The Cure

by Glenn Cooper

  “Well, where to begin?” Holland said. It was hard to know if this was a rhetorical device, or genuine uncertainty. He looked over to his wife who had her head bowed rubbing a temple.

  Jamie saw another opportunity to annoy him by hijacking the conversation. “Your nephew said you call this place Camp CM. What is that?”

  “It stands for Clean Minds.”

  “Very catchy,” Connie said.

  “You think so?” Holland asked.

  Connie said, “Not really.”

  Holland sighed. “I know you’re angry. I understand that, but hopefully, you’ll come on board when you hear what we want to accomplish. When the epidemic started, we were in Asheville. The new semester had started; we were very much in our academic-year routine. At first, we weren’t all that concerned, because cable news tends to exaggerate threats, and given our libertarian bent, we are not, by nature, trustful of government advisories. We kept indoors and waited for one or both of us to fall ill because many of our students and fellow faculty members at the college got sick, but for some reason, we stayed healthy. Of course, things got bad rather quickly and when the power grid failed and showed no sign of coming back, we wondered whether we should do something drastic.”

  His wife appeared ready to rejoin the conversation and said, “Jack means commit suicide.”

  He reached over to pat her hand and said, “Well, we have no children, and we didn’t think of ourselves as survivalists, so it wasn’t an unreasonable thought. Then something happened that changed our minds. We began to run low on food and I got up the courage and went next door to our nearest neighbor. Tell them about Mrs. Phillips, dear.”

  Mrs. Holland said, “She is—or I should say, she was—a very nice woman with a disability—emphysema. She lived with her daughter, Valerie, who is in her forties and never married. We didn’t know Valerie very well, but we understood that she had a difficult life.” She lowered her voice to a gossipy whisper when she said, “There was an abortion, from what we heard, and some kind of drug problem.”

  “What I found that day was distressing,” Holland said. “Mrs. Phillips was at death’s door because she had run out of oxygen supplies. Valerie had the illness and was in a deplorable state. Neither had eaten for some time despite their being a good deal of food in the kitchen. Mrs. Phillips told me with her dying breaths that my wife and I could have the food if I promised to look after her daughter. I’m a man of my word, so we took Valerie in.”

  “Valerie was a lost soul,” Mrs. Holland said, “but very nice in her own way, and after a day or two, it occurred to us.”

  “What occurred to you?” Morningside asked.

  “We are teachers,” Holland said. “Educators. We found that Valerie was tabula rasa, with a clean mind primed to receive information and knowledge. The right kind of information— not all the filth and nonsense from the media bombardment that young people succumbed to in the past. That was the light-bulb moment.”

  “Social media,” his wife said, shaking her head sadly. “So destructive.”

  Holland said, “That’s right. The kind of information that we wanted to impart were pure, moral teachings that have withstood the test of time over two millennia of western thought.”

  Jamie smirked. “Western thought. That’s code for Christian thought, right?”

  “Now, now, hear me out,” Holland said. “You want to put us into a box. A right-wing, Christian-fundamentalist box. Are we Christians? Yes, we are devout, practicing Christians. Do we believe in God? Yes, we do. Ardently. Do we believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins? Yes. He suffered and died for our sins. But that’s not the point. The point is that there is a body of moral philosophy based on Judeo-Christian teachings that we felt we could use as a new curriculum, a new software to reprogram clean minds. We would teach notions of good and evil, right and wrong, sin and salvation.”

  Morningside said, “One of my sons-in-law is a Buddhist. What’s wrong with their moral philosophy?”

  “Probably nothing,” Holland said, “but we are not qualified to teach that philosophy. Perhaps there are people in Asia who, like us, are motivated to help the sick over there and reprogram them into their better selves. More power to them. We can only do what we can do. So, we poured our energy into teaching Valerie based on simple, elegant, lessons from the Gospel and the Constitution—our twin, foundational pillars. The results have been promising. Valerie is becoming a wonderful, new, clean version of herself, freed from the shackles of a lifetime of degrading and sinful habits. You’ll meet her and you will see for yourselves.”

  His wife said, “We thought, if we can teach one person, we can teach two. If two, then a hundred. If a hundred, then a thousand. We can train teachers to go forth into the country like Johnny Appleseeds, spreading our Clean Minds curriculum to—well, millions of survivors. Yes, why not? Millions.”

  “And in time,” Holland said, “God willing, we will have built a new, moral society from the ground up, an American society, close to what our Founding Fathers had in mind, but a society that never materialized because it was derailed by unhealthy, outside, polluting influences.”

  Mrs. Holland added, “And the beauty of our plan is that without the Internet and television and movies and magazines infecting their minds with filth, our teachings will be unchallenged by the seductions of sin. The serpent will not have an opportunity to pollute Eve.”

  Holland leaned toward Morningside, evidently thrilled to be making his pitch to an illustrious guest. “But the problem with our vision is that my wife and I are good with our heads, but not our hands. We didn’t know how to go about doing the things that would be required to find recruits and keep them fed and healthy. That’s where Melissa’s brother came in. Chuck Streeter is an imperfect man, but he’s a man of action. He had the survival skills we required, and like us, he was immune to the virus. He was quick to say yes to our proposal.

  “And what’s more, he had a network of several uninfected colleagues who were also men of action. Melissa’s nephew, Jeremy, had been staying with Chuck since Jeremy’s parents died early in the epidemic. We had our camp on Lake Splendor, that was perfect for what we had in mind. We have unlimited fresh water, a forest full of firewood, and existing structures adequate for the first phase of our enterprise. Over the past several weeks, Mr. Streeter canvassed the surrounding area and found nearly four dozen recruits and enough food to keep us going. With winter coming, we will take a pause. We will work on the education of the existing campers, and in the spring, we will expand and seek new recruits.”

  “So, there you have it,” Mrs. Holland said, patting her lap with her hands. “Our little utopia, Camp Clean Minds.”

  Connie let out one of her wicked laughs. “Your version of utopia. What’s it going to be? Lily-white? Non-Christians need not apply? Going to teach your recruits to goose-step and give Nazi salutes?”

  Before Holland could respond, Jamie added, “I’ve seen this play before. I was just in western Pennsylvania, where we got tangled up with a redneck, right-wing power-monger who wanted to turn infecteds into a Christian army to crush non-believers. He figured there were people all over the country who were doing the same thing, and I guess he wasn’t wrong.”

  “This would not be the America I know and love,” Morningside said mournfully.

  Holland got up to pace. “No, no, we are very different,” he insisted. “We are not right-wing nuts—we are mainstream conservatives, probably not all that dissimilar politically to you, Gloria. We desire a just and fair society. We are not religious extremists—we are mainstream Christians who desire a society that is informed by the very best Judeo-Christian and American thoughts and practices. It’s not a matter of left versus right, one religion versus another—it’s a matter of what is correct.”

  Jamie said, “I’ll bet you’ve got it all rationalized, that the end justifies the means. That it’s okay for you to employ bully-boy killers and kidnappers like Streeter, as long as you get your vers
ion of utopia. And by the way, Streeter’s a meth addict, but you probably know that too.”

  “It’s not like that,” Holland said. “In time you will see what we’re trying to do. You’re intelligent people and you will come to understand.”

  “What you’re saying is that until we’re blinded by the same light as you, we’re your prisoners, complete with barbed wire and goons with guns,” Connie said. “That’s the bottom line, isn’t it?”

  Holland sat back down and smiled wearily. “I’d like to think of it more like a symbiosis. You’ll provide us with medical care and we’ll provide you with food, shelter, and protection. And I’ve already decided that you can keep your children with you, if that’s what you want.”

  “I hope you change your mind about that,” Mrs. Holland said. “They would enjoy the company of the other teenagers. We would love to include them in our lessons.”

  “Not happening,” Jamie said.

  Connie chimed in, but her version included profanities, causing the Hollands wincing discomfort.

  “And what is it you want from me?” Morningside said.

  “Stimulating conversation, that’s all,” Holland said, “and the thrill of knowing we are hosting the president.”

  Jamie had been waiting for the right time to reveal his mission. He sprung it on them. “Listen, both of you, I need to tell you something very important. Before the helicopter was hijacked, we were on our way to Fort Detrick in Maryland. I was a research scientist in Boston. I developed a cure, a potential cure. I think it will work. I think we can reverse the process and allow people to recover their memories. There are government labs in Detrick with the materials I need to make a vaccine. I have to get there. I can’t be trapped in North Carolina playing camp doctor. In the morning, we’ll do medical checks of your people and treat who we’re able. Then you have to let us go. We need to get to Maryland to prevent an even greater disaster.”

  “But surely you see, that’s the last thing we want to happen,” Holland said, pushing back his chair. “To give this a Biblical slant, it might be argued that this plague comes from a displeased God, a God who desired to cleanse the population of its evils, in the same way the population was cleansed by Noah’s flood. It might also be argued that my wife and I were chosen to be instruments of a spiritual and cultural renewal.”

  Mrs. Holland let out a sudden gasp and clutched one of her temples.

  Her husband thrust out his lower lip in sympathy and placed a hand on her shoulder. “No, I think we’ll need you to stay with us for the foreseeable future. And, Jamie, this would be a good time to examine Mrs. Holland. As you can see, she’s having one of her spells.”

  Jamie was left alone with her. He considered withholding his services, but what would that really accomplish? So, he sat across from her and wearily took a medical history. The headaches were not new—they predated the epidemic by several months. However, lately they had been getting worse. He didn’t require special equipment to do a thorough exam. There was a subtle weakness in one of her hands, and a slight exaggeration in her tendon reflexes. She’s got a brain mass, he thought.

  “Are you a smoker?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Did you ever smoke?”

  “Never.”

  “Would you mind if Connie did a breast exam?”

  “I don’t mind.”

  He called Connie in from the living room, told her what was needed, and he sat with the kids until she was done.

  “She’s got a hard mass in her right breast, about two-by-two centimeters,” Connie whispered to him when she came back.

  He went into the dining room and told her, “I think you’ve got a brain tumor, Mrs. Holland. I think it’s spread from your breast.”

  The color drained from her face. “I was afraid you were going to say that. How long do I have?”

  “I don’t know. Without an MRI, without proper diagnosis and treatment, it’s impossible to say.”

  “I don’t want chemo, not that it’s available nowadays.”

  Jamie replied with a grunt.

  “Will I suffer?”

  “There’s no way to tell.”

  “Will you tell Jack?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “Please. Jack will be a lost soul. I’m glad he’s got this camp. It will give him purpose. I’ll help him as long as I can. I’m so grateful you and Connie are here. It’s such a comfort. Please think of yourselves as our guests, not as prisoners.”

  “Even though we are.”

  “Even though you are. But one day, we do hope that you good people will see the value of what we are doing and choose to join us.”

  “I can give you the probability of that happening, Mrs. Holland,” Jamie said.

  “And what would that be?”

  “Zero.”

  54

  There had been dustings, but the first meaningful snow fell a month after their arrival. It was on the same day that Melissa Holland had her first seizure. It was December, and up in the mountains, it was extremely cold. Staying warm was everyone’s first order of business. The cabins and bunkhouses were not insulated, and if Holland had it to do again, he might have thought twice about using a summer camp in the winter. Holland’s house, and all the cabins had rustic fireplaces, but the bunkhouses did not.

  That’s where Streeter’s friend Rocky came in. Rocky was a tobacco-chewing, good old boy who had done construction before he got too heavy and his knees gave out. Streeter had known him for ages. When he was a young cop, he was called to investigate a burglary of tools at a construction site in Asheville where Rocky was working as a carpenter. Streeter had just bought a starter house and he took Rocky’s card because he needed kitchen cabinets. During the renovation, they bonded over hunting, and over the years, they blasted a lot of birds and bow-shot a lot of deer. When the epidemic got bad and Holland asked Streeter to help set up his camp, Streeter tapped Rocky to make the place more four-seasons livable. Rocky knew what to do. They literally backed a truck up to a building supply company and emptied it of all its wood-burning stoves and each bunkhouse now had two of them.

  It was after lunch, and Jamie and Connie were strolling with the dog with the kids. Jamie liked to walk the fence line, probing for weaknesses. From time to time he saw newly fallen pine trees or large, cracked-off limbs, and he was hoping to find a section of fence brought down before Streeter did.

  The kids had no memory of winter. To them, this was their first snowfall, and they were going crazy with joy kicking through the powder. Connie taught them how to make snow angels and that’s what they were doing when Roger came running and sliding, looking for them. He was a young guy with a twist in his nose from an old altercation who had met Streeter in an Asheville bar, playing pool. He was a corrections officer and spoke the same tough-guy lingo as Streeter, and they hit it off. Streeter came looking for him the day Holland said he needed able bodies to help with his enterprise at Camp Splendor. Between Roger and him, they tracked down another four uninfected young men who were happy to take off for a camp in the woods and band together against the unknowns the epidemic was serving up.

  Roger had run off looking for them without dressing for the weather. His untucked and half-buttoned work shirt flapped in the wind, exposing his rail-thin belly. He kept losing his footing; his sneakers weren’t providing much traction.

  “Jamie! Jamie! You gotta come!” he yelled when he caught sight of them.

  “What’s wrong?” Jamie yelled back.

  “It’s Mrs. H. Something happened to her. Mr. H wants you to come.”

  “What happened?”

  “Don’t know. Streeter just hollered at me to go find you.”

  Jamie told Connie to stay with the kids and he went tramping through the snow.

  Roger took off toward Holland’s house, then stopped and looking over his shoulder, he said, “Can’t you go any faster?”

  Jamie’s foot was still in a cast, wrapped in a plastic bag to keep i
t dry. Running wasn’t an option.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Want a piggyback?”

  Jamie outweighed the guy by forty pounds. He didn’t dignify the offer with an answer.

  Holland was in the living room, kinetic and anguished. Morningside was with him, her hands resting on a closed book, a world apart from Holland’s turmoil.

  “Thank God,” Holland said to Jamie. “Where were you?”

  “Walking the dog. What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know. She’s upstairs.”

  Streeter came in, sweating and pissed off. “I was looking all over creation for you,” he told Jamie. “You’re supposed to be available at all times.”

  “I found him,” Roger said.

  Jamie ignored Streeter and clopped upstairs.

  Melissa Holland was in her bedroom, on the floor. She was conscious but confused, searching the ceiling and sounding like a pathetic metronome. “Ah, ah, ah, ah—”

  Jamie knelt and took her hand, checking the pulse at her wrist. The rug under her was wet from incontinence and his exam confirmed what he already knew—she had suffered her first seizure. There would be more.

  Streeter came in and stared down at his sister.

  “Help me get her onto the bed,” Jamie said.

  “What’s the matter with her?”

  “It’s a seizure. From her tumor.”

  “That’s not good, is it?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Jamie called Holland up and told him the score. The seizures were going to recur. The disease was going to progress.

  “Isn’t there anything you could give her?” he asked.

  “Ordinarily, she’d be on steroids to reduce the swelling around the tumor and anti-seizure drugs.”

  “Can we get her some?”

  “I don’t know if all the pharmacies have been cleaned out. Ask your brother-in-law.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Streeter asked.

  “You know your way around drug stores, right?” Jamie said.

  “Hey, fuck you,” Streeter said.