The Garden of Darkness

It was Clare’s father who wanted to push on, but Clare knew that it didn’t make any difference anymore. Not for him. She loved her father dearly, and she would have loved to sink back into the comfort of denial. But Marie had already taken that route, and somebody needed to be vigilant and to cook the food and to try and keep the living alive. And, of course, to be prepared for the Cured, if any had left the rich scavenging of the city. Marie was not up to those things.

In the end, they spent the early afternoon in Fallon rather than moving on to their country house. Clare put together the kind of lunch she thought her father could stomach, while Chupi, on her shoulder, occasionally tugged at her hair. She was glad she had brought him.

“The two of you will come back to Fallon and search for supplies once we’ve settled in,” said her father. “I want to get to the house. We can rest there. There shouldn’t be any Cured this far from the city.” The words came out with effort.

“Daddy,” said Clare. She hadn’t called him Daddy in years.

He looked at her steadily. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to duck out on you, Clare,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Marie. “You’ll be fine.”

They walked. By the time they reached the house, even Marie didn’t try to deny the facts.

Her father had Pest. There was no mistaking it; his eyes were swollen almost shut, and he was flushed with fever. His Pest rash had bubbled up into ridges of blisters, and there was blood in the corner of his mouth. Marie quickly made up the double bed so that he could lie down.

“He can be all right if we’re careful,” said Marie when he was settled in the bedroom, and she and Clare had gone to the living room to talk.

“But there’s nothing we can do,” said Clare.

“Rest, liquids, aspirin. That’s what he needs,” her stepmother said.

“And then he’ll die anyway.” Clare wanted to shake Marie.

“Don’t you say that,” said Marie. “Just don’t you say that.”

“They all die,” said Clare flatly.

Marie slapped her.

“There’s always been a hard streak in you,” Marie said. With the slap, Chupi had flown across the room. Now he returned to Clare’s shoulder. The slap stung, but it occurred to Clare that time might reveal something rather different inside her. Not a hard streak. Not a hard streak at all.

“I would love to wring that bird’s neck,” said Marie.

“You don’t have the guts,” said Clare.

On the second day that he had full-blown Pest, her father managed to get out of bed and walk to a chair. Marie looked almost cheerful at that, but, as he leaned on Marie’s shoulder and staggered towards the chair, Clare saw that her father’s face was a welter of ropy lines, a perverse road map towards death.

Clare remembered when they had all been hopeful, when, encouraged by television and radio broadcasts, they had been invited to believe that a cure for Pest existed. It had been early days then. It wasn’t long before everyone knew that the Cure didn’t work. Most who received it died anyway, and even when the Cure did arrest the progress of Pest, it turned humans into something monstrous. The Cure drove them mad.

The Emergency Broadcasting System didn’t mention monsters when the word went out not to take the Cure. The Emergency Broadcasting System referred to ‘unfortunate side effects’ and ‘possible instability.’ By then, Clare and her best friend Robin knew the truth: the Cured were violently insane. They would kill the living and eat the dead. Despite a certain amount of exaggeration, by the time all the texting and Tweeting and Skyping and Facebooking and YouTubing came to a halt, everyone was pretty well informed.

Once he was in his chair, Clare’s father looked up at her. The skin around his eyes and mouth still looked swollen, but the flush of fever was gone.

“I feel better,” he said. And Clare thought that maybe it really would turn out all right. Maybe he would be the one person in the whole world to beat Pest. Then he pulled her close.

“I think that maybe you’re going to be the one to make it,” he said to Clare. “Get supplies. Dig in when winter comes.”

“What about me?” asked Marie.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he said. “But Clare will care for you at the end.”

It was clear from Marie’s face that this was not what she had expected.

“What a thing to say,” she said. Clare wondered which part had offended Marie. She also realized that it was true—if it came to it, she would care for her stepmother.

An hour later, her father collapsed. Supported by Marie, he staggered to his bed. His skin looked papery and febrile; he began raving in a low and desperate tone. Marie stood and stared. It was Clare who pulled up the covers and put a cool wet compress on her father’s head.