The Cured

by Deirdre Gould

  I can see how it started. Doesn’t have to be rabid zombie hunters to make things go south for us. You just let these things slide by long enough and it sort of gets ingrained in how people think. You get people like Maureen down the hall there. People that should know better, but truly don’t see things the same anymore.”

  Henry grinned ruefully at the name. “So none of the people in charge are Cured?” Melissa asked.

  The soldier shook his head. “Not unless you count people like me. This is about as far up the ladder as we get, and I had to work for years to get this far. There are a few former doctors that are allowed to do simple procedures at the hospital. You know, stitch up a small wound, mix ointment for rashes, check on older folks. But that’s it. Former surgeons and obstetricians and cancer doctors reduced to activities a housemom would routinely do. Just because they got sick. And it’s like that pretty much everywhere. There are a few Cured engineers at the electric plant, just because the City was so desperate for them and there’s that lawyer, Frank Courtlen, in the trial, he’s Cured. He’s only there because no one else would defend Robert Pazzo though. Other than them, we’re pretty much all in the lower paying, harder jobs. We live segregated from the Immunes in fact if not by law, in the most rundown pieces of town. The police take their time responding to emergencies down there as do the utilities people. In fact, eight years after the power came back on, we still have to boil our water because no one has bothered to restart the filtration system on our side of town. We aren’t welcome in the north side restaurants and some people will outright refuse to trade with you. Sometimes, if you aren’t paying attention or you are too scared to say anything you even get stiffed at the Farm if there’s a bad harvest. Even though the overwhelming majority of the people that work there are Cured. Just not the food distributors.”

  “Should we leave?” asked Henry, knowing what the others were already thinking.

  The soldier shrugged. “Where are you going to go? You saw how things are Outside. Even without constant threat of Looters, there’s nothing left to live on for miles. And as unfair as things are, it’s still better than that. In fact most Cured would be upset with the idea of leaving. This is the City that cured them and took them in after what they had done. Any family they have left is here. There’s been talk of expanding the City. Developing a satellite sort of colony or something, but there haven’t been many people interested. It just hasn’t got off the ground. Maybe in a new place we would do better, but no one wants to take a chance on it.”

  There was a knock at the door and the soldier stood up to answer it, rolling his pant leg down again. He stepped outside to talk with someone. Henry looked at the others.

  “I told you,” Rickey grumbled.

  “We can’t change anyone’s mind by running away, Rickey,” said Vincent.

  “I don’t want to change anyone’s mind. I just want to leave. Why should I live with people that look down on me, that treat me like crap?”

  “You heard him,” said Melissa, “There’s nowhere else to go. For miles. Everything’s picked clean. Even the houses we hit were scavenged, we got lucky to find what little we did. You’d rather starve than put up with a few inconveniences?”

  “It’s not just an inconvenience–” Rickey started, but Henry interrupted him.

  “Look, at least here we have food and shelter and medicine. Even electricity. I hear you Rickey, and the first opportunity I get I’ll volunteer for whatever new town they want to set up in order to get out. But for now we need them. Until we can get enough together to make it on our own, we have to live by their rules.” And until they help me find Marnie, he thought, though he didn’t say it out loud. “So let’s just keep our heads down in the meantime. Besides, we can’t leave until Molly is better at least. She may want to come with us.”

  “And Pam?” Vincent asked.

  Melissa shook her head. “No way. She found her kids she’ll never go anywhere else no matter how bad things get here. The world could end again before she’d leave them.”

  The soldier returned. “Sorry about that, we have the last Cure personnel coming back this afternoon and they need us to help with the supplies. Did you guys need anything else?”

  Henry shook his head for them all.

  “Well, look me up when you get to the dock side. We stick together down there, more than the Immunes do anyway. I’ll introduce you to the best moonshine bar in town.”

  Rickey grinned and the soldier left them to their own devices.

  Twenty-seven

  “I’m sorry, sir, but all the government offices are on skeleton crews. It’s the trial. Even the Military Governor has gone for opening statements. He won’t attend the entire trial of course, but he won’t be back today.” The pretty secretary turned back to her files.

  “Everyone keeps talking about this trial. What is it about?” asked Henry. He really didn’t care. He was just buying time, hoping someone important would walk through the office so he could grab them. The secretary looked at him as if he were crazy.

  “Uh– I just got to the City two days ago,” he said quickly.

  “Oh, that explains it then. It’s the Plague trial. The military found some scientists holed up in a lab and they are supposed to be the same ones that started this whole thing.”

  “The first ones? How did they survive that long?” Henry was interested in spite of himself.

  The secretary shrugged. “The typical way I’d guess.” She eyed him and added, “how did you?”

  “Look, I just want to make an appointment to see someone. Anyone. I came from a bandit camp full of really bad people. There are kids and innocent people trapped there too. Some of them are just sick– like I was.”

  “All right,” sighed the secretary sitting down at her desk and picking up a pencil, “But I don’t think you’re going to get much help. The world’s full of really bad people right now. Can’t chase them all down, you know?” She scribbled in an appointment book. “What’s your name?”

  “Henry Broom.”

  “Okay, Henry, three o’clock tomorrow, the Governor has a fifteen minute block. You need permission to leave work early?”

  “I don’t know,” said Henry, blushing. The secretary glanced up at him.

  “Jeez. You are new. You supposed to be at work now?” Henry shrugged. “What’s your assignment?” she asked holding her hand out for his folder. She pulled out the work assignment and picked up her phone.

  “Hi Steph, it’s Cheryl over at City Hall. You expecting a Henry Broom today . . .”

  The secretary’s conversation trailed off as Henry’s mind drifted off into it’s now familiar rut of frustration and worry and desperate planning. How many days was this going to take? Every day was one more that Marnie was trapped or worse.

  “Okay,” said the secretary, “you’re late but you’ve been excused. Go to the All-Work Station now. You’re excused for tomorrow afternoon but don’t miss any more work or you’ll be short rations.”

  “Thanks,” said Henry, halfheartedly. He headed out of the massive empty building to his bike and took off for work. He was glad the soldiers had given him the bike back. He hadn’t seen very many since he’d entered the City and it had already proved very useful, since he lived so far from everything important.

  The All-Work Station was an unimpressive little brick building near the docks. Henry opened the door, where a woman in a threadbare jacket was sorting sooty work orders onto bulletin boards. Everything was dusty or grimy. The floor, the counter, the windows. The only bright thing in the place was a little gold bell on the counter. Henry found that oddly funny.

  “Hello,” he said, and the woman turned around.

  “You Henry?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry I’m late, I’m still finding my way around.”

  “Don’t worry. All-Work isn’t exactly a high pressure environment. Most times it’s a hurry up and wait kind of place anyway. I’m Stephanie. Normally I just lead a work shift, bu
t Bernice is at the trial with everyone else. She’s the one that really runs things.”

  “How come you aren’t at the trial Stephanie?”

  “Someone has to keep the doors open. If you are really interested we can listen to the broadcast. The way I see it though, those scientists are either already living the worst kind of hell just knowing what they did, or they don’t care. And if they don’t care, a trial won’t even come close to making them care. It’s just a lot of heartache for everyone else.”

  “Don’t you want to know why they did it?”

  Stephanie shook her head and Henry could see the smooth, melted scar of a missing ear flashing under her long hair. “It can’t change anything. People are still dead, no matter why. It won’t bring anyone back and it won’t make their dying worthwhile.” She dropped the small stack of papers. “Come on, I’ll give you the tour.” She came around the counter and led Henry through a squealing metal door. Behind the little office was a large warehouse. It was stacked to the brim. Everywhere Henry looked was something different. It made him dizzy and a little nervous.

  “So, we’re All Work. Obviously. And that means we have to have tools for everything. We’re kind of the back up for the regular departments. The good news is you could be doing something different every day. The bad news is that everyone knows you’re temporary and gives you the worst tasks that no one else wants to do.” Stephanie grinned. “The good news to that is that you only have to do it that day and not every day.”

  “Where do I even start?” asked Henry, “I thought I was sent here because I didn’t have any skills that they found useful.”

  She laughed. “That’s just because we’re Cured. They never think we can do anything right. Like we haven’t quite got out of our drooling idiot stage.” She gently elbowed him and he smiled but it didn’t feel funny. “Don’t take it personally Henry, they don’t even know you. You’re just a number, it’s not a judgement. Besides, there are lots of good things about this job. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not for everyone, and if you decide to apprentice out, there’s no shame in it. But if you stay, you’ll learn a lot more. You’ll see parts of the City no one else ever bothers with, you’ll make friends with people in all sorts of positions. People that can get you things. And between you and me, if the poop meets the pin wheel again, you’ll be ten times the survivor that you were when you started.”

  “So, what do I do first?”

  “Well, there’s not much to do today, since everyone is at the trial. Why don’t we work on organizing some of the warehouse, that way you’ll kind of get a feel for the layout. It gets really sloppy in here really fast with everyone checking tools in and out. Oh yeah, meant to tell you that too. Obviously, there’s a lot of valuable stuff in here. Everyone checks their tools out for the day and back in when they are done. We have a big chalkboard.” Stephanie walked toward the back wall and Henry followed her. The chalkboard was huge. It was like the old betting board at Henry’s favorite sports bar. There was even a ladder to reach the top. “It looks confusing now, but you’ll get used to it. This is where we keep track of assignments and tools. I already added you, see?”

  Henry’s name sprawled in metallic stickers about a foot from the bottom. “So your first column would be your assignment for the day, and then you’d just sign or x in the tool column for the stuff you need. Everything is in packets, so you don’t have to worry about specific tools. You just grab a bundle and it should have everything you need for the day. That’s kind of why things get messy in here, but it’s so much faster than digging through everything or making three trips back to the warehouse for forgotten tools. Bernice is kind of in charge of all that too. Most of the time she’ll have everyone’s bundles lined up by the warehouse door by the time they come in, so you just pick it up and go.”

  “How many people work here?” asked Henry, awed at the number of names.

  “Right now, about seventy. We had a big group apprentice out to the water works last month. They were desperate for new workers. But it’ll fill up again.”

  The idea of seventy people in the same small warehouse at once after so many years of solitude made Henry’s stomach twist. But it was quiet now. Either everyone was at the trial or already out at work. He and Stephanie sorted bundles of tools for the rest of the day. He was surprised at how complete each one was, holding parts and pieces that could only be occasionally called for. But, after years of trial and error, he supposed they must know what was going to be most valuable. They only got a few sections done before people started flooding in. Some exchanging bundles for ration coins, others coming in to talk about the trial. The extra noise made Henry flinch and he stood awkwardly in an empty part of the warehouse. Stephanie found him still sorting bundles a little later. “Hey,” she said, “why don’t you go on home. We’re done for the day and it looks like you’re still bulking up. We don’t want to wear you out.”

  Henry blushed, humiliated and unable to deny his exhaustion. “Don’t be ashamed,” she continued, “We’re all Cured here. We all came in most of the way starved and weak as kittens. You have to take it easy for a little while or you’ll collapse. I’ve seen it happen. No one expects anything superhuman here. Come back in the morning and we’ll do some more sorting, I’ll introduce you to the guys before your meeting.”

  Henry just nodded, too embarrassed to thank her. He ducked out of the tiny office and climbed onto his bike, riding through the long shadows the ramshackle buildings made in the empty afternoon. He sat on the cracked wood step of his house as the chill of the afternoon tightened into proper cold. Rickey and Vincent found him there as the sun was setting.

  “Well? Did you get your posse?” asked Rickey. Vincent looked concerned, the last of the afternoon light filling up the drawn lines in his face.

  “No, he was at that trial thing. I’m supposed to go back tomorrow.”

  “It’s not going to happen, man. We don’t even know if he’s still alive. Maybe the whole camp is wiped out. In fact, I’m not even entirely sure I remember how to get back there.”

  “I asked Melissa. She used to deliver mail in the area, she found me a map.”

  Henry stood up and opened the door, motioning them inside.

  “What are you hoping will happen, Henry? Find the girl and take revenge? And then what? Are you even sure if you find Marnie that she’ll want to come back with you? She didn’t exactly see you at your best.”

  “I know you aren’t interested in helping me Rickey, I’m not asking you to. But I have to know, one way or another, that Phil’s not doing the same things to other people and that Marnie is free of him. Even if she doesn’t want to come back with me.” He flipped on a light and the empty room glowed. The furniture delivery sat in a sad, spare pile in the center. Rickey walked over and pulled a kitchen chair from the pile, lighting a cigarette without asking.

  “What exactly are you going to do if you find him?” asked Vincent.

  “You want me to spell it out for you?” Henry asked, turning to look at him.

  “Actually, yes. Because no matter what you do, it’s never going to be enough.”

  “Wow. I didn’t think a priest was supposed to say those things,” said Rickey between puffs.

  “You want a crack at him Father?” asked Henry, surprised. Vincent shook his head.

  “No. No torture would ever be enough. And it would only make me into something like him. It won’t make you happy, Henry. Not for long.”

  “For long enough. I don’t care if it destroys me. He has to pay for what he’s done.”

  “He will. Maybe he already is.”

  Henry could feel his heart beginning to pound, his chest become hot. “I don’t mean in the afterlife, Vincent. I mean here and now. With these hands. God had His chance. For eight years. Maybe longer. And He did nothing. It’s my turn now.”

  “Calm down,” said Rickey, rising from his chair. Henry could feel all the short hair on his head prickle as it stood up, as if he were a d
og with hackles.

  “What if he’s changed? What if he’s not the monster you remember? What if he even had good reasons for doing some of the things he did?” Vincent asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Henry, brushing past him and joining Rickey near the pile of furniture. “He could be a saint now, but it doesn’t change what he did. And there’s no reason good enough. There are plenty of people here that survived without doing the things he did.”

  “Are there?” Rickey asked, squinting up at Henry, “I’m not so sure that’s true. At least, not on a general level. I just think people don’t talk about it here.”

  “What about the girl?” asked Vincent, so quietly that Henry almost missed it.

  “Marnie is tough. She knows what has to be done in order to survive now.”