“How could it not matter? What do you mean there ‘aren’t enough of us left’?” Neil leaned toward Simon until the clippers caught his ear with a whine and Frances pushed him gently back.
“The pandemic was— widespread. It was so mild until the very end that it went undetected for weeks. Most people brushed it off as a seasonal cold when they even realized they were ill at all. And it spread all that time. When authorities eventually realized there was anything out of the norm happening, it was far too late for a quarantine. Though they tried.”
“Yeah, they tried,” snapped Neil. “That’s why they wouldn’t let us out. Someone did this to us— my kid was out here. My mom was sick. Did— did my daughter get it? My wife?”
“We— know that there is a small percentage of the population who are naturally immune. We aren’t sure exactly what determines it yet and it’s— above my head,” said Simon, “but we are pretty sure immunity runs in families.”
“But if my mom is sick and I was sick then Randi—”
“There’s a list,” Frances said quickly, stopping to squeeze his shoulder. “There’s a list we can check. Your wife could still be immune. Maybe that means your daughter is, too. Someone sent us to find you. That hospital. We weren’t even meant to push this far into the sector yet, but your location was a special request. It doesn’t happen as often as you think. I don’t know if they were looking for you or for someone else, but someone knew there’d still be people in there and wanted to cure you. Maybe—”
“Let’s not get ahead of things,” said Simon. “You still have a lot of healing to do. When the updated list comes in, we’ll check it and formulate a plan.”
“My daughter is— she was nine. She’s still little. If she’s sick somewhere—”
“Neil.” Simon stopped. Sighed. “You don’t know what’s outside this field. If she’s immune, she’s hopefully safe in the City. It’s protected and there are people there to care for her, even if your wife didn’t go with her. If she’s sick— we haven’t seen many kids. I’m sorry. They just— they don’t make it. Most of them have parents who were also sick. Without anyone to care for them, they are— just like adult Infected, but they face the added risk of being smaller and weaker than an adult Infected. I know you don’t remember yet, but the dangers out there and among other Infected are significant.”
Neil had a flash of scrabbling and clawing at someone’s face. Of being bitten. If Randi had been in a place like the hospital… “I have to find her! To think of her fighting off these— these monsters—”
Frances flinched and frowned at the word, pulling the clippers back for an instant. Simon seemed undisturbed by it. “You’re in no shape to help her right now, even if we knew where she’d gone,” he said gently. “It’s like that weird old airplane thing. You have to put on your own mask first, or nobody’s going to survive. You understand?”
Neil wanted to deny it, to get up and stride toward wherever the nearest road was, but the truth was he didn’t think he’d get very far. He didn’t know where he was, he could barely stand on his own feet and— If she’s not sick, I don’t even know if she’d want me to find her. Not after— he had another flash of someone’s arm in his mouth, a growl from his own throat bubbling around his teeth. She won’t want me. She’s better off thinking I’m dead. Even if Randi could forgive me, Joan never will. She’ll never let me see Randi. “I understand,” was all that Neil said.
4
Simon was called away and Frances fell into silence, concentrating on cutting the thick mats around Neil’s jaw. He could see the shadow of a figure behind her, swaying slightly outside the tent on the bright grass. When Frances finally put down her clippers, Neil could see it was the woman from the shower. She stared at him as he brushed the remaining shreds of hair from his clothing. He managed an uneasy smile to let her know that he saw her staring. She rubbed her throat as if it bothered her without breaking her gaze. It made the healing wound on his own neck ache and itch.
“Feel better?” asked Frances, gently rubbing his scalp to clear off any loose strands of cut hair.
“Much better.” Neil turned from the strange woman toward Frances. “I feel like a new person. Thank you.”
She smiled sadly. “If only that’s all it took. They’re going to do a lot of things to make you feel new. New clothes, new hair, repaired body and teeth. They mean well. Really. They’ll tell you to move on. Encourage you not to remember. ‘Not yet,’ they’ll tell you. Always ‘not yet’. But— the memories catch up eventually. Better here, where there are people who can help. People who have the same memories.”
“Do you? Were you sick?”
She shook her head. “No. But I’ve seen enough of you to know what happens next. This isn’t the first Cure camp. Not by a mile. Simon wasn’t exaggerating when he said there weren’t enough of us left. We cure a few hundred people every month, but only about two-thirds of you survive. Listen, Neil, no matter how the assholes in the City act— we need you. And when you start really remembering, realize that the only difference between you and those Immunes is luck. There’s nothing moral or just about it. Keep it in the back of your head for bad times.” She glanced at the staring woman. “I’ve got to go. More people to make new. And you’ve got teeth to get fixed.”
Neil nodded and walked over the dry grass back to the large tent.
“I know you,” murmured the strange woman as he passed her, but she looked confused.
The brief sight of his face in Frances’s mirror had convinced him he looked nothing like he’d been before the Plague. It occurred to him that she likely didn’t look the same either and he paused to look closely, trying to trace any familiar feature. The grime that had caked her before the shower was gone and her skin was peeling in places where she’d scrubbed it raw. He got no spark of recognition at all in looking at her. Frances called her to come and sit. The woman drifted away, still looking over her shoulder at him as she went. He shrugged it off. There’d be time to think later. After his mouth stopped aching.
The first night was terrible. The people running the camp had been too efficient. Neil’s broken teeth had been pulled and his mouth stuffed with boiled strips of cloth smelling strongly of clove. It was both a relief and deeply embarrassing to know how badly he’d still smelled after his shower now that the scent was smothered with the clove.
His stomach was filled with what had appeared to be a ludicrously small amount of vegetable broth but had turned out to be almost too much after so long without food. The wound on his throat had been checked and rebandaged. Even the warm tent had cooled with an evening breeze. It was too comfortable. It left no physical distraction from the memories that were waiting or from the worrying unknowns about his family.
He tried not to think too hard about Randi as he settled in his cot. Part of him knew there was nothing he could do for her no matter what had happened, at least, not from the Cure camp. Still, it was her face that swam into focus as soon as his body was quiet. Then his mother’s voice insisting she was on her way to get him, to free him from that hospital. Except that hadn’t happened. She’d been sick too. He remembered that now. Locked away in some other quarantine with Randi. Where had it been? A library at the university. I should ask if they’ve reached her yet. They might not have a list of names but they’ll know if they gave out this cure there. But something in him knew better, rebelled against asking. I know she didn’t last. She’s gone. I barely survived myself. He didn’t want to think of her wandering for months in some other hospital, consumed with blind anger or being attacked and torn apart by strangers. She’d been in good health before. She might have lasted a while. That’d be worse, he thought. Having to wake up to this. Knowing that we… He shook his head, tried to focus on what might still remain. Hope for Randi. Hope Joan saved her from that place before it was too late. Neil wondered how it had gone. Had Joan found her in the study carrels hiding from someone? Had she been able to march up to the door and just demand he
r daughter? The woman who had talked to him had said Randi’d be released very soon. Maybe. Maybe that’s exactly what happened, Joan just picked her up as if it were school. Just parked in the fire lane like she knew she wasn’t supposed to and ran up to the reception desk and claimed Randi. Or had it been more like the hospital? Soldiers and infected people to fight through? He knew she would have done it. No matter the issues between Neil and Joan, she was always the best mother to Randi. He had no doubt she got there, just anxiety about what happened after. He could imagine them in Joan’s red jeep, whipping through the nighttime streets in the flickering snow, Randi pale-faced but fine in the seat beside her. But it wasn’t the only scenario he could picture. For all Neil knew, Joan and Randi had been sick, too. Maybe they were still wandering and starving in the old cul-de-sac they’d lived in. Or shot by some terrified neighbor. Whatever else was lost in the foggy months between the parade and now, the memory of Randi’s voice over the phone in that library was too vivid, too stark. When he’d told her he couldn’t come and get her yet, her tone had been pure panic, the same startled fear that used to wash over her as a baby whenever she’d fall and hurt herself. Whatever had happened in the past two years, Neil hadn’t been there to help. Joan must resent him. If she was still capable of it. She’d left him behind, one way or another. If she’d been alive— not fair, he told himself. She’s not some superhero. Why would she break into a quarantined hospital? For what? Someone she must have assumed was dead? And an ex? I ruined her life, didn’t she tell me that in a thousand ways? I wouldn’t have done it for her. I would have taken Randi somewhere safe and mourned Joan. I wouldn’t have expected her to survive. If she tried to come to get me, she’s dead. One way or another. If she didn’t, she assumes I’m gone. Maybe it’s best if it stays that way. He shoved aside the thought. Of course it wasn’t better for him to stay gone.
He turned onto his side, restless and helpless. But it only made things worse. He found himself staring at another man who lay in the next cot. He was trying to cry silently. Neil wasn’t sure whether to pretend he didn’t see or try to comfort the man. What was there to say? He didn’t want to watch the man struggling but couldn’t bring himself to shift to the other side. Turning his back on the man seemed too cold. He reached over and grasped the man’s bandaged hand, trying not to squeeze too hard. The man hastily wiped his eyes but didn’t release Neil’s hand, instead holding it tighter. So Neil shut his own eyes, his arm extended across the narrow space between the cots in a wordless attempt at consoling a stranger.
The man beside him was trying to grieve silently but others were not so cautious. The sound of sobs would occasionally be broken by a piercing wail which was quickly muffled or diminished. Neil kept his eyes closed, not wanting to know how they were being quieted. Drugs, he assumed. Maybe they just took the loud ones away. Beyond the tent to cry as loudly as they wished. Little by little, the sounds fell away as the Cured began to fall asleep. Eventually, the man released Neil’s hand and Neil turned over again, slipping out of consciousness himself.
He slept heavily. As if he’d been working a double shift on Mother’s Day rather than sedated for three days. Some part of him had a fleeting sense of injustice when his bladder woke him near midnight. A flash of thought that he didn’t deserve to sleep so deeply, that he should have woken screaming from nightmares. He lay in his cot for a few moments, putting off rising in the half-lit tent to stumble to the bathrooms. Should remember more, shouldn’t I? What happened after the woman I bit at the pool? What was her name? It came with a taste, that memory. Salty and metallic. And the overpowering smell of chlorine. Sarah. That was her name. He’d clung to her name, though she’d only told him a few minutes before he attacked her. He remembered the way her ear peeled from the side of her head between his teeth. It had been rubbery and hard at the same time. And then her face. And she’d been telling him something, some screams but it was lost in the general chaos. He’d been so angry. Why had he been so angry with her? Why her?
He sat up, swung his dry-stick legs over the edge of the cot. The man beside him was still asleep, but he was twitching, obviously dreaming his sorrow. Neil leaned over and touched his shoulder, pressing it gently until the man settled into stillness and his face smoothed. Then Neil stood up again and tottered toward the bathrooms.
He had no desire to return to the cot. There were still several people whimpering. He wasn’t sure if it was while they slept or not. Either way, he didn’t like the idea of lying there in the half-dark listening to it. He headed toward the other end of the tent instead, intending to push through the flap and out into the cool night air.
He found Elijah at a large table, dropping bundles of dripping iv tubes into a bucket that smelled sharply like alcohol. Elijah glanced up from his work as Neil lifted the tent flap.
“Whoa, brother,” he whispered, “where you headed?”
“Just wanted— I don’t know. Space. Air. Something to stare at.”
Elijah nodded. “Give me a second to seal this up, I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t— that is, you don’t have to. I just wanted some quiet.”
Elijah carefully pressed the bucket lid on and twisted a small vent cap at the top. “It wasn’t a choice. Sorry, that’s the way it works for now. I’ll stay quiet though, if that’s what’ll help you.” He pulled off the heavy rubber gloves. They looked like the ones Neil used when he was cleaning the ovens at work. Too thick and awkward for the doctors, maybe, but not for Elijah.
Neil lifted the tent flap and Elijah followed him out into the open. The outside of the tent was brightly lit and small knots of guards scattered over the large field they were in. Neil stopped to look around. It wasn’t the quiet dark he’d been hoping for. Elijah fished something out of his shirt pocket and thrust it toward Neil. It was a pack of gum. Neil stared at it, confused.
“Not saying anything about your breath,” Elijah said quickly, “My mom just taught me to share is all, and I needed one.”
Neil shook his head. “Thanks but with the missing teeth…”
“Right.” Elijah took a stick for himself and put the pack away. “You want to go out farther? Maybe past the lights?”
“Is it— allowed?”
“Sure, as long as you have someone with you.”
“I don’t want to put you out. You were busy with something in there.”
“Just sterilizing equipment for the next camp. We won’t need it for weeks. My real job is you guys.” He began leading Neil past the groups of guards and picked his way over the large snarls of cables providing power to the lights and the tents.
“You ever sleep?” asked Neil.
“Sometimes. Less now than I did before the Plague,” Elijah admitted. “I’m technically off shift right now, if that’s what you mean. Work isn’t like it was before. Nothing’s like it was before. Stuff has to get done. We have the people in the camp and that’s it. No backup. If one of us doesn’t do it, it never happens. Besides, it’s not like there’s so much else to distract me. Been reading the same paperback for three months. Scav team’s probably made a library run since we’ve been out but I won’t get back to the City to pick up a new one for…” he trailed off as the lights began to dim behind them. “I shouldn’t have mentioned all that. Not yet. Forget about— all this. I sleep enough. That’s what you asked. I sleep enough. Maybe someday I’ll feel like sleeping more.”
“Do they— are you forced to do this? They ever let us leave?”
Elijah glanced over at him, startled. “What? Yeah, of course. What do you think this is?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. Simon says it’s a sort of hospital, that you gave us medicine to stop us from killing people. But one of the doctors said she wasn’t here by choice. And I’m not allowed out for a walk. That’s— about it. Your pretty barber, she said the disease was bigger than I thought but nothing else, really.”
Elijah shook his head with a scowl. “I think I can guess who the doctor is. She’s
assigned here, sure, but if she wanted to leave, she could. She wouldn’t get paid, but isn’t that the same as any other job? It’s not that you’re not allowed to go for a walk, not exactly. It’s that you’re in bad shape and we want to make sure you won’t get worse. You just woke up. Take it slow. You’ll be able to go wherever and whenever you want in a few weeks, just get your legs under you first.”
“How can that be though? That you’re just going to let us go? I just— we— I hurt people. I saw enough before I got sick to know that other people infected with this hurt people— ate people, too. I don’t expect they just let us go on our merry way after something like that.”
The long grass rustled when they reached the edge of where it had gone untrampled by the camp traffic. Elijah hesitated for a few seconds, letting the rustle fill up the space. “You know,” he said after a moment, “Sometimes something happens that’s so awful that the idea of— of punishing the people involved seems to fall completely short. The idea of justice seems far-fetched or impractical. Frances told you the December Plague was big, but it doesn’t sound like you really get how big. Nobody’s coming to get you and arrest you or anything like that. You aren’t a prisoner here.”
“You all keep saying that, but I’ve had someone glued to my ass since I woke up,” said Neil.
Elijah smiled. “Yeah, guess that’s one way of putting it. I’m not hanging around you to keep you in. I’m here because I don’t want you to hurt yourself. That’s what most of us are here for. Just to make sure you don’t decide it’s all too much, to give you a chance to breathe a little and see if you can— if you can keep going, after all. Once your body is better, they’ll discharge you. You’re free to go where you please. Most people come to the City but there’s no rule about it. I work in the camp because I know what it’s like to wake up here. I work the hours that I work because things need to get done, not because anyone’s forcing me. I mean— no more than my own need for food and shelter and paperbacks is forcing me. I work, I earn chips, I go home and spend ‘em. I’m not a prisoner any more than you.”
Before The Cure (Book 2): The Infected Page 4