The sink was filled with breakfast dishes and Juliana looked utterly defeated when she saw them. “I asked Mrs. Baird to do these,” she said quietly.
“Don’t worry,” said Ruth, manning the hand pump with some vigor, “I’m no stranger to dishes. You get the bandages and then come sit down at the table and dry for me.”
Juliana disappeared into the pantry. “Who is Mrs. Baird?” Ruth yelled after her.
“Part of Father Preston’s Congregation. When I suggested that they were more interested in protesting outside the police station than in helping those they claimed to be defending, he made some of them volunteer.”
Ruth snorted. “Then they should all be here today. There’s nobody to protest today. I’m conveniently nearby.”
Juliana emerged from the pantry with a load of linen and bandages. She dumped it on the table and picked up a towel. Ruth placed a stack of dripping bowls on the table and pulled a chair out for her friend. “Oh, they’re here,” she sank into the chair and picked up a bowl. “Sorry,” she offered with a half-smile.
“Well, what are they doing?”
“It’s time for the morning reading.”
“The what?”
“Father Preston has decided that the patients need to hear the bible. So each of the Congregation goes and stands in front of each door and shouts a bible passage through it every morning.”
“They couldn’t think of a better way to demonstrate religion?” asked Ruth, scrubbing scratches into the plastic bowls in frustration, “like empathy or charity in caring for these people? Or mercy—” she fell silent for a moment, “sorry. I didn’t mean to say the last one. Does he think they can even hear it over their own screams?”
Juliana shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it gives him something to do. And it keeps him out of my hair for an hour a day. I use the Congregation for things around here when they are willing. I don’t trust them with the garden. The relatives of the people here do that. They have the most motivation to take care of it and help Bernard guard it when I’m not there.”
Ruth finished the dishes and piled them in front of Juliana. “How many patients do you have now?” she asked, her tone gentle.
“Seventy-nine. There’s hardly any on the street anymore, I’m not sure how they’d survive. That one from the transfer station is the first in years. But there are still people out there caring for their relatives. They trickle in. I don’t think it will ever stop.”
Ruth shook her head and turned back to the pump, filling buckets with water for bathing. “You can’t keep taking them. It’s too much. They’ll starve or you’ll drop dead from exhaustion.”
Juliana rubbed the last of the dripping bowls with her towel. “What if you stayed here?”
“You mean for good? With Father Preston and his ‘flock’ just down the hall?”
“I’ll ask them to leave.”
Ruth stopped pumping and the spout gurgled its last. She turned around. “You’ve never offered to make him leave before.”
“I need help. More than shouting bible verses through doorways.” She picked up the pile of clean diapers and bandages. “Just think about it, Ruth. I’m not asking you to stop— you know, your services. I’m just asking you to help me,” she lowered her voice, though there was no one around to hear. “If nothing changes, we’ll starve this winter. Or freeze. All of us in the hospital. I’m frightened. More scared than I’ve been since the first few weeks of the Plague. I don’t see another way.”
“I don’t know if I can do— all this again. I don’t know if I can relive this—” Ruth stammered, blushing.
Juliana stood up. “You don’t have to decide now. Just think about it a while. I’ll be grateful even if you only help today and never again. Just promise to consider it. Please.” She walked out of the kitchen into the noisy hallway. Ruth followed her with the buckets of water, trying to mask her panic.
The man from the transfer station was in the room at the end of the hall. The same one Father Preston had been in when Ruth had spent the night breathing for him through a blue bulb at the end of an ambu bag. The room was no different from the dozens of others on the ward, but the sight of it always made Ruth shudder. It was the death room to her. Even Juliana seemed to sense it, always putting the patients in the worst health in that room, without realizing it. Ruth could smell the man from outside the door. The rotting sewer smell clung to everything, like a sticky, invisible sweat. Ruth pulled up her face mask. “This is going to be really bad,” she muttered through it.
“I know,” said Juliana, “I don’t know what to do for him.”
Ruth opened the door. Her eyes teared up at the strength of the reek, even through the mask. She could hear Juliana retch behind her. She knew that she should tell her to go, but something hard inside of Ruth made her want to force Juliana to see the pain the man was being put through. To see the consequence of her decision. His eyes were dark craters in his face and his skin had turned a dull gray. Juliana scuttled past Ruth when she saw him lying in a puddle of his own filth.
“I swear, I just changed him. Not even an hour ago. He just keeps going. Sometimes it’s bloody. I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“That isn’t gangrene,” said Ruth. She helped Juliana turn him to his side to clean him. His lips curled back in a partial snarl but he was too weak to do more. She gently pinched a section of the skin on his arm. It didn’t sink back when she let go. The thrum of his pulse was too fast and too distant in his wrist. “It has to be dysentery. Or cholera maybe. But from what you told me, he’s been living in a garbage pile for years. For all I know, he may have the plague too. The bubonic one. He’s probably been bitten everywhere by the rats—” Ruth shuddered thinking of the rats trying to devour him, and him trying to devour the rats. “There’s nothing I can do for him. I have no antibiotics. And even if I did, he’s already dying from dehydration.”
“We can try an IV,” offered Juliana.
Ruth sighed. “Even if I could find a saline pack, I have no tubing and no catheters. Everything is gone, Juliana. Short of spoon feeding him liquids, I don’t know what we can try.”
“Let’s try, please,” said Juliana instead of answering.
“He’s eating food that could go to someone that might survive.”
“We aren’t starving yet.”
Ruth sighed and shook her head. “We can’t just give him water. We’d need sugar and salt to make the right solution. How many years has it been since you’ve seen either one?”
“Look at him, Ruth. Someone cared about him once.”
Ruth thought for a long moment. “I can’t give him what we don’t have,” she said, putting a hand on Juliana’s shoulder, “and if it’s dysentery it could spread to the others very quickly. It just takes one unwashed linen or us not disinfecting ourselves enough before doing something else. He’s dying. Whatever we do will only prolong it a few hours or days. This isn’t like the others. I don’t have to guess whether this man is actually in pain. The rat bites on his arms and legs are infected. He’s starving because everything is passing right through him. The dehydration is causing cramps throughout his body. It’s not just his mind that’s sick. He doesn’t have years of good health in front of him, so I don’t want you to think I’m saying this because he has the December Plague. I think the kindest thing for him and the safest thing for the others is to give him a sedative and let him rest.”
“You mean give him an overdose of sedative, don’t you?”
“Yes, Juliana, I do. Think of what you would want if you were in his position.”
Juliana nodded. “I’ll think about it,” she said. They left the man’s room and relief washed over Ruth as she shucked the mask and breathed clean air again. But Father Preston’s Congregation was waiting for them in the hallway. They watched the two women in silence for a moment. Father Preston stepped forward as if he were shielding his flock with his own body.
“You are going to murder that man aren’t you
?” asked Father Preston, “right there where you were going to murder me.”
Ruth gasped. In seven years, he’d never mentioned what Ruth had done. She had no idea he had remembered it. She flushed, feeling confused and cornered. Juliana glanced at her with obvious curiosity. But instead of asking, she said simply, “Ruth is treating that man. He is infectious and you should all stay away.”
“Don’t fall for her tricks, Juliana,” said Father Preston, “She’ll tell you she’s here to help but she’ll slip him poison when you aren’t looking. Or suffocate him.” Father Preston was shouting now and he whipped an old tattered towel from his back pocket and flung at Ruth’s feet. It was the same towel she’d held against his face.
Ruth bent over and picked it up. The Congregation was completely silent, their gaze like the heat of an August sun. But the Infected began wailing and screaming in the rooms beyond Father Preston as he shouted. “I was trying to help you. I only wanted to ease your pain,” said Ruth, with surprising calm.
“I didn’t want to die, Ruth. None of these people do. You can’t play God.”
“Why not?” Ruth asked, the volume of her voice rising as the agony of the Infected overwhelmed the hallway, “If He’s not going to do His job, why shouldn’t I pick up the slack?”
The women in the Congregation gasped. The men crossed themselves. “You can’t speak for these people,” she continued, “Only their families, who know them, who know what they would have wanted can. You’re playing God as much as I am. If you had left them where you found them—”
“Left them where we found them? Many were starving or freezing. How is that kinder than what you’ve done?” shouted Father Preston, his cheeks reddening.
“At least it would have been quicker,” said Ruth.
“You aren’t fit to be a physician,” spat Father Preston.
“I wouldn’t trust you to care for a beast,” shouted one of the men behind him. Juliana held up her hands to stop the fight, but Ruth lost her temper.
“It would be easier if I were a vet!” she cried, “at least they put animals out of their misery when necessary. Nobody questions them. It’s the humane thing to do. What has happened to you people? Where is your mercy? Where is your simple decency? You used to treat dogs better than you treat the Infected. At least a dog is allowed to die when it has suffered enough. At least a dog gets fresh air and sunlight and grass. If you kept dogs chained as tightly as you keep these people restrained, you’d have gone to prison. At least a dog doesn’t have to be trapped in its own filth until someone changes it.” She pounded on the door behind her, “These are human beings. Can’t you hear them? You think they shriek like that for fun? They are more than a cause to shout about or a mythical ‘heathen’ in need of bible study. They are people! Once they had mothers and fathers and spouses and children. And maybe they lived good, decent lives. Maybe they were artists who created beautiful things. Or maybe they were policemen or soldiers who protected you. Or maybe they were just normal people who got up every morning and kissed their loved ones and went to work and had picnics. Maybe some of them even showed up to your church on Sunday. They at least deserve the respect and dignity you’d give to an animal. Not— this.”
Suddenly, Juliana raced down the hall, pushing her cart ahead of her and almost knocking Father Preston over. Ruth immediately regretted falling for the bait and shoved her own way past the people in front of her. Some of them spit on her, but she didn’t pay attention, following her friend instead.
“I’m sorry, Juliana,” Ruth called after her. Juliana stopped on the front walk. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t talking about you. I didn’t mean what you were doing—”
“Never mind,” said Juliana, “I shouldn’t expect you to understand. I do what I think is best and you do what you think is best, and we can still be friends, right?”
“Of course,” said Ruth.
Juliana pushed the cart out to the manhole in the middle of the cement walkway. Volunteers had rolled the metal cover away years ago and recovered it with chain link fencing. Juliana began dumping dirty water into the sewer. She stared for a moment at the mountain of soiled diapers and bandages. She sat on the hot tar and began to cry. “What is it?” asked Ruth, sitting beside her.
“I ran out of soap a month ago. We ran out of toothpaste and baking soda over a year ago. They are all going to get it. The dysentery or the cholera or whatever he has. I can’t get the linens clean enough. Their teeth are rotting even though I brush them every night. They have barely enough protein from the garden, and this winter we’ll have none at all. Half of them are probably developing scurvy or rickets. You’re right, Ruth, I treat them worse than animals. And it’s only getting worse.”
Ruth thought for a moment. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. I’m sorry.”
“No, you are right.”
“Yeah,” said Ruth, “but if I were being fair instead of blowing up at Father Preston, I might have said we were treating them like animals, but I also would have said that we are living like animals too. Juliana, you didn’t run out of soap just for them, the Infected, you ran out for you too. Sure, their teeth have some plaque. So do mine,” she started grinning and pointed to her friend, “So do yours, for that matter. There’s two bits of good news: Everyone’s teeth are rotting, so nobody’s going to stare.”
Juliana gave her a weak smile. “And the other good news?”
Ruth shrugged, “We so rarely have sugary or starchy food now, that our teeth will rot slower. As long as we keep rinsing their mouths and brushing until the brushes run out, their mouths will be as healthy as ours. All I meant was that Father Preston’s people treat the Infected like they aren’t human. Like they are just an excuse to hold a tent revival. If this were Before, they’d all have ‘Save the Afflicted’ t-shirts. They’d go to their rallies and write a check once a month and never otherwise think about the Infected at all. They might not have the bumper stickers anymore, but they are doing the same thing. They come in, shout some verses and feel they’ve done some good. They come to the station and shout some curses and feel that they are righteous. Then they go home and loot from their neighbors or hoard things that are desperately needed here, all the while feeling perfectly pure and sanctified. If they were really thinking of the Infected as people, if they really cared about what happened to them, they’d be here, every day, doing what you do without being asked. You give everything you have to the people you care for. You eat after they eat. You wash after they wash. You sleep after they sleep. None of that— scene was meant for you.”
Juliana was silent, her gaze far off, lost in the sway of the tall summer grasses. “Is it the linens you’re still worried about?” Ruth asked. “You didn’t give that man dysentery. What he was living in all these years did that. I’m still floored he lasted this long. And we can boil the linens, it’s as good as soap for disinfection. We’ll start drying them in the sun instead of over the kitchen stove. That should kill anything that makes it through boiling. Honestly, though, if an outbreak is going to happen, there’s only so much you or I can do. We’re all drinking the same groundwater and not everyone is as careful about their waste as we are.” She waved at the grate over the manhole.
Juliana shook her head. “Where are we going to get all that fuel to boil the water? It’s hard enough to get wood for the winter as it is. It just keeps getting harder. Everything is falling apart.”
“This isn’t like you. What is making you so sad? We’ve been through worse times. Remember when that hail storm took out half the garden? You didn’t even blink. Or when those trees fell onto the roof? You had someone fixing it in days. So we burn some tires in the old boiler instead of wood this winter. No one’s going to be complaining to the city. And we’ll be a little thinner in the spring. We’ll make it. I thought of a few more places to try for canned goods anyway, and I treated a guy with a broken arm a few months ago. He was just passing through and he told me about an orchard about twenty miles outside of th
e city. I’d need a few helpers and a couple of days, but we could bring back cartloads of fruit before the snow. I’ve made my decision. I’ll stay Juliana. I’ll go get my things tonight and I’ll be back in the morning. Okay?”
Juliana smiled. “Okay. That will help.” She got up and dusted off the backs of her legs. She looked at the pile of laundry. “Do you want to cook dinner or—”
Ruth groaned. “Just give me the laundry,” she scowled and pushed the cart into the kitchen.
Chapter 12
Frank crouched next to the cabinets counting water bottles. He tried not to listen to Nella as she spoke calmly over the radio to the people waiting at home. It was like calling a friend to let them know a loved one had just passed away unexpectedly. But worse. He’d never dreamed the capitol would be wiped out. Not really. No one would expect that. It was going to crush all hope of returning to any kind of normal life for anyone who still clung to it. Frank couldn’t do it. He had reasoned that Nella was better at it, that she was trained to know what to say. But nobody was trained for this. She’d made the radio call so that he didn’t have to.
He closed the cupboard and flopped back onto the bunk, looking up at the map he’d pinned above it. Unless they could find a clean source of fresh water, they would only be able to go another week before turning around. Was it even worth going farther? He shut his eyes. The truth was, he’d been terrified when they’d sailed out of sight of the City. Every town they’d landed in had been an aching stretch of adrenaline from the minute they touched the solid ground. He’d expected an ambush from every empty doorway, or thieves to take the boat and strand them. He thought about telling Nella, but she’d been nervous too. So he’d held his tongue, waiting for the safety of the capitol. It had been the first thing he thought of each day as they lifted the anchor. Every hope had hinged on the thousands of people he had expected to find. What was he to do now? What were any of them to do?
Krisis (After the Cure Book 3) Page 11
