The Cured Read Online Free Page B

hollow near her feet and Henry struggled to reach it. He handed it back to her and she gave him a nervous smile, which he returned.
    “What’s going on?” he asked.
    Elizabeth glanced back at him. “There was a couple with a flat tire on the side of the road and Dave refused to stop and help them. The woman was crying.”
    “But the man looked ready to strangle the next person to look at him wrong,” grumbled Dave.
    “Honey, it’s dark, it’s snowing, the police don’t seem to be anywhere around. What if no one else stops?”
    “Someone will stop,” said Dave, glancing at Henry for support in the rearview mirror. Henry’s mind flashed to the woman with the remains of a nose in her teeth.
    “Do you two have any idea what’s actually happening?” he asked.
    Elizabeth glanced back at him and then her gaze lingered on Marnie who had fallen asleep again beside Henry. “Only what the news has said. That there is some kind of disease or chemical causing people to act irrationally or become dangerous. No one seems sure exactly what is going on.”
    Henry looked over at Marnie to make sure she wasn’t listening. He leaned forward. “Elizabeth,” he whispered, “These people, the ones affected by whatever this is, they’re crazed. I saw a woman bite the nose off a man’s face today before she climbed onto my windshield to try to do the same thing to me. There’s some monster in my apartment building– I think it killed my elderly neighbor and then waited for me outside my apartment. And you can ask Dave about the woman this morning at the office.” Elizabeth turned pale but still looked unconvinced. With an interior wince, Henry drove his point home. “Look, if you want to keep Marnie safe, it’s best if we not trust anyone outside ourselves, even if they look like they are in trouble. Those people back there may have been okay, or they might have been sick. Or they might just have been panicked enough to steal our car and leave us on the side of the road in the snow.”
    Elizabeth began crying and Henry fought the heavy guilt that fell on his shoulders. Someone needed to say it and Dave was too gutless. Otherwise, they’d all be dead in the next few days because of some misplaced kindness. Henry watched the snow building, thick and choking on the road. Or dead in the next few hours, his mind amended.
    There were no plows and as the highway dumped them onto the side roads, even the tracks of previous vehicles disappeared. The lights of gas stations and little villages disappeared or winked out as the night grew later and the snow heavier. They were swallowed up, lost in a blank world of dark trees and smooth white. As if they were the first or last ever to travel that way.
    Henry switched with Dave when they got to the gravel roads. Henry cursed under his breath as they slid from bank to bank, the skids coming so close together that eventually the adrenaline just quit and he let the car scud back and forth as it would, always barely catching on the shoulder and righting itself. They got stuck at last, about half a mile from the lodge. He and Dave pushed the car the rest of the way as Elizabeth attempted to steer. Henry and Dave were both soaked and Henry was shaking with exhaustion by the time they made it up the hill to the dark house. He began to be really afraid that he had caught the flu that was going around. He tried to push the thought out of his head before the followup panic could set in. Elizabeth carried Marnie into the house and began turning lights on. Henry was shocked to realize that he was still out of breath as he carried the groceries inside. Dave stopped him.
    “You okay Henry? Maybe you should sit down for a minute.”
    Henry waved him off and wondered why his pudgy friend was not as winded as he was. “It’s just been a long day Dave, and I’ve been running on adrenaline for most of it. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be back to normal.” He hoped. They slogged the rest of the