Cure (3 page)

Zach remained quiet as he connected a series of wayward dots that formed no clear picture.
Zombie. Virus. Cannibals. Rats. Baby.
It was an unsolvable puzzle.

Nixon examined a specimen under the microscope and scribbled down some notes. “Here, take a look. This is a slide of Allison’s tumor cells, from the one in her liver.” Zach looked at the magnified image of the disease destroying his wife, though he couldn’t have said that’s what it was if Nixon hadn’t told him. The cells had been stained and looked more like one of the images used to test for color blindness. “We learned early on that the infection, the virus we’re dealing with in the infected, thrives on oxygen-starved cells. Larger tumors, like Allison’s, lack organized blood capillaries. They develop oxygen-starved centers and the virus attacks the cancer cells from the inside out. Like a smart bomb. It doesn’t affect regular cells because they’re oxygenated.”

Zach held his hand to his head, the information slowly digesting in what he assumed was an inaccurate way. “But what happens if you put the virus into someone? Is there a cure for
that
?”

The formerly sedated rat charged its cage door. It gnashed its needle-like teeth around the cage bars and clawed its skin until it bled. Zach stepped back, startled.

Nixon never answered his question. “Ben, you better get that.”

Ben drew up another dose of the sedative with shaking hands.

“Ben, hurry.” He seemed to be enjoying Ben’s panic.

Tufts of rat fur danced in the air like feathers from a pillow fight. It was bleeding, badly, and the oozing darkness quickly soaked it through.

Though Nixon was still smiling, he now massaged his forehead with both hands. “Come on.” A look of frustrated restraint washed over him, like this was all a test and Ben was failing it.

The rat fell to its side and shred the meat of its throat with its claws. Ben was too late. The litter tray beneath the now lifeless rat filled with blood.

Ben opened the cage door timidly. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” He prodded the rat. It didn’t move. “Shit!” He slammed the door closed and it bounced back hard, slamming into the cage next to it and waking its sleeping victim. “I can’t believe it. Do you know how hard I’ve been working on this? It’s the only one on the new treatment.”

The treatment meant for Allison.

Nixon slipped on a pair of examination gloves, lifted the rat’s chin, and assessed the extent of the damage. Every visible blood conduit was frayed and disconnected. “It’s a shame. It looked like the tumor was on-track to be cured.” His mood vacillated between anger, amusement, and annoyance. The pitch of his voice changed, his expressions running the gamut. He opened another of the small cages and pulled out another cancerous rat. “We’ll have to start over with a new subject. See, Zach, science is three steps forward, ten steps back. Ben, hand me its next dose.”

“What is that?” Zach asked.

“It’s a diluted, genetically altered version of the virus. We weakened the formula, and well, who knows what happened with that one?” Nixon’s brow furrowed and his voice got deeper.

Zach noted the Jeckyll and Hyde change.

Ben mopped up the mess in the mutilated rat’s cage, shaking his head back and forth with disappointment. He set the corpse on the exam table. Nixon snatched it up. His eyes narrowed and glimmered with twisted pleasure as he wrung the rat’s neck and pulled its head away from its body. He was like a child with a broken toy whose further destruction made no matter. The clicking and crunching of small bones compounded the moist sound of tearing flesh and a chill raced up Zach’s spine. Nixon tossed the two pieces of rat into the medical waste bin marked incinerator and said, “We can never be too careful.”

5
.

Miranda pulled into the narrow driveway of her new Strandville home and tried to put the anxiety of what happened at Porter’s behind her. A tiny old woman, her landlady she guessed, appeared at her truck window. She smelled of moth balls and wet cat food.

“Hello, Miss.” The woman’s improperly glued false teeth chattered.

Miranda smoothed her wind-tangled hair back into a low ponytail and opened the car door slowly enough for the woman to shuffle clear of it.

“You must be Iris,” Miranda smiled and stepped out of the SUV. At only five feet two, she wasn’t used to people being shorter than her. The top of Iris’s head barely came up to her shoulders.

“And you must be Miranda.” Iris grabbed Miranda’s hand and her aged skin was like silky crepe paper over the knotty bones of a much larger woman. Her hunched back forced her gaze downward and she twisted her head to look at Miranda’s face. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’ve been looking forward to having a tenant again.” Her voice quieted and her next words seemed a reluctant confession. “It gets so quiet here…lonely, sometimes.”

Miranda patted the old woman’s shoulder. “Well, I’m here now.”

 “I’m sure glad of it.”

Miranda went around to the rear of the truck and dug past the pile of boxes for her camouflage duffel bag. Iris followed, close enough to be considered under foot.

“I’d gladly help you take your things up,” she said, “but I haven’t been up those stairs in the ten years since my Ralph died.”

“No worries,” Miranda said, half-thankful already for the steep stairs to the upstairs apartment that was now hers. “The movers will take care of things when they get here.”

“That’s good. No need for a woman to do heavy lifting.”

“Right, that’s what I’m paying them for.” Miranda stopped short of offending Iris’s 1920’s sensibilities by telling her what job she’d come to Strandville to do.

Iris reached into the pocket of her shabby, cotton bathrobe and handed Miranda two keys on a silver ring. “I’m not sure if you’ll need a spare.”

Miranda didn’t respond to the obvious information fishing. “You always need a spare,” she said and hoisted the duffel bag onto her shoulder. She closed the back of the Explorer and headed for the stairs.

“Dear,” Iris called after her.

Miranda turned and swept back the bit of hair that fell from her ponytail. “Yes?”

Iris shuffled over to her and handed her a stack of stapled papers: a lease agreement, a personal information request sheet, and consent to a credit check that seemed too late, considering. “I mailed you a copy,” she said, “about a month ago.”

Miranda vaguely remembered seeing them, but didn’t admit it. “I’ll get these back to you this evening.”

“Don’t let the one get to you. I like to know who’s living over me and with a single gal like you in a place like Strandville, it’s in your best interest to leave me someone to contact in case of emergency.”

Even the old landlady knew about the disappearances.

Miranda wasn’t halfway up the narrow stairs before Iris called after her again.

“Miranda?”

She chalked the pestering up to the newness of having a tenant, the loneliness of a woman riding out the end of her years, and tried to not look annoyed. “Yes, Iris?”

“Would you like to have dinner with me?”

A butterscotch tabby cat rubbed against Iris’s legs and purred. Miranda couldn’t help but wonder how many more were inside, how many stacks of wet cat food cans filled Iris’s pantry, and, with that in account what, exactly, dinner entailed.

“Not tonight, but thank you. I really do need to get settled.”

Iris turned to walk away, and this time Miranda stopped her. “Hey, Iris?”

“Yes, dear?” She beamed from the acknowledgement.

“How about you give me a rain check on dinner? I’ll cook.”

Tears of happiness settled in the lines around Iris’s eyes. “Sounds delicious.”

Miranda hadn’t even said what she’d be cooking.

* * * * *

Allison sat propped up in bed, half asleep and half watching T.V., when Zach walked into her room. The day wore him down and seeing her looking weaker than she had only hours ago made him wonder if he was being selfish trying to save her. He pulled a chair up to her bedside and sat hunched over, his chin resting on the railing.

“Hey, beautiful.” He smoothed her black hair into a rough version of the bob-style that framed her formerly stunning face and reached for her hand. The weight she’d lost over the past several months sharpened the appearance of her bone structure and made the soft lines of her cheeks harsh. Jaundice yellowed her skin another shade darker to the color of honey mustard.

She rolled her head toward him, her radiant blue eyes a stony gray under the overhead fluorescent light.

“Hey, babe. How are you feeling?” He did his best to hide his worry and sadness, but could tell she saw through it.

She smiled and her bottom lip cracked and bled. “I’m good. Today is a good day.”

She was a terrible liar. He dipped a paper towel in the pitcher of water on her tray and dabbed at the wound.

How would he ever live without her?

“Excuse me.” A young, female nurse interrupted to take Allison’s vitals. “How is your pain?” she asked and checked the IV

A tear dripped from the corner of Allison’s eye to the pillowcase. “8.” Pain was rated on a ten scale, ten being the worst.

The nurse rolled down the stack of blankets and lifted Allison’s gown. She palpated her distended stomach and Allison winced.

“It’s a good day, huh?” Zach couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t let him help her.

The nurse lifted the catheter bag full of dark urine from the hanger on the side of Allison’s bed and marked it with a marker. “Dr. Nixon authorized additional morphine in your IV if you need help with the pain.”

Morphine.

Zach held back the tears. Morphine was the gateway to palliative care, a humane way to let a terminal patient die without suffering. Nixon hadn’t said it had gotten this bad.

“I can wait,” Allison said. She held up the red call button. “I know how to find you if I need to.” She smiled a fake strong smile Zach knew well.

Zach stood and kissed her forehead, the salt of fevered sweat coating his lips. He wanted to tell her to take what she needed. To close her eyes forever if she felt it was time, but he didn’t mean it. She was losing her fight and when he should be accepting her fate, he was thinking only about the virus and how it could bring her back.

6
.

Miranda’s apartment was much less grand than the rental listing had advertised. She pulled the dust-covered sheets off of the outdated furniture and went into a sneezing and coughing fit that persisted until her ribs hurt.

Nothing about the place felt like home.

Iris said she hadn’t been upstairs in years. It didn’t look like anyone had.

The threadbare carpet provided little comfort and as she walked through the narrow living room, she wished she had slippers. She dropped her duffel bag on the couch and dust sprang from the Velour cushions.

The mirrored wall with faux, veneer arches gave the illusion of size in a funhouse way Miranda found disorienting. She took a long look at the reflection of her road-weary self, her eyes still swollen from crying and said, “You’re doing the right thing.” It was either take the Nixon Center job or run back to Scott who lived in their home as if nothing bad had happened. She needed to stop thinking about him, but already the memories intruded on her fresh start
.

She set the stack of papers that Iris had given her on the orange kitchen counter and found a pen in her duffel bag. The lease agreement was standard, the three month term a trial. She signed the bottom and flipped to the information page she could only half-complete. Next of kin: none. Marital status. The “D” was still hard to write. Nothing forced her to answer these personal questions, but she thought of what Iris and others had alluded to.
What if she did go missing?
The ridiculous idea was only a distant possibility, but she couldn’t get the women on the posters out of her head. She set her pen on the Emergency contact line and debated who would come.
Scott.
For her, it was only ever Scott. There was no ignoring him, no forgetting him, and no running away from him. She wrote his name and number down and expected Iris would never have to use it.

* * * * *

Zach convinced himself that everything Nixon had him doing was for Allison, but with each step further down the rabbit hole, he wondered. The desperation and the pleas of the laboring girl still hadn’t left him.
They probably never would
. He went into the operating room where Ben and an unknown anesthetist were already waiting.

This was his worst fear.

The sterile surgical suite was a windowless prison of stainless steel and crude medical instruments. An infected adult male lay sedated and restrained on the operating table. Clumps of his unwashed hair were missing and gashes covered his graying face. Thin lips peeled away from a set of chipped and decaying teeth and he smelled like rotten meat.

One of the infected Nixon talked about
.

Zach couldn’t decide if he thought it was more or less revolting than the stillborn infant. He couldn’t shake off the chills.

Nixon scrubbed his hands with Betadine soap and Ben helped him with his gloves. “You have to understand the virus to appreciate the experiment’s intricacies, to control the infection and be safe from it. In the lab you asked me if the virus had a cure.” Nixon pulled aside the blue surgical lap drape and revealed the infected’s pallid, shaved, and decaying male genitalia. “The simple answer is no.” He motioned for Zach to stand next to him.

You can do this.
He willed his feet to move. The smell was even worse up close.

Zach folded his arms over his stomach, quickly putting them down at his sides when Nixon glared at him.

Ben pulled apart several paper envelopes and arranged a set of freshly sterilized tools on the tray to Nixon’s left.

Nixon rearranged the implements and scowled at Ben. “Martin, how are we doing?”