“I can do it,” said Juliana, but her tone had softened. “Who was it today?” she asked, swinging an empty bucket toward the smear of dark blood on Ruth’s jean leg. Ruth blushed, ashamed that she had missed it when she cleaned herself up.
“You really want to know?” asked Ruth.
Juliana was silent, but didn’t move.
“Nick Fowler’s daughter. It was her birthday today,” sighed Ruth. She splashed another clump of plants so she wouldn’t have to look at the other woman. “I tried to persuade him to give her to you, but…”
“But he didn’t want to leave her behind when he killed himself, that about it?”
“Yeah, that’s about it.” Ruth turned around. “Look, I don’t need a lecture. We’ve been over and over this. We agreed to disagree—” She stopped, surprised to see Juliana sitting on a nearby stone bench, the soft glow of the solar lights making her face ten years older. “What is it? What’s happened?” Ruth asked.
“I consider you a friend, Ruth. My best friend. The truth is, I think you’d be my best friend even if the world weren’t as empty as it is. You know, if we’d met Before.”
Ruth set the half full bucket down and sat down on the bench. She could feel the heat radiating off the other woman even a few feet away.
“What would you do if I asked you to help me at the hospital?” asked Juliana.
“Then I would help you. I’m not a murderer, despite what you may think.”
Juliana sighed. “That’s not how I think of you. If anyone left in the world understands you, it’s me. I work with them every day. I know why you think you’re helping. But you overstep. You take something that isn’t yours to take.” She shook her head. “That isn’t what I wanted to say. I’ve been very tired these past few weeks. There isn’t anyone else to ask. Father Preston is busy with his Congregation—”
“Father Preston,” Ruth scowled as if she’d tasted something dry and bitter. Juliana ignored her.
“I just need a little help, in the mornings maybe. Simple things, laundry or meals or just reading to them.”
“Then I’ll be there tomorrow morning.” Ruth looked around at the dim conservatory. “We should both go home now, before the scavengers come out for the night.” She glanced at Juliana who looked more tired than Ruth remembered ever seeing her. “Why don’t I walk you back to the hospital? I’ll bring the bundle and make dinner.”
But Juliana shook her head. “Go home. I’ll see you in the morning.” She got slowly up and carried the empty buckets to the doorway and then disappeared into the warm, concrete night. Ruth stared after her for a moment. Then she left the conservatory by the opposite door, heading back to the silent police station. A sliver of moon broke the edge of the jagged line of dark buildings but it didn’t shine bright enough to change much. Ruth didn’t care, she knew the way back by feel now. All the breaks and dips in the asphalt, every recessed doorway, all the tiny alleys that she had never dared to walk alone in Before, now they were home. In the past eight years, she’d used them to hide from the Infected, scavengers, and packs of feral dogs. She’d outlasted almost all of them.
The police station was as silent as the rest of the world. She stopped and slid the photograph of Emma behind the plexiglass of the bulletin board, knowing which spots were bare without looking. She tripped over Nick as she entered the station. For an instant she feared he had killed himself right there. Then he rolled himself up with a groan. “Sorry Nick,” she whispered, “Want a cot to crash on?”
He grabbed her wrist. “Is it done?” he hissed.
“It’s done.”
He let her go. “I’m going home.”
“Do you want me to walk you there? It’s very dark.”
“Is it? It doesn’t matter. I know the way.” He swayed as he rose to his feet and Ruth held out an arm to steady him. He turned toward her and she could smell the sour despair on his breath as he spoke. “Eighteen years ago, there wasn’t a five foot stretch of darkness between here and my house. The traffic was bumper to bumper because it was a Friday. Even the sidewalk was crowded with people. I took my wife to the hospital on the subway because I didn’t think we’d make it in time if I drove. It was so hot, just like now. I thought Sarah would faint, but she made it to the emergency room. And the air conditioning slapped into us and the nurses scurrying back and forth— so many people. But they were just background noise.” His voice broke and he gripped Ruth’s arm. “The whole world was just background noise. There was just Sarah and me. And then, in a few hours, just Sarah and Emma and me. Alone in that electric, noisy world. And that was all right. It was all right. I know I’m supposed to say that I miss them. All those other people. That I’m sorry they died and left this stillness that covers everything. But I never missed them. I never had time to. After Sarah turned, I didn’t even notice the rest of the world. The ones that were left were just in the way. Just taking medicine that I thought might help my wife and daughter. Just eating food I needed for them or burning fuel that could keep them warm. I killed my neighbors after they turned. And I burned their furniture, and all the files in their desks. Birth certificates, taxes, photo albums. Didn’t matter. Hoarded their food for us, turned away healthy people who could have used it. I didn’t care. There was only us.”
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Ruth.
“So you know what Emma meant. So she’s not just a spent bullet in the world when I’m not here to remember her. When the house burns down and every scrap of her is gone, someone should remember. I can’t even make a stone marker for her. But you’ll remember. That’s why you keep the photographs, right? Because you think you’ll forget. Because you think you’ve already forgotten what your son looked like. But you didn’t. Not really. You know how much every one of them meant. Better than I do. You know how much people really loved them. You gave Emma the only thing that I couldn’t. You gave all of them what they needed most, whatever that crazy priest thinks. He says I’ll go to hell for turning to you. He thinks that scares me. The truth is, if that’s the price it costs to give Emma and Sarah some peace, then I accept it.”
“I’ll get there before you will,” mumbled Ruth.
“Then at least I’ll have a friend,” said Nick. “Goodbye, Ruth.” He let her go and pushed open the heavy glass door.
“Goodbye, Nick,” she answered. He was a shadow against the warm night. She thought she saw him raise a hand to her, and then he was gone, part of the stillness of the dead city. At last she turned and locked herself in the tiny reception area of the police station. She plugged the music player into her tiny solar charger, unbelted the heavy gun and lay down fully clothed on the cot, heartsick.
Chapter 14
The cord glowed red against Ruth’s hand. Like the blood of martyrs. More real than anything around it, more real than the boy or Ruth or the Congregation at Father Preston’s back. She draped it over her foul trophy board. He’d have to give a sermon on the pride of the wicked. That would encourage his reluctant flock to do something about it.
Ruth murmured something to the boy.
He was cheerful now that he’d won. The moment of triumph had been years in the making and it was all the sweeter when it finally arrived. Now she would see that he had been right the whole time. She’d hand over the hospital Afflicted and then leave. Not that it mattered, they’d be sloughing off this foul city as soon as Juliana passed anyway. He didn’t much care where Ruth went, as long as it was away. He smiled and said, “That’s not necessary Ruth. I assure you we’ll take good care of him. We can get him safely out of his bindings—” The words shriveled in his mouth as Ruth raised the gun in front of her. Father Preston didn’t even have time to understand what was happening. The boy was dead, his head dark with blood, the silver cart rolling farther from them.
A woman behind the priest screamed. He just stared at Ruth. He had expected her to give in. It wasn’t supposed to end that way. She had rules, damn her. Even she had limits. He’d counted on it,
driven her to them on purpose. A chunk of asphalt flew past him and hit Ruth’s hip with a thunk. He didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Another rock sailed past and hit her in the back and she turned to flee. A crawling burn formed in his gut as she disappeared. It mushroomed into fury and finally broke his paralysis. He turned around. Most of his Congregation had run off, chasing Ruth down the street. But the new convert, Gray, was watching him.
“She’ll kill the rest,” Gray hissed, “Our community can hardly thrive without the Zom— I mean, the Afflicted, Father. We have to stop her before she takes more innocent lives.”
It had been a mistake to tell her about Juliana. He was convinced her friendship was the only thing that restrained Ruth. But Juliana had pushed him out, left him with no alternative. He couldn’t let the hospital fall into Ruth’s hands. It was his calling to minister to the people left in the city, all of them, the sick and the well. He had been released, recalled from madness to perform this holy work.
He knew better than Ruth or Juliana what the Afflicted experienced. He knew the good the morning readings must do. Locked in their insanity, the Afflicted could not ask for guidance, but they would remember it when at last they were cured. He had. He remembered everything. How a word or act of kindness, though it fell upon a man blind and deaf with rage, was now the sweetest medicine for his spirit, something he looked back upon with all the relief it ought to have created at the time. And the guilt of his own violent actions drove him to amend, to repair, to strive to forgive. He could not abandon his Afflicted brethren to someone who didn’t understand, who had no faith in a coming cure. He couldn’t let Ruth have them. Anything, even violence, was preferable to that.
“Father?” whined Gray, “have you forgotten your flock?”
Father Preston shook himself out of his dark thoughts. “We must get to the hospital first. Juliana won’t be so willing to have Ruth stay there once we tell her what has happened here. Don’t worry, Brother Gray, the Afflicted will know salvation yet.” He smiled and the man ducked his head in agreement. “See how many of our people you can round up,” Father Preston continued, “I will go have a talk with Juliana. In the meantime—” he glanced at the shopping cart, “bury the boy. And destroy this place of evil. Salt the earth beneath her. I don’t want Ruth to have anywhere to come back to when I’m finished. I want her out of this city for good.”
Gray’s face split into a slow smile and Father Preston felt a slick worm of doubt twist in his gut. He ignored it and began walking toward the hospital, rehearsing the story he would tell Juliana.
Chapter 8
Nella stood on the edge of the station platform. Frank held a hand up to her. She took a deep breath and hopped down with his help.
“Only four stops, okay? Then it’s just a few streets over.” He smiled and handed her the lantern. She flipped it on as they reached the steep hill that plunged out of the daylight and into the cool, damp throat of the city. She tried to concentrate on just her feet, watching one foot settle after another. She knew her fear of the dark had been irrational once, that she would have treated a patient with the same phobia by doing exactly what she was doing now. Exposure therapy. But it wasn’t irrational any more. It was a survival instinct, some sense that had lasted through modern life until it became useful again. She didn’t know that she wanted to treat it. She tried not to hear the scuttling noises of rats around them. Frank seemed completely at ease.
“Aren’t you nervous?” she whispered.
“Not really. It’s an empty tunnel. But I can understand why you are.”
“Are you sure it’s empty?”
“What would be down here? There’s no food for wild animals— well maybe at the stations, but I doubt it. Nobody has been here in eight years. There’s no litter or trash for them.”
Nella tried to let the thought comfort her. “What do you think is down here?” Frank asked a moment later. Nella blushed.
“I don’t know. I guess maybe I expected Infected or some sort of underworld gang.”
“I doubt there’re any Infected left. What would they eat? I kind of felt like this whole mission was more of a goodwill thing from the governor, not really a rescue operation. I doubt we’ll find more than an odd handful of Infected left in the whole world. And if we hadn’t been through all that empty space yesterday, I might believe a gang would use the subway, but as it is, why lurk around down here when all those vacant buildings are just sitting, still full even, out there? There’s no one down here but us. We’ll be okay, but we can take it slowly. Do you want to get out at the next station and get a breather?”
Nella shook her head. “It’s only four stops. Let’s get it over with.”
It was colder than Nella remembered a subway being. No lights at the station, no train exhaust, no hot water pipes overhead. She could hear the wind blowing down the staircases before they reached each station, like listening to the emptiness of a long-dead seashell, but the summer air didn’t reach the track. It was a long time to be in dread and even Nella’s adrenaline wore off long before the third station. The tunnels had been empty, an occasional rodent nest or some long-discarded trash, but nothing new. No food wrappers or empty cans, no water bottles or used up batteries. Nothing to show the tunnels had been used at all since the Plague.
Until they reached the third station.
Frank tripped over a loose sand bag, and Nella caught him before he could slam into the cement floor. She lifted the lantern higher to look around them. The tunnel should have opened into the smooth dome of the station, but the tunnel had been blocked with sandbags and trash barrels stacked above.
“Do you think it was to protect the city from the Infected?” asked Frank.
“I don’t know. Did they really think they could quarantine the city? It had already spread through the population before people started showing symptoms. What good would a barricade do?”
“We have a barricade.”
Nella nodded. “Yeah, we do. But we also have people manning it to let refugees in. It wasn’t meant to keep everyone out, just to keep the Infected from overrunning us.”
Frank shrugged and grinned. “Hello?” he yelled. There was a shuffling around them, but it was too slight to be human. “We’ve brought help! A cure. A chance to trade.”
Nella winced at his lack of caution, but no one answered anyway.
“Well, it was worth a shot,” sighed Frank. He started tugging on the debris blocking the tunnel, testing it for weakness.
“I don’t know if you should announce what we have to the first stranger we meet. They may not all be friendly.”
“I know you’re probably right, but I’ve been thinking about what we’ve come all this way to do. The farther we go without seeing anyone, the more I think that when we do find someone, we might be the very first person they’ve seen since the Plague. I was hoping— am hoping— that we’ll find a working government here. A massive crowd of healthy, sane people. That someone is putting the world back together.”
Nella placed the lantern carefully on the ground and began pushing on the trashcans near the top of the tunnel. “If that was happening, wouldn’t we have heard about it? Wouldn’t there be missions sent to look for people? For us?”
“That’s what I mean. In the back of my head, I guess I just assumed that somebody out there knew what was going on. That somewhere, the rule of law meant something, that civilization was creeping back from the edge. Even after all this time. I expected— I don’t know, maybe not rescue, but some kind of organization or something to come along. But now— Nella, whatever is behind this wall, it isn’t going to be like home. I know that. It probably seems pretty stupid to walk in waving a white flag and announcing ourselves. But what if we’re it? Maybe you and I are the very first people to reach out to help anyone outside their tiny bands of survivors? What if everyone out here is waiting for us? If we want to rebuild a modern society, we have to act like we’re already part of one. We have to be confident, pretend that we
have so much extra that the thought of being robbed or attacked never occurred to us. Then the people we meet will trust us. They’ll think we have an army behind us, a government. That someone, somewhere, cares if we disappear or are harmed. It’ll make good people feel more secure and bad people hesitate. That’s what I was thinking anyway.”
Nella grunted and shoved against the trashcan, moving it a few more inches. “Whatever happened to sailing away to a deserted tropical island?” she asked with a half smile.
Frank leaned into the same trashcan. “Not quite ready to retire yet. Besides, I’m starting to get a little lonely as it is, aren’t you?”
Nella stopped pushing and turned to her husband. She put a warm hand on his cheek and smiled when he looked at her. “We’ll find someone Frank. There were hundreds of survivors around us. It’s a big world. Bigger than it’s been in a few centuries. We can’t be the only ones. We’ll find them.”
He hugged her before turning back to the barrier. He pushed the trashcan the rest of the way through and it popped into the farther room with a hollow clang. Nella held up the lantern and Frank peered in.
“Well, I don’t think we’re going to find them here, at any rate.” He let Nella take his place at the opening. She squinted trying to make anything out. The lantern fell on a gleaming red canister that lay on its side on the tracks.
“Is that an extinguisher?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Frank, pushing a sandbag out of the way to make more room, “but there’re no lights and no people. If it were really important to protect this tunnel, you’d think they’d have left a guard.”
They made a hole large enough to climb through. Frank slid through first, his feet puffing clouds of gray dust up when he landed on the other side. Nella handed him the lantern and climbed through. Everything was covered with thick colorless clumps of ash. Frank was looking at a tangle of shapes on the station platform. They looked as if they had been blanketed with dirty snow.
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