The Cured (41 page)

He thought back to the first night he’d seen the bear, when it was almost new. In the car with Marnie. If only he’d said no when Dave asked him to come with them. If only he’d hidden in his apartment instead. And then the bear had been a flashlight for him and the girl the night the power went out. He could still feel her small fingers in his palm as they’d walked down the hall together, away from the scary face in her window. This was all his fault. This whole place, everything that had happened here. Phil would have died in that shed if he hadn’t brought him back inside. He could have died on the living room couch a few days later if Henry hadn’t gone to get medicine. He could have been kicked out and died in the snow down the road somewhere if Henry had warned Dave and Elizabeth about the woman he found strangled near the snowmobile. Henry curled around the bear, rubbing a shirt sleeve over its dead light. Everything came from Henry’s decision that night. They’d been safe and he invited the devil in.
All my fault,
his brain kept repeating, his breath thrumming against the lump in his throat like wind in a wire.
What am I going to do? I can never lessen it. I can never make it right.
He fell asleep, worn out with guilt and grief.

He dreamed that Vincent stood in the doorway of the small room. “I can never make it right,” said Henry.

“Neither can Phil. You think its easy to avoid conflict, to let those who have wronged you go free. I suffered here too,” said Vincent, gazing out the plastic window toward the empty pens. “It’s hard to let go. It takes a strong person to forgive.”

“You know what he did.”

“Yes, as well as you.”

“You want me to let him go? Let him live out his life? Die old in his bed, maybe surrounded by people that love him, though he doesn’t deserve it?”

Vincent smiled. “None of us
deserve
to be loved Henry. That’s why we can’t just take it, it has to be given. If Phil can become the kind of man who someone can love, if he can become a good man, who are we to stop it? Don’t you want the chance to become a better man too? Isn’t that what all of this has been about?”

Henry woke up to find he had been weeping in his sleep. The sun was shining directly into the room and Henry’s skin was damp with sweat. He wiped his face and opened the door. He pulled his shoes on and took Marnie’s bear out to the truck. He looked around him at the tortured mess the once peaceful place used to be. He’d already decided to let Phil go, but he couldn’t let the place stand. It had to be struck from the earth. He backed the truck up to the road. He got out and locked the truck. He tied the chili pepper light to the key ring and buried the keys in leaves on the side of the road, just in case Phil didn’t feel like leaving peacefully. He started going through the sheds, gathering paper and old bottles of alcohol, kerosene lanterns and the tiny propane tanks from camping stoves. After the first week in the City, the weather had been dry and clear. Henry hoped it had been the same here. He pushed piles of leaves into the central hut and soaked them in alcohol and kerosene. He lit it and watched it begin to roar and expand, catching on the shed’s thin walls and consuming everything that had been left behind. Then he went back to the woodshed to talk to Phil. He banged on the tin door. There was no answer. Henry unbolted the door.

“Phil?” he said. He could hear the crackle of the fire several hundred yards behind him, but that was all. He swung open the door, holding out his knife.

“I’ve had a long time to think Henry,” Phil’s voice floated out of the dark mouth of the shed, but Henry couldn’t see him. “You remember how we first met? It was right here.”

“I remember,” Henry muttered, the words tasted bitter on the roof of his mouth.

“Thing is, Henry, I can’t decide if you’re the kind of man who would actually infect me with something. I think you’re bluffing. What was the plan? To make me think I was turning and then– well, what? Kill me? Torture me?” Phil appeared in the doorway, his eyes glittering as they adjusted to the afternoon light, his grin like a dog’s, there in shape, but not on purpose. “See, the guy that dragged me out of this shed and patched me up, he wouldn’t torture anyone. Not even after all these years. And the guy that was chained to that post over there, he wouldn’t risk getting infected again. Not for the sweetest revenge in the world. I think you’re bluffing.” He didn’t wait for Henry to respond, he just sprang and twisted the knife out of Henry’s hand.

Henry fell onto the hard ground and lost his breath as Phil knelt on his chest and slid the choke chain around his neck. “See, I don’t need a fucking stun gun,” he said, twisting the collar into Henry’s throat. Henry knew this was it. Whatever intentions he may have had, whatever regrets might pass through his mind later, none of it mattered now. He shoved upward with his feet and twisted, trying to throw Phil off, but Phil was heavier and already in control. Henry collapsed again, no better positioned than before. His sight began to gray out at the edges as Phil squeezed the collar even tighter. Henry knew he was going to lose. He was no match for the man hovering above him. He decided to use his last breath as Wyatt had. To let everything go, to be free of it all at last.

“I was going to let you go,” he croaked.

“What?” said Phil, without loosening his grip.

“I– forgive– you,” gasped Henry. Phil punched him, shattering his nose with a violent burst of warm blood and Henry lost consciousness.

Forty-seven

When Henry opened his eyes, He was standing, tied upright to his old post, his collar clipped to it’s old chain and his hands bound behind him to the pole with an old belt and a thick, spiny rope. The flames had spread from the sheds to the front pens now and onto the porch of the lodge. He thought he could make out a man’s figure in the smoke several yards from him but his eyes were already swelling closed. The heat of the blood on his face made him nauseous. He struggled for a few seconds, trying to slip his hands out of the belt, but they too, were swelling and he was unable to feel them after a few moments. He knew he was going to die. Maybe he’d known the whole time. Maybe that’s what he’d come back to do. Part of him worried about his friends, now that Phil was free, but he didn’t regret letting him go. This place would soon be gone, and Henry with it. All the misery of it swept away and only living in Phil’s conscience. His friends would go on, safely hidden at the farmhouse, start a better life. A free life. Outside the City, outside the guilt that history tried to pile on a person. Brand new.

The smoky figure became larger as it grew nearer. It was Phil. He broke through the cloud of ash and Henry saw him running across the camp toward him. He reached Henry. “Where are the keys?”

“What keys?”

“The truck keys, where are the damn truck keys?”

Henry started laughing. “Your legs work,” he said.

“Your’s won’t if you don’t tell me where the keys are,” growled Phil.

Henry’s throat was laced with fire from the choke chain and the smoke, but he didn’t stop laughing. “I’m about to die, Phil. What does it matter what happens before?”

Phil’s hand flashed up and twisted the collar again. Henry’s laughter was cut off. “I’ll make it matter. I’ll make these the longest, most hideous seconds of your miserable dog life,” Phil hissed.

Henry’s eyes rolled back in his head and he saw a flicker of a shadow behind Phil. The chain released and he sucked in a ragged breath. The world’s sound came back in slow chunks. “Told you–” started a girl’s voice, “ever came back, I’d–” Henry blinked and heard a sigh and then a thud. He looked down and Phil was bleeding on his feet, lying there, his breath bubbling away in dark gurgles of blood pouring from his throat. He looked at the girl who was wiping a long knife clean on Phil’s shirt. She was young, fourteen maybe. Too skinny. Far too skinny. She looked up at Henry, her eyes squinting at him as the smoke rolled over them both.

“Why didn’t you kill him? I only waited this long because I thought you were going to.” she said.

Henry felt tears start rolling down his face. “It wouldn’t change anything. I thought it would. I was wrong. He told me you were dead. I wanted to come back and find you, he said you died, he killed you. So I was going to kill him. But you’d still be dead. And I’d still be here and nothing would have changed but me.”

The girl stood up and Henry ached to see how baggy her father’s old clothes sat on her small frame. “What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“Marnie, don’t you recognize me? It’s Henry. I know I’m bloody and my hair is cut, but it’s me, all the same. I came back, like I promised your mom I would. Like I promised
you
. I came back to take care of you, because you took care of me.”

Marnie shook her head and moved around behind the post. She unclipped the collar from the chain and took it off his neck. “No Henry is dead. I sent him away with the others. He starved or got shot or fell in a well.”

Henry shook his head. “No, we made it. We have friends, I’ll take you–” He felt something cold snake between the skin of his wrists and the rope.

“No, I don’t go with strangers. Not men anyway. And don’t follow me, or you’ll get what he got.” She finished cutting through the rope and the belt and kicked Phil’s body.

“Marnie, wait– can you drive a truck?”

“If you were Henry you’d know I was too young when everything happened.”

Henry held out a hand toward her to stop her and she flinched. “That’s okay,” he said quickly, “There’s a pile of leaves near the truck on the road. A little pile in the ditch. There’s a dusty red chili pepper sitting on top. Don’t you remember hanging those party lights with me? You said the chili peppers were your favorite.”

Marnie frowned. “Why would you come back here for me? You aren’t my father. Henry barely knew me. He was just a family friend. He wouldn’t come back to this terrible place for me.”

“I would. I did. You’re the only person I know from Before. You’re all that’s left. Come with me.”

The knife glittered a wild gold, reflecting the fire as she pointed it at him. “I told you. I don’t go anywhere with strange men.”

“I understand. I won’t force you to go. Just find the keys. You have to look really close, Marnie or you’ll miss it. If you pick up the chili pepper you’ll find the keys. In the truck is a bag. It’s got food, lots of food,” he glanced at her bony arms and legs again, “if you won’t come with me, just take it. There’s a map inside too, a map to a farmhouse. With friends. Lots of friends and lots of food. You’d never have to be hungry again–”

“What do I have to give you?” Marnie asked in a low voice.

“Give me? Nothing. I came back to help you Marnie. Won’t you come with me?”

Marnie shook her head.

“Okay, okay, that’s all right. Just take the bag. And if you want to, you can come to the farm when you’re ready. We’ll be there. The doors will be open whenever you want.”

“You better not follow me,” she said.

Henry shook his head. “I just want to help,” he croaked.

Marnie looked toward the road, it was masked in smoke now, the lodge becoming engulfed. “I’m glad you burned this place down. I was too scared to do it,” she said, and then tensed. “There’s someone coming, a man.”

Henry took a few stumbling steps past her and pushed her gently behind him, trying to look larger than he felt. He could see a figure running toward them now. He recognized the silver hair and the eye patch. He turned around. “It’s a friend, Marnie. It’s Vincent, he was here–” but Marnie had disappeared. Henry tripped over Phil’s body as he took a few steps toward the dark forest to see if he could find her. He caught himself on the wooden post that had been the axis of his world for so long. And then Vincent was helping him stand straight up again.

“Easy, it’s okay,” said Vincent. He held Henry up, leading him toward the road.

“I was going to let him go, Vincent. I did let him go–”

“I take it he didn’t go peacefully.”

“Marnie was here. Marnie saved me.”

“Henry,” Vincent said gently and turned to face Henry in the dark smoke, “Marnie is dead. Everyone here is dead. Remember? It’s all done. You don’t have to think about this part of your life any more.”

“She’s not Vincent– she’s here somewhere, we need to find her, she so thin, I don’t think she’s eating.”

Vincent shook his head and pulled Henry toward the road and out of the smoke.

“Why did you come?” Henry asked as they reached the front gate.

“I told you that I would. I told you if you came back that I would come with you. I just wish I’d been here sooner.”

“You were.”

“What?”

“You were here. Before the fire. You convinced me to let him go. You made me be a good man, despite myself.”

“I was down in the village an hour ago, Henry, I saw the smoke and ran as fast as I could. I wasn’t here. You made that decision yourself. If you are a good man, it’s because it’s who you chose to be, not because of me.”

They reached the truck and Henry grinned. “What?” asked Vincent.

Henry pointed to the keys that were still swinging in the ignition. His bag and stun gun were gone. The torn teddy bear looked at him with it’s one eye. “She
is
here. She made it.”

“She took your supplies,” Vincent said with a dry smile.