“Get on, go!” shouted Neil, pushing Elijah toward his bike. There was blood on Elijah’s shirt, but he was still moving and if they stopped to check— Neil swung a leg over his own bike. Another shot, this one popping pebbles of pavement into the air just ahead of Neil’s tire. His bitten leg ached like the Infected were still attached by the teeth. He ignored it and pedaled. He glanced back to see if Elijah was with him. His face was bleeding, but he was keeping up. The sound of an engine rumbled behind them and Neil bent over the bike and just concentrated on moving.
28
It took a few minutes to reach an old skateboard park. Neil hadn’t heard any more gunshots, but he rode around the large concrete half pipe’s back wall before dumping the bike and turning to help Elijah. But he wasn’t there.
Neil tried to run a few dozen steps back toward the store, limping heavily on his aching leg, but didn’t see his friend. “Elijah!” he shouted. “Elijah!”
He could hear some shouts, but they were garbled. Several voices mixing together. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck.” He staggered back to the bike, adrenaline partially pushing out the sear of his calf muscle. He picked up the bike and turned it around. This isn’t the rule. Elijah said the rule was to get out, get safe, and then find a way to come back for him. He slung a leg over the bike. Fuck that, I’m not waiting. He pumped the pedals, wincing with the tight pull of his injured leg.
“I didn’t know. I thought it was empty. If I’d known I wouldn’t have—” Elijah’s voice untangled itself from the chaos.
“Bullshit. Where’s the other one?” someone shouted.
“I was alone.” There was a short silence and then a wounded sound from Elijah.
“Where’s the other one?” the voice insisted.
Neil crested the small hill and came in view of the store.
They’d surrounded him at the edge of the parking lot. Fifteen, twenty people maybe. Neil wasn’t certain how they’d all arrived so quickly, but there they were, a circle of bicycles and a lone riding lawnmower. There was a kid on a skateboard, too. And Elijah in the middle, his arms raised, his face bloody.
“I’m right here,” Neil called, rolling to a stop on the road just beyond them. “Leave him alone.” An instant later, a dozen guns were aimed at him.
“You’re thieves,” said a woman. “Saw you myself, you had a whole cart of our supplies.”
“We’re sorry,” insisted Elijah, “We didn’t know anyone was here. We left it all, you can check. We aren’t trying to rob anyone.”
Six people rushed to Neil, pulling him roughly from the bike. He tried not to struggle. They walked him to Elijah.
“What should we do with them?” asked the kid on the skateboard.
“We all know what we need to do,” the woman from the store answered.
“Let’s not be rash, Sal,” said another.
“Are you hurt badly?” Neil asked Elijah under his breath.
“No brother. You should have kept going. Told you to remember the rules.”
“That rule is shit. I’m not leaving you here.”
“There’s a lot of damage in the store,” said the man who’d been questioning Elijah. “They need to make up for that.”
“The only damage in there is from the gunshot blasts you shot,” snapped Neil.
Elijah gripped his shoulder to stop him. “We’ll work it off, if you let us,” he said quickly. “Clean up the store or weed your garden, whatever you need.”
“Can’t trust a thief not to rip us off while you pretend to work,” shouted someone.
“Look, there’s nothing missing. We’re sorry that we didn’t realize you were here. Can’t you just let us be on our way?” asked Neil. “We’re just passing through. I’m looking for my daughter. We don’t want your things. We don’t want to cause trouble. We just want to get home. That’s all we’re doing.”
The people were silent for what seemed a long time. The woman on the tractor spoke up. “How many are with you?” she asked.
Neil glanced at Elijah, sensing it was a loaded question. He wasn’t certain how to answer and Elijah seemed just as lost. “We’re alone,” he said at last. “I— know that may sound like a lie. Maybe you think we’re some kind of scouting party or something. We’re not. Or we would have found out you were here before we went into that store. We’d have— radios or something to communicate with. You can check our bags. There’s nothing in there. Just clothes and food and a camp stove.”
“You do this often?” asked the woman. “Travel around looting? Is that how you got those scars?”
“No,” said Neil. Elijah shook his head quickly to stop Neil from talking.
“Something worse then? Or are you stupid enough to tangle with the Infected?”
“Don’t,” Elijah warned him softly.
Neil hesitated. “I’m just trying to find my little girl, you understand? You’ve got a— a family or a community here. You must understand how hard—”
“How did you get the scars?” the woman insisted calmly.
“I just want you to know that I’m a person. Just like you. My daughter’s name is Randi. She’s just—”
The man who’d been yelling at Elijah lifted his gun. “Answer the question.”
Neil glanced at Elijah, but Elijah only shook his head slightly. “I have to. Maybe they have people that need—”
They were yanked apart. “That’s enough. Answer the question.”
“I was— I was Infected.” Neil wasn’t certain what he expected. A gasp maybe. Disgust. Fear. It was not the silence that followed.
Or the woman on the riding mower calmly asking, “Are you done? We’re trying to hear you out. We’re good people, but we’re not stupid. If you want us to release you, then the truth is your best bet.”
“Maybe we should—” Elijah started, but the man holding his arm shook hard and he stopped.
“Why would I lie about that?” asked Neil and Elijah closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Because you’re caught. And if I were in your place, I’d tell any story I could think of to make my captor feel bad for me and let me go,” said the woman on the mower.
“Why would being Infected be the story I picked? Can you think of something worse? I can’t. What is it you’re scared we’ve done? Hurting someone? Yeah. I was Infected. Murder? That too. Infected. Cannibalism? Sure. Infected. What else is there?”
“Plenty. But you’re right. I don’t know why you’d choose to lie about being Infected. But madness isn’t uncommon these days. Nobody ever came back from being Infected. We’ve indulged enough of this, haven’t we?” she asked her group. Several nodded. “Take Arty back to the farm, Sal. He’s too young for this.” The woman from the store reached her hand out to the kid with the skateboard.
“Wait! Wait!” cried Neil, “I’m not lying.”
“Take them to the graveyard. If they want it, you can give them food and water first. Let ‘em make peace with it,” the woman on the mower was instructing the others.
“There’s a cure,” said Elijah. “We came from a city to the south. They’ve made a cure. There are hundreds of us.”
Everyone stopped. Then the woman on the mower laughed. “Well, you’re at least creative with your lies, I’ll give you that.”
“It’s true. This man cured me. He found me where I was locked in a hospital for two years and cured me,” said Neil quickly. “Look, here.” He pulled down the collar of his shirt and lifted his neck, hoping his beard stubble was still short enough for them to clearly see the scar on his throat. “When they found me, I was fighting with another Infected. She bit me here. We were both cured. Her name’s Danica. And— and they found the people who made the plague.”
The woman on the mower jumped down and crossed the space between them with surprising speed. She wrenched Neil out of the group marching him well past the parking lot and across the street. “We didn’t mean to harm you. Let my friend go, at least,” Neil pleaded. “He’s only here to help me.”
“Quiet,” snapped the woman. They reached the lot of an abandoned gas station. Randi had always made him stop for a raspberry slushie here after their summer shopping trips. He was probably going to die in this parking lot. The woman yanked open the glass door of the convenience store and shoved him inside. “I know what you’re saying has to be a lie,” she said. “And do you know why it has to be a lie?”
“But it’s not a—” Neil started.
“Because if what you’re saying is true,” she said over him, “That the Plague wasn’t just some biological accident, that it was created and we all suffered, killed our families, our spouses, our friends— and now there’s a cure, now that so many we loved are dead, if that’s the truth, then it would tear these people apart.”
“But we can show you where the City is. You can cure your families, be reunited—”
“Don’t you understand? There’s nobody left to cure. There’s no one left. What kind of survivors keep Infected around? Even ones they love? Where have you been?”
“I told you. I was sick. Trapped in a hospital. And I’m sorry for all you’ve lost. For what everyone has lost. But I can’t change the truth. And there are people who would want to know it. Maybe some of your people.”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know what you thought you were going to gain from this. Are you a conman in addition to being a thief? Is that it? Scam us out of the supplies if you can’t just swipe them?”
“No— look, we don’t want anything from you. We came here because my family used to shop here. I knew the layout. We needed water. If we’d known you were here, we would have passed right on by.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because if it were a con, it’s a stupid one, isn’t it? You just said there’s nobody left to cure. Why would I try to convince you of something you don’t need? I’ve got— I’ve got nothing to prove what I’m saying except my own face. The scars are from fighting while I was sick. That’s how I got them. I don’t have any identification because they pulled me out of the hospital naked and starved. Don’t have any pictures of my family for the same reason. The man you have in the parking lot is my friend. He’s all I want to take with me. You can have— everything. Just let me take him with me and we’ll be gone.”
She stared at him and he knew she was trying to decipher the map of raised bite marks scattered over his cheek, near his ear, across his neck. “It doesn’t really matter whether I believe you, I guess,” she said. “Only whether they do. You need to understand what telling them this is going to do. It took months and months to scrape what little stability we’ve got together. Just to stop waking each other up when someone screamed in their sleep. To get it so we weren’t just scrounging and squatting in empty buildings— so we were actually making homes together. If you convince them that this is out there, this city where the people responsible for all their suffering are, where their families could have been brought back, if only they hadn’t been forced to put them down— it’s going to fall apart. A lot of them are just going to give up. They’re barely hanging on as it is. The others are going to want to go to this city. We aren’t ready for that. Any of it. You have to take it back.”
“Don’t you think they deserve to know? Don’t they have a right to know what happened to their families? And that any Infected you find from now on might have a chance if you—”
“No. What they deserve is some peace. This city, is it sending help?”
“Not exactly. Not this far, anyway. They are trying to cure people in an expanding radius—”
“Did you bring any of this cure with you? You been traveling all over curing Infected while you’re looking for your daughter?”
“No,” sighed Neil.
The woman hesitated. “Your daughter— is she infected?” her voice was softer, sad.
“No. She doesn’t know I’ve been cured either. I’m trying to find her, make sure she’s safe.”
“Then— what is it you want me to do with this information? You don’t have the cure with you. Your city isn’t coming to help. It sounds like we’re still on our own. And the Infected are still a threat. You want me to tell them there’s this cure so any time we face the Infected they’ll hesitate just that little bit or agonize afterward that they could have saved that person?”
“Well— yes, to be honest. We’re still people.”
“That’ll mean that my people die. Look— I can’t imagine what you’ve gone through. And I don’t want you to tell me. And it’s— I hope your recovery has been— wonderful. But this is the world we live in now. You did things that hurt people. Killed them. That’s what the Infected do. At least for as long as they’re sick. We can only stop them one way.”
“I’m giving you another way!” Neil cried.
“No, you aren’t. You’re giving me a rumor that will cause my people even more distress than they’ve already been through. We’re alone. We’re doing our best to feed ourselves and stay safe together. Until someone shows up with actual help, we’re going to keep doing what we do, because the Infected are going to keep doing what they do. So I need you to go back there and tell everyone you made it up. Because you were scared. Because you’re crazy. Because you wanted to divide us. I don’t care what excuse you use, just that it’s believable.”
Neil saw his chance. “In return for what?”
“What?” asked the woman, surprised.
“I go out and lie for you, and what do my friend and I get in return? You’re planning on killing us anyway, why wouldn’t I just shout the truth and die with a clean conscience?”
“I don’t want to kill you. None of us do.”
“So don’t. Just let us go. We didn’t mean any harm and the only thing that happened was a few things got moved around in the store. And I think one of your people shot up the jewelry counter, but don’t know who’s going to need bracelets in the apocalypse.”
“I can’t just let you go. Don’t know anything about you except some wild story you told me. We let you go, you could come back with an army and slaughter us all—”
“It’s just us. There’s nobody else. Why the hell would we be dragging around a bicycle cart of supplies for two if there were more people? Why would we risk wandering into a dark department store without help? Could have been anything in there. Infected, booby traps, you. There’s nobody else.”
“I don’t know that for sure—”
“So take our bikes. Take all of it. Put us out with nothing. If I’m lying, and there’s someone waiting for us to report back, it’d take us twice as long on foot. And we’ll have to stop and find more supplies. Probably get killed by something else anyway, but I’m willing to risk it.”
“It wouldn’t delay you that much. You wouldn’t be that far from your group. I can’t take that risk.”
“There’s no one else!” cried Neil. “There’s no one. And you know it. You believe what I told you, or you wouldn’t have dragged me all the way over here to talk about it. I’m a person, just like you. I have a little girl who might still be in trouble and I just want to find her. I have a friend who’s only trying to help me. He doesn’t deserve any of this. If you won’t let me go, at least be kind to him. He’s just here because I made a shitty choice to go into your store because I remembered the layout from Before. I’ve got nothing to give you, nothing to bargain with, except the truth. And your own conscience. You believe me, so that means if you kill us, you’ll know you killed people who didn’t mean you any harm. Are you ready to do that? And what happens when the next people wander by? You think my story will tear your community apart, what will killing us do? If they go along with it, they’ll be much more willing to kill people in the future. If they don’t it’s going to start a split that’s only going to get worse.”
The woman scrubbed her face in frustration.
“I’m begging you,” said Neil, “Just let us go. Take our supplies. Call it repayment for anything we broke. Call it punishment. I�
�ll— I’ll say I lied. We go our separate ways. You’ll never see us again, I promise. Your people don’t have to change. They don’t have to argue about us. Please.”
She thought for a moment. “Not here. I’m taking you to the edge of town. It’ll take you at least a day to walk back if you’re lying. And I’ll have people watching.”
“Fine, fine.”
“And you make it a good lie.”
“Yes.”
“If I ever see you again, I’m not going to hesitate.”
“I know. I’m not interested in causing you trouble. I just want to go home.”
The woman shook her head as if she didn’t believe what she was about to do. “I hope I’m not making a serious mistake,” she muttered. She dragged Neil by the arm out of the convenience store and back across the street to the parking lot where the others waited. The kid with the skateboard and a few of the others were gone, but there were still several people around Elijah. No one had wiped his face and the side of it was covered with drying blood. It bothered Neil to see that. Elijah stared at him, but Neil wasn’t sure how to tell him what was happening. Go along, he willed him.
“Well?” said the woman when they arrived.
“I— I’m sorry to all of you. Truly. We didn’t mean any harm. I was— I was scared. You asked about the scars and I— panicked. I just wanted you to let us go. I thought the lie about being Infected would make you have pity on us. And my friend was just trying to— to help. The real story’s far more humiliating. Dogs. That’s how I got em. I was hunting in the woods. I got a deer and— so stupid, I brought it back to my house to clean it. Should have done it in the woods but I thought it would be easier if I— anyway, the neighborhood dogs had developed this pack after their owners died. I hadn’t seen em in a few weeks, but they smelled that deer.” He glanced at Elijah, but Elijah was staring at the woman beside him instead. “They were on me so fast— I think I only survived because they had the deer to eat. I’m sorry I lied to all of you. That’s the real story.”
Before The Cure (Book 2): The Infected Page 29