The Cured (3 page)

The feed cut out and returned to the news room. “Jim,” said the anchor, with an embarrassed smile, “I don’t know if we ought to have run that– ”

Jim interrupted with a spiel about the public’s right to know and Henry shook himself. This was not a place he wanted to stay. What should he do? He thought about knocking on each door, but there were over thirty apartments in the building. The thought of what he might encounter behind each one made his flesh ache with adrenaline. He walked quickly and quietly out of Mrs. Palmer’s apartment and up to his own. He was still holding the cane as he closed his door behind him. He picked up the phone and called the police. While he listened to the repeated hold message, Henry glanced out of his front window. His car was still the only one in the lot. It’s windshield was a web of fractures. The shattered doll looked like a dead baby from that distance. Henry felt sick. He was finally transferred, but instead of getting an officer, he got the station’s answering machine. He began with the woman at his office and ended with Mrs. Palmer’s cat, hardly knowing what he said. Then he hung up. He flipped the television on and then ignored it, pacing his small kitchen. Finally, he grabbed a marker and some masking tape and headed carefully down the stairs to the building’s front door.

He covered a large square of the door with masking tape, looking around every few seconds for Mrs. Palmer or whatever had been in the apartment with her. “BE CAREFUL,” he wrote, “Police: Apartment 4A broken into, resident missing maybe injured. Everyone else: Stay inside. Call Henry. Don’t get near anyone.” His hand shook as he wrote it and the wet snow smeared against the tape, but it was legible. Henry didn’t want to hang around to redo it.

He vaulted up the stairs and into his apartment, locking the door behind him. He looked at the door for a moment, thinking of Mrs. Palmer’s, hanging like a snapped bone in its frame. He pushed the couch against the door and then collapsed into it. He was exhausted and hot. Henry guessed it was the stress. He pulled off his sweatshirt and turned the television on. He didn’t bother changing the channel to the news. It was everywhere now, even the cable channels were broadcasting emergency bulletins. Henry fell asleep in the gray light of the television as the broadcast replayed the same shots of riots and hospitals filled to the brim and the reporters convinced themselves that it was the result of a terrorist plot.

He woke with a start when the phone rang. It was dark except for the blue light of the television, and Henry couldn’t remember where he was for a few long moments. The phone stopped ringing and Henry at last stood up. He heard running footsteps on the stairs outside his apartment and began pulling the couch away from his door. He stopped as the footsteps outside the door stopped, expecting a knock. But there was no knock. Henry tried to look out the peephole, but the hallway light was too dim to make out who was standing in front of his apartment. He put his ear to the door, holding his breath. He could hear a sort of wheezy snuffling but nothing else.

“Hello,” he called, “who is out there? Do you need help?”

Something hit the door with a bang and there was a scrabbling on the wood, as if it were a dog trying to come home. For a split second Henry assumed that’s exactly what it was, but then the brass doorknob jiggled and half turned. Henry was glad he had locked it.

“Look,” he yelled, “Just tell me if you’re hurt and I’ll let you in. I just want–”

He was cut off by a deep growl on the other side of the wood. Henry felt his skin tighten and pinch. He backed away from the door. The thing outside hit it with a hollow boom and the door shuddered. Henry pushed the couch back against the door. He tried the police again, but there was only the dead blatt of a busy signal. He paced the living room as the thing smashed into the door again and again. He looked out the window overlooking the parking lot. The landlady’s car was parked halfway across the lot. Henry wondered if the thing outside his apartment had gotten to her. Or if it
was
her. After half an hour, the thing gave up and either fell asleep or wandered away. Henry wasn’t going to open the door to find out.

His phone rang and Henry leapt for it, afraid the noise would bring the scrabbling thing back. “Hello?” he whispered.

“Henry, are you okay? It’s Dave.”

“Yeah, I’m holed up in my apartment but I’m okay. What is going on?”

“I don’t think anybody knows. Some of the news stations are saying it’s linked to the flu and others are saying it’s something else. All I know is that it’s worse in the city. I’m taking Elizabeth and Marnie to my brother’s hunting lodge. There’ll be no one there and it’s fully stocked, if we bring a few things, we’ll be able to hunker down for a while. I want you to come with us.”

“What about that woman from this morning?”

“What about her?”

“Well, don’t you have to wait for the police to say it’s okay before you leave?”

“Henry, the police never showed up. I don’t think they are going to. Besides, you saw, it was self-defense. If they want me they can come find me. Do you want to come or not?”

“Yeah. Okay. What do you need me to do?”

“Just get your clothes and whatever canned goods you’ve got and be ready to go. Oh, I don’t suppose you have a gun do you?”

“No,” said Henry, “do you?”

“No, but I guess we’ll be okay as long as we avoid people anyway. Be ready and I’ll honk the horn when I get to your apartment.”

“You can’t do that,” said Henry quickly, “There’s at least one of those– those people in here with me. They are attracted to noise I think.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Have Elizabeth call me right before you get here. You turn off your lights and pull around to the back. There’s a fire escape from the bedroom. I’ll climb down that. Just try not to make any noise.”

“Okay, we’ll do our best, but if you aren’t ready–”

“Relax Dave, I’ll be ready. I want to get out of here as much as you do.”

Four

Dave was a coward. Henry knew that. He wasn’t just a coward in extreme situations, Henry couldn’t blame him for being afraid of what was happening. But Dave was a coward about
everything
. When they’d first met, Henry had felt sorry for him. Dave was shy and scared when he moved into Henry’s neighborhood. He was always first to snitch and last to join in. Most of the other kids avoided him, but Henry had tried to take him under his wing. A dubious friendship had sprung up between them. But as time went on, Henry realized that Dave was just riding his coattails until someone stronger came along. Dave regularly betrayed his friends and then his coworkers if he thought it would keep him safe, and he and Henry had argued many times about it. But Henry had stuck with him, felt responsible for him, long after their other friends had dropped Dave. He wasn’t a bad guy, he didn’t
try
to use people to get ahead. Dave was just chickenshit. Henry didn’t trust him with a secret, but he wasn’t motivated by malice or greed. Just-Plain-Yellow, that’s what Henry’s father had called him.

And now, Henry was trusting Dave to get him out of a city gone mad. If he hadn’t seen the hospital or Mrs. Palmer’s corpse-like doll hadn’t come flying out the window at him– if he hadn’t just heard something growl at him through his door, Henry wouldn’t risk Dave’s trip. He’d rather hole up and wait it out. Whatever “it” was. He wondered why Dave wanted him to come. Why was he risking himself and his family to come get Henry when he could just drive straight to his brother’s cabin, straight to safety? Henry quietly stacked his bags on the fire escape, trying to guess if he had left anything important behind. He looked at his supplies with sudden unease. Was Dave just using him as a quick way to get supplies? Was he going to leave him there with nothing? Henry wasn’t going to give him a chance. He picked up his bags, slinging them over his shoulder and began climbing down the slippery fire ladder. The snow was coming fast now, and Henry strained to see if he could see Dave’s car or any of the crazy people walking around him. Just snow, sparking in the street lamp’s tired light. Henry tried not to look into the apartment windows as he climbed down, equally afraid of seeing a bloody face or a tranquil, twinkling Christmas tree. He kept his eyes on the metal rungs and tried not to make any noise. He dropped down to the ground next to the dumpster and crouched behind it.

He was trying not to move as his legs stiffened in the cold when he felt the phone vibrate on his thigh. He tried to fish it out without banging his elbow against the hollow metal of the dumpster. “Hello?” he whispered.

“Henry? Are you ready? It’s Elizabeth.”

“Yes, I’m next to the dumpster where the fire escape ends. Is anyone following you?”

“No, we’re okay. We’ll be there in a few seconds. I’m so relieved you are coming.”

Henry hung up the phone. It was Elizabeth then. She’d persuaded Dave that they needed him. Henry couldn’t blame her, he wouldn’t trust his life to Dave by himself either. The car was almost silent on the snow and Dave had turned the headlights off. It rolled to a stop near Henry and he jumped up and opened the door, throwing the bags in before him. He slid into the warm car and tapped Dave on the shoulder to let him know it was okay to take off. He looked back at the apartment building as they drove away. The soft glow of Christmas trees dotted the building’s windows and the snow fluttered and clung, softening the building’s edges in the gold street light. Henry wondered how many people would be drawn in by the calm scene only to meet the thing inside. He hoped that his warning sign would work.

He turned back to his companions. Marnie was asleep in her booster seat next to him, her small face a white smudge in the dark. “Everyone okay?” he asked.

Elizabeth smiled at him. “We’re okay. We’re probably just overreacting. I’m sure things will be straightened out in a day or two, but better safe than sorry, right? We’ll just have a little vacation at the cabin.”

Henry smiled at her, but his eyes flicked to Dave’s in the rearview mirror. “The cabin is a few hours away. Why don’t you two get some rest and I’ll wake you up to switch with me if I get tired,” said Dave.

Henry was troubled. “And if we–” he glanced at Marnie, who was still sleeping. “If we run into any obstacles, you’ll wake me up, right?”

“Obstacles? I think traffic will be light at this time of night,” Dave said.

Henry shook his head, thinking of the woman in the traffic accident that morning. “Look, just wake me up if you have to stop for any reason, okay?”

“All right,” said Dave.

Henry settled back onto the seat. Marnie’s soft breathing and the little halo of heat that her body made in the car caused Henry to drop off quickly. The sound of Elizabeth and Dave fighting drew him out of sleep. He looked over at Marnie who was sitting up and looking anxious. Her teddy bear had dropped into the hollow near her feet and Henry struggled to reach it. He handed it back to her and she gave him a nervous smile, which he returned.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Elizabeth glanced back at him. “There was a couple with a flat tire on the side of the road and Dave refused to stop and help them. The woman was crying.”

“But the man looked ready to strangle the next person to look at him wrong,” grumbled Dave.

“Honey, it’s dark, it’s snowing, the police don’t seem to be anywhere around. What if no one else stops?”

“Someone will stop,” said Dave, glancing at Henry for support in the rearview mirror. Henry’s mind flashed to the woman with the remains of a nose in her teeth.

“Do you two have any idea what’s actually happening?” he asked.

Elizabeth glanced back at him and then her gaze lingered on Marnie who had fallen asleep again beside Henry. “Only what the news has said. That there is some kind of disease or chemical causing people to act irrationally or become dangerous. No one seems sure exactly
what
is going on.”

Henry looked over at Marnie to make sure she wasn’t listening. He leaned forward. “Elizabeth,” he whispered, “These people, the ones affected by whatever this is, they’re crazed. I saw a woman bite the nose off a man’s face today before she climbed onto my windshield to try to do the same thing to me. There’s some monster in my apartment building– I think it killed my elderly neighbor and then waited for me outside my apartment. And you can ask Dave about the woman this morning at the office.” Elizabeth turned pale but still looked unconvinced. With an interior wince, Henry drove his point home. “Look, if you want to keep Marnie safe, it’s best if we not trust anyone outside ourselves, even if they look like they are in trouble. Those people back there may have been okay, or they might have been sick. Or they might just have been panicked enough to steal our car and leave
us
on the side of the road in the snow.”

Elizabeth began crying and Henry fought the heavy guilt that fell on his shoulders. Someone needed to say it and Dave was too gutless. Otherwise, they’d all be dead in the next few days because of some misplaced kindness. Henry watched the snow building, thick and choking on the road.
Or dead in the next few hours,
his mind amended.

There were no plows and as the highway dumped them onto the side roads, even the tracks of previous vehicles disappeared. The lights of gas stations and little villages disappeared or winked out as the night grew later and the snow heavier. They were swallowed up, lost in a blank world of dark trees and smooth white. As if they were the first or last ever to travel that way.