Before The Cure (Book 1): Before The Cure

by Gould, Deirdre

  “I know, I know.” He gulped air and scraped his hands over his face. “But I did this.”

  “No,” Shay said. “Stop that. If we hadn’t come, if we hadn’t tried, then a lot more people were going to die, right? That’s what you said. These people would have found each other eventually. Or others. They’d still die. After suffering a lot more. Take a breath, Neil.”

  She clicked off the screen where the people were fighting. “We’ll give them a few minutes, okay? Take a walk. Find a drink of water. Just breathe. And when we come back— it’ll be over.”

  “It’s going to get worse,” he said. “With more of them. It’ll be worse when they get to the pool.”

  “We don’t have to watch it,” she told him. “Some of them will be— uninterested by then. A lot of them, maybe. Some of it will happen in other places. Like it did here.”

  “What if— what if you see someone you recognize?” His voice failed, turning to a brittle rasp at the end, but she understood anyway.

  “I will,” she said. “I have. And that’s why it’s easier for me. I know who they were before all this. A lot of them, anyway. I know whatever’s happening to them— it’s not who they were. You’ve only seen them this way. Except for your friend and Cody a little. You don’t know how many of them wouldn’t recognize themselves. Wouldn’t want to. You— you’re mom, Neil. She’s sick, right?”

  “Yes,” he sighed, staring at the blank screen she’d shut off.

  “She’s like those people now. I know you don’t want to think about it, but she is. And your friend outside. Do you recognize anything about him, except for his face? They aren’t— them. And I don’t know if they’ll ever be themselves again. This disease, it’s got to affect a person’s brain. Even if they get cured, even if there’s no damage, they’ll never be the same. Not ever. Not after what they’ve been through.”

  “Maybe they won’t remember,” he cried.

  “Maybe. But someone will tell them, eventually. If they could talk to you, do you think they’d tell you to let them wander the halls hurting other people until they die? Or that they’d decide that if it saved some people, it’d be worth what we’re doing to them? What would Cody have said? What would your mom have said?”

  Neil closed his eyes and took a very long, slow breath. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. You’re right. Let’s get this done then.”

  Things didn’t get unbearable again until Shay started on the second floor. Most of the remaining infected on the first floor had been fairly spread out. The alarms had worked fairly well, though a few stragglers got distracted by the strobing lights in the corners of the hallway, ignoring the blaring sound. Shay had shut off a few screens, including the interior of the therapy pool, its warm water tranquil and bubbling gently before any of the sick had entered it. Neil had drawn them one after another to the entrance and then watched them disappear through the open doors. He wasn’t certain his imagination was any better than the reality and almost asked her to turn on the screen again, but didn’t. There’d been a few that just wouldn’t be drawn. Sleeping or wandering listlessly halfway there after feeding. Neil had held his breath as the healthy people in the break room slunk slowly past a few of the infected. That group had had no weapons to speak of. One held a coffee pot as if it were a hammer, but Neil doubted it would do more than knock someone a little aside even if it were full.

  “C’mon, c’mon,” whispered Shay as if she could keep them from harm if she just willed it hard enough.

  They’d made it past and slipped into the stairwell to catch their breath and Neil had started pacing. There was no camera in there. It was where he’d run into Shay in the first place. Calm down, he told himself, there was only the guy from the gift shop in there. We took care of him. Should be clear. He tried to ignore the thought that it had been days ago and anyone could have wandered in by then. It seemed an eternity before the small group emerged again and Neil remembered to breathe as their figures darted past the gift shop, visibly flinching on the screens. The man inside must have spotted them.

  “He’s locked in,” Shay said into the microphone.

  One of the people looked up at a camera and nodded.

  “Almost there. Maisy should be waiting to let you in. There’s no more loose between you and the cafe.”

  It looked like they’d had to have a negotiation with Maisy once they got to the door of the cafe. He could see them talking through the glass, the one with the coffee pot nervously watching the entrance to the lobby while they discussed it. She’d been lonely on the phone when Shay called her. And frightened. But still reluctant. She’d agreed to open the door, but only to the people she thought weren’t sick. The others would have to find somewhere else to go, she’d told Shay. Neil knew once there were more people in the cafe it wasn’t going to be Maisy’s decision anymore. He watched the discussion at the cafe door, wishing he could hear. After several seconds, the glass door swung open and the people outside darted through.

  “That’s a relief,” sighed Shay. “Wasn’t sure she’d actually do it.”

  “Me either. But I wasn’t sure where else to send them if she refused.”

  “Nowhere. They’d have broken the glass eventually if she didn’t let them in. Those people have to be hungry. They weren’t going to wait forever.”

  “Let’s not make the rest wait anymore either,” he said.

  There’d been a few more scattered throughout the ground floor. Two in the blood lab where Neil had met Debbie. He wondered how long they’d been there and if he’d waited a few more hours to leave he could have helped the couple. Five in the conference room where Shay said they’d originally been gathered. One down in the ER that Shay couldn’t coax out no matter how much she urged him over the intercom. Neil knew he was sane, at least for now, because he kept taking a few steps toward the hallway and then chickening out and ducking back into the small exam room he’d been hiding in. He’d stood in the doorway and wept for several minutes.

  “He’s too scared,” said Neil at last, “This is just making it worse. I don’t think he physically can do it, Shay. His body’s just freezing up on him when he tries. Tell him I’ll come and get him when we’ve got the others.”

  Shay shook her head. “No, remember, no rescue missions. We tell him that, anyone else who’s too scared’s going to wait for us to come to get them, too. We can’t wander the hospital saving people, Neil. We just can’t.”

  “Can’t juss leave him there, either. He’s healthy. He might be able to help ush if we get him out of there and calm him down.”

  Again, that strange look of shock and sorrow on Shay’s face. She patted his arm. “Shh, it’s ok,” she told him as if he were a small child. It just confused Neil. “Look, we can tell him the way is clear, all the visible infected are gone, and when he’s able to, he can make it to the cafe. If he sticks to the hallway, he should be ok.”

  “He’ss not going to do it. He’ll sstarve first.”

  “Then you and I will go get him when we’re back. We just won’t announce it first, ok? You need to take a breath, count to ten.”

  He was irritated that she seemed to think he was being irrational, but he did as she asked anyway, just to comfort her. Maybe she’s the one who’s really upset. Maybe she thinks calming me down will help calm her down. He took a long, deep breath. None of this makes any sense anyway. Whole week is like some sick dream. Just stick together. Keep each other safe.

  Shay nodded in approval and let him go, turning back to the microphone to tell the frightened man they were moving on.

  It was the second floor before they had to watch the first healthy person die. The hallway was relatively lightly populated and it looked like there’d been a recent kill. Four people were lying next to a puddle of blood and gnawed meat. It wasn’t even recognizable as having been a person anymore, just a jumble of gristle and yellow fat and shreds of cloth. Neil wished the monitors hadn’t shown everything in color.

  It was harder to
herd the infected on the upper floors, the alarms were less targeted, mostly floor wide. He’d resorted to Harlain’s trick, luring them toward the stairwell by looking up phone numbers and letting them ring until the group got close and then moving to the next. It was a tricky process and more than once resulted in a panicked answer from someone inside a patient room instead of allowing it to ring. Convincing each person to hang up, especially once an infected person began pounding on their locked door was not easy. And the infected were still slow and disinterested from their previous meal. A few sprinted toward the sound while others meandered, some other light or sound catching their attention for a moment before turning back toward the ringing phone. It took almost an hour to get them to the stairwell so that Neil could turn the fire alarm back on a floor below and draw them toward the therapy pool. He knew he’d lost several in the stairwell when they didn’t emerge onto the ground floor, but at least he had them contained in some fashion. He was glad there was no camera on the stairs. The entrance to the therapy pool was chaotic and he tried not to look as the infected bunched and brawled.

  The maternity ward monitor showed the large group of healthy people getting restless, pacing the small nursery and gesticulating wildly as if some of them were arguing. Neil had a feeling they would make a run for it soon if he and Shay couldn’t get to their floor first. Everyone’s hungry. Probably been living off vending machines and employee break room refrigerators for days. If that. Can’t blame them. When the hallway was finally clear, even the last stragglers having wandered into the stairwell, Shay finally announced they’d be unlocking the patient room doors. That’s when Neil saw the nurse emerge from beneath the charge desk. She ran straight toward the stairwell.

  “Shay! Catch her, tell her not the stairs!” Neil shouted.

  Shay fumbled with the microphone. “Other way! Other way!” she yelled. “There’re still sick people in that staircase. Other side of the floor!”

  The nurse on the screen waved toward the camera, so they knew she had heard, but she didn’t slow, skidding through a slippery smear of viscera in front of the first room. She swung the door to the room open and disappeared.

  “Shit,” swore Shay. But the nurse emerged a minute later, a man hobbling along beside her, one arm slung over her neck. He looked vaguely familiar to Neil.

  “I think that was one of the balloon handlers near me at the parade,” he said, trying to pick out more details of the distant face.

  “Odds are good,” said Shay, as the nurse opened a wheelchair near the charge station and sat the man in it. “They evacuated any patients who didn’t have contact with your group or they didn’t think were sick with the same thing. Most of the staff, too. Just lucky ones, like us, who had to stay once they decided on the quarantine.”

  The nurse ran back to the second room.

  “She’s saving them. Or trying to,” realized Neil. A few of the farther doors were already opening, people in loose gowns emerging. One held the wheeled end of an iv stand like a baseball bat.

  “What happens when she runs into a sick one?”

  “You know what happens,” said Neil. The nurse emerged again, this time empty-handed. She saw the patients who were able to walk out of their rooms and called to them, motioning for them to stand near the man in the chair and then ducked into the next room. “You think that last one was empty?” he asked.

  “She’s been stuck up there for days. She knows which rooms are empty already. There was someone in that room. They aren’t coming out. We should tell the others to move. If she gets a bad room—”

  “Then they’re better off together. Five is better than one.”

  “Most of them are injured,” said Shay. “All of em are hungry.”

  “Yeah, doesn’t mean they’re useless. We’re injured too, still fucking glad I had you with me, beat to hell and all.”

  Shay clicked the microphone on. “Stick together,” she told them. “Just because we cleared the hallway doesn’t mean the rooms are safe. And hurry, got five more floors of people waiting. We don’t want to risk any of the sick people wandering back along your path.”

  The small knot of patients glanced up toward the ceiling. The one with the iv stand took a few steps toward the patient room the nurse had disappeared into. He nudged the door farther open and then swung it wide. A cot emerged, the nurse rolling it out. Someone on it thrashed but was obviously restrained.

  “She’s ssick,” realized Neil.

  “They’re all sick, that’s why they’re here,” said Shay.

  “You know what I meant. And she’s not a patient. That’s a nurse. She’s wearing scrubs.”

  The first nurse had already parked her near the others, who cringed away every time the woman on the gurney strained against the cloth straps.

  “You think she means to bring her with the others?” asked Neil.

  “Maybe she’s just— maybe she just doesn’t want her to be stuck in the room. Maybe she thinks she can come back and care for her.” But even Shay knew the excuse sounded false. The nurse had disappeared through the next door. The patients were gesticulating wildly to each other. The man with the iv stand shook his head, waved at the woman on the bed. Neil could see the woman’s hands now, encased in bandages. She struggled against the restraints, her back arched, trying to launch herself from the bed. It rolled slightly as she collapsed again and her head whipped toward another woman who approached to set the gurney lock more firmly.

  “Oh Jesus,” gasped Shay, but the patient retreated without being bitten. The nurse emerged again, empty-handed. She turned toward the next door, but the man with the iv stand caught her. He waved at the woman on the gurney again, shook his head. The nurse put her fists on her hips, her face a scowl. They were obviously yelling. The man with the iv stand gestured up toward the ceiling.

  “What’s he doing?” asked Neil.

  “Trying to talk some sense into her, maybe,” said Shay. She clicked the microphone on. “You can’t bring her. Maisy won’t let you in. She’s safer in her room.”

  The nurse below shook her head. She tapped her chest and said something. The man with the iv stand had reddened. It looked like he might be shouting. She shoved him. The woman who had locked the gurney walked out of the frame.

  “Where’s she going?” asked Neil, trying to catch her on another feed. He gave up after a second. “Tell them they’ve got to move. They can’t stand there arguing about it all day. If the nurse won’t leave her friend, then the others should get to the cafe without her.”

  Shay clicked the microphone on again. The nurse and the man with the iv stand stopped arguing for a moment, staring at the ceiling as Shay relayed the message. So they didn’t see the other woman walk back toward the gurney behind them. Neil watched her as she appeared back on the screen. There was a bright red extinguisher in her hands. She was weak. Neil watched her put it down just beside the gurney and take a few breaths. The others went back to arguing, the man in the wheelchair joining them. It looked as if he were taking the nurse’s side, just from the way he positioned himself, but Neil couldn’t be sure. The woman beside the gurney picked up the fire extinguisher again. She yanked on the neck of the extinguisher. The others still hadn’t noticed. The woman on the gurney whipped her head side to side, her hair swinging over her face in long clumps. The woman with the extinguisher put it on the gurney, letting it rest there while she caught the infected woman’s head and shoved the extinguisher’s hose between rapidly snapping teeth.

  “Oh, God,” breathed Neil, realizing what she was about to do. Shay was still staring at the others arguing. He could almost hear the loud burst of air in his mind as the woman pulled the extinguisher’s trigger. She held on for several seconds before releasing the infected woman’s head and the trigger and sitting suddenly down beside the gurney as the extinguisher rolled away. The clang as it hit must have been what made the others turn toward them. The face of the woman on the gurney was covered in white powder, her mouth open as wide
as it would go. The nurse dashed toward her, glanced down at the other woman and then back at her suffocating friend. She turned to the man with the iv stand and said something. He stared, motionless, at the woman on the gurney. The nurse said something and pointed frantically, before leaning over to wipe the dust from her friend’s face. She was blocking Neil’s view and he couldn’t see what else she was doing. She looked over her shoulder to the man again, who just shook his head.

  “I don’t understand,” said Shay as the nurse gave up on getting help from the man and sprinted toward the charge desk.

  “She made a decision,” said Neil, pointing to the woman who still sat beside the gurney. Her expression was calm. “She killed the other nurse so that her friend didn’t have to decide between going to the cafe and abandoning her or staying and getting attacked eventually.”

  The nurse was back with a bag valve mask, fitting it over her friend’s face. The woman on the gurney had gone motionless. The woman with the extinguisher stood up, said something to the others. They headed for the next patient room and disappeared off the screen as they reached the edge of the camera’s range. Shay stared at the nurse’s back while she tried to revive her friend.

  “This is hell,” she muttered. And then it got worse. The nurse’s head snapped around in the direction the others had gone. She stared for a second.

  “Find the other feed!” cried Neil. “Find them!”

  Shay fumbled with the camera buttons, flashing through other floors and empty hallways in different wings.

  “There! There!” he shouted as he caught a glimpse of the iv stand handle being waved like a bat. Shay clicked through a few more buttons before returning to the right one. It was further down the hall. Neil could see the red of the fire extinguisher where it had rolled, though the gurney was out of view. The man in the wheelchair was still in the hallway but the others were just inside the doorway of a patient room. The woman who had used the fire extinguisher was in the grip of someone behind her, her front was a sheet of red, except for her face which was ashen, her eyes rolled up, only the whites showing. Neil couldn’t even tell where the wounds were. The man with the iv stand whacked the pole ineffectively against the person holding her and shouted. The nurse did not come running. The man in the wheelchair tugged on the other man’s arm.