The Cured (31 page)

He sat down beside Henry. “Did you find anything?”

“He came into the City alone. Not very long after we escaped. There was no one with him.”

“You said that already,” Vincent said gently.

“I know. What happened to the people we left behind?”

“Maybe they escaped too. Maybe they found a better group.”

Henry shook his head. “Why haven’t they come here then?”

“Maybe they don’t know about this place.”

“It’s the only light for miles and miles. They must have seen it. Phil did.”

“Maybe they are afraid. You and Rickey weren’t too keen on coming here. Rickey still isn’t very comfortable.”

“Everybody is dead.”

“Probably. But you aren’t.”

“Why aren’t you angry? Why aren’t you sad? Some priest thing?”

Vincent shook his head and leaned back against the dark paneling. “Who should I be angry with? It was a disease, not a villain.”

“How about Phil for a start?”

“Maybe Phil believed he was doing what he needed to survive. Who could have known we would get better? Who could have known we were still human inside there?”

“He knew. He stopped Elizabeth from curing us.”

“I know. I think about that day all the time. He was frightened.”

“That doesn’t make it better.”

“No. But maybe if she’d done it with his knowledge, he would have come around. Maybe if he’d treated us better to begin with, he wouldn’t have been so scared of returning us to sanity.”

“So why aren’t you angry? Can’t you see that he is evil?”

Vincent sighed and rubbed his eyepatch as if the socket beneath ached. “Maybe he is. But look at the things I have done. Am I less evil?”

“You said what we did when we were ill was not our fault, that it wasn’t a sin.”

“You asked what the
church
would say about what we did. I’m not the church. I’m just a man who knows what kind of horrors he’s really capable of. Like you. Like Phil. Like everyone else left alive.”

“Are you going to come with us to see the Military Governor?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my friend Henry. You and the others. You’re the only people I know. And you can’t seem to be able to live peacefully with Phil around. So either he’s got to go, or the rest of us do. It’s safe here, and organized. We aren’t starving. But I know it’s not perfect. If you leave, then I will too.”

“It’s not enough to just let him leave.”

“What do you want to happen?”

“I want him to suffer as much as we did.”

Vincent was silent for a moment. He stared at Henry. “Even if it were possible to do that, Henry, it would make you into a mirror of him. Isn’t one of him enough? You wouldn’t be able to do it. You might think it, but you couldn’t actually do it. You’re a good man, whether you believe it or not.”

“I
was
a good man, once. Before. But everything from then is dead. Even me.”

“I didn’t know you Before. I know you now. You worry about the things you’ve done, the people you’ve left behind. You’re moved enough to try and rescue them. That’s more than I can say for myself or the rest of us. You kept Molly going when she wanted to lie down and die. You didn’t let the others chase down a starving little boy who stole from us and shot at you. You’re willing to care for someone else’s child in a world where things like that can get you killed. You’re a
good
man, Henry. Don’t let Phil turn you into something else.”

Henry was silent, feeling the aching sorrow of the day as if it were a hollow socket in his chest. Vincent stood up and brushed the dust from his pants. “We’ll be late for our appointment. We need to go meet Melissa and Rickey.”

Henry nodded and stood up.

Thirty-five

Melissa was sitting in the waiting room pretending not to know Rickey, who was doing his miserable best to seduce the pretty secretary when Henry and Vincent showed up. Rickey gave up and sat next to them within seconds.

“Did you find her? Did you find anything?” asked Melissa.

Henry shook his head. “He came alone. In January. I can’t remember dates so well. I think it must have been close to our escape right?”

Rickey shrugged. “I haven’t had use for a calendar in almost a decade.”

“At least he came alone,” whispered Melissa, “maybe that means his men abandoned him.”

Henry picked at the fraying upholstery on his chair. “Maybe it means that everyone else is dead.”

Melissa squeezed his hand gently and was quiet. The waiting room was silent and they were the only ones there. Even the secretary excused herself after a moment. Rickey’s knee started bobbing up and down. It drove Henry slowly toward madness. Rickey elbowed him in the ribs.

“Hey, what do cannibals make out of politicians?”

“Not now, Rick. Just calm down and wait.”

“Wait for what? What are we even here for?”

Melissa leaned in as if waiting for Henry to answer. He looked around at them. “Why should I decide? It’s not like I suffered any more than you. What I want will never happen.”

“We’re not here to ask for anything,” said Melissa suddenly and sharply. “We aren’t here to beg or to make trades or to offer solutions. Why should it be us that has to solve anything? We were the ones wronged. This man was elected or took power or whatever in order to fix things like this. You all need to stop acting as if this is a personal vendetta. Phil is a monster. He doesn’t belong in any sort of decent civilization. He’s a destroyer. Not just of us. Not just of the people at the Lodge. He needs to be expelled from every society he tries to blend into. We’re here to tell what’s left of the world what he’s done.”

“And if nothing is done?” asked Rickey, his hand tapping his lips nervously.

“If they want to live with someone who is worse than a murderer, then that’s their business. We’ll have done what we meant to.”

“But what about us? Are we going to live with someone like that?” asked Henry.

Vincent held up a calming hand. “Let’s just get through today. Maybe this military governor will be reasonable. Maybe the situation is changed now that he won’t have to expend resources to catch Phil. Let’s just see what he says. We can worry about the worst if it happens.”

The secretary bustled back into the office and they all fell silent again. Still, the woman noticed a change in the atmosphere and quickly tapped on the interior door. She disappeared for a moment into the Governor’s office.

“How long have you been waiting?” asked Henry when she was gone.

“She told us he was in another meeting about the hospital,” said Melissa, “I told her we would wait as long as necessary to see him.”

Rickey snorted. “She must have decided she looked at our ugly mugs for long enough.”

The secretary walked briskly back out again, followed by some grim looking people in uniform and an exhausted looking little man in a lab coat. Henry felt a small shudder curl up and over his neck. He wondered again if they should just leave, let this new disease take its course in this dark little bastion of a City and start fresh somewhere new.

“You can go in now,” said the secretary, almost shooing them out of her waiting room. They stood up and Melissa turned to them one more time.

“We aren’t here for sympathy. We’re here to get justice. You understand?”

Henry realized she had been as angry as he this entire time. He stood straighter. Vincent put a hand on Rickey’s shoulder to steady him. The Governor was as tired and shrunken as the last time Henry had seen him, and the office felt smaller with all of them in it. Henry felt larger, stronger. The Governor stood up and shook hands hesitantly with each of them, either not recognizing Henry or choosing to pretend that he didn’t.

“Please, have a seat, tell me what brings you here today. It must be important to take you away from work at such a crisis point for the City.”

“I was here a few days ago, asking for help in capturing the leader of a camp a few days distance from here,” began Henry, ignoring the barb.

“Ah. Mr. Broom. I believe I made myself clear last time we met, and if anything I have even fewer resources to spare since the incident in the courtroom. Bringing your friends won’t change my decision I’m afraid. As I said, I’m very sorry for what you all went through but I can’t justify sending men and supplies after every petty criminal–”

“This isn’t a petty criminal!” Melissa banged her hand on the large wooden desk and the Governor flinched. “He isn’t a simple looter or thug. He’s a monster. This man doesn’t kill and steal for survival’s sake. He does it because he enjoys it. He draws it out, extends the suffering. Weak, ill, children, makes no difference to him. But he’s vulnerable now. All alone. You need to arrest him before he rebuilds, before he starts making friends again.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you folks escaped that camp some months ago. How do you know this man is alone now?”

“Because he’s in the City,” said Vincent quietly. The Governor looked over at him in alarm.

“Are you sure?”

Rickey stood up. “Are you accusing a priest of lying?” he asked loudly.

“N– no, no of course not. It’s just, people change, memories get blurry. Are you sure this is the same man?”

“We’ve all seen him,” said Henry, “we’re all certain.”

The Governor nodded slowly and pulled a lumpy pad of pressed paper toward him. He cleared his throat. “What was this man’s name?”

“Phil,” said Henry.

“His last name?”

Henry looked around at the others but no one knew.

“You don’t know his last name?” asked the Governor sharply.

“It’s not like we were formally introduced,” said Rickey, “we just know what his men called him.”

“Fair enough, but how are we going to find him? There must be a dozen Phils in the City–”

“He’s the gravedigger,” said Vincent. His face and voice were still calm, but Henry could tell that Vincent was becoming upset with the Governor’s reticence.

“The gravedigger? But I remember authorizing a full time hire for that three months ago.”

“What difference does that make?” asked Melissa.

The Governor leaned back. “I declared a general amnesty only a week ago. It was time to stop dredging up the past over and over. The Plague Trial was meant to be the capstone on the tension between Immune and Infected– excuse me, Cured. The City can’t live in this constant state of uneasy peace forever. We need to be one society, or we’ll collapse.”

“And you thought a general amnesty would make people just, what? Forget everything that’s happened over the past several years? Burying your head isn’t going to make memories disappear. If you want to have true peace and rebuilding there has to be justice.”

“Justice? For which people?” The Governor leaned forward and pointed at Melissa. “You want me to arrest this man, hold him accountable somehow. Okay. He did things that were wrong. Maybe evil. So did everyone else. What happens when someone realizes you killed their parents? Should I arrest you too?”

“We didn’t torture anyone. We did what we had to in order to survive,” said Rickey jabbing a finger back toward the Governor.

“You sure about that? I think the people you devoured alive would probably disagree. It’s an awful way to die. I’ve seen it too many times in the past.”

Vincent tilted forward, burying his head in his arms, his thin back shaking with suppressed sobs. Alarmed, Henry tried to calm him down. The Governor ignored him and continued, “and this Phil guy, he probably did what he thought he had to in order to survive as well. We all tell ourselves that these days. What makes him so different? If I’d had the idea to use Infected as guards rather than innocent men, I would have done it too, before the Cure. We didn’t know you were going to recover. I needed every man that I lost in those years.”

“Would you have used the women for sport? Chained people in the freezing cold without shelter or clothing? Let them slowly starve to death? And after you knew about the Cure would you have prevented the survivors from receiving treatment so you could continue to use them?” Melissa was almost shouting. Henry found himself growing calmer as his friends started giving way to despair. He spoke quietly, still kneeling next to Vincent.

“I don’t know if we were more human or animal when we were ill. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we were more dog than man. But even animals deserve either better care or a more dignified death than we received. I have not tried to use my illness as a shield to pretend I’ve done no wrong. Why should this man, who had the presence of mind to act like a man, unlike myself, be allowed to use it to deny doing evil? Do you want him among you, working with your friends? Speaking to your children? Leering at your spouse?”

The Governor stared at Henry for a long moment. Then he scrubbed his stubbly cheeks with his hands. “Look, if I arrest Phil, we start down a slippery slope. One that could cause a permanent split in the City. My job is not to allow that to happen. There is too much depending on the people here. We’ve all been through so much. But terrible things happen during war. It’s part of the cost–”