The Garden of Darkness

Jem didn’t move away but gently reached out his hand. Bear sniffed Jem and then, after a look at Clare, nuzzled his hand, leaving a smear of blood on his palm. Mirri, on the swing, began laughing, and Clare recognized the laughter of relief. Mirri pumped the swing up higher and higher and then leapt through the air, landing lightly on her feet.

“We’re alive!” she cried. She threw her arms up in the air, as if she were a winning athlete. As if she’d won Olympic gold.





CHAPTER EIGHT





BONDS





THEY FINISHED SCAVENGING and sorted through the food that was left in the general store. Jem seemed uneasy and, every now and then, he stood and scanned the area.

“What are you looking for?” asked Clare.

“Cureds,” said Jem. “They’ve had time to make their way here from the city; I don’t want to be taken by surprise.”

They divided up the supplies with Jem making sure that Clare got her share. Clare, for her part, found herself wondering what Michael would think if he saw her now, scrabbling for whatever food she could get, her long hair tangled into a rat’s nest.

Jem put some last things into her little wagon: a small sack of flour (“it has weevils,” he warned), some cans of soup, some withered potatoes. The wind had picked up, and fallen leaves danced in the street. After Jem helped Clare with her wagon, he showed her how to attach a tent and a sleeping bag to a backpack.

“I didn’t think of you as the outdoors type,” said Clare. “You know—chess club.”

“My lore of the wilderness is mostly theory, not practice,” said Jem. “And I watched one of my brothers. That helped.”

Clare suddenly felt Bear come to attention by her side, and she realized something was wrong. There was a noise on the wind.

It was a peculiar sound, the sound of something being dragged through sand. It started and stopped. Clare reached for her heavy flashlight. At the edge of the playground, she saw the misshapen form of an adult. He was half naked. They heard a low moaning.

Sarai was incredulous. “I thought they were all dead.”

“They are,” said Jem. “It’s a Cured. Don’t move.”

“He’s already seen us,” said Mirri.

The man began to make his way closer to them, and Clare could see the weeping sores on his face, the redness of the pustules on his neck.

The Cured looked up at them, his eyes almost closed by swollen tissue.

“It’s horrible,” said Mirri. “It’s a thing.”

“We have to get out of here,” said Jem. “We need to get the supplies out too. If we can.”

They hoisted their packs to their backs and pulled the wagons into the street. The Cured moved restlessly, and Clare saw something in his hand.

“He has a knife,” she said.

“Leave the stuff,” said Jem. “Let’s get out of here.”

But before they could move, the man was running. He was fast, and the distance was not great. Even so, Clare thought that she would have been able to outrun him—but Mirri and Sarai wouldn’t have been able to keep up. And maybe Jem wouldn’t have been able to either.

Jem grabbed Mirri and pushed her behind him, but Sarai was still out in front. There was no time to think, no time for Clare or Jem or even Bear to reach Sarai, no time to do anything but watch in horror as the Cured crashed into her and brought her down.

Clare saw the gleam of the knife as the man pushed it into Sarai’s side.

“No,” said Jem. “No.”

Mirri slipped out from behind Jem and ran to Sarai.

“No,” cried Jem again, but Mirri was already kneeling by Sarai.

The man yanked Mirri to her feet and held his knife to her throat. Sarai, at his feet, gave a thin cry.

At least, Clare thought, Sarai’s alive.

A trail of blood began to trickle down Mirri’s neck, and Clare had the weird feeling that she had seen this before. Déjà vu.

The Cured howled at them.

Clare looked down at Sarai and saw blood pulsing out of her side and opening out onto the dirt like a dark poppy.

Jem and Clare didn’t dare move. Clare whispered “down” to Bear, but she could feel his desire to leap at the Cured. If only she could let him. If only the knife weren’t at Mirri’s throat.

“He’s going to cut me,” said Mirri softly. “I can tell.”

The man spoke, and his voice was a croak, a rasp, a strangle of sound. Clare could barely make out the words.

“I’m going to kill her. I am. Going to.”

And Clare knew that, knife or no knife, it was up to her and Bear, or it was over for Mirri and Sarai. Clare, without knowing precisely what she was doing, touched the dog. Bear stood and shook himself. She sent a command to him, and, as she felt Bear’s response, she thought that this felt right. This was how it was supposed to be.

For one moment, Bear looked up at her with his strange yellow eyes. Then he leapt at the man, the knife, Mirri.

Clare would never be entirely sure of what happened next, but, in a moment, Mirri was free, and Bear and the man were tumbling over and over. Clare looked for the gleam of the knife, but she couldn’t see it. Bear’s mouth was closing over the man’s throat. Then Clare stopped watching.