Edilio looked at the plywood. Three half sheets, each four by four feet. A hammer and nails. Two-by-fours.

It had to be done. It had to be. Roscoe—the things inside him—could not be allowed to escape.

Edilio dragged the first sheet across the dark hallway and propped it against the door.

“I hear someone out there!” Roscoe yelled.

“It’s me, Roscoe. It’s Edilio,” he said.

“Edilio! Please, can you help me?”

Edilio opened the box of nails, grabbed the hammer, lined the nail up so it would go through the plywood into the door molding.

“Roscoe, there’s nothing I can do, brother. I have to . . . You’re going to hear some hammering.”

“What?”

Edilio slammed the hammer into the nail. He had to be careful; it was dark, and operating by feel alone was a bad way to hammer nails.

This was going to take a long time.

“Roscoe, I have to do this, man,” Edilio said.

“You’re going to lock me in here and let me die?”

Edilio hesitated. “Yes.”

“No way. No way. No!”

“And I have to do the same thing to the window, man.”

“Edilio, no. No, man. You don’t want to do this.”

“No, I don’t want to do this,” Edilio said.

Roscoe fell silent as Edilio nailed the remaining plywood in place. Edilio propped the two-by-four against the plywood and nailed it into place. The other end he nailed into the floor with massive long nails that took forever to hammer in.

Plague, Chapter 21