They all knew what he was talking about. Katie understoodintimately. She had been there for her family. She had seen it done right.
"So you want us to go fetch you some medicine. Isthat about right?" Clara asked.
"That sounds 'bout right," the man said.
"Do you mind if we talk among ourselves for abit?" Clara asked.
The man smiled. "You can step out in the hallway.J.B. will keep an eye on ya."
They filed out into the hallway, and stood talkingunderneath the vaulted ceiling. Katie felt the eyes of the subjects in theexpensive paintings watching over them.
"What do you guys think?" Joan asked.
"I think this is crazy. Why the hell should we riskour lives for this guy? There's only three of them and a sick boy, and I'mgetting tired of being told what to do," Katie snapped.
"Listen, I understand, but we may have somethingspecial here. We may have an answer for this whole thing. That boy lying onthat bed could be the key to a cure." Joan's obvious excitement cooledKatie's rage.
"You really think so?" Clara asked.
Joan held up her hand and began counting off reasons."Let's look at the facts. He was clearly bitten. No one we've seen haslasted longer than a day after a bite. Hell, when this thing began, some peoplejust became sick with whatever this is. If he has some sort of geneticimmunity, in the right hands, they could turn that into a cure. If they cancure it, then there's hope for us all. If getting bitten didn't mean death, wecould turn this thing around."
Katie sneered at Joan. "Yeah, but who the hell isgoing to make a cure? You? You're no scientist, and I'm willing to bet thereisn't a single hospital in the country that's still up and running."
Joan had no answer, and to Katie's surprise, it was Clarawho spoke up. "It's a long shot. We know that. But not helping at allmeans there's a zero-percent chance of there ever being a cure. I can't livewith that on my conscience, can you?"
Katie had nothing to say. Logic was not her friend thesedays.
"Besides, you need antibiotics for that cut on yourarm? It's already getting infected. I can see it," Joan said. "We cankill two birds with one stone... unless you'd rather just lose the arm."
Katie had already lost a couple of fingers. She couldn'timagine the pain of losing an arm. She unconsciously clenched and un-clinchedher good hand. "What the hell? We all have to die sooner or later."
****
They stood next to a rusted out white Jeep. It belongedto the bull-necked man. His name was Rick. All of the survivors were there,except for Katie, who had fallen ill. She was reclining in one of the poshrooms in the mansion, J.B. keeping watch over her, as Rick still didn't trustthat she had been bitten by a dog. "You can never be too careful," hekept saying.
Mort, Lou, Joan, and Clara set about preparing for theirtrip. Rick, an avid hunter to hear him tell it, supplied them with a couple ofrifles. From the maintenance shed behind the house, they pulled out a couple ofmachetes. The rifles would be handy, but none of them were what they would callmarksman, so it felt good to have the machetes on hand.
Rick handed them a sack of food and wished them goodluck. They could tell he meant it. Clara sat in the driver seat. She startedthe car, and the Jeep's engine gurgled to life, chugging loudly as if it wouldstop at any moment. It was a battleworn machine, 20-years-old at least, dentsand bloodstains on its fenders and grill.
Lou and Mort had to climb awkwardly into the back, as itwas only a two door vehicle. Lou complained about the visibility through theJeep's vinyl back windows. "It's like I'm trying to look through a damncondom," he said.
Clara sat in the passenger seat, a hand-drawn map in herlap. A GPS sat mounted uselessly to the Jeep's dashboard. It was little morethan a chunk of plastic now. Joan thought about ripping it off the dashboard,as it obstructed her vision slightly, but it wasn't her car.
They sped down the street, going a dangerous 35 miles-per-hour,Clara calling out directions as Joan swerved around the dead. She felt like adownhill skier on a slalom course, swerving in and out of the moguls, all thewhile, trying to pay attention to the directions that Clara was giving.
"Man, this is so messed up," Lou said. "Weshould just turn this thing toward the beach and drive it until it runs out ofgas."
"You would do that?" Joan asked. "Youwould just leave that kid there to die?"
"He's not my kid," Lou said.
"What about Katie?" Joan asked.
No one really said anything as Joan took a hairpin right,barreling down a hill and into the outskirts of a suburb, where they wereassured that there was a pharmacy. Whether there was still medicine in it or not,that was a different story.
Their silence about Katie said it all. They were allfairly content with leaving her behind, but the possibility of turning theirback on a potential cure kept them from abandoning her. Turning your back on acure, that was something that none of them wanted on their conscience. If acure was never found, and life continued like this for twenty years or more,and somehow, through some sort of miracle, they actually managed to survivethat long, the last thing they would want would be to wonder what would havehappened if they hadn't gone to the pharmacy and helped that kid.
What was that kid's name again? Mort thought. Norman.Who the hell names their kid Norman? No one wanted to leave Norman lying onthat bed to die, not if his body held some sort of secret that would help themcure the world.
They were in the suburbs now, a conformist dystopia withcookie-cutter houses, perfectly manicured lawns, and sidewalks so clean youcould eat off of them. But that wasn't the case now. Now suburbia was agraveyard. Instead of graves, the dead now occupied full houses. They stumbledthrough the knee-high grasses, their arms flailing about as
