You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 211 The Collapse of Faith (3k)

The Ford Explorer screeched to a halt on the muddy dirt road, plunging into a deep puddle and coming to a rough stop in the open space outside the Church of St. Jude.

Leon pushed open the car door, his tactical boots sinking into the mud mixed with an unknown liquid. He looked up, peering through the low brim of his hat at the dilapidated Gothic building, his brow furrowing involuntarily.

The conditions here are more than twice as bad as when he last came during the freezing rain.

The churchyard, which was already dilapidated by iron railings, was now packed with people.

The pillars in the corridor, the steps, and even the feet of the stone statue of Saint Judy with half a wing broken off were covered with blackened cardboard and tattered sleeping bags.

Hundreds of emaciated homeless people were piled up here like sardines.

Some people were coughing violently, some were scratching their festering, oozing wounds, and several skinny, emaciated drug addicts were curled up in a corner, convulsing unconsciously.

Looking at the scene, Lyon knew that, obviously, in addition to a large number of people from the lower classes in the outer districts having migrated to the West District for some reason, they had also found this refuge, which might have free medicine and hot soup, by following mutual aid groups or word of mouth.

Alex jumped out of the passenger seat and instinctively opened the door to reach for the back seat, only to find nothing.

"Holy crap, we're doomed."

Alex slapped his thigh and muttered in frustration.

"I forgot to take two sets of protective suits from my refrigerated truck. The bacterial concentration in this godforsaken place is so high, one breath could probably shorten your lifespan by six months."

"Now we have no choice but to bite the bullet and go in. Hopefully, there are no highly contagious diseases inside."

He could only turn around and open the armrest box of the Ford Explorer, rummage through it and pull out two blue medical masks. He haphazardly hung both masks on his ears and then made do by following behind Leon.

Leon ignored Alex's complaints. Wearing a black mask and with his hat pulled low, he strode through the mud towards the church's rickety wooden door.

The moment I stepped through the doors of the central hall, a suffocating stench assaulted my senses, almost tangible. It was excrement...

The smell was from the fermentation of rotting soft tissue, cheap alcohol, and sweat.

Even Alex was so overwhelmed by the smell that he took a step back and almost threw up the pizza he had eaten that morning.

In the spacious nave of the church, all the pews were pushed to the sides.

The marble floor, which was originally used to worship the gods, is now littered with seriously ill homeless people lying haphazardly.

Painful groans and dying gasps echoed beneath the dome, weaving together a chilling requiem.

Below the altar, on the sludge-splattered stone floor, Pastor Thomas knelt beside a barely breathing Black homeless man.

He was wearing a protective suit whose original color was no longer discernible, and the latex gloves on his hands were stained purplish-black with blood.

Thomas glanced at the homeless man's unfocused pupils and his pale lips from blood loss, and paused for a moment.

He abandoned his attempt to save the still-convulsing Black man, mechanically tearing a yellowed bandage from the still-warm body and turning to try to wrap it around the arm of a less seriously injured Latino woman nearby.

Faced with a complete shortage of advanced antibiotics and medical equipment, he had no choice but to cruelly abandon the seriously injured or critically ill patients who had no chance of survival, reserving the remaining resources for those who were still clinging to life.

The sound of footsteps caught Thomas's attention.

He stopped what he was doing and turned his head.

After recognizing Alex, his face, marked with deep red lines from the protective mask, did not show any surprise at encountering an acquaintance or seeing a savior.

He simply stared at Alex with his bloodshot eyes, his gaze as blank as a stagnant pool.

Thomas didn't exchange pleasantries. He simply raised his blood-stained hand, waved to Alex, and spoke in a weary yet matter-of-fact tone.

"You're here. Perfect timing. Come lend a hand and move those guys in the corner. They're taking up too much space."

Alex stood there, stunned. Before he could say anything, Thomas had already straightened up with difficulty, leaning on the bench next to him.

The old pastor took off his blood-stained goggles and tossed them into a basin of dirty water beside him, then pointed to a dark corner to the left of the altar.

There lay four or five human-shaped silhouettes, covered with tattered gray blankets, side by side.

Several of them had already stiffened completely, while the one on the far right was still twitching slightly under the blanket, clearly not yet having breathed its last.

"Alex, I need to talk to you about something."

Thomas ignored Alex's stunned expression. His tone was calm, and even his bargaining seemed somewhat mechanical.

"There's just too much stock here today. The floor is almost overflowing."

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He stared into Alex's eyes.

"Could you talk to your company and raise the recent acquisition price a little? It doesn't have to be much, just an extra twenty dollars per body would be fine."

Alex's eyes widened, his lips trembled, but he couldn't utter a sound.

Thomas ignored Alex's shock. He turned around, pointed at the Latina woman on the ground whose old bandages he had just wrapped around her, and spoke in a completely calm tone.

"I need to buy alcohol from an unlicensed clinic, and I also need the cheapest broad-spectrum anti-inflammatory drug."

"Please, give me twenty more dollars, and I can get two rolls of clean gauze. If that's not possible, ten dollars will do."

Alex stared intently at Thomas's face, which was haggling over a few rolls of gauze, and felt a chill run from the soles of his feet to the back of his head.

He had known Thomas for a long time. In the past, when the old pastor sold the corpses to him to pay for his medicine, the old pastor would always stand aside, holding an old Bible in his hand, praying for the dead with a face full of grief, and even blaming himself and shedding tears for not being able to save them.

But now, Thomas's mental defenses have clearly collapsed completely in the recent surge of homeless people.

Driven to desperation by this endless suffering, he had come to regard the corpses on the ground as mere commodities to be exchanged for survival supplies.

This kind of alienation caused by being pushed to the extreme, even when Bialik was chopping up a corpse in the morgue, still put him under immense pressure.

He subconsciously shrank closer to Leon, turned his head to look at Leon's face, which was mostly covered by a mask, and muttered something in a low voice, his voice a little dry.

"Dude—I think he's gone crazy. He wasn't like this before."

Lyon looked at the Pastor Thomas, who was covered in blood and grime.

He still remembered the old pastor's state when he came here to find Arthur Pendleton.

Although Thomas was impoverished and burdened with the weight of the entire church at that time, his eyes still held at least the compassion of a clergyman and the emotions of a living person.

Leon ultimately did not follow Alex's lead in commenting on the old priest's madness; instead, he bypassed Alex and walked directly to Thomas.

"An extra twenty dollars per corpse? You're doing business too cheaply."

Lyon's eyes, hidden beneath the brim of his hat, were fixed on Thomas, his voice carrying a powerful intensity.

"I can give you a sum of money. Not a few hundred, but enough cash to take all the medical alcohol, gauze, and broad-spectrum antibiotics from the nearby shady clinics."

Thomas's lifeless eyes finally twitched.

He turned his stiff neck, his gaze shifting from Alex to Leon's gray windbreaker.

Due to immense mental pressure, he did not show the ecstatic or excited expression that a normal person would show upon hearing about a large sum of money.

His facial muscles twitched slightly twice, as if he was trying to force a grateful smile, but ultimately failed.

"What do you want?"

Thomas spoke slowly. Although he was numb, he still retained the rationality of a highly educated person and knew that there was no such thing as a free lunch.

"There is a critically injured old man in my car. His lower leg was bitten through by a coyote, causing severed blood vessels and extensive soft tissue necrosis. He is currently showing signs of hemorrhagic shock."

Lyon immediately presented its offer and demands.

"I need you to immediately use your skills from your past as a surgeon to pull him back from the brink of death."

"If you can save his life, even if it's just keeping him alive, I'll pay you for the medicine right away."

Looking at Thomas, who seemed on the verge of shutting down at any moment, Leon added, "Just think of it as saving the few people still breathing in your church. If you save one, you can get the medicine to save the dozens outside."

The old pastor's chest heaved violently.

He didn't shout or express gratitude; he simply turned around without a word, walked to the basin of water beside him, and vigorously wiped his blood-stained latex gloves with a tattered towel.

"Suturing — Hemostasis — Wound cleaning."

Thomas mechanically muttered these technical terms.

His previously unfocused gaze refocused with the calm and concentration befitting a surgeon.

Although his expression remained as wooden as a stone, Lyon, with his keen observation skills, was able to confirm that the old man had forcibly pulled himself together from the brink of collapse.

As long as his hands don't shake and he can hold the scalpel steadily, that's enough.

"Lead the way." Thomas tossed the towel into the basin, his voice still indifferent.

Lyon nodded, not wasting even a second.

He reached out and grabbed Thomas's arm, which was covered in protective gear, and half-pulled, half-dragged the old pastor towards the church door.

Alex stood there, watching Leon's decisive figure disappear into the distance, and let out a long sigh of relief.

Thomas's obsessive haggling earlier had really scared him. Luckily, Leon was pragmatic enough to use money to snap Thomas out of his daze.

"What the hell is this?"

Alex wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and quickly strode out of the central hall, chasing after the two figures.