Krisis (After the Cure Book 3) (34 page)

“I can’t let you,” he said.

“You can’t stop me.”

“You think I’m scared of the Infected? I’m not scared of them. The Immunes either. They’re all just the neighbors we left two months ago. Or that I’m scared of getting infected again? Sure, Nella, that frightens me.” He stopped to pull her closer. “But I’d go anywhere for you, even into the hell you are asking of me. Not because I love you. Because I know you wouldn’t ask me to do it unless there was no other choice. But I can’t let you go. When we were in quarantine, my biggest fear was that I would turn in front of you. That I’d hurt you. I thought that was the worst thing that could happen. I was wrong. If
you
got infected, if I had to watch you turn into a monster—”

Nella started to protest but Frank shook his head.

“If I had to watch you turn into one of— of us, that would be worse. Knowing the pain you would be in, knowing the rage you had while you were sick and the agonizing guilt you would have if you ever got well— that would be worse Nella. I can’t do it. You can’t ask me to do this. There’s no cure. The Plague will burn itself out when the City is empty.”

“It won’t, Frank. The Infected don’t die until someone kills them or cures them. They’ll wander for years, infecting other people they run across.”

“Then let’s leave. Let’s find an island far away. Or stay here. They’ll die out before they reach us.”

“Christine and Sevita and the people in that City are the only family I have left. She
begged
me to help. She’s got no one else.”

“
I’m
your family. I’m begging you to stay away. Stay safe, with me.”

Nella was quiet for a long time. He watched her face as she struggled.

“Okay,” she said at last, “you win.”

Frank was too relieved to feel stung at her choice of words.

The evening had already set in, the restaurant shone with a few lights on the shore, but the rest of the large city was mostly dark. No more fires lit the old hospital, no large clusters of lamps showed a Congregation of the living. The Infected and Father Preston’s group still slept in the field, unaware of the world around them. Frank remembered the bright glittering chains of light that his own city had cast upon the water as they sailed away. He had friends there too.
There’s nothing you can do,
he told himself,
There’s no cure. There’s no enemy to fight. People die. It just happens. Let it burn out.

“It won’t, Frank,” Nella’s words echoed in his mind, “They’ll wander for years, infecting other people.”

And the whole world will look like this,
he thought,
or what little is left of the world anyway.
People would have heard about his City by now. The people they had cured yesterday would spread the rumor of the City at the edge of the world. The new Eden that had the Cure. People would come. And what would they find? Who would they find? Desolation. Like the capitol. Death and madness. Worse than hopeless. And it would be Frank’s fault.
Nonsense,
he told himself,
you can’t save the world. What exactly are you supposed to do?
But the idea of Ann kept rattling around. The idea that Dr. Pazzo had tried to save her in those fourteen months of solitude. But he hadn’t found it, had he?
Someone’s got to stop it, Frank. Someone’s got to end it. Cure or no cure,
he thought. If they couldn’t fix it, they had to wipe it off the map. Make it a place to dread instead of an oasis.

There was the group that had left, the Cured who had walked out of the City. They’d start over. Be the new government. Be the haven for the uninfected. But only if they weren’t threatened by the Plague. Only if he and Nella stopped it.

Frank walked into the cabin where his wife was sleeping. He brushed the hair from her face and shook her gently.

“What is it?” she asked, “What’s happened?”

“I’m sorry,” he said as she sat up, “you were right. We have to try.”

Chapter 35

“You can come with us,” said Nella, “we can always use more doctors and I heard the head gardener left the city a few weeks ago.”

Bernard shook his head. He tamped down the last of the loose dirt and waved an arm out at the hill.

“Bernard belongs here, rebuilding the garden. There are still lots of people here, people that will need help and food,” said Ruth, “And Juliana is buried here. He wants to watch over it. Make sure people know what she did here.”

“I wish we could stay,” said Nella, “but the people at home need us now.” She didn’t mention how shocked she’d been to hear Christine crying over the radio, or how she and Frank had spent the night agonizing and arguing about what to do. .

“I understand,” said Ruth.

“What will you do?” asked Frank.

“I can’t come with you,” said Ruth. “Not when there are other people out there waiting for the Cure. Or for rescue. Every day that passes they get more desperate. Father Preston— his Congregation wasn’t really evil. They just wanted the world, the Plague, to make sense. There are people like him all over the world. And there are people like Gray who would take advantage. Or people like me. Lots of people like me. I have to stop them, before they destroy themselves.”

Nella shook her head. “I’m not so certain we should be stopping people like you. Juliana may have had her happy ending, but the people we cured… six years ago, the suicide rate for the Cured was roughly thirty percent. It’s gone up the longer people have been Infected. Maybe these folks will be different. Maybe because you and your friend cared for them, they have less to regret. I hope so.” She handed Ruth a heavy pack.

“What’s this?”

“Another three cases of the Cure, all that was left on the ship. A map to the City, in case you change your mind or you need more darts. A few medical supplies that we could spare.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

Nella shrugged. “They are only useful when someone has the skills to do it properly. I don’t like hoarding when so many need help so badly.”

Ruth turned to Frank. “The Infected— the people we cured, they’ll remember right? Who they are, what’s happened?”

“All but the last couple of days, those will be fuzzy because of the medication. They will still be confused. It would be better if they woke up to a friendly face.”

Ruth shook her head. “Not mine. I can only represent death to them. But Bernard is here. And Father Preston will wake up with them. He has to have some shred of fellow feeling for them. He’s been through the same process. It’s probably best he lead them.”

Bernard shook his head. Frank frowned. “They need you,” said Nella gently, “even if it’s only to tell them the straight story. They should be waking up soon. Talk to them, just once. Let them choose who to believe.”

“Father Preston’s people are in there. They’ll still want to kill me.”

“Juliana would want you to
try,
” Frank said, and Nella squeezed his hand. Ruth nodded.

“I’ll try.” She looked over the long row of graves, her gaze lingering on Nick’s and then Juliana’s. Bernard hugged her. The dog thumped its tail.

“I’ll be back before winter,” Ruth said. “Don’t overuse your hand, Bernard. I’ll send help. Food, if I can.” He just nodded into her shoulder. She turned away from them and walked down the hill and out of the park. Though she was dreading it, it didn’t take long to reach the hospital. They had been back to move the sleeping bodies into the shade and cool them with water from the kitchen handpump. They’d removed the corpses and buried them with Juliana, so seeing it wasn’t as much of a shock as it might have been. Still, Ruth felt a pang as she walked up to the broken walls. It should be Juliana here, not her. She looked up to the third floor hallway windows, half expecting to see Juliana’s shadow on the staircase. But of course, nothing inside moved.

A long line of people lay against the gray brick walls out of the sun. Ruth stopped at the post they had hung Nick from. She sat down in front of it, her back against the warm metal, and waited. She watched the people shift and stir one by one or a few at a time and sit up, still woozy from the sedative. Some of them saw her and glared. She hoped they belonged to Father Preston, but secretly she was frightened that they’d all hate her. That she was sitting where she’d die.

After a long while a woman got up. Her cuffs were rolled up and she held her pants up with one hand.
She must be an Infected,
Ruth thought,
her clothes don’t fit.
The woman shuffled slowly over to Ruth and stood for a long moment looking down at her. Then her face burst into a smile and she squatted down. “I remember you,” she said, “You fixed my broken arm when I first came here. Thank you.” She held out her free hand and shook Ruth’s.

“You’re welcome,” said Ruth, not knowing what to say. The woman sat down in front of Ruth and waited. A man walked up and shook Ruth’s hand as well. He sat next to the woman. A few more came. Then a dozen. Soon Ruth was surrounded by people. A few waited on the wall, their faces scowling or turned away from her. She saw a flutter in the downstairs windows of the hospital, but nobody came out. It was a relief. She knew Father Preston and Gray were inside. She didn’t want to fight. That’s not what she was here for. Ruth stood up and cleared her throat.

“Frank says you remember. That everything up to three days ago will gradually come back. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what we did. And for what we didn’t do. I’m sorry you were in pain for so long. I’m sorry for the things that you did or were done to you before you came here. I’m sorry that you are waking up in a broken world. If I could fix it—” she trailed off. She looked at the sea of shaved heads that turned up to face her, like disciples. “We didn’t know about the cure. We had nothing left to feed you with. Juliana did her best to help you. It should be her here, not me. She wanted to be here when you woke up. She thought this was your happy ending. But she is gone. And this is only the beginning for you. I didn’t believe you’d ever wake up. Some of you hate me for what I’ve done. For what I meant to do to you. I know some of you even intend to kill me. But we tried to do the right thing— no, we tried always to do the
kindest
thing for you. And if we’d given you to Father Preston— you would have been slaves. I thought that you would suffer more. So what happens next?” she fell silent, but no one answered her. She shifted uncomfortably. Someone coughed. Ruth sighed.

“I’m sure you are thirsty and hungry after three days of sleep,” she began again, “There is some food left in the pantry of the hospital, and a hand pump with clean water. You’ll need to share. This world isn’t so great about sharing. But you had the best model there was. If you wish to honor the woman who cared for you all these years, the best you can do is to share with each other. Some of you have families still in the city. They don’t know yet that you are cured. They did what they thought was kindest too. Please forgive them if you can.”

“And the rest of us?” someone called.

Ruth shrugged. “It’s a big world. The people who brought the Cure came from another city, somewhere south, past the capitol. You could head there. Or you could help Bernard build the garden into a farm and stay here.”

“What about you?” asked the woman in front, “what are you going to do now?”

“There’s a whole country waiting for the Cure. People just like you maybe, who’ve been waiting for years and years. Someone has to find them. If you want to help, I’ll be heading west.” She stopped and pulled a dart from her pack and held it up. “If you’re coming to kill me, I’m still heading west. But make sure to take the doses if you do. There are several thousand doses. There’s more in that southern city. Whatever you think of me, of what I’ve done, I would hate to think of them all going to waste when I’m gone.” The people around her looked troubled. She didn’t know what else to say. She took a long look at the dark hospital. “Goodbye,” she said, and turned to walk back out of the field.

The sun was starting its slide down as she passed onto the baking pavement. She didn’t look back. The buildings fell away behind her, the smoking steam of the subway stations screened them. She climbed onto the exit ramp of the freeway, her little shadow a cool flutter passing over the four wide lanes as they tumbled away west. Behind her a dozen other shadows trudged along the warm road, never letting her quite out of sight.

Chapter 36

His stomach was an itchy flame. His arms pulsed with pain and the little light that leaked through his closed eyelids pierced his head like needles. He didn’t want to open his eyes and risk more pain, but the itch on his belly convinced him that he’d better, before something worse happened. A few badly mangled faces hovered over him, meeting his gaze.

“He’s alive,” said one looking up at someone he couldn’t see.

“That’s a relief anyway,” said a voice.

“Do you know who you are?” asked the other face.

“Brother Mi—
Father
Michael Preston.”

“I remember you here. You used to yell things through the door. Were you sick too? The only wounds you have are from— well, we’re awfully sorry about that.”

“Sick? You mean Afflicted? Once, a long time ago. I was blessed to recover though. Who are you?”