Father Preston was furious. He recognized the bandage covering the Infected’s missing eye. This was Ruth’s work. She let them go. She’s used them against me. Against ME. How dare she? I’ll kill that bitch myself! His rage gave him as much strength as the Infected. He beat it down, stomping it to the ground. It flailed and twisted against the smoking grass, its hair and clothing catching almost immediately. Father Preston backed away, but it rose up and lurched toward him, a flaming pillar of teeth and claws and hate. Gray emerged from the fog, screaming at everyone to stop, not to harm the merchandise. Father Preston sneered at him and snatched the ax from his hand. One hearty swing and the momentum of the crazed Infected were all it took. It fell down, headless, starting small grass fires. Father Preston clutched the ax and shoved Gray aside. He plowed through small knots of people locked in death struggles and up the concrete steps of the hospital. He threw open the front door.
It was very quiet inside. The foyer was dark, windows still untouched by the rising sun. He crept down the hallway. The cells gaped open, all empty. It felt like he was walking backward in time, for a moment his mind overlaid the monastery dormitory. As if he were still watching his brothers succumb to madness, as if he were still sick. Maybe he’d never really recovered.
The kitchen too, was empty. He opened the pantry door, expecting them to be hiding there, with their spoils. He was dumbfounded to find it barren. He’d never bothered to look when he was living there. There had always been enough. Juliana had always fed them all without blinking. He’d just assumed there was always more. Dust lay on most of the shelves. She’d been struggling for a while then. For a swift second, the thought of Gray burning the greenhouses and ripping up the garden, bubbled up inside him, enraged him. But it was shoved aside by the idea that Juliana had known the hospital was failing. She’d known the Afflicted wouldn’t survive the winter; he had thought she was bluffing. She’d never have to face the consequences, though. She could play the saint and would be long dead by the time the suffering started.
That’s why she’d chosen Ruth. That’s why she wouldn’t give the Afflicted to him. It would have exposed her even more than her speech. Everyone would know that she had failed, that it wasn’t just a tactic. He felt a sour sickness begin in his gut. All this time he’d protected her. All this time they could have taken the Afflicted away. Moved south and started over. And he’d waited because he didn’t want to disturb a dying woman. He’d been weak. He’d let sympathy get in the way of duty. Now the Afflicted and his loyal flock would slaughter each other to pay for his wavering. He couldn’t let Ruth get away with it. She’d put Juliana up to it, he was sure. She’d been the puppetmaster the whole time. She wouldn’t leave this building without paying, in blood, drop by drop, for all the agony she’d caused him.
He stalked back down to the entryway, no longer hearing the carnage outside, no longer seeing the bodies of his brother monks in each empty cell.
“I’m still here Ruth,” he roared, “You used your charges against me! You thought you’d trick me. Run me off, kill me. But I’m still here. And I’m coming for you, Juliana or no.” He brandished the ax and began pounding up the stairs, bouncing a little with each step to create a more intimidating stomp. There was a scrabbling sound, like a hundred large rats scraping a wall at once.
Father Preston stopped, peering up at the gloomy attic. A handful of figures stood at the top of the stairs, breathing heavy, heads turned toward him. Father Preston had time to back down one step before the Infected reached him. He fell, his head hitting the stairs even as the heat of their breath made him scream in fear. A jaw snapped shut on his outstretched leg. He realized he had wet his pants as the ax flew away behind him and needles of pain dug into his soft belly. His head was lifted by squeezing hands and then dropped again as one of the Infected shoved another back. His head hit the tiled floor again, and this time he blacked out. He didn’t even have time to call upon his God for help.
Chapter 30
“I’m no sharpshooter Frank,” said Nella with a sigh. They stood on the edge of the field, trying to peer into the fog that was rising gradually in thick strands as the sun arced higher above the horizon.
“Maybe they’re distracted enough that we can just stab them with the darts. I mean, listen to that.”
The shrieks and grunts floating through the field overwhelmed almost everything else. Nella glanced at her husband.
“It takes about ten minutes to work, remember?”
Frank shook his head. “If we wait for the fog to burn off, everyone might be dead. There’s no other way. How many darts do we have?”
Bernard hovered anxiously nearby, his good hand holding the dog. Nella pulled two large boxes from the pack. “Well, they were manufactured with the idea of encountering massive hordes. I think each case has five hundred darts, but we only have two cases with us.”
Frank looked over his shoulder at Bernard. “There’s no way they were able to take care of a thousand Infected. He said it was just him and his friend.” He sighed and rubbed his head. “There’s no way we’re going to be able to tell who’s Infected. And if we leave the Immunes awake, they’ll just continue killing the others to be safe. We’ll have to dart every person. That way no one will be able to kill someone while they are vulnerable and sleeping.”
“And if they turn on us?”
“Bernard, if we run straight from this point we’ll hit the hospital?”
Bernard nodded.
“And your friends will let us in if we need help?”
Bernard hesitated. He untied the sling Ruth had made him and handed it to Frank. Frank looked at it for a moment and nodded.
“Okay, you stay here. Be ready to run when we get back, if your friends are in bad shape, we’ll need help,” Frank turned to Nella. “Don’t leave me in there,” he said quietly, “I know you’ll be all right, you’ve taken care of yourself a long time before I came around. But I don’t know if I’m ready to see— to see us in a large group.”
Nella brushed her thumb over the raised scar in the palm of his hand. “They are no more to blame than you were, and in a few days, they are going to feel as terribly as you have. They’ll need to know there are others like them in the world.”
He scanned the field, his face drawn with worry. She pressed several cool plastic darts into his hand. “I’ll be right here, the whole time,” she said when he looked back at her. “Aim for a limb, you’ll be more likely to hit a vein. Don’t pull the dart out, it takes a few seconds to release the full dose.”
He pocketed a handful of darts and grabbed more from the box. Nella stuffed her own pockets as well. “We’ll have to stay low until the fog clears,” she said, “We can see underneath it that way, and we’ll be less likely to run into someone’s weapon or teeth.” She put a handful of darts in Bernard’s hand too. “Just in case anyone wanders out. But don’t try to fight them. Just hide. It takes a few minutes, not like the movies used to show.” Bernard nodded.
She knelt next to Frank. “Ready?”
He took a deep breath and then nodded. Crouching, they ran forward into the fog. The grass swished around them, the sweet smell of it crushed underfoot and mixed with wood smoke from a nearby campfire. The thuds and groans of people fighting drew closer and Nella dragged Frank toward an opening in the grass. She pulled a dart from her pocket and held it point out in her fist. A man knelt over another form, the butt end of a welding torch descending onto the unconscious face of his opponent. He saw Nella and Frank as the mist evaporated between them and hesitated.
“I— I didn’t mean to, what could I do? He jumped me. Would’ve eaten me or the Father. All of us I guess. I know we’re supposed to forgive them, that we need them but—” he continued to babble as Nella stood up and put a calming hand on his arm. Frank stabbed the dart into the other man’s arm.
“What’s that?” asked the man with the torch.
“We’re here to help,” said Nella, “Just medicine.” She poked her
dart into the back of his neck. He reeled back trying to reach it, his eyes wide and his mouth opened in a surprised “o.” “Leave it there,” said Nella in a soothing voice, “When you wake up it’ll all be over. All of it, you are safe now.”
The man set the unlit torch on the grass. “You from the government?”
Nella could feel Frank staring at her, but didn’t dare return the glance. “That’s right,” she said.
“Well, what— what should I do now?”
“Just take a seat, let the medicine work. We’ll explain everything when you wake up.”
The man sat down in the grass next to the Infected. Nella gave him a reassuring pat on the arm, then grabbed Frank’s hand and pulled him toward the next screaming knot of people.
“They aren’t all going to be that easy,” said Frank.
“No. He just wanted to be told what to do. Wanted someone in charge again. Maybe most of them do, but someone’s going to fight us before we finish.”
But the next group of five was too locked in grappling to even realize they’d been injected. Nella couldn’t even tell which were the Infected. Maybe they all were.
They reached the campfire and the fog burned away only to be replaced by thick, greasy smoke. A burning body lay in the grass, spreading the fire in a large patch. Naked steel beams stuck out of the earth to either side of the fire and a few dozen people were broken into pairs battling or moaning as they crawled along the grass or totally still and dangerously close to the flame.
“If they are sedated and the fire keeps spreading—” began Frank.
Nella nodded. “We have to stop the grass fire first.” She looked around. “None of these people are going to help us.” She began dragging a wounded woman away from the flames, stopping to inject her with the Cure and each of the other bodies she passed, not even checking to see whether they were alive.
Frank spotted a few large pots sitting on the edge of the bonfire and an old, dirty cooler beside it. He tossed the lid of the cooler aside and found it full of filthy water. He picked it up and heaved it over the flaming body and the blackening grass that surrounded it. The water sizzled and put out about half of the flames. Frank ran back to the fire and opened one of the pots, burning his hand. A thick sludge of oatmeal. He looked around him but there was nothing to help him pull it out of the fire. He slid out of his shirt and bunched it between his hands. He picked up the pot with the flimsy t-shirt and walked quickly to the remnants of the fire. Dumping the oatmeal, he threw the pot aside as it burned through the shirt. The old string of bite marks on his arm shone an angry red in the heat and the scars on his face and chest darkened. He stomped out the last few patches of grass fire.
Nella looked up and saw a man racing toward Frank. “Look out!” she cried, but it was too late. The man threw himself onto Frank’s back, making him stumble sideways. Nella dropped the man she was dragging and sprinted toward them. The man had his hands around Frank’s throat.
“That’s right,” he was saying, “Don’t want to damage you, just go to sleep.”
Frank tried to pull the hands away but he was off balance and panicked. Disoriented, he kept walking, trying to find something to shake the man off. They disappeared into the far edge of the fog.
“Frank!” Nella cried, still running after them. They couldn’t have gone far, but she didn’t see them. “He’s not Infected!” she yelled. “Let him go, he won’t hurt you, he’s not Infected!” She turned around straining her eyes to see into the fog around her. She wasn’t sure which way the campfire was or which way Frank had gone. She didn’t have time to guess so she just began running in one direction. “Frank!” she called, but there was no answer. Someone reached out and grabbed her. She stabbed the hand with a dart without stopping. It flinched and drew back into the gray blank. She heard a dog barking and tried to head for it, thinking it must be Bernard.
Nella almost smacked into a tall steel beam before she saw it. It was like the others but this one had a bundle drooping from its cross section. She kept running, only registering the foul smell as she passed underneath the dark bundle. The fog cleared again near a smaller campfire. She found Bernard’s dog jumping around it, frenzied and growling at the dark rear lights of a police car. Screams came from inside and she could hear thumping and grunts nearby. She pulled a bunch of darts from her pocket and ran up to the car. Frank was lying stretched out beside it. The man who had grabbed him was swinging his fist at Bernard. Nella darted forward and grabbed his arm. The man was caught off guard and flailed but wasn’t able to pull free. She aimed carefully and jabbed the dart’s slim needle into the bulging vein at his elbow and let go before he could react. He turned toward her just as Bernard’s fist came down on his cheek. He fell next to Frank and Bernard straddled him to hold him down.
Nella ignored them and hovered over Frank. He was breathing. In a few seconds he opened his eyes.
“Are you okay?” Nella asked
He grimaced. “Headache. Otherwise I’m fine.”
“Take a few deep breaths to get rid of the headache,” she said, helping him sit up.
Bernard was struggling with the man,while the dog circled and barked. Nella helped hold him until the drug kicked in and he slowed down and then stopped.
“He thought I was Infected. He wanted to tie me to the cart with the others,” rasped Frank through his sore throat.
Nella stood up. “The others?” she asked and approached the front of the car. It wasn’t there. Instead the yoked Infected tried desperately to turn themselves toward her. She injected them, but she could see they were far too thin. They’d die before the sedative wore off. There were more inside the car.
“Help us!” cried a young man, threading his fingers through the wire cage.
“You aren’t Infected? Are you with this Father Preston?”
“No, no! We just wanted some food. Ruth sent us to get food from the garden. She said nobody wanted it, that Father Preston was burning it. But they caught us anyway.”
The fog around the car lifted as a breeze swirled around them. Nella was fumbling with the door when the foul odor hit her again.
“What happened here?” gasped Frank. Nella got the door open and people started tumbling out, more than she thought could fit in the small space.
“Where are you from?” snorted an older woman. “Father Preston’s been hanging people up if they did business with Ruth. We thought most of em had taken care of themselves years ago, but he always finds someone. This should put an end to it though,” the woman cackled but the others looked unnerved.
“Why? What did this Ruth do?” asked Frank, but Nella cut him off.
“We don’t have time. Go with Bernard, get out of here. We have lots more to do—”
A loud chorus of howls punctuated by a short, shrill scream erupted a few dozen feet from them.
“Must have reached the hospital,” said the woman, “Look, we’re grateful to be free, but we have to move before anyone finds us.”
Bernard nodded and motioned for the others to follow. Nella touched the dark ring around Frank’s neck. “Go with him, you’re hurt.”
Frank shook his head. “No way. That sounded like too many, even for you, Nella. We’ll go together.”
The fog was clearing quickly and a line of beams spread out to either side. “My God. What did this Ruth woman do to cause all this?” asked Nella, “What if we’re helping the wrong people?”
Frank shook his head. “We’re curing people that have been waiting all this time. How can that be wrong? I don’t care who this Ruth is or Father Preston. The Infected aren’t meant to be used this way.” He pulled the helmet from the yoked Infected who were now sleeping in their harnesses. Nella helped him untie the straps and lift the yoke away from their sitting forms. Then they turned toward the large building that was gradually solidifying through the fog against the warm sun.
Chapter 31
The dresser wiggled again. Juliana pressed herself against the headboard
of the bed. Ruth stood in front of the dresser, debating whether to press it back to the wall or keep silent. Whoever was out there wasn’t friendly. If it was Father Preston’s people they wouldn’t be stopped by a dresser. But an Infected might give up. She slid around the edge of the dresser and peered through the crack in the door, careful to stay in the corner’s shadow. She couldn’t make much out, just a lot of movement. It seemed as though there were several people outside, all struggling with each other, none of them realizing she and Juliana were inside the room. She crept over to the window, thankful again to be on the third floor. She eased it open and looked out. The sun was hitting the back of the building now, dispersing most of the fog.
“How are you feeling today?” she whispered to Juliana. Juliana crawled carefully over the bed toward her.
“You want to go out that way?”
Ruth shrugged. She didn’t see an obvious way down. “Maybe we can wait them out.”
“We’re going to die here aren’t we?”
Ruth sagged onto the bed. There was a bang on the wall outside the room. “I’m sorry,” she said, “It was a shitty plan to begin with. I thought I’d have time to fix it. I thought I’d get us out.”
Juliana hugged her. “It’s okay. The Afflicted will escape, some of them. I just wanted to give them a chance. The fog will help them get away. I hope someone else finds them and helps them.”
Ruth began to cry and she shook her head. “No Juliana, there’s nobody else out there in the world like you. Maybe there’s nobody else out there at all. But they won’t have to suffer for too long.”
“You can’t think that way. There’s a reason we’re still here. All of us. Maybe we don’t get to see the happy ending, maybe we’re just the midpoint of the story, the what did you call it? The krìsis. But the story goes on after it passes us by. The happy ending is out there. It must be.”
Krisis (After the Cure Book 3) Page 23