“Never been down to the pool,” he admitted, once the door shut behind them.
“Thish way,” said the man who had cried. Neil wondered if he ought to know their names. But Nancy was right. It didn’t matter anymore. Not to them, anyway. Only to the people outside. He followed the man down the hall toward the east wing.
The body of a patient lay on the floor just at the entrance of the emergency room, puffy and turning a pallid green now. Neil stepped over it. Wondered for a second who he’d been. What his name was once. Who was missing him. Gone now. All gone. Should have taken care of him days ago. Everyone should have that, at least. Even me. Won’t though, will I? Someday, they’ll come back to this place and find us. Or maybe they’ll just bulldoze it. Burn it down. But Randi will know. Wonder if she’ll bring me flowers. I hope Joan’s found her. Hope she’s already home, decorating sugar cookies and listening to those infuriating holiday jingles. Be happy, baby. Be happy again. Go to the parade again. Stay kind. Oh Randi, stay a good person.
Another body slumped against a wall. This time, another form curled over it, face pressed against an arm, the hand of the corpse jerking slightly as the feeder tore a piece from it. The figure raised their face to look at the small group. A bloody chunk hung from their mouth, jiggling as they chewed.
“Shit,” hissed someone.
“They’re full,” said Neil. “Leave them alone an’ let ‘em eat. Won’ attack.”
The woman beside him gagged twice and then leaned over. The vomit splattered over the tile with a sour burst of smell. She stood up and kept walking, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Neil wished he had thought to bring some water with him. He’d liked to have given her some. Won’t matter in a little bit. She’s okay. We’re okay. He wondered what they’d done with his mother. He hoped they hadn’t hurt her, whatever it was. He hoped she hadn’t escaped even more.
Blood speckled the walls and floor in long, dried sprays and streaks. There was a leg near the vending machines. It was stripped and the knee joint was visible. A torn sneaker lay nearby.
“Getting to the spot they sstarted running inno each other when we herded ‘em down here. There’ll be worse farther on. Live oness, too. Whatever happens, get to the door on the far sside of the pool. We press the door, the alarm’ll sound. The res’ will happen even if we don’ make it farther than that,” said Neil. He’d stepped over the slithering mass of someone’s intestines and a torso before he realized he was breathing too rapidly and would likely pass out soon if he didn’t calm himself down. They weren’t walking rapidly but his heartbeat was heavy enough that he grew dizzy. Someone grabbed his good hand, squeezed it very hard.
“Whass your name?” he asked, desperate for some kind of familiarity, as brief and shallow as it might turn out to be.
“Ssarah. I have a cat. His name is Busser. Buster. He likes to perch on my shoulder like a parrot. I hope ssomebody feeds him,” she said all in a rush. “You?”
“Neil. I have a daughter, Randi. No pet, but she’ss been begging me for one for years. Should have got her one.”
“She here?”
“No.”
“Thank God.”
“Therapy pool is jus’ around the corner,” said the man who was leading them. He slipped and another woman caught him. “’S a lobby. Locker rooms on the side. Pool’s through the double doors.”
“I don’ wanna get eaten,” said the woman. “I don’ want it to hurt.”
“You go ahead and run,” said Neil. “You make it to that door, and there’s a bullet on t’other side. All done. Unnerstand?”
“Yeah. I do. I’d feel bad for the soldiers on the other side, but— they’re the ones put ush here, aren’t they?”
“Guess so. An’ they have room to run away.”
“Good. I hope they run,” said Sarah.
“Me too. Hope I don’t trip.”
She squeezed his hand again and they rounded the corner. Dozens and dozens of infected pinballed in slow motion from wall to wall, shuffling until they hit something and then turning the other way. They stepped on fallen bodies, tripping and tumbling over each other. Neil watched a man snarl as he rose from a fall and grab another, but he quickly lost interest and let go before the other really registered that he’d been touched.
“Sstill full, but for how long?”
“Alarm’ll draw them. Has to,” said the man who’d led them.
Sarah let him go. “Bye, Neil. I hope your daughter gets that pet.”
“Goo’bye Sarah. I know your cat will find a good home.”
He felt his thighs tighten and took off, headed straight for an opening between bodies. He slammed into the shoulder of a large man in a jumpsuit and set him spinning away. Neil struggled to keep himself from losing his balance as well. He heard a grunt and then an echoing call. More thuds behind him as the others hit. His cast clanged against the door and sent it flying open. A frightened scream burst from behind him. Hope it’s not Sarah, he thought irrationally. The pool reflected the overhead lights in aqua and gold and bright pink. Infected thrashed in the water, trailing plumes of red that dispersed into a film in the shallow half. He plowed on, knocking a woman who lunged for him into the water with his cast. A man shouted for help behind him. Neil wished he’d asked his name, but didn’t stop. Halfway toward the other end of the pool. The bodies in the water were thinning out, a few floated in round bubbles of wet cloth and shining flesh. Hope Joan had fucking fun in Aruba, he thought bitterly, and something flared inside him. Should have been here. Should have had Randi. Wouldn’t have been at the fucking parade if Harry hadn’t waltzed in and— He kicked out at a flabby older man whose jowls were a ragged, chewed mess of beard and blood. Felt a guttural boom rise from the heave of his lungs into the back of his throat. When he let it go, it was an utterly foreign growl. Something a beast would make. Randi, he thought, and her face, laughing under her silly pom-pom hat filled him and winked out. He slammed into the far door and the splitting siren of an alarm erupted around him. He saw the horrified face of a woman as he spun to find the sound. He should know her. Then the idea spun away like ash and he grabbed her and shook, tumbling to the concrete as several bodies overran them. It hurt, but it was distant. His teeth itched. That was far more important than the foot on his hip, in his gut, the weight of someone falling atop him. His teeth itched and her skin was so salty. Her ear tore like a piece of undercooked bacon. He was salivating and she was still screaming.
Shouldn’t, he thought, even as he chewed. The thin cartilage crunched and made his teeth stop itching. Rattling pops echoed around him, cutting through the shrieks and growls. Cold air hit his head. He ignored it and bit the woman’s cheek. Much softer. Better. His brain stopped its weak protests. The woman was limp. The sounds of other deaths gradually dwindled until it was just the soft gurgle of the pool water hitting the sides of the concrete and his own wet snuffling as he ate.
38
Thirty months Later
The pool was almost empty. Three of the windows were shattered, the boards that had covered them splintered by gunfire. Otherwise, what little water there was would likely not be there at all. The filters and pumps had long since stopped working, dying with the generator and all that was left was a shallow puddle of rainwater. It was surely crawling with things that should have frightened Neil. He was never frightened anymore. Just seething with rage and hunger. Or sleeping. Nothing else. None of the few remaining Infected were frightened. Not even wary enough to realize the therapy pool was an accidental trap. The last remaining water in the hospital, an irresistible draw for those still alive. If someone could call it a draw in any true sense of the word. Afterward, Neil would have no real recollection of an urge to travel anywhere. He’d assume it was more sheer luck of being near the pool that helped him and the others survive, not some instinct or intelligence that told them to arrive there. The pool had prey, and that was all that mattered at the time.
The dark swathes of bloodstains on
the tiles and the jumble of gnawed bones lying against the pool’s deep walls held no warning for Neil, no effect on him at all, except to make him stumble over a humerus as he shuffled toward the remaining liquid. He collapsed down to his knees without bothering to look around, unaware of who was watching him. The water was murky, muddled with months of rotting scraps of former victims, a greasy film slid over its surface and refracted the half-light of the windows in purple and gold.
Neil should already have been dead. Anything that drank from the puddle should have. Whether it was natural resistance or long months of no contact with anything outside the hospital, almost a dozen Infected remained, rattling around the building searching for something, anything to eat. Until they found one another. Usually at the pool. Neil leaned forward and lapped at the filthy water. The splash beside him didn’t even make him raise his head, still slurping long sucks of water. Something rammed his side and he tipped over, snarling. A gangly creature scrambled over him, pinned him in the shallow edge of the puddle. If Neil hadn’t been so emaciated himself, he could have thrown it off easily. But they’d both been starving for months. The thing’s mouth gaped open, breath a roiling plume of heat and rot, Neil grunted and shoved, but he was too weak and it bit down on his neck, sizzling and crushing. Compared to the surging flood of anger and adrenaline, the pain was almost nothing. Neil scrabbled and flailed but the pressure didn’t ease and long, jagged nails raked at him, clung on in thin crescents to his chest. A bang echoed somewhere overhead, somewhere beyond the walls of the pool. Neil barely registered it. Another Infected or the end of the world, it hardly mattered. He would die in that dried up pool and all he wanted was to get the animal’s flesh between his own teeth, to stave off the unending craving just for a little. His own mouth snapped futilely. A rush of shouts, of real voices. Words. Neil was long past understanding words. Months and months past. Just a string of noise to die to. But then— silence. Just the splash and growl of the thing biting him and his own narrowing breath. The thing grunted and its teeth loosened by a fraction. An instant later, Neil felt a sting in his shoulder. It was lost among his other injuries.
“Should we separate them?”
The voice floated above them. Neil wouldn’t understand it until much later. “You want to risk a bite? Sedative won’t kick in for ten more minutes.”
“They aren’t going to make it ten more minutes. And we’ve got armor.”
Neil’s breath rattled and his throat burned. There was darkness creeping in the corners of his vision. But still, the thing above him didn’t release.
“Suit yourself, Mateo. You get tackled, I’m using the pistol.”
More splashes. A yank at his throat where the creature’s teeth had sunk in, and shouts. He tried to roar, but it came out a gurgle and the yank returned, then suddenly a release and the thing above him whirled away.
“Look out, she’s coming after you. Jump out! Jump out!”
Water sloshed around him and Neil wheezed, trying to find the breath to rise and strike back at the animal that had pinned him. To eat. But his arms were heavy. And the dark hadn’t retreated. The adrenaline cooling, even the ever-present anger ebbing away. He lay there, his back and buttocks soaking in the water while the shouts continued around him until his breath was a slow rasp and his eyes closed.
“Jesus, glad we stuck around. Thought Shay was crazy. She’d never have forgiven me if we left before we found these. Things we do for love, right?”
“Only you, Mateo. And Shay is crazy. Almost two years. Who the hell lives that long? There’s no one taking care of them. How on earth did these guys make it in here? Probably crawling with cholera. If it weren’t for the supplies, I wouldn’t have agreed to this scav job.”
Someone’s hands were on Neil’s neck, a soft brush of fabric against the wound. It hurt more now that he wasn’t fighting. “She used to work here.” The voice was close. Calm. Neil wouldn’t understand the words for another week, but he listened to the tones as his rage drained slowly away. “Knew a lot of people left behind, I guess. She told me she was stuck here, during the plague and she promised to come back for them after some of them helped her escape. I told her the odds of someone surviving that long were insanely low. ‘I promised,’ she kept saying. She would have come with us if the scav team hadn’t been called to that mall. I told her we could wait until the next sector push. They’ve been sick this long, what’s another month before getting the Cure?”
“Would have been a month too long for that guy,” said the other voice.
“Yeah. Guess that’s true.” The hand moved, slid under Neil’s back. “You hang on, my guy,” it said to him as he was lifted from the water. “Gonna wake up in a whole new life. You just hang…”
The voices faded into a deep fog and were gone.
Thank you so much for reading Before the Cure, I truly hope that you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did, you might like to know that this is a new series in an already existing world. There will be at least two more books about Neil (as I write this note, book #2 is within days of being finished), but there is also already a complete series in Neil’s world called After the Cure, and if you are interested in jumping in to that, you can find links to them on the next page. By the way, the first novel in that series is also available for free. If you are eager for the next book in this series or you’d like to ask me something, or tell me something, there are lots of ways to keep in touch! My newsletter is available here: http://eepurl.com/WLbBb I only send out newsletters when I have a new release, a free story to give you or a really awesome deal to announce (that translates to one newsletter every three months or so). If you’d like to see updates and grab some free stories without having to get emails, you can visit my site here: http://https://www.scullerytales.com/ If you’d like to talk to me, I can usually be found on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Afterthecurenovel twitter: http://twitter.com/scullerytales or through email: mailto:[email protected] However you catch up to me, I will be happy to hear from you! Thanks again for reading!
Deirdre Gould
Other Available Titles
In the same world as Before the Cure:
After the Cure http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ERVTFCM
The Cured http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J2EJAOM
Krisis http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TA9YHR4
Poveglia http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0127Z5CZI
The 40th Day http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AYE5ZTM
Curing Khang Yeo in The Z Chronicles http://www.amazon.com/Chronicles-Future-Book-ebook/dp/B00YEUMR8U
Pet Shop in Tails of the Apocalypsehttp://www.amazon.com/Tails-Apocalypse-David-Bruns-ebook/dp/B016E5JIRU
Andy and Igor http://www.scullerytales.com/free-reads/
Non-Infected stories:
Ex Situ Series:
Traveler in the Dark http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0727XP4WJ
Cradle of the Deep http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071JMBB8G
Torrent of Darkness http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078BRFV14
Scapegoat Series:
Scapegoat http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C8Q8QLG
Reciprocate http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L17N2Q2
Short stories:
System Failure in The Robot Chronicles http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M3GIBUK
Iteration in The Future Chronicles http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013M3XW0Q
The Thaw http://www.scullerytales.com/the-thaw/
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Before The Cure (Book 1): Before The Cure Page 29