The Cured (14 page)

“How lucky?”

Rickey walked around toward the back of the tractor and Henry followed him. “Well,” Rickey called over his shoulder, “if we’re lucky, it’s diesel instead of gas. If we’re really lucky, Farmer John has a sealed supply of diesel that’s still good because it was too much of a pain in the ass to ride down to the local feed store and get it every month. If we’re super extra lucky, Farmer John was also smart enough to winterize the thing before the Plague hit and he disconnected the battery. We’ll probably have to find a way to clean the filters though, if it’s been sitting with fuel in it all this time.” Rickey rummaged around a large tool chest he had found.

“Well? How lucky are we?”

“First thing’s first,” mumbled Rickey and fished around some more in the tool chest, “Hey, pull those doors open on the other side. It’s pitch black in here.”

Henry moved carefully through the dark back end of the barn and shoved hard on the back doors. They squealed and stuck on the overgrown grass. Henry put his weight against first one door and then the other, wedging them farther open. Bright spring light filtered in. “That’s better,” called Rickey. Henry found the ladder to the second floor. More out of curiosity than anything else, he climbed up into the loft. Things scuttered out of his way and he hesitated. He could see the outline of another window on the far side though, so he carefully began crossing the floor.

“Careful Henry,” called Rickey, “If there are any roof leaks at all then that floor will be soft. Besides, there’s probably nothing up there but mice.”

“There’s another window,” yelled Henry, “I’ll be careful.” The floor was covered with scattered strands of straw and baling twine. It reminded him, perversely of what the castle must have looked like after Rumpelstiltskin was finished. It was still very dark up in the loft, even with both sets of doors open. He gingerly tested the floorboards with each step. Coming at last to the window, he pushed against the wooden shutter and had to catch himself on the frame as it fell completely away with a loud clatter.

“You okay?” Rickey called.

“Yeah, it was just the shutter.” Henry turned around, the morning light turned an afternoon gold as flakes of hay made the loft into a swirl of dust around him.

“Anything good up there?”

“Nope. Just some old hay. And probably rats.” Henry made his way back to the ladder and down into the now bright barn.

“Got it!” Rickey waved a dented pack of cigarettes triumphantly.

“That’s what you were looking for? You realize that might be the last pack you’re going to find in a while right? And they probably taste like crap.”

Rickey shrugged, tapped the case on his wrist and pulled one out. He grinned and held it up to his mouth. “You know what’s weird?” he said before putting it into his mouth and talking around it, “Haven’t had one in eight years, you’d think I would be over them. Eight years. And there’s other stuff more important. We’re starving to death, haven’t gotten laid in almost a decade, but the first thing I thought about when I woke up was having a cigarette.” He shook his head and grinned, the cigarette bobbing from the corner of his mouth. He held up a rusty lighter. “You’re probably right. I’m going to regret this.” He lit it and took a short drag. Henry winced and Rickey coughed and laughed. “Yeah, it tastes like crap all right.” He took another drag. “But I don’t care. C’mon let’s look at the tractor.”

There was something comfortable about the stale smoke mixed with the ghost smell of gasoline and diesel and the thick scent of motor oil. Henry had never been a smoker, but there was something lived in, familiar about it. Rickey climbed a stepladder next to a steel drum and looked in. His lit cigarette dangling perilously close to the opening and the crazy patchwork of hair sticking out from his scrawny head made him look like a crazed scientist from an old movie. “Well, it’s diesel,” said Rickey and Henry tensed as the cigarette bobbed between his lips over the steel drum’s cover. He closed the cover and came down from the ladder. “It looks okay, but we won’t know until we try it. I’ll have to check the tractor first though. See if you can find the battery. I doubt it’s held it’s charge all this time, but maybe we can figure something out.”

There was a metallic squeal as Rickey opened a panel on the tractor. Henry picked his way through extensions and wicked looking farm tools to a workbench, hunting for the battery. “Hey, were you an auto mechanic before?” he called back to Rickey.

“Sometimes. I grew up on a farm. I know about tractors. I won’t blow it up.”

“I was just curious.”

“What were you?”

Henry laughed to himself. “Office worker. I was one of those people that called if you didn’t pay your credit card bill.”

“Shit. You were a debt collector? No wonder you’re so depressed all the time.”

There were several batteries on the bench. Henry had no idea which one he was supposed to grab. They all looked the same to him. He tried to lift one, but his arms had lost most of their muscle over the past several months of privation. He looked around for a dolly or wagon to help him.

“Hey, Henry, did you hear about the two cannibals who decided to split their dinner evenly? They decided to start at opposite ends and work toward each other. Partway through, the cannibal who started at the head said to the one that had started at the feet, ‘how you doing down there?’ and the second cannibal said, ‘Great! I’m having a ball!’ The first cannibal got mad and shouted, ‘Stop! You’re eating too fast!’” There was a wild laugh.

“You’re disgusting Rickey. How can you laugh about that?” said a woman’s voice. Henry realized that Rickey’d told the joke for her benefit, not his, but he didn’t respond.

“Relax, I’m just trying to get Henry to lighten up a little.” Their voices floated through the barn and Henry tuned out the words, just appreciating the company, the presence of other people around him. He wondered if he would be able to leave the City to find Marnie once he got there. To turn his back on civilization and go back out alone into the empty world. But he had promised. It was why he’d been spared. And when he and Marnie returned to the City together, what had happened in the past wouldn’t matter quite as much.

Henry found a toboggan hidden behind some old bikes. It would have to do. And if they couldn’t get the tractor working, at least he’d found the bicycles. He stood looking at the batteries for a minute. He didn’t want to drop them and crack them. He looked around again until he’d found a wide plank of scrap wood. He set it against the bench to use as a ramp down to the toboggan. It took a few tries, but he lifted the first battery and slid it down the plank. It left a smear of brown liquid behind it. Henry frowned. Maybe it was just rainwater. He inched the plank over in front of the next battery. His arms already ached and he was breathing harder than he would have expected. He took a rest. He hefted the next battery and plunked it down on the ramp a little harder than he had meant to as his arms gave up. The wooden bench behind the ramp collapsed in half, spilling tools and batteries onto the floor with a loud crash. Henry stood dazed, looking at the mess. The bench was little more than a cinder, a thin rod of charcoal where the batteries had been. An oily gurgle came from one of the larger batteries and Henry groaned as he realized it was leaking more.

Rickey came running over, followed by Melissa. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” Henry snapped before they could say anything.

Rickey grinned and threw a bony arm over Henry’s shoulder. “Well ain’t that a pissah,” he said.

“Are you okay?” asked Melissa.

“Yeah, just frustrated with myself,” said Henry.

Rickey shrugged and winked at Melissa. “Don’t sweat it. They were cracked anyway. Probably froze at some point. The acid must have eaten right through the bench.” He took his arm back and leaned forward to look at the batteries. “These have been no good for a while. Eh, it was a long shot anyway. If it wasn’t the batteries then the diesel might not have fired. Hell, I don’t even know how to drive the damn thing.”

Henry laughed, feeling better. “I thought you said you grew up on a farm.”

“I did. I didn’t stick around long enough to drive the tractor though.”

“What are we going to do?” asked Melissa, “the others are inside packing. They expect to be leaving in the morning.”

Henry pointed to the toboggan. “I found some bikes next to this. I don’t know if there’s a pump or anything, I’m sure the tires are flat by now. We could carry our stuff on this though.”

Rickey shoved the remaining battery off with his foot. “We’re going to want to clean off that acid. Henry, you too, you need to change or it’ll itch and burn.”

Henry helped them get the bikes out. There were only four. They found a bicycle pump nearby. Henry left them to figure it out and walked back to the house to find another set of clothes.

Eighteen

The second floor creaked in comforting patterns as Vincent and Pam shuffled between the bedrooms, looking for backpacks or suitcases to take with them. Henry poked the fireplace with an unlit log and then threw it in, sinking onto the old dusty couch. It was hard for him to stay warm. He felt light and battered like driftwood. Like there was no cushion between himself and the world. He basked in front of the fire and started to doze. A low groan from the nearby bathroom woke Henry with a start. He sat up. “You okay?” he called, no knowing which of them was there.

“Yeah. I’m all right,” came a shaky voice. Henry got up and walked over to the bathroom.

“What’s wrong?” he asked through the door.

“Nothing really, I think my hand has a little infection is all.”

Henry didn’t know much about medicine, but he was beginning to realize how dangerous any injury could be in this new, ruined world. “Can I come in?” he asked, “Maybe I can help. Or I can go get Vincent, maybe he’ll know better…” The door opened a little. He found Molly sitting on the edge of the tub, her face red and swollen from crying. He sat down next to her and gently turned her wounded hand toward the little window. “How long ago did it happen?” he asked.

Molly shrugged. “A few weeks ago, I think. I’m not sure. After the last cow.”

Henry let her go and stood up to look in the medicine cabinet. “How did it happen?”

“Is it important?” Molly asked, already tearing up again.

“Sort of. Did your fingers freeze? Did they get cut in rusty wire?”

“They got eaten,” Molly sobbed, “but you can’t tell anyone.”

Henry froze, a bottle of old vitamins in his hand. “Did one of us do it? Did I–”

Molly shook her head. “Not you. It was Pam. Don’t tell her. She already feels so badly about having to tell her kids the things she’s done. I know she didn’t mean to. She was hungry. We were all so hungry. Please, Henry, don’t say anything.”

“I won’t. But if we can’t stop the infection we’ll have to tell the others so they can figure out how to help.” He shoved the vitamins back into the cabinet with a rattle. “This place has been cleaned out. Probably for the psychiatrist. She was bleeding.”

“So what do we do now?” Molly sniffled.

“We’ll clean it as best we can and hope that we can find some supplies tomorrow. I can’t see in here though.” He pulled her out into the living room in front of the fire. The gold and red of the flames only made her swollen hand look worse, but Henry was relieved to see that thick scar tissue had already grown over the wound. He pulled a warm pot of water out of the fireplace and looked around for something clean.

She was watching her hand intently. She flinched before the wet cloth even touched her skin. “You don’t have to do this, Henry. I know it’s awful, I can go do it myself.”

“You don’t have to do it by yourself. That’s why we’re all here together. Don’t look at it, it’ll only hurt worse.”

She flinched again as the cloth touched her. “What did you say you did before? You worked in a grocery store, right?” asked Henry, trying to draw her eyes away from her hand. She took a deep breath and then focused on him.

“Yeah. I mean, I was still in school, but my weekend job was at a grocery store.”

“What’d you do there?” asked Henry somewhat absently.

“I was just a stocker. I hated it. The palettes were always so heavy and sorting the produce was the worst. We had to pick out the stuff that wasn’t perfect before we’d put the rest out. I used to think it was icky.” Molly let a slow sob out and Henry looked up. “Now I’d give anything to touch all that food again.”

Henry started wrapping her hand tightly in a strip of clean t-shirt. “You know what I miss?” he said. Molly shook her head, like a kid. “Grilled cheese sandwiches. I haven’t had a piece of cheese in a decade. I used to eat a grilled cheese almost every day since I was little boy. How about you?”

Molly winced as he tied the strip but tried to play along. “Peanut butter,” she said.

“Peanut butter? I’d bet we can still find peanut butter,” said Henry with a grin. But she burst into tears.

“I don’t want to be the last person to eat peanut butter. I don’t want to be the last person to do anything. Everyone is gone. What does the rest matter? Why did they wake us up, Henry?”

He looked up from her hand. “You didn’t want to stay the way we were, did you?”

“No. I just wanted to go with everybody else. Why did Phil have to keep us? Why couldn’t we just die like everybody else? Why didn’t those people just shoot us? What did we do to deserve waking up alone in this dead world? Why do we have to be the last ones Henry?”