“Got to go back in the building for anything like that. ‘Less you want to roll her off the plywood and use it,” said Cody.
Neil shook his head.
“Got to go back in then. Just avoiding them didn’t work out so hot lasht time.” He pointed to the bandages on Neil’s neck. “Could be worse next time.”
“They’re just people. You heard Debbie. There’s got to be another way to get past—”
“Sure,” agreed Shay, “lots of ways. You want to hit ‘em with the frying pan next time? Maybe we’ll find a scalpel? Heck, I’d bet Cody could even find some rat poison.”
“Of course not.”
“It all comes to the same thing, Neil. Except this way’s fast and a lot more likely to work the first time.”
“I don’t want to kill anyone.”
“Neither do I. Neither does Cody or Debbie. But if it means we get to save our families, wouldn’t you do it?”
Neil had no real answer for her. Picking up the gun would seem like permission. Would seem like he was inviting an attack. God protects the foolish and insane, right? he thought. Maybe it works for the unprepared, too. But Shay was right. If he ended up cornered, he knew he’d grab for the nearest thing. He’d do it, he knew. And it was likely better— kinder, to do it fast, wasn’t it? “Do you even know how to use it?” he asked.
“No. Do you?”
“No.”
Shay glanced at Cody. He shook his head. “Even if I did— you really want me having one? Knowing I might— that I could—” he waved at the sleeping woman. Shay bent over and unbuttoned the holster.
“They’re watching us,” whispered Neil quickly. “Our kids. Right now. Or will, no matter how this turns out. Cody’s got it all, right? You really want them to see their mom picking up a weapon? Getting ready to kill somebody?”
Shay hesitated.
“Can turn it off,” Cody said reluctantly.
“No. If there really are soldiers ready to shoot out there, doing it while people are watching might make them hesitate. At least half a second,” murmured Debbie, who’d finally gathered the courage to get closer to the sleeping woman.
Shay straightened, turned to face Cody. She pulled his arm up so the phone’s camera light flooded her face. “I’m okay with them seeing. Benji, if you’re watching this— you get your sisters and stay in the house. Don’t you open that door for anyone. If someone’s sick, you don’t hesitate, right? You protect them. I’ll get back to you soon as I can. Whatever I have to do to get back to you, ok? Whatever I have to do.” She crouched down again, closing her hand around the gun grip. “Done arguing about this. We need it, we have it. And I’d rather blow myself up than get— eaten, so if it backfires, I’m still ahead. You want to, there’s probably some more of them around. We can check the other bodies.” She wriggled the gun free and then looked up at Cody, who shook his head vigorously. Neil hesitated when she glanced at him.
“How badly do you want to help your daughter?” she asked him. “Because I know what I’m willing to do to protect mine.”
“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Neil repeated. “I’ll stick with the frying pans or the speed of my feet because at least that way, there’s a chance they make it to some kind of cure.”
“Or they run into someone else—”
“Maybe,” he admitted. “You asked what I’m willing to do, and I’ve told you. Now you know. Let’s drop it.”
She shook her head, her mouth narrowing to a slim, frustrated line, but she didn’t say anything else.
19
“What’re we gonna do with her?” asked Cody, pointing at the sleeping woman.
“Anyone else still— alive out here?” asked Shay.
“Didn’t find anyone. Didn’t look very hard though,” admitted Cody. “No one moving.” He shifted the phone to shine on another clump of bodies in the far corner of the yard. “Ress are over there. Close to the other door. Ssick ones in there. Sstill fighting.”
Neil grabbed his arm, pulling it gently down. “Best not attract them then. We should check though.”
“They’re probably dead. We’d hear someone calling for help, otherwise,” said Shay.
“You sure?”
“No. But do you want to hang around and hope she doesn’t wake up?”
“I’ll check them,” said Debbie. “I’ll know what needs to be done, anyway.”
“I’ll go with you,” offered Neil. “You guys can figure out a way over that wire. We’ll be right back.”
“I told you, we can’t go through that barric—” protested Debbie.
“I know what you said. Let’s check the bodies, we’ll argue about it after we’re done.”
“We agreed not to split up,” said Shay.
“Not far,” said Cody. “Mats are by the door we came through and sspare sstretchers in the lab jus’ inside. We can see it from here.” He pointed toward the door. “Any trouble, we’ll all know.”
Shay puffed out her cheeks but didn’t argue.
“Five minutes, Shay, and we’ll be outside, in the parking lot, on our way home,” said Neil.
She nodded and followed Cody toward the door. Neil pulled Debbie into the dark, beyond the bright circle of Cody’s cell phone light. “Why are they eating people, Debbie?” he whispered. “I mean, I was hungry this afternoon but the most anyone could have gone in here without food is what? Twenty-four hours or so? So why are they hungry enough to want to eat— that?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was just— bites. Aggression. That’s why we tested for rabies. Some new very severe strain of it. Or drugs. Actually consuming is something— else.”
Neil tripped over something— or someone. Debbie caught him and then crouched down. She handed him her phone, turning on the light. “You don’t have to look,” she said, arranging his hand. “Just hold the light still so I can see. And keep an eye on that sleeping one while I do this.” She lifted someone’s arm from the pile. Neil was grateful for the excuse to look away, concentrating on the shadowy heap they’d just left, watching for any movement. Cody and Shay were already reentering the hospital.
“If we were— somewhere sane,” whispered Debbie behind him, “I’d say maybe it’s some kind of malnutrition or acute anemia coupled with some psychological component but— it was so fast. None of the tests showed any kind of deficiency beyond what I’d expect from a normal modern diet.” She was quiet for a few moments. The squelch of something wet made Neil even more nauseated than he already was. He didn’t turn around. “And the fact that she didn’t attack us, that she apparently ate and then fell asleep might mean she was satiated or that her blood sugar levels are not within norms. But she’s only one person. Maybe she’s diabetic and it caused extreme fatigue. Maybe she’s got some mental health issues that compel her to—”
“There were a lot of chunks taken out of those bodies back there,” interrupted Neil. “I don’t think that was the work of one person. I think the others either went back into the hospital or— or turned on each other.”
“You may be right, but I can’t really tell anything from one person. These are all dead. We can— we can figure out what to do with the sleeping person.” She stood up, wiping her hands with a corner of her shirt.
“Should we— do anything with her? There’s no one else out here. She’s got plenty to— to eat without hurting anyone else. She’s— safe until we get help.”
Debbie shuddered. “We can’t let her keep eating the corpses. She’ll get a secondary infection. Besides the obvious moral quandary. When she’s better, she’ll be mortified to know what she did while she was sick. And even were it not for that— it’s freezing out here. She’ll die of exposure before the night’s over. We have to at least get her inside.”
“She’ll wake up. And we have no guarantee that she’ll be any better than when she first snapped. Maybe the eating makes them calm, but we don’t know how long it lasts. And where are we going to put her?”
Debbie shr
ugged. “We’ll ask Cody. Got to be another bathroom or storage room or something around here. The x-ray lab has a few beds. If we can restrain her until we get there, she should be safe there.”
“We could get some of those emergency blankets and bring them out here instead.”
“If she wakes up she’ll just sling them off. Besides, those need to be under her as well to be effective. They don’t seem to have the capacity to make rational decisions like curling up in available blankets. Even when it results in pain, they still attack. Adrenaline may account for some of that but— I’m not entirely sure. I watched plenty of them struggle in restraints for hours. Had one patient who was still coherent chew his fingernails and then his fingers until they were bloody. The only thing that stopped him was sedation. And that was before he snapped. I don’t think she’d seek out warmth. What Cody said— these bodies weren’t warm. I think she just dropped into them because that’s where sleep overtook her. I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Neil sighed. “Okay then. We wait for Cody and Shay to come back and then deal with her together before going over the wires.”
Debbie shook her head. “I told you that’s a bad idea. You and Shay have serious injuries already. You’re feeling ok right now because of the painkillers I gave you, but you aren’t. You twist wrong or pull yourself up the wrong way, those stitches are going to split wide open again. Not to mention the new injuries you’re going to get climbing over.”
“We’re doing it. It’s the fastest way. Besides, the only way they’ll let us break quarantine is if we agree to submit to one in a safer place.”
“If the soldiers aren’t ordered to shoot us on sight,” said Debbie.
“They won’t. Cody’s been broadcasting his video since the cafe. Someone has to have seen it. They won’t dare to shoot us now.”
“Look, I know I said that it would hopefully cause anyone with orders to shoot to hesitate, but I doubt it’ll be for long, Neil. I don’t know how many people are watching our weird little home movie, but if you don’t think more than half of them aren’t calling for this place to be firebombed right now because of what Cody’s shown them, then you obviously need to spend more time online. They aren’t going to be on our side. Not enough of them, anyway. Don’t know anything about us except that we’re in some kind of dark horror film where we keep finding dead bodies. Besides— what are we going to do with Cody? We can’t let him walk out of here knowing he’s infected—”
“But we don’t. You don’t know what the hell this is—”
“Shhhh!” warned Debbie. The woman’s shadow shifted and Neil held his breath.
“You said yourself, you can’t find anything,” he whispered, after a moment of stillness fell over the courtyard. “For all we know, it’s something in this hospital, some allergen or toxin or whatever. And taking him out is the best thing for him—”
“Doesn’t explain the footage from London. Or that mall. And you got bitten by someone at a parade a half dozen miles from here—”
“A homeless man who may have come here for help an hour before. Or spent the night here because someone picked him up and tried to get him somewhere warm. Maybe you were right the first time, maybe the riots and the violent shoppers were just— us. Standard operating procedure. We don’t know that Cody’s a danger or that even if you’re right and this is some kind of infection, that he’s not going to be the first one to resist the worst of it—”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t infect other people, Neil.”
“We can’t predict everything. For all we know, he could already have infected us, too.”
“That’s exactly my point. We can’t do this. We need to go back to the cafe. We need to wait for help and stay safe until then.”
“I can’t. I haven’t been able to reach anyone in days now. Neither have you. Something’s wrong. More wrong than what we’ve seen. Maybe they’ve had to quarantine other places and are running out of men. Or maybe they’ve already decided to firebomb us like you’re scared of and we’re just waiting for those planes to fly over like they do in the movies. We just don’t know. Either way, it’s no good sitting here. Not unless you’re ready to just wait to die. Are you ready for that?”
“Of course not,” hissed Debbie.
“Then no more pushing us to go back to the cafe. We’re getting out of here, Cody too. What happens after that has to be better than what’s in here with us. Even if we get over that truck and someone waves a gun at us, at least we’ll know what’s going on. What they’ve been ordered to do. At least we’ll know that they know what’s happening in here. For sure. If you’re with us, you’re with all of us, understand?”
“How long’s that going to last? What happens when Cody’s infection gets too severe? Or— even if it doesn’t, what happens when Shay shoots someone? How long are we going to stick together then? We aren’t friends, Neil.”
“I know. And that’s why you have to stop trying to peel me apart from the other two. We stand a better chance together. So you need to be with us. Otherwise, you gotta go. We keep fighting with each other about what to do, and things are going to get worse. The longer we take to make decisions, the more chances someone sick has to attack us. Or someone outside has to blow us up. If Cody thinks we’re about to abandon him, why would he help us? If Shay really thinks I’m not willing to defend us somehow, she’ll use me as a meat shield instead, next time a sick person finds us. We have to be together. Or we gotta go our separate ways. This in-between stuff, this is far more dangerous. You decide now, Debbie, what you want to do. And who you want to save. Because it’s not going to be everyone in here. It can be just you or it can be all of us, including Cody.”
She exhaled a slow, stuttering breath and then nodded.
“Good. Let’s get over that wire and get out of here.”
20
Neil wasn’t certain why he was trying so hard to hold them together. Maybe they would have been better off apart, each looking for their own way out. At least one of them might make it, might find some forgotten exit and get out. But the terror he felt in just imagining crawling through the massive, unfamiliar hospital complex on his own with who knew how many of the sick people lurking behind every door was crippling. Neil would have found a place to hide and stayed there, he knew it. Even knowing his family was outside, none the wiser about what was going on. He knew it about himself and hated it, but it didn’t change things. Being with the other three kept him courageous, at least for the moment.
It put him in a difficult spot. The balance between them was fragile. He should have been the one on the edge, the one bartering to stay in the group. The other three had known each other for years. Worked together, maybe even socialized. Yet it was Neil keeping the peace between them. It was alarming and uncomfortable.
It almost happened again when they dealt with the woman sleeping in the courtyard. Shay and Cody emerged from the hospital interior, struggling to carry a gurney pad and a few thick floor mats between them. Neil had hurried to help them, though with his injured hand he didn’t manage to lighten the load much. Cody tripped over the pile of plywood. Debbie caught him before he could go sprawling, but the loud thud of the wood slapping back together made them all hold their breath. Neil tried desperately to peer into the middle of the courtyard, but the dark was too deep by then to truly see anything. No sound from the sleeping woman and no movement at the far door. It took several seconds for Shay to sigh with relief and jerk her head toward the alleyway.
“Come on,” she whispered, “Let’s get out of here.”
They let the pad flop onto the ground beside the barrier and Neil piled the mats beside it, moving to grab one of the splintered fence boards. “Help me with this,” he said, “we need to pull down that wire a little so we can get the fabric over the barrier that we won’t cut ourselves on.”
Cody bent to pick up another board.
“What about the woman?” asked Debbie. Neil saw Cody freeze.
&
nbsp; “What about her?” asked Shay.
“We’ve got to put her somewhere. Before we go. We can’t just leave her in the courtyard.”
“Why not?”
“Besides the fact that she’s— consuming bodies you mean?”
Shay sighed and reached for a board. “Looked to me like the damage was already done. They’re past feeling it.”
“She’ll get sick.”
“She’s already sick, Debbie. At least, I hope she is. Otherwise, that’s pretty messed up. She’s not hurting anyone that can be helped, right? We try and move her, we might get injured. Again. And we waste time we could be getting help—”
“She’ll freeze. It only takes a little while. The chances of anyone coming to help her before she does is—”
“Maybe that’s— okay.”
“What?” hissed Cody. “You want her to die?”
“No,” said Shay, picking at the board. “I don’t want her to, but— maybe it’s, you know… kinder.”
“Kinder than what?” asked Debbie.
“If we put her inside, she’s just going to get attacked by another sick person. Or attack some poor sap like us who stumbles over her—”
“So we lock her up. In another bathroom or a lab or something.”
“Say we do. Say we lock her up. It’s going to take anyone who comes to help longer to find her. Say that it’s only a few hours and she doesn’t hurt anyone or doesn’t get hurt and say they figure out what’s going on. Find a way to treat it. You saw what she did out there. I don’t know what her life was before this, but we can all pretty well guess what happens after they fix whatever this is. Prison maybe. Or an institution. And that’s just her body. Would you want to wake up after— after that? Knowing what you did?”
“We don’t know what she did. Not— entirely. I think we can be fairly— we can make a pretty educated guess that she consumed some of the bodies, but that— they may already have been dead. Might not have been her at all—”
Before The Cure (Book 1): Before The Cure Page 14
