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“No, Rick, what was the worst?”

“Their touch. If a smoker touched a person for a long period of time, that person became a smoker instantly. It's horrible. One day Bill and I found ourselves inspecting an old gas station. Bill was a young boy from the Kansas area, I don't think he'd ever left his village, and he was checking the pumps for gas and then I smelled them. When that happened, problems started to take place. I remember that conversation: ‘What... what...? What's up, Rick,’ stammered the good Bill who sensed the problems in the air. ‘They're here,’ I replied. ‘You're... you're... Are you sure?’ ‘Yes. “How... How do you know for sure?’ poor Bill kept replied incredulously. ‘Because of the smell, Bill, because of the smell’. ‘Smell, smell of what? Rottenness?’ ‘No, Bill, nicotine’.”

Rick looked at the place on the floor where he had deposited the faceless doll and continued talking.

“Then, without warning, a smoker came out of the shadows. Bill fell to the ground. He rolled and rolled across the ground. A brave boy is able to hurt. I missed the first shot to the head of that smoker; both were very close. Bill couldn't get the smoker off his back. Finally, I fired an accurate shot, the bullet pierced the smoker's right temple, but that wasn't enough. Smokers could resist worse injures. After all, they never had brains, and that smoker was so small that a single shot wasn't enough for anything. The smoker continued to fight the desperate boy, without giving him any truce. The smoker's hand rested on the face of the poor, frightened Bill. He fought with all his soul, managed to kick the monster out of the way and shot him twice bluntly. But it was too late. Then I noticed the first symptom in my companion, he started crawling like a desperate little dog on the floor, looking for some cigarette butt or something remotely similar to put in his mouth.”