“You can’t be around other people,” I tell her.
“I’m not sick!”
“We can’t risk letting anyone else get infected!” I continue. This time, when she tries to get past me, I grab a knife and hold it up, forcing her to stay back. “Don’t make this more difficult, Mary. If everyone’s smart here, there’s a good chance you’ll be fine.”
Hearing voices nearby, I turn and see that most of the town’s population has gathered to watch now. It takes something pretty major to draw them away from breakfast, and I can see that they’re worried. Turning back to Mary, I realize that she’s watching the knife, as if she’s thinking about trying to grab it from my hand. She’s usually a pretty sensible woman, but right now she’s scared and she doesn’t want to admit that something’s wrong. Before she can protest any further, however, she starts coughing again. I swear to God, it sounds like she’s on the verge of bringing up her lungs.
“She’s sick!” one of the nearby women says, with fear in her voice. “Don’t let her near the rest of us!”
“She’s going to be quarantined,” I tell them.
“Deckard would’ve driven her out by now!”
“Deckard isn’t here,” I point out.
“And whose fault is that?” asks one of the men, his eyes filled with scorn.
“Mary,” I continue, turning to watch as the poor woman coughs up more blood, “you know you have to stay away from the rest of us, at least while we figure out what’s wrong with you. We have to think about the good of the town, and about making sure everyone’s safe. We’ll bring food and water, and blankets, but you have to go into the forest and—”
“And die?” she splutters breathlessly. “Is that what you want?”
“I want you to get better,” I tell her, “and I want everyone else to stay healthy.”
“You want me to crawl away like a dying animal,” she continues, clearly starting to panic. Her blood-spattered hands are trembling and the look in her eyes is getting wilder by the second. “I’m not like Emma! I’ll be fine if I just get some rest!”
“We can’t take that risk,” I reply, stepping closer with the knife raised. “Mary, please, no-one wants this, but you have to—”
Before I can finish, she lunges at me. I raise the knife, ready to strike, but at the crucial moment I hesitate. Slamming into my chest, Mary pushes me down and lands on top of me, and then she scrambles past, kicking my face in the process. I turn and try to get her leg, as the crowd parts to avoid contact with her. Just as I’m about to call out to her, however, Leanne steps in front of her and lashes out. Mary pulls back, and it takes a moment before I realize that Leanne was holding a knife.
Clutching her throat, Mary stumbles past me and then drops to the ground with blood pouring from the knife-wound. Her eyes stare wildly ahead but, when she tries to speak, blood erupts from her mouth. She reaches out toward me, but I pull back and watch in horror as she drops dead to the ground, and then I turn to see the bloodied knife in Leanne’s hands.
“It was instinct,” she stammers, clearly shocked and terrified. “I didn’t mean to, but I was scared she’d infect us all!”
“You did the right thing,” says one of the nearby women, and several other voices immediately signal their agreement.
Getting to my feet, I feel a sharp pain in my chest and cheek from where Mary scrambled over me. Looking down, I realize there are blood spatters on the front of my tunic, and when I try to wipe them away I simply end up smearing them across the fabric. I’m pretty sure it’s my own blood from the cut lip Mary gave me, but I can’t be sure.
“Maybe you’re infected now,” Carly suggests.
“Of course I’m not,” I mutter, turning to her. She immediately takes a step back, as if she’s scared of me. “It’s just on my clothes,” I continue, trying not to panic as I pull the top part of my tunic away. Once I’ve got it off and thrown it to the ground, I turn to the others. “See? It didn’t soak through. There’s none on my flesh.”
“What about your mouth?” one of the men asks. “Maybe you got some of her blood in there?”
“I didn’t!” I hiss, hurrying across the clearing and grabbing a spare tunic, to cover my bare chest. After slipping into the tunic, I turn and see that I’m still being viewed with suspicion. “I’m not infected!” I tell them. “Mary obviously caught it from Emma because they spent so much time together! They worked in the same area! I didn’t get one drop of blood on me!”
Even as the words leave my lips, however, I can tell that I’m starting to sound desperate. We’ve had two deaths now from this illness and people are close to panic, and I need to show the others that I can take charge.
“I’ll spend the rest of the day away from town,” I continue finally, hoping to calm their fears. “And the night, too. One of the few things we know about this sickness is that it seems to come on fast, so I’ll go out into the forest and spent the next twenty-four hours in seclusion. I’m not doing that because I think there’s a chance I’m ill, I’m doing it to prove to you that I’m fine. I’ll stay away until tomorrow morning. Will that make everyone feel better?”
“You should eat first,” one of the women mutters.
“I won’t go too far,” I tell them, heading to the cooking area and grabbing a portion of rabbit. My hands are trembling, but I manage to get them under control. The last thing I need is to show fear. Figuring that I’ve got everything I need, I turn and look out toward the forest, and then I glance back at the others. “I’ll just go a mile or two, just enough for you all to feel safe. But I’ll be back in tomorrow morning, and I swear I’ll be fine, and then we can set about making sure that this sickness really has been driven away for good.”
I wait for a reply, but they’re still watching me with a mixture of fear and hatred. Making my way toward the fence, I spot Leanne up ahead, with Ben next to her.
“Where’s Harold?” I ask.
“He’s off somewhere,” she replies.
“Where?”
“I…” She pauses, as if she knows but doesn’t want to say. “I’m not sure,” she says finally. “Just… off somewhere.”
“Can you tell him what happened?” I ask, even though I don’t really know why it matters. Deep down, I feel as if he might be the only one around here who’s on my side. “Let him know that I’m fine, that this is just rampant paranoia, and that I’ll be back in tomorrow morning.”
“Sure,” she says, forcing a nervous smile. “I’ll make sure to tell him that.”
I want to ask her more about her little trip out into the forest during the night, and about the fact that I heard her talking to someone, but I doubt she’d tell me the truth. She quickly makes an excuse to slip away with Ben, leaving me standing along for a moment until I realize that I’m being watched intently by the rest of the town. When I make eye contact with them, I realize that they think I’m somehow diseased, that I’m a walking bag of infection, so I figure I just have to stick to my plan and prove to them that I’m fine.
Finally I turn and walk away, heading out of Steadfall and back into the wilderness.
Chapter Twenty-four
“I knew trouble was coming for quite a while,” Walter explains as he leads me toward the remains of a small campfire, several kilometers from the ruined town. It took us all night to get here, and he spent most of that time telling me about his old life before the island. “I decided that I had to get ready to strike out on my own. I’ve been here on the island for long enough to understand how things work.” He glances at me with sadness in his eyes. “You can’t trust anyone. Always remember that.”