Krisis (After the Cure Book 3) (18 page)

Ruth leaned over and threw up the thin oatmeal she’d had that morning. The boy’s face became Charlie’s in her head. It cracked where she’d shot it and then splintered away. She wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve and focused her gaze on the peeling back door of the restaurant across the alley, counting splatter stains until the image in her head went away.

There was no way she could have given him to them, not knowing what they intended to do with the Infected. Father Preston didn’t understand. He couldn’t. Ruth knew he was dogmatic and stubborn, even willfully stupid. He could be downright nasty in his righteousness. But he wasn’t cruel for the sake of it. If he really saw what the bounty hunter wanted, he’d never go along. Gray must have painted a picture of paradise for him. A vague camp far away that thrived in the wasteland. A utopian dream of the Infected and the healthy as peaceful, benevolent neighbors. But by the time Father Preston admitted the reality, it’d be far too late for the Infected. Still, it was life. It was a chance at a cure. Was it so different from the people in the hospital?

There is NO CURE,
she thought,
stop fooling yourself. There’re no more labs, no more doctors, no lost vial of relief waiting out there like a grail. There’s no cure. Just this never ending loop of misery.

She had given up long ago wondering what the right thing to do was. Now she only worried about what the
kindest
option was. She let herself examine the memory of the boy one more time and then let it rest. She pushed off the wall and began limping toward the greenhouse, hoping Juliana would meet her there instead of risking the mob following her to the hospital.

She was surprised to see the vegetable patch empty and unguarded. Juliana never let it go untended lately, not with so many thieves. Though volunteers had diminished, there were always one or two at least that showed up faithfully. And Bernard should have been there, at least. He had become a caretaker of sorts. Juliana,Ruth and Bernard had converted one of the conservatories into a cozy house for him. He slept there, guarding the food supply, and taking care of the medicinal plants for Ruth. She checked his rooms but he wasn’t there. His dog was gone too. She tried to tell herself he was out scavenging, but the stillness in the garden sent a painful chill through her core. She called for him, but not very loudly, afraid of who else might be nearby.

He had been dropped on Ruth’s doorstep four years ago. He’d been beaten unconscious. His wounds were serious and he took months to recover, even with Ruth’s help. She had no idea who he’d been before, if he had deserved the beating or not, if he’d been a good man or evil, and neither did he. Or if he did, he couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t speak and made very little effort to communicate through other means, though she could tell he followed at least some of what Juliana and she said, and would laugh at a simple joke.

Bernard took care of himself and had been pleased to be trusted with the garden. He was big enough to be scary to people that didn’t know him. The dog had adopted him a year later. They hunted pigeons and crows together, the only game to be found in the massive city.

Ruth went back to the vegetable patch. She put her pack down and tested her bruised hip and back gently with one hand. The plants were withered and brown. Ruth looked at them for a moment, swearing under her breath. No one had been there for hours. She checked the gun and tightened the holster on her hip, then she grabbed some buckets and headed for the pond.

The water was so low that the painted concrete winked through the algae and shone up at Ruth. The summer had already been very dry and even hotter than usual. Even the swampy marsh behind the hospital had dried up and become a dangerous, brittle mass of tinder. Ruth was dreading July and August.
If it doesn’t rain soon, we may have to resort to the brackish stuff in the subway.
She scraped the buckets along the bottom of the pool and began carrying the scummy water to the dwindling pea vines.

Chapter 17

Bernard hadn’t thought to check the garden until almost sunset. He’d checked the police station first, where a handful of men were already smashing windows and piling everything flammable they could find in front of the door. He stayed far away, not wanting to be seen. He worried that Ruth might be inside, but since none of the men were really guarding the door, he moved on, hoping she had, too.

He checked Ruth’s old home and the clinic where she had treated him when she had found him. The clinic had been ransacked, the door torn from its hinges, chairs and desks gone, burned to keep someone warm. Her house was caving in, a leak in the roof had become a cascade, and her living room was now a small, rotten pool fringed with moss and mold. Bernard left those places to their quiet fates and let the dog lead him,not sure where to try next.

The dog eventually led him home, where he found Ruth weeding the garden, slick with sweat and crying in great whooping gasps. She didn’t even look up when Bernard’s shadow blanketed her. The dog leapt up in front of her and licked her face. She slumped into the soft ground between the rows of tomatoes and said, “Is she okay?”

Bernard looked confused and scratched at his thick beard. He crouched beside her.

“Is Juliana hurt?”

Bernard shrugged, then shook his head. He pointed a calloused finger toward the hospital.

“I can’t go back there. She can’t know what’s happened.”

Bernard pulled her to her feet. He pointed back to the hospital. There was a shout from the far end of the park. A cluster of shadows was forming at the edge of the tall grass.

“They’ve found me.”

Bernard waved toward the hospital and picked up a heavy rake. Ruth shook her head. “No, if I leave, they’ll destroy the garden or burn down your cottage.”

He shoved her in the chest with one large hand and she took a few stumbling steps backward. He pointed to the hospital again. She glanced toward it, though she knew it was out of sight. He gave her another shove, but gentler this time.

“Okay, I’ll try,” she said. She picked up her pack from the end of the row and began to run. She glanced back and the gardener was facing the other way, his legs planted carefully and solidly between the rows. He held the rake across his body, ready to use it if he had to. The dog’s back bristled as it stood next to him, growling. Ruth hoped they’d be all right. The park’s rustling grass gave out onto cement and she slid into the shadows between buildings, still running.

When she reached the snarl of brush that surrounded the hospital, she dropped down into a crouch, afraid that Father Preston or his mob were waiting for her there. But there were no angry people waving torches by the door or screaming protesters along the path. The scene was serene, the lamps in the hospital beginning to shine out of the occupied wing just as usual and the slow plaintive echo of a mourning dove calling its mate home to nest. The ordinariness badly frightened Ruth. Part of her suspected a trap, but a voice inside her was convinced that she was in a changeless Hell. The hospital would always be there, a bleak battleship half-sunk in an ocean of scrub and tall grass. The walls would forever be decaying, the Infected would never stop screaming, and she and Juliana would continue to scrabble and starve for them for eternity. She struggled against the burning weight of shame and despair as she thought about fleeing.

But then the front door opened and Juliana rolled out her cart. It was piled high with dishes and laundry and buckets of filthy water. She was just a shadow in the dusk, so Ruth couldn’t see how tired she was. But Juliana struggled as she lifted one of the buckets, almost dumping it on herself. Ruth’s hesitation evaporated and she hurried to help her friend.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come back,” said Juliana as Ruth emptied another bucket.

“And I wasn’t sure you’d want me to. But if what Father Preston said is true, I can’t leave you to do all this work alone. So I’m staying. Even if you hate me.”

“What was it that he told you?”

“That you’ve got an active cancer. That you don’t expect to see the spring.”

Juliana sighed and sat down on the front step. “I should have told you first, but the time was never right. And then I had a very bad night. I was scared. So I asked him for counsel. He promised not to say anything.”

“Why didn’t you let me treat you? Are you certain it’s cancer? The symptoms are similar to other—” but the words died as Juliana shook her head.

“This isn’t the first time,” she said. “I’ve been so lucky, it’s been gone so long that I thought I’d forgotten what it felt like. But that was only me trying to fool myself. I persuaded myself that it wasn’t back for a long time. And when I admitted that I was sick, I
thought
about telling you. So many times. But there’s nothing to be done. Even
you
can’t stop this, though after the Plague you seem like a miracle worker.”

“I could operate, we can find what we need, somewhere. Maybe we can trade for it.”

“It’s spread, Ruth. I’m getting terrible headaches. Sometimes I lose consciousness. Bernard brought me home from the garden today because of a bad spell. I don’t think it will be too long now.” Ruth hugged her, not sure if she were comforting Juliana or herself. “Don’t fret,” said Juliana, “I’ve had fourteen more years than I expected. There wouldn’t have been much more that could be done even before the Plague. Maybe I stuck around to run this place. Maybe it was to meet you. Maybe it’s just luck and clean living. Whatever it was, I’ve had extra time to be useful. To make some very loyal friends. I’ve had a decent, fulfilling life and I’m not done with it yet.”

The crickets hummed around them in the dark.
A decent, fulfilling life. But she didn’t say happy. Nobody says a happy life anymore,
Ruth thought,
it’s just too much to ask for.

“Is that why you didn’t bring the boy here? You didn’t want to be stuck with them all when I die?” Juliana’s voice was calm, but Ruth could sense the panic underneath.

“You want me to promise to take care of them all. To keep the hospital just as it is until I find someone else who will do it or they are cured or we all die. I’m not sure why you want
me
to do this, when Father Preston seems so willing— eager even, to do it. But you don’t know what you are
really
asking.”

“I
do
, I understand. I know how badly you want to leave the city and I know what I’m asking will put that off indefinitely. But the truth is, I don’t trust Father Preston. He seems to have no empathy for the Infected at all. It’s like he’s forgotten what it was like. Maybe he has.”

“Juliana, it doesn’t matter who you ask. They aren’t going to last through the winter. There’s almost no food left and very little wood.”

“You said we’d find a way. You said you knew where there was more, the orchard—”

“Because I thought I had time to find it. Yes, there’s an orchard. But it’s far away. Two or three days away. Yes, there’s probably a few overlooked places for canned food. But I thought I had time to look. I can’t leave you here by yourself. You can’t do this alone, not while you’re sick. And even if you could, I don’t think I should leave. The people out there— they’d as soon steal what they found for themselves as help us. You’re asking me to watch a hundred people starve to death around me. To do nothing while they die a very slow and painful death, when I have the power to stop it. It’s too much, I can’t do that even for you. That’s why I shot the boy. I had a choice, Juliana. Three actually. Father Preston offered to take the boy, for his new community. But there was a man with him, a man I met years ago. He used to hunt the Infected for bounties. Now he sells them to slavers.

“Father Preston doesn’t understand. But the boy and any other Infected they get their hands on would be starved, beaten, uncared for. They’d be no better than guard dogs or mules until they were worked to death. I could have brought the boy here, too. Could have watched him freeze or starve with the others and then have to shoot him in a few months anyway when none of us could take it anymore. Or I could save him the utter misery of both. That’s what I chose. Is that who you want to run this place when you’re gone?”

Juliana dodged the question. “They won’t starve. Something will turn up. Someone will help them, it always has in the past.”

Ruth shook her head. “No Juliana, it hasn’t. We’ve always had a plan, always had more than we needed. When the garden was almost wiped out a few years ago, you had a pantry full of cans. When winter lasted long after we expected I found places that still had wood and food. I had to go a long way. It’s been years since then. Those places are gone. People outside the hospital are getting desperate. They are getting bolder with their thefts. There’s nothing for them to eat either. I can’t blame them for wanting to feed their children. More of our food will disappear before we pick it. What we have in the kitchen right now is almost all that we will have. A month’s worth? Two if we stretch it as far as it will go? If a miracle is coming, it better hurry up and get here,” she glanced over at Juliana, “for all of our sakes.”

Ruth began to see flickering lights at the far end of the overgrown lawn. She stood up. “Go inside, Juliana.”

Her friend stood beside her. “Maybe you should be the one to go inside,” she said.

“I don’t want them to do anything stupid, like burn down the building to get at me.”