Before The Cure (Book 1): Before The Cure

by Gould, Deirdre

  He placed the pills into the still gloved hand. Cody slapped the hand clumsily across his mouth and Neil heard the immediate crunch of his teeth on the chalky little tablets. He wasn’t sure if chewing them would make them work faster or not at all. It didn’t matter, there was nothing to be done about it now. Cody held out his hand again. “No,” said Neil, opening a bottle of water for him instead, “already gave you too much. We need to see how well this works first.”

  “Don’ wanna hurtchu. Or Shay,” said Cody.

  “If I think you’re going to— we’ll handle it, okay? I’ll go find another wheelchair or find another bathroom until the government people get here. We don’t need to do anything reckless with the pills.”

  Cody took the water bottle. The water dribbled sloppily down the side of his mouth as he drank. Neil helped him wipe it up with a spare gauze pad. “Shouldn’. Shouldn’ get closhe. Get ssick. Take it home.”

  “I don’t think any of us are going home until this is over,” Neil admitted, gently pulling the hand Cody tried to stuff back in his mouth. “Let me fix this first. Try not to think about biting. Think about something else. Your family. Tell me about your family. Shay’s making a deal with the government people. We’re going to ask them to go get our kids, keep them safe. Tell me about yours so we can make them go pick them up too.”

  Neil could see Cody’s other hand twitching and half expected him to just switch which hand he bit, but Cody nodded and tried to talk.

  “Three girlsss. Wife. ‘S picture in the wallet. Back pocket. You should take the keysh. Might need them after I can’t—”

  “Don’t worry about the keys right now. We’re staying put for a while.” Neil winced as he pulled gauze from the tacky, indented bites in Cody’s skin. “What’s your wife’s name?”

  “Sh— Sylvia. Probly going crazy, now the phone’s off. Kids’ll be home now. Dance class over hoursh ago. Maya, Helen, Ruby.”

  “How old are they?”

  “Twelve, nine, sheven. They won’t— they won’t unnerstand.” The other hand made it into Cody’s mouth and he shuddered with a sob. Neil hugged him awkwardly with one arm, still trying to hold the fresh gauze in place on his other hand.

  “They won’t have to. We’ll get out in a few days, we can explain everything.” He went back to wrapping, hoping the sleeping pills would work soon and give Cody some relief. The banging on the door had stopped at least. Neil wasn’t sure if it meant whoever was out there had given up and gone away or if they’d been killed.

  “Killed shomeone.”

  Neil was surprised that Cody had managed to control the urge to bite long enough to speak again. Maybe it meant the drugs were starting to kick in. “You defended yourself from someone who was trying to kill you. And Debbie. Your kids may take some time to understand it, but they will. Someday.”

  “Mark wass a good guy. Never had a bad word.”

  “He was ill. What happened wasn’t his fault. Or yours. It was just— just an accident.”

  Cody shook his head. “Tried to be a— good pershon. Allm’life. Thish making me evil. Making me hurt you. Maybe I’ll kill shomeone elsh. Maybe eat. Like the girl in the courtyard.”

  “I’m not going to let you, ok? Trust me, Cody, I’m not going to let that happen.” Neil finished taping the gauze and reached for a new rubber glove. “Tell me your address, I’ll give it to the government people. Then you go to sleep if you can.”

  Cody shook his head. “What if I’m not me when I wake up?”

  “Listen, Cody, if you wake up and you’ve lost it, I’ll put you back to sleep. I promise. I’ll keep you asleep until they can fix it. Understand?”

  Cody nodded. “Wallet’s in my back pocket. Don’t think I can get my hand in there. Not with the bandage. You take the keysh. I’ll try and shleep.” He slumped over on the floor, curling around his bandaged hands. Neil patted his shoulder.

  “It’s going to be okay. Gonna get your family safe and then we’ll figure out what to do from there.” He unclipped the jingling keys from Cody’s belt and tugged the wallet out of his back pocket. He pulled out one card after another, finally finding the creased remains of an old appointment card that had what he hoped was Cody’s address on it. He put the wallet down beside Cody’s arm. The man was already asleep and it worried Neil. He’d never fallen asleep that fast with just a sleeping pill. He watched the rise and fall of Cody’s chest for a minute, terrified he’d stop breathing. Too many pills, should have stuck with one dose. Should have asked Debbie. Should have gone instead of Debbie. He shook himself and headed for the back. Whatever was going to happen, it was too late to change it now.

  24

  “You’re crazy,” Shay said as Neil walked to the back of the pharmacy. She was hunched unevenly over the desk, favoring her wounded side, the phone still pressed to her ear. His own wounds ached, but it was a low burn, somewhere in the back of his mind, buried under the unease and panic of the day. The adrenaline from waking so suddenly was wearing off. So were the slight effects of the pain relievers they’d taken just before sleep. It had barely been enough to take the edge off the pulsing sear in his shoulder, but he knew he’d miss even that much in a little while. Surrounded by medicine and I can’t use it, he thought. Even if I could, would I want to? Can’t risk being knocked out in here. Even dozing was bad. I could’ve—

  “No. Find someone else to do it. Or wait for your guys to get here. Not us.” Shay’s angry voice interrupted his train of thought. He caught her eye, but she just frowned. “Because I’m a cook. And I’m with a janitor who’s really—” she lowered her voice, “really close to some kind of collapse. And a— what are you again, Neil? Not a soldier or anything anyway.”

  “Cook, like you,” he muttered.

  “We’re not trained for this and even if we were—” She broke off, straightening her posture. She tried to cross her arms, winced as her hand hit a wound and let go. “We’ll talk about it then. You call back in ten minutes.” She paused, listened. “You’re asking us to risk getting eaten alive, you can give us that long to talk about it, at least,” she snapped and hung up the phone. She sagged against the counter again. Neil looked around and found an old stool near the closet. He offered it to her and she dropped onto it.

  Shay rubbed her temple, then glanced up at him with a small smile. “Cook, huh? Should have known only another cook would get that worked up about a dish station.”

  “What is it they want us to do?” he asked.

  Her smile dipped, but she ignored his question. “You work in town? Which restaurant? Been thinking about giving up the hospital cafe. The hours are hell. And you’d think it’d be pretty regular, easy even, but the diet needs of five hundred patients is… anyway, been looking for a new place. If you’ve got a position in the next year or two. You know. Not urgent.”

  He was confused. “You told them to call back in ten minutes. Shouldn’t we be talking about whatever it is they want us to do and whether we’re going to do it?”

  Shay shrugged. “We’ll do it. For our kids. You know we will. I just— needed a breather. For my head. Just ten minutes.”

  He waited for a moment but she didn’t offer anything more. He sighed. “Fine then. I work at Margie’s. One of those little pubs in downtown. Not fancy, not fast, just— comfortable. To tell the truth, most of the easy shifts are taken already. Dante and I— Shit.” It smacked him, heavy and sudden, the realization that Dante probably hadn’t escaped the hospital, only his room. That the friendship that had lasted longer even than his marriage was probably over. At least for a while. Dante was either sick and insane or… or it was already too late for him. It was hard to breathe around the thought. Shay leaned forward to touch his arm, concerned. “Yeah,” he managed, “There might be an opening. Ask me when this is over.”

  “What is it?” asked Shay, “I mean— apart from everything.”

  “You remember I told you I came here with a friend? Dante. He works with me. Has for decades. We we
nt to the parade together. Dante’s more than just, you know, a friend from work. We practically raised our kids together. When I escaped my room, I went to check on him, first thing. He wasn’t in his.”

  Shay nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Neil rasped. “Maybe he’s just— hiding.”

  “Sure. It’s a big place. Almost empty, even if it didn’t seem it down here. The ground floor had a lot more people than the patient rooms. He could be upstairs. There are even kitchens and things up there, everything he’d need to hole up and wait it out.”

  Neil wanted to believe it, but the memory of the nurse in Dante’s bathroom kept returning. If he’s still okay, he’s trying to reach Graziella and Tommy. And me. “He’s got a son, too. We should tell Harlain, when she calls back.”

  “Yes. We’re going to drive as hard a bargain for this idiocy as we can, Neil.”

  He handed her the card he’d taken from Cody’s wallet. “That one’s Cody’s family. I’ve got Dante’s information when we need it.” Again, the weight of dread and anticipated grief made it difficult to keep himself together. Have to think about something else. “Want to tell me what ‘this idiocy’ actually is now?”

  “They want us to unlock the patient room doors. They were locked at the beginning of the quarantine. For security, so sick people didn’t wander out of their rooms and infect the rest of us. But this went way worse and took a lot longer than anyone expected. Debbie was right. There are people starving upstairs. That Harlain lady, she can see some of the patients have posted signs asking for help on their windows, and government or whoever they are have cameras or access to cameras— everywhere. There’s an emergency override. In case there’s a fire or something. It’s in the security office. Release them all at once. But the government can’t do anything about it, not from where they are. They can watch but they don’t have a way to intervene.”

  “They could if they sent us help.”

  “Yeah. But they aren’t. Not now.”

  “But they promised they were going to help us, to get us out of here,” said Neil.

  “Did they?” asked Shay. “Or did we just assume they would? She didn’t say anything like that to me.”

  Neil rubbed his cheek. “I honestly don’t know,” he said after a moment, “Everything is blurring together like a bad dream. Even the terrifying parts.”

  “Think. You agreed to turn off the cell phone video— I know you said it was partly so they wouldn’t know everything we were planning, but it couldn’t have only been that.”

  “She said— she said she could help us. That she’d get us through it. But not ‘out’. She never said out.”

  “Shit,” sighed Shay.

  “Sorry.”

  Shay shook her head. “Nothing to be sorry for. We still made the right decision about the phone. They may be able to watch us with the hospital cameras but they can’t hear us anymore. And who knows? Maybe this lady can help us.”

  “But if she’s not going to get us out, why does she want us to open up the patient room doors? The patients will be in more danger then. Won’t even know what’s waiting for them outside their door.”

  “I think— I think she just doesn’t want to watch them starve anymore. I don’t think she’s— I don’t think they’re doing this on purpose, whatever is going on. I think maybe she’s actually the person watching the videos. Nothing more than that. She didn’t say a rank or a position or anything. I’m not even sure she’s supposed to be calling us. She sounded— inexperienced, Neil. Like she wasn’t quite sure what was supposed to be happening. And a little scared.”

  “But—”

  The phone rang. This time Neil picked it up. Shay pressed a red button on the bottom of the phone panel and Ms. Thomas’s voice poured out into the pharmacy.

  25

  “Hello?”

  “Shhh!” said Neil.

  “It’s okay. The ones outside the door are gone,” Shay reassured him, “Nothing in here’s loud enough to call more, I don’t think. Except maybe the fire alarm. You’re on the speakerphone.”

  “Then you can both hear. That’s good. Have you given my proposal any thought?”

  “Why do you want us to do this? The people we let loose are just going to get attacked. They have no idea what’s going on outside their room.”

  “You can warn them,” said Harlain, “The layout says the controls for the PA system are in the security office. Same place as the emergency override for the hospital.”

  “You didn’t answer the question. Why do you want us to do this? There’s an entire wing between us and the security office. We have no weapons—”

  “Or the will to kill anyone,” interrupted Neil.

  “— and we’re injured and on our own. You’ve got an entire military. People trained to do this stuff. You want to save these people, save us, send in another squad. Help us.”

  There was a long silence from the other end of the line.

  “Hello?” asked Neil, worried Harlain had hung up.

  “Look— I— I’m not in charge. I can help you, but I don’t get to make the decision about sending more soldiers in. I’m going to make sure your path is clear. Or at least as clear as I can make it from here. People are dying. I’m watching it on these screens. Sometimes it’s— bad. Really bad. Bloody. Scary. But then it’s over. The people in the rooms though— some of them are sick and already insane. They aren’t going to understand the door’s unlocked. I’ve watched lots of the loose ones. There’s something— gone in them. More than just their self-control. Something else. They can open the door, sure. They can twist the handle. A few have tried. But it seems almost— chance that they try. They almost don’t seem to think about trying until something attracts them to the door. They definitely don’t understand verbal communications. So you can use the PA system to warn anyone who’s well—”

  “How do you know that? How do you know they don’t understand what we’re saying?” broke in Shay.

  “Look— things aren’t…” Harlain lowered her voice. “Things aren’t great out here. Your hospital isn’t the only quarantine. We’ve got it under control and we’re only starting to understand what’s happening but we aren’t as— lost as a few days ago. There are things the infected have in common. They start with a loss of fine motor control and speech impairment. It progresses to biting their own nails until their fingers are bloody. Then they go into a rage and so far— never come out. Once they reach that point, they’re beyond reacting to verbal command. Who knows, maybe they do understand, maybe they just don’t care. Even if it’s in their own immediate interest, they don’t react the way they should. I know that much, ok? I can’t tell you more about how. But they’re not going to come running out of the doors when you unlock them. Won’t even realize that you have unless they happen to try it by chance. So you tell everyone who can still understand that you’re unlocking the doors and that you’ll meet them in the cafe. Then you can lay low together until this thing gets worked out. You’ll have food and water. Numbers in case you’re attacked—”

  “The people who have already snapped might not get out of their rooms for a while, but there are definitely some who are infected who will. We don’t know how long it takes for them to start showing they’re sick. Do you?”

  “Not entirely,” admitted Harlain. “We know from the point they start being symptomatic— slurring, tripping, to the point they go into a frenzy is anywhere from several hours to a few days. Emotional triggers seem to worsen it. But how long that phase starts from when they’re infected… no. We don’t know that yet.”

  “So you’re asking us to save people who might be walking time bombs. Understandable, but you were worried about us sleeping next to one infected person. The cafe’s not that big. When they finally lose it, you want them mixed in with us?” asked Neil.

  “Is it any worse than what you’ve been doing this far? You’re friend’s only an hour or two from snapping. Maybe you didn’t know it
would be that soon, but you knew it would happen. You haven’t sent him away. And now you know what to watch for. You’ll be ready for the next one.”

  “That doesn’t make it any easier to decide what to do about it. You want us to have to keep making these decisions? Why should we? These people are safe in their rooms. And we’re safe from them. Why should we let them out? What good is it going to do? We don’t even know how many there are or if they can walk. What if we open the doors and someone with a broken leg can’t make it? There are still sick people in the hallways.”

  “They’re all starving. Some of them who can’t move very well are dying of thirst because they can’t reach their sinks easily. But if you tell them where to go, a lot of them would take the chance. I’ll do my best to draw the loose infected away, but some of them will be attacked, yes. It’s better than starving. It takes a long time to starve. It hurts.”

  “So does getting eaten alive,” said Shay.

  “But then it’s over. Starving takes weeks.”

  “Still better to be in pain for weeks and have a chance of surviving than rush out and get killed when you might be rescued in a day or two,” said Neil.

  Again the silence on the other end of the phone line.

  “You aren’t coming. Not today, not tomorrow, not for long enough that you’re worried some of these people won’t make it,” realized Shay.

  “I— don’t know the future. But standard quarantine is twenty-one days. After the last exposure. No one knows if these people will recover or if it will prove fatal, but there won’t be any more soldiers sent in until after all signs of the disease are gone. You’re contained. And as long as you aren’t a threat to the exterior population, there’s no reason to risk more infection. I’m— I’m not the one in charge, you understand? Shouldn’t even be doing this much. But I can’t sit here and watch people slowly die anymore. I can’t do everything from here, but I will do what I can.”