Before The Cure (Book 2): The Infected

by Gould, Deirdre

  “You— hurt people while you were sick. Like we did?”

  “Yeah. More than a few.”

  “When you woke up— when you started to remember, you felt bad about it, right? Like— not just a send-some-flowers-type bad but soul-crushingly bad.”

  Elijah’s hands hesitated, mid-shuffle. “Sure, brother. It’ll— it’ll get better. I know maybe that’s not what you want to hear. Like feeling guilty will somehow—”

  “I don’t,” Neil blurted out. “Not the way I should. Not the way the others seem to. I remember things. Things that should devastate me but I mostly feel disgust. As if I’m watching someone else do those things, even though I can smell the blood and feel the give of ripping skin under my nails and the— the taste. Even with all that, it’s still… distant.”

  Elijah slowly dealt the cards again, saying nothing.

  “There’s something wrong with me. I wasn’t always like this. The disease has done something to—”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you,” said Elijah quickly. “You’re still in shock. Your brain’s protecting you so that you can still function. It’s to be expected.”

  “But the others cry constantly. They feel—”

  “The others most likely killed someone they loved. Someone who was trying to help them, who was scared and confused. That is what sticks out in their minds. Otherwise, it’s mostly like you. A series of strangers’ faces. You don’t think of yourself as a killer, not really. None of us do at first. That’s why it feels like you’re watching someone else do those things because if you’d been in your right mind, you never would have done them. Or, at least, that’s what we tell ourselves. It takes that face, that one face who trusted you, who loved you, to make it not matter what your motivations were anymore. Because they’re gone, whether you meant to do it or not. It takes grief to make it feel real. But you— you were alone in that hospital, weren’t you?”

  “I had a friend with me. We got admitted together, part of the same accident. But he was… gone before I got sick. I didn’t see him again after I turned into— whatever it is we turned into. And Shay—”

  “Shay survived,” interrupted Elijah, “and you never attacked her. Your family was out here. Everyone you knew was beyond your reach. You don’t have that same grief. Everyone left with you was a stranger. In fact, if it happened the way Shay tells it, almost everyone left in there was already sick. You don’t even have an image of someone being frightened of you or of really registering pain because of you.”

  “There— was one,” said Neil, playing with the fraying edge of the ten of clubs. “A woman who hadn’t completely lost it yet. Who was still able to be afraid. Who still cried for me to stop.”

  “And that’s the one you’ve been thinking of most often? Keeps waking you up at night?”

  “Mostly.”

  Elijah shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with you. You just got off light. That one is the only person you’ll ever truly question yourself about. The others were infected. If you hadn’t eaten them, they would have eaten you. It was just survival. You would have had to kill them even if you’d been sane enough to actually make that decision.” He sighed put down the rest of the cards. “You don’t even realize yet how lucky you are. And I’m glad for it. I wish I could say the same for myself.”

  “The people I killed were still human beings,” protested Neil.

  “I know. And I know eventually, you’re going to connect them to yourself, just like the lady who wasn’t sick yet. But it’s going to take time. There’s nothing different about your brain, at least as far as I know. You aren’t feeling any less, you just need to sort through it all.”

  Neil wasn’t sure he believed that. Something in his expression must have given him away because Elijah picked the card from between his fingers and waved it gently to make Neil look up.

  “You aren’t broken. Not the way you think. I’ve seen people who are. We’ve woken them up. Not often, not at all. But a few. They wake up— right as rain. Cheerful and relaxed. It’s hard at first, to tell whether it’s just shock, because that happens too. In the beginning, I’m— happy for them. Happy they have time to adjust to reality before the memories hit them. But then— it sometimes turns into something else. In how they treat the other Cured, usually.”

  “I wasn’t very kind to Danica,” Neil admitted.

  “I heard about that,” said Elijah. “Heard it was more that you remembered some things and she tried to talk to you too quickly. That maybe she was thinking more about fixing her own life than in really helping you. I’m not— saying it was right to yell, but I can understand why you did. That’s not the type of bad treatment I’m talking about. The few people I’m talking about, the ones you’re afraid you’re like, they wouldn’t worry that they weren’t kind. It wouldn’t even occur to them. Doesn’t.” He shuffled the cards again. “They’re just cruel. Don’t even— put any effort into being cruel, either. They just do it like it’s a habit. Well— the ones who aren’t clever anyway. I imagine there are some who are smart enough not to expose themselves here. I don’t want to know how many of those there are. I think it was something like one percent of all of us, if I remember right. Some would be Immune. Some died. Some Cured. Regardless, a world without rules, without any real price for being cruel— I don’t like to think about what they’re going to do when they leave here, Neil. But you— you’re not one of them, unless you’re pretending. I may not be the brightest light in the harbor, but I don’t think you’re pretending. Not that, anyway. There’s nothing—” he stopped himself with a bitter laugh. “Okay, there’s definitely plenty wrong with you. With us, but not your compassion. That seems to be working just fine. You worry about losing your temper with Danica, but you did just fine with her a week ago. Calmed her down, showed her kindness. We all make mistakes, Neil. Not just the big ones. I can’t say whether anyone’s going to forgive us for those, but the little ones— yeah. I think Danica will forgive you for that one. The world will forgive you for that one. And the big mistakes— they’ll have more weight, over time. But you’ll be stronger, too.” He dealt out the cards quickly, handing Neil a couple. “You remember how to play Go Fish?” he asked calmly.

  11

  About a month after waking up in the camp, a bad thunderstorm rolled over the park. The afternoon was hot and sticky, thick yellow clouds building on the horizon. The camp staff raced to prepare the tents and equipment for what promised to be a significant squall. Six large trucks had been parked beside the tent and as the clouds rolled in, Neil and the other Cured were ordered into the back. They were driven to the edge of the park to a small gravel lot near the tree line and they waited for the storm to hit. The truck bed was uncomfortable, the sudden press of other bodies after so long without contact made Neil uneasy. The air was too warm, too thick, as if he were breathing it directly from the others’ lungs. He felt like he couldn’t get enough air and began to panic. The woman beside him noticed and touched his elbow. He flinched.

  “Are you alright?” she asked.

  “Yeah, just—” he stopped and shook his head. “Too close. Too many people. I can’t breathe.” He gasped, feeling as if he were drowning. He reached for the canvas side of the truck before he could tip over.

  “Oh you’re—” she stood up. “He needs to get to the front,” she announced loudly, pulling Neil up to his feet. “He needs the opening.”

  Neil was passed quickly through the tangle of limbs, held up by many hands so he didn’t stumble. He found himself leaning against the tailgate and gulping in slightly cooler air.

  “Are you okay?” asked Elijah, offering him a battered water bottle.

  “Just needed air,” he said.

  “I should have put you here at the tailgate. Seems to me you need a lot of air,” said Elijah.

  “Sorry,” said Neil.

  Elijah shook his head. “Nothing to apologize for.”

  Neil looked out at the small lot where the trucks had
parked. A large pit had been dug in the soil of the field nearby. It was black with soot and a large pile of wood burned in the center, despite the heat. “What’s that for?” he asked. It hadn’t been visible from where the tent sat. Elijah took a few seconds to answer.

  “We take care of the stuff we need to dispose of in it. A lot of people means a lot of waste. And there are no more garbage men coming to collect it.”

  “Oh. Like the food leftovers? Probably be better to save it for your farm, wouldn’t it?” Neil remarked lazily. He just wanted Elijah to keep talking, craved the sane calm of talking about mundane things.

  “Food leftovers, when there are any, get composted. They go into the bathroom truck. Scav team empties it and trucks it back to the City for fertilizer once a week or so. No, I mean the— medical waste.”

  Neil frowned. “Can’t be that hot. Syringes and things aren’t going to melt.”

  Elijah sighed. “Medical equipment gets sterilized and reused whenever possible. And the fire gets hot enough when we need it to. I meant— I meant remains. A handful of bandages now and then, sure, and anything that can’t be reused, but primarily— it’s so no wild animals are attracted by the smell.”

  “People? You’re burning people?”

  Elijah nodded, staring out at the pit. It made an odd orange flicker against the darkening sky. A distant rumble of thunder threaded through the quiet conversations behind them in the truck.

  “Why aren’t they buried?”

  “When we first set up a camp— there are a lot of bodies. Some were left from when the plague was bad. Most of those are only bones, but it still feels— wrong just to leave them lying. Some are people who die from their wounds before the Cure fully works. Some— later. If we stopped to bury every body we came across or— or produced, it would be months between each Cure session. Not enough gasoline for excavators, we’d have to dig the graves by hand. And then there’s the problem of the watershed. The City’s water supply has already had a typhoid outbreak. We don’t know where it’s safe to bury people. Especially without caskets. We don’t really have a choice. You weren’t supposed to see all this.”

  “Because it’d be any more terrible than what we’ve already seen? Don’t know if it’s you who’s trying to protect us or the counselors but it seems like fiddling while Rome burns.”

  “It bothers some folks. Bothers a lot of people, actually.”

  Lightning flashed far across the field and a boom quickly followed. Neil shrugged. “Seems better than letting them lie there. For a lot of reasons. I’m more bothered that our waste is used as fertilizer. It seems like that could carry the same diseases.”

  “They treat it in the City. Something about how it’s processed. I don’t know all the details, just that no one’s gotten sick yet and the outbreak wasn’t from that. It was from dead cattle upstream. At least, that’s what the people investigating said.”

  Another flash, quickly followed by thunder.

  “You aren’t there much, are you?” asked Neil.

  “The City? Not when I can avoi—” Shouts from one of the other trucks cut him off. Neil craned to see what the disturbance was. He could see arms writhing in the second truck away from them and faces peering out from the others. “What in—” Elijah started to climb over the tailgate and flinched as another flash of lightning seared the sky, much nearer than the last. The truck shuddered with the thunderclap. Someone tumbled from the other truck. It was a man, stark naked, still closer to a stick-man than a living person. He rolled up off the ground and sprinted across the small gravel lot.

  “What’s he doing?” asked Neil.

  “Nothing good.” Elijah recovered and scrambled down.

  “Don’t! The storm’s too close!”

  Elijah ignored him, running after the man. “Stop,” he yelled after the skinny silhouette. “Someone stop him!” The fire pit blazed beyond. Other Cured pressed against the tailgate around Neil, watching. “Stop!” Elijah reached out for the man, but he was too far and the man leaped into the pit.

  “Shit,” breathed Neil. Elijah hovered at the edge of the flames, trying to reach his hands in to the man. He was going to pull him out, even as the man shrieked and the smell of burning hair rose and wafted toward the trucks. “I need a blanket,” shouted Neil, already climbing over the tailgate. He dropped onto the gravel, bruising his knees and scraping his hand. Another clap of thunder and the gravel rattled around him. The hairs on the back of his arms were standing up, attracted by the static in the air. Shit, this is stupid, he told himself, even as he scooped up the blankets someone had flung out after him. He was on his feet, stumbling across the lot toward the pit. The man was still screaming. “Help him!” Neil shouted. There were dozens of faces peering out of the shadowy backs of the trucks, and a few people shouted and pointed toward the burning man, but nobody else jumped out. Neil had lost track of Elijah, he was no longer next to the man in the fire pit. The heat swelled and pressed against Neil’s face as he pounded closer to the pit. He was close enough to see the man’s skin bubbling. His scream made his face seem all dark mouth. Another spike of lightning skittered down the sky, gold fire and bright white, like a camera flash going off in Neil’s face, the man a burned-in scarlet afterimage as the light diminished and his vision returned.

  “Neil, don’t,” Elijah’s voice broke through, just as he stumbled down the edge of the pit. It was full of anguish, almost a sob. “Not you, too.”

  Neil didn’t have time to think about what Elijah meant, his arms closing around the burning man and twisting down into the soot. The man disappeared beneath the thin blanket Neil had managed not to drop. His shrieks were muffled slightly by the fabric. He stank, a meaty, sour singeing smell. The blanket was hot and smoke puffed through the fibers. Neil’s hands seared and started to swell, but panic overwhelmed the sudden pulse of pain. And then Elijah was kneeling beside him, pressing the man down and beating out the flames with the blankets Neil had dropped. Neil’s back felt like it was baking. The man under his hands shrieked and writhed making the fabric jerk and twist. “Why did you do this?” Neil asked. At some point, he realized he was repeating it. The fire hissed as rain began to patter over them.

  “Too late, brother, we’re too late,” Elijah said next to him. Neil heard it and let it pass without understanding, still concentrating on the man writhing beneath them. Others had reached them and a camp worker pulled Neil gently away from the man.

  “He’s not out,” protested Neil. “He’s still screaming—”

  “The doctors will help him,” said the worker carefully tugging on his elbow. “You need to get back to the trucks. You’re burned. He’s got help.”

  Neil craned to look back at the pit. The man had disappeared behind a mass of people. The flames made them a mass of shadows in the strange twilight the thunderclouds made. He couldn’t pick out Elijah from the crowd. “Elijah’s burned too,” he said.

  “I know. Someone’s grabbing him.”

  He stopped resisting the worker and was led to another truck. Fewer people in this one. He reached for the tailgate to pull himself up. The worker stopped him.

  “Don’t. Your hands, you’ll tear the tissue.” The tailgate swung down and two more workers knelt down, grabbing Neil under the arms. He was hauled up and the truck bed erupted into a bustle of activity.

  “Sterile water, not the lake water!” someone shouted. “Best do the entire batch. There’s Elijah too.”

  “Does it hurt?” asked the worker who had dragged him away, pushing Neil down to sit on a sheet on the truck bed.

  “What?” asked Neil, confused.

  “Your hands, your arms, your face. Does it hurt? We need to know if you can feel that.”

  “He’s still got adren—” started another voice.

  “Yes,” he realized. It had been a sharp undercurrent but it hadn’t had time to register until the worker mentioned it. “It hurts. All of it.” The side of his face and the palms of his hands were the worst, pu
lsing with heat.

  “Good, that’s a good sign,” muttered the second voice behind him. A cold bandage was laid over his right hand and Neil hissed with shock and pain.

  “I know, I know, we have to cool it. Just for a few seconds,” said the worker in front of him. A bottle of liquid was thrust in front of his face. “Drink this.”

  Neil hesitated. “What is it? And where’s the man? Elijah?”

  “Just electrolytes and water, help your burns. You’re just recovering from starvation, your body’s got nothing left to help with this.” The bottle waved a little in front of him as another cold bandage slid over his other hand. The cold fabric was agony and he couldn’t concentrate. The bottle tipped up and he swallowed to keep from choking. It tasted awful. More chaos as someone else was lifted into the truck, but bandages were being wrapped around his face and he was unable to see. The bandages on his hand disappeared and he could hear shouting around him, but it was all a tangle of panic. The truck shook with a boom of thunder. Neil could still smell burning meat mixed with the astringent they were using to clean the blisters on his palms. He flinched with each swipe at his hands, no matter how gentle. It felt as if they were peeling his flesh back, but still, the pressure wouldn’t ease. He cried out and the touch immediately receded, disappeared into the chaos around him.

  “Going to give you something now,” came the worker’s voice. The bandage around his face loosened and was removed again. “It’s going to put you out—”

  “No!” cried Neil, “No sedatives. Don’t know where I’ll wake up next.” More cold bandages on his hand and pressed against his arm and he let out another involuntary groan.

  “Right here, Neil. You’ll wake up right here with me,” Elijah’s voice floated past him. It sounded breathless, short and gasping. That frightened Neil.

  “Are you okay?” Neil asked. “Did you get him?”

  A sharp cry reverberated across the truck and then was buried by shouted instructions. There was no other answer from Elijah.