The Garden of Darkness (3 page)

“Of course,” he said.

He picked up his Diet Coke and went back to the pediatric ward.

He examined child patients wherever he found them, and when he was done, really no matter how sick they were, he gave them a lollipop. Most of them smiled, even if they were too sick to enjoy the candy; it was a comforting gesture, one reminiscent of the pre-SitkaAZ13 world. Like giving Scooby-Doo bandaids to little ones.

Soon other doctors fled. As he indefatigably and patiently made his rounds, he became hospital legend.

And, again, why not?

Meanwhile, somewhere out there were the resistant ones. And surely among them—he tried not to be excited, but it was a thrilling thought—were his little blue-eyed girls.

CHAPTER TWO

THE OLD WORLD DIES

L
OOKING BACK, IT
seemed to Clare that the breakdown of high-tech devices should have given her the biggest clue that nothing was ever going to be the same again. Take away electricity, and one could light candles and, eventually, get a generator going. Take away Google, take away the contributors to Wikipedia, take away all that, and one was taking away the world as Clare knew it.

W
HEN THEIR NEIGHBORS,
the Cormans, boarded up their house and left, Clare, worried, texted Michael, even though he was supposed to be on a camping trip and out of reach of cell service. He didn’t answer. Next she texted Robin, who seemed distracted and upset. There was alarming news on the television about overloaded hospitals and overworked doctors.

One day later, Clare’s friends slowly ceased to answer her texts—except for Robin. Two days later Clare’s phone was refusing to send texts at all, and the landlines were down. Robin bicycled over to Clare’s house since her learner’s permit didn’t allow her to drive alone.

At the time, those things still seemed to matter.

“My parents are in the hospital,” she told Clare. “Can I stay with you?” There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked drawn and grey.

Clare’s father and Marie welcomed her. Robin had spent half her life sleeping over at the house anyway. And, unlike Clare, Robin got along all right with Marie.

“Mom and Pop went to the hospital to get the Cure,” said Robin. “But now people are saying that it isn’t working right. The doctors wouldn’t let me stay.”

In the morning, Clare’s father drove Robin back to the hospital. When they returned, before either of them even spoke, Clare knew that something was very wrong.

“They died in the night,” said Robin.

“Robin.” Clare didn’t know what else to say. She had known Robin’s parents her whole life.

“I should have stayed,” said Robin.

“We’re not going back,” said Clare’s father. “Robin will stay with us for the time being.”

“They’re not releasing their bodies,” Robin said “They said there was too much chance of spreading Pest. There’re lots of dead people in the hospital now: in the corridors, on stretchers by the vending machines.”

“It’s a nest of contagion,” said Clare’s father.

That night they all crouched around the television. They tuned in to Natalie Burton, science analyst for Channel 22—Clare’s favorite channel because of its
Law & Order
re-runs.

“What was early this week thought to be a cure,” said Natalie, “has proven deadly: most who receive it die; those who do not, become gravely changed; they become what at least one researcher has called ‘inhuman.’ These so-called ‘Cured’ are to be avoided at all cost.

“While mortality rates have been reported to be high, a tiny percentage of children under the age of eighteen show no signs of the full-blown virus—although they carry the Pest rash. When this scourge ends…” (Clare could tell that good old Natalie was winding up to her conclusion) “…they may be left orphaned and alone.” Clare’s father turned off the television.

And so it seemed that she and Robin were among the resilient. Robin showed no signs of Pest; Clare felt perfectly healthy. Only the Pest rash showed that they were infected, too.

W
HEN
C
LARE GOT
back to the house from Sander’s Hill, she went into the bedroom where the bodies were. Her father and Marie had been dead for two days. In death, her father stared sightlessly towards the ceiling. Her stepmother lay beside him. Clare wondered how long she could stand to stay in the house with the dead: they didn’t seem like her parents anymore now that they lay there, unmoving, flies taking advantage.

Clare suddenly crossed the room and opened the window, overcome by the smell. She wanted to vomit, and she bent over the sill but then realized that she was leaning out over the flower garden. The zinnias were in full bloom, a vibrant riot of reds and blues, and Clare realized that she didn’t really want to throw up on them.

Her stomach began to settle as she breathed the cooler air of twilight. Night was drawing in, and now the scent of the moonflowers was in the air. The evening light muted the color of the zinnias, but even in the growing darkness, Clare was aware of the garden spread out below her.

The garden wouldn’t last; she couldn’t tend it; the weeds would overcome the flowers.

It was a long time before she turned away.

CHAPTER THREE

PICKING UP PIECES

B
EFORE THEIR DEPARTURE
to Fallon, the electricity had gone off. No phone. The toilet only flushed if the tank were hand-filled with water, and no water was coming out of the tap. But, Clare remembered, she and Robin had been curiously unafraid.

D
EEP IN THE
night, after Robin had come to stay, Robin and Clare—long after Clare’s father and Marie were asleep—took to their bicycles. They wore dark clothing and no helmets. Had there been cars on the road, they might have been in danger, but there were no cars.

They coasted down the road. Across the street from the hospital, Robin started to slow down, and Clare almost crashed into her.

“Look at that,” whispered Robin. They left their bicycles and crept as close to the hospital as they could without risking being seen.

Gurneys spilled out of the emergency room and into the parking lot, and figures in surgical scrubs moved among them. Enormous lights painted the night blue-white. Even at that distance, Clare could see the faces of the patients. And she heard a sound like the gentle lowing of cattle. It took her a moment to realize that she was hearing the groans of the sick.

By the time Clare and Robin got back to the house, the sky was getting light, and the stars were gone. Only Venus hung low in the pallid grey of morning.

Later that day, Clare and Robin watched from the peephole of the door when they heard Mrs. Hennie crash out of her house, taking down the screen door with her. Mrs. Hennie went into the street, staggered for a while, and lay down. She didn’t move.

“What do we do?” asked Robin.

“Nothing,” said Clare. “There’s nothing we can do. She looks dead.”

Clare wondered if Mrs. Hennie’s son, Chris, were still alive. Maybe he was watching the same scene from inside his house.

“We should see if Chris is all right,” Clare told her stepmother.

Marie was silent, and then she turned away from them.

T
HE HOUSE IN
the rolling countryside was silent now and filled with death. Clare slept in the closet of her room that night. She hung Chupi’s cage from the hanger rack and filled his feeder with seed and checked his water. Then she rolled herself up in her old blue comforter.

She considered her situation.

She really couldn’t bury the bodies. Not only was she too small, but the very idea of leaving her father and Marie open to the ravages of strange voracious underground things made her faintly sick.

She couldn’t move them. So she would have to go somewhere else.

Elementary.

T
HE DAY THEY
decided they would have to leave the city, the army arrived. Clare and Robin watched as soldiers came through the streets in enormous trucks. A few tanks rumbled by. All of the soldiers carried guns.

They left leaflets everywhere. When the street was clear, Robin and Clare ran out and gathered an armful.

The cover of the leaflets showed a woman wearing a surgical mask. From the crinkles around her eyes, it looked as if she were smiling. The text was all about entering quarantine centers and being under martial law and covering your mouth if you sneezed. And watching out for the Cured. That part was in big letters.

Marie took one of the leaflets from them and crumpled it up.

“The army won’t be here long,” she said.

The army wasn’t. By the evening, Pest was among them. Perhaps it had already been among them. There were gunshots in the night. No more leaflets were distributed.

C
LARE ATE A
can of peas. Then she made piles of all the non-perishable foods in the house. And after that, leaving Chupi as house guardian, she set out for the nearby cabin that belonged to the Loskeys. She had thought of going there before to find help, but she had been afraid of what she might find there. More sick people. More responsibilities. Bodies.

But when she got there, she found that the cabin was boarded up snugly. It appeared that the Loskeys hadn’t even been up there this summer. They were probably back in the city, and they were probably dead.

C
LARE AND
R
OBIN
stood by while Clare’s parents tried to find the BBC World Service on the radio—the television stations were all off the air, but Clare’s father had faith in the BBC. He loved the English. Finally, while he was still fiddling with the tuning, Clare and Robin went to bed. They slept late. Clare’s father woke them to say that he had finally found a news channel. The Cured were becoming more vicious. And that’s when Clare heard for the first time that all the adults who got Pest were going to die. All of them.

“You need to prepare yourself,” Clare’s father said. But Clare wasn’t sure what that meant, and she was pretty sure that her father didn’t, either.

C
LARE FORCED HER
way into the cabin and investigated. There was a bedroom and a kitchen with a well-stocked larder. Outside, there was a tool shed, and in it she found a little wagon with four wheels. It was time to make the move from the family’s summer house to the Loskey’s cabin.

Chupi’s cage was perched on top of the first load, and he flapped against the bars as if protesting against his status as luggage. Clare used the wagon to transport clothes and blankets and matches and food and candles and whatever else came to hand. In her parents’ house, the smell of decomposition seemed to taint all their belongings. And the house was growing dark as the day became more overcast. She almost expected to see the darkness clinging to the clothing and bedding and goods when she brought them out into the air.

C
HRIS
H
ENNIE OUTLIVED
his parents. He came to the door right before Clare, her father and stepmother left, but there was no question of his coming with them—his face was flushed, and his lips were drooping. Pest.

They wouldn’t let Chris in.

“Do you want to sing?” Chris called out in a strange voice. “Do you want to sing a song with me?”

W
HEN SHE NEXT
reached the summer house, trundling the wagon behind her, the marigolds in Marie’s garden were beginning to close. It was time to hurry; night was coming, and Clare realized that she was going to need the power flashlight. It provided a brilliant beam of light; it was heavy; it was a potential weapon. The flashlight was in the closet near the front door, and Clare had to stand on a chair to get it. For a moment the chair teetered, and Clare realized that, if she fell and broke something, that would probably be the end.