The System (Virulent Book 2)

by Shelbi Wescott

  “Think what you want,” she said after a moment, “but it’s not like that. We just want you well. When you’re well, attend as many meetings as you want.”

  Ethan didn’t have the energy or the interest to push the issue further.

  Without warning, his door burst open again and Teddy darted up to the side of Ethan’s bed, Darla following on his heels.

  “Hey there, kiddo,” Darla said to Ethan as she scooped Teddy up and walked over to Ethan’s side. She crouched down, her rambunctious five-year-old on her knee, and held out her hand. Ethan grabbed it and gave it a squeeze. “The doc’s on her way up. I know you need to rest and relax without entertaining a whole crowd, but…”

  “It’s like I’m a stranger in my own house,” he said to her.

  Darla smiled a reply. “I guess it’s not really your house anymore.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  Teddy slipped away to a corner of Ethan’s room that housed a used collection of Star Wars figures. Ethan’s love for Luke Skywalker started when he was in late elementary school. His father introduced him to the otherworldly tales. While he had outgrown playing with the action figures and racing around his house with his plastic light saber, he had never outgrown the way the stories made him feel—the themes carried him year after year. There were clear battle lines between good and evil and the corruption of power; Ethan liked knowing who to root for.

  “Did you ask to play with those things, Teddy?” Darla chastised in her mom-voice without taking her eyes off of Ethan.

  Teddy kept playing with the figures, bending a miniature light saber around inside Obi Wan Kenobi’s hand.

  “Who’s this?” Teddy asked and held the guy up for Ethan to see.

  Ethan smiled. “I’ll tell you all about those, little man. Later. Okay?”

  Teddy, satisfied, spun back to the toys, ignoring his mother’s request for permission.

  “So,” Darla continued. “You feeling okay?”

  “No,” Ethan responded without hesitation. “I’ve got pain where I don’t have a body. And pain everywhere else too.”

  “Like I said, the doctor is on her way up…she’ll help.”

  “She’s helped plenty, yes,” Ethan replied and he couldn’t help tipping his hand, laying his resentment bare.

  Darla turned to Ainsley and then to Teddy who, while leaning on Ethan’s shelf, had knocked it down off of the brackets with a crash. With a sigh, Darla hung her head.

  “I’ve got him,” Ainsley volunteered and she swung Teddy off the ground; he was still clutching a Yoda and a miniature Millennium Falcon as she carted him out of the room with promises of a treat.

  With the door closed, Darla turned her head back to Ethan and her eyes narrowed.

  “You do realize that without the doctor you would’ve died. Right?”

  Ethan shrugged. He looked away.

  “No,” Darla said and she stood up. She leaned down over Ethan and poked her finger into his bare sternum, and he flinched. “No. No way.”

  “What?” Ethan whined and he tried to pull away from the pressure on his chest, but Darla had him pinned.

  “There’s no room for self-pity. You hear me?” He lifted her finger off his chest and when he didn’t answer right away, she poked him again and Ethan let out a yelp. “You’re alive, Ethan. That’s worth it. You can’t deny that.”

  “Stop!” Ethan said and he brought his hand up and tried to grab her wrist to prevent any more finger-poking, but she swatted his hand away. She was so much faster than him. “I lost my leg, Darla.”

  “Are we doing this? Are we making lists of the things we’ve lost?” She stood tall and crossed her arms over her chest.

  He conceded. It should have been the argument to end all arguments.

  “I’m in pain,” he said after a long moment.

  “I know.”

  “I just don’t want to be in pain anymore.”

  “Give it time.”

  “Time,” Ethan mumbled. “I guess we have all the time in the world now. Got nowhere I need to be, right?”

  Doctor Krause entered without knocking. She smiled at Ethan and Darla, but it looked forced, like she had practiced it in a mirror; she flashed her teeth, but even that seemed robotic, inhuman. Ethan looked at her and assessed her; she looked like how he had always pictured doctors—thin, tired. She gave Darla a pat on the back and Darla bristled at the touch.

  “It’s good to see you awake,” Doctor Krause said to Ethan. “Ainsley told me your fever is down. You feeling a bit more aware?”

  Ethan nodded. “I suppose.”

  “Joey was able to hit a new pharmacy yesterday…we’re well-stocked with pain killers. When you’re better, you should thank him. It’s no easy task to fulfill my shopping list, on foot, with the state of the world out there.”

  “Yeah.” Ethan cleared his throat. “I’ll be sure to do that.” Darla shot him a warning look. He rolled his eyes.

  Doctor Krause hadn’t seemed to hear his sarcasm, she continued blithely on. “But I do want to be cognizant of building up a tolerance. If we can’t adequately meet your demand for pain medication with our supply, we could get into scary, painful territory.”

  Ethan waved his hand. “Whatever. I’m not the type of guy who needs to know what you’re doing. Just give me the meds.”

  Darla threw her hands up and sighed. “Come on, Ethan.” She turned to Doctor Krause, “I’m sorry, Gloria.”

  “Please,” Doctor Krause replied. “He’s hardly the rudest patient I’ve encountered. And amputation is emotionally and physically draining.”

  “Where’s my leg?” Ethan asked, shooting a look at Darla. She clamped her mouth shut.

  “I’m sorry?” Doctor Krause moved toward Ethan and sat down on the edge of his bed—it was an action that required familiarity, and he moved his hand away from her side, resting it across his belly, watching her with a sideways glance.

  “Where is my leg now?” Ethan asked again.

  Doctor Krause still looked confused. She looked to Darla and then back to Ethan, concerned. “I don’t think I underst—”

  “We just left everything over at the other house,” Darla answered for her. She had understood immediately what Ethan wanted to know.

  “Which house?” Ethan turned his gaze to Darla.

  “I don’t know…three houses down…right side. Brown house…”

  The DiCarlo house. He knew it. Sophie and Ryan. Young couple with kids in elementary school. Ethan wasn’t ashamed to admit, even now, that he enjoyed Sophie DiCarlo’s little hot pink workout outfit that she donned while jogging the neighborhood after the kids caught the bus. It wasn’t an outfit per se: just tight, buttocks showcasing pants with a matching sports bra. Anna caught him ogling once and punched him in the arm hard enough to leave a bruise; but it was worth it, he thought then, to imprint Sophie’s tanned, thin jogging legs into his memory.

  “Where?”

  “The tan—”

  “No,” Ethan snapped. “I know which house. Where inside the house?”

  Darla drew in a long breath. So Doctor Krause took over. “The open area in the front had the most light at midday. You don’t remember anything?”

  He shook his head. And closed his eyes.

  “We performed your surgery in the front room. The one with the floor to ceiling windows,” the doctor added.

  His disembodied leg was discarded in Sophie DiCarlo’s living room.

  Ethan’s emotions flashed between anger and amusement.

  Sitting up, Ethan tugged the blanket off of him again. Even though Ainsley had drawn it back over his leg with efficient calmness, he really wanted to see it again. Right above his knee, there was nothing. His brain thought of toes and an ankle that wasn’t there and made an attempt to connect to the body parts—the result was dizzying.

  His right leg, now left to rot in a once-pined-for dead woman’s house, wasn’t just an appe
ndage. It was a road map of childhood battles, sports injuries, drunken dares. There was the scar a few inches long on his calf from a playground accident when he was five; and a patch of hair that never grew back the same way after a group of college friends dared him to try out a home waxing kit; a webbed toe, a badge of honor as well as a junior high embarrassment; a tiny birth mark on his ankle.

  Gone. All those characteristics, those ties to memory and individuality, were gone. His housemates seemed so concerned for his pain level, his fever, and his risk of infection. Ethan just wanted to see his leg again—to acknowledge its absence in a tangible way—but he would be forever at the mercy of everyone else until he was healthier.

  Ethan registered Darla and Doctor Krause’s concern.

  Darla’s warnings about wallowing in self-pity rang in his ears. She was right, of course; he wanted nothing more than to make them feel even half of what he was feeling. Maybe for a moment it would help. But only for a moment.

  He cleared his throat and let his body drop back onto his pillows. “Can we talk drugs again? I need something for the pain.”

  “We can still administer morphine. It will help with the phantom pains as well,” Doctor Krause replied. She was carrying the morphine injections with her and with Ethan’s approval she administered a dose. “Joey located lollipops too. Fetanyl lollipops. You’ll like them,” she said with a smile.

  “Is there any hope for me to walk again?”

  Doctor Krause locked eyes with Ethan and he struggled not to break her gaze. “Without access to prosthetics? I don’t know. We don’t know what the world is going to look like tomorrow, let alone in a few months. Years. It’s possible.”

  “Be honest.”

  With a comforting hand on his arm, Doctor Krause tried to smile, but it came across as pained. “It’s safe to say that your energy should be spent elsewhere. Focus on rebuilding your health, remaining free of infection, positive healing. Positivity goes a long way in recovery.”

  “You sound very doctorly,” he scoffed. The morphine was kicking in; a flood of warmth and contentment rushed across his body. He even smiled at Doctor Krause and was no longer bothered by her mass of unruly hair, her unnaturally white teeth, and the tiny mole on her chin.

  Without reply, she nodded to Darla and left the room; he was slipping into chemically-induced bliss, and her job was done.

  “Feeling okay, then?” Darla asked. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. When she dropped her hands to her sides, her eyes were red, bloodshot. “So, you really don’t remember much heading up to the surgery?”

  He shook his head sleepily.

  “Look, there’s something you need to remember about the doctor. And Ainsley. Something you should keep in mind.” Ethan tried to appear alert. Darla continued, “They didn’t ask for this. They weren’t given a choice.”

  “The doctor?” Ethan was confused. Nobody asked for any of this.

  “Spencer forced her to take the vaccine at gunpoint. She told him they would rather die on Day Six than subject themselves to the injections. I’ll tell you the story when you’re better, okay. But you should know…unwilling to come here is putting it lightly.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Ethan asked her, all his anger seeping away, the thoughts of his abandoned leg no longer filling him with dread. The numbness was great; he floated—he looked at Darla’s dark hair, her intense eyes. He felt compelled to tell her she was beautiful.

  “So you’ll know,” Darla replied.

  “Know what?”

  “How much saving you has cost her.”

  And with that, Darla left the room, shutting the door with a deliberate slam behind her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The library was empty. Musty and dark and completely empty.

  Grant and Lucy wandered the small square building, peering under tables and toppling over boxes in the storage area. They examined each and every corner, but the blonde woman had vanished. There wasn’t a back door and there were limited hiding spots. It was like she simply walked into the library and disappeared into thin air. Frank barked for them from the outside steps.

  “I don’t get it,” Grant said and he pulled himself up onto the library’s front counter. Plastic stands displayed new releases, but the books were outdated and dusty. Lucy pulled out a drawer from the card catalogue and thumbed through the aged pieces of paper corresponding with a book in the library.

  Lucy paused and let her hand drop. She turned to Grant. “Let the dog in,” she instructed.

  Grant nodded, understanding, and hopped down—he flung the library door open and Frank tore into the room. At first the dog seemed confused, running to Lucy and then to Grant, sniffing and jumping. Then he ran to the back of the library and barked twice at a long bookshelf; Frank pawed at the books and whined, his tail wagging.

  “You think there’s something back there?” Lucy asked.

  “Like a hidden room? No. There’s nothing to the side of this building. If there was a room back there, it would have to be small.”

  “She wasn’t a giant,” Lucy replied and she motioned for Grant to raise his gun. He drew the gun and they walked toward Frank and his bookcase-of-interest. When they reached it, they removed some books and pushed against the back of the bookshelf, but it was solid wood. They knocked. Unsurprisingly, nothing knocked back.

  “Maybe it slides?” Grant offered and so they tried pushing the shelf first to the right and then to the left, but still the tall walnut bookcase didn’t budge.

  “Alright, Frank,” Lucy said, bending down to the dog. “Where’d she go, boy?”

  Frank barked a reply.

  “Lucy—” Grant said in a soft voice. She recognized that tone and her heart sped up in anticipation. Grant leaned into the bookshelf and put his ear against one of the wooden sides. Then he put his hand flat against the wood. “It’s vibrating.”

  Puzzled, Lucy leaned in and put her own hand next to Grant’s. She felt the movement, the subtle shaking, and then she too could hear a mechanical hum emanating from below them. Stepping back away from the bookcase, Lucy’s eyes grew wide. “Come on,” Lucy said in a whisper. “Back away.”

  But Grant remained rooted to his spot.

  The churning and vibrating grew louder. Then it stopped with a clunk. And without any warning, the middle two bookcases opened outward, springing forward like automatic doors. Lucy looked to Grant, her eyes wide, but he wasn’t looking back at her; his stare was fixated on the blur of movement heading in their direction.

  “Run! Run!” Grant called, but it was too late. Two armed men darted outward into the small library. Raising his hand, Grant fired at them without hesitation. The gun blast was deafening and Lucy covered her ears; but Grant must have missed, because in that split second Lucy felt one of the men grab her around the shoulders and yank her toward the open bookcase.

  She screamed, but the man wasn’t deterred. Lucy opened her mouth wide and attempted to bite the flesh on the backside of his hand, but she couldn’t quite reach and she ended up chomping on air. From a corner in the library, Lucy could hear Grant and the second man scuffling. There was another gunshot—not by Grant’s gun—and then a pause, a silence.

  “No!” she screamed. “No!”

  It all happened so fast. The gunfire. The men. She wailed and kicked harder and screamed at her attacker. The man tossed her through the bookshelves and Lucy’s eyes adjusted to the dimmed box. It was an elevator; and a third man was operating the lift system—his hand poised over a green button, a key around his neck on a long chain plugged into a keyhole. A fourth man, who had also stayed in the elevator, grabbed Lucy and pinned her arms behind her back, then tucked her into his body. He smelled like cinnamon chewing gun and cheap cologne.

  Then everything went black.

  She could feel the fibers of a cloth bag against her cheek and gathered around her neck; blind and afraid, Lucy lashed out more, but the fourth man’s
grip on her tightened.

  “Grant! Grant!” Lucy yelled, but her voice was lost in the cloth.

  From outside of the elevator, there was scuffling, dragging, and—to Lucy’s great relief—Grant’s angry voice calling out.

  “Get your hands off of me!” Grant was yelling.

  They tossed him into the elevator with Lucy, covered his head too, and knocked him to the floor.

  “Are you hurt?” Lucy called, her own voice amplified, her ears ringing.

  “Are you?” Grant replied.

  The man with the key, turned it inside the lock, pushed a button, and the bookshelves slid back into place with barely a squeak. With a lurch, the elevator began to travel downward, foot-by-foot, into the earth. As it lowered, Lucy could smell dirt and damp even through the bag. When the elevator didn’t stop, Lucy realized that they had to be slipping deep underground and she resisted the urge to scream and flail about. The man’s grip on her hadn’t loosened and the tiny box housed them all, but barely.

  Panicky and trapped, Lucy began to breathe rapidly. She felt light-headed and her body felt heavy. She swayed and felt a man to her left and a man to her right; her knees buckled and the man holding her, yanked her upright and leaned her against his own body.

  “Easy now,” the man’s voice said to her.

  “She panicking?” another one asked.

  “Yeah,” the man holding Lucy replied.

  “Keep her calm, dude. Blair said the interrogation will have to be quick.”

  One of the other men chuckled. It was such an out-of-place reaction—his laugh, amidst their terror. “I don’t mind doing favors for that girl, but she knew she was going to be seen someday. It was only a matter of time.”

  “I don’t want to be around when the old man finds out.”

  “He finds out, then we all get the tank. Remember that.”

  “Then she better be quick. I don’t plan on falling on my sword for her. It’d be best for everyone if she just makes the problem disappear.”

  “When was the last time those tanks were used, anyway?” asked the man next to Lucy.