After the Cure, Deirdre Gould [the beach read TXT] 📗

fall, from the disease, how hard I had worked to get the boy up the ladder and Sarah had smashed me back into the ground. That she was always holding me back from doing what I knew needed to be done. That I had to get rid of her, so I could be free. And while she was still leaning over me, trying to see if I was all right, trying to help me, I grabbed her hair and wrapped it around and around my hand, pulling her down toward me.”

Frank looked at Nella and his face was like a cracked mirror that could only show grief. His voice wavered. “She must have been so scared. I'd never even raised my voice with her before that. She must have been terrified and heartbroken. Her whole face was almost blank with shock. And I knew, even then, that she was frightened. I knew and I was glad. It was a fierce, hot joy, as if I was filled with vengeance. But for what? She hadn't done anything. And I did the most painful thing I could think to do. I bit her behind the ear. I bit her so hard that her skin and scalp started to come away from her skull.”

Nella felt her stomach boiling away even as she tried not to shudder. Her teeth ached in protest at the image.

“I bit her where I used to love kissing her the most. And I still felt nothing but visceral delight in doing it. I let her hair go though, when she screamed and she leapt back. It took me a few seconds to get up off the floor, because it really had given me a blow to land that hard. Sarah didn't waste those seconds. She found the gun and had it pointed at me. She was crying, begging me to stop. She said I was just sick, if I could calm down, she'd get me to a hospital and everything would be okay. I stood there, this hulk of a thing, my mouth dripping with her blood and I could feel the grin splitting my lips. She was trying to save me, and all I could think of was how good it had felt to bite her. Like it filled some part of me I'd never known was empty before. I could see the end of the gun shaking and I knew she wouldn't be able to do it before I reached her. And I didn't care that I was going to kill her and I didn't care that I was going to die too. All I wanted was that feeling back. There was nothing left in me but this growl, this grunt that grew and grew until I leapt at her and I couldn't even hear her screaming over the growl coming from my chest.

“If there had been any mercy at all left in me, I would have tried for her neck and ended it quickly. Instead I scratched and hit her face. She had lost control of the gun, I was far too close for her to raise it again. She reached behind her and found a glass bottle and smashed it across my face. That's how I got this.” Frank rubbed the purple jag on his cheek. Nella's eyes were too blurry with crying to see his face very well. She wasn't sure she wanted to see it at that moment anyhow.

“The shock of it pushed me back about a foot and Sarah managed to raise the gun. She was still crying. She wasn't angry with me, she wasn't trying to hurt me. She was just crying. And she shot me in the shoulder as I sprang again for her. I wasn't glad anymore. I was angry. Hideously, blindly angry. I snapped her neck with my hands. And she was gone. And I was alone with my rage and that never ending hunger. How could you possibly love somebody like that?”

Nella swept the tears from her face. Frank was looking grimly at her, but Nella didn't think he was really seeing her.

“Dr. Pazzo wasn't lying when he said they found me just a few months later surrounded by the bones of my wife and the boy. I didn't bury them. I didn't even leave them in peace in the silent bunker. I was surrounded by bottles of water and over a year's worth of food. But I ate the bodies as they rotted around me. After the Cure, when I could think rationally again, I realized what I’d done. I wished that they’d left me in the bunker to starve. I didn't want to live, but I believed it was a just punishment, that killing myself would be worse than everything that I'd done before. Every following breath was hell, until I met you. I could feel them inside me, I could remember their taste, the texture of their skin and organs. I could taste it all the time, no matter how many times I scoured my teeth. I could smell the rot on my skin no matter how much I scrubbed. How could you kiss someone like that?”

Frank sat motionless as Nella got up to stand in front of him. She warmed his scarred cheek with the palm of her hand. “I wish I could tell you that Sarah would forgive you. I think she would, but I didn't know her.” Nella watched his eyes fill again. “I don't even know if there is anything to be forgiven. You were ill. The whole world was sick. It still is. Infected and Immune alike. I don't have to love the person that did those things. He's not real. He never was.”

Nella threaded her fingers through one of his long hands. “I know these hands did those things. And I forgive them.” She brought his hand to her lips.

She traced his mouth with one finger. “I know this mouth did those things. And I forgive it.”

She watched his eyes for a long moment. “But your heart didn't do those things. I don't have to forgive it for anything.”

She leaned down and kissed him. She felt Frank sob and he held her around the waist as if he was drowning. She bent her head and whispered, “Please stay.” But she never knew if he heard her.

 

News from the Lab

Nella woke to the phone ringing. The couch had made her stiff and sore. She still hadn’t showered and she felt grimy and scratchy. She sat up slowly. Frank was not next to her. The phone was still ringing, but she ignored it. She checked the bathroom, but it was dark and silent. “Frank?” she called, walking into the bedroom. But the bed was made just the way she'd left it. The phone stopped ringing and Nella panicked, thinking maybe it had been him. She stopped on the way to the kitchen when she saw a flutter of white wave to her from the door. Her heart sank. It was a note. She tore it from the door.

“Gone to the Farm. You needed groceries. Be back soon.”

Nella relaxed. On her way to the shower the phone rang again. Everything itched to be cleaned, but she stopped to pick it up with a sigh.

“Where have you been?” said Sevita.

“Sorry, I just woke up. What's up?”

“I told Christine.”

“Sevita, how could that have helped?”

“I know, I know. But how could I not tell her? Especially since she's ready to have a baby. The only thing that's keeping me from telling everyone is that you think it's important to keep it secret for now. I think they have a right to know.”

“It's not that people don't have the right to know Sevita, it's that there's a dangerous weapon free for anyone to pick up lying out there in the wasteland. If we tell the wrong people-”

“Okay, okay, I understand. The thing is, one of her scav buddies did a preliminary sweep of that lab months ago. They were looking for medicine and equipment for the hospital and they couldn't wait for the military to clear that zone. Nella, the guy said the place was ransacked, but not in a Looter kind of way.”

“What do you mean, 'not in a Looter kind of way'?”

“I mean there were top of the line drugs scattered over the floors, portable equipment and first aid kits were left behind, even narcotics were lying neatly in drawers. But in the upper labs, the ones even these guys refused to go into- you know, the kind you have to walk through an airlock to get in or out of? They were trashed Nella. Tables overturned, papers in messy piles like someone had gone through them one by one only to drop them, even some floor tiles were pulled up.”

“Maybe the Infected went on a rampage before they abandoned the building.”

“That's what the scavengers thought at first too. But the vault where they keep all the frozen samples- the door was standing open and the generator had failed. Of course the samples must all be dead by now, they said they thought the generator had been sabotaged years ago, otherwise it should still be running, the lab had enough oil reserve to run it for a decade.”

Nella was silent.

“Well, aren't you going to say anything?”

“I don't know what to say Sevita. I don't know if this is good because it means Dr. Schneider destroyed the bacteria long ago or if it's bad because it means someone knew it was there and got to it before she could.”

“Who would have known it was there?”

“I think only Schneider, Carton, Ann Connelly and Dr. Pazzo. But I'm not entirely certain. It would make sense that they would be the only ones who knew exactly what it was, Dr. Carton said it wasn't due to be tested until the week after the world went to pot.”

“But Dr. Carton was busy playing sick, if we believe his story. And I don't really think he has a motive to make up something like what he told us yesterday. There are less elaborate lies and more attractive ones too, don't you think?”

“Yes, I believe Dr. Carton was telling us the truth.”

“And you watched Dr. Pazzo lock Ann, Dr. Schneider and himself in right?”

“Ye-es,” Nella said slowly, but something in her brain sent up a little flare. She couldn't figure out why though.

“And Dr. Schneider later escaped, after telling Dr. Pazzo she was going after the incurable strain to destroy it. And Dr. Pazzo and Ann were found almost a year later, still locked in. So the only person it could be was Dr. Schneider.”

That little flare kept digging at Nella's brain. “Something isn't right,” she said, “when did the scavengers reach the lab?”

“Christine said it was something like six months ago, while the hospital was overrun by flu.”

“But Dr. Carton said that he had seen Dr. Schneider about a month and a half ago. And she said she