A Cure for Madness (14 page)

I peered out the window, looking for security cameras. I didn’t see any but pulled my hoodie up over my head just in case. Then I rummaged through the glove compartment and found what I needed—a Swiss Army knife.

There was no way this plan would work.

I walked a few cars over, gave one last furtive glance around, and stabbed the knife into one of the rear tires of a shiny black Lexus.

It was harder than I thought it would be, and I had to give the knife a good tug to get it back out. But then the air escaped with a hiss. I did the same with the other rear tire.

I sprinted back to my car and drove to the attendant’s booth near the morgue entrance.

“Excuse me,” I said, rolling down my window. He looked down at me. “My friend called and said he had to work late, so I’m going to come back later. But when I was in the staff lot, I noticed a car with two flat back tires. I’m pretty sure they were slashed. I thought someone should check it out, make sure there’s not a vandal working his way around the parked cars. Or, you know . . . someone who’s sick.”

“Really?” the attendant said, glancing around at the cars near us.

“Yeah, it looked pretty bad,” I said with a worried nod.

“Okay,” the boy said as he climbed down from his booth, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else. “I’ll get one of the security guys. We’re supposed to let them know about anything unusual.”

I drove slowly around the lot, waiting for him to round the corner to the staff lot, then raced back to the morgue entrance. It had been almost half an hour at this point. I was about to head into the morgue myself to look for him when the door opened. Someone in a blue protective suit was backing out, pulling a gurney with a body bag on it. My heart forgot to beat for a few seconds, but then the suited figure turned and waved at me. I jumped out of the car.

“Is he okay?” I asked, as Kenneth unzipped the body bag.

“Get in the backseat, quickly,” Kenneth said to Wes, who looked barely conscious. I helped him off the gurney and into the car, where he collapsed onto the seat. “He’ll be okay,” Kenneth told me. Then his eyes tightened. “Where the hell were you? I looked out the door a few minutes ago and you weren’t here. Do you know how dangerous this is?”

I glared at him. “I’ve been waiting for you. I had to get rid of a parking attendant who was wondering why I was lurking around the morgue. And yes, I know perfectly well how dangerous this is.”

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’m on edge. They were keeping Wes sedated. He’ll come out of it in a bit. Made my job easier, for sure.”

“What did you do?”

“Turns out people tend to stay away from you when you tell them you’re carting around a Gaspereau-infected body with several open wounds. I kept my face covered as much as possible—not hard with this getup—so I don’t think anyone knew who I was. But I’d better get back in there and give myself an alibi. You just get Wes out of here.”

“I’m going to kiss you so hard the next time I see you,” I said without thinking. My hands flew up to cover my mouth. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean . . .”

“Forget it,” he said. I wished I could see his expression better. But he didn’t sound angry. “You’d better hurry.”

“Kenneth, I just heard it on the radio. They’re totally quarantining the town. No one can leave.”

A heartbeat of silence passed between us.

“I’m not surprised, but I’m sorry for your sake. I know you wanted to get Wes out of here.”

“Yeah. Well . . . I’ll think of something. Thanks again for your help. I owe you.”

Our eyes lingered on each other. I was the first to look away.

“I’d better get back inside,” he said. “Good luck.” Then he wheeled the empty gurney into the morgue without looking back.

I drove away from the hospital as fast as I could. How long would it be before they discovered Wes was missing? Would they think he had walked off by himself? Would they send people to look for him, or would they just replace him with some other person with schizophrenia?

“Clare?” Wes groaned from the backseat.

“Hey there, big brother. How are you feeling?”

“Gross. Where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“Are you working with them?”

“What? No! Of course not.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Wes, I’m serious!” I tilted the rearview mirror so I could see him better. “I came back for you. I should have done more to keep them from taking you in the first place. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything, just stared out the window.

“Hey, listen.” I softened my tone. “You have to stay with me, okay? I’ll stand up for you. If you go off on your own, they’ll find you.”

“Do you know what they did to me?”

I wasn’t sure how he was going to react, but lying wasn’t the way to regain his trust. “I don’t know all of it, but I think they extracted some cerebrospinal fluid.”

“What the hell is that?”

“I’m not sure, to be honest, but it has something to do with the brain.”

“How do you know?”

“Kenneth told me. He’s the one who got you out of the hospital.”

“Did he, now? And since when do we trust Kenneth?”

“I do.”

“Bully for you. I don’t trust anyone.”

“You can trust me.”

“Says the girl who skips town whenever shit hits the fan.”

I pressed my lips together. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“Want to know what I think?”

“Sure.”

“I think they want to study me. They know I’m one of God’s chosen warriors. They think it’s something in my brain, but it’s not. It’s something in my spirit. And they can’t cut that out of me.”

I knew it would make things worse, but I couldn’t help it. “When was the last time you took your medication?” I asked.

“This has nothing to do with my schizophrenia!” he shouted, lunging forward between the two front seats and making me swerve into the other lane.

“Hey!” I said sharply. “Are you trying to get us killed? Sit down and buckle the hell up.”

He slumped into the backseat, but he didn’t buckle up. The anger rolled off him in waves. What was I supposed to say? “Yes, you’re a spiritual warrior chosen by God to rid the earth of demons?” I didn’t even believe in God, let alone demons and angels. Bad things happened to good people all the time, and there was no rhyme or reason to it, no battle for souls going on behind the scenes.

In my opinion, if there was a God, he was an asshole. If God had the power to create the world, but he chose to ignore the cries of little girls being raped, mothers who sent their kids to school and picked them up in body bags, and little boys forced to kill their own families as child soldiers, then he wasn’t the kind of God I wanted to know. And if he wasn’t all-powerful, what was the point?

But I knew better than to tell Wes any of that. The last thing I needed was for him to decide I was under a demonic influence that needed eradicating.

“Where are we going?” he asked again.

“Mom and Dad’s first,” I said. “I need to get my things.” I kicked myself for not bringing everything with me. “Then we’re getting out of here.” An idea started to crystalize in my mind. The quarantine had been declared only minutes ago. Surely they didn’t have every road blocked off already. It was now or never.

“You ever heard of a FEMA camp?” he asked.

“Um . . . no. FEMA like Federal Emergency Management Agency?”

“Yeah. They’ve got these concentration camps set up in old military bases and shit. When the world starts ending, that’s where they’ll round everybody up.”

“Why?”

“Well, not everybody, probably just the people they want to keep an eye on. They’ve got a list.”

“Okay . . . so?”

“I’m on the list.”

I actually snorted at this. “How could you possibly know that? I’m assuming that if this list actually exists, it’s top secret.”

He glared at me from the backseat. “I can see the future, okay? I know this is going to happen. And it’s going to be soon.”

The hair on my arms rose. Normally I would have brushed this off as one of my brother’s many delusions. And it wasn’t like I believed he could tell the future. But the idea of the end of the world coming soon was suddenly not such an outlandish idea.

“Hey,” I said. “You don’t need to worry about that. We’re going to find a way out of town, then we’ll drive down to Bangor and get on the next flight. You can come back with me to Seattle for a bit.”

“Whoa, no way. I hate flying,” he said.

“Whatever. We flew lots as kids.”

“Why not fly out of here?”

“They’ve canceled all flights and quarantined the town. But they probably haven’t had enough time to block off every single road out of Clarkeston. We’ll take one of the dirt roads by our old home in the country.”

“I’m not doing it. I don’t trust you.”

Ouch. “You want to stay here and go back to the hospital? Come on. You’ve never seen my place in Seattle. You’ll like it there.”

“You don’t want me on a plane, Clare,” he said ominously.

“I’m trying to help you! You’ll be right beside me. It will be fine.”

“No, it won’t.”

I couldn’t tell if it was a promise or a threat.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nine years ago, Wes and I sat across from each other, a small square table between us, as nurses and orderlies bustled around, going about their business while keeping a close eye on the visitation room. He’d only been in the psych hospital for a month.

“So, listen, I’m, um . . . moving,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” he said. “New apartment?”

“No . . . well, yes. But I’m moving to London. England.”

He scowled at me, as though he wasn’t sure he had heard me right. “What do you mean?”

I laughed nervously. “I mean I’m moving to London. In a couple of days. I came to say good-bye.”

He stared at me, dumbfounded, for a moment. “Do Mom and Dad know?”

“Not yet.”

“What about your friends?”

“I’m going to tell them all soon. I wanted to tell you first.”

His face hardened. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need you here!” he said. A couple of nurses looked in our direction.

“You’ll be fine,” I whispered, hoping that would coax him to keep his voice down. “You have really good care here, and Mom and Dad will visit lots, I’m sure.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? After what I did for you? I kept it a secret because I promised you I would. And look where it’s gotten me! If you’re going to take off, the least you could do is tell them the truth, and maybe they’ll let me out of here earlier. They’ll know I’m not crazy.”

But you
are
crazy. You need this place
.

“It wouldn’t change anything,” I said. “It doesn’t matter why you did it—or even what you did. You’re not here because you beat up Myles; you’re here because you’re sick and you need help.”

“So that’s it? You’re just going to leave me?”

“It’s not like you’ll be alone. Like I said, Mom and Dad will visit you lots. I bet Uncle Rob will, too. I’ll call and send postcards. I might not be gone that long.” This wasn’t true. I didn’t ever want to come back.

His voice changed. It was no longer defiant. He was begging now. “Clare, please. You don’t know what it’s like in here. If you don’t want to tell them what happened, the least you could do is stay.”

“What, in here?” I asked, alarmed at the thought.

“Hell no. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Here in Clarkeston, where you can visit me . . . and I can call you if I need you.”

“You can still call me if you need me,” I said, tracing the grain of the wooden table with my eyes.

“What good will it do if you’re in fucking London?” he said, slamming his hand down on the table.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I pushed back my chair and stood up. “I love you. This is just something I have to do. For myself.”

“You bitch!” he screamed, his chair clattering to the floor as he jumped to his feet. “This is the thanks I get for protecting you?”

“Wes, calm down,” I urged. A couple of orderlies were making their way toward us. “I’ll come back and visit, I promise. I just don’t know when. Don’t . . . let’s not say good-bye like this.”

“How dare you!” he yelled, and lunged toward me. The orderlies were close enough to grab him by now, one on each arm.

I put my hands out. “It’s okay. Let him go.” I wanted to calm him down, give him one last hug before I left. But as I got close enough to touch him, he bared his teeth and snarled at me.

“Ma’am, you should go,” one of the orderlies said.

“But . . . it’s the last time I’ll see him . . . for a while.”

“Go!” Wes snarled. “Go on, get out of here. Go enjoy your precious life.”

“I love you. I do. Please believe me. I just . . . have to take care of myself now.”

He snarled again. I walked away without looking back.

I pulled into the driveway of our parents’ home, glancing behind to make sure we hadn’t been followed. I considered asking Wes to stay in the car, but figured it would be safer if he was inside with me.

“Grab a suitcase from the storage room and put some stuff in it,” I told him. “Your things are still upstairs. And change out of that, obviously.” He was still wearing a hospital gown, which was open at the back.

While he was doing that, I went into my dad’s office and locked the door. I filled a backpack with the gold and silver coins, the hockey cards, and a roll of bills I found stuffed in the back of the safe. I didn’t need the money, but I figured it might help me get Wes set up in Seattle—and maybe pay off whatever debts my parents had incurred.

When I came up from the basement, he was sitting in the living room, his face in his hands. Tears squeezed between his fingers. A suitcase was splayed at his feet. I moved toward him, but he growled at me like a wounded animal. I backed away before moving gingerly forward again, this time toward the chair on the other side of the room.

“I’m sorry,” I said fervently. “I was wrong. I know you hate doctors; I should never have let them take you. It’s just that they said you could help find a cure for Gaspereau, and—”

“Don’t make excuses for them,” he snarled. “Or for yourself. All you are is selfish.”

I winced, hearing my mother’s words in his mouth. How many times had she called me selfish for wanting to come and go as I pleased, for wanting to throw off the shadow of my brother and live my own life? I understood now that her words had come out of a place of anger, frustration, and helplessness as she watched her family fall apart—but the wounded young girl inside me had never forgotten.

“I want to help you,” I said, pushing down my anger, trying to be the grown-up. “But we need to get out of here. You say you don’t like flying—fine. But if you stay here, they might come for you. And you can be as pissed off at me as you like, but if they come back here with the National Guard, I’m not going to be able to stop them. So it’s your choice. Let’s get out of here while we still can. Come stay with me, at least until this all passes over.”

“And will you still skip town if I decide to stay?” he asked.

At this, my stomach rolled. “No,” I said through gritted teeth. “If you stay . . . I will stay. I won’t leave you.” Panic whirled in my head, and my heart strained against my rib cage.

“Are you okay?” Wes asked, pulling me back into the present moment. His fists were still clenched, but his eyes had widened in concern.

“I’m fine,” I said, straightening up.
Breathe. Control.

“Well, I’ll go, then,” he said.

I stopped breathing. “What?”

He stood up, hauling the suitcase with him. “Let’s go. Let’s see if we can beat these motherfuckers.”

I glanced at him uncertainly but decided not to question him on his change of heart. That conversation could happen when we were safely thirty thousand feet in the air—or better yet, after we’d landed.

He threw our bags into the backseat of the car while I locked up. A pang of regret made me hesitate. Should I call Kenneth and tell him what we were doing, insist that he and Maisie come with us? But he’d made his decision. And it was better if he didn’t know. Plausible deniability.

Sirens screamed in the air as I drove away. I sped up and turned onto a seldom-used side road.

“Do you think they’ll come after us?” Wes asked, glancing behind us.

I tried to quell my own paranoia. “I don’t know,” I answered, hoping I was right about the back roads. “Normally, they can’t force you to stay in the hospital against your wishes. But I don’t know what they’ll do. It’s different now; the government has more powers.”

My cell phone rang, and I fished around for it in my bag. It was Dr. Hansen.
Shit.
I considered letting it ring, but there was no way they could know I had Wes—and I might find out more information about what they had done to him. “Hello?”

“Ms. Campbell, it’s Stuart Hansen. Is Wes with you?”

“No, of course not. You wouldn’t even tell me where he is,” I retorted.

“I need you to be honest with me, Clare. This is a very serious matter.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You came and took him. Are you telling me you’ve lost him?”

There was silence on the end of the phone. “He is no longer in our care,” he said eventually.

“Is that what you’re calling it now? Care?”

“You don’t seem too worried to hear that your brother is missing. Did he contact you?”

“I’ve spent most of my life not knowing where Wes is. He can take care of himself. And no, he hasn’t contacted me. He hates cell phones, computers, and anything that’s not a carrier pigeon.” I shot an apologetic look at Wes.

“Where are you now?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business. You abducted my brother, Dr. Hansen. And now it seems he’s escaped, and I’m glad. I’m the last person who would help you find him.”

“It was hardly an abduction, Miss Campbell. You were right there beside me.”

I didn’t respond. I felt sick.

“Look at the big picture,” he continued. “You know I believe your brother can help us cure Gaspereau. A lot is at stake here.”

I hesitated. What if Dr. Hansen was telling the truth? What was I doing? “You said it was just a theory.”

He sounded frustrated when he answered. “The more I study your brother, the more I’m certain he is the key. You
must
bring him back, Clare.”

I’d heard enough. I’d made my decision. “Listen, Doctor, do your experiments on someone else. You might be with the CDC, but I get the feeling your bosses don’t know what you’re up to. I don’t know what you want with my brother, but until you can give me something more substantial than a bunch of vague statements that may or may not be true, I’m not letting you near him—if he does get in touch with me.” I winced, hoping I hadn’t given too much away.

There was another pause. “We’re all taking risks here. But we have a chance to end this thing. That, to me, is worth taking a few risks.”

“Look, there are plenty of people with schizophrenia. I’m sure some of them would be happy to help you. Wes does not want to be involved; he made that pretty clear. Go find someone else.” Why was he so fixated on Wes?

“You’re right, Clare. There
are
others who might be able to help us study the similarities between the effects of Gaspereau and schizophrenia. But I have reason to believe your brother’s case is . . . special. The way his brain works is unique.”

“How?” I demanded. So Kenneth was right: something else was going on.

“If you and Wes would just come in, I’d be happy to sit down and explain it to you. Show you, even.”

“Nice try,” I snapped. “Look, I really hope you find a cure for this thing. I do. It’s a bitch. But Wes’s role in your research is done. Understand?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, Ms. Campbell,” Dr. Hansen said. “We’ll be in touch.” Then the line went dead.

“Bastard,” I said, throwing my phone back into my purse.

“What was that all about?” Wes asked.

“Well, they know you’ve left the hospital, and they want to know where you are.”

“Why? What do they want?”

“More research, it sounds like.” I didn’t tell him what Dr. Hansen had said about him being special; Wes had enough delusions of grandeur as it was. “But it doesn’t matter. If you don’t want to volunteer to help them, I’m sure as hell not going to make you.”

“As if you could.”

I kept driving, my hands tight and sweaty on the steering wheel. We were just outside town. Growing up, we had often taken the back roads to my grandparents’ home about an hour away, much to my father’s delight and my mother’s irritation. Dad had loved showing us the fields where he’d worked as a young man, the old logging roads he’d driven with his first truck. Surely they wouldn’t have blocked all of them . . .

“You know, I don’t even know how to use a carrier pigeon,” Wes said suddenly.

I couldn’t help it; I burst out laughing. Wes mimed tying a letter to a pigeon’s leg. “Ow!” he said in a mock tone. “It poked me with its beak! How do you get these things to stay still?”

Our laughter died as we turned a corner on the dirt road I’d hoped would be our salvation. A military jeep sat in the middle of road about a hundred yards away. A soldier was leaning against it, smoking. On the road beside him were several barriers that had yet to be erected.

“Shit,” I said, slowing the car.

“Should we turn around?” Wes asked nervously.

“He’s seen us now anyway,” I said. The soldier had stamped out his cigarette and was standing straight, his eyes on our car. “Just . . . stay quiet,” I said.

I rolled down my window as we approached the jeep. The soldier gripped his weapon nervously.

“Hey there,” I said, as casually as I could muster.

“The road is blocked, ma’am,” he said.

“So I see. We need to get to Bangor for my cancer treatment. I just came from the hospital; my brother and I both tested negative for Gaspereau, so my doctor said it would be okay for us to leave town. If I miss a treatment . . . well, I’ve only got so long to live as it is. I’d like to have as much time as possible.”

I didn’t dare look at Wes, but I hoped he was keeping a straight face.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not supposed to let anyone leave.”

“I understand about the quarantine, but we haven’t been exposed to anyone who has it, and like I said, we both got tested just in case. We haven’t been in contact with anyone else since we got our results. The quarantine is supposed to keep people from spreading Gaspereau, right? Not to keep people from getting cancer treatments.”