“Are they all dead?” he asked.
“I think so. I couldn’t see how many—”
“The smell was bad even far away.”
Nella shook her head. “Not the smell, the flies. I don’t know if they can transmit the Plague, but they can give us other things just as deadly. Can’t let em crawl on us.”
Frank realized he hadn’t been giving her enough credit. Flies weren’t something that he’d even thought about. “There must be a back door to this place,” he said.
“Sure, but they may be inside too. I mean, I’m not certain how many are on the porch— people I mean. It might be all the residents, but it’s definitely not all the staff and all the residents. There can’t be anyone left, can there? Why would they leave the bodies on the porch if there were? Maybe they were going to the City for help. For soldiers.”
The van’s open passenger door flashed in Frank’s mind. One Infected wandering until it died of exposure was one thing. Odds were very, very good that it wouldn’t meet anyone out here. But a group of Infected meant the odds tilted the other way. What are you going to do, Frank? Become a Bounty Hunter for Infected? Spend the rest of your life tracking them down? Risking infection yourself? His internal voice mocked him. But he had to know at least.
“I don’t think anyone’s alive in there, no. But we need to find out what happened. If it was Looters, we’ll be able to tell pretty quickly. But what if the staff escaped and are infected without knowing it? They’ll spread it to everyone they meet, if they haven’t already.”
“What about Ann? What about a cure?” Nella kept remembering the day she’d met Sevita. The heat and the flies, the bodies laid out in the field, it had all been the same. Except Sevita had been with her. They had waited together for the miracle everyone had said wasn’t coming. Now it was Nella alone waiting. For a minute, she let herself realize that Frank was right. There was no cure. Dr. Pazzo had said it. And Carton and Gerta Schneider. Why would Ann have been any different? Sevita was Infected. She would stay Infected. The City was lost. The whole City. She pressed a shaky hand against one temple. “They couldn’t be that— that stupid. They couldn’t have been that reckless. There must be a— a notebook— a diary, something.” She could see Frank shaking his head through a film of panicky tears.
“He wouldn’t have bothered if there’d been anything close to a cure, Nella. He would have been certain. You saw Carton’s old lab, Dr. Pazzo ransacked the place. Ann couldn’t be cured. We assumed he just wanted to punish the people that hurt her in the first place. That was our mistake. If Ann couldn’t be sane again, then nobody would be.”
Nella took a deep, resigned breath. “At least we don’t have to go in, I guess.”
Frank winced. “Sorry, Nella, finding those bodies means I’ve got to go in anyway.”
“What? Why?”
“For the same reason that we have to find a way to destroy the City. We have to make sure the Infection doesn’t spread to whoever is left. Either through scavengers or because of people wandering into camps not realizing they are already infected. We need to burn down Harbor Home, but first we need to find out what happened if we can. And who isn’t accounted for.”
Nella thought for a moment. “You want to destroy the City? What about people that are Immune? We’re going to get them out first, right? We’re going to rescue Christine?”
Frank shifted uneasily. “Let’s just focus on one crisis at a time. We’ll figure out the City once we’ve finished here. Besides, it’s not like I have a city-sized bomb in my back pocket or anything.” He adjusted his mask so that it sat tightly against his face again. “You don’t have to come,” he said, “I can go through the hospital myself.”
Nella was already pushing the mask’s elastic around an ear. “It’ll go faster with both of us.”
They walked around the large building, giving the front porch a wide margin. Frank noted the large propane tanks near the kitchen. He kept it to himself. Nella led them into the building through the administrative offices. They moved slowly, checking each office for staff or some kind of explanation. The building was so silent that they could hear the dull buzz of the flies from the porch on the other side of the building. The summer sun gave the offices a stark, bare look. The records folders shone like silver bones and were stacked like neat spines along their shelves. The desks were all empty, glaring and haloed in the light, as if the workers had simply ended their work day and gone home. The violence in the front made the peaceful silence of the offices seem ominous, waiting. There was a lone dark handprint on the wall next to the lobby entrance. Frank was careful not to touch it as he opened the heavy door. Papers were strewn over the large room in a long streak of white that fluttered in the breeze that Frank made as he opened the door. A few droplets of dried blood glued some of the papers to the polished granite floor. Nella knelt beside the spray of files as Frank checked the nursing desk.
She picked up one of the pages. It was an admittance sheet for Michael Carton. She scanned it quickly. He’d had a stroke some days before his admittance and hadn’t survived the night of his arrival. She almost tossed it away, but the section detailing his personal effects caught her eye. A wind-up watch and a solid gold fountain pen. That was it, then.
“It’s here Frank. Somewhere. The pen from the goldsmith is here. It wasn’t Looters.”
He came over and picked the paper out of her hand. “Nella, I went over and over those pens. I asked him as much as I possibly could without alarming him. I didn’t want him to tell Pazzo. I did everything I could, I promise you.”
She took his empty hand in hers. “I know you did. We both did everything we could. He fooled us. He fooled everyone.” She looked up at him and gave his hand a squeeze. “Hey, this isn’t your fault. It’s not my fault or Stan Kembrey’s fault or Christine’s or Sevita’s. Dr. Pazzo did this. I thought he’d flushed all the vials. It seemed logical. Stan thought so too, and he’s had years more experience with prisoners than I. Where else would they go? Frank, you can’t blame yourself. If we weren’t there, if it were someone else, this would have been much, much worse. We’ll get ahead of it. That colony of Cured will be safe. The people scattered out there will be safe. And Ruth’s people. And somewhere there are other little cities growing up and pulling together. Ours won’t mean anything at all to them, because we’re going to stop this disease before it goes any farther.”
He nodded but Nella could tell he wasn’t convinced. He let the admittance paper flutter back onto the floor. “We need to find a roster and a patient list. We need to know how many people are out there and how many are already lying on the porch.” He returned to the nursing station and flipped over pages.
“I’ll check the cafeteria,” she said, “The staff lived and ate here. They only went to the City to pick up new patients or for resupply. I’ll see if they have a list or a number. You stay and see if you can find a list here.”
“Be careful,” he said, “we don’t know for sure that the place is empty.”
Nella felt a chill at the idea, but she tried to ignore it. “I’ll be careful,” she said and headed for the metal doors that separated the lobby from the cafeteria.
Thirty-two
The cafeteria was almost exactly as Nella had last seen it. Airy and bright, an entire wall of clean windows that opened for fresh air during the warm months. Clean wood tables covered with cheery red or blue-checked tablecloths. It had been the hub of the entire place. Meals were eaten here, holidays celebrated, therapy sessions and activities; if Harbor Home had a brain, this had been it. It was almost the same. Except the people were gone. In every place, though, a bowl of molding food sat. Some almost full, some half eaten. And Nella knew what had happened. Except for a rumpled gurney pushed against the far wall and a few chairs tipped here and there, nothing was out of place. But there was the hand print on the wall near the offices. And the truck. Is that how it started? Did somebody realize it early?
She made her way toward
the kitchen. It didn’t matter. It was done. All that was left was to make certain that everyone had eaten breakfast. The swinging door thumped softly behind her and she stared at the stainless steel counter tops. The kitchen’s condition told a completely different story from the quiet, sleeping death of the sunny cafeteria. A heavy pot lay on the stove, a thick sludge of oatmeal spattered over the flat grill. Pans were strewn on the tile where they had been knocked from their high shelves and a small mountain of shattered ceramic lay where an entire stack of plates had been pushed from the edge of the counter. There was a broad, bright patina of blood coating the length of the prep area and the huge knife rack was empty. Nella walked carefully forward, trying not to step on the broken plate shards. She could see the kitchen office just beyond the dish station and the door to the walk in refrigerator. She peered around the end of the Line, half expecting the poisoner to leap out, bristling with knife handles. But the aisle was clear, only a puddle of oatmeal near the range to indicate anything had happened. She turned back toward the office. She could hear her breath straining against the papery cloth of her cheap mask as if it were a dive mask instead and she tried to stop her frantic gasps for more air. More smears of blood painted the dish station, its steam curtains ripped and dangling and the side panel yawning open. Nella accidentally knocked the sprayer from its hook as she passed and jumped as it swung back toward her. There’s nobody here, she told herself. It’s just a sad story of something gone by. No different than a dozen others in the past decade. Calm down.
She passed the large wooden prep table and was relieved to see the boards were scrubbed a clean, pale brown as usual. She spotted a bulletin board above it, a duty roster and a stack of lunch orders tacked to it. She rounded the prep table and leaned over on tip toe to grab the bundle of papers from the board. One of the tacks was stuck, its rusty edges gripping at a staple in the corner. She tugged carefully, trying not to rip off any vital information. The tack slipped loose unexpectedly and flew behind a corner of the dishrack beside her. Nella lost her balance and stumbled backward, bumping into the countertop behind her. Something irregular and heavy rolled off the counter and thudded down her backpack and the back of her thigh. It was semi-soft and her mind told her it was a rat. Nella let out a sharp yelp before she could stop herself and leapt forward again. The thing fell to the floor with sloppy plop. She turned around, looking at the counter instead of where the thing had fallen. The grid of the fry cutter oozed dark slime. A slow drip plunked onto the tile and she looked down. The thing that had rolled down her was a hand, the perfect square grid of the fry slicer had made a deep black net of cuts over the palm. The carpal bones were crushed and glinted like tiny stars in the dark viscera. It wasn’t a clean cut. The hand had been gnawed from its arm. Nella was just starting to realize what she was seeing when a frenzied banging from the walk-in refrigerator began.
She glanced up at the door just as Frank came running around the corner. “I heard you yell. Are you okay?” he asked as he reached her. She put a finger to her lips as the door to the refrigerator banged and jiggled again. Frank reached around her, dumping out a metal can of kitchen tools. The utensils rattled as he spread them out. He picked up a boning knife without speaking.
“Go away Dom!” the voice came from behind the refrigerator door. It was ragged and shrill, as if it had been screaming for a long time. “I’m not letting you in. You can’t get me in here.” There was another round of bangs on the door. “You can’t get me in here,” the voice said again, as if it were trying to persuade itself.
Frank’s grip was slippery. He switched hands and wiped a shaking one on his pants to dry the sweat.
“Frank, they haven’t turned,” whispered Nella.
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous,” he muttered.
“They sound scared. Maybe we can find out what’s happened.”
“I don’t think they’re going to let us in.” He held the knife out in front of him, his hands shaking.
Something’s wrong with him, she thought, he hates violence. And someone inside that fridge is sane. Talking. Maybe if they talk to us, everyone will calm down.
“Hello?” she called. Frank glanced at her, but the knife stayed pointed at the door, as if it were one of Nella’s guns instead. “Are you okay in there?”
There was a shuffling behind the door. “Who is that? Who’s out there? Are you from the City?”
“We’re from the City, but we haven’t been there in a while. We came looking for Ann Connelly.”
“Then you aren’t sick! You can get me out of here. I’m coming out—” something scraped across the metal door and then there was a long silence. “Wait, where’s Dom? Did you kill him?”
“I’m sorry,” said Nella, “but I think you’re the only one left. There’s no one here.”
“Are you sure? He was— he attacked me and I— I jammed his hand in the fry cutter. He was stuck pretty good. He yelled at me for two days straight. I— I thought he might have died when it got quiet yesterday, but I was too scared to check.”
Nella glanced down at the gnawed hand and then at Frank. “He’d have bled out wherever he is, don’t you think?” she whispered.
Frank shrugged. “You’re the doctor. But other than out the back door of the kitchen, there’s nowhere else he could have gone. We would have seen a puddle of blood in the cafeteria otherwise. He’s not here, anyway.”
“He’s gone, one way or the other,” called Nella, “You can come out now.”
The door opened an inch or two, the seal crackling. A few seconds went by and the door opened wider. A young woman crept out. She was covered in a bloody orderly’s uniform, with an apron wrapped and tied around her right arm. She saw the large knife in Frank’s hand and her eyes widened. She held up her arms. “Not going to hurt you, I swear,” she said. “I’m just so happy to see anyone. I thought— I thought I might be the only person left, except for the Cure colony. My sister’s there, but it’s a long way, with the City being overrun and all.”
Frank let his arm sag and drop to his side. “How did you know about the City?” he asked.
“At first we didn’t. I think it may have started here first anyway. It was hard to tell, because some of the people here were sick longer than anyone else. Or their bodies weren’t as resistant to it or something. The people here were Cured, but they were never better, you know? Not completely. Sometimes they got upset and would attack people or they’d chew anything they could find or they’d be really clumsy. Just like they were never cured at all. So when some of them started acting like Infected, it wasn’t anything really new. Except that one girl, the girl you were looking for?”
“Ann Connelly?” asked Nella.
“Yeah, Ann. She was really scared the past few weeks. Kept saying something about gnashing teeth, how they were going to eat up the whole world. She wouldn’t go into the common areas with anyone, stuck only with the guards that came with her, Wells and Johnson. The patient that was transferred with her— he didn’t last the night. Stroke or something. But Ann wouldn’t go near his room after. Always crossed to the other side of the hall and she’d cover her face with her hands until she got past. I asked her one day, on my rounds, what she meant by it. She said, ‘No breathing past a graveyard.’ I just brushed it off as an oddity. I’m glad you’re wearing masks by the way.”
“So patients started turning here first?” asked Frank.
“At first it was just the patients. We just thought it was agitation at first. We’d put them in restraints so they didn’t hurt themselves. But then, the Military Governor called us on the radio. He wanted Ann. He was going to have soldiers come and retrieve her just a few weeks ago. I don’t know if he said why. Our director kept that kind of stuff close. But the soldiers never showed up.
And then one of the orderlies caught it. It was Nan. She ate one of the patients in the art therapy room before we found her. We all thought it was a complete mental break, even the doctor. So we admitte
d her and restrained her. But the director was starting to figure things out. She had Dominic and I bring Ann to her office. She told us we had to get her away from Wells and Johnson, that they couldn’t know. I should have known something was wrong. But I just told them that we needed an extra patrol, because there’d been bandit sightings. Patrol duty is normally thirty-six hours away from the Home. Most guards jump at the chance. It’s always more of a vacation. I told them Dom and I would keep a close watch on Ann, and when they left, we convinced Ann that we were taking her to see some kittens right after we saw the director. She loved animals.
But when we got to the Director’s Office— everything changed really fast. The director made Ann stay for hours. She kept asking Ann where the Cure was. But Ann— I don’t even think she knew where she was. I think she believed she was back in that lab. She kept talking about the monkeys.
The director was really panicky. She got mad and she— she slapped Ann. I tried to make her stop, but she told Dominic to throw me out. She told him we’d both lose our jobs and our home if he didn’t, so he shoved me out of the door and locked it. I could hear them yelling through the door, and Ann crying. The director made Dom punch Ann after they strapped her to the chair. I could hear it. Those meaty thuds. And Ann groaning. She just kept groaning that the teeth were coming. I ran to get help, but by the time we broke down the door— Ann was in really bad shape. Couldn’t even recognize her. A couple of the orderlies grabbed the director. She kept shouting, ‘You don’t know what’s at stake here! It’s back, it’s back and we’re all dead.’ They locked her up. Should have locked Dom up too, but he was only trying to keep his place. Without this job— well, there’s nowhere else to go, is there? The City would just send us back here, no charity from them. You don’t work, you don’t eat. And if you’re Cured like Dom and me, sometimes you don’t eat anyway.
Poveglia (After the Cure Book 4) Page 18