A Cure for Madness

by Jodi McIsaac

  “Wes, stop!” I shouted, dropping my rifle and grabbing his arm. “Someone’s out there!”

  “Then they’re dead,” he said with a shrug.

  “Not quite,” said a voice. A figure stepped out from behind a thick tree trunk.

  “Kenneth!” I cried, running toward him. “Oh my God, he could have killed you! Are you okay?” Both Kenneth and Wes looked ashen.

  “Oh . . . sorry, man. I didn’t actually think anyone was there,” Wes said, dropping the gun.

  “Well, I was,” Kenneth said with a grimace. He was gripping his arm, and blood stained his fingers.

  “He hit you!”

  “Just a graze,” Kenneth said. “I’ll be fine.”

  I rounded on Wes, but Kenneth put his hand on my arm. “It’s okay, Clare.”

  “It is not okay,” I said. “Let’s get you inside.”

  The three of us crept back into the hen pen. A car—Kenneth’s mother’s, I assumed—was parked outside. With his uninjured arm, he opened the trunk and took out a first-aid kit.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked once we were back inside with the doors closed.

  “I came to check on you. I tried your cell and there was no answer. I found my car, but you guys weren’t here, obviously. I thought I’d check the woods. I was beginning to think I’d gotten myself lost when I heard the shots.”

  “You and who knows who else,” I muttered. “But how did you know where this place was?”

  “You showed me once, remember? Back in the day. We drove out here.”

  “Good memory.”

  “Did you get Wes’s medication?” he asked. He opened the first-aid kit and started to dress his wound.

  I wanted to tell him the whole story. I wanted him to comfort me, to tell me it was okay, that I’d done the right thing. But I couldn’t bear to say the words. I had shot a man who was possibly sick. He would never understand.

  “I got it,” I answered. “But he hasn’t taken it yet.” I retrieved a bottle of water from the car and handed it to Wes, along with one of his pills.

  He looked like he wanted to refuse, but thankfully he didn’t. I relaxed fractionally when he swallowed the pill. “You take these every day?” I asked, examining the label.

  “Yeah,” he said. “They make me tired, though.”

  I was about to say “Better tired than delusional” but changed my mind. “I’m going to talk to Kenneth for a bit. Want to crawl into the car and have a nap while the meds kick in?”

  He nodded and climbed into the backseat. I motioned for Kenneth to follow me to the elevator, which he eyed with suspicion.

  “It’s fine,” I said, and he stepped up beside me, still carrying the first-aid kit.

  “Clare . . .” he began, but I interrupted him.

  “Wait until we’re out of earshot,” I whispered. I pulled the rope until we reached the third floor. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s just a scratch. And speaking of which . . . how did you get that?” He pointed at my cheek, which was still stinging.

  “You won’t believe it,” I said. He took some antiseptic wipes out of the first-aid kit and dabbed at my cheek, then covered it with a square bandage.

  I told him about Wes’s breakdown in the attic. “I’m so glad you gave us that prescription. But God, what a nightmare getting it . . .”

  A question flickered across his face.

  “It was just really chaotic,” I said.

  “I bet. There are a lot of very scared, very confused, and very angry people out there. They think the government should have a better grasp on things. And it’s happened so fast . . . The rate of infection isn’t helping things, either.”

  I frowned. “How bad is it?”

  Kenneth went over to one of the tiny windows and wiped away some of the grime. A faint ray of light shone through it. “Infectious diseases have what’s called a basic reproductive rate—the average number of people one person will infect. It’s called the R-nought rate. The flu is between two and three, and you’ve seen how fast that can spread in a school or workplace. Gaspereau is seven.”

  “That’s bad.”

  “It’s all bad, Clare. They’ve been trying to keep it quiet to avoid a panic, but it’s getting out of hand. We’re not going to be able to stop it.”

  He looked out the window again, and a chill crept into my bones. There was something about the way he said, “We’re not going to be able to stop it . . .”

  “Why are you here, Kenneth?” I asked warily.

  He turned around slowly. There were no apologies, no weak lies. “I came to explain to you what is really going on.”

  “And how do you know what is really going on?” I asked. “Or should I say ‘How long have you known?’”

  “Only for a few hours. Since you left. I swear it, Clare, I was in the dark just as much as you were. But they came back with a warrant . . . and the CDC—”

  “Dr. Hansen, you mean?” I snapped.

  “Just hear me out. I want what’s best for you and Wes; I really do. But a lot of lives are being destroyed, and there is no end in sight. Please . . . just listen to me and I’ll explain what he wants with Wes. Then you can decide what to do.”

  “I’ve already decided what to do,” I said. “But tell me why they want him so much.”

  Kenneth took a deep breath and motioned to the dusty floor. “Should we sit?”

  “I’ll stand.”

  A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. “You know a little bit about how Gaspereau works, right? It’s not a virus or a bacterium. It’s more like mad cow disease—it’s caused by infectious particles called prions, which are misfolded proteins. These rogue prions attack healthy proteins and cause them to misfold, and so on and so on. Because they’re attacking the brain, they cause delusions and massive behavioral changes—all the things we’ve seen in the victims so far. The difference is that mad cow can only be spread through contact with infected brain tissue. Gaspereau is spread through contact with infected droplets—from a sneeze or a cough, for example—or contaminated surfaces. Just like the flu.”

  “Which is what makes it spread so fast,” I interjected. “I know all this; I saw the press conference.”

  “Just bear with me. As long as the people who are infected are still living, they can spread the disease to others. So far no one has died from it, except those who have killed themselves or tried to fly out of a window or something. I told you, sedatives don’t work. It’s spreading beyond our ability to contain the infected. There are too many of them now.”

  Images from every zombie movie I’d ever seen swam through my head. I pictured dozens, maybe hundreds of people swarming in the psych ward where Wes had been kept—all of them angry and convinced that the horrors in their heads were real. They stampeded down the hall, cutting down doctors and nurses, and burst out of the hospital in droves, ready to vent their rage on the world.

  I sat on the floor and brought my knees up to my chin. “Where does Wes fit in?”

  “It’s his brain,” Kenneth said, sitting down in front of me and crossing his legs. “They noticed an abnormality in the first round of tests they did before releasing him from the hospital. They weren’t supposed to release him; it was a misunderstanding in the chaos.”

  Was he telling the truth or just speaking from Dr. Hansen’s playbook? “Why did Dr. Hansen tell you all this?”

  “I’m a doctor. And things have changed,” Kenneth said softly. “They’ve run out of options. They realized that they’ve been . . . going about this the wrong way. Trying to force you into helping them. That’s why they sent me—someone you can trust. Someone who will tell you the truth.”

  “Who are they? Just Dr. Hansen?”

  “It was just him at first. But he’s shown the results to his superiors at the CDC. They think we have to try.”

  “Did you lead them here?” My eyes darted to the window.

  “No. I volunteered to come and find
you, and answer all of your questions. At least, as much as I can. It turns out that Wes was exposed to Gaspereau in the psych hospital. They didn’t tell me how, but I suspect it was that scientist you spoke of.”

  “Dr. Ling,” I breathed. “Patient Zero.”

  “Yes. I suspect he was the source. And he infected a lot of other people before he killed himself.”

  “Oh my God. And Wes . . . ?”

  “Is perfectly fine. That’s the mystery. Or was. They knew he’d been infected with Gaspereau, and yet the prions weren’t showing up in his system. That’s why they needed to test his cerebrospinal fluid. They ran a whole gamut of tests—they even introduced infected cells to the spinal fluid, to see how his body would respond. It stayed perfectly healthy.”

  “Why?” Torn between anger and relief, I strained to keep track of what Kenneth was saying.

  “It’s due to a mutation in his brain cells. They not only protect healthy cells from unhealthy prions, they actually unfold the prions and make them healthy again. They fight back.”

  I stared at him in disbelief for a long moment, while he waited for me to say something. Silence pressed in on us in the empty room. Finally Kenneth spoke again. “Clare, Wes is the cure for Gaspereau. He’s the antidote.”

  “How is that possible?” I whispered.

  “Like I told you before, we don’t understand a whole lot about human mutation. Somehow, Wes’s brain cells have mutated in this way, but we don’t know why—not yet. What we do know is that it works—at least in the lab. Dr. Hansen believes these cells will cure the infected.”

  A cure for Gaspereau. Wes would love this; he’d always thought he was special. “Are there others with this same mutation? These special cells?”

  “Not as far as they know.”

  “So what do they need? More cerebrospinal fluid?” If Kenneth was right, surely Wes would be willing to undergo one more procedure.

  Kenneth rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand, making the front of his hair stick up. When he looked back up, his eyes were wet. “I wish it were that easy,” he whispered.

  A stone seemed to lodge in my throat. “What are you talking about? Why isn’t it?”

  “They haven’t been able to replicate these special cells. And there aren’t enough of them in the CSF. It seems the highest concentration of them are in a certain area of his brain. His hippocampus, to be exact. And they would . . . need to harvest them. All of them. It’s the only way they can halt the spread of Gaspereau in time.”

  “They want to harvest . . . his brain?”

  “Parts of it. Just the two hippocampi. He would live; that’s almost certain. But . . . it would drastically change him. There’s so much about the brain we still don’t understand. But we know the hippocampus plays a major role in memory, especially in creating new memories. He would possibly lose that ability.”

  A wave of nausea swept through me, replacing the lightness that had filled my chest at the prospect of discovering a cure.

  “I don’t know exactly how it would play out,” Kenneth continued. “It’s still rather unpredictable. But there’s a very good chance he would come out of the operation quite . . . impaired.”

  “And that’s the only way?” I choked. “There’s absolutely nothing else they can do?”

  “Hopefully they will eventually be able to make a synthetic version,” Kenneth said softly. “But right now . . . there just isn’t time. Not if we want to contain the outbreak before it’s too late.”

  I gripped my head in my hands to keep the room from spinning, to keep the whole world from spinning. A fleeting image flashed through my mind, of a game show host surrounded by blinking white lights. “Behind door number one is your brother on an operating table, left to live life as a vegetable and not remember anything or anyone! Behind door number two, the whole world goes stark raving mad! It’s all up to you! Step right up and make your choice. Time is running out!”

  “No, no, no,” I moaned. “This isn’t happening. There has got to be another way.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Kenneth said. He looked so pathetic, sitting cross-legged in the dust. But I couldn’t find it in myself to feel sorry for him. He wasn’t being asked to make this decision. He wouldn’t have to live with it for the rest of his life.

  “Latasha. I need to talk to Latasha,” I said, getting up and grabbing my new phone.

  “Why?”

  “Because . . . this can’t be right! You saw what she sent me! Gaspereau came out of a government lab! It’s a biological weapon. Why would they create a weapon without making an antidote?” Hysteria threatened to finish off my already frayed nerves. I took several deep breaths, but that only made me light-headed. “But she’s gone. Something’s wrong; I know it. I think they caught her.”

  “Who caught her?”

  “I don’t know—the NSA, USAMRIID, the CDC, the same people who are hunting us! She’s not responding to any of my messages. It’s not like her.”

  “Maybe she’s just lying low,” Kenneth said, his calmness infuriating. “And you don’t know for sure that Gaspereau was meant as a weapon. All we know is that there was a breach and then Gaspereau showed up. It looks suspicious, sure, but you don’t have any proof.”

  “What about that classified document? What about what Wes said? What about Dr. Ling and Project Amherst or whatever the hell it’s called?”

  “Clare . . . I know you’re upset, but this isn’t about how Gaspereau started. It’s about stopping it.”

  I stalked over to the far wall and rested my head against the peeling paint. “I need more information,” I said. “They can’t possibly expect me to make this decision.”

  “You’re the only one who can, Clare. Wes is unique. It’s your call.”

  “What would you do?” I asked, gazing up at him through a haze of tears.

  He looked away, his face tight. “I know it’s a lot to ask . . . but try to see the big picture. There are a lot of people suffering. Families being destroyed. If you have the power to stop it, to cure this disease . . . that’s what I would do.”

  The silence sat heavy between us. Of course I wanted to help; what sane person wouldn’t? But it was at too steep a cost. For me, there was really only one choice. The world would have to wait for another savior.

  “You said yourself, they’re not going to die, right? The people who are infected?” I asked, hating the sound of my own voice. It was a horrible thing to say. “So there’s time for some other cure to be discovered.”

  Kenneth still wasn’t looking at me. “It’s not fatal. You’re right. And thank God for that. But some things . . . some things are worse than death, Clare. The victims of Gaspereau, they lose all empathy, all compassion. They lose the ability to relate to the people who love them. At first, we thought it was the same as a severe case of mental illness. But it’s worse—much worse. It’s as if they stop being human.”

  His shoulders twitched, and he buried his face in his hands.

  “Kenneth, I’m sorry. I know you think I should do the right thing. But there is no right thing here. And I can’t—I won’t—hand over my own brother to be sacrificed. I just can’t.”

  He lifted his head, revealing cheeks stained with tears. “Just think about it a little longer,” he pleaded. “Please, Clare.” His voice broke. What had he seen—or what had they told him—to make him this insistent? But I’d seen it myself. I knew what the stakes were. Could I really stand by while the whole world burned?

  “Think about it,” he said again. “This could be Wes’s chance to do something really meaningful with his life.”

  Hadn’t I said something similar to Wes just a couple of days ago? My cheeks burned at the memory.

  But we were both wrong; the decision wasn’t mine to make. My resolve strengthened. “His life is meaningful, just as it is,” I said. “But you’re right. It’s his life. This is his decision. And whatever he chooses, I’ll support him.”

  Kenneth nodded slowly, as though
in a daze. “I understand why you would want to ask him. I wouldn’t want to make a decision like this, either. But you’re his legal guardian. We know that he has an irrational fear of doctors. I don’t really think he’s capable of choosing.”

  “He is capable,” I said. “He’s capable of protecting the people he loves. And he is capable of choosing his own fate.” I held out my hand to Kenneth, who was still sitting on the floor. “Help me explain it to him. I don’t know if I would get the details right on my own. But he deserves to know the truth.”

  Kenneth accepted my hand and rose shakily to his feet. His eyes were sad and guarded. “Okay. I’ll help you.”

  I wrapped my arms around his waist, and he rested his chin on the top of my head.

  We went back down to the first floor, where Wes was sleeping in the car. “Listen,” I said to Kenneth. “Don’t make him feel guilty if he doesn’t want to do it. It’s his life, remember. We’re just going to present him with the scenario and let him decide.” I knocked on the window to wake Wes up.

  “Whasss?” he said groggily, opening the door.

  “Kenneth has some information we need to talk with you about.”

  He climbed out of the car and sat on the hood, the chains that dangled from his belt clanging against the metal. Kenneth and I sat down on the sofa, facing Wes. Haltingly, I explained how fast Gaspereau was spreading, with Kenneth jumping in here and there to elaborate or correct something I’d gotten wrong.

  “So it’s like, the end of the world?” Wes asked, his face intense.

  “I don’t know if it’s gotten to that point yet,” I said, but then caught Kenneth’s eye. “But yeah, it looks pretty bad.”

  “And they still haven’t found a cure?” Wes asked.

  “Well, that’s what we wanted to talk to you about.” I explained what the doctors had discovered. “So you see, there is a cure. It’s . . . these special cells in your brain.”

  “Ha! I told you so,” he said.

  “You told me what?”

  “That I’m a warrior.”

  Kenneth nodded, a little too eagerly. “That’s right. And as a warrior, you could save a lot of people. You’d be a hero.”