The Cured (30 page)

“Subject arrived at the Gate mid-morning January 12. Name: Phillip Grant Previous Occupation: Construction This is Phillip’s statement when asked what he had been doing since the outbreak of the December Plague: ‘I was just finishing this job down south when the news started about the Plague. The foreman wanted us guys to stay and finish. He said he’d give us a bonus on top of the one we were getting for the holidays. But something felt hinky. We were finishing this foundation for some new movie house or something. All we had left was cleanup, so I agreed to stay with a few of the other guys. I could always use the extra money. The news was getting worse all the time, but you didn’t see it outside yet. The last day, I show up to the job site and didn’t see a soul. Not only were the guys from
my
crew not around, the framing crew hadn’t shown up either. I was pretty ticked off, because even the foreman wasn’t there and I wanted my money.’ Subject laughed. ‘Money. Like it was going to do me any good. But I didn’t know then. So I went over to the office trailer to leave a nasty not. I heard this scrabbling noise next to me as I circled the foundation.

See, that’s why the next crew was supposed to come in as soon as we finished. They needed to lay the floor right away so animals or kids don’t fall into the foundation and hurt themselves. So I leaned over to look. And there was the rest of my crew. Most of them were already dead. Torn apart. It looked like eight bodies instead of the three that were actually in there, limbs just scattered and blood everywhere. Sinking into the new concrete in dark stains. But the foreman, Chuck, he was alive still. He was the one that was scrabbling on the wall. He was a mess. I think his jaw was broken or something. It was sticking out wrong and he was covered,
covered
in blood. Even his hair was plastered in the stuff and he left streaks where he was trying to climb. I thought he was trying to escape. I yelled down to him to wait, that I’d grab the ladder and get help. He didn’t say anything, so I just thought he was in shock. I jogged to the truck and tried to call an ambulance on the way, but it was the weirdest thing. I just kept getting a busy signal. No dispatch, no answering machine or robotic switchboard. Just– nothing. Just that empty, endless beep.’ Subject seemed agitated, I asked if he needed a break but he refused.

‘So I pulled the ladder down from the truck and grabbed our first aid kit from the front seat. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do with it, but I had an idea it would be useful. So I extended the ladder right near Chuck. That was when I noticed there was already one in the foundation. It was lying on its side though. Nothing wrong with it, just lying there, where they had probably stowed it while they worked the night before. I wondered why Chuck hadn’t just propped it up again, but I thought whatever happened must have rattled him hard enough he just plain forgot it was there. He started flying up the ladder. He climbed so fast I had to hold onto the ladder so it wouldn’t jitter its way free and collapse. He got to the top and just stared at me for a minute. ‘What the hell happened?’ I asked. He didn’t say anything. He was just breathing really heavy, his broken jaw working back and forth like it didn’t hurt him at all. ‘I’m going to get you some help, okay?’ I said and started toward the trailer. That’s when he growled and leapt at me. He caught me off guard and I stumbled and fell. He was on top of me, but I still didn’t understand what was going on. I tried to push him off a little. Not hard, ‘cause I thought he was hurt and confused. But he kept lunging at me, trying to bite me, even though his teeth wouldn’t meet. ‘Chuck,’ I yelled, ‘It’s me, Phil. Stop, it’s me.’ But he wouldn’t stop, so I pushed a little harder and tried to roll free. He held on though. He held on tight. I kept pushing and we kept rolling. After a few turns, we were at the edge of the foundation again. But I didn’t know it. I swear. I was getting tired. So I gave one really big push to get him off me. He rolled and fell into the foundation. I heard his bones snap. It was like green wood breaking. I didn’t even have to look to know that he was dead.

I panicked. If I’d thought about it, I’d probably have stayed there waiting for the police or something. I’d probably be dead. But I panicked and ran to my truck and left. I knew I couldn’t go home or to any of my family, that’d be the first place someone would look. But I had this old girlfriend. From way, way back. And her dad had this camp in the woods way up north. Not so far from here, actually. Her dad never used it, only once a year during deer season. We used to go there when we wanted some alone time. I figured things wouldn’t have changed too much. Christ, her dad would have been tottering around on a cane by then. What need would he have of an old hunting camp? I could still remember the way, so that’s where I headed. The roads weren’t bad until I hit Hartford. By then it’d started to snow and other people were getting the hell out of – well, everywhere I guess. There were accidents but no police and no ambulances. Trust me, I was looking for them. That’s when I realized something bigger was happening and I turned the radio on and started listening to the news. It was hard to find. FM was mostly that canned holiday crap. But there were people talking on AM. By the time I cleared the suburbs I knew I wasn’t going to be in trouble for Chuck. I also knew I wasn’t stopping until I got to that camp. But the truck was meant for southern weather. By the time I crossed the state line I was fed up. It was dark by then, but that didn’t mean I was safe.

I’m– I’m not proud of the next part, but I did what I thought I had to do. I stopped at that camping place. You know, the one just off the turnpike. They were closed by then. I broke in and stole some gear. And I took one of the new snowmobiles out in the lot. Alarms went off everywhere, but I knew no one was coming. I took my time. I didn’t take everything I wanted. I only took some clothes and the snow machine. I figured I had a long way to go and I wanted to travel light.’”

Henry rubbed his forehead in frustration.
This
is what Phil was ashamed of? Stealing a snowmobile and a jacket? Not killing his boss? Or the woman on the road? Not letting people starve while he kept them in chains and used them? He wanted to throw the folder across the room. But he couldn’t. He needed to find out what happened to Marnie.

“‘I made it almost all the way to the camp. There were no plows and very few cars so the snowmobile did fine even on the major roads. It was really isolated, way up in the mountains. I stopped to get gas from this old geezer at the local bait shop in the village just before the camp. He gave me the hairy eyeball, but everything else seemed quiet. Like emptied-out-summer-town-quiet. But that’s exactly what it was, so I wasn’t worried. About a mile from the little bait shop there was this woman standing in the middle of the road. I didn’t see her until it was almost too late. I crashed the snowmobile in the ditch and blacked out for a minute. Broke my leg, my nose. When I came to, the woman was hovering over me. I thought she was going to help, but she jumped onto my chest instead. She was small, but she kept trying to bite. I was in a lot of pain and I couldn’t have run from her. So I knocked her out.’ Subject is silent for a moment. ‘You knocked her out?’ I ask him.

‘Yeah. I didn’t know what else to do. I choked her until she let go and passed out.’ Asked Subject if he killed her. ‘No, no. I just put her to sleep for a while.’” Henry gasped as he bit through his thumbnail. The tiny drop of blood on his thumb made him shudder and look around to make sure of where– of
when
he was.

“‘I don’t remember much after that, until a few days later. I was in this cabin with a family. Didn’t know them, but they were taking care of me. Took a long time for my leg to heal and the family was kind of helpless. You know, city type. Used to having other people take care of things. Except I guess the guy that took care of them before, he got sick. So I decided to step in and take care of things for them. To repay them for helping me after the accident. They were keeping the first guy in the woodshed.’ Asked Subject what he meant. ‘The first guy, the one that got sick. The family didn’t want anything to happen to him. So they kept him in the shed, where he couldn’t hurt anybody. They fed him and cleaned him, like a family pet. Said they were waiting on a cure for him. So whenever I went out to find supplies I looked for people, sick or well, didn’t matter. Figured the more we could keep safe, the better. Over the years, the camp got pretty big. People heard about us and joined up or we found sick folks wandering in the cold. Brought ‘em back to camp so they’d be out of the elements and have food till we could figure out if they could be cured.’” Henry could feel the cold mud and the burning chill of his metal collar on bare skin as he read it. He didn’t know which made him more angry: that Phil’s whole story was a lie, or that the doctor believed him without question. He clutched his short hair with one hand and tried to convince himself to skip to the end. He couldn’t do it. He had to see every word, if he missed something, he’d never forgive himself.

“Asked Subject how he fed all these people. Did he steal? Go to war with other camps? Subject shakes his head. ‘Nah, we didn’t have to. We just took what was left behind. Lots of empty camps. Even the storekeeper in the bait shop ran off after a while. For a long time there was plenty of stuff if we scrounged for it. Nobody had to get hurt and people were happy to join us and throw in their pool of resources too.’” A parade of agonized faces flashed through Henry’s mind. They started with Wyatt, but it went on and on. All the people he’d killed for Phil. All the people who had resisted him. But Henry’s overwhelming feeling was no longer one of guilt. He was profoundly sad that all those people, not just the ones that had been thrown in his pen, but all the people Phil had killed, would never be found. Never be buried. Never be mourned by anyone but him. No one would ever even go looking for them. It was as if they had never existed at all.

“Asked Subject why he had come to the City, if things were going so well at his camp. ‘Things got tight this winter. We’d cleaned out most of the empty shops and houses for miles. Most of the remaining gas had spoiled. Couldn’t go farther to get more. I did my best, but we were going to have to move the camp, and soon. I was coming back from scouting a new location when all hell broke loose back at the camp. Remember that family that originally helped me? Well the parents had gotten sick with the flu or something a few years back. Nothing we could do, we didn’t have any doctor or anything. They passed away and I took care of their kid, a girl. Well this girl wasn’t so stable, growing up in the end times and losing her parents and all. Poor kid. She got it into her head that I was going to let the sick people we were keeping starve–’ Interrupted Subject to ask if he had really not heard about the Cure after six years, and if all of the Infected had remained that way all that time. ‘No. I never knew there was a cure until I got here this morning. We were way up in the mountains, remember. We didn’t get too many folks passing through with news. All the sick people were still sick. And this girl decided I was going to let them starve. She had a soft heart, you know, and maybe a soft head. She let them all go. Just let ‘em loose. The people in the camp fought back as best they could. They had to, you see, since the sick people wouldn’t stop attacking. But most everyone just scattered and died in the woods around camp. When I got back from scouting, there wasn’t anybody left.’ Asked Subject how he knew it was the girl that let them loose if everyone was gone. ‘I found her down by the road when I was leaving. She was dying, got bit and had to kill on of the sick people herself. I tried to stop her bleeding, but it was too late. She told me what happened, said she was sorry. What could I do? She was dying. I told her I forgave her. When she was dead, I just started walking. Saw your lights at night when I got out of the mountains and headed here.’”

There were a few more paragraphs from the doctor, but Henry didn’t bother. He knew what he needed to know. Marnie wasn’t with him. He’d either killed her or she’d escaped, Henry wasn’t sure he believed the end of Phil’s story. Still, he’d been confident enough that she wouldn’t show up to contradict him that he’d flat out lied about everything in the camp. She had to be dead. Henry shoved the folder back into the bag. He didn’t bother to look for anything else. She wasn’t here.

His relief was immediate. He didn’t have to worry any more. She wasn’t being tortured, neither were the others that had been left behind. It was all well and truly over. He never had to think about it again, the deep rut anxiety had worn in his mind was gone. He never had to see Phil again, if he didn’t want to. He never had to go back to the terrible, dark, plastic covered shed or the muddy post with his chain threaded through it. He was free.

He was halfway down the stairs of his enemy’s house when he realized he was feeling relief at a child’s death and that her killer was going to walk away unscathed, and guilt overwhelmed him. He wandered through the house to the door, numbly shutting off lights and turning the television on again. He was out in the sun again, out among the fallen stones and weedy grass of the cemetery. A warm breeze rumpled the grass, twisting it silver to green and back again. He walked out of the graveyard without looking back toward the house, never realizing that he’d left the shovel standing at the bottom of the stairs. He turned down the road and came to the church. The stained glass windows had been broken long before and they were boarded up now. Shards of blue and red glass crunched under his shoes. He could hear Vincent inside teaching a history lesson. He opened the heavy doors and stood in the dark vestibule as a chorus of children’s voices answered Vincent’s question. Henry sat on the cool brick floor and finally understood that Marnie was dead. That they were all dead, everyone he had ever known before the Plague. His parents, his friends, coworkers, neighbors, they were all gone. Even Henry, the Henry he’d been before, was gone. Wiped away, like they’d never been. He wanted to cry, to expel the loss and grief, it was like the need to vomit, insistent and agonizing, but the shock was too great. Henry couldn’t cry. So he sat in the dark church until the kids filed past him into the warm afternoon and Vincent found him.