Gray (Book 3)

by Lou Cadle

  “Did you tell her to come back in today for a check-up?”

  “I told her to stay off her feet, and to come and get one of us if she started bleeding. But I’ll be happy to check her later. Unless you want to.”

  “Somehow, I think she’d prefer to see you, if that’s all right with you.”

  “It’s fine. You know, it might be because I lost my children, and she thinks I understand her better. You shouldn’t be offended by her withdrawing.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I assumed it was because I was the first person to use the word ‘dead’ in conjunction with Doug, even before we knew for sure.”

  “It was a nice memorial service,” said Edith.

  Coral nodded noncommittally. “I need to go bring in more wood.”

  “Okay. I’ll start with the patients.”

  Coral hadn’t realized there was anyone here yet. “Okay. Be right back.” She went out to the wood pile, but all there was there were a few scraps, hardly enough to keep the stove going for an hour. What day was it? Was it a wood delivery day? She thought that yesterday should have been the day they brought wood.

  Maybe that’s part of why they sent out scavengers this morning. Maybe the town was running out of fuel, too. I wonder if Levi’s apartment is still warm enough. If there was wood out there to be found, Benjamin would find it.

  That wouldn’t keep her or her patients warm today, though.

  Edith called her in to look at the first patient, a toddler with a mild rash she thought was due to imperfect hygiene. “Keep her cleaner,” she told the caretaker, a girl about Coral’s age who said she’d been a neighbor to the girl’s family. The toddler was the only survivor of a family of six.

  “She hates cold water. And she says the soap smells bad.”

  “Warm a cloth a bit in your hands first. But insist, okay?

  Though why bother, really? She couldn’t censor the thought before it was there in her mind. A three year old, when the city fell apart, would be one of the first to die. If she got lost from this kind neighbor, and if no one with better skills picked her up and took responsibility for her, that would be the end of her.

  She cut off the thought. True as it might be, it was too depressing to see the people who came in here as doomed. But that’s what they were, most of them: dead people still walking, unaware that they were coming to the end of the old world and unprepared to survive in the new.

  Try as she might, she could not shake the thought, and she began to imagine every person as a shambling corpse, like out of some zombie movie. Finally, she had to get out of there. She told Edith, “I’m going to go check at the library or kitchen and see if they can spare some wood.” The stove was putting out little heat by this point.

  She went to the library first—it was closer—but it was locked up. No sentry stood guard outside. Levi must be out doing something. She headed toward the dining halls and kitchen. At this time of day, it would be only Chef there. She did not look forward to asking him to give up other supplies, after his reluctance to hand over the herbs. Maybe she should tell him that they were helpful, try and make him feel better about sacrificing them.

  It dawned on her that she should check on Julie first. She hadn’t seen her in two days, and she might not get another chance. She detoured up the stairs and found a teenage kid kicking some rolled up socks or rags down the hall like a ball, practicing for a sports game that would never come.

  “Hey, doc,” he said.

  “How are you?” she said, trying to remember if she’d seen him as a patient.

  “Here to see Julie?”

  “I am, yeah.”

  “She’s nice. I go in and visit her sometimes.”

  “That’s kind of you. I’m sure she’s going stir-crazy from being stuck in bed.”

  “Not as much as I’d be.”

  Coral smiled at him and started to knock at Julie’s door.

  “Just walk in,” the kid said. “Everybody does. And yell her name to give her a warning.”

  “Thanks.”

  She went in and Julie’s face brightened when she saw Coral. “Are you hear to release me from my jail term?”

  “We’ll see.” Coral examined her foot. The bandages were off, and it was healing well. The swelling was gone, there was no redness, and no threatening heat came from the amputation site. She’d already pulled the stitches and it looked like her one meaningful act as a doctor here had turned out okay. “It looks good.”

  “So I can get out of here? Start to walk on it?”

  Coral nodded, thinking of the time to come, when food ran low and people might fight each other over what was left, or begin to move off in twos and threes to try to survive as she and Benjamin had been. Julie seemed more likely to survive than many—she had been mostly brave about the amputation, and her personality seemed suited for it. But she wouldn’t have a chance at all if she was also just learning to walk again with altered balance. Coral was nodding, and she made it official. “Yeah. You can try walking again, right now.”

  Julie whooped. “Hallelujah.”

  “Start slowly, okay?” Coral thought. “Five minutes per hour. And I want you to have a cane or crutch.” There was no wood to be had. “What’s the kid’s name I saw in the hall, playing soccer?”

  “Travis.”

  “Don’t move.” Coral went to the apartment door and stuck her head out, not seeing him. She called his name, and he appeared around the end of the hallway. “You want me?”

  “Please.” When he got there, she explained the need for a cane or crutch. “There isn’t wood to be had, but something metal, sturdy, but without sharp edges. Even a metal folding chair. That’s what she needs. Could you hunt for something like that for Julie right now?”

  “Sure.” He was eager to help. Probably wanted something meaningful to fill his days. He was on that cusp between boyhood and manhood. Coral wondered if he’d survive the end of Boise and have a chance to make that transition.

  “Thanks. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it a lot.”

  “Now?”

  “Yep. Now. Ask at the trash site first and at the library. Tell them you’re working under my direction.”

  “Okay,” he said, and ran off.

  Coral felt a twinge of guilt. She wished she could help the kid. He seemed nice. She wished she could help Julie, too. There were a lot of worthy people in town, and some of them would do as good a job at surviving out there as she or Benjamin. But she couldn’t save them all, and couldn’t risk inviting any of them along. They’d have to make their own way, as she had.

  It was the logical thing to do. It was the practical thing to do, a choice that gave her and Benjamin a better chance of survival. But that didn’t stop her from feeling guilty. When she thought about them as a mass—the Boiseites—it didn’t bother her. But when she was looking into someone’s eyes, that was another matter.

  Shaking off the thought, she went back to Julie and finished giving her instruction. “Let me be your crutch this first time. And don’t try again until Travis brings you back something solid to lean your weight on. And have him—or someone—stay and watch, in case you need help.”

  Julie made it about thirty seconds on her feet. It wasn’t pain, or even the missing toes that made her lurch back to the bed. It was dizziness.

  “That’s to be expected. You’ve been horizontal for a long time. By tomorrow, that’ll be gone.”

  “Wow. I was so lightheaded.”

  “Your body has to get used to being vertical again.”

  “I guess.” She closed her eyes for a minute and then opened them. “Better.”

  “It’ll pass soon,” Coral said. She was guessing, but she’d seen it in her time in the hospital. “It might help if you make sure you’re propped up in bed as much as you can be, not flat on your back.”

  “Right.” Julie smiled at her. “Thanks. I can do this.”

  “Of course you can.”

  “I mean, it wasn’t that differe
nt than before, standing there. I’ll be able to walk.”

  “Add minutes slowly. In a week, you’ll be walking for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. If you still feel good, if nothing hurts and your foot isn’t swollen, you can try shoes. If that works, go back to your regular life.” That might be pushing it, but she wanted Julie on her feet and building muscle again before she might have to flee the city.

  “You have no idea how much I’ve longed for this. Thank you.”

  Coral gave her a smile—a real one, too. She was pleased with how this had turned out. “Take care of yourself. Let me or Edith know if you need us, right?”

  “I’ll send someone if I do.”

  Coral hurried to the kitchens, thinking by now Edith would have nothing but embers in the stove.

  She pushed through the door into the kitchen and saw Chef prepping food on the counter. His back was to her. She didn’t want to startle him again, so she said, “Good morning,” as she made her way over.

  He glanced around, saw her, and reached for the towel threaded through his belt loop to toss it over the food. The towel fell on the floor. As he bent down to get it, Coral saw that he was working at a nice-sized chunk of meat. Not smoked, but fresh and half frozen. Had they found game somewhere?

  As Chef stood with the towel, Coral really saw the meat. What she was looking at was like a picture out of her anatomy textbook. It was just like it. Exactly. It was a human leg.

  It was Doug.

  She knew it at once.

  She felt herself go faint. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. She had been eating human meat all along here, hadn’t she? Maybe they’d found strangers at first. But that supply had run dry, and they were cutting in to their own population. There’d been a man gone missing, a woman. Both loners. Doug had “died in a rock fall.”

  And Benjamin was out there with Parnell, right now.

  Chef tossed the towel over the meat and began to turn toward her. He seemed to be moving in slow motion.

  Which was a good thing. Coral had the chance to try and compose herself. She could not let on that she knew. She thought about trying to smile, but it was almost certain she couldn’t pull that off.

  She went for brisk and businesslike. “I’m hoping I can bum a few sticks of wood. They missed delivering to us yesterday and I have a sick patient.” The words were out before she knew she was going to say them. Once she had, she grabbed at the opportunity the spontaneous lie had left her. “I might have to stay there tonight, so a couple of MREs would be useful, too.”

  Chef looked at her wordlessly.

  Was she bone-white in shock? Turning a sick green? Did he know she knew?

  Doug. She pushed aside the thought of the kind man, the scholar, and did not allow herself to dwell on associating her memories of him with the slab of meat on the counter. A wave of nausea hit her as she realized she might have already eaten part of her dead friend. “Oh,” she said, as brightly as she could. “And I wanted to let you know how useful those herbs were.”

  “Went to a good cause, then?” he said. He wiped his hands on his apron and walked to the back of the room. She forced her eyes not to return to the towel-covered horror on the counter and trailed after him.

  “Here’s the wood, back here. I’m getting low, too, so don’t go wild.”

  “Sure, thanks.” When she turned her back on him to bent to pick up some lumber, the back of her neck crawled. Half-expecting him to hit her on the back of the head with a cleaver, she snatched the wood quickly and stood to face him again.

  “You know where the MREs are, right?” he said.

  “I do. You can get back to work. I’ll get out of your hair.”

  He made a noise, possibly irritation. But not suspicion, she hoped.

  She scurried over to the pantry where the MREs were, grabbed two, shoved those into the waistband of her jeans, grabbed two more and did the same thing, then took two to carry. Her jacket covered the tops of the meals sticking up, and she hoped he wouldn’t notice she seemed lumpier than when she’d come in.

  When she went out, he was leaning against the counter, watching her.

  “Thanks!” she said, and she scurried out.

  Did he know she knew? Would he be running to Levi?

  The whole time this was going on, a voice inside her was screaming Benjamin’s name. She had to get to him before— Oh, shit. She had to get to him.

  She went outside, turned for her apartment, and when she was out of sight of the dining hall dropped her arm full of wood and broken into a run. She had to stop immediately and pull out the pilfered MREs. With six of them grasped tightly in gloved hands, she sprinted for the apartment.

  Pounding up the stairs, she tried to organize her panicked thoughts. She had to get to Benjamin. They had been gone five, six hours. Could she catch up to them before nightfall?

  And when she did, then what? Three men with rifles. So she’d what, throw rocks at them?

  She needed help.

  She needed Kathy.

  She shoved the MREs into her bag and gathered up the extra supplies that should go in Benjamin’s bag. She stuffed them in hers, changed into her boots, looked around the room one last time, hoping she hadn’t forgotten anything, and hauled ass out of there.

  Kathy was—where? Walking the perimeter. Coral couldn’t be carrying a backpack around out there. People would wonder what the doctor was doing. Where to stash it furthest east? That was the direction the scavenge team had gone. Toward the Air Force base.

  The clinic would be best. She walked fast toward it, avoiding the eyes of the few people out on the paths, and skirted the entrance to the clinic building. She went to the room where she’d stored the pilfered supplies, shoved the window open halfway and, looking around to make sure no one was watching, pushed her bag in.

  She ran then—screw it if anyone saw her—for the nearest edge of town. Two perimeter guards came into sight. Neither was Kathy. She ran up to them. “I have a medical emergency and need Kathy. Do you know where she is?”

  “Not sure, but she’s often up at the river.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What sort of medical emergency?” he asked, as she took off at a run again.

  I need to save a life. The most important one in the world. She ran on without answering.

  She passed two more teams of scavengers before she spotted Kathy and Blake, leaning against a pair of concrete pillars a block apart. She skidded on the snow to a halt in front of Kathy. “Benjamin is in danger. His life is in danger. I need your help.”

  “What?”

  “Parnell is going to kill him. Maybe today. I don’t know if we can get there in time. But please.”

  The woman’s eye’s narrowed. “How do you know this?”

  “Because I just saw Doug.”

  “Doug? But he’s—”

  “Dead. And parted out, and on a slab in the kitchen with Chef working on him with a cleaver.”

  “That can’t be….” Kathy peered more closely at Coral. “You aren’t shitting me, are you?”

  “I’m dead serious. I know anatomy. I know what human anatomy looks like. People are being culled for their meat.”

  “Shit,” said Kathy. “I don’t— It can’t.” She was fighting the idea yet accepting it, moment by moment.

  Coral wished she would hurry up and just accept. “Benjamin is going to die. I know you care for him.”

  Kathy started—and looked abashed.

  “If you ever did, if you ever counted him as friend, then please. Help me.”

  “Ah, shit,” Kathy said.

  “You believe me?”

  “I believe you.” A male voice behind her made her jump nearly out of her skin. Unfortunate phrasing, that, considering the situation.

  It was Blake. She wished she had a weapon. But she had her hands and feet, and no one was going to stop her from saving Benjamin.

  “I believe you,” he said again. “I’ve suspected for a while.”

  Kathy said, �
��And you didn’t think to mention it?”

  “It’s who has gone missing. The two of them before Doug were the sort of people who stood up to Levi, who would argue a point with him. Too convenient a coincidence. I thought they were being killed, but it wasn’t until about a week ago the food side of it crossed my mind.”

  “Will you help me?” Coral said.

  “I….” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, no. I have to save my own ass.”

  Coral had more sympathy for that than she wished. “I know. This place is doomed, but now? When people find out? There isn’t twenty-four hours of stability left here.”

  “There ain’t four hours left here for me,” said Blake. “Sorry, Kathy. Good luck.” He thumped her shoulder and turned away, toward town.

  “Don’t tell anyone else,” Coral called. “Please. Not until I have a chance to get away.”

  He turned and continued to walk away backwards from them as he answered. “I’m not telling one single person. I’m getting while the getting is good.”

  Coral forgot him immediately and turned again to Kathy. “Will you help me? At least—” She thought desperately. “At least give me your rifle so I have a fighting chance.”

  “You a good shot?”

  “I suck.”

  “So three against one, and you trying not to hit Benjamin. Doesn’t sound like good odds.”

  “Terrible.”

  Kathy shook her head. “I never thought you appreciated what you had in that man.”

  “But I do. And I’m sorry I can’t clone him and give you one. Truly, I am. I love him, and I won’t let him die today.”

  “Neither will I.” Kathy slung her rifle over her shoulder and marched away. “We have a stop to make first.”

  Coral was scurrying after her. “Food? I have a couple—”

  “No. The weapons store. I need more ammo, and I need a weapon for you.”

  “Thank you,” Coral said, catching up. “I owe you more than I can repay.”

  “Don’t repay me yet. First, we have to catch up to them in time.”

  Coral had been running on pure adrenaline since she had seen the meat on Chef’s counter. Now it was leaving her, and she felt shaky. The concern for Benjamin threatened to overwhelm her good sense. Get hold of yourself. There’s work to do. She tried to force slow, deep breaths. She had to be sharp, had to think, not panic.