The Cure

by Glenn Cooper

  Jamie started to change lanes just as the trailing car picked up speed again.

  “Here they come,” he said, gritting his teeth.

  He just managed to get all the way over to the left, forcing their pursuers to slide right. They pulled level with them from the right lane.

  Linda saw the driver’s arm cross over his chest with something in his hand, and his rear-seat passenger aiming a gun out his window.

  She yelled, “Get down!” and she opened fire.

  Inside the confines of the Volvo, the rifle shots were deafeningly loud.

  The ejected brass casings ricocheted off the windshield and hit Jamie in the chest. Though his ears were ringing, he thought he heard the high-pitched sound of glass breaking. He heard the girls screaming. He heard a loud, lengthy squeal of rubber on road, and then in his mirror, he saw the attackers’ car careening off the road. There was a flash of yellow in the dark.

  He braked and slowed.

  “Is everyone all right?” he shouted.

  Linda said, “Oh, Christ!” and told him to pull over.

  When the car was in the breakdown lane he and Linda jumped out and opened both rear doors.

  Bill was covering Kyra and Emma with his body. The back of his tan raincoat had a red stain the size of a saucer. Linda roughly pulled him off and laid him on the pavement.

  “Emma, are you okay?” Jamie shouted. She cried as he ran his hands up and down her to see if there was any blood.

  Linda was doing the same with her daughter and screamed, “Jamie, get over to this side. Hurry!”

  He closed Emma’s door and ran around, stepping over Bill’s lifeless body. Blood was gushing from Kyra’s right upper arm around an embedded piece of the window. Even though it was rounded safety glass, the force had driven it deep into muscle.

  It was his turn to be calm.

  “Get me the belt from his raincoat,” he said.

  Linda stooped to retrieve it and passed it to him. He tied it around Kyra’s arm, telling her she was going to be fine. She didn’t understand what he was saying, but his tone seemed to settle her.

  The girls found each other’s hands and held on tightly.

  Jamie turned his attention to Bill, turning him over, checking for a pulse, and pulling up his shirt. There was no exit wound.

  “He’s gone,” Jamie said. “He took the bullet. He saved Kyra, maybe both of them.”

  Linda wasn’t inclined to sing his praises. “What about the glass? Are you going to pull it out?”

  “It’s awfully deep, Linda. I’d rather leave it in place. The bleeding’s slowed.”

  “What should we do?”

  “She needs a hospital. The tourniquet’s okay for a while, but the wound has to be explored. There could be a torn blood vessel. She needs to be sutured.”

  They left Bill by the side of the road and sped off.

  Jamie kept searching for the next exit and when he saw the sign about six miles down the road, it felt like someone was watching over them.

  Exit 70 – Dillingham/Clarkson – Clarkson Regional Hospital

  34

  Mandy killed the battery-lamp, plunging them into darkness. The small, red power indicator on the freezer gave off the only light.

  “My office,” she told Rosenberg. “Now.”

  “Coming.” He fumbled around his camp bed and stubbed his toe on something on the way.

  They closed the door behind them and sat on her sofa. She strained to hear anything.

  “Are you sure you heard glass breaking?” he asked.

  “Pretty sure.”

  “It doesn’t mean that someone’s breaking in.”

  “Maybe, but it could.”

  “Are you scared?” he asked.

  “Can’t you tell?”

  “I’m too scared to tell.”

  *

  From their hiding place behind a low wall, BoShaun watched the flashlight-carrying NK boys pass through the shattered glass door of the research building.

  “Look,” Shaun said. “The light’s gone off up there.”

  “Someone must’ve heard the door get busted,” Boris said.

  “Should we go in?” Shaun asked.

  “Hell no! What for?”

  “To see what goes down?”

  “I’m not going in there. We’ll get our asses killed if we go in there.”

  “Then we should wait here and watch what happens.”

  “I’ll buy that,” Boris said. “As long as your girlfriend keeps quiet.”

  Keisha took offense. “I ain’t his or no one’s girlfriend.”

  Shaun told her that Boris was just pulling her leg, but she was still steamed by the remark, and sat against the wall with her arms angrily folded around her chest.

  *

  K, Easy, and the other NKs ran their flashlights up and down the corridors flanking the reception area.

  “Fuck is this place, man?” one of the young men said.

  “Can’t you read?” Easy said, bathing the sign in light. “Molecular Biology and Virology Laboratories.”

  “All right, genius,” the boy said, “what’s that mean?”

  “Think I know or give a fuck?” Easy replied.

  “What we lookin’ for?” another asked.

  K answered, “Power, for one. With power, we can cook food and generally live like men instead of animals. And maybe they got food supplies in here. Maybe medicines we can use or trade with. Let’s get up to the top floor where the light was on and take it from there.”

  K and his five NKs found the stairwell and began to climb.

  There were thirty labs, storage closets, a vending-machine alcove, and a copier room off the fourth-floor hallway. For the moment, K only cared about the rooms fronting the parking lot, because that was where he saw the light, and more specifically, the three or four windows over from the northwest corner of the building. He whispered to Easy to check the doors as they went along, and they crept down the black corridor.

  “Do you hear anything now?” Rosenberg whispered.

  Mandy said, “Nothing.”

  Easy tried one door, then another, and another without any luck. He was about to complain when K swung around and drew his gun from his waistband at the sound of a loud clunk followed by clinks. One of his boys had seen the vending machines and put two dollars in. The clunk was a Mars Bar hitting the dispensing tray, the clinks, a couple of quarters in change.

  “What the fuck, man?” K said louder than he planned.

  “I’m hungry.”

  Mandy heard the voices.

  “They’re coming!” she whispered.

  “I’ve heard better news,” Rosenberg said.

  “Did you lock the lab door?” she said.

  “No, did you?”

  “Shit. Wait here.”

  She opened the office door and was halfway across the lab when she was hit in the face by Easy’s flashlight beam.

  “Yo! K! There’s a bitch in here!”

  Mandy froze and raised her hands in a show of submission.

  K piled in with the rest of his crew, all of them pointing guns and flashlights.

  “Who the fuck are you?” K demanded.

  Her terror made it hard for Mandy to stand and she felt her last meal rising toward her mouth. She felt like a circus act, spotlighted by multiple, blinding spotlights. In the shadows cast by the lights she could see pistols.

  “I’m Dr. Alexander.”

  “Why you here?”

  It was hard for her to get words out. “This is my lab.”

  “You got electricity?”

  “No.”

  “I saw a light.”

  “Portable lamp. Batteries.”

  “Then why you here rather than at your home?”

  “I’m working.”

  “You alone?”

  “Yes.”

  K trained his light around the room, pausing it on the camp bed on the floor, food supplies on the benches, the microwave oven.

&n
bsp; “What’s the microwave for if there’s no power?”

  “I was using it until the blackout.”

  He shone light on her office door.

  “What’s in there?”

  “My office.”

  K told Easy to check it out.

  “There’s nothing of value in there,” she said hurriedly. “Just books and papers.”

  Easy turned the knob and swung the door open.

  No one was more surprised than Rosenberg at the cannon-blast his World War I revolver made.

  Easy stumbled backwards, said something that sounded like “But,” and tumbled to the ground.

  When K began firing, Mandy threw herself down and covered her head, as if her thin hands might shield against bullets.

  Rosenberg didn’t manage to pull the trigger a second time. Although K fired blindly, two rounds found flesh. One hurt, the other more than hurt.

  Mandy heard Rosenberg grunting and she crawled around Easy’s body.

  K went into the office, picked the heavy revolver off the floor, and marveled at it for a second before stooping over Easy.

  “Fuck man!” one of his crew shouted. “They shot Easy! He ain’t movin’!”

  “Easy, stay with me, man,” K cried. “Don’t you fucking die.”

  Easy’s blood reached K’s sneakers.

  “Help him!” K shouted at Mandy. “You’re a doctor, help him!”

  Mandy was beside Rosenberg now.

  “I’m not that kind of a doctor,” she said.

  “Then fuck you!” K yelled. “C’mon, Easy, just try to breathe.”

  It was dark in the office again. She felt for Rosenberg’s head. Her fingers touched his moving mouth.

  “Oh, Stanley,” she said.

  He grunted some sort of acknowledgment and she felt his hand finding hers.

  Suddenly, Rosenberg was brightly lit.

  K had his flashlight in one hand, his gun in the other.

  “And fuck you too!” he moaned, firing once into Rosenberg’s face.

  Mandy screamed out a no. Then she begged not to be killed. She heard male voices egging K on, baying for her blood.

  K stood over her with his pistol. “Tell me why the fuck I shouldn’t waste you, you fucking bitch?”

  “I’m working on a cure,” she screamed.

  He lowered his arm.

  “Cure for what?”

  “For the virus. For the epidemic.”

  “You can cure my mama?”

  She looked up at him, trying to make her jumbled brain work.

  “I think I can. I think I can cure her.”

  He picked her up by a fistful of hair making her scream in pain.

  “Get what you need. You’re coming with us.”

  “I need to put the light on.”

  She lit the lamp and tried not to look at Rosenberg. She didn’t know how long she had to live, but she didn’t want this image of him in her head in her final hours. She carried the lamp into the lab and began improvising.

  *

  From their vantage point behind the wall, BoShaun saw the window light up again. They heard the gunshots and they argued about running away. Boris lost the argument.

  “Hey, man,” Boris said, “the NKs are probably cleaning that place out. Now can we go?”

  “Hang on,” Shaun said. “We gotta see how this plays out. Maybe K got shot. You don’t know he didn’t. We’re gonna be a whole lot safer in our crib if he’s out of the picture. We need to know, right?”

  Keisha sided with her buddy. “We most definitely need to know.”

  “Two against one, bro,” Shaun said.

  Boris ducked back behind the wall, muttering to himself.

  *

  Mandy filled a syringe from a vial of sterile serum and capped it.

  “Is that the cure?” K demanded.

  She nodded weakly. “It hasn’t been tried yet.”

  “But you think it’s gonna work?”

  “I’m hopeful, yes.”

  “Is that all you need? Is it enough for two?”

  She said it was.

  K said a goodbye to Easy and tried to decide what to do with Rosenberg’s gun. It had only three bullets in the cylinder and they didn’t look like any he’d ever seen.

  “Can I have it?” the youngest boy asked, a kid of only sixteen.

  “It’s old-school, man. It’s a fucking bazooka,” K said. “Think you can handle it?”

  “Yeah, I can handle it.”

  The old pistol weighed down one of the pockets of the kid’s sweatpants, dragging them to ass level.

  K shoved Mandy toward the door so forcefully, she almost fell.

  “Let’s get outta here.”

  *

  BoShaun saw the approaching lights of the flashlights before the NKs got to the front door. When they emerged through the broken glass, it was clear that the group that came out was different from the one that went in. There was one fewer NK and a woman being marched at gunpoint.

  Keisha was watching too, up on her toes to see over the wall.

  “What are they doing with that lady?” she whispered.

  Shaun whispered back, “Don’t know, but it ain’t gonna be good.”

  “You gotta do somethin’,” the girl said.

  Boris piped up, “No we don’t.”

  “You gotta. They’re gonna hurt her,” Keisha insisted.

  “They got guns,” Shaun said.

  “You got swords,” she replied. “You’re like the princes in fairy tales.”

  Shaun liked the word and repeated it. “Princes.”

  Boris tried to make out Shaun’s eyes through his green mask. He said, “Don’t you even think about it. We’re not fucking heroes.”

  But Shaun was already telling Keisha to stay put and cycle back to the house on her own if she had to. And then he started to duck-walk toward the NK cars.

  Boris said, “Shit, shit, shit,” and went after him.

  He caught up to Shaun along the side of K’s Range Rover.

  “We’ve got maybe fifteen seconds to get the fuck out of here,” Boris whispered.

  “We gotta take a stand,” Shaun said. “K9’s gonna keep coming to our hood, man. It’s kill or be killed.”

  Boris replied, “Fuck me,” and tightened the grip on his machete.

  The NKs arrived a moment later.

  To BoShaun all sense of time went out the window. What transpired could have taken seconds or could have taken minutes.

  The first NK to see them screamed in shock at the green bug-eyed monsters with long machetes.

  BoShaun stood up then and began swinging wildly, letting off soul-piercing shrieks of fear and aggression.

  Shots were wildly fired.

  Boris’s machete found a thin arm and took it clean off.

  Shaun got his blade stuck in a face and had to yank it out with both hands.

  Boris slashed a neck and got sprayed with blood.

  There was screaming and shouting, then sounds of sneakers on asphalt, running away.

  BoShaun were panting for breath and Boris had to peel off his mask to throw up again.

  Shaun picked up a dropped flashlight and had a look. There were two bodies and one arm that didn’t belong to either one.

  Keisha was running toward them.

  “You were like warrior princes!” she said. “You showed ’em. They ran away.”

  “Don’t look, short stuff,” Shaun said, standing in front of the bodies.

  “I seen worse on TV,” she said. “Hey look, the lady!”

  Mandy was face-down, flat on the ground, half under the Range Rover.

  “You okay, lady?” Keisha said, tugging on a back pocket.

  Mandy pushed herself out from the undercarriage and looked up at the little girl.

  “What’s your name?” Keisha said.

  “Mandy.”

  “I’m Keisha. Wanna meet the princes who saved you?”

  Mandy found her feet and saw BoShaun who were
coming around to the other side of the car.

  Boris had his mask back on.

  “I work here. They—”

  “We saw,” Shaun said. He introduced himself, then Boris.

  “You don’t need masks with me,” Mandy said. “I’m immune. I can’t get the virus.”

  “I think I am too,” Keisha said, raising her face rag. “Wanna come home with us?”

  “We’re close,” Shaun said. “She’s welcome, right, Boris?”

  Boris seemed dazed. “I dunno, I guess, but let’s go. I need a drink.”

  “Will you come?” Keisha asked.

  Mandy was lost. Bewildered. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Can you ride a bike?” Shaun asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Take mine and I’ll run behind. Boris can’t run so good.”

  “Don’t call him fat,” Keisha warned Mandy.

  “Hang on,” Shaun said, reaching for something near the body of the boy he hacked. It was an old, heavy pistol.

  “That’s Stanley’s,” Mandy said. “He’s in the lab.”

  “Does he need help?” Shaun asked.

  She was too numb to cry. “No, he doesn’t.”

  As they cycled and ran away, K was watching from behind a concrete pillar at the medical library. He couldn’t know that one of his fleeing boys was all but dead of blood loss from a severed arm, and that the other boy would be dead by the morning, set upon by starving infecteds. But through his rage, he got the idea that he was on his own.

  BoShaun, Mandy, and Keisha weren’t setting any speed records. K had time to get to his car and slowly follow them, headlights off, all the way back to BoShaun’s house.

  35

  Edison arrived back at Camp Edison puffed up with triumph. The morning action had been their biggest skirmish yet. He was confident his militia would only get bigger and better. He would teach his boys properly. He would teach them how to fight, whom to love, whom to hate. He would give them enough words to understand their place in the pecking order of the universe: God first, then Edison, then Edison’s kin, then the militia, then everyone else—all the miserable souls out there, sick and well, who did not owe Edison their fealty.

  His giddiness was short-lived. After the militiamen were billeted, and after Joe and Mickey collected their weapons and attended to their feeding, Edison entered his new house and called for Brittany.

  “Hey, precious girl, your daddy’s home!”