After the Cure

by Deirdre Gould

It was still raining, cold and misty when she woke in the morning. Nella had slept only lightly, afraid Frank was stubborn enough to slip away in the middle of the night. Still, she felt much stronger than she had the evening before.

  Still clothed only in her underwear, she looked around for her pack before remembering it was sitting at the bottom of the stairs where she had dropped it. But the dresser was wedged against the door and too heavy for her to move with one arm. Nella stifled a frustrated sigh.

  She stood shivering in front of the dusty dresser. She hesitated, feeling slightly cannibalistic, as if she meant to wear someone else's skin instead of their clothes, but the chill won out. She wiggled the swollen drawers open, ready to leap backward if a rat scuttered out. But the clothes were undisturbed. They were neatly folded as if they had just come down from the clothesline yesterday. They were men's clothes, far too large, but perfect for her wounded arm and side. She pulled out a sweater that still breathed a faint trace of the wood fire it had dried over. She eased it over the bandages on her arm, holding her breath expecting pain as the thick cloth brushed over the aching flesh of her shoulder. She got it on without too much wincing and then rolled up the cuffs of an old pair of jeans. They were patched and faded and all the stiffness already worn out of them. She got an eerie feeling again, as the fabric bunched and pooled around her waist, as if she had stepped into someone else's memories. A half-formed hope bloomed in her chest that these people were alive somewhere, not Infected. She grabbed a thick belt from the top of the dresser and threaded it with difficulty through the large pants. Her mind wandered to the Infected sleeping below.

  Nella raked her hand over her snarled hair in frustration. She would be able to find supplies, the house seemed well stocked, and even if it wasn't, she and Frank had more than enough to spare for the people downstairs.

  But they couldn't wait for the Infected to wake up. There wasn't enough time left before Judge Hawkins sent the military after them. How would the people downstairs react with no one to counsel them when they woke up? A note was no substitute, no matter how eloquent. Nella knew the prospects even for those who underwent years of therapy through Cure programs wasn't very good. The current suicide statistics were something like thirty percent for the Cured, and not very much less for the Immunes.

  They would remember the Plague, everything that had happened and what they had done after their infection. But they would only understand the events of the past eight years as they had happened for themselves. Without someone to explain, they could have no real idea what had happened to the rest of the world. Nella had seen it before, even after the Cured had been shown news footage, had seen communities of survivors, even after they had found some remaining family members- some of them refused to believe it. They would blame themselves, convince themselves that they were inherently evil somehow, instead of just ill. Nella picked up the pistol that Frank had laid on top of the dresser. They will probably all be suicides, she thought, isn't it kinder to spare them the agony of realizing what they've done? She looked at Frank,his skin outlined in silver rain-light. He kept going. Some of them did. Some of us do, she thought. She put the pistol down and walked slowly to the window. The City was invisible in the fog. All she could see was the pale young grass pushing up through the old silver corpse of last year's field and the dark, still pond and the rotting carcass of the Infected's latest kill, a cow maybe or a horse. Nella sighed. The bullet or the Cure. Either way it's murder. She placed her forehead against the cold pane and closed her eyes. Frank stirred behind her and she turned around.

  He stretched and scratched at the stubble that was thickening on his cheeks. He sat up and smiled at her.

  "Feeling better?" he asked.

  "Much better," she lied.

  "Sorry about your clothes, I didn't want anything dirty getting into your cuts."

  She sat down next to him on the bed. "Liar. You were just trying to get into my pants."

  He laughed.

  "Come on," she said, "we need to get moving. I want to leave these people with plenty of supplies in case they wake up before we get back, and we still have a few miles to go."

  She expected him to argue with her, but he just shook his head and pushed the dresser away from the door. He was right, though he never said so. Nella was almost useless, she couldn't even carry her own pack without opening the wound on her shoulder again. So Frank rearranged their gear and gathered supplies for the sleeping Infected while Nella struggled to write a note that could explain the world they were about to wake up in.

  It took less time than either of them expected. By midmorning, the sleeping people were warmly covered and a pile of provisions sat in front of the fireplace. Nella attached her letter to the mantle.

  "I wish I could be here to tell you this instead of leaving a letter," it began. Nella stopped herself from rereading it. She tried not to flinch as Frank tightened the sling he had made for her. She didn't want him to change his mind and insist that she stay behind.

  It was still gray and cool when they left the old farmhouse at noon. The fields were heavy with old, wet grass and Nella tried to lead them back to the road. It was broken and patchy, but the land around them was weedy and quickly filling with thorn bushes and small trees. The road at least, was still mostly flat and at least halfway clear of bracken. At first, when her energy was still high, Nella felt guilty that Frank was carrying everything. But she soon became winded and drained and she was grateful when he requested frequent rests. She suspected some stops he was adding for her benefit rather than his, but each time they sat on the cold, damp ground she sighed with relief. The trip to Dr. Carton's lab should only have taken a few hours. Instead it lasted for the rest of the day. The dull pearl of the sun sank behind its clouds as they reached the lab.

  The Lab