There was no good response. Nothing that could comfort him. Neil just sat with him as the last of the sunlight slid over the river and the silent yards of the houses on the far side of the bridge.
“I need to ask you something,” said Elijah after wiping his eyes. His voice was still rasping and his breath uneven. “I never told anyone this before and now that I have, I need to ask you a question.”
“Anything,” Neil said. “You can ask me anything you need to.”
“There was that minute, the one I was talking about, where I stopped myself from attacking Abby. Where some part of me knew it was completely insane. I keep thinking, I keep wondering, what if there was another one before I hurt Noah? What if I missed it? Maybe I could have held myself back, kept holding myself back. Did I become the monster that I was because I just— didn’t have enough self-control? Did you— did you ever have that moment?”
Neil shut his eyes. He could feel a person’s ear between his teeth. “Yeah. Yeah, there were a couple of times like that. But it was— it was like a radio station as you’re driving out of range. Staticky. Incomplete. Fading. If there was a moment with your son, it wouldn’t have lasted more than a second or two. Maybe the last coherent thought was when you got up from the bed. It’s not— you don’t have to just rely on my memory, Elijah. I saw it happen. Shay and I were with another man, Cody. He got sicker and sicker while we were trying to figure out what on Earth was happening. Near the end, he started chewing on his fingers and then bit me. Not like we did after we lost it, but close. We kept wrapping his hands up in bandages and he just kept apologizing. He couldn’t help doing it. He wasn’t enough in control to stop it, only to feel terrible about doing it. I don’t need to tell you this, Elijah, because I know people in the Cure camps must have. In fact, you probably told them this yourself, when they were falling apart. But maybe you need to hear it. Maybe you need to hear it from someone you can trust. There was nothing you could do to stop this. It was an illness. It messed with our brains. Any— illusion of control was just that. An illusion. Otherwise, there’d be Infected out there who resisted. Who still acted sane until a Cure was found. You’ve seen hundreds of people in those camps. Have you found a single one who didn’t have a story like ours? Who just— I don’t know, tied themselves down or sedated themselves or something to avoid hurting people? A single one?”
“All we’ve seen were a few thousand from our immediate area—”
“You would have heard. You said there were still news broadcasts and a government for a while before you got sick. They were looking for people like that. For people who might resist the symptoms. For people who might beat the bacteria so they could study them. They were looking. You would have heard if anyone found someone like that. They aren’t out there, Elijah. And despite what the analysts or the news or the doomsayers used to say, most of humanity is— was not naturally murderous. We weren’t waiting for an excuse to snap. Were there people out there who were? Yes, I’m almost positive there were. People that wanted a reason to hurt, to kill. Sure. Just like there are still people out there like that now. Even Immunes, I’ll bet. But it isn’t you. And it wasn’t me. Or almost everyone else who caught this. If you had a moment of trying to control yourself, to hold yourself back— it was just that last fragment of song before static. Even if you’d been able to turn around somehow, that control wasn’t coming back. You’d have lost it again a minute later.” He sighed. “Doesn’t help much, does it? Knowing that.”
“It helps,” said Elijah.
If you believed me, it might, Neil thought. But he didn’t know how to convince Elijah of something he wasn’t entirely sure of himself. “Maybe you’re right, you and Thomas,” Neil said. “Maybe the Cure is a kind of purgatory. An awareness of what we’ve done, what we’ve been. Maybe it’s what we deserve. A chance to— to render judgment on ourselves. To make a hopeless attempt to atone or to— to end it. At least we don’t need to make it any harder than it already is or to heap crimes upon ourselves that were never really there. I felt that fury, that urge to hurt, too. And for that— we really are murderers. Maybe we could have stopped it before then. Years and years before. Maybe if I— I don’t know. Maybe if I didn’t fight with Joan. Maybe if I didn’t resent my situation in life. Maybe if I— God, I don’t know, man. Maybe if I’d been a better person, maybe I would have been Immune. I don’t— I don’t know how it works, but maybe. By the time we got sick though, by the time I was in that hospital, there was no stopping it. By the time you were getting up to check your baby— we were like bullets already in motion. The only thing that would have stopped us was slamming into someone else first. You’re worried that you lost your temper and hurt your family because you’re— I’m not sure. Evil, I guess. Like it was inevitable that it’d be them because you had some frustration with them or something. It wasn’t. The people I attacked— I didn’t even know them. Total strangers. The first one was trying to help me. Trying to make it to this door knowing we were both going to die. I had no reason to bite her. None. It didn’t matter. The people you spent months consuming, I’ll bet you didn’t know most of them. That wasn’t some deep secret hatred. It was just— your brain falling apart. I know that doesn’t— we’re still guilty. But maybe we’re not permanently bad. We can be better than what we were while we were sick. I can’t say that you or I weren’t evil, Elijah. I’m not trained to analyze people like Simon or religious or filled with some kind of righteous moral compass. I’m just— me. And maybe we were. Maybe it doesn’t matter that we couldn’t stop it, because we did still hurt people. I can’t even tell you that we’re not evil right now. I feel evil some days. Feel evil for today, especially. I don’t think you are, I’ve never seen you do something evil, but how could I really know? What I can say is we don’t have to be evil tomorrow. We’ve still got time and a chance to be better.”
26
The Brinybrickle balloon collapsed into a suffocating tent, its snarling face somehow still staring at Neil beneath the plastic. Muffled sirens echoed somewhere beyond the green vinyl. Neil pushed the heavy balloon up, trying to make his way to the edge. The plastic bunched and twisted, jerking and sliding as something else moved off to his right. Neil didn’t want to look over there. It was the Infected fighting, he knew it. He started to push toward the left. The vinyl billowed and someone’s bare feet appeared ahead. Neil poked the fabric higher with the tips of his fingers. The feet became bare calves and then the hem of a hospital gown. He knew who it was, even before a puff of air lifted the plastic for a brief moment and exposed Dante’s face. He was bloody, just as he’d been in the hospital, his fingers dripping, a chunk of skin missing from his chest, his mouth stained. But he wasn’t snarling. He wasn’t growling. He just stood there, looking at Neil.
“I’m so sorry—” Neil started but a voice off to the right stopped him cold.
“Daddy?” It was distant, mixed in with the siren wails and the flap of the vinyl as the Infected fought somewhere inside it, but it was clear and undeniably Randi’s voice.
He glanced at Dante. “Did you hear that?” he asked, not entirely believing his own ears. Dante just stared.
“Daddy, help!”
Neil whipped around toward Randi’s voice.
“Dante, help me find her!” he cried and pushed against the massive folds of balloon. There was no answer from Dante, but Neil didn’t turn around to make sure he was following. The emerald balloon puffed and yanked. Neil caught a flash of two people grappling in tattered clothing before the fabric drooped again and cut off the scene. “Randi, where are you? Say something, Bunnypop!”
The sirens and the sounds of struggle cut off abruptly, leaving Neil in utter silence. Only the squeak of the vinyl as Neil’s hands pressed it up and slid along it. “Randi? Where are you? I’m coming.” He pushed forward, hoping he was still turned in the right direction. The vinyl seemed never to end, just endless lanes of translucent green and white. Surely, he should have reached an edge by now
. “Randi?” he called again.
A terrified scream rattled through the vinyl and Neil stumbled forward, trying to run underneath the weight of the balloon. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” he yelled.
The silence took over again, Neil’s own heavy breath the only thing to break it. A sharp pain bloomed in his calf and he dropped down to check his leg. His mother was biting him. Latched on like a leech, her normally kind face stretched and her hands becoming claws that sank through his pant leg.
“Mom! Mom, let go, Randi’s hurt!” He shook her shoulders gently, trying to make her release. The pain in his calf only increased. “Ah! Mom! Mom, it’s me!”
His mother growled. Deep and guttural, a sound he’d never heard from her before. Didn’t sound like her at all— Randi’s shriek tore through the confusion. He tried to lurch forward, his mother still attached to his leg. “You have to let go, mom, we have to get to Randi.” He was slow, limping, both the weight of his mother and the thick layers of vinyl slowing him to a crawl. Randi’s voice still cried for help somewhere ahead. “She’s hurt mom, we have to help her,” he pleaded. The pain in his leg was immense. He looked down at her in desperation. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he told her, and kicked. He woke with a gasp.
Neil was sweating profusely. His leg felt like it was being roasted at a low broil and the sun blazed through the bank of windows. It seemed like the control room was an enormous oven. Elijah was nowhere in sight. Neil pulled himself up the large desk, wincing at the twinge in his leg as he put weight on it. Damn thing’s probably infected. It’s why I feel so hot. Got to be running a fever and now Elijah’s gone. He hobbled to the door. His bike was off to the side. Elijah’s was gone. Neil tried not to panic. I’ll get over the bridge. Down to the water on the other side. Cool me down and maybe wash out the wound. Jesus, what did I do? He said everything was all right. He said he wasn’t going to abandon me out here.
Neil opened the door and the cool morning air washed over him. It was an instant of pure relief. Not a fever. Not sick. It really was that hot in there. He glanced back. The control room was basically a large greenhouse. It had probably had some kind of air conditioning. Before. He stepped out onto the bridge and shaded his eyes against the sun. He’d hoped Elijah would be there, leaning against the railings maybe. Checking his bike gears. Or endlessly rearranging his pack as he’d done the past several mornings. But there was no sign of him. Fever’s not real, but this is. He could have told me. I would have wished him well. Maybe— maybe turned around with him. But he was lying to himself and knew it. The dream had driven his panic about Randi down deep, like a splinter under a fingernail. Her scream was still trapped somewhere behind his eardrum. He could still feel the weight of the vinyl on his shoulders. There was no way he would turn back, not without finding her. Just a few more days. I’ll be at the cabin. See them both. Have those little arms around my neck. Probably covered in pine pitch or cool with lake water from swimming. I’ll be okay. Elijah will too. He got me most of the way, and he knows way more about what it’s like out here. He’ll be okay. But the loss was still a deep hollow in his chest. He looked down the length of the bridge, wishing he’d see some glint of a bike, some sign of his friend. The bridge was empty in both directions except for the scattering of luggage near the fenced-off quarantine camp.
“Elijah!” he yelled. He waited several seconds for some sound, no matter how distant. Called again. Eventually a third time. No sounds. No running feet. Nothing. He went back inside the control room to pack up. He winced as he knelt near the sleeping bag. The pain in his calf hadn’t just been the dream either. It might not be infected but it was damned sore. He’d be slow today. At least until his muscles warmed up. He hoped the wound wouldn’t pull on the bike. It’d make the miles even longer than they already were.
Elijah would tell me to take it easy. Be careful. Don’t want to get caught by an Infected, or anything else, and not be able to run. He rolled up the sleeping bag, trying to ignore his uneasiness. I was planning on doing this alone in the first place, he kept reminding himself. But he hadn’t wanted to. He still didn’t want to. It wasn’t just the Infected. Or the wild dogs. Or the emptiness. Elijah had reminded him that he was still a person. Not just a creature of impulse and rage. That he was still worth a little kindness. Even if he’d never find forgiveness.
Finding Randi and Joan was almost as terrifying as never knowing what had happened to them. Finding them meant admitting what he’d done. What he’d been. Joan had already turned away from him for far less than what he’d done while he was sick. The divorce seemed— trivial now. Almost laughable in its simplicity. How much more damned she’d find him now— Neil hadn’t wanted to think about. He had to, he knew. She might try to keep Randi from him. I might not fight her. Once I’ve seen they’re okay, I might just— it might be better if I just go away again. He hoped it would not come to that. He hoped that they’d both forgive him, somehow. That they’d need him around. At least nearby.
He’d believed that knowing they were safe would have been enough, but that had been because he knew Elijah would be at his back. That he wouldn’t be utterly alone. The idea of staying near Joan and Randi should they turn him away, of just watching Randi grow up from a distance seemed… predatory now. Obsessive. And frighteningly sad. There’d be no one to remind him that he was more than a monster. Or notice if he was gone.
Neil strapped the sleeping bag in place behind the bike seat. Just get there, he told himself. Just find them. Make a decision after that. There’s the City behind me. And Shay. And other Cured. People who know what it’s like. I’m not alone in the world, with or without Elijah. Or Joan and Randi. It felt like a lie he was telling himself, but he clung to it anyway. He opened the door and wheeled his bike out. The breeze felt clean and light, whisking away the remaining faint scent of the quarantine camp. Neil perched on his bike and gave a small, experimental push with his wounded leg. The bite throbbed, but he didn’t feel the shooting stab he expected and pedaled again, rolling down the crest of the bridge. The breeze picked up, making a soft roar in his ears. Something else, too. He thought he caught some other tone in the roar. He slowed down, waiting for it to repeat. It came again, a distant yell from behind him. It’s the Infected. I left someone behind the fence. I forgot them. And they’re coming. Neil’s skin prickled painfully. He tensed, ready to jam a foot down on the bike pedal, but the voice repeated.
“Wait!”
Neil turned around.
“Wait, brother, please!” The shout was ragged, and the top of the bridge still prevented Neil from seeing, but the voice was undoubtedly Elijah’s. The wave of relief that hit Neil was a little disorienting. “Wait!”
“I’m here,” Neil called back. A rapid clicking noise preceded Elijah over the bridge and he came careening past the bridge control office. A long flat cart bounced along behind him, teetering slightly. Elijah was sweating heavily and puffing. Neil could see long pink scratches running the length of his arms as he came to a skidding stop a little ahead of Neil and then bent over his handlebars trying to catch his breath.
“I thought you were gone,” cried Neil, suddenly and unexpectedly furious. “Thought you just turned tail and took off. You could have told me you were coming back. Could have left a note or…” he trailed off, realizing how accusatory he sounded. He got off his bike and circled around Elijah. “Why are you all scratched up? What happened? Where’s the first aid kit?”
Before The Cure (Book 2): The Infected Page 27