Cure (9 page)

He took the syringe from Reid, the last man on Earth he trusted his life with, and slowly approached the Id. Reid held the pole two-handed.

Zach considered shooting it into his arm, leg, or stomach. “Where do I do this?”

“As far away from his mouth as possible.”

Zach skirted the growing cesspool and held his breath. Toothless’s stomach gurgled and the puddle widened, narrowly missing Zach’s shoes.
1-2-3.
He counted himself down and jabbed the point into Toothless’s bony thigh. A guttural moan escaped and Zach jumped back so quickly he left the needle in. Thankfully, the infected was too weak to fight.

“Not a complete goner.” Reid backed away and released the loop. They left the cell and Reid made a call on his radio. “Foster, this is Reid. Pick up.”

No way
he’s
going to answer.

What little Zach knew of Foster, he knew he avoided confrontation.

“Foster, you scrawny fucking weasel, pick up.”

Yeah, that’ll definitely work. Sweet talk him.

“Reid, this is Jim. Can I help you?”

Why was the maintenance man tuned in to the Security frequency?

“You can get me Foster, the prick.”

“Anything
else
I can do for you?”

Reid huffed. “I need Ben down here. Tell him an Id is sick.”

“You got it. I’ll find him.” Jim disconnected.

Why did a maintenance man know everything?

Zach wondered about his true role in all of it.

16
.

Miranda woke, terrified, with her head foggy from the anesthesia.
Run. Fight.
The last thing she remembered was Reid knocking her around. A needle like pain shot up her groin and she struggled to reconcile her new surroundings.
Oh, no.
Her clothes were missing. A thin gown half-covered her, but wasn’t tied in the back. She lifted her hand to wipe her eyes and her wrist jerked, held to the bed by a leather restraint.

Someone, please help me.

“It’s all right. Take it easy,” said an unfamiliar, southern belle’s voice.

Miranda blinked until the brunette two beds over came into focus. “Where am I?” Her swollen jaw made it painful to talk.

“I’m Carlene,” the woman said and if she knew what had happened, she didn’t say.
 

A strawberry blonde, pregnant woman slept in the next bed over and was obviously uncomfortable. She tossed and turned, her ratty hair tangling under her.

Miranda straightened, sitting up as much as the restraints would allow.
What did they do to me
? Her stomach cramped and she tried to pull her knees to her chest only to feel the tugging of leather straps also on her ankles.

“The pain passes.” The dark-haired girl across the room managed a smile.

Miranda concentrated on the girl’s round face and familiar blue eyes. “I know you.”
Where had she seen her before?
She remembered the mother’s anguish in Porter’s store. “You’re Penny Hammond.”

What she wouldn’t have given, once, to see this girl home.

“How do you know my name?”

“A missing person’s poster.” Miranda said sadly, recognizing several of the more memorable faces from the board. The women’s appearances had deteriorated, but it was clearly them.

Low moans came from the sleeping woman.

“Hey.” Miranda called out in spite of her pain. “Wake up. Hey.”

“Her name’s Annie,” Carlene said.

“Annie, wake up.”

Annie screamed and her eyes popped open. Black liquid soaked her white, cotton blanket and Miranda gasped.

She’s going into labor.

“Annie, honey. Just breathe.” Carlene demonstrated a slow breath. “In through your nose and out through your mouth. You’ve done this before. You can do it.”

“Oh, God. No.” Annie tried desperately to break loose.

The sight of the laboring woman transported Miranda back to a time she’d rather not remember.

This isn’t about you. You have to help her.

She called back the painful memories, refusing to let them cripple her. “Hang on.” She rotated her wrist to reach the buckle on her right restraint. Her pounding pulse magnified the headache clawing through her skull. The cuffs were impossible to get out of.

“My water broke.” Annie gawked at the mess. “It’s not supposed to be black,” she said, coughing from crying so hard. “Something’s wrong.”

Carlene continued to try and calm her. “It’s going to be all right, Annie. Once this is over, there will be no reason to keep you here. You can go home to the girls and Lenny.”

Miranda read worry in Annie’s expression, the unequalled concern of a mother for her child.
The fear that she felt when the fetal heart monitor went silent.
A stream of tears ran down her cheeks.

“Help!” Annie screamed again. “The baby’s coming.”

The ward door flew open and Dr. Nixon, a man Miranda hadn’t met but recognized from website photos, rushed in with a balding intern behind him.

You twisted bastard.

He threw Annie’s covers to the floor and exposed her to the room. She tried to close her legs, fighting off his callous examination, but the ankle restraints made that impossible. “Her cervix is fully dilated.” He reached inside of her. “The baby is breech. Ben, take her to the O.R.”

 “I need something for the pain,” Annie shouted.

“Call Martin. Tell him to start an epidural.”

Ben released the brakes on the bed and steered Annie through the open door.

Nixon kicked the black-stained blanket against the wall and headed toward Miranda.

“Ms. Penton, I’m glad you’re awake.” He didn’t bother introducing himself.

“What did you do to me?”

He tightened her restraints one at a time. “I haven’t done anything,
yet
.” His intonation implied something sinister.

She wanted to scream and fight back, to kick him and gouge his eyes, but she couldn’t move and wouldn’t allow him the pleasure of her begging or cowering. His cold hands pried at her most intimate flesh, his examination the closest thing she could imagine to rape. The other women watched and she lowered her head, embarrassed.
Be strong.

She held back her tears long enough for him to finish and when he left the room, she crumbled. Everything she’d been too self-righteous to fear had happened. She was trapped and alone in the hands of a madman.

Who would ever know she was missing?

* * * * *

“This is the Control Room.” Reid slid his hand into a scanner next to the door. “Palm vein biometric security. State of the art, infrared technology that requires deoxidized hemoglobin in the veins to get past. The infected don’t have normal blood flow so if one of us gets turned into one of them, we’re automatically locked out. You’re locked out, anyway.”

“Then why are we here?”

It hadn’t escaped Zach’s attention that Reid hadn’t left his side since just after he attacked Miranda. It also didn’t go unnoticed that this particular stop on the stall tour happened when he mentioned going to see Allison.

Nixon was up to something and now that Allison had taken the treatment, there was nothing he could do about it.

Taking her out of here now meant risking her becoming infected.

The door opened and Zach looked inside. Monitors stacked four high lined the walls, a row of empty office chairs in front of them. The pictures flickered and changed.

There were cameras everywhere.

“Come over here and meet some people.” Reid gestured at the dark-skinned man with the bulging eyes. “Clarence, this is Zach Keller.”

Clarence shook Zach’s hand. “Glad to meet you.”

“And this is our resident farmer.”

“How d’ya do? Name’s Travis.” His shaggy, blonde hair bore the permanent ridge mark of a cowboy hat and a white line visible beneath his unbuttoned collar hinted at a farmer’s tan.

“You can almost smell the manure on him, can’t you?” Reid asked. “Clarence, give him the run-down would you? I have to make a call.”

“Be glad to.” He flicked a couple of switches on a complex control panel. “These two walls of monitors show basement-level only, full view all the time. That’s how I knew you were in trouble with that sick one over there.” He pointed at Toothless, limp in his cell.

Zach focused on Reid, instead. He’d taken his call in the hallway, disregarding the camera posted outside the door. Even without sound, his emotions were clear.
Frustration, anger, and nervousness.
 

He’s in some kind of trouble.

Zach hoped it was something to do with what happened to Miranda.
Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Maybe they let her go.
As much as he wanted to believe that, he knew better.

Clarence flipped through the cells, zooming in on each of the Ids and stopping when he reached the last one.
The security guard.

Zach checked to see that Reid was still embroiled in a heated conversation.
Now’s your chance.
He had to ask. “What happened to him?” He tapped the screen with his finger.

Clarence’s expression shifted to one of sadness and fear.

“Don’t do it, Clarence.” Travis warned him.

“He should know what he’s dealing with.”

Travis shook his head. “It’s your ass.”

Clarence’s deep voice got quiet. “Mitch, that kid in there, him gettin’ infected was no accident. He got in a
disagreement
with Doc over a girl Reid brought in a few months back name of Amy Porter. I only know because I saw it in the papers and out at her Uncle’s place, you know, the gas station.”

“Sure, I’ve been there.”

“Anyway, Reid stuck her on the ward. Rumor has it he knew it was Mitch’s girl, but you never know.” He shrugged.
“One night things got nasty between Mitch and Reid. The kid was going to do something drastic and Doc knew it. He put that kid right in Bull’s way. Kept him distracted so he didn’t see the bite coming. Didn’t even try to save him. Doc had a point to make and he made it. No one’s crossed him since.”

Zach’s jaw tightened. The story was ample warning. “Reid calls Mitch “Dumbass”, says he was a
cautionary tale
.”

Clarence lowered his head. “He was a
cautionary tale
, all right, just not the way you think.”

17
.

Allison rolled her head toward the sound of footsteps coming through her door.
Please let it be Zach.
Dr. Nixon stepped into her room and her spirits sank. She sighed and wiped a tear from the corner of her eye, the decline in her vision more apparent as she struggled to read Nixon’s name embroidered on his lab coat. What if Zach wasn’t visiting because of something Dr. Nixon wasn’t telling her.

More bad news.

Nixon chewed the inside of his lip while he reviewed her chart. “How are you feeling?”

“All right, I guess.” She could tell he saw through her lie.

Several new side-effects appeared within hours of her first infusion. If she told him, he might cancel her future doses.
She might never feel well again.
Her skin crawled and her muscles spasmed.

Nixon lifted her lid and shined a penlight in her eye.

Normally, the light burned to look at. This time, it appeared dim and filtered. She held her breath, terrified by the thought she might be going blind.

You have to tell him.

Nixon flushed her IV with saline and drew several vials of blood from the hep lock rather than tangling with her weak and collapsing veins.

She blinked, repeatedly, trying to clear the fog.

“Something the matter?” Nixon asked.

“My vision is a little blurry,” she admitted. “Is that normal?”

“Not necessarily.”
Not the answer she hoped for.
“This is an experimental drug, Allison. Things will happen to you that we can’t predict and haven’t seen in others.”

“But there are
others
, right?” She knew she should have asked the question beforehand, but desperation and certain death was persuasive. No matter what Dr. Nixon had told her, she would have agreed to take it. 

Nixon scribbled down some notes and after a short pause, answered. “We have tested it, yes. I’ll call for an ophthalmology consult to make sure there’s nothing unexpected, but…” He listened to her heart and lungs, palpated her abdomen, and repeated the check of her vitals. “…it’s possible the cancer is spreading.” He lowered his head. “I’ll order another scan to include your brain, but I’m not sure we don’t need to do something more immediately. You were treated with the lowest effective dose,” he said. “I recommend an increase.” He took an unmarked vial and two syringes from his pocket.

Allison sat silent, digesting the news, and buried her face in her hands. She wept.
She wanted to give up.
She’d fought too hard for too little gain.

“Does Zach know?”

Nixon shook his head. “Not yet. I know you don’t want to worry him. He thinks you’re doing well and I’m keeping him busy until you’re back on your feet.”

Would she ever be?
She wondered, but his explanation soothed her. “And you think increasing the dose will do that?”

“I do.”

She considered her options.
What if she went blind?
What if she didn’t survive? The effects of the cancer were still worse than those of the treatment.
You can beat this.
“Let’s do it,” she said and wiped her running nose with a coarse, one-ply tissue.

“I’m glad you’re willing to try.” Nixon drew up two syringes from two separate vials he kept in his lab coat pocket.

 
“What’s the extra shot?” she asked.

“Hopefully, something to slow down the side-effects.”

She weighed his word choices.
Hopefully and slow.
Not stop. She didn’t know if she was over-analyzing or if he was covering his bases.
What if this is all for nothing?
She mustered the courage to ask the question she’d so far avoided. “Dr. Nixon,” she said. “What are my chances?”