Before The Cure (Book 1): Before The Cure

by Gould, Deirdre

  The woman slumped and whoever was hanging onto her toppled. The man with the iv stand tried to follow them, reaching to grab the woman, but the man in the wheelchair pulled hard and prevented him. He looked back and said something. The man in the wheelchair shook his head, pointed toward the elevator. The nurse appeared again, her hands covered in white dust. She was serene walking to the room where the others were. She nudged the man with the iv stand clear of the door, leaned in and shut it firmly, closing the other woman and her attacker in. Then the nurse wiped her hands on the pants of her scrubs and grabbed the handles of the wheelchair, pushing it toward the elevator.

  “What I said before, about how we were saving people? About how the sick people would want us to help them even if it means they die? I was wrong. That was cold-blooded murder. Those two didn’t have an excuse. I can’t do this,” said Shay as the three of them disappeared into the elevator.

  “We have to. I can’t make you. Wouldn’t even if I could. But I really don’t want to do thish alone.”

  Shay looked up at the flickering screens. “There’s so many,” she said, raking her hand through her hair.

  “No— look, that whole half is this wing. No one’s locked in over here. We saw who was left on the first and third floor. That group in the maternity ward can pick up any stragglers farther below. There are enough of them to handle any stray sick people. Looks like they cleared anything that might have been on their floor already. And then we’ll go. Once we— once we deal with Dante, we should be clear.” His voice broke. He tried to push aside the dread. “We just have a few more floors. No idealistic nurses on the next one, it was mine. We draw away the infected, the ress are on their own. After that—”

  “Let me catch a breath, Neil,” said Shay. “If you want me to keep helping, you have to let me focus on one crisis at a time. Okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, we can do that. One floor at a time.”

  “Good,” she said. She watched the elevator open on the first floor and the man with the iv stand lean out to look. A few minutes later, they were speeding toward the cafe. She reached for the microphone. “If— if I get sick before you, don’t use an extinguisher, ok? That looked painful. Find a— I don’t know. You can use an extinguisher, just not that way. Knock me out. Fast.”

  “Neither ush are going to get sick. Going to get outta here, reshcue our kidss.”

  “Yeah,” said Shay softly. “Yeah, course we are. But just in case.”

  “Okay. No fire ‘stinguisher. You got it.”

  She clicked the microphone on.

  32

  Neil was exhausted. He thought about asking Shay if they could stop and sleep again before leaving. He felt— slow, disconnected. Clumsy. But she’d only tell him he was stalling. Trying not to face Dante yet. He supposed that he was. He watched his friend pace outside the door. Every so often he’d tip off-kilter and catch himself against the glass. Maybe they could wait until he slept and just— sneak by. He’ll starve, Neil reminded himself. He couldn’t fool himself into thinking there’d be a rescue mission to save them all. Not anymore. A month. Maybe he’ll make it. What’s that rule? Three days without water, three weeks without food— or was it months? Those rugby kids lived for ages, didn’t they? Dante stood still in front of the door, his breath making little plumes of fog against the glass. His eyes never seemed to fix on anything for long, not even his own reflection.

  “He’s not in there anymore,” said Shay, startling Neil. “Whatever was— him is asleep or gone. Same with Cody. He knew that part of him was leaving. He even told us. The fight outside the elevator, that was it, that was the last of him. I think it might be the same with your friend.”

  “But if he could make it until we found a cure—”

  “He won’t.”

  “Twenty-eight days. He can make it that long. We could just leave him here and as soon as they lift the quarantine—”

  “They aren’t going to. Harlain said twenty-eight days after the last time someone was infected. Unless his body somehow fights this off— he’ll still be infected in twenty-eight days. And that’s the other thing. We don’t even know how this disease ends. Maybe in a week, it’ll kill him.”

  “Maybe in a week, he’ll reach a turning point and get better,” said Neil.

  “Maybe,” Shay agreed. “If you were him, would you want to wake up here in a week? Starving? Alone? What if he ate someone already? Would you want to wake up to that?”

  “I— he has a son. He’d want to get better for Tommy’s sake.”

  “He’ll end up in some kind of institution or prison. His son won’t see him. Even if he was willing to try, knowing what his father had done.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Doesn’t matter, Neil. He’s not going to last that long. The only people who will last the week are the ones we sent to the pool. Or the one we locked in the bathroom, if he’s still smart enough to drink the water from the toilet. Haven’t seen a single one that I think would turn on a sink. The most complex thing I’ve seen them do is to turn a doorknob. I’m not even sure they realize when they’re thirsty— they don’t seem to feel pain. Or— not the way we do. Remember that woman who slammed into the wall? I don’t know if you cure that. It might be like a stroke. Once they’re gone… maybe they’re gone for good. Your friend’s going to die of dehydration in a day or two. It depends on how long it’s been since he found some water. Or got some from eating.”

  “Iss it— iss it a painful way to die?” asked Neil. Dante shuffled back to the other side of the hallway.

  “Don’t know. Not a doctor, remember? But like I said, they don’t really seem to feel pain except as an annoyance. Or— it doesn’t slow them down at least.”

  “Cody did. He was crying while I tried to bandage his hands. He couldn’t sstop, but it hurt.”

  “Because there was still some of him left at that point. Look— take your time and make a decision. I’m not going to force you. But you and I are planning on leaving this hospital, right? I know you don’t want to be responsible for what happens to him. And in a way, you aren’t. It wasn’t you who infected him. It wasn’t even you who let him out of his room to chase us here. But in another— what happens to Dante after we leave this room is solely our fault. We can wait until he tires himself out or wanders away and we can hope that he somehow survives and whatever stuff he goes through between now and getting better doesn’t hurt him too much. Or we can decide that he is in pain, whether it’s really slowing him down or not, and we can end his suffering. And next week, find out we made the wrong choice. But either way, we can’t save him. It’s not going to be us who cures him. So you need to think—” She stopped, turned to fully face him. She grabbed his uninjured hand and squeezed it. “You really need to think, Neil. If you had switched places, what would you want him to do for you?”

  When he didn’t answer, she let him go. “Think about it a while. There’s a vending machine in the little kitchen here. We don’t stock this office, but I’m sure some of the guards left lunches or snacks or something. You have to be as hungry as I am by now.”

  Neil nodded absently as she wandered away. He sat for what felt like a long time on the edge of the front desk, just watching Dante. He was still now, just swaying unevenly on his feet. Neil wondered if it were one of the stages they went through or if it just meant Dante was getting tired. It wasn’t only the idea of killing his friend that caused Neil such dread, it was Graziella and Tommy he kept coming back to. If they were switched, if it were Neil who was ill, what would Dante have done about Randi? About Joan? What could Neil possibly tell them? Hi, kiddo. Your dad was off his rocker, bud. Had to do it. Had to put him down like a horse with a broken leg. Sorry, Gracey. He was no good to anyone. You wouldn’t have wanted him back, trust me. There was no way he could do this. It didn’t matter that Dante had probably killed that nurse in his room. Maybe more people since. Didn’t matter that he might starve in a few weeks. Right now, there was still a
chance that he’d come back. And Neil could help him deal with what had happened once he did. Dante would get through it— a stray thought abruptly cut through. Too late to change what happened to the people he’s already attacked, sure, but what about the ones he might kill next? Wouldn’t just be putting him out of his misery, you’d be saving all the people he would have killed in the meantime. Neil’s mind felt slow, erratic, almost jerky. He knew there was an answer to that question, it just took a while to formulate it. Like it had taken a while for the question to pop up in the first place. He was frustrated and irritated with the decision. Shouldn’t even be me making it. Where are all the fucking doctors? Where are the big disease experts? The clean, quiet, shiny quarantine wards? Why the hell were we left like this? All wrong. All wrong. He felt like hitting something, as stupid as he knew that it was. Nothing and no one to hit. No real reason to, even if there was someone there. It was no one’s fault. The people in charge just got caught unprepared and were overwhelmed. That’s all. But Neil knew that was bullshit, too. It was one thing to make a mistake or be taken by surprise. But not sending more help? That was an entirely different thing. It’s Harlain, that’s who I want to hit. Or whoever’s above her making the decisions. At least she’s got a name and a voice, so Harlain’ll do. Besides which, she just— dropped us. We did what she wanted and she just disappears. Leaves me to kill my best friend. Or not. I could just send him to the pool. Did it for all the others, why couldn’t I just use the alarms to send Dante? But Neil knew why. It was because he knew what was happening down there in the therapy pool. If he sent Dante there, he’d be part of the carnage. Already a murderer, he told himself and clutched his head with a low sob.

  “Neil? You still— you?” asked Shay. He jerked around to look. Her arms were full of flimsy chip pouches and a few cans of soda, but it looked like she was ready to drop it all and sprint away from him. For an instant he wondered what he’d done to terrify her, but then his mind repeated the idea that he was a murderer.

  “Dante and thoshe people we sssent to the pool, they didn’t do anything wrong. Jush ssick. Where the hell iss Harlain? Who decided to abandon ush? Thiss normal?”

  Shay dropped her armload onto the desk beside him. “No. At least, I don’t think so. I’ve never heard about people just being— left like this. Something outside has gone really, really wrong. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen. The government expects us to die. All of us. Otherwise, they’d be worried about the news getting out. That’s why they took down Cody’s footage. I think— I think Harlain believed what they told her. That we would just wait it out and walk out of here in a month. That they’re going to send food drops. I hope she believes it. But I don’t. Maybe there was some kind of— of plan to save us in the beginning but not anymore. We were dead the minute the security team lost control in the conference room. At some point, they’ll send someone in to finish it. Or start a fire. Or something.”

  “That’s crazy, Shay. Consspiracy junk. Bad as Maisy and her zombie flick ideas.”

  “I hope so,” she said. “I hope I’m wrong. For Harlain’s sake too. I’m worried they caught her, Neil. Just letting us talk to our kids… She should have tried to contact us again by now. Either she just got what she wanted and doesn’t have to watch us die for now, or something happened to her for helping us.” Shay shook her head sadly. She stared out at Dante who rocked gently from one foot to the other. “Whatever the truth is, from here on, we’re on our own. So is your friend. You need to end this, for his sake. Otherwise, he is going to wander and starve until someone else kills him. Don’t you think he’d rather it be you?”

  “I can’t,” cried Neil. “No more killing.”

  Shay sighed but just said, “Okay. We’ll wait for him to fall asleep then.” She plopped down into the desk chair beside his and reached for a bag of chips. “Could use the rest anyway,” she admitted. “I think we were moving people for almost eight hours.”

  “Thass it? You aren’t going to argue with me more about it?”

  “He’s your friend. And a human being. You have hope for him. I don’t. Doesn’t mean either of us is eager to kill anyone, I just think the outcome’s not going to be what you think.” She handed him a can of soda. “Here, think you could use the caffeine.” She smiled. “Though— if your job’s anything like mine, the amount of caffeine in one of these things doesn’t even register anymore.” She was trying to calm him down, Neil could tell. He watched Dante becoming a leaning shadow in the hall as dusk fell. He appreciated the effort, even if he wasn’t sure he’d ever be calm again. You shouldn’t be, he told himself, murderers don’t deserve peace.

  “How’d you become friends?” asked Shay.

  “We worked at the same shitty little roadside shack that pretended to be a sseafood place. Periwinkle’s. First job after high school for me. I think he was kind of traveling around and just kind of— sstuck.”

  “Not how’d you meet, how’d you become friends?”

  “Oh.” He could see the younger version of Dante easily, overlapping the slackened face of the man outside. Less stubble and thinner, but not so different then. “It was a fight over a girl.” He laughed and flushed. “Not the kind of fight you think,” he added. “Dante— is a little too gullible. Twenty-two years and nothing’ss changed. He’s still as easy to take advantage of now as he was then. There was this waitress. Never had enough money to cover the end of the month. She wasn’t a great waitress either, sho her tips weren’t great, but Periwinkle’s was— it was bad. Cheap. Owner used to make us cut the sscallops in half before breading them to make it look like more. That kind of cheap. Every two months or so, payroll was short on top of it all. Waitstaff got the shaft, not gonna lie. There was nothing we could really do though. Everyone working there desperately needed that job, sho we bit our tongues and took the shortages until we found other work. We covered each other, besht we could. Cooks would loan the waitstaff money to cover bills until the paychecks cleared and then the waitstaff would catch ush with a couple twenties when they had a decent tip night. It all washed out, generally. But Tracy was alwayss short. Paid her rent a few times, knowing I’d never get it back. But by the time Dante started there, I knew better. She played it ssafe the first month he was there, feeling him out. One night, end of shift, Dante ‘n I were sitting at the prep table waiting for the las’ dishes to come back so we could finish. Tracy comes in from her fourth or fifth smoke break and starts complaining ‘bout how she needs a phone but she doesn’ have good credit. Jus’ needs a friend to cosign for her. Thing is, everyone knew she wasn’t good for it. Even Dante by then, probably. But I can feel him next to me sort of tensing up, cringing, you know? How you do when you hear someone’s sad sstory and all you want to do is fix this thing for them. And I knew, I knew he was going to tell her he’d cosign for her. So I kicked him under the table where she wouldn’t be able to see. Heard him take a breath like he was getting ready to say something. So I kicked him again, harder. He did it anyway. Ssucker.” Neil shook his head and smiled. “Asked him why, later. Told him she’d never pay her bill and he’d be sstuck with whatever charges she racked up. And he just shrugged and tol’ me that if he was in a tough spot like that, he’d want someone to help him, so how could he say no? Tracy quit Periwinkle’s the next week. I forgot about the whole thing until winter. Came in one morning and found Dante ssleeping in his car. Turned out Tracy had racked up an enormous bill and disappeared with the phone. Dante hadn’t been able to make rent for two months trying to pay the damn thing off and got evicted. Never said a word about it until that morning. We had a huge fight about it. I called him gullible and as bad as Tracy because he was jus’ helping her scam more people later on. Ssuch a sstupid fight. Always regretted yelling at him like that. Always. Finally had my say out and he did his share of shouting, too. Told me I was a selfish asshole for not helping her. Got it all out and did our shift together. When it was over, I brought him to my parents’ house to stay and we’ve been frie
nds since. I’ll never forget what he ssaid, though, when I asked him what on earth he was thinking, agreeing to help her after he’d been warned. He ssaid, ‘I did a kind thing. What she did afterward don’ make the thing I did any less kind. If I didn’t help her, I knew I’d have to live with that. It’s easier to ssleep in the car with a clear conscience than in a shitty apartment thinking about all the times I should have helped and didn’t.’ I can’t kill him, Shay. I can’t. I tried to convince myself, but his sson and his wife— I’ve known Graziella longer than I knew my own wife. How could I do that? Tol’ myself he might kill other people if I let him go. It’s like those awful puzzles your hisstory teacher gives you about how you treat prisoners of war. Except this one’s not on paper or a film sstrip. Don’t have the suppliess or time to feed him and care for him, so I can’t lock him up. If I kill him, he’s got no hope at all. And if I let him go, he might attack ssomeone else. I can’t even explain to him or make him promise not to hurt anyone if I leave him. So I think I’m going to lean on what he ssaid one more time. I need to do whass kind. I have to let him go and hope. He’s as far from the pool as we can make it. The hallways are clear for now, far as I know. You’re right, I’m not gonna be able to ssave him. But I don’ have to condemn him, either.”

  Shay played with her soda can tab for a minute. “Neil,” she said, “You are condemning him, just to a different type of death.”

  “Yeah, maybe. Or maybe things ousside aren’t as bad as you think.”

  “This is me, kicking you under the table. You understand?”