He reluctantly took one of the weapons and glanced at Elijah who took the other.
“I’ll get someone to put some ammunition in your pack. Just in case.” She glanced back at the table, reached for a small box, and flipped it open. Neil could see several red fronds sticking up from the top. Elijah reached over and closed the box again, holding it closed, his hand over hers.
“You can’t,” he said. “It’s against every law. And it’d do no good. We don’t have the resources to care for some—”
“What if it’s this or kill them? It’s going to happen. There are a hundred miles between you and where Joan was headed. You’re going to run across some Infected. What if Joan and Randi are in a worse spot than the City was when they left? What if they’re under siege? What will you do?”
“This will kill the Infected too,” said Elijah. “Just slower is all. We can’t run a Cure camp, just us. And you’d be—” he lowered his voice to a low whisper even though Mateo was the only other person on the tier. “You’d be exiled if anyone found out. You know what the governor’s like. Even a whiff of insub—”
“I saved him. His Lieutenant Owens and I. Several hundred Infected at the barricade and he had a nervous breakdown. We’re standing here because of what I did. And what Neil did for me before that. He owes me. He won’t exile me, not for this.”
Mateo cleared his throat. “Owens wouldn’t exile you, but he’s not the governor. At least— not yet. Elijah’s right. The governor’s power-mad and getting worse. He finds out you handed out a case of Cure to people not under the City’s control… I’m sorry, honey. You can’t do this. If they need the Cure, they’ll have to come back and petition for it. Or steal it. We can hide the supplies we’re sending with them easily enough, and you know your people are never going to say a word. But this… is too big. The governor uses the Cure as a bargaining chip to get reluctant stragglers to join us. You know that. We’ve used it ourselves. He’s not going to let you give it away.”
“It’s wrong,” said Shay.
“Yeah,” said Mateo softly. “I know. But it’s how it is for now. He won’t just exile you, Shay. And you know I’d go with you to the ends of the Earth, but the kids aren’t made for this. Benji had a close shave and you haven’t let him out of your sight in over a month. If we got pushed out of the City…”
“We don’t need it,” said Elijah, releasing the box and her hand. “It isn’t worth the risk. We’ll stay quiet and quick. We’ll see any large groups long before they see us. And the lone Infected— well, you know those darts aren’t really any good when you’re surprised. They take far too long to work. We get to where we’re going and we can— we can take care of them. Collect them until you get there to cure them yourself.”
“What if we never do?” cried Shay.
“Then they never have to wake up. They never have to remember or feel guilt or sorrow. Or fear at the world they found themselves in. We’d stop them hurting anyone. We’d feed them and they wouldn’t be starving anymore. It wouldn’t be the worst fate,” said Neil. In truth, he wanted those darts quite badly. For his own conscience. Elijah had been right. It wasn’t just the Infected he needed to worry about. It was his own sanity, too. But he wouldn’t risk Shay’s life or her kids for that. Not when he knew it was likely that anyone they cured would die before even waking up.
“I— don’t know that it wouldn’t be. They’d just be— just be animals for the rest—”
Neil grasped her hand. “Shay, this is us kicking you under the table. Okay? You’re trying to save us from what I already know is a disastrous decision. So now I’m trying to stop you from making another one. We don’t need it. I made it through two years of— of fighting and starving and filth and freezing. I didn’t have a gun or a cure or even clothing for much of it. I’m going to make it another hundred miles, ok? We’ll come back, but I want you to still be here when we do. When we come across an Infected— trust us to do what has to be done. One way or another. Elijah and I both know what it was like. Trust me when I tell you that we’ll treat them as kindly as possible. And that it wouldn’t be the worst thing to never wake up.”
“What if— what if you never woke up? What about your family? There are others out there like you.” She brushed her hand over her eyes.
“I know. And I also know this is a one-sided trip. Joan and Randi let me go a long time ago. And I know I’m likely far too late to help them. They’re either safe and happy or they’re gone. I know this is just for my own peace of mind. It’s been two years. I’m— glad to not be in that hospital anymore. It was— suffering. All of it just suffering. But I know if I’d never woken up I wouldn’t have really realized how bad it was. How bad I was. And I’d never have worried about Joan or Randi again. You have to trust us.”
Shay just nodded and let Mateo hug her.
18
The morning was rainy and thick with fog. Shay tried to persuade them to stay another day until the weather cleared, but Elijah refused for them, telling her a little rain would make for a cool and easy start to their long hike. When she found she had no more excuses to delay them, she put them each on a bicycle over Elijah’s strenuous objections and watched them roll out of sight. Neil’s pack was very heavy and he had to work hard to balance the bike. It threatened to tip every few seconds.
“What did she put in our bags?” he muttered, feeling tired within the hour.
“Too much. These supplies would be years’ worth of chips in the City. The bikes alone would take me three months to earn. If I traded my food allotment along with everything else. I know scav teams get their pick of stuff they find but even so… I don’t know how we’ll pay this back, brother.”
“I don’t think we ever do,” grunted Neil, pedaling hard to keep up with Elijah. He was sweating and gasping for air even though the rain made the morning quite cool. “Maybe that’s okay. Maybe we have to stop keeping score now.”
Elijah glanced back over his shoulder at Neil. “You’re working too hard. We should take a break, let you catch your breath. Hang on, I saw a sign for a park a few miles ahead. We’ll take a break there.”
“I’m okay. Should keep going,” heaved Neil.
“Not until you’ve regained some muscle,” said Elijah. “Your body’s only just stopped eating itself. It’s gonna take some time to recover. This isn’t the same as the walking was. It’s a lot more weight, a lot more balance, it’s going to take some practice. You push it too hard and you’ll get an injury. You don’t want to be laid up for weeks. We have work to do before the snow and not much time to do it. We take a rest when I say, got it?”
His tone was the same as it had been in the camp. He’d be stubborn if Neil resisted and the truth was, Neil was feeling shaky and weak already.
“Okay,” he agreed and concentrated on keeping the bike upright until they could get to the park.
They sat under the canopy of a bus stop on the edge of a fenced-in park. It took Neil several minutes and a bottle of water before his legs stopped twitching uncomfortably. “This is going to take forever. I’d go faster if we were walking.”
Elijah shook his head. “You only think that because of the fog. You can’t see how far we’ve already gone. It’s going to be twice what we did in the past few days by the time we stop for the night. Besides, the bike is taking the weight from your pack. It’s harder to keep it upright, but not as hard as carrying it on your back. I— didn’t fill your pack all the way when we left the camp. And Shay overstuffed it. You’d be exhausted after two or three miles now.” Elijah was tense, alternating between watching Neil and peering out into the thick fog. He kept his voice low during their stop and flinched when a blue jay screeched somewhere nearby.
“We should go,” Neil said.
“Only when you’re feeling stable again,” said Elijah, but already moved to pack up the water anyway.
“You’re scared. We’re in a dangerous spot, aren’t we?”
“I think they all might be
dangerous spots from here on out. At least until we find a closed place that we can secure. But I’d rather you recover here, while we have the chance, than take a spill on the bike a few miles up. If we get injured, it’s more likely to be a problem than being surprised by Infected.”
Neil strained to look through the fog that was slowly taking on an ancient yellow glow instead of the dull gray it had been. “The fog feels claustrophobic. Wish it’d clear off so we could see.”
“Won’t be long. Another hour. I don’t mind it so much,” said Elijah. “It means I don’t have to look at the ruins around us. Not until we get close. And the Infected can’t see us any more than we can see them. We stay quiet and we’ve got the advantage.”
It made sense, but Neil still disliked the cold, clammy blindness and was relieved when it finally burned away a little while after they’d returned to the road. The route led them onto the highway before that happened. Except for the empty, dark toll booths and the police car parked diagonally across two of the northbound lanes, Neil might have just assumed it was a light traffic day. The same thick clusters of trees marched along the sides of the road, interspersed with glimpses of buildings and towns where they’d suddenly thin for a moment. They were too far to really see the emptiness. It looked like a normal late summer day aside from the surreal feeling of pedaling a bicycle down the middle of a four-lane highway. Neil was shaky and tired again by the time they came in sight of the crash.
The nose of a station wagon crumpled like a stubbed out cigarette, its doors flung open like wings. The window glass glinted on the tar. A little blue four-door lay on its roof next to the wagon. There was a bird’s nest in one of the passenger side wheel wells. Behind it, the long underbelly of a bus on its side. Elijah slowed to a halt.
“Careful,” he said, looking for a way by, “Lots of broken glass and metal.”
Neil dropped his bike on its side next to Elijah and took another step toward the bus before Elijah pulled him back with one arm.
“Whoa, nothing in there for us.”
Neil glanced at him. “Joan and Randi were on a bus. That’s what Shay said. The last time she saw them was on a bus.”
Elijah looked back the way they’d come. “It’s not that far from the City. Not in a vehicle. They would have made it farther than this—”
“You keep telling me how dangerous it is or was out here, how do I know this wasn’t it?”
Elijah stared at the tangle of metal in front of them but didn’t let go of Neil’s arm. “It couldn’t be them. There wouldn’t have been a pileup then. There hasn’t been a traffic jam in years. There would be nothing to crash into—”
“Unless the crash was already here. Maybe the two cars were already here. Maybe they crashed in the beginning when the epidemic was at its worst. It was winter. Maybe they slid on the ice. No ambulances at that point. Probably no police to come help them either if anyone was even answering the phone. If the bus was going too fast to stop—”
“Then it’d be pointed the other direction.”
“Maybe they were coming back, maybe—”
“It’s not them. It’s someone who was trying to escape the epidemic and had the bad luck to run into others. It was winter, just like you said. And no one was here to help them. I know why you want to look, but don’t, Neil.”
He gently pulled his arm free of Elijah’s grip. “Why? I have to. You know I have to. There’s nobody alive in there. No threat. It’s bodies, we’ve both seen bodies—”
“It’s probably kids,” Elijah croaked. He was beginning to shake and Neil realized the man was truly scared. Probably more scared than he’d seen Elijah yet. He remembered Elijah telling him about what happened when he was sick. How he’d killed his own child in the insane rage the plague caused. Neil squeezed Elijah’s shoulder.
“I know,” he said. “But I have to know if one of them is my kid. You stay here. No reason for you to look. I won’t need long. I’m going to try and get through the emergency door. There’ll be something— a backpack or a piece of clothing or Joan’s purse or something, I know it. And if there’s not— I’ll be able to sleep easier tonight.”
“Don’t— don’t look too hard,” Elijah said reluctantly.
“I’m not going to take long. Stay here.” He picked his way through the sparkling fragments of glass and shredded rubber that looked like little black claws twisting off the tar. This hadn’t been a summertime crash. Whether it was Joan’s bus or not.
The winters in the area had been unforgiving even before the December Plague. Neil and everyone he knew had grown up on horror stories of ice and momentum. Until they knew almost by instinct not to slam on the brakes when the car’s wheels became four rebellious sleds in a skid. Until they knew not to jerk the steering wheel. Or give in to the insane temptation of riding the shoulder when opposing traffic veered too close to the yellow line. A person learned all those things, and then— it didn’t matter. A driver five cars ahead wasn’t as used to the ice and went careening across the lanes into the path of other cars and stalled. Or the snow hid a patch of slick and the car spun out, the driver trying, trying to stay calm, let their body take over. Didn’t matter. All those lessons. They were just— gone.
It hadn’t been the bus driver’s fault, even Neil could see that. Station wagon first. Out of state plate, easy enough to guess. Be kind, he reminded himself, maybe they came to save someone. To find someone and take them away from the Plague. Never made it. He closed the passenger side door so he could pass. They had enough time to get out. Enough time to know it had all gone wrong. And then the blue car. Shitbox that probably had some kid in it. Bumper stickers peeling and faded on the back bumper. He was a little grateful it was upside down so he didn’t feel an insane urge to read the stickers and see what kind of kid had flipped over, their whole life rattling and thumping around them until it just fell silent in the snow. And then the bus. That same day? A year later? He wanted to tell himself it had been the same day. That it had been early. He wanted to believe Elijah was right. That maybe it was heavily snowing and the driver didn’t see the accident until too late. They’d probably tried desperately to stop the large vehicle and spun instead. It must have tipped onto its side when the driver could no longer fight instinct and jerked the wheel trying to straighten it. He wanted to believe that was what had happened because it had been sunny the day Joan had left. Shay had said so. That there’d be no reason to speed down the highway then and the crash could be seen from a long way away. He wanted to believe that, but he wasn’t sure he could. What am I going to do if it’s them? He pushed the question away. It felt like a long walk around the bottom of the bus. The asphalt had a burned smell to it as if the bus had only just then swerved and melted parts of its tires, though Neil knew it was only the late summer heat.
He glanced back at Elijah, who was still perched on his bicycle. He seemed about to say something to Neil, but shook his head slightly and looked away instead. The emergency door was covered in dust. Neil could see the vague shape of seats through the grime, but nothing else. He braced himself for a smell and pushed the handle up, letting the door swing open toward him. The only scent that met him was a strong mildew. He pulled himself up over the emergency door and crawled inside. It was hotter than the road had been. Close and still and sweltering. The sun burned through the few remaining windows and the vinyl seats were painful to the touch. Neil flinched away from the searing metal of the door as the heat soaked through the fabric of his jeans.
He’d told himself he’d know immediately. That Joan’s bus would have boxes or bags of supplies. Shay had said so. But he had to crawl over a pile of large duffel bags before dropping onto the back seat’s broken window. He could see more bags flung across the sides of seats ahead. This bus had been carrying fleeing refugees, too. Was it Joan’s or something earlier? Three tall stalks of fireweed erupted from one of the seats ahead, their purple petals fluttering in the soft breeze from a shattered window above them. Neil didn’t
want to look at what they were growing from. He closed his eyes. You’ve seen worse, he told himself. Remember. Remember the hospital. He could see the bloated bodies that had floated in the pool for months. The places where they’d been bitten a ragged gray before they peeled open and eventually sunk. And others on the edges of the tile, blackening and dissolving into the grout. Could smell them. Could taste the rot in the air, in the pieces he’d gnawed when nothing fresher moved. There was no way whatever he was about to see would be worse. He opened his eyes and pulled himself up onto the side panel of the seat. He crawled forward, seat to seat, looking down into each one to see if there was anything recognizable. A shoe. A backpack. A ring. Anything. They won’t have anything from home, he reminded himself. You aren’t going to know. He looked anyway. Piles of dark gray bones lay against the windows beneath him. Little skulls. Little fingerbones. There was not much left of the clothing, just bright shreds of fabric where weather or rot or animals had failed to eat it away. Shoes though— shoes with superhero symbols and dancing cartoon animals and sparkling princess crowns dimly visible through dust and spots of mildew. Neil crawled over a few more seats, pushed the fireweed stalks aside. There were bigger skulls here. Were they high school kids or adults? Neil wasn’t certain. More backpacks, halfway rotted so he could see the contents. Flashlights and lighters and more fabric. He reached down, grabbing one of the backpacks, thinking there might be a wallet. Some identification, something— So what? So what if there is? You don’t know the people Randi and Joan went with. There’s no way this one backpack’s going to be the one with Joan’s id in it. Or Randi’s toy. You’re never going to know Neil. Not ever. The realization smacked him and he couldn’t suppress a sudden and unexpected sob. His fist clenched around the moldy canvas of the backpack and it tore with a dry little rip. Something slid out with a clunk.
Before The Cure (Book 2): The Infected Page 17