“I saw some worms,” says Norman. “But nothing like what I saw come out of that kid.”
“Who cares what they look like?” cries Peter. “It’s the Worm, isn’t it? What’re we going to do about it?”
People are quiet for a second. We understand Peter is really talking about Matt. Are we going to kill him? Matt slouches on a bench, his hand wrapped in an old shirt. I sit uncomfortably in the silence. I don’t know what to do either.
“We have to be careful,” Eric says finally. His voice is measured and quiet. He’s not angry. He’s not scared. He’s reasonable. People look at him and wait for him to continue. “Norman and Crystal are right,” he says finally, standing up. “This isn’t like the Worm that I remember. It’s different. That means we have a lot to learn.”
“It’s been gone for so long,” moans Luna. “Why did it come back?” This is less of a question than a cry of despair. Luna is just a little younger than me. Her face is streaked with tears.
“It could have been in the forest all these years,” Norman speculates. “Maybe it’s just been out there all this time. Changing.”
“What does it matter?” asks Matt. It’s the first time he’s spoken since the incineration. “It’s here. We can’t do anything about it. We do what we had to do then. We get rid of the infected and take care of ourselves.” He holds up his bandaged hand. “I’m infected. You have to take care of this. You have to kill me.”
More uncomfortable silence. Matt has only been with us for a couple years, but he’s part of us now. He’s family. Looking over at him, his eyes like knots of darkness, his body loose and careless, I realize that Matt wants to die. I always sensed something strange and violent about him, but I had never been able to put my finger on it. Now I know. Matt is one of those people who secretly want to die. He’s relieved his life is over. Some of the old people are like that. They get closer to death and they’re happy about it.
“He’s right,” Eric says, to everyone’s surprise. “We have to take care of ourselves and each other.” He moves to stand next to Matt. He puts his hand on Matt’s shoulder. “That means we move the infected into one house and we watch them, twenty-four seven.” He stands taller. “That means from now on, we boil all the water. No one swims in the river.” The Worm used to get spread in the water. I kind of remember the people who had the Worm walking down into the river to die. The Worm made them do it, made them thirsty. They would drink themselves to death. Then the Worm would crawl out of the corpse, infect the water, and when anyone took a drink…
“Franky and Wesley,” Eric says. “We’re going to need a lot of boiled water. Can you get a system going?” They nod, even though usually they don’t like to work together. “Crystal, Diane, and Fiona,” Eric continues. “We need to set up a place for Matt and anyone else who shows symptoms of the Vaca B.” It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that term. Vaca B is the more scientific name for the Worm. Leave it to Eric to resurrect that from the grave. Eric continues. “The Worm seems to have changed, so maybe the symptoms have as well. Did you notice anything about Crypt before this happened?” Eric directs this at Pest, who is quiet and uncharacteristically unfocused. Pest looks up, surprised. He’s holding a hat in his hand, and I recognize it as Crypt’s, a baseball cap with the old Red Sox logo on it. I never pegged Pest as sentimental.
Pest stands up and takes a deep breath. “He was sick last night and the night before,” Pest recounts. “I could see he had a fever, but I thought it was just a flu. I saw he had red eyes, but I didn’t think it was…anything. I didn’t see him this morning. Next time I saw him…” Pest doesn’t finish the sentence.
Eric nods at Pest. “Two days,” Eric says, as if to himself. For a second, I think Eric is going to drift away again into his thoughts but after a second, he continues. “So the symptoms don’t seem to be too different. High fever. Red eyes.”
“The eyes bleed,” Diane adds. “At the last stages, they start to bleed from the eyes.”
People don’t really need to be reminded of that. No one has forgotten that, not even me.
“Remember,” Eric says to them. “Most of the people who had the Worm were harmless. They just went into a catatonic state and eventually died. Only a few of them cracked and became dangerous. I want to make this clear to everyone. We are not going to kill anyone until they become a danger. Is that clear?”
There’s a lot of nodding to this and some audible agreements. No one wants to kill anyone anyway, so it’s an easy thing to agree to. I imagine the only person who is disappointed is Matt.
“Did they always die when they got the Worm?” This question comes from Artemis. She’s like me, a little too young to remember the Worm distinctly.
The question hangs in the air. Because if Crypt could get it, any of us could have it. Maybe we are all going to get sick. I feel a knot in my stomach thinking of the worms that could be inside me already, tunneling their way up to my brain, attaching themselves with their hooks into my skull. I shudder and try to push the thought away.
“People didn’t always die,” Eric says. There’s some intake of breath at that because everyone has been told forever that there was no cure for the Worm. Whoever had it, died. That’s what I’ve always been told. I look up at Eric like everyone else, waiting for a further explanation. “I know a woman named Good Prince Billy. She says she saw a couple people come through the Vaca B. She says it was rare, but it happened. She took care of them, and, somehow, they made it. A couple.”
Good Prince Billy. Eric’s pen pal. He still gives letters to Randy to hand to her. He’s got some letters from her too, I remember. As usual, Eric surprises me. He always knows more about a situation than he tells me. It’s a little irritating.
No one else is irritated though. Eric has given them some hope. Matt is the only one who doesn’t seem to appreciate it. As the crowd breaks up, Diane and Fiona lead him out of the room. His head is hung low and he looks defeated. He lets himself be guided like some kind of prisoner going to his own execution, and he knows he deserves it. It gives me the chills, and I realize just how badly damaged Matt is. All this time with us and he seemed normal to me, at least as normal as you could be. But I see now that all that was like some illusion and now Matt has emerged, a man who craves his own death and believes to his core that he deserves it. It’s too disturbing to look at him, so I turn away.
It’s not until everyone’s gone that I notice Artemis is still sitting on the benches with her face in her hands. Eric motions for me to get her. I’m irritated. She’s always crying, and I don’t feel like comforting her. I want to go home with Eric and talk with him and think about what to do. I don’t have time to be holding her hand. I know I’m not being a very good friend, but I sigh and move over to the benches and put my hand on her shoulder. I give her a little shake, not too gently either.
“Come on, Artemis, let’s go,” I tell her impatiently.
She looks up at me. Her eyes are deeply bloodshot. Her face is so pale, she’s almost blue and there are dark bags under her eyes.
“I don’t feel good,” she says, her lips quivering. I can feel the heat coming from her where I stand.
Tears, pink with blood, flow down her face.
19
Two days later, we have three quarantine houses. Ten people are sick with the Worm. After helping Franky with the water sterilizing furnace, Wesley came down with the fever. During dinner at the Lodge, Sam threw up. In the middle of a puddle of beans was a dark knot of pale worms. Anthony was next. He stumbled in the house with a fever so high, he didn’t even make it through the night. We burned him just at dawn. Glenda and Brian, both my age, were next. I used to have a crush on Brian when I was like fourteen. We kissed once behind the farmhouse, a quick, dry kiss, thrilling, embarrassing. It was hard to see him shaking in his fever, dark crimson tears on his face. Peter collapsed in the fields. Beth fainted while she was filling a tin bucket with water. Her fever is so high, it has burnt her away. She’s mostly a skeleton now, although we have a little hope for her because her eyes aren’t red at all. Both Patrick and Fiona are sick. They came in together, both trembling from fear and sickness. We all take turns to help, hoping that no one will die when it’s our turn to care for them.