"You'll get used to it." Markel yanked a twig from a fallen branch and chewed it. He said softly, "But why doesn't he die? It doesn't make sense. If I were not a rational, intelligent, thinking being, I'd be frightened right now.
"Well, I'm frightened, all right."
Rolling over to face her, he propped himself on his elbow. "You associated with Rocky for a long time. What was he like?"
"He was a slob, like I already told you. A real nowhere slob." She stared up at the leaves. "Sometimes he was okay, but what I couldn't stand was he was so stupid."
"No, no, that's not what I mean. Did he seem different in any way? Physically, for example?"
She sat up angrily. "I don't have to take no insults from you!"
"No, I mean did he seem different in the way he reacted to pain, or injury? You told me he didn't get sick when the plague hit the city."
She didn't answer for a while. "Yeah," she said thoughtfully. "I forgot. Yeah, he did. Once he fell off his motorcycle and gave his head a hit on a brick wall. I thought he was dead; he didn't breathe or nothing. And then just when I was getting real scared, in he walks, looking like nothing happened."
Markel rubbed his chin. "How long was it between the time he fell and the time he returned?"
"About a day, I guess. He just lay there all that time like dead."