Poveglia (After the Cure Book 4)

by Deirdre Gould

  The line shuffled forward. She inspected the bite wound on her arm. It itched. She licked it. Sevita could hear the questions now, just a few people between her and the head of the line. There were two kids in front of her, sisters maybe. Six or seven— definitely post-plague babies. Sevita wondered for a moment where their parents were. But she couldn’t concentrate long enough to worry about it. They held hands and whispered to one another. Still, Sevita could hear the smaller one slurring. She licked her arm again without realizing it. Another shuffle forward. The man in front of the girls was answering questions now. Sevita thought she saw Christine standing on the edge of the yard, staring at the corpses that were still being removed. Sevita tried to get out of line to go to her. A soldier gently took her by the arm and led her back to her place.

  “But—” she said, pointing in Christine’s direction. The soldier turned to look, but Christine was gone.

  “It’s okay,” he said, his voice gentle, “We’ll take care of them. They’ll have a nice service.”

  The soldier was gone and she had shuffled forward again before she realized he thought she’d been pointing to the bodies. Her cut itched. She scraped at it with her teeth. The girls were crying. Why were they crying? The little one couldn’t stand on one leg. The older one knew it was too late to pretend she couldn’t either. They’d seen. The soldiers were pulling the girls apart, one to the left, one to the right. They reached for each other, but the soldiers picked them up and carried them away. Sevita’s wound itched too much for her to concentrate on too much. She kept scraping at it with her teeth. It felt better than her fingernails. She knew it was bleeding, the metallic heat dripping over her nose and lips as she chewed. Someone behind her pushed her forward.

  “S-shorry,” she said, pulling her arm from her face. The doctor sitting at the desk in front of her shoved suddenly back, tipping his chair behind him.

  “She’s already turned,” he cried to the soldiers nearby, “grab her!”

  “Turned?” asked someone behind her, “What’s he mean by that?”

  Sevita felt rough hands on her arms. “Wha’s going on? I dint hurt anyone. Not turned. Not yet. Don’ hur me. I’ll be quiet. I’ll be quiet. Don’ want pain. Jus’ give me the poison. Jus’ lemme take it an sleep.” Sevita stumbled between the soldiers.

  “Poison? What’s she talking about?” yelled someone.

  “That doesn’t look like any vitamin deficiency I’ve seen,” shouted someone else.

  “Was that what the panic was about?”

  Sevita was carried too far away to hear more. She was piled into a truck with several others. The little girl was there, still crying. Sevita sank down next to her. “Oh, ‘sokay,” she said, “Just going to get some medicine, then we’ll find your sister. ‘Sokay.”

  She stroked the little girl’s hair with her clean hand.

  “You’re bleeding,” sniffed the girl.

  “Just a dog. He dint know better.”

  The girl’s eyes grew large. “You saw a dog? Marie told me about those. I thought they were just in picture books or out in the deep, dark woods.”

  “Sure I saw one. Take you there, after the medicine. Won’ let him bite you, though.”

  The truck started with a rumble and the other people in the truck began to panic. The girl looked around at them.

  “’Sokay, jus’ the truck. Going to the hospital. You stay with me, be okay.”

  The girl looked doubtful but inched closer to Sevita as the truck bumped along the road. When it stopped a few minutes later, the other people streamed past them, eager to be off the truck. The smell of smoke was very strong and for a minute, Sevita was confused. She was back on the dock, carrying Tom down it as she limped on her burned foot. Her higher thinking was shutting down, but she managed to make the connection as a nurse came to get them out of the truck. His scrubs were so white, they glowed, and Sevita wondered for a second if she were already dead. She hugged the little girl to her side.

  “Is that— is the smoke the cremation pit?” she whispered.

  The nurse hesitated and looked down at the girl. She was too young to know or care what they were talking about. He looked back at Sevita and nodded.

  “Ca’ we— ca’ we do it here then? Little pitchers and all,” said Sevita jerking her head toward the little girl.

  He nodded and reached into the large pockets of his scrubs. He knelt down in front of the girl. “I need you to be brave now,” he said, “It’s only going to sting for a second and if you are good—” he held up a red lollipop, old and cracked, its wrapper crinkled and yellow, but the girl still nodded quickly. Sevita quickly leaned away and vomited. It was red too.

  “You okay?” asked the girl. Sevita nodded as the nurse handed her a small towel.

  “Jus’ car sick,” said Sevita, wiping her face and forgetting the girl had no idea what “car sick” was.

  The nurse swabbed the girl’s shoulder.

  “You’re sure?” asked Sevita.

  The nurse nodded.

  “From a balance test?”

  “Here, honey, why don’t you let the nice lady hold your hand. You can squeeze real hard if you need to.” He placed the little girl’s hand, palm up into Sevita’s. The tips of the little fingers were chewed ragged, bloody and infected. Sevita closed her hand gently over the child’s. The girl’s hand twitched and then the nurse smiled and said, “All done, good job.” He unwrapped the candy and handed it to her. He turned to Sevita. “I’m really sorry,” he said.

  “Dint kill anyone. Dint hurt anyone.”

  “I know.”

  “Never want to.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’ feel bad. ‘S a mercy.”

  He nodded and swabbed her arm. The sharp smell of alcohol made her nervous. He sank the needle in and she barely felt it. “How long?” she asked.

  “Fifteen minutes. Don’t fight it.”

  “Can you close the door?” she asked.

  The nurse nodded and climbed down out of the truck.

  “Wha’s your name?” she asked the girl.

  “Bri. What’s yours?”

  “‘Vita. How about we close our eyes a minute. Your sister’s not ready yet. We’ll take a little nap and then go find her. ‘Kay?”

  Bri yawned as the nurse quietly closed the truck doors. “Yeah, good idea.”

  Sevita lay down on her side, barely even noticing the coolness of the truck bed. Bri lay beside her and Sevita stretched out an arm to pillow the girl’s head. I could have been a decent mother, she thought, and tried to summon up a good memory of Christine. Something she wouldn’t mind dreaming about. She closed her eyes and listened to Bri’s little breaths smooth out into a deep, slow rhythm She twisted Christine’s ring around her finger, once, twice…

  Twenty-nine

  Melissa pulled the last box open. It had taken two months to get everyone unpacked, and there were still families in tents. Rickey had promised the last few cottages would at least have roofs by next week, but she doubted it. She felt guilty, pawing through this stuff when the fields still needed planting, but even the few short weeks they’d spent in the City, as uncomfortable as they’d been, had made her crave a larger connection. She felt isolated, cornered almost, on the farm. She wanted to know what the City was up to. They all felt the vague threat the City could pose, if the people there decided the Cured had something they wanted. It was like a growl of thunder echoing out of a clear sky. If Melissa could get the radio working, if she could even contact other small groups or just listen in, she might have a better idea where the clouds lay.

  It was wedged into the bottom of the box, covered with other emergency supplies. Melissa carefully fished it out with a satisfied smile. The transmitter had come unplugged and was somewhere in the box under a tangle of other things, but she could find it later. She didn’t want to broadcast anything about their community anyway. At least, not until she knew who could hear her. Melissa opened the barn doors to let the sweet, hea
vy smell of chopped wood and freshly turned dirt into the quiet structure. The sounds of the others laughing and talking was a small, distant trickle of music and she took a second to realize that she was comfortable. Maybe for the first time since they’d been Cured. Maybe for the first time since she’d even heard of the December Plague. The City was a threat as long as they weren’t allies, it was true, but Melissa felt the people here were stronger than anyone knew. They hadn’t survived all this time to just submit to servitude or inequality. Whatever was coming, from the City or from raiding looters or even the danger of exposure or starvation, they’d face it. She cranked the radio with vigor until her arm burned. Melissa twisted the knob to the end of the dial and then turned it on. She turned the volume up, filling the barn with static. She gently moved the dial, click by slow click. She knew she’d hear mostly static, but she was hoping— The static dropped away for a flash of silence before a woman’s voice wavered through.

  “…your family is dead. Your friends are dead. Do not come here to find them…” the voice dimmed out again. Melissa shrugged. Must be an old warning from the Plague still broadcasting, she thought, and twisted the knob a click or two more. Still, something nagged at the back of Melissa’s mind. The dial reeled halfway past before the same voice interrupted the oppressive crackle of static.

  “…are taking precautions to make entry or exit more difficult. We do not have the ability—” there was a pause, and then the woman continued, “We do not have the ability or the will to destroy it. But someone needs to, or the Plague will escape. Someone will find a way out. Or in. There may already be people out there who are infected and don’t know it. Do not let them in. Do not let yourself be moved by pity. They are deadly. We think the disease has a six week—” the voice cut out again as Melissa moved around the barn trying to find a clearer signal. That voice, that light accent, was so familiar. Where had she heard it?

  Melissa was climbing the ladder to the hay loft trying to regain the signal when Molly appeared in the barn’s open doors, a slim shadow against the bright summer field outside.

  “Melissa? Are you in here?” she called.

  “Yeah, up here. Just trying to—”

  Molly waited, but Melissa didn’t continue. “Amos wants to know if you’re free this afternoon. He says you’d know where there used to be commercial farms. He wants to scout some nearby ones today. Said he mostly needs fencing. The deer might be gone, but there’re raccoons and rabbits to keep away. I’m going to see if we can find potatoes or carrots that were forgotten.”

  “Okay,” said Melissa absently, “let me just—”

  The radio blatted a loud burst of static and then cleared again. “…Don’t come here. Your family is dead. Your friends are dead.” The message was repeating.

  “Hey, is that the lady from the news? The one in the City?” asked Molly. Melissa stared down at her. That’s exactly who it is, she thought. Why haven’t they shut the warning off? The Cure was found years ago. And on at least two channels?

  “Are you coming?” asked Molly.

  “Yeah, I’ll come back to this later.” Melissa turned off the radio, leaving it in the loft and climbed down to join Molly.

  It wasn’t until a few nights later that she managed to hear the message in its entirety. Vincent was sitting with them, quietly cutting the eyes off of some dirty potatoes for Molly, who was planting them in small trays of damp dirt. Melissa sat on the other side of the plank table and fiddled with the radio.

  “This is an emergency broadcast originating from WCIT. This is not a drill. To anyone able to receive this message, please rebroadcast it as often as you are able. Do not come to the City. Allow no one into your communities that has come from the City in the past month. There has been an outbreak of a new form of the December Plague. Thus far, the Cure has not worked on it. Immunity to the original disease does not seem to be a factor in immunity this time. We believe it is very virulent, but we have little information at this point. In order to protect outlying areas from infection, a few of us are taking precautions to make entry or exit more difficult. We do not have the ability— We do not have the ability or the will to destroy the City. But someone needs to, or the Plague will escape. Someone will find a way out. Or in. There may already be people out there who are infected and don’t know it. Do not let them in. Do not let yourself be moved by pity. They are deadly. We think the disease has a six-week incubation period. Anyone who has not succumbed by then may be immune. Whatever you do, don’t try to investigate. It is weeks too late for the people here. Save yourselves. Everyone here is already exposed. Don’t come here. Your family is dead. Your friends are dead. Do not come here to find them. To the members of the Cured colony; our last hope rests with you. You must find a way to destroy the City. Of all the people left in the world, you know what this new strain means. You must find a way to wipe it out, so that nothing remains alive to carry it out. You must destroy it so completely that nothing remains to tempt scavengers. We’ve done everything we can. You must finish it.” There was a pause and then the woman asked faintly, as if talking to someone else. “Do you want to say anything? To your son maybe?” The knife in Vincent’s hand was still and his one eye stared fiercely at the radio. Molly kept glancing from the radio to Melissa. A man’s voice took over. “This message is for— is for Marcus at the Cured colony. I know you want to come find us, son. I know how stubborn you are. Your mom and I talked about it. We’re both sick. We can feel it creeping up on us. You can’t fix it. There’s no cure. We don’t want to be what we were. It was a miracle we all survived. We’ve worn out our good luck. You be our miracle now. You and the other Cured. Don’t try to find us. We’re going to- we’re going to take care of each other tonight, before it’s too late. By the time this reaches you, it’ll be over. We love you. Don’t come back.” The microphone hit something and then the woman’s voice returned. “I’m requesting that you rebroadcast this for as long as possible. It will be on repeat here until the gas runs out or the station is— is gone. This is Sevita Das and Dan Wilson from the City. Good luck.” There was a fifteen-second space of silence and then the message began again. They let it unreel between them halfway before Melissa twisted the knob off and pushed the radio aside. Molly wiped her eyes with her good hand. Melissa picked up the potato that Vincent had set down and pulled out her own pocket knife. She began carefully digging the eyes from it.

  “What are you doing?” asked Vincent at last.

  “I know it’s selfish, and I know it’s mostly shock, but all I can think right now is that if we don’t plant enough, we’re all going to starve,” said Melissa.

  Vincent looked at her blankly. Melissa stabbed at the dirty potato. “I mean, when we left, I thought, if it didn’t work out, we’d just go back. We were careful. We didn’t break any laws, we didn’t take anything that wasn’t ours, we left on okay terms. And there are a lot of us. We represent lots of resources. The City wouldn’t let us starve if we came back to live and work there. It was a safety net. Not one I liked, not one I agreed with, but it was something.” She shook her head and placed the fragile green shoot onto Molly’s dirt. “Now there’s nothing. What we don’t plant, we don’t eat. And it’s already very late in the season. I know there’s more to worry about. Whatever we don’t know, we’re going to have to figure out for ourselves. We can’t go back. Not for food, not for medicine, not for books or information or people. We’re all alone.”

  “We’re not alone,” said Vincent.

  “Sorry, Father,” said Molly shakily, “but if anyone’s still up there, they aren’t listening, and haven’t been for a long time.”

  Vincent smiled and patted her shoulder. “That’s not who I meant. But the temptation is to see all these people with us as just mouths to feed. A responsibility. A burden. They are also helping hands. Comrades. Even soldiers. We didn’t bring all these people out here to have them depend on us. They are free thinking, capable people. We may not have everything the City has,
but we’ll learn to make it. Or do without. Right now, we feel like the people in the City are all that are left. Like without them we may as well be on another planet. But we’ve seen others. We know they are out there—”

  “And if they’re like Phil?” interrupted Molly.

  Vincent nodded. “Some of them will be, sure. But not all. Some of them might be like the couple who cured us. Some of them will be like Amos or Stephanie. We need to be calm. We need to plan. But not yet. Not until we’ve thought over all this means. I need to find Marcus—”

  “Maybe we should keep this to ourselves for now,” said Melissa quickly.

  “But why? We’ll need to watch for Infected—” started Molly.

  “We won’t keep it secret forever, just a day, maybe two.”

  Vincent looked doubtful. “Why?” Molly asked again.

  “Because if we just go out and announce it without having some kind of plan to keep us safe, then people will panic. They’ll want to go look for their friends and the people they left behind, even if the message warns them not to. Or they’ll want to hide in a cave somewhere and let no one in. I confess, that’s my reaction too, though I know it’s wrong. We need to keep this to just a few of us. Maybe just Henry and Rickey. Amos too, I guess. But Henry’s out looking for Marnie again.”

  “If we wait until he comes back, it will give me a chance to let Marcus know gently before anyone else stumbles over it. Who knows how many old radios are in camp?” said Vincent.

  “What are we supposed to do until then? I’ll never sleep now,” murmured Molly.

  “Would you like to come to the chapel with me?” asked Vincent gently.

  Molly shook her head, but tears filled up her eyes again.

  “Are you going to pray for the doctor and her friend? The ones that Cured us?” asked Melissa.

  “For them all,” Vincent said.

  Melissa nodded. “Good,” she said. “Say one for us too.”