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

tires, working silently, each wondering what kind of life the three had before the world got sick. At last, when the sun was already almost overhead, they were done.

“We should light it,” Frank said bitterly, “let it burn forever so the City knows what happens out here. So they can’t pretend the world is just going to go back to what it was. A permanent bad taste that lingers long after they’ve scrubbed all the blood from the corners of their mouths.”

Nella was glad that there was no gas left at the station. She believed he meant to do it. She was quiet for a moment, watching his face harden like cooling wax. She squeezed his hand.

“It’s time to go Frank. Let them lie in peace. God knows they’re in need of it.” She walked away from him without looking to see if he was coming and scrambled up the dirt side of the pit. She walked back to the stock room and began packing up, waiting for him to cry it out if he needed. She felt dusty and tired and the day wasn’t half over yet. She badly wanted to wash her hands, but she didn’t dare to use what little water they had. She’d have to wait until they found a stream or ditch. She lifted her pack and checked the map. Frank returned to the store. He lifted his pack.

“It’s okay if you want to go back,” she said, “I’ll understand.” But her mind panicked at the thought of continuing alone.

He shook his head. “No, of course not. I’m angry with the way the City has treated the Infected, but I don’t want it to be destroyed. And definitely not the way this bacteria will destroy it.”

He started heading for the door. “You do realize this is crazy though, don’t you?” he said over his shoulder, “I’m a lawyer. You’re a psychiatrist. We’re supposed to be in dark, air conditioned offices charging exorbitant fees to rich clients. Not saving the world. Not chasing bad guys.”

Nella shrugged. “If the world could predict who the villains and heroes were going to be, the crisis wouldn’t exist in the first place.”

They headed out the door and walked quickly, trying to cover the empty space between them and the lab as quickly as they could.

 

Who was Feeding Them?

After a few miles, the road broke off in several directions. The Looters had mostly stopped using cars, preferring atvs when they could find the gas or bicycles when they could not. They no longer depended on the old roads. The military only maintained those it currently needed, so most roads had eroded into a mosaic of tar and gravel or had collapsed with their culverts into gaping ditches. Frank and Nella turned onto one that had almost completely been eaten away and swallowed by brush. There were times when the only indication that there had been a road once were the houses on either side that slumped themselves ever closer to the ground. The spring insects sprang up in misty gold clouds whenever Nella or Frank brushed by. The sun, which had been so distant the day before now glared and sank into their clothes and made them even wearier.

“I thought this lab was in a large town,” said Frank.

“No, not from the map. Looks like they tried to hide it as much as possible. It looks like it’s pretty far into farm country. Must be why it took so long for the scavenger teams to find it.”

“Are we going to reach it in time?”

“We should get there tomorrow, but I don’t know if we’ll find Dr. Schneider there.” Nella sighed and rubbed her forehead. “You’re right. This whole thing is insane. We aren’t even looking for the right thing. We’re looking for someone who maybe can tell us where the bacteria is. And we don’t even know if we’ll find her.” She slapped at a fly, disgusted.

“What else was there to do? She’s the only one who knows for sure who had access to it and would know what it was.”

“I’m becoming convinced that is not the case. Someone was feeding Dr. Pazzo and Ann. Someone knew they were there and had access to all their data and those videos.”

“Maybe I was just different from others. Maybe I had a worse infection or something and my reasoning was even more impaired than others’. Maybe Dr. Pazzo and Ann figured out that food and water came out of that hose thing and I just didn’t.”

“We saw lots of people as malnourished as you Frank. Not all of them could have been completely out of food. I wouldn’t have asked you last night if I thought you were the one stupid zombie in existence.”

Frank laughed and pretended to be shocked at her language.

“Well, even if that is the case,” he continued, “what would anyone stand to gain if they got there hands on this bacteria? Knowing what it could do, why would anyone not want to destroy it?”

“That’s the question of the year. If we can answer that, we will know who has the bacteria.”

“Why keep Dr. Pazzo and Ann alive if they were just going to destroy the world?” asked Frank.

Nella sat down on a stone porch in the shadow of a rotting house and rubbed her ankles. Frank pulled out a water bottle.

“Maybe they didn’t have all the information that they thought they needed from Dr. Pazzo and Ann. Maybe they kept them alive hoping- or expecting- a Cure.”

Frank squinted at her, “You think it was Dr. Carton? But he warned us away from using it, he seemed to want it destroyed.”

“I don’t know who it was, I don’t know what to think. Maybe that’s not even the reason. Maybe it was someone that just cared about Ann or Dr. Pazzo. Or someone who couldn’t face committing murder on a personal level but has some vendetta against the world and didn’t have as much of a problem wiping out humanity as a whole.” Nella shrugged.

“But Nella, the governments are all gone. The churches are all gone. Poverty is a thing of the past. Pretty much. I mean, no one is living large, but no one is really starving any more either. The three biggest sources of conflict in the world are gone.”

“Maybe it’s someone who lost their family to this plague. Maybe it’s someone who believes this is the God’s vengeance and wants to finish the job. Just because most of us are gone, doesn’t mean the rest of us won’t find reasons to hate each other.”

“Are you going to tell me it’s some primal territorial drive in our brain, to fight each other? That this was the inevitable conclusion?”

Nella stood up and stretched. “I hope not. If it is a basic urge then as a whole, we’ve done a remarkable job thwarting it for centuries. I’m a psychiatrist, not an anthropologist. But I think we’re basically social animals, we’re meant to live together. But when you have eight billion people living together, a few of them are bound to be wired wrong. And maybe one or two are going to have the opportunity to act on that bad wiring once in a while.”

They walked slowly back onto the grass lane where the road had once been.

“So we’re looking for someone with a revenge fantasy against the whole world. It’s been eight years. What is he- or she- waiting for?”

Nella stopped and stared at Frank’s face, troubled. He stopped too. “I think whoever it is, is waiting to see what punishment the world thinks is justice. I think he is waiting for the end of this trial.”

Nella felt filled with lead as she said it. She walked on, barely noticing as the suburbs changed into shrinking fields and spreading forest. Frank, too, seemed somber. Neither of them saw the first bleached cow skeletons erupting from the long grass like unfinished barrels. But they came more and more often, on each side of the road, tangled in the wire fencing, as if it were a trail into an Ogre’s den. Nella finally tripped over a leg bone that had made it’s way into the middle of the lane. She froze and looked around. There were clusters of bones almost everywhere she looked.

“Frank,” she whispered, “Frank, stop.” He turned around to look at her and finally saw the bones as well. He crouched, almost instinctively.

“Is it Looters?”

“I don’t think so. They wouldn’t have wasted any meat. They would have herded the cows into their camp before killing them.”

“Infected then?”

“I think so, the skeletons are whole where they died.”

“These are old though,” Frank said, visibly relaxing, “They must have been eaten a while ago. Whatever ate this has got to be dead by now. Are they even finding Infected any more?”

“Not many,” Nella said, “and those they do find report having eaten stray cats or dogs to survive.”

“Could a person even kill a cow?”

“Not one person,” said Nella, “but if several people cornered one, I guess they could do it eventually.” She felt the hair on her arms prickle and her stomach slid lower inside her.

“But you’re talking about Infected working together. Do they do that?”

“It was probably more like a feeding frenzy than cooperation. The initial wave of Infected must have wandered out of the City looking for food. Look, Frank, you’re probably right. I don’t see how people could survive for years on stray cows and dogs, and these bones look like they’ve been here for a while, but let’s be careful.”

It was another mile before the reek of decomposition hit Nella like a broken brick.

 

The Infected

It floated over everything, like grease on water. Choking and sour and coppery. Nella could feel it sticking to her, coating her skin and throat, and Frank bent over the ditch on the side of the road and vomited. It couldn’t have died that long ago, maybe in the winter, thawing in the warm spring sun as the snow pulled back and uncovered it, or in the early spring where it cooked in its own gas. Nella didn’t want to look for it, but she knew she was going to anyway.

“Go back,” she whispered to Frank, “I have to find it and see if there are Infected around. You go back and find some fresh air.”

Frank was shaking and ashy. “No way,” he hissed, “You aren’t going closer alone.” He spat and tried to wipe his mouth with a handkerchief. “Besides,” he said, creeping toward her, “I think that was all of it. I feel a little better now.”

They moved together, trying not to smell the terrible hot-slaughterhouse air and trying to find its source simultaneously. It was surprisingly far, hundreds of yards off the road near a dour, unpainted barn. Nella exhaled in relief to see that it was far too large to be a person. She tried not to taste it as she drew in another shallow breath.

“Horse or cow,” she whispered to Frank, “It hasn’t been dead very long.”

“How do you know?” he asked, holding