A Cure for Madness

by Jodi McIsaac

  “Not since yesterday.”

  “Weird. I hope she’s all right. Are you still in Clarkeston?”

  I hesitated. “I’m okay,” I said again. “Listen, if Latasha gets in touch with you, tell her to text me at this number. It’s important.”

  “Are you in trouble? Can I help?”

  “No. I just . . . want to talk to her, that’s all.”

  “Okay . . . well, take care. I hope you can come home soon.”

  “So do I.”

  I hung up and stared out the window for a minute, not sure if that call had been a good idea. Would they think to trace Amy’s phone? I shook my head; I was being paranoid again. I had to keep moving.

  Inside the convenience store, almost every shelf was empty, and one of the display cases was bent. Garbage littered the floor. A woman in a light-blue cardigan was scooping the few remaining bags of chips and boxes of crackers into a basket, which she drew closer to her body when she saw me come in. A small Asian man was sitting on a high stool behind the counter, a shotgun across his lap.

  “Leave bag here,” he said, gesturing for me to put my backpack on the counter.

  I reluctantly complied. “You don’t have much left,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Quarantine,” he answered. “Everyone panic. Deliveries are delayed.”

  He pointed at the TV hanging from the ceiling in the corner. I stood and watched it, mesmerized. Just as in the newscast I’d seen at Kenneth’s house last night, the scene was one of chaos. Frantic shoppers in masks were dumping armloads of groceries into carts behind the newscaster. The picture changed to a man pushing a wheelbarrow of firewood down the middle of the street, and then to lines more than fifty cars long at the gas station. Then the mayor appeared on the screen, behind a podium at Town Hall. He looked slightly shell-shocked, his coiffed gray curls frizzy and his cheeks sagging.

  “Can you turn it up?” I asked.

  The store owner snatched up the remote and switched on the volume.

  “. . . came as a surprise to us, but our emergency preparedness initiative is well equipped to ensure the safety of our citizens during this time,” the mayor said. “However, I cannot express strongly enough that there is no need for panic. Rioting and looting will be dealt with using the full force of the law. I urge each citizen to purchase only enough supplies for themselves and any elderly or shut-in neighbors and relatives. We are arranging for deliveries of food and essential supplies to be brought into Clarkeston. There is no need to panic,” he reiterated, though it looked like he was on the edge of panic himself.

  I bought three packs of cigarettes for Wes and then headed to the drugstore.

  Taped to the front doors were two signs:

  WE DO NOT HAVE ANY MEDICATIONS EFFECTIVE AGAINST GASPEREAU

  MASKS AND GLOVES SOLD OUT

  I feigned confidence as I stepped inside. It was busier here than in the other two shops—almost every aisle was jammed with people loading their baskets with protein bars, painkillers, and toilet paper from the already combed-over shelves. I headed straight for the pharmacist’s counter in the back. The same sign that was on the door had been taped to the counter, surrounded by several hand-drawn stars in black marker.

  There was a long line in front of me. No one spoke much as we waited for our turns; we all just fidgeted nervously and avoided making eye contact with each other. Two pharmacists with tight mouths and bloodshot eyes worked feverishly behind the counter.

  I checked the news on my new phone. There was no mention of Wes or me, which was a good sign. I hoped Dr. Hansen’s interest in my brother wouldn’t grow into a full-fledged manhunt.

  Finally I reached the front of the line. I handed the pharmacist the prescription from Kenneth and held my breath as she typed the info into the computer. She looked down at the prescription, then at me.

  “This for you?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “It’s for a family member.”

  “Insurance?”

  Shit. I had no idea how my parents’ insurance policy worked, or even which company it was with.

  “Um . . . it should be covered. It’s my parents’ policy.” I could only assume they had one, and hadn’t been paying for Wes’s treatment out of their pocket. Yet the police officer had said they were in debt . . .

  “I’ll need the policy number.”

  “Uh . . . my parents died a few days ago,” I said. “But my brother still needs his medication. Isn’t there some kind of . . . compassion clause?”

  The pharmacist looked at me without pity. “I’m sorry, but unless you have insurance, you’ll have to pay the full price.”

  “How much?”

  “For this?” She typed some more on her computer. “This is a month’s worth of antipsychotics. It’ll cost you eight hundred and eighty dollars.” She looked at me suspiciously while my mouth hung open. “It won’t work on Gaspereau, you know,” she said.

  “Eight hundred and eighty dollars? Are you serious?” After buying the phone and Wes’s cigarettes, I only had about a hundred dollars left from the cash Kenneth had given me. I’d brought the gold from my dad’s safe, but I’d need to go to a bank to exchange that . . . and I had already left Wes alone for too long. I could put it on my credit card, but if they were tracking me, it would lead them closer to our location. My own insurance didn’t cover dependents—something I supposed I would have to change if we made it out of here alive and uninfected.

  “Fine. I’ll pay for it,” I said. “How long until it’s ready?”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “Half an hour.”

  I nodded and then went to hunt for supplies. After grabbing a shopping basket, I loaded it up with bottles of water and one of the last remaining boxes of tissues. There were a few loaves of gluten-free bread left in the food aisle—apparently things weren’t that desperate yet. There were still several boxes of bandages. I added a tube of antibiotic ointment and briefly considered sleeping pills, but decided against it. We would need to be completely alert if we had to make another escape in the middle of the night.

  The aisles were a mess, as though shoppers had dumped the contents of the shelves onto the floor in their haste to get what they needed and get away. A couple of harried employees scrambled around, struggling to keep things in order. I guarded my basket of treasures, including a bag of beef jerky and a loaf of gluten-free bread, and headed toward the checkout.

  Someone jostled me from behind, and I dropped the phone. I bent to retrieve it and at the same time took off my backpack. I held it in front of me, against my chest, knowing the handgun was on top. Was I that desperate? My heart drummed. I’d pay for the supplies and take them out to the car, then come back and . . . and what? Rob the pharmacy at gunpoint? If I wanted to avoid attention, that wouldn’t be the way to do it.

  I paid, left the store, and threw my bags into the backseat of the car. Then I took the gun out of the backpack with trembling fingers and slipped it into my waistband, under my hoodie. How many other people were packing heat in Clarkeston? And how many of them were infected?

  I set my jaw and went back inside. Wes needed those meds, but I had no idea how to get them without giving us away. I’d have to take a chance on using my credit card. Maybe we could get away before they traced it.

  I joined the line at the pick-up counter. In an aisle behind me, two men were having an argument. One of them, sporting a red plaid jacket and a Budweiser hat, was shouting about a drug he’d read about on the Internet. It was supposed to make you immune to Gaspereau, he said. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. He wasn’t wearing a mask.

  “I’ll prove it!” he said, marching toward the pharmacist’s counter. He tried to cut to the front of the line, but the other customers jostled him back.

  “There’s no cure, man,” someone said. “No vaccine, either. You’re just fooling yourself.”

  “I lost my kid in Iraq, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose anyone else to this son of a bit
ch!” he said.

  Finally, it was my turn at the counter. I gave the pharmacist my credit card. She kept the white paper bag clutched in her hand while she ran the card through.

  The argument continued behind me. “It doesn’t work. You’re just deluding yourself!” someone told the man in the Bud cap.

  “Declined,” the pharmacist said, snapping me back to attention.

  “What? That’s impossible.” I leaned over the counter to look at her screen. She turned it away from me.

  “There’s a drug?” a woman’s voice called out from the back of the line. “Why aren’t they giving it to us?”

  “That’s what it says. Declined.” The pharmacist’s tone brooked no argument. “Do you want to pay another way?”

  Someone shoved me aside. “If you don’t have the money, let someone else go!”

  “Hey!” I elbowed my way back in front of the counter. “I have the money! Run my card again.”

  “Ma’am, it doesn’t work,” the pharmacist said. “Next!”

  “No, you have to try again!” I gripped the counter with my hands. Then someone behind me shouted, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  The man in the Budweiser cap was shoving his way to the front again. He came to a stop right behind me, pinning me to the counter.

  “Why aren’t you giving out Zorifan?” he yelled. “You want us to all get sick? Big Pharma holding it back?”

  “Sir, despite what you may have heard, Zorifan is not effective against Gaspereau.” The two pharmacists exchanged glances. One of them picked up a phone receiver.

  “You’re keeping it for yourself, aren’t you?” he ranted. “Or are they waiting until we’re willing to pay whatever they ask for it?”

  People were starting to back away from him now. Someone muttered, “Maybe he’s infected. Doesn’t seem right in the head.”

  “Sir, you need to leave now,” the pharmacist said.

  “I’m not leaving until I get my hands on some Zorifan!” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun, pointing it over my shoulder at the pharmacist.

  I dove to the floor. Screams filled the air around me. Some customers dropped to the ground; others ran. I didn’t dare stand but started crawling frantically along the counter.

  A burly man crept closer to the gunman, his hands outstretched. “Hey, buddy, we’re all freaked out. This isn’t helping. Just put the gun—”

  A bullet in the stomach silenced him. His body crashed to the floor in front of me. He clutched at his stomach, his mouth moving soundlessly as blood puddled on the floor.

  “Give me the Zorifan and no one else will get hurt!” Seconds later, the gunman fired behind the counter. There was a yell, but I couldn’t tell—had he shot one of the pharmacists? I twisted around and wrenched the gun out of my waistband. His back was to me. My hands were shaking too much; I couldn’t hold the gun still. I aimed low, but then raised my hands. If I missed . . .

  I trained my eyes on him and took the shot.

  He crumpled, his hip shattered.

  More screams. The pharmacists abandoned the counter and ran out through a back door. I sprang to my feet and kicked the gunman’s weapon out of reach, then sprinted behind the counter. The white bag with Wes’s medication lay on top of the keyboard. I grabbed it and bolted out of the store. Someone would have called the police by now. I had to get out of there, and fast.

  The parking lot was chaos as people threw their supplies into their cars and tried to escape from the single exit. Most decided to hell with it and just drove over the curb. I pulled the car around and followed their example.

  After driving like the devil was on my heels for ten minutes, I pulled over to the side of the road and threw up. The green grass, now soiled, seemed like something from another world. How could something as ordinary as green grass still exist when I had just shot a man?

  You did what you had to do. You didn’t kill him. You probably saved the pharmacists’ lives. Now get a grip. I panted by the side of the road for a few more minutes before deeming myself fit to drive.

  Soon, I was back at the hen pen. “Hello?” I said as I eased the door open. The inside of the building seemed darker than it had been this morning, and I waited for my eyes to adjust. “Hello?” I called out again. I clutched my backpack to my chest and stepped onto the elevator. The second floor was empty except for the boxes and the chest of guns. The lid was open.

  Shit! I ran toward it—had I left it open, or had Wes found the guns? I hadn’t counted them earlier, so I couldn’t tell if any were missing.

  “Wes?” I called out. I ran back to the elevator. A lone rat greeted me on the third floor. I sprinted up the stairs to the attic level, then stopped. If Wes was still having an episode and he was armed, bursting into the room and surprising him was the worst thing I could do.

  “Wes, I’m back!” I called, wanting to give him as much advance notice of my arrival as possible. I even knocked on the door before gently pushing it open.

  It was empty, save for the skeletons of the dead birds, arranged on the floor to spell out the words “I’M SORRY.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I stepped into the center of the skeleton-filled room. “Wes?” I cried. “Where are you?”

  No, no, no. This isn’t happening.

  “Wes!” I screamed, running back down to the third floor. There weren’t that many places to hide—and why would he hide from me, anyway? Had he been found? Had they taken him? I checked the second floor, but he wasn’t there. I took the elevator to the bottom and stood in the center of the room. What should I do? Should I wait in the hope that he’d come back? Or should I go looking for him? If he left on his own, he couldn’t have gotten too far—all the vehicles were still here. But if they took him, how would I find him again?

  I’d wait. He’d left me the message with the skeletons; he must have known I’d come back. I sat down on the old sofa and pulled the gun out of my backpack, unloaded it, and set it on the floor. I didn’t want to ever use it again, even as an empty threat.

  Had the man I’d shot in the drugstore been infected, or had he just gone a little nuts from fear and panic? Could anyone even tell the difference anymore?

  I opened the car and grabbed one of the packs of cigarettes I’d bought for Wes. Off went the plastic wrapping. I pulled one out and lit it, using a pack of matches from the convenience store, then returned to the sofa to smoke it slowly. As much as I derided Wes’s habit, I still kept an emergency pack in my freezer for times of high stress. If this didn’t qualify, I didn’t know what would.

  So this is it. It’s the end of the world, and I’m alone. I could have done so much differently. If I’d never told Wes about the rape, he wouldn’t have attacked Myles and ended up in the psych hospital. Maybe I would have stayed in Clarkeston and married Kenneth, and Maisie would be our child. Maybe . . .

  I banged my head against the back of the sofa. Too late for regrets. But I couldn’t escape the truth that inched chillingly closer every day. What if they never found a cure? Gaspereau would burn through Clarkeston, eventually infecting everyone. How soon until it spread to the rest of the world, quarantine or not? I shuddered and took another drag on the cigarette.

  A rifle shot shattered the silence.

  I jumped to my feet, then stood perfectly still, trying to gauge which direction the shot had come from. The woods. I picked up the handgun from the floor and reloaded it—perhaps I’d need it after all—and peered through the hole Wes had made in the door. There were no police cars, no army jeeps, not even a farm truck in view, so I stepped out and ran toward the woods. Once I reached the cover of the trees, I ran parallel to the tree line until I came to the old snowmobile trail. I didn’t know whether to call out for Wes or not—or even if he was the one who’d made the shot. I stopped, panting, and realized I had no idea where I was going. How would I find him in the trees?

  “Wes?” I called out tentatively. I ran again, heading deeper into the woods. “Wes, ar
e you there?”

  Another shot came from my left, almost deafening me. I dove to the ground and put my hands over my head. “Wes? Stop shooting, for Christ’s sake!” A rustling in the leaves told me someone was running toward me. Wes burst out onto the path, holding one of our father’s hunting rifles. His eyes were wild and shining.

  “Did you see it?” he asked.

  “See what?” I moaned. I knew how my mother must have felt the day she found me playing by myself on the banks of the swollen spring river when I was five. She’d hugged me so hard I’d thought she might never let go, and then spanked me so hard I couldn’t sit down for the rest of the day.

  “That deer! I’ve been hunting,” he said.

  I uncovered my head and got gingerly to my feet. Wes was standing tall, his chest stuck out proudly.

  “Can I . . . ?” I asked, holding my hands out for the gun.

  “You want to try? Sure!”

  I took it from him. “No, Wes, I don’t want to try. Do you know how scared I was when I came back and you weren’t there? And then heard gunshots? What were you thinking?” At least he wasn’t cradling bird skulls anymore.

  “I didn’t know where you went,” he said defensively. “I thought I’d get us some food!”

  “Okay,” I said, breathing heavily through my nose. “We can talk about it back in the hen pen. But please . . . no guns.” He eyed the handgun I’d dropped on the ground while diving for cover.

  “What’s that, then?”

  “Protection.” I picked it up and stuffed it in my waistband. “In case you were in trouble.”

  He started to speak, but I held out my hand. “Stop.” Something was in the bushes a few feet in front of us—Wes’s elusive deer? Someone with Gaspereau? “Who’s there? Come out slowly; I’m armed.” I raised Wes’s rifle in front of me.

  “I don’t think anyone’s there,” Wes said. Before I could stop him, he grabbed the gun from my waistband. “But just in case—here you go, sucker!” He shot several rounds into the bushes, laughing. Then a man’s voice cried out.