Armageddon's Children - Terry Brooks [37]
One of them is arguing for waiting to see if his constitution is strong enough to pull him through. The argument is low-key and rational, not heated and intense. He finds it odd that the matter of his living or dying is being talked about so calmly. He wants to tell them how he feels about it. He wants to scream.
Suddenly there is silence. He squints through a tiny gap in his eyelids and sees that the light in the doorway is blocked. They are standing there, looking at him. He tries to speak, but the words become lodged in his throat and emerge as groans. The pain sheets through him, and he shudders violently.
“See?” says one.
“See what? He fights it.”
“A losing fight. It consumes him.”
“But hasn’t yet overpowered him.”
They move away, leaving him alone again, feeling abandoned and betrayed.
Which of the two wants to save him and which wants to leave him behind? They are his closest friends, but one of them argues for his death. His eyes sting with tears, and he is crying. This is what dying is like, he thinks. You do it alone.
You are debased by it. You are exposed to your own weaknesses and to the harsh reality of what it means.
He draws a deep, pain-filled breath that is mostly a sob and waits for his life to end.
* * *
BUT HE DIDN’T die that night. The fever broke, and by morning he could be moved. He was weak still, but he was healing. Michael and Fresh came to him and told him how encouraged they were by his recovery. They reassured him that everything would be all right. He still didn’t know which of them had argued for leaving him behind—had given him up for dead. He told himself at the time that it must have been Fresh, that Michael would never abandon him. But he couldn’t be sure. Especially now, knowing what he did about what would happen with Michael later.
It was odd, the way he felt about Michael. His parents would never have left him, not even if it had cost them their lives. Yet he remembered them only vaguely, more indistinctly with the passing of every day. He recalled his brother and sister even less well; their faces had become faint images, blurred around the edges and leached of color. Yet he remembered Michael as if he were still there—the strong features, the wide, sloped shoulders, the sound of his deep voice as clear as yesterday’s meeting with Two Bears. Even now, Logan knowing what he did, Michael retained his larger-than-life image. He knew it had something to do with the amount of time he had spent with Michael, the impression Michael had made on him while he grew, and the impact of Michael’s strong personality. Yet he had never loved Michael as he had his blood family.
He had never been as sure of Michael as he was of them. It didn’t seem right that it should be this way, but there was no help for it.
The buildings of the city slipped away on either side of him. There were more bodies in the streets, and the smell of death was everywhere. There was no movement in the shadows of the buildings, no sign of life. According to his sensors even the feeders had departed, a sure sign that nothing remained. He scanned doorways and windows, alleyways and side streets as he made his way through, but the city was deserted.
He came out the other side at midday, the weather turned gloomy and the skies dark with heavy roiling clouds. Maybe it would rain today, although he doubted it. The skies frequently looked as if they might open up, but they seldom did.
He drove through the outskirts of the city, past endless dwellings, Past schools and churches. There was no one anywhere. When plague struck, you didn’t take chances; you got out. Not that there was much of anywhere to go, but fleeing sickness and chemical attacks and armed strikes was pretty much instinctual. You ran because it was your last defense against things too overpowering to try to stand and face.
It wasn’t always so. In the beginning, men had stood