“I really don’t think we need to hear your whole biography,” Robbie said. “Put the blades down. I am trying to help!”
“Stop trying to help, Robbie,” Nigel yelled. “I’m going to cut that pretty head of yours off.”
Becca believed it too. The man they had known, the Nigel from before the NaU, wasn’t there at that moment. Instead, something else, a wild animal caught in a trap, was there, lashing out at anything that got too close, even if the thing getting close was a friend looking for a way to assist the trapped animal. It didn’t matter, not in the animal’s eyes. All that came close was a potential threat, and threats had to be dealt with to the extreme.
“You did this,” Nigel said. “You doomed us all with your so-called ‘good intentions.’ Look at me. Look at all of us. All of those young kids—you’ve killed all of them. For once in your life, take a step at some responsibility for a change and act like a goddamn man. Say it. I want you to say it. You killed all of us.”
“There is still time for a cure,” Robbie said. “If you give me more time.”
“What time? You’re seriously asking for more time?” Nigel said. “How much time do you think these people have? My son was supposed to go off to college next year with his girlfriend, and now because of you and your lack of time, they might be buried in the spring. What about your daughter Robbie?”
Becca felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Did he know she was there behind him? Did he even care?
“I might not like her,” Nigel said. “Or you either, Robbie, but for God’s sake, what’s going to become of her? Her entire family, everyone and everything she knows is going to die. Who’s going to take care of her? Truly, Carol, have you ever thought about that? Your mother is strapped to a bed down in a Schoharie nursing home, and your father has been underground for the last dozen years. Neither one of you has any family—or friends for that matter. So what’s going to happen to her?”
Becca herself had never really thought of this before, about what would happen after the NaUs took all of them. She had a vague feeling of her being alone, of everyone she knew dying, but as for what happened after, she never thought about that. It was as though she expected her life to end when her parents died, as though she were infected and doomed to share the same fate as they were. It was the same feeling that anyone feels whenever they have to face the fact that there is a life after the trauma, after the suffering.
But not for Nigel, and the man knew it.
“Don’t pretend like you suddenly care about my daughter,” Robbie said. “You haven’t shown her the least bit of kindness over the years, and I find your current concern to be very coincidental indeed.”
“Was it any consequence that she was unaffected?” Nigel said.
“That’s absurd,” her mother said. “When Robbie injected me with the NaU, he didn’t know what would happen.”
“Yeah, so he says,” Nigel said, “but guilty people make a habit out of concealing the truth. What if Robbie here knew exactly what would happen, knew who would be affected and who wouldn’t?”
Becca knew that that line of thinking was pure absurdity, but she would be remiss if she didn’t at least acknowledge the fact that during many moons, when things got cold in the McCarthy house, she would think that perhaps her father had planned all of this to happen.
I told you I would quit, he had said the night, looking almost as desperate as Nigel looked now.
“If that were the case,” Robbie said, “Then I’d be an idiot. Lest you forget that I, too, am dying.”
“Yeah, but I don’t see your face caving in,” Nigel said. “Or whatever the hell was happening to Kent, or even having seizures like Jolie.”
Her father had grown to like bathrooms of late. He would spend hours in there sometimes, making chilling sounds as he did so, coughing up God-knows-what.
“I see you,” Nigel said, pointing his sword across the room at Robbie. “I know what you did, what you planned to do, and even if you didn’t plan on any of this to happen, I can see that it doesn’t affect you that much, while the rest of us die.”
Nigel took a step forward.
Her parents’ NaU was dormant, stored away in little pockets of their arms. They wouldn’t be able to do anything to protect themselves from Nigel, and the man seemed to know it, to smell it the way a rabid dog can sense fear. He smiled, half of it drooping and malicious.
“Nigel,” her mother said, putting up her hands. “Think about what you’re doing here.”
“Oh, I have thought about it,” Nigel said. “I have thought about it, as long as you thought about leaving Matt and me. I know what I’m doing. You think I’ve gone mad, but in reality, it is you two that are at the far end of your rockers; NaU, giving teenagers powers, bringing the dead back to life. None of this should have been in your hands, Robbie. Only God can have this power because only he can have the sound judgment to placate it and give it out with stern judgment.
“I’ve talked to Sheriff Holder. After I do what needs to be done, I’m going to call him and explain the situation. None of the others will be harmed, but you’re not going
