After the Cure

by Deirdre Gould

She woke up in the passenger seat of Frank's car, with no memory of how she got there. They were rolling slowly through the long spring dusk toward Frank's house. Nella hadn't seen the other side of town since she was a poor graduate student. Since things like poor and wealthy had mattered. Now, she guessed, it was immunity that separated people. She had felt slightly depressed when she had been forced to choose a row house during school. All those people around her, she always felt so claustrophobic and unable to concentrate. Nella had felt like one tiny insect among many then and it had irritated her. Now, as row house after row house unrolled before the car, like an unending snake skin long shed, Nella was overwhelmed with loneliness. She kept expecting to see a mother on each porch yelling to their kids to come in for dinner. Or a couple of old men leaning on the metal fencing around their yards impassively watching the car pass by. But no one appeared. The houses were dark and the paint on the brick and doors were chipping, but it was the lawns that gave Nella an odd feeling of panic. People had been proud of their yards here, small as they were. Saturday mowing had been a ritual more likely to be kept than Sunday worship. It had been miles of smooth green squares without variation. But now the weeds had overrun the concrete sidewalks, pushed and tumbled the front stairs of homes, become long whorls matted by frost. Nella saw the faded pink plastic of a small child's tricycle reaching out of a silver tangle of old grass as if it were gasping for breath before being swallowed forever. She turned away from the window, tired of the emptiness outside.

  Frank glanced over at her and and smiled. "Are you awake?"

  "Sort of. How long have I been out?"

  "Just long enough to look at your shoulder and put in a few more stitches. The doctor said you should be fine, the infection is passing."

  Nella sighed. "That's a relief. Where are we going?"

  "I needed to pick up some of the case files to work on. We can stay at my house or go back to your apartment if you like."

  "Do you live near here?" she asked, mostly so she wouldn't have to think of the house windows like opening eyes as their curtains rotted into dust.

  "Just one more street up," Frank said, "they opened this part of the City after the rest filled up. Maybe I wouldn't have chosen the house for myself before, but it's reassuring that there are enough people left to fill up the rest of the City. And my neighbors are nice."

  "You know your neighbors?"

  Frank laughed and glanced at her surprised. "You don't know yours?"

  Nella shook her head. "I honestly wouldn't even know I had any except for the occasional thump on the wall or the ceiling."

  Frank shook his head. "Don't you miss people? I mean, I know you talk with people every day for work, but don't you just miss having normal conversations about things that don't matter? Things like the weather and people's jobs and what their kids have done lately?"

  "More than you know," she replied, "But no one talks about those things anymore. Unless it's to worry about them. And if you get friendly with your neighbors, they might want something that you can't afford to give them."

  "Ah, I see now. You're still in the bunker."

  "What?"

  "Your side of town are mostly Immunes, right? You, the people around you, had to survive through their neighbors becoming monsters, the government breaking down and looters taking what few supplies were left."

  "So did you."

  Frank slowed to a stop in front of a well kept block of houses. "Not exactly. I mean, I was technically one of the last people infected, so yes, I was aware that things were bad, but I was already in my shelter when things started to fall apart. Most of these people," he said, waving his hand around toward the houses, "never saw that. Once the infection took over, a person didn't think about how dangerous things were or how scarce things had become. They would have walked right by a fully stocked grocery store without even looking at it. They didn't notice that the government had failed everyone or that the streets were dangerous. The worst thing that could happen had already happened. The Infected didn't have the brain processes it takes to worry while they were sick. Now that we are the Cured, nothing can be worse than what we've been and what we've done, so there is really nothing worth worrying about anymore."

  He turned toward her. "We're all the same here. There's no reason to fear each other, because we know, in some sense and with a little variation, what each person living here has done. People that were Immune- they had to do all sorts of things to get by. Things maybe they aren't proud of, because those things are as bad as anything the Infected did, except the Immunes don't have a brain altering disease that will explain what they've done."

  Frank slipped a hand around hers before she could interrupt. "I love you, Nella. I don't care what you did to survive this long. I'll never ask and you don't ever need to say. Whatever it was, I don't think it could be as bad as what I've done, what the Infected did. But not everyone could say the same. The people around you avoid each other, not only because they may be ashamed of what they have done in the past or frightened of what they will find out their neighbors have done in the past, but also because they are still afraid of what they may have to do in the future. They're still in the bunker. Like Mr. Grant. They think somebody is going to come along and fix the world any day now, and they can forget this nasty spell and move on. No one is coming. We're the ones who have to fix the world. You know that right?"

  "Of course. What else have we been trying to do all this time?" she asked.

  Frank smiled and touched her cheek. "We can't always be running after rogue diseases and conducting trials. I know it feels like those things will take forever, but soon this trial will be over and we'll find the bacterium and the world will be safe. But it won't be fixed. Sometimes you have to do really brave things, like make friends with your neighbors. That's how the world gets fixed. Little bit by little bit." Frank sighed. "Listen to me, going on and on. Must be the lawyer part of my brain gearing up. Sorry about that." He let go of her hand and opened his door. Nella took a few seconds to look at the house they had stopped in front of before getting out of the car. The bricks had been whitewashed, like the others on that block, and recently. The fence had been uprooted, not just around his house, but around all of them on the block. Frank's yard was a little weedy, speckled with the old brown husks of naked dandelions, but most of the other lawns had been tilled, their dark innards thawing in the warm spring night, waiting.

  "People are growing gardens out here?"

  "Yes, the block has decided to grow herbs and aromatics for medicine or soaps, luxuries. The Farm just doesn't have enough space for things like that, but the old stuff is almost completely gone, even the furthest ranging scavengers are having trouble finding some things."

  "Are you going to grow them too?"

  Frank sighed. "I wish I could, I've just been so busy with the trial. I haven't even cared for the grass that was already here. But Mrs. Nichols- she's one of the neighbors, asked if she could try a pair of fruit trees in my yard. It's still too cold, but in a month we'll plant some apple seedlings we traded the Farm for. That way we won't have to go all the way there for fresh fruit." Frank laughed. "She wanted to find a citrus tree, she's afraid we're all going to die of scurvy. I told her it was too cold, we'll have to take our chances with other produce."

  Nella smiled faintly. "We'll send her crates of oranges when we move to New Guinea."

  A metal door clanged shut a few doors down and a teenage boy ran across the street and started knocking on another door. The pretty girl who came out to talk with him was on crutches because she was missing a leg.

  "Gangrene," Frank said seeing that Nella had noticed. "Bites from other humans are unsanitary and they festered, sometimes for months on the Infected before they received medical care after the Cure. Sometimes amputation was the only option. You'll see it a lot here."

  "I know. I was part of the medical team that first ad
ministered the Cure, remember?"

  "Of course," Frank shook his head, "sorry, I'm just used to people staring."

  "I guess that I was staring, but that wasn't why. I'm just not used to seeing anyone between six and twenty anymore."

  Frank nodded. "There aren't many of them are there? It must be really tough."

  "They would have been, what? Eight or so when the Plague hit?" Nella shuddered, thinking of how frightened they must have been before they were infected and how vulnerable even afterward. She looked at Frank for a long minute.

  "You must really believe he didn't mean to do this," she said, "I don't know how you could do it otherwise."

  Frank's brow wrinkled and he was grim for a moment. "I know that he developed something that escaped everyone's control. We've both seen the evidence of that. But he followed protocol until the end and tried to keep the Plague contained after he found out that Ann had been infected. I think Dr. Pazzo was as much an innocent bystander as the rest of us. If anyone can be said to be at fault, it has to be Dr. Schneider and even Ann. Don't you think?"

  Nella hesitated. "Yes," she said at last in a low voice, "but I don't know if the same will be true if the incurable strain isn't destroyed." She didn't add that she thought Dr. Pazzo was still hiding something. If it helped him get through the day, who was she to disturb Frank's peace of mind with something she only suspected?

  Frank walked slowly up the steps to his door. He stopped with his hand on the latch. "It's not like your apartment, Nella. They didn't clear out the old owner's things before they assigned it to me. I've done some cleaning but-"

  "I'm sure it's fine," Nella smiled. Frank opened the door and stepped inside, his hand automatically finding the light switch. The smell of a long departed cat and old newspapers flung itself at Nella. She half smiled to herself, remembering her old rental. It had smelled the same, though she'd never had a pet. She thought all old houses must be steeped in the vaguely yellow smell. The hall was very dark and the house seemed smaller than she expected, but it was hard for her to tell because the thick curtains were all drawn. Frank glided around her in the dark reaching for lights.

  "I've got to grab my notes from the upstairs office. Just make yourself at home. I'll be right back, okay?"

  Nella nodded and looked around her as the steady creak of his feet on the stairs faded. She was standing in a living room that looked decades older than Frank. The wallpaper must once have been a vibrant maroon or red and white stripe, but now it was a pale blend of peach and gold, like a peppermint sucked too long and then put back in the package for years. The furniture was heavy and covered with lace cloth. She wondered if Frank had ever even sat in one of the chairs. The lamps and overhead were weak and missing bulbs, so that they just glowed with yellow light, not even illuminating themselves fully. But everything was immaculately clean. There was no dust anywhere, no papers or books set down where they didn't belong, not even a mug ring on the coffee table. Nella ached to see his office. She wondered if the house was like this throughout or if the office was where he really lived. Nella walked over to a nearby lamp and pulled the shade off for some more light. A familiar bag near the door caught her eye. It was the duffel bag that the Cured were given when they left the Cure camps. It usually had a scavenged set of clothes and some basic toiletries. It also had all the personal effects that the person had been found with. Most of the Cured hadn't wanted to take the bag. They hadn't wanted the charity or the memories. And Nella couldn't blame them. She wondered what was in Frank's. She didn't look but she did notice it was still zipped and tagged with his name and the camp's label. He'd never even opened it.

  Nella wandered into the kitchen and groped around for the light switch. She was oddly relieved when the bright lamp flooded over the sink and she saw a coffee cup sitting in it catching a drip. She didn't know if she felt better seeing the cup out of its place in the cabinet or hearing the drip of the imperfectly sealed tap. Either way, it was a sign that the house wasn't completely empty. She emptied the overflowing cup and placed it back under the tap, resisting the urge to tighten the handle and stop the drip. She was searching for another cup in the cabinets when Frank came down the stairs with a series of creaks as the arthritic boards rubbed together.

  "I'm afraid I don't have much here right now- it was time for me to make a trip to the Farm too."

  "That's okay, I was just going to get a glass of water."

  Frank looked alarmed. "Oh! You didn't drink any yet did you?"

  "No, why?"

  "I forgot to tell you, we aren't on the same reservoir as the rest of the City. We have to use purification tabs or boil it first. Here, I have some in the refrigerator I think." He pulled open the fridge as Nella stared, confused at him.

  "You mean there was a spill or something?"

  "No, we just don't have access to the sealed reservoir. This part of the City drew water from somewhere else- the river maybe? I don't know, I was never interested in that stuff before. But when they moved us here, they told us we would have to purify our water until the pollutants were all gone or they could find a way to get us access to the reservoir. But there aren't many experts left and even their apprentices are busy with irrigation at the Farm and managing the reservoir the rest of the City relies on."

  "Frank, did they force you to move here?"

  He looked confused. "Do you mean this house? We were assigned space as it became cleared of Infected and all the dead were removed. It's not such a bad place."

  "No, I know that, I was assigned my apartment too when I reached the populated zone. I mean, could you have stayed in your own home if you wanted to? Since the Cure had reached it?"

  Frank hesitated and bent down to pick up the filtered water. He closed the refrigerator and brushed past her to grab a cup. He started to pour the water for her before he answered. "Yes, I could have stayed. They weren't ready to clear the dead, but I buried my wife and the boy after I was Cured anyway. I could have stayed or taken more of my things if I wanted. Most people had wandered pretty far from their homes since becoming sick and their homes were still in Infected areas, so they didn't really have the option. But I did. I didn't want to go back. I knew I couldn't live with what I'd done if I tried to live in the middle of Sarah's things. I was assigned this house, but when I left the camp, I went back once, to bury them. When I was done, I went back into the house to get some clean clothes because it was muddy and I was filthy and sad and tired. I thought I was also going to pick up our wedding pictures and some small things that I really wanted to keep." Frank handed her the cup without looking at her and sat shakily down at the scarred wooden table. He rubbed one long finger along the splintered grooves and looked down at the wood as he spoke.

  "But when I walked in the door, everything smelled like her, like she had just walked by. And her last case file was spread over the dining room table as if she just got up to make herself a cup of coffee. I didn't want to see that, and I didn't want to clean it up either. I just wanted it to stay there, just that way, but not where I could see it. I didn't even stay to get my clothes. I just walked out and headed here. It took a week in muddy clothes, but I didn't care." He looked around the small kitchen.

  "This place is far enough that I won't be tempted to go back again. If I'm lucky, it's burnt down or blown over by a storm or there are complete strangers living in it and all the memories of us are gone." He looked up at her, his hand pausing in it's endless track on the table. The scar on his cheek stuttered and shone in the bright kitchen light as he spoke and his face was so drawn and tired that Nella worried that she'd somehow made him ill.

  "I'm sorry," he said, "I shouldn't be talking about this with you."

  Although there was a chair next to him, she sat in the one across from him instead. "Because you don't want me to analyze you? Or because you wanted to make a clean break and don't want anyone to know who you were before
?"

  "No, nothing like that. I don't want you to think I've idolized or worship my wife. Or that I'm still in mourning. I've had six years to learn to let her go. I don't want you to think I'm not ready or that I want to somehow replace her. It's not that I haven't come to terms with her death. I haven't come to terms with myself for causing it."

  She wanted to reach across the wooden table and curl her hand inside of his, but she drank a mouthful of cold water instead.

  "Frank, how much did they tell you about me before I met you at the prison?"

  The worry on his forehead deepened and creased. "Not much. Just that you had been working on a team during the first days of the Cure. And that you had a good track record helping people who were recovering from long term Infection. That you were able to repair what seemed like permanent brain damage to other doctors. Why?"

  Nella leaned back in the hard kitchen chair. "So no one told you why I left the Cure team?"

  Frank shook his head.

  "I know telling you that you were ill and that killing your wife was more of an animal instinct than anything you had control over won't make you feel better. And you live among people who have similar stories, so you know your experience is not unique or even rare. But you seem to carry around this idea that you're somehow not worth as much as other people. That you deserve to be treated badly. I can't fix the water or make people stop staring or being nasty. But you don't need to think that way about me. I'm not any different than you or anyone here. I'm not a pure, fragile doll who's been locked safely away since before the Plague." Frank started to interrupt her, but she shook her head and put her cup down with a hollow ringing.

  "You think the only terrible things I've done were in the name of survival but that's not true." Nella took a deep breath and Frank leaned forward in his chair.

  In the Cure Camps