“Whatchu going to do now? Can’t lie, never had much use for neighbors, but you folks, might be nice to have a friendly face in hollering distance.”
Neil roused himself from the dizzy half-doze he’d been in. “Gotta go. Gotta find my girl. She’s jus’ little one.” He frowned at the thickening slur he heard emerge from his mouth and pushed his glass away.
Hazel-Lea nodded as if he’d said something very wise. “An’ then what?”
“Huh?”
“Gonna find her and then what?”
Elijah stopped shuffling his cards and looked over at Neil.
Neil shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Bes’ think of it. Not gonna do her much good you find her and don’t have a safe place to keep her. Takess lot to raise a kid now. No sschool. No fass-food places. Day’s hike just to get diapers.”
“She’s not—”
“Unless you meanna join those traveler folk. Sad life that. Hit one bad spot and—” She blew out her cheeks with a sharp puff of air. “All gone. You set up a farm and you can save some for lean years. Canning’s a pain, but if those sheep go on and get the bluetongue one year, I’ll have some laid by to eat. Those travelers, a frost takes out a potato crop or the apple trees have a bad year or they get to some beach in the south and a cold front sweeps in, what’re they gonna do? An’ thass without the biters. Run into a batch of ‘em and how’re they gonna survive that? Nah. Bes’ set up here. Bring her back. That group that had the little girl, they won’t be back until spring anyway. You aren’t fixing on traveling this year, are you? Bare enough time to get wood to keep warm. You’ll never make it far enough south to avoid the snow in time. Guess you’re unlucky when it comes to food, but I’ll help you. Still plenny of stuff in the grocery. Went bad real fass here. Back room’s still stocked. An’ the seafood place. That cheapskate Randall always bought midwinter for the summer rush. His stock room’s probably full to bursting. We’ll get you set up.”
Hazel-Lea rambled on for a few more hours. Neil dozed through most of it. Elijah shook him awake at one point and guided him upstairs to Randi’s room where he slept heavily until the sun blazed through the window and woke him.
He squinted and sat up, trying to remember the past several hours. He looked around at the empty room. You were supposed to be here, he thought. Right here. How on Earth do I find out where you’ve gone? How do I help you? Hazel-Lea had been right. He hadn’t thought past finding Randi. At all. He had no plan. He had no safe, well-stocked place for her if he ever did find her. Which meant that Elijah had been right as well. Neil hadn’t been trying to save her. He’d been trying to find forgiveness. And he wasn’t sure he deserved it. Maybe he’d never be sure. Regardless, Elijah hadn’t deserved what Neil had done the night before. He got up. Stop being a shitty friend. Randi is… she’s not here. She’s wherever she is and I have to hope that Joan is protecting her. At least until spring. Then we’ll see. But Elijah’s right here. And there’s a ton to do if we’re going to make it through winter. He went out into the bright sun. Hazel-Lea and her jug were nowhere in sight. Neil assumed she’d wandered off home. Elijah was digging a hole near the treeline.
“What are you doing?” Neil asked as he approached.
“Digging a latrine. Don’t want it too far from the house and I don’t want it to flow into the well. I think this is the edge of your leach field but I’ve never been very handy if truth be told.”
“I’m sorry, for what I said. You didn’t deserve that. I don’t know why I— I could have been calmer. And kinder.”
Elijah stopped and swiped his forehead with the back of his arm. “It was just grief. It’s a kind of infection, too.”
“It’s not an excuse.”
“Neither’s the plague. But it’s a reason.”
“I’m sorry,” Neil repeated.
“I forgive you, brother,” was all Elijah said. He started to dig again but stopped after a few shovelfuls. “Can’t go with you. I worried about it all night. I tried to think of a way for us to survive a winter on the road. I’m just not good enough at this to know what to do. And I— I’m not ready to walk out into the snow and die. I’m sorry, Neil. I can’t do this with you.” He wiped his forehead. “Will you show me how to prime the pump before you go? Never done it before. And I think that Hazel-Lea lady would probably laugh and run me off if I asked her.” He said it quietly, evenly, but he didn’t look up at Neil. As if he were afraid Neil was already gone.
Neil reached his arm out to help Elijah out of the hole. “I’ll show you how to prime it. Then we should go to the neighbor’s and see if his chainsaw’s still in the shed. Or maybe the hand saw. Hell if I know where we’re going to get gas. Last I checked the woodshed only had a half cord in it. We’ll need at least three to get through. Of course, I like to keep it on the warm side. Used to drive Joan crazy.”
“I’ll figure out how to keep myself warm tomorrow,” said Elijah. “I’ve only got two hands and I’ve got to make sure I’ve got water first.”
“Four. Six if Hazel-Lea is really going to help us. And we’ll have the water going in twenty minutes. Bitch to pump it, but once it’s primed it’s not so bad.”
“You’re staying? Look, Neil, I understand why you—”
“I’m staying. Hazel-Lea was right. I’ve got no place to keep her safe if I do find her. I’ll be of no help to her if I show up starving and freezing, I’d just be another trouble heaped on all the others. And you were right. I— I don’t even know where to start looking. I’m not giving up on finding Randi, but— I need to plan first. And there’s enough to do while I figure it out. Can’t think of a better way to do that than here with you, brother. If you still want to be friends.”
Elijah grabbed his hand and hauled himself up. “I’ll never not be your friend, Neil.”
“That’s it?” asked Neil. “No conditions? Just— we’re friends again?”
Elijah frowned, rubbed the dirt from his hand. “One condition. Not for me. We’re friends. But— but Hazel-Lea can never know that we’re Cured. Not after knowing how long she waited and hoped for her husband. Understand?”
“Agreed.”
Elijah let out a shaky breath and covered his eyes with his hand for a moment. “I’m glad you’re staying,” he muttered.
Neil wrapped an arm over Elijah’s shoulders. “I’m not a good friend. I forgot what I owed you for a little while.”
“You don’t owe me any—”
“I do, even if you don’t want to claim it. Not just because of all the times you’ve pulled me out of a bad spot. I want to owe you. Because as long as I owe you, you’re going to be stuck with me. I didn’t drag you all the way here to abandon you. I was— awful yesterday. But I’m going to be better. We’re going to be okay, brother.”
Elijah nodded.
“Come on,” Neil said, releasing him. “Let’s find some buckets and prime that pump. I need some water. My mouth tastes like a— what was it you called it?”
Elijah laughed. “A binge at an all-you-can-eat manure buffet?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Remind me not to try Hazel-Lea’s private vintage again.”
Thank you so much for reading The Infected, 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. It begins with Before the Cure which takes place just before this story, 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 this series:
Before the Cure
In the same world as Before the Cure:
After the Cure
The Cured
Krisis
Poveglia
The 40th Day
Curing Khang Yeo in The Z Chronicles
Pet Shop in Tails of the Apocalypse
Andy and Igor http://www.scullerytales.com/free-reads/
Non-Infected stories:
Ex Situ Series:
Traveler in the Dark
Cradle of the Deep
Torrent of Darkness
Scapegoat Series:
Scapegoat
Reciprocate
Short stories:
System Failure in The Robot Chronicles
Iteration in The Future Chronicles
The Thaw http://www.scullerytales.com/the-thaw/
Before The Cure (Book 2): The Infected Page 32
