There was a metallic rattle of chains and some shouting from outside as another pole went up in the field. The Infected heard and groans began building in the hallway. Quiet. That’s what they both wanted. Soon it would be quiet. She walked reluctantly over to Juliana and shook her gently by the shoulder.
Juliana smiled sleepily up at her. “I’m glad you’re back, I was getting worried.”
Ruth slumped into the chair across from her. “They were going to kill Bernard. I had to get him away first.”
Juliana’s smile faltered and Ruth patted the back of her hand.
“It’s okay, he’s safe. No more poppies though. We have to do this a little short.”
Juliana sighed. “I wish there were some other way,” she said.
Doubt bubbled up in Ruth’s chest. She almost mentioned the cure, almost told her everything that had happened, but she shook her head. What good would it do now? They had no way to reach it, and no time. Father Preston was itching to just throw open the doors and take everything. His Congregation wouldn’t stand idle much longer. It could only cause Juliana more anguish.
“I’m sorry,” Ruth said, “but if you want to give the Infected a chance, this is the only way.”
Someone outside began screaming and the Infected joined in. Juliana put her hands over her ears and started to cry. “I can’t do this any more,” she said.
Ruth stood up and held out a hand to Juliana. “We’re ready to stop it. Let’s start getting them dressed.” They walked to the entryway and pulled a few sets of clothes from the plastic bags.
“How long do we have?” asked Juliana.
“The dose should last about six hours,” said Ruth grimly. “We’ll have to get them dressed first and then dose them or we’ll run out of time before it wears off. I’ll move them a few at a time when they are sleeping. I had hoped Bernard would be here, but we can do it. We have to wait for the Congregation to leave and the guards to fall asleep anyway.”
The screaming outside stopped. The screaming inside did not. Ruth opened the first door. The woman inside was already frenzied. “This is going to be rough,” she told Juliana. She grabbed the woman’s thrashing arms and pushed them into her chest as Ruth backed the woman into the wall. Juliana began sliding baggy clothes onto the woman’s wiry frame.
Chapter 27
The kitchen was slick with steam. Bowl after bowl of hot sweetened oatmeal sat on the tables. The smell made even Ruth dizzy. She had sent Juliana up to her room to rest after they had dressed the inmates. Ruth thought about saving one dose aside for Juliana. She didn’t want her friend to have to see the Infected die on her own lawn. But they were going to have to move fast when it was over and she wouldn’t be able to outrun the Infected if she were carrying a drugged Juliana. Besides, they were still short.
She slunk over to the window and pulled the curtain carefully away from the glass. The sun was too low to see, the baking horizon a hazy slate gray the melted into the ruined steel skyline. The field seemed empty apart from the growing line of posts, the bodies still hanging from them, like a gruesome version of forgotten tetherballs. She couldn’t see anyone else moving around. It was only temporary, though. The Congregation would be hunting for their next victim or gathering together to finally assault the hospital. The garden raid would begin in twenty minutes and then she could be sure the attention of the Congregation was elsewhere. Just enough time for the light to fade. Ruth was running out of time. They all were. She piled the cart with plastic bowls and began pushing the drugged food down the hallway.
By the time she had emptied the cart, the hospital was quite dark and the field was in deep shadow. She didn’t bother lighting any lamps. Better that no one saw her moving through the windows. She returned to the first room. After unrolling a large tarp onto the floor, she opened the door. The woman inside was asleep, tangled in her oversized clothes, her bowl empty beside her. Ruth untied the restraints and dragged the woman as gently as she could onto the tarp. The woman was heavily sedated and didn’t react as Ruth slid the tarp slowly across the kitchen floor and out the door. She lifted the woman’s head so that it wouldn’t bang against the few steps down.
Ruth glanced around. Still no sign of the Congregation. Any glimpse of the garden was blocked by the dense cliff of shadow from the abandoned wing. Ruth decided to take advantage of the quiet and dragged the woman as far as possible through the long grass to the opposite end of the field. The weeds and brush were tall enough that, until she woke enough to stand up, the woman would be invisible to any healthy people in the field and to the other Infected around her. Ruth rolled her off of the tarp and hurried back to repeat the process. Aside from a constant rustle as she dragged each sleeping body through the grass, she made no noise. The light evening breeze and the creak of stretching rope on the steel beams covered what little sound she did make.
Her arms ached and wobbled. Body after body. Her throat was parched and she was dripping with sweat. But she couldn’t afford to stop. Father Preston could return at any moment or the sedative could wear off. She had guessed on the dosage, unable to measure a homemade drug as precisely as she wished. A few of the Infected had paid for it already. She had found three stiffening in their own vomit. She had closed their cell doors again, so Juliana wouldn’t see.
She was halfway through the second floor patients, her back screaming in agony as she slid a man down the stairs on the back of a metal cell door, when she saw the first flare of a torch. She cursed under her breath and slid the door the rest of the way down. She’d been using the front door to cover this side of the field. Now she’d have to use the abandoned wing. She couldn’t just dump them in a group; they’d kill each other before they ever even noticed Father Preston’s group.
It had to be close to midnight. A huge bank of clouds had moved in. The only light was from the occasional stutter of far off heat lightning and the flames of the torches that were winding their way into the field. Ruth stumbled a few times but she was quiet while the members of the Congregation talked freely, unafraid. They never even noticed her. She tried to hurry, but after hours of dragging and lifting, her body protested and began to betray her.
A loud chorus of shouts and the hissing snap of a riding crop startled her. She looked up from the body she was rolling into the grass. It was the half-police car that Bernard had been in. The bank of lights hung partway off the car, the torchlight gleaming through them like dull gems of red and blue. The yoked Infected snarled in their football helmets and pulled it forward, chasing the man jogging in front of them. Gray walked beside the car snapping the crop at the fingers sticking out of the cage. The people inside sobbed and screamed for mercy. Ruth couldn’t see how many they had crammed in; she guessed it was five or six. A few faces pressed against the side windows but it was too dark to see them. Father Preston was standing on the front steps, his followers banging on the front door. A new row of beams was being erected behind the first, slightly offset so that a person inside the hospital would be forced to see every single body.
Ruth crouched in the grass beside the sleeping man she had just placed and rolled up the tarp. They were too close to the entrance, the people would see her if she tried to go into the abandoned wing. She’d have to wait until they moved away from the steps.
“Juliana!” roared Father Preston, “Juliana! I have proof that Ruth is not what she appears.” He waited a moment, the snarling of the Infected men pulling the car and the screams of those inside cutting through. They were distant though, like a football game in a far off field or a television in a neighbor’s house. Less important. Like something that had already happened.
“Juliana, she never intended to keep the hospital for you. She’s stealing food out of the very mouths of your wards,” he called again. Ruth saw a light flicker in the upstairs bedroom. Father Preston was too far from her to see his face, but she could imagine the triumphant smile.
She had to finish this, and fast, before something happened to the peopl
e in the car or Juliana ran out of bluffs. Ruth slunk around the edge of the field, skirting the edges of the torchlight. She watched the lantern descend the stairs of the hospital and knew Juliana was coming to the door. If she held the attention of Father Preston’s people, Ruth might be able to sneak into the kitchen side. But there were still five more Infected neatly laid out on the ground floor waiting for their turn on the tarp. She had to close the circle behind Preston or the Congregation would simply escape and massacre the Infected that followed them.
Juliana opened the front door and stood blocking the entrance. She swayed a little as a breeze passed by her. Even at a distance Ruth could see how pale she was. Her voice was strong and unwavering though. “Father Preston,” she said, “you’ve worked to destroy my friendship with Ruth for as long as I’ve known you. I’ve listened to every crime you’ve placed at her feet, I’ve even taken your counsel on occasion and avoided or opposed her when I should have listened to her. While you lectured, she worked. She’s given these people the best medical care she could, she’s cleaned them, changed their bandages, even slipped donations of medicine and food I didn’t think existed anymore onto the doorstep thinking I didn’t know who it came from. What have you done beside lecture me about how bad she is?”
“I— We’ve ministered to their souls. We’ve let them know they aren’t forgotten, that someone defends them in their helplessness— far more important than mere housekeeping,” spat Father Preston. “As I am trying to minister to yours before you are beyond my aid. I know you are weary, Juliana, ready to hand over your good works to another. But do not let her deceive you, Ruth does not intend to help the Infected. She sent a mob to plunder your garden—”
“You mean after your thugs tortured Bernard as he was guarding it? After they burned the greenhouses to the ground? What was left to plunder?”
Ruth had made it inside. She was rolling another slumbering Infected onto the tarp. She froze as she heard Father Preston’s tone change.
“She’s here, isn’t she?” he gasped. “Is she in there right now? Come out Ruth! We caught your minions ripping up the floorboards of the caretaker’s cottage to get to the hoard of food underneath. They’ve admitted you sent them to do it. You and that gardener have been stealing food for months, haven’t you?”
She could hear him climb a few of the front steps and Ruth’s face flushed with anger. She reached for the gun that wasn’t on her hip. Ashamed, she put her hand down and shouldered the tarp, beginning to drag the Infected back out the far door.
Juliana stopped him. “Bernard wouldn’t do that. He was hiding the food from the men you sent to loot it.”
“We are not thieves!” shrieked Father Preston.
Juliana’s voice was calm but it vibrated through the whole field. “Yes. You are. You may not have meant to become a thief, maybe none of you did. Once you were good people. But now, now you steal food from those who can’t lift a finger to stop you. You steal from me, who would have freely given you food, if you had asked. You aren’t just thieves, but arsonists and torturers. Murderers.”
A throaty, growling murmur passed through the crowd. Ruth tried to speed up as adrenaline began pulsing through her.
“Oh yes, murderers,” continued Juliana, “look around you. You kill men and women in the most brutal way possible because someone you don’t like has a photograph of their loved one? You don’t know the agreement between them and Ruth. And you don’t even have the decency to bury them. You leave them to rot and disturb the Afflicted. We can smell them in here. We can hear them. You disturb our peace, these people you pretend to want to care for so badly.”
“It was not murder, but justice,” cried a woman behind Ruth.
“I know Father Preston has convinced you of that. That you believe these people are murderers. Even if I could agree, it doesn’t explain Bernard. How do you justify what’s been done to him? He’s done no harm to anyone. He’s only ever protected the garden and helped feed us. But he has been beaten, his hand and arm broken. Your own people burned down the greenhouses that held our medicinal plants. Medicine that could be used to help anyone. All gone, all wasted. What good did that serve? Father Preston, can you explain that?”
Ruth closed the circle a little more, rolling the Infected off the tarp and creeping back toward the kitchen. Just a few more, she told herself.
“Perhaps some of the men have been a little overzealous, but we will have plenty of food where we are headed, you don’t need to worry about—” began Father Preston.
“I’m not worried about you,” said Juliana sharply. “I’m worried about the people you are leaving behind. They’ve never done anything to you, but you destroyed what was left for them to live on. And when I send families of the Afflicted to retrieve the food Bernard protected, you throw them into this— this cart to be hurt or killed. And you enslave two Afflicted to pull it-”
“You sent them?” snapped Father Preston, “No, Ruth sent them. They are thieves. The Afflicted aren’t enslaved. They are doing God’s work.”
Ruth was almost back to the kitchen. She watched as Juliana snatched the riding crop out of Gray’s hand. “Then you don’t need this,” she said. “Let them go. Let all of them go and leave us in peace. This is the last time I will ask. Go now. You’ve committed the worst crimes that are left in a world as broken as this one is. What will happen when you’re the ones who are judged?”
“Nothing will happen,” spat Father Preston, “our motives are pure. We are not leaving without Ruth. We know these people are in league with her and we cannot let thieves run rampant in our midst. Stealing food is just a longer version of murder these days. Unless Ruth answers for their crimes, they will join the monsters already hanging in this field. You have until dawn to say your goodbyes and produce her. Then they will hang and we will retrieve the Afflicted you hold hostage ourselves. I cannot guarantee your safety if that should happen Juliana. We are not leaving. And we are done talking.” He stormed down the steps. Ruth was already halfway toward the next empty spot. She crouched in the tall grass, ready to be discovered as the crowd milled around and Juliana shut the door. But the crowd was too restless and outraged to look around them, too confident in themselves to fear any outside interference. They posted guards at the doors and went back to their preparations, each expecting the others to spot any escape attempts.
Ruth went on with her solitary work, easily skirting the lazy guards who half dozed near the kitchen.
Chapter 28
“Why are we waiting for morning?” hissed Gray, “If you’ve made the decision we can take the hospital now. Don’t give them time to prepare.” He trailed the priest by only half a step. Father Preston whirled around.
“You really are an idiot, aren’t you?” asked Father Preston. Gray flushed a deep red and puffed out his chest. “I’ve given you far too much leeway. Don’t forget who’s in charge here,” continued Father Preston, “To you this is all just a sham, just a show. You think I’m either a doddering fool for upholding my faith, or I’m using it as a cloak to trick these people.” His hand shot out and clutched Gray’s collar closed. He lifted Gray up off of his feet and let him choke on the tightened cloth for a few seconds. “My faith is my strength. Don’t forget it again,” he growled. “The men told me you had a history with the gardener. In the end it will be you and not me who answers for his mistreatment. But I will not allow you to harm Juliana. Not while I am here to stop you. I will not have that stain, at least, upon me.” He let go with a shove and Gray fell into the grass. Father Preston bent over him. “If that’s too otherworldly for you, then consider this: If we began storming the hospital now, Ruth would begin killing the Afflicted, thinking there is nothing left to lose. The Afflicted we manage to save will be wild and dangerous in the commotion. If I tell them they have until morning then Juliana will persuade her to wait. In an hour or two I will send in a small team through the broken wing to begin quietly securing the building. They will catch Ruth unaware. Th
e Afflicted will be asleep and Juliana will remain unharmed. You however, will not be part of that team. You can guard the cart with its prisoners instead. Care for the Afflicted you have harnessed to it. Show me you have their interest at heart and maybe I won’t throw you off as soon as we leave town.” Gray glared at him and rubbed his neck. Father Preston just straightened up and strode off to comfort his angry Congregation.
Father Preston sat in a folding chair at a table while the others milled around him setting up camp, eating, poking at the criminals in the caged car. He had meant to sit down and make a list of a handful of trusted people to send into the hospital, but something about the yoked Afflicted made him stop and stare, his thoughts drifting like leaves in a greasy puddle. Juliana’s voice kept echoing the word “murderer.” She’d asked him who he’d killed. She’d asked him if he remembered. His gaze traced the deep lines of rage and want that had carved themselves into the snarling Afflicted’s face. Did they remember?
No, they couldn’t. Father Preston was special. He was chosen. Remembering had been the cost of his miraculous cure, surely. Remembering had led him to minister to the others, knowing the darkness they were caught in. It didn’t mean that they would ever remember. He closed his eyes for a moment. What he’d done, what he was doing— it was all to a greater purpose, wasn’t it? The Plague had been another flood. The world was not broken, despite what Juliana believed; it was cleansed. He alone had risen from the floodwater. He alone had to live with not just what he had done, but what they all had done to survive.
Krisis (After the Cure Book 3) Page 21
