The Virulent Chronicles Box Set

by Shelbi Wescott

  “Fine,” Ethan said before she had time to leave the room. He wheeled his chair a few feet forward; close enough that he could touch her, and he raised his eyebrows. “Okay. I’ll plan a date. Tomorrow night. A real thing…you know…because we’re bored.”

  Ainsley smiled and tucked a piece of curly hair behind her ear. “Well, don’t let me twist your arm,” she said. “I didn’t really—”

  “No, I got this,” Ethan interrupted and he rolled his chair back, unwilling to let Ainsley take back the thinly veiled request. “Trust me.”

  “A what?” Darla asked. She flipped over a card. Teddy waited for his instructions. She looked at him and then said, “Skip around Ethan’s wheelchair while holding…this stuffed animal,” she said and then Teddy took off skipping.

  “A date,” Ethan said loudly and then he lowered his voice and cleared his throat. “A date…you know…something fun. To break up the monotony.”

  Darla high-fived Teddy as he finished the rounds and slid into her, giggling.

  “Your turn, Mommy,” Teddy said and Darla flipped over another card. An X. She smiled and put it in the X pile.

  “So, what is it? A date or just something to break up the monotony?” Darla asked.

  Ethan ran his right hand over the wheel of his chair; it spun in lazy circles in the middle of the den. He didn’t answer right away and then he shrugged.

  “Can’t it be both?” he finally asked.

  “No,” Darla answered instantly. “It can’t be both.”

  “You can’t blame me for wanting to have some fun. We have to make our own fun, right? Humans weren’t made to live like this.”

  Darla rolled her eyes. “You don’t have it so bad,” she said. Teddy flipped a card.

  “What does it say? What do I do?” he squealed.

  “Run upstairs. Touch the door to the bathroom and run back,” Darla answered and Teddy took off running, his little feet pounding heavily against the floor. She shifted her attention back to Ethan and ran her hand through her long dark hair, combing out her tangles with her fingers. “So, what do you want from me?” she asked.

  “What should I do? I need ideas.”

  “This was your idea. You’re on your own.”

  “Come on—” Ethan whined. “I can’t take her to the movies. Or like to a fancy restaurant…” he trailed off. Then he looked at Darla with a crooked smile. “Or can I?”

  Teddy’s pitter-patter began to make its way back to them; they listened as he stampeded down the steps and then rushed into the den, breathless, his cheeks pink.

  “Just tell me what to do, Ethan,” Darla said as she crawled back over to their playing cards and flipped over another one. An X. “Game over, dude,” she told Teddy with a frown and Teddy started calling for another round.

  “I’m going to need some help to get my idea up and running. Help from Dean and Spencer and Joey too. It takes a village,” he replied.

  “That phrase doesn’t refer to dating post-apocalypse. Which,” Darla put a finger up, “I’m not okay with. It feels…”

  “Normal,” Ethan finished for her. “I just want something to feel normal.”

  “Too bad,” she said. “We don’t get that luxury anymore.”

  “I disagree.”

  “When is this date?” She spread out the cards on the floor, shuffling them and mixing them together with both hands.

  “Tomorrow night.”

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  Ethan beamed. “Does that mean you’ll help?”

  Darla fell forward and rested her head on the floor of the den. She banged her head slowly against the wooden floorboards and mumbled something Ethan couldn’t hear. When she brought her head up, she looked at him with annoyed disdain. “I’ll help,” she conceded. “But only because I feel sorry for you.”

  “I’ll take it!” Ethan replied with a wink.

  Doctor Krause looked at the thermometer and shook her head. She reset it and tried it again, waiting the requisite amount of time until the beep-beep-beep signaled that it had reached the apex of its slow climb.

  “How long have you had the bruising?” she asked Ethan and he turned away from her, embarrassed and ashamed. “And the redness. The oozing. How long?”

  “A few days, maybe. Maybe I noticed it yesterday…I don’t know.”

  “And you didn’t tell me? Ainsley didn’t notice when she came in for rounds?”

  Ethan grimaced. Ainsley had been by to check on him, but he hadn’t let her be his nurse the past few days. Instead, he’d encouraged her to just sit with him, play cards, read books. She hadn’t complained about being relieved of nursing duty and it made Ethan feel like he was doing something good—allowing the girl, his friend, to have a life again that didn’t involve constantly checking on him. It was the unfairness of it all that got to him the most—Ainsley didn’t ask to spend her days bound to him. She deserved better than that.

  “She didn’t notice…I didn’t let her check my leg,” he said and the moment the confession left his lips, he knew he had admitted something dangerous.

  The doctor was quiet, like her daughter, stoic and unassuming, but she took her role as Ethan’s caretaker seriously. The flash of worry across her face was unmistakable and Ethan’s stomach sank.

  “Don’t get mad at her,” he quickly amended. “I just didn’t want to feel like a patient. I wanted to be normal…I didn’t—”

  “You are recovering from the most invasive surgery I can imagine…in a world without access to modern medical care,” Doctor Krause said, her voice rising, trembling, “And you think you can dismiss your nurse because you wanted a friend? Nothing about this is normal. It wouldn’t have been normal a year ago, let alone today.”

  “It’s not her fault—”

  She waved him away. “I can’t tell if the hematoma or the infection is causing the most swelling around the incision. But I need to get you on a round of antibiotics immediately. When did you run out of the other antibiotics? And further more…how many hours have you been spending in the chair? I said the chair was fine for small periods…then you needed to lift the leg.”

  Ethan didn’t reply.

  “Oh, Ethan,” Doctor Krause said in a sigh. “I need to know everything. I can’t help you if I don’t know everything. Let’s start small. How do you feel today? Tell me all the symptoms.”

  He didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t been feeling great. There had been a subtle shift; an ache that he couldn’t get rid of, a headache that never disappeared. But the excitement over his date had usurped his health. He’d assumed the bruising and redness was normal—hadn’t he just lost a limb?

  He cleared his throat. “Pain is worse. I…knew I had a fever…I could tell,” he replied. He watched as Doctor Krause closed her eyes, as if she were sending up a silent prayer. “The phantom pain’s been worse, but I can’t treat it with the meds. And I’ve been feeling pressure in my chest sometimes…I’ll feel like I can’t breathe. I thought maybe I was just having anxiety…”

  “Stop,” she said and put up her hand. “Ethan. You are very sick.”

  He bit his lip and looked away. “Well, I’ll do another round of the antibiotics and—”

  “I think we should move you back upstairs. Elevate your leg on the bed. Have Ainsley come in multiple times a day for physical therapy.”

  Ethan shook his head wildly. “No. No! I don’t want to get moved back up there. I hate it. It’s like prison. I’m fine here.”

  “You’re not fine. You don’t understand…if I can’t stop this infection…” she stopped from finishing her thought. “You could lose more of your leg. And that’s only the best scenario.”

  The thought of going through another round of amputations filled Ethan with dread. “But Ainsley and I have a date…tomorrow…”

  “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Doctor Krause answered with a flip of her hand. “You are ill. Beyond my abilities.”

  “What does that
mean?” Ethan asked, his voice breaking.

  “If the infection spreads,” the doctor resumed in a clinical voice, calmer, steadied, only her sad droopy eyes mirroring her worry, “then there is nothing I can do.”

  “I won’t move back upstairs.” Ethan felt the pressure in his chest again. He coughed wildly and gasped for breath. Then he raised his head, and wiped his eyes, “And I have plans. Real plans. Dean and Spencer are helping and everything. Do you know how much that means to me?” He tried to control his emotion, settle himself, but his hands shook.

  “I’m not saying this because Ainsley is my daughter, I’m saying this because I’m your doctor,” Doctor Krause said calmly as she rose from Ethan’s side. “There is no date tomorrow. No date the next day. No fun until your fever is gone, the swelling is gone, and your bruising has healed. Those are my orders and I’ll make sure everyone else in this house understands—”

  “No!” Ethan interrupted, his voice full of anger and apprehension. “If I’m going to die,” he paused and waited for Doctor Krause to contradict him, but instead she crossed her arms over her chest and waited, “then I want to spend a night doing something special. I want that choice.”

  “Choice?” The word triggered something dark and Doctor Krause’s eyes flashed. “You think you are entitled to a choice? Since when do any of us get choices?” She scoffed and turned on her heels. “I’ll be back. I’m asking you to meditate on your health and start thinking like someone who wants to live and not a short-sighted twenty-year-old boy…”

  “Who is going to die,” Ethan finished for her.

  She paused in the doorway of the den and then turned. “I’m going to do everything in my power to try to save you, but I need you to be smart. I need you to want to get better. I’ll resort to begging.” Doctor Krause gave him a sad, small smile.

  “I’m going to go on the date, Doctor Krause,” he replied. “I need this. You don’t understand how much I need this.”

  Without reply, the doctor looked at Ethan and her shoulders slumped. Then with a sniff, she stared at him for a long, assessing moment, and then he turned back around and left, leaving Ethan alone, afraid, and determined.

  Dean and Spencer moved Ethan back to the couch. Joey had run off on a hospital run with Darla—a task they were not looking forward to; the rotting bodies in the hospital were getting less manageable by the day. The infection raged and Ethan grew tired; he dozed while trying to calm his fever. And the fever dreams left him spent and anxious. When he woke, he saw Ainsley sitting by his side—her hair set about her shoulders in perfect coils, her brown eyes trained on him, her mouth pouty.

  “Hey,” Ainsley replied. She held out a cool compress and tilted her head. “I didn’t want to wake you. I need to pack this on your wound…to get the swelling down.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” Ethan said. He sat up a bit and reached his hand out toward her. “I can do it. Let me do that.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous—”

  “Your mother already said that to me once today,” he interrupted with a smile.

  Ainsley got up off her chair and threw the blanket off of Ethan’s lap. She gasped when she saw his leg. The purple, blue, and black bruise climbing up his thigh. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked in a whisper. “All this time and I thought you were feeling better. I will never believe you again,” she added with an overly ominous tone.

  “I feel fine.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Ainsley said matter-of-factly. She settled down next to his legs and put an ice pack next to his amputation site, and then with ease, she ripped the medical tape and wrapped it against his leg. “You’re falling apart.”

  “I’m tough,” Ethan winced and then smiled. “I don’t want to be your burden.”

  Ainsley shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “The date is happening, by the way.”

  She rolled her eyes and reached for the blood-pressure cuff. “I’m not going to pretend to understand your obsession with this. I admit it would be something different…”

  “Yes!” Ethan called and then he coughed.

  “How long have you had that cough?” Ainsley asked as she adjusted the cuff on his arm.

  “Please don’t do that nurse stuff. It makes me sad,” Ethan replied, but Ainsley didn’t answer. She tightened the cuff and watched the dial spin.

  “Please shut up,” Ainsley said with a wink. “Your blood pressure is higher than normal too. Man, I have, like, monstrously failed you.” She raised her finger and poked it into Ethan’s shoulder. He pulled away from her touch, but couldn’t quite escape it. “I’m no longer taking orders from you. Find yourself another gin rummy player.”

  There was a sudden pressure in his chest and it filled and burst until Ethan couldn’t help it; he started coughing wildly, a non-productive bark. When the coughing died down, Ethan frowned. “Darla hates rummy. You’re my only hope.”

  “The saddest statement ever uttered.”

  “Date. Tomorrow. Don’t be late.” Ethan coughed again. “I’m serious. It’s happening. I have it all worked out.” His mind drifted to Anna for a moment; he imagined her blonde hair, her smile, and the way she made him feel. The date with Ainsley had started as a joke, something to do, to look forward to, but now he realized how much it made him feel alive—how much he couldn’t let it go. In a world of darkness, he’d made this one night the light. It wasn’t Ainsley that made it special, but the thought of doing anything that didn’t involve sitting around and waiting to get sicker.

  “I agree with my mom. Ethan, this is serious. Can’t you take this seriously? You’re too sick—”

  “Don’t you dare stand me up.”

  Ainsley took off the cuff and placed the back of her hand against Ethan’s forehead. Her skin against his skin caused his chest to tighten and he pushed the feeling aside. It wasn’t supposed to be like that; he didn’t want it to be like that.

  He touched her wrist, wrapping his hand in a circle around the smallness, his fingers overlapping, and he lowered her hand to his chest. Then he put his hand over hers, pressing her hand into the flesh. His heart beat fast and wild; Ainsley’s face dissolved, her mouth opened partway and her eyes watched her rising and falling hand. When she and Ethan locked eyes, he thought there had been a shift—subtle, nearly imperceptible.

  “Please,” he added. “Please.”

  “Fine. One pretend date. Only because I can’t say no to a dead guy,” Ainsley said in a whisper. Then she tugged her hand free of Ethan’s grip, pushed her chair back, and with dropping shoulders exited the room.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cass and Lucy watched and listened as people traveled down the hallway toward the Center for the gathering; everyone’s voices were full of expectation and energy—vibrantly calling and whispering about why they were being summoned. The once-empty hallway was brimming with traveling occupants of the pods. The girls had to lie in wait until the halls cleared, the last of the footsteps dying away, before pulling up on the secret panel and slipping, unnoticed, back into the bowels of the System.

  “Come, come,” Cass said and she gripped Lucy’s hand, slipping her fingers around Lucy’s and pulling her toward the voices.

  As they rounded one hall and disappeared down another, they could hear the roar of the crowd settle into a hush and Gordy’s familiar voice address the crowd, setting the stage for his father, with great effusiveness.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Cass clicked her tongue. “We’ll have to sneak back through the main doors. There would be no way to say we missed the memo from the theater.” Then still holding Lucy’s hand, Cass walked them to the Center’s entrance and with a deep breath, ducked into the crowd.

  It was the first time Lucy had seen everyone in the System gather in one place. She realized, with astonishment, that it seemed like there were fewer people living with her underground than had gone to her high school. All the survivors from North America were housed here and altogether they didn’t even equal
a large high school population?

  Her eyes scanned the crowd for their pod, but Cass knew right where to go and led Lucy to stand in place, shoving her next to her parents, brothers, and sister, who shot her looks of reproach. Lucy buried her head and tried to absorb her mother’s daggers.

  “Where were you?” Maxine hissed. “Tardiness…”

  “Right,” Lucy whispered back, “It’s not allowed. I get it. We hurried. I’m sorry.”

  Maxine placed a protective arm around Lucy’s shoulders and tucked her into the softness of her body. She held her like that, scrunched together, as Huck rose to address the crowd.

  As he walked to the small podium, up on a platform that hadn’t been there when Lucy walked through an hour ago, the group began a scattered applause; then the cheers grew, and more people clapped for Huck. Scott brought his hands together, but Lucy folded her hands in front of her, pushing them together in silent protest.

  “Well, thank you. Thank you, but please, that’s unnecessary,” Huck said, speaking into the podium’s microphone, which was wired to a small amplifier and broadcast his voice crisply to the far reaches of the room. “I stand before you today to say how proud I am of our successes this past month. That’s right…we’ve been here a month already. Now that we are learning how to operate within the System, I can say with ease and assurance that the great time we have hoped for has begun.”

  Lucy looked to her father and mother as they watched Huck. She wondered how many people defied him in their hearts and their minds, unwilling to show on the outside how his fine sounding arguments affected them. How, she wondered, could one man make so many people afraid?

  “But I am gathering us together today to remind ourselves why we are here and why others are not. Perhaps enough time has passed that we may begin to let our thoughts wander to fairness.” Huck leaned over and took a cup of water from Gordy and sipped it. “I’m here to say I understand. Your concerns are valid. And I am not an unconscientious leader. As a matter of fact, when I outlined what kind of leadership our new world deserved, I set up the tenets of honesty, morality, and of working within our own conscience as a foundation. Together we are working toward a world void of the pain and dishonesty and deceit that has plagued our earth.”