A Cure for Madness (20 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I stopped on the second floor and limped to the wooden chest. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I knew I’d feel better with some firepower in my hands. I was shaking so badly I could barely load the handgun. It had been years since I’d fired one. I hoped my father’s lessons would come back to me if I needed them. I could hear Wes keening above, and prayed again that the farmhouse was vacant. But I had to leave and get his medication.

I was about to open the corrugated metal door and take the car, but then I stopped. A set of keys hung on a rusty nail beside the door. I took them off and examined them.

“I hope this works,” I muttered, grabbing my backpack out of Kenneth’s car. I caught a glimpse of myself in the side mirror and winced. There were bits of bone in my hair, and I had a long red gash across one cheek. I pawed around in the glove box for a first-aid kit, but there were only napkins, so I pressed one to my face and mentally added bandages to my list of needed supplies. Then I uncovered the dirt bikes. If I could take one of them, I wouldn’t have to worry about Kenneth’s car being recognized. After the second try, I found the right key, and turned it into the ignition of my mother’s bike.

Nothing. I swore and tried again. Nothing. Then I tried my father’s, with the same result.

“Shit!” I ran back to the pulley and opened the large door. I’d have to risk the car. I backed out and then closed the door again, hoping Wes would stay inside.

From what I could remember, the closest drugstore was in a little strip mall about twenty minutes toward town. If everything went well, I could return to Wes within the hour.

The sun was rising in the sky when I pulled into the strip mall, and my stomach gave a loud growl. There was a Circle K, a pharmacy, a nail salon, a pet store, and a cell-phone shop. Already people were running back and forth between the Circle K, the pharmacy, and their cars, carrying armloads of goods or pushing full carts. But at least there were no riot police—yet. I kept my head down and hoped I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew.

I went to the cell shop first. I made sure my mask was on tight and pushed the door open. The only employee was a young man in his twenties wearing a camouflage mask over his nose and mouth. I kept my distance, and he made no move to come out from behind the counter. His eyes flickered to the gash on my cheek, then away.

“I need a phone,” I said. “A burner, if you’ve got one.”

“’Kay,” he said. He reached behind the counter and pulled out a plain black phone in plastic packaging.

“Can you activate it?”

He grunted and tore open the package. A minute later he slid it toward me. I paid him with Kenneth’s cash and left the store. My shoulders relaxed slightly. The prospect of being disconnected from the world had put me even more on edge.

Back in the car, I plugged the phone into the charger and texted Kenneth, grateful I still had the business card he’d given me at the hospital.
New phone. Everything okay?
I risked sending the same text to Latasha, so she’d be able to get a hold of me . . . if she could. I wished to God I knew what was going on with her.

I held the phone in my hand, waiting for it to vibrate with a response. People ran through the lot around me, clutching bags of supplies. The fear on their faces was very familiar by now.

You could just drive away . . . find somewhere to hide out until this is over . . . leave Wes to battle his ghosts in the hen pen.
The thought only lasted a second, but it was plenty long enough for me to be ashamed of myself. No matter how much I wished it, there was no more running now.

I struggled to remember Amy’s phone number, cursing myself for not writing it down before shutting off my old phone. I dialed what I hoped was her number and held my breath.

“Hello?”

“Amy? It’s Clare.”

“Clare! Thank God. Are you okay? I’ve been watching the news. I can’t believe it.”

“I’m okay, yeah. But do you know where Latasha is? She’s not responding to my texts.”

“That’s odd; mine neither,” Amy said. “We were supposed to meet for lunch, but she didn’t show up. I called her work number and her cell—no answer. So I popped by your place and she wasn’t there either. I was wondering if she was sick or something. Have you been in touch with her?”

“Not since yesterday.”

“Weird. I hope she’s all right. Are you still in Clarkeston?”

I hesitated. “I’m okay,” I said again. “Listen, if Latasha gets in touch with you, tell her to text me at this number. It’s important.”

“Are you in trouble? Can I help?”

“No. I just . . . want to talk to her, that’s all.”

“Okay . . . well, take care. I hope you can come home soon.”

“So do I.”

I hung up and stared out the window for a minute, not sure if that call had been a good idea. Would they think to trace Amy’s phone? I shook my head; I was being paranoid again. I had to keep moving.

Inside the convenience store, almost every shelf was empty, and one of the display cases was bent. Garbage littered the floor. A woman in a light-blue cardigan was scooping the few remaining bags of chips and boxes of crackers into a basket, which she drew closer to her body when she saw me come in. A small Asian man was sitting on a high stool behind the counter, a shotgun across his lap.

“Leave bag here,” he said, gesturing for me to put my backpack on the counter.

I reluctantly complied. “You don’t have much left,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Quarantine,” he answered. “Everyone panic. Deliveries are delayed.”

He pointed at the TV hanging from the ceiling in the corner. I stood and watched it, mesmerized. Just as in the newscast I’d seen at Kenneth’s house last night, the scene was one of chaos. Frantic shoppers in masks were dumping armloads of groceries into carts behind the newscaster. The picture changed to a man pushing a wheelbarrow of firewood down the middle of the street, and then to lines more than fifty cars long at the gas station. Then the mayor appeared on the screen, behind a podium at Town Hall. He looked slightly shell-shocked, his coiffed gray curls frizzy and his cheeks sagging.

“Can you turn it up?” I asked.

The store owner snatched up the remote and switched on the volume.

“. . . came as a surprise to us, but our emergency preparedness initiative is well equipped to ensure the safety of our citizens during this time,” the mayor said. “However, I cannot express strongly enough that there is no need for panic. Rioting and looting will be dealt with using the full force of the law. I urge each citizen to purchase only enough supplies for themselves and any elderly or shut-in neighbors and relatives. We are arranging for deliveries of food and essential supplies to be brought into Clarkeston. There is no need to panic,” he reiterated, though it looked like he was on the edge of panic himself.

I bought three packs of cigarettes for Wes and then headed to the drugstore.

Taped to the front doors were two signs:

WE DO NOT HAVE ANY MEDICATIONS EFFECTIVE AGAINST GASPEREAU

MASKS AND GLOVES SOLD OUT

I feigned confidence as I stepped inside. It was busier here than in the other two shops—almost every aisle was jammed with people loading their baskets with protein bars, painkillers, and toilet paper from the already combed-over shelves. I headed straight for the pharmacist’s counter in the back. The same sign that was on the door had been taped to the counter, surrounded by several hand-drawn stars in black marker.

There was a long line in front of me. No one spoke much as we waited for our turns; we all just fidgeted nervously and avoided making eye contact with each other. Two pharmacists with tight mouths and bloodshot eyes worked feverishly behind the counter.

I checked the news on my new phone. There was no mention of Wes or me, which was a good sign. I hoped Dr. Hansen’s interest in my brother wouldn’t grow into a full-fledged manhunt.

Finally I reached the front of the line. I handed the pharmacist the prescription from Kenneth and held my breath as she typed the info into the computer. She looked down at the prescription, then at me.

“This for you?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s for a family member.”

“Insurance?”

Shit. I had no idea how my parents’ insurance policy worked, or even which company it was with.

“Um . . . it should be covered. It’s my parents’ policy.” I could only assume they had one, and hadn’t been paying for Wes’s treatment out of their pocket. Yet the police officer had said they were in debt . . .

“I’ll need the policy number.”

“Uh . . . my parents died a few days ago,” I said. “But my brother still needs his medication. Isn’t there some kind of . . . compassion clause?”

The pharmacist looked at me without pity. “I’m sorry, but unless you have insurance, you’ll have to pay the full price.”

“How much?”

“For this?” She typed some more on her computer. “This is a month’s worth of antipsychotics. It’ll cost you eight hundred and eighty dollars.” She looked at me suspiciously while my mouth hung open. “It won’t work on Gaspereau, you know,” she said.

“Eight hundred and eighty dollars? Are you serious?” After buying the phone and Wes’s cigarettes, I only had about a hundred dollars left from the cash Kenneth had given me. I’d brought the gold from my dad’s safe, but I’d need to go to a bank to exchange that . . . and I had already left Wes alone for too long. I could put it on my credit card, but if they were tracking me, it would lead them closer to our location. My own insurance didn’t cover dependents—something I supposed I would have to change if we made it out of here alive and uninfected.

“Fine. I’ll pay for it,” I said. “How long until it’s ready?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “Half an hour.”

I nodded and then went to hunt for supplies. After grabbing a shopping basket, I loaded it up with bottles of water and one of the last remaining boxes of tissues. There were a few loaves of gluten-free bread left in the food aisle—apparently things weren’t that desperate yet. There were still several boxes of bandages. I added a tube of antibiotic ointment and briefly considered sleeping pills, but decided against it. We would need to be completely alert if we had to make another escape in the middle of the night.

The aisles were a mess, as though shoppers had dumped the contents of the shelves onto the floor in their haste to get what they needed and get away. A couple of harried employees scrambled around, struggling to keep things in order. I guarded my basket of treasures, including a bag of beef jerky and a loaf of gluten-free bread, and headed toward the checkout.

Someone jostled me from behind, and I dropped the phone. I bent to retrieve it and at the same time took off my backpack. I held it in front of me, against my chest, knowing the handgun was on top. Was I that desperate? My heart drummed. I’d pay for the supplies and take them out to the car, then come back and . . . and what? Rob the pharmacy at gunpoint? If I wanted to avoid attention, that wouldn’t be the way to do it.

I paid, left the store, and threw my bags into the backseat of the car. Then I took the gun out of the backpack with trembling fingers and slipped it into my waistband, under my hoodie. How many other people were packing heat in Clarkeston? And how many of them were infected?

I set my jaw and went back inside. Wes needed those meds, but I had no idea how to get them without giving us away. I’d have to take a chance on using my credit card. Maybe we could get away before they traced it.

I joined the line at the pick-up counter. In an aisle behind me, two men were having an argument. One of them, sporting a red plaid jacket and a Budweiser hat, was shouting about a drug he’d read about on the Internet. It was supposed to make you immune to Gaspereau, he said. He looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days. He wasn’t wearing a mask.

“I’ll prove it!” he said, marching toward the pharmacist’s counter. He tried to cut to the front of the line, but the other customers jostled him back.

“There’s no cure, man,” someone said. “No vaccine, either. You’re just fooling yourself.”

“I lost my kid in Iraq, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose anyone else to this son of a bitch!” he said.

Finally, it was my turn at the counter. I gave the pharmacist my credit card. She kept the white paper bag clutched in her hand while she ran the card through.

The argument continued behind me. “It doesn’t work. You’re just deluding yourself!” someone told the man in the Bud cap.

“Declined,” the pharmacist said, snapping me back to attention.

“What? That’s impossible.” I leaned over the counter to look at her screen. She turned it away from me.

“There’s a drug?” a woman’s voice called out from the back of the line. “Why aren’t they giving it to us?”

“That’s what it says. Declined.” The pharmacist’s tone brooked no argument. “Do you want to pay another way?”

Someone shoved me aside. “If you don’t have the money, let someone else go!”

“Hey!” I elbowed my way back in front of the counter. “I have the money! Run my card again.”

“Ma’am, it doesn’t work,” the pharmacist said. “Next!”

“No, you have to try again!” I gripped the counter with my hands. Then someone behind me shouted, “What the fuck are you doing?”

The man in the Budweiser cap was shoving his way to the front again. He came to a stop right behind me, pinning me to the counter.

“Why aren’t you giving out Zorifan?” he yelled. “You want us to all get sick? Big Pharma holding it back?”

“Sir, despite what you may have heard, Zorifan is
not
effective against Gaspereau.” The two pharmacists exchanged glances. One of them picked up a phone receiver.

“You’re keeping it for yourself, aren’t you?” he ranted. “Or are they waiting until we’re willing to pay whatever they ask for it?”

People were starting to back away from him now. Someone muttered, “Maybe he’s infected. Doesn’t seem right in the head.”

“Sir, you need to leave
now
,” the pharmacist said.

“I’m not leaving until I get my hands on some Zorifan!” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun, pointing it over my shoulder at the pharmacist.