempt to cover his mouth, but no one else in the room seemed to notice.

Sitting alone at the last of the tables, with just five empty chairs for company, was the least destitute of the occupants. He looked clean and recently shaven. His clothes were ill fitted but didn't have that lived in quality of the others.

Beside him was a counter. An old woman sat behind it, reading a book, and standing guard over a big pot on a hot plate.

In a corner, on the other side of the room next to a crucifix, there was an old artificial Christmas tree, looking Charlie-Brown-like with missing branches, one string of multicolored lights, and a few mismatched ornaments.

"Are you here for food or a bed? Or both?"

Denton was in the middle of wiping the snow off of his glasses and hadn't seen the little man come up to him. Frail and silver haired, he seemed as ancient as the colonial era church next door. His bearing and the prominent gold cross around his neck suggested he worked there. He wasn't dressed like a priest. More likely, he was a faithful member of the congregation, volunteering his time.

"I'm hungry." The words that spilled out surprised him. He hadn't consciously spoken them. It was as if the starving beast clawing around his stomach had climbed up and spit them out of his mouth. He hated the pathetic sound they made and the humiliation of standing there asking for food. He should have stopped off for something at a drive-thru. But there was some reason for coming in here. Even though at that moment, the only reason seemed to be to confirm to himself and the world that he had lost his last shred of dignity.

"That's good, because we're out of beds for the night. The storm filled us up fast. You can go see Sheila for a bowl." He pointed over to the old woman. His other hand hovered next to Denton's elbow, as though he wished to guide him over but didn't want to touch him. "Better be quick. We shut down at 11:00."

At the counter, he got a tray and a bowl. The women put down her dog-eared paperback and ladled him some mystery soup. She then carefully lifted a chunk of stale bread out of a plastic sack with a pair of tongs and dropped it onto the gray plastic tray, before going back to her book.

He looked around at his seating options with distaste. None of the decrepit plywood tables looked appealing. The closest chair was across from the cleanest of the men, and seemed as good as any, and better than some.

At the noise of Denton's settling in, the man looked up. His eyes grew wide as he took in the sight of his new table companion. His nose wrinkled and he frowned. Without a word, he got up and moved down to the other end.

A cackle erupted behind Denton. One of the card players was laughing. The man had a scraggly gray beard and a red wool cap upon his head. Denton wasn't sure whether he was laughing at him, or at the other man, or simply at the situation. But there was something in the timing that made it undeniable that it was directed at what had just transpired.

Denton looked down at himself and realized he was filthy. Dirt and dried grass from the fight still covered his coat. The stench of vomit clung to his pant leg where the putrid contents of the hospital bucket had spilled. Just under that pungent odor was the wafting perfume of the whiskey he had coughed up on his clothes.

No wonder no one raised an eyebrow when I came in.

"Over here," Red Cap said, still giggling. He waved Denton over toward his little group.

Denton turned back to the cloudy, somewhat orange soup and dug the spoon in. Yes, his humiliation was complete. The warmth of embarrassment spread across his face, all the way to the lobes of his ears. He sat there holding the utensil, as if he were trying to measure the depth of the bowl, determined to ignore them. They might think he was a vagrant like them, but that didn't mean he had to join them. He would finish eating and leave.

Then, out of the fog drifted that strange, weak voice again: did you come in here for the soup?

The liquid in the bowl sat stagnant like something out of a Dickens story. No, he hadn't stopped here for the food. And it wasn't for a place to stay. There was only one other thing this sheltered offered, and that was the homeless of Bexhill.

There were five in this room and supposedly more in beds somewhere else. His eyes found a curtained off doorway hidden in shadow and he could vividly imagine a mass of snoring behind it. How were there so many homeless people in town? And this was just the men. There must be a woman's shelter, too. Possibly there was even one for families somewhere.

There were never beggars in Market Square. Where did they all go when they weren't at the shelters? What dark corners of the small town did they disappear into it? Then he remembered the bridge and Ray—Patient Zero.

He picked up his tray and went over to sit with the card players.

"Don't mind him." Red Cap gestured to the proud man sitting off by himself. He was at the very end of his table with his arms folded. He faced the Christmas tree, as if he were waiting for it put on a show.

"He doesn't think he belongs here." He laughed again. Despite it being deep in tone, there was something tittering about it, as though it were more of a nervous tic than a product of mirth.

"Poor guy," the small man sitting next to Denton said. His jacket's hood threw a shadow across his face. Only the rough dark stubble on his chin could be seen clearly. "His house burnt down. Got here too late for a bed. Bet he's wondering where he'll go tonight."

Next to Red Cap, a gaunt man with a shock of blond hair and two missing front teeth said, "It won't be with us. He'll be too grand for that," His attention drifted over to Denton. He stuck a bone white finger in his face and asked, "Who hit you? Was it Cal?" Through the missing teeth, the "ess" sound lisped: wash it Cal?

Denton stroked his chin and let his hand linger there. "No. Who's Cal?" he asked, without much interest.

"He's a fucking mad dog!"

The blond man began to rise out of his seat. The strain in his facial muscles gave him a patina of impotent rage. Red Cap put his hand on the man's arm and patted it in an effort to calm him down. "Dutch got into a fight with him last month."

"He attacked me!"

"We know. We know," he said soothingly, as Dutch sat back down. Changing the subject, he turned to Denton, "Tough luck not getting a bed. You got a plan for tonight, after they kick us out?"

Where would he go? Not home. He couldn't sleep in his car. Not in this weather. What options did he have? He might just have to bite the bullet and go to the police. Even if they didn't believe him about the virus, he had to look at the big picture. They might botch the whole thing by not quarantining him, but at least his statement would be on record. As the number of insane increased, the CDC would eventually figure it out. Bexhill might end up crippled by the disease, but so long as Linda was safe, what else mattered? He just needed to sound the alarm in hope that they would stop it here and keep it from spreading.

"I'm going to the police station."

"Oh, that old scam. It's not as easy as it used to be. Good luck to you."

It seemed that seeking shelter at the stationhouse wasn't unheard of, even though that wasn't what Denton had in mind. He decided not to explain and began to eat his soup instead. It barely had any taste and was badly in need of salt, but its warmth comforted him. His ragged nerves began to calm down and he could feel the tension easing in the back of his neck.

"Are you going to eat that?" The man next to him pointed at the bread.

There was no way he was going to be able to chew the hard lump of stale bread with his jaw still tender. "No. Take it if you want."

"Thank you kindly." The bread vanished in seconds, disappearing into the mouth hidden by the hood.

When only a thin residue that the spoon was unable to capture remained in the bowl, Denton decided he couldn't put off asking them any longer.

"Did any of you know Alfred Reynolds?" He stared into blank faces. "Some people called him Ray. In the summer, he stayed under the train bridge by the water treatment plant."

Red Cap shook his head. The other two looked down at the table. The man sitting behind Denton started coughing uncontrollably. It was a hacking cough that sounded as if it were trying to scrap something horrible off of the surface of his lungs.

Denton shrank away. The soup threatened to come back up at the thought of the sickness spewing from the filthy old man.

How foolish I am, Denton thought. What could he give me that would be worse that what I already have. If these people knew what infected me, they would run in panic from this place.

The coughs slowed to a sputter. When they finally stopped, a soft voice spoke, "I know Ray."

Denton turned around. The man was watching him. His eyes seemed unfocused, and his skin had a loose rubbery look to it, which made his face seem more expressive than it really was.

"You did?" The man nodded. "I've been under the bridge with him a few times." "When was the last time you saw Ray?"

The man was quiet. His fingers traced out the topography of his whiskers, as though trying to read his memory through braille.

"The fall, sometime. The apples were out. I wouldn't have gone there except I was coming home from spending the day in the orchards, and it was getting late and cold. There was a fire under the bridge."

"You wouldn't have gone? Why not?" There was a clue here, he could feel it. Fate had led him to the shelter and this man. Ray told him something—something that would make everything clear.

"Ray doesn't get along with anyone. He's a strange bird. Never likes people coming around. Gets steaming mad, if you get too close to him. But I thought I could just stop by to warm myself."

Denton could picture the scene. This old vagrant stumbling along the tracks with apple juice stuck to his chin, a clear September night overhead, and a wind that cut through his clothes. A small fire created a glow under the bridge, like a flickering flame in a lantern.

"Did you talk to him? What did he say?"

"Like I said, Ray was a strange one. He was acting really odd that night. He was raving, saying he had figured out the truth. Kept asking if I wanted to know it."

Ray was under the bridge in the heat of the infection, eights spray painted all around him, frantic and anxious from the building violence in his brain. He had changed. No longer driving others away, he was welcoming and offered to share the fire and the truth. Wasn't that what Denton wanted, the truth?

"Did he tell you what this truth was?" Denton inched forward on his seat and leaned in closer to the man.

"No sir. I didn't want to know anything from him. I just wanted to sit by the fire. The whole time he keeps tapping his forehead and chattering away about it. Says he can see straight into people and make them better, strange nonsense like that."

Despite being disappointed that the truth hadn't been asked for and hadn't been told, Denton still felt a chill from the story. It's was like a horror movie: this poor old soul sitting in the madman's lair under the bridge, completely unaware of the danger he was in and terrors that lurked there.

"Then what?"

"I get up to go. And he tells me, he's leaving soon, but if I change my mind and want to learn the truth to go and see him."

"Where?"

"He said I could find him on Mt. Nazareth."

"Mt. Nazareth," Denton blurted out. He could feel the blood drain from his face. "Why would he go there?"

"Hell if I know. To go live with the devils, I figure. He'd fit right in." "The Devil! The Devil!" Dutch screeched, standing up in horror, like Satan had just walked through the door.

The silver haired man with the cross stomped across the room with his finger pressed against his lips. But instead of shushing him, he yelled, "Shut your trap. Remember where you are, man."

Red Cap grabbed Dutch by the shoulder and pressed him back down into the chair. "The Devil can't come in here. He can't enter a church. It's holy ground."

Dutch trembled, but he seemed to get enough control of himself to keep quiet.

Denton switched seats and moved across from the coughing man, so he could speak more quietly.

"What do you mean devils?" he asked in a whisper.

"You know, the ones in the hills near here."

Denton sat back bewildered. How sane was this man?

"Old stories. Demons in the woods. Devils in the trees." The hooded man crossed himself after speaking.

Red Cap made as if to spit—a gesture to ward off evil. Dutch had his head buried in his arms and appeared to take no notice.

"Up on Mt. Nazareth?" Denton asked. The universe seemed to be colluding against him. Why there? Why did this lead back there?

The man with the hood nodded.

Denton turned back around and said, "And there were eights— or circles—painted everywhere, right? Under the bridge, I mean."

"Not that time," the coughing man said.

"What do mean? Did he paint eights there before?" Was this coot mixing things up?

"No, it was later. On one of the first really bad nights, when the ground was too cold to sleep on."

The first frost had been around the second weekend in November. He must have meant then or soon after. Of course. That was more fitting with the timeline. People only started showing signs of the infection around then.

Then why was Ray acting so strange months earlier?

"There was no room at Fillan's, so I was looking for a place, and I saw the fire down by the river. I was frozen to the bone. So I headed down, with a bottle I'd gotten earlier that day. Thought I'd trade a few drinks to sleep by the fire."

"But you said Ray didn't like people."

"Figured he'd cleared out long before. It wouldn't be the first time someone took over his camp after he left. I never would have gone, if I knew what was waiting down there."

"What was there? What happened?"

"All I could see was the fire, at first, under the bridge. It'd been built up big. An old pallet and some branches were burning and the flames went past my chin. I got scared then. Figured it must be some kids having a party. I didn't want to run into no teenagers. Not all by myself. But no one was around. Or at least so I thought. Then I see him. There's this man just sitting there staring at the wall, like one of them Buddhist monks, with his legs all twisted up under him."

"Ray?"

"It wasn't Ray."

"He'd changed," Denton prompted.

The old man cleared his throat with a loud harrumph and continued, "I say hi and tell him I've got some liquor. But he doesn't say anything. I get worried that something was wrong with him, so I goes right in front and face him, and that's when he gets mad. Says I'm disturbing the energy or something. And I see he's mapped out all the circles of Hell around him. It stuns me, that. While I'm looking at these two great big red circles, he springs up like a weasel and grabs me and hits me with a stone." He pointed to a thin pink scab on his forehead. "I'm on the ground, and he gets on top of me, and gets his hands around my neck, and I'm sure I'm a goner. I lash out and hit him with my bottle. It breaks against his head, and he falls back, and I'm certain I killed the bastard. But he jumps right back up. That's when I ran. I ran as fast as I could."

"And did Ray chase you?"

"I tell you it weren't Ray. That thing under the bridge was a monster. Thank God I got away."

"So, he didn't chase you?"

"Don't know. Never looked back. But I got lucky. It's funny: I was afraid of finding teenagers that night, but they're the ones that saved me. When I got to the road, they picked me up in their car."

"What car?"

"One of them vans, like folks drive their kids to school in. It was blue, or maybe black. They took me to the hospital."

"And did you tell them about Ray?"

"No, cause it weren't Ray." Irritation grated in his voice. "I told them all about that devil under the bridge, though. And all about the circles he'd drawn." He paused and his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "You know, it's strange: they were real curious about it and seemed to know all about them drawings already. Just like you."