Page 214 of The End of the World As We Know It

I get the knots off and am free, about to follow them to the door and show them the sort of damage my kind can commit, when something thin and sweet trickles through the air. It falls, heavier than atmosphere and just slightly orange. It’s coming from the narrow, slatted metal boxes in the ceiling. I try not to breathe it, because it spins me, makes me heavy. I fight, but my heads sinks back.

As I doze, I see a list of names carved into the steel footboard of the bed opposing mine.

We were here

Len

Islis

Fran

Soo

Mattius

Lip

Drift

My eyes unfocus and I force them back. I force myself back right before it all goes black again. I see a final name:

Maple.

For the first time in memory, I sleep during the night and wake at dawn. My bedsheets are knotted again, my ankles bound and tied to the bedpost. It’s humanely done. Not very tight.

The people in white have returned. They’re taking Ferris’s blood. He’s awake and coughing, his hair slicked with sweat. I try to act like I’m not scared for him; this isn’t serious.I have you, I want to tell him.We’re on the same team and that makes you mine.But it’s too personal athing to say with words. His eyes find purchase in me and his breathing relaxes. His wheezing becomes less pronounced.

“They injected us with Captain Trips and an experimental vaccine,” I say. “I’m not sick yet so there’s a chance you’ll get better.”

“So, you do understand us,” the old man says. “We weren’t sure which tribe you came from. Some of them are mutes.”

“You’re in violation of the treaty,” I say.

He looks at the side of my bed as if considering sitting there, but thinks better of it. “Did you know that the children of the immune are not always immune? We need this, too. It’s for all of us.”

He keeps talking. There are more words, about society and survival. About everyone doing their part. About rebuilding and getting back what we’ve lost. They’re meaningless. I’m thinking instead about how Ferris called them monsters. I’m thinking he was right.

Then they’re gone. It only occurs to me later that the old man’s voice was more nasal than yesterday.

Breakfast is delivered by more people in white. One of them sneezes, twice.

Once they’re gone, I work on my binds, getting loose. I’m up then. The hall is just that. Two rows of beds that end on one side in a wall and the other in a locked, windowed door. Outside that door, people in white have congregated. I hear words likecureandbreakthroughandeconomic viability. It’s bright out there, a white sun, and they’re too loud. I can’t imagine enduring a world so loud.

Back at the beds, Ferris shakes with fever. The whites of his eyes have turned red with blood. My instinct is to hide from him. To cocoon myself with sheets on the far side of the room. I’m so scared of infection. But there is another instinct, too. I like Ferris. I don’t want him to be alone.

“Stay ’way from me,” he coughs.

“Yeah,” I say. Then I do something I’ve never done before. Not with anyone, ever. I climb into his bed. Our bare legs touch.

I spend the day nursing Ferris and plotting an escape. My plan is to break out once they’re not paying attention. Carrying Ferris out will be the tough part. It would make more sense to leave him behind. But my chance to escape hasn’t yet occurred, so I haven’t had to make that decision.

Once I leave, I won’t be able to go home. Even if I don’t die, I’m probably a carrier.

Hunger outweighs any fears I have that the food is infected with some new terror. It’s toast and jam and butter; eggs and fresh meat and bright orange juice. I can understand why they mistake themselves for gods; they eat like them.

Ferris manages a few sips of juice, but not much else.

Midday, the door opens again. People in white enter. Several are coughing. They draw Ferris’s blood.