The Cured (6 page)

She’s not mine. She’s nothing to do with me,
thought Henry, even as his feet followed the wounded man’s footsteps back toward the dark shed. He glanced back at the house to make sure she wasn’t watching.
What’s going to happen if I’m not here? Her parents will make a stupid mistake sooner or later.
A deeper thought sprung up at him as he stumbled in the heavy snow.
What’s going to happen if I stay? Time to stop pretending Henry. I’m infected. Infected. How much time do I really have left to help them anyway?
Henry looked up from the snow and found himself near the gaping entrance to the wood shed.
Shit,
he thought. He pressed his back against the wall of the shed. He took a deep breath and adjusted his grip on the log. He felt ridiculous and terrified at the same time.

“Hello?” he said. “Is there anyone in there?”

A dull, rattling groan crawled out of the shed and into the still, cold air. “Look, I’ve got a– I’ve got a weapon. Just say something so I know you aren’t sick.”

“Help.” Henry wasn’t entirely sure he had heard correctly.

“I can’t see to help you. Can you come out a little so I can see what’s wrong?”

There was a harsh dragging sound and then a sticky hand flopped out of the door frame and onto the snow. Henry looked at the log in his hand and back down at the bloody hand.
Shit
, he thought again. He put the log at his feet and clasped the hand. He tried to be gentle, but the man was large and Henry had to pull him across the snow. At last, he was out of the shed and lying on the snow. The man’s right eye was bruised and his nose wasn’t much more than a crooked faucet for blood. “What happened?” asked Henry, “Were you bitten?”

The man shook his head. “Almost, but not quite. Snowmobile accident when I almost ran over one of those
freaks
up the road. She chased me into the woods, but I got her. She won’t be biting nobody.” The man chuckled and the blood from his nose gurgled and spat. Henry pulled him upright. He got the man halfway over his shoulder. He pulled back toward the house while the man leaned on him, his feet dragging against the snow.

“C’mon buddy, you have to help me. You got to stay awake.” The man shook his head, trying to clear it and Henry tried not to think of the blood droplets spraying over his jacket.
What does it matter anyway?
he thought,
I’m already infected. Can’t really afford to worry about long-term diseases anymore.
The man was cold but he wasn’t shivering and Henry could feel his skin rubbing away like an old sticker where Henry’s hand held his bare arm. “Stay awake. What’s your name buddy? Tell me something about you so you can stay awake.” The yard hadn’t looked this long when he was lugging wood. He had an impression that he was moving slower and not just because of the added weight.

“Phil. My name’s Phil,” the words were almost drowned, part of the blood that sprayed from his lips. “Think my legs are broken.”

“We’re almost there, Phil. We’ll get you fixed up.”

Henry reached the bottom step of the porch. The kitchen door squealed open. Dave stood there holding a shovel as if it were a rifle. “What are you doing Henry?”

Henry tried to catch his breath. “This is Phil. He was in a snowmobile accident. He’s not infected.”

“And you know that how? Because he told you? You don’t know anything about him. He could be lying.”

Henry tensed, his skin warming. He tried to stay calm. “Relax Dave. I know because he hasn’t tried to eat me.”

“That doesn’t mean he isn’t sick. Or a robber. Or worse. You can’t bring him in here.”

Phil groaned and slumped more against Henry. “Dave, he’s hurt. He’s not going to be able to do anything to anyone for a long time.”

Dave shook his head and gripped the shovel tighter. “This is ridiculous,” said Henry, putting a foot on the next step.

“Don’t make me hit you Henry.”

Henry looked up at Dave with a sneer. He took a deep breath and bit his tongue. He pulled Phil up the step.

“Stop Henry, I’ll do it.” Dave raised the shovel.

Henry sighed. “Let’s pretend that you’d actually have the guts to hit me. What is it you want me to do with him? Leave him to die on the porch?”

Dave shrugged. “What do I care?”

Henry squinted at him. “Really? You want your wife to stumble over him when she comes outside for wood? Or your kid to watch him stiffen in his own frozen blood while she eats her corn flakes?”

Dave spluttered.

“Didn’t think so. Either get out of the way or come help me. This guy isn’t lightweight.” Henry grunted as he pulled Phil up the stairs and into the warm kitchen. Dave scuttled in behind them and shut the door.

Eight

Henry sat in the road at the top of a hill. Below him was the tiny grocery store that served the dwindling local population. He hadn’t seen any movement in the twenty minutes he’d been there, but he was going to wait until dark anyway. If he couldn’t see them, then they wouldn’t see him.

The man from the woodshed, Phil, had been worse off than any of them had thought. Henry and Elizabeth had done their best to help him. Dave had complained and refused to assist in any way. He had wanted them to drag Phil back to the road and leave him there. In truth, Henry and Elizabeth couldn’t do much that would have mattered except to keep him warm and dry. Neither of them knew more than basic first aid. Knowing the man’s body would either heal itself or fail completely left Henry restless and frustrated. He had a nagging idea that his own infection was progressing faster than expected, and he imagined that he was having trouble concentrating. So when the brittle, bright morning came, Henry had proposed going to town for food and batteries and medicine. If he didn’t do it then, there might not be time to ever get it done. No one but Marnie had wanted to go with him, so Henry shrugged and set out alone, dragging a wood palette with a rope behind him over the snow.

The road was a stripe of blindness. After the first mile, Henry began to notice the harsh rasp of his breath, the echoing crunch of his feet and the slithering shiver of the palette behind him. He had to stop and look around him every few moments to be sure he wasn’t attracting anything. His arms and shoulders began to ache from the tension and he ground his teeth almost constantly without realizing it. As the morning melted into noon, the trees began to spring up, flinging the snow from their backs in deep, sudden thuds. Henry jumped and whirled around every time. At last something shattered the smooth skin at the side of the road, a jagged black smudge against the horizon. The smell of spilled gas spread far into the thin, chilled air. The sharp scent prickled in the back of Henry’s throat and adrenaline stabbed into his shoulders and legs as he realized what it was.

He hadn’t brought any kind of weapon with him. Though he’d been prepared to knock Phil unconscious had he been sick, Henry didn’t think he could do it in the clear light of morning, and there hadn’t been anything that really fit the bill at the lodge. So far, he’d been lucky, the lodge was on a sparsely populated road and all the houses so far had been silent and dark, closed until summer. He stood still for a few moments watching the snowmobile’s corpse as if he expected it to start up again on its own, its mangled frame roaring and chasing him back up to the lodge or into the thick woods. Phil had said he “took care” of the woman who attacked him. Had he killed her? Just knocked her out? Was she waiting for Henry right up there? Henry shuddered, but there was no help for it. If they were going to make it, he had to get down to the town. He waded through the snow to the far side of the road. He wanted to run past, to be already beyond it, but his legs refused to listen. They shook and crept along while Henry’s mind and eye raced back and forth over the same small patch and off toward town. Even so, he almost missed her. The wind must have been relentless overnight, dragging snow over the mangled machine and on top of her small, curled up body. The air was still now, and though she was clothed in a light night-dress, it didn’t flutter or flap. Her hair clung to the tiny jags of the snow dunes the wind had made. Her face was tilted, eroding into the snow. Henry stopped and watched her.

He had an eerie feeling of having met her before, of trying to mate the face to one in his memory. But that was ridiculous, he’d never even been in this part of the state before.
Maybe we all look the same when we die,
he thought. He pulled the palette closer and crouched beside her, careful not to step on the limbs that were already buried. He was still too scared to wipe the snow from her face, so he slowly blew it away until the round curve of her cheek emerged. He had expected her expression to be one of rage, but it was blank and slack, like a book with all the letters rubbed out. Henry didn’t know whether to feel relieved or sad. He could see a deep ring of purple where the skin of her throat emerged from the snow. He wondered if Phil had strangled her to death or if he had just knocked her unconscious so that he could get away. He didn’t think he would have been able to do either, but then he thought of wandering through his neighbor’s apartment holding her cane like a bat. Of Dave smashing a woman with a chunk of glass. He shook his head. Henry looked at the thin cotton sleeve of her nightgown. If Phil didn’t kill her outright then she must have frozen to death. Who did she belong to? Henry tried to imagine a life around the blank oval of her face. Was she someone’s wife? A sister? A mother? He couldn’t picture it. Whoever she was, had gone. She was little more than a mannequin and Henry felt guilty for not feeling more. He wondered if anyone would care when he finally went crazy.
Stop it, Henry,
he thought,
they’re working on a cure, I’m sure.
But he stood and stared at the dead woman. Then he dug her out of the snowdrift and placed her stiff body on the palette sled.
I can’t leave her out here.
He tried to tell himself it was only what a decent human being would do, but the little voice in his head could only keep hoping that someone would return the favor if he needed it.

It was three miles to the hill-top above the grocery store, but Henry felt as if he’d trudged thirteen instead. He paced the hill-top for a while, sweat trickling through his hair and down his neck, the palette jittering and sliding over his footprints, the woman’s stiff limbs gently bobbing as the palette dragged over the lumps. At last he sat down in the road and watched the little grocery store until the sun drained away behind the thick trees.

The last orange reflection of the sun evaporated from the store’s windows. Henry immediately regretted waiting. He stood up and careened down the hill with the heavy palette rocketing behind him, as if he could take it back, as if he could recall the daylight. He lost control in the deep snow and fell, tumbling down the second half of the hill. The palette with the woman’s body kept sliding, crashing to a stop against the store’s back wall with a scraping thump. The corpse slid off, landing beside the makeshift sled in a hollow bowl where the snow had melted from the store’s roof and dribbled down it’s side. Henry groaned and got up. He made his way to the palette and could see the woman’s hair floating like tangled weeds on top of the slushy puddle where she lay. He reached to pick her up again and then froze as he heard a shout from nearby. He stood up as it was echoed on his other side.
Not a shout,
he thought,
that’s a growl
. There was a hoot now, and then a screech. Henry backed up against the store wall, his hand gripping the palette’s rough rope as shadows darker than the surrounding dusk roared and closed in. A hand closed around his arm and yanked him backward. Henry was too startled to fight back, and he fell onto his back and was dragged onto a hard cement floor. A rattling wall descended, cutting the howling shadows off from him. A light clicked on.

“Why did you wait until dark if you were just going to panic and blow it?” the voice growled from behind him.

Henry sat up and winced as the wood palette clattered across the cement floor. He’d forgotten he was still holding the rope. “How did you know I was waiting for dark?” he asked, turning around.

A scowling middle-aged man stood before him, holding a cordless drill as if it were a weapon. “I watched you all afternoon. I thought you must have some smarts since you were waiting. Guess I was wrong. Who was the woman?”

Henry shook his head and tensed as the store’s bay door rattled as something hit it. “I don’t know. I found her on the road. I couldn’t leave her like that. I thought I might be able to find the police or— or somewhere to bury her anyway.” He turned toward the bay door. “I need to find out how to get her inside.”

“That’s decent of you,” mumbled the older man, shoving the nose of the drill into a large leather pocket, “but you can’t get her now. Anyway, your good turn is why you’re alive right now.”

“Look, I’m not a looter. I have cash or we can figure out some trade, I wasn’t coming to break in—”

“Relax, that’s not what I meant. The sick ones— I don’t know what else to call ‘em, the sick ones went after her body instead of sinking their teeth into you.”

Henry’s throat shriveled and he tried to stop himself from gagging. The other man looked concerned. “You’ve been watching the news haven’t you? I mean, you did
know
that they were eating people, right?” He put a steadying hand on Henry’s shoulder and dropped his scowl.