Death and Toil First Place Winner of Our Original Fiction Contest 2011

by Ralan Conley

                                     


Quaid held one heavy hand over the girl's mouth and squeezed her nostrils shut with the other. His assistant, Gregor, tears streaming down his cheeks, clutched her scrawny torso until it twitched its last. Quaid let her go, his meaty hands collapsing to his sides.

Gregor wrenched away. "Why won't you tell me?"

In the corner of the cardboard hut Ali huddled, hunched up into herself. She tore her eyes away to study a faded cornflakes logo that made up part of her wall. When the silence grew thicker, her head pivoted back in Quaid's direction. Her swollen blue eyes gazed at his solemn gray focus, hidden in deep folds of crow's feet.

"Is it ... over?"

He nodded. "Your daughter is at peace now."

"Damn you." She twisted away. "Damn me."

Gregor whirled back to him, pointing at the body. "And tell me, oh great Doctor, just how many does she make?"

"Are we going through this again?" Quaid shrugged again, rubbing his liver-spotted hands together. "Eight hundred and seventy nine."

Gregor sobbed. "And how many have I assisted you with?"

Quaid faced him squarely. "Forty-two."

"Oh, my God." Gregor covered his eyes. "Forty-two." He rounded on Ali. "She might have lived several more years. Why in hell turn a ten year-old girl over to him?"

"Lived?" Ali's anger flared. "For what -- her pain? Most times she didn't even know her own name. Caring for her left me no time for farming. I had to scrounge, beg, or steal what we needed." Oh, Millie. "She just lingered and suffered. There wasn't enough food for either of us. A year ago I fought to keep her alive, but now -- look at me."

Ali pulled her dress up, her naked body filthy under it.

"Come on look, damn you. I don't even have the plague and I'm a damn skeleton. How much longer could I survive? Where would she be then? With no other hope ..." she flicked a glance at Quaid, "... if he gives us no other hope, then a merciful death was my only choice."

"Hardship's not a reason." Gregor stuck his finger at her. "You didn't have the right to choose for her."

"I brought her into this world -- who has a better right? Her? She couldn't even decide when to pee and when not to."

"You make me sick." Gregor spun on Quaid. "But you make me even sicker. "You could cure this. Don't deny it again. We all know it. We've read the old papers. Heard the rumors. I tried to make you tell me."

He gaped at Millie's body. "Jesus, she was just a kid ..." His body spasmed as he fought to hold back nausea. "I can't take this anymore." He scrambled from the hut, retching.

Quaid's eyes found Ali's and held them a moment, sensing her hatred, her confusion. He shrugged. "I lose more assistants that way."

"You can't blame them." She smoothed her tattered dress. "Everyone knows you could cure this, but you don't. You just do ..." she glanced at the stillness of her daughter, "... what you do."

"No. Can't blame them." He lowered his eyes. "I can't save anyone either."

"That's a damn lie."

He shook his head, turning away.

"You'll never admit it will you? Do you enjoy the killing that much?" Ali sighed. "How will you find a new assistant?"

He turned back to her. "I'll manage somehow. Always do."

She looked round the hut. She couldn't stay here -- the memories. Where to go, what to do? Only one choice. And one chance.

"I'll be your assistant." Maybe she could succeed where Gregor had failed. Quaid was old, but maybe the male-female thing could still work on him.

"Hmm." He frowned. "No, thank you."

"Why not? Think my hate's too deep? Afraid I'll dust you in your sleep some night?"

"No. It's just not a job for a woman."

She lowered her gaze at the insult, grounds for legal action a few years ago, but now? The time of equal opportunity was long past. You had to make your own breaks now. Ali looked up at him again. "How many assistants have you had?"

"Twenty-one."

"How many were men?"

He nodded. "Twenty-one."

"So, you've had such great luck with all these men you never considered a change?"

"What's your background?"

"I was an surgical nurse before the plague hit. I even started medical school, but all the systems were breaking down."

"So, you've seen death."

"Seen it? Hell ... I've fought it."

"The fighting's over. There's just death now." He looked around the hut. "All right."

"All right what?"

"You're my new assistant." He reached down for his bag, his long gray hair swaying with the movement. "Just don't expect a relationship with me, friendly or otherwise. I've nothing left to give anyone. And don't think you can change the way I deal with the plague either. You can't."

He stepped through the door -- a hole cut in the cardboard covered by a coarse, faded blanket.

In desperation Ali's eyes searched the hut for anything useful enough to take. They lingered a long moment on Millie. Worse than dead for so long -- at least she had peace now. If there was any such thing as peace anymore. Maybe she was with her father, Brian.

Ali had said her good-byes to Millie before Quaid arrived. Wiping a tear aside, she rose and followed him.

A crowd had gathered on the road outside. The huts of her neighbors crouched around hers, looking ready to spring on it.

Hopetown. Sagging constructions of old packing crates and cardboard boxes.
People crawled in here from God knew where, to live and mostly die. The dry summer wind whipped through roofs of plastic sheeting that once warmed potato crops. In surrounding fields, abandoned farm machines and cars rusted, decaying like the bones of plague victims. There was plenty of fuel, just no parts or tires, and too few left who knew how to fix them.

Nohopetown. In the distance the skyscrapers of the City towered like gleaming mountains, staring down on the cardboard huts and the last block of standing houses down the road. Mocking them for what they could never be, though the City would never be that again either.

Too dangerous in the City. Too many dead. Too much disease lying in wait. Hopetown, and a few other dust-choked burgs squatting near the other dead cities of the world, were all that survived.

Ali shrugged off the feeling of hopelessness and joined Quaid who stood talking with Kempler, the mortician.

"... en to what I'm telling you. There's nothing for you here. The girl has nothing of value."

"He's right." Ali stepped between them, holding out her bare hands. "I've got nothing."

Kempler wrung his hands. "Sorry to hear it, ma'am. Mighty sorry. Still, there's the hut itself. Lots of folks would pay to live in such a fine hut. If you gave it over to me, I'd give your young 'un a decent funeral."

"I got no claim now. It's yours."

"Hold on, Kempler." Quaid moved in again. "You can't let anyone move into that hut, the plague's been there."

"Well, no -- not right away. But give it a few weeks. New folks from the boonies won't know where the plague's been. I'll kill the germs, douse the place in alcohol."

"You can't kill plague germs with alcohol, or anything else you've got. When someone moves in it'll infect them. Douse the place, and the girl's body, with that useless gasoline you hoard and burn it down. Then mark it so people will stay away."

Quaid turned to the crowd. They backed away from him. "You hear me? Burn this place. Burn it, mark it, and stay the hell away from it."

One defiant man stepped forward. "What about you? You been in there." He pointed at Ali. "The woman's been in there."

"Yeah." Quaid eyes narrowed. "You'd better stay the hell away from us, too."
The crowd backed again, but the man took a step forward.

"Maybe we should douse you -- you and her -- with gasoline and light you both up." His shoulders twitched. The crowd mumbled.

"Then who'll do your dirty work when some loved one comes down with the plague and you want them done for? Who's gonna do it?" He pointed a lean finger at the man. "You?"

"Damn you to hell!"

Quaid laughed, coughed, and spit. "Didn't think so."

The crowd moved up to support the man, several of them shouting obscenities and waving fists. Quaid and Ali stood their ground until the crowd quieted.
Behind Quaid, Ali watched the law show up. Rafe, the sheriff, sauntered up next to Quaid. He shouldered his old sawed-off shotgun, shoved his hat back, and put his hand on his hip. His boys did the same.

Quaid glanced at him, then turned back to grin at the crowd. "Right. You good people better fetch some gasoline and take care of this hut before the virus comes out to get you." He strutted away. "Come on, girl."

"What's the trouble?" Rafe asked, turning as he passed.

"No trouble, just keep that mob off my back."

"Don't I always?"

Quaid halted but kept his back turned. "Make sure they burn that hut. And that fool in front needs a lesson in manners." Quaid glanced over his shoulder. "The little snip in my wake is my new assistant -- you savvy?"

Rafe shoved his shotgun out to halt Ali. Looking her over, he sniffed and wrinkled his nose. "Woo-ee! Far as I'm concerned, you can have her."

Quaid snorted. Rafe lifted the gun, waving Ali by. "You remember this now, Quaid. Remember who keeps you safe -- keeps your house safe. Hell, I'll even keep your new bag-of-bones trollop safe. Remember now, and remember why."

Ali ran to catch up with Quaid. "You can't blame the crowd. They know. They've seen the old newspapers, those stories about how you could cure the victims. Cure them instead of killing them." She grabbed his arm. "You bastard. Why didn't you cure my Millie?"

"Don't believe everything you read." He brushed her hand off without slowing. "This disease ain't that easy."

* * *

Ali stood in the drawing room, with its fine old furniture, and mementos of a family who filled these paneled walls no more. Dawn light filtered in through half-opened slats of white oak Venetian blinds.

It was a funny old house. The roof was packed with solar panels, but there was no electricity or running water.

She studied a picture on the wall. Quaid -- young, standing with his arm around a woman's waist. A young girl leaned against his string bean legs, half hiding her golden face from the sun - or the camera. Quaid and the woman were smiling, no ... laughing.

Had there really been a time of laughter? So long many years ago. She hardly recalled.

"My family."

Ali whirled in alarm, coming face to face with Quaid.

"They're gone now." He shook his massive gray head. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. Time to go. We've got a call."

"So soon?" She'd been with Quaid a week. Cleaned up, fed, and dressed in clothes he'd produced from a dusty old trunk in the attic -- already her body had begun to fill out.

She had her own room at the top of the stairs. This was his house, from the times before the troubles. Guarded now by Rafe and his boys who lived in the big house down the road and seemed to owe Quaid a debt. Or vice-versa, she couldn't tell.

A garden supplied them with fresh fruit and vegetables. People came by with bits of meat -- payoffs, which they placed just inside the gate -- too timid, or reviled, to approach any closer.

Quaid made few demands on her, leaving her mostly to herself. The house was hers to explore, except for his bedroom and the door in the hall between the kitchen and drawing room.

She knew that door had something to do with the cure the old newspapers mentioned. He kept it locked, but vanished through it at least once every day.

"You think this is soon?" Quaid stepped in front of the picture. "It's the longest break I've had in a while."

"Oh ... I see." She pictured herself in the months ahead, rushing from body to body.

He started to leave, but turned back to her. "I don't think you do see. This job is endless. Calls come anytime."

"I can handle it."

"Can you?"

She righted her shoulders. "I'm stronger than you think."

"I don't think anything. You'll do the job as long as you can stand it, then go, like all the rest. When that happens, it's okay. I don't hold any expectations."

"Damn you. You're so sure. Isn't your certainty an expectation?"

She thought she saw a ghost of a smile cross his dry thick lips, but it passed before she could react to it.

"You're right, girl. My apologies. Shall we go?"

"Yeah."

* * *

The plague had driven the old man insane. When Quaid covered his mouth and closed off his nostrils, Ali saw him smiling still, eyes shining with mad glee.

"No." Ali grabbed Quaid's hands, pulling them away -- desperation lending her strength. "Don't take his life. You know how to heal him. Do it. Cure him."

Freed, the old man leaped off the couch and hopped around the room, waving his arms, grinning and spitting at them. "Cure me, cure me," he cackled like an old bantam. "Do it, do it."

"Look at him." Quaid pulled away from Ali. "He's crazy. Even if I could cure him, he'd still be a nut case. Besides, I told you I can't cure anyone."

"Then why do the old newspapers say you could? Why does everyone still believe you can?"

"Those were bad times. I did try, but the cure didn't work. Folks wanted it so bad they kept believing. Even now, when there's so little real hope, everyone still believes the plague will burn itself out someday. Now, help me catch this poor old fool. Let's do our job and get the hell out of here."

The old man dodged and weaved, but they trapped him at last and laid him back on the couch. Ali sat on his legs, holding his arms at his sides. He didn't move now. When Quaid backed away, the smile stayed. Peaceful now -- even joyful.

His wife, also deranged by the disease, screamed when Quaid opened her door. She bucked Ali off three times before they put her down.

The son, a depleted man with shifty eyes, loitered downstairs in the drawing room. When they went down to him, he stood grinning, embarrassed.

"This was a good day for them. Most days they are in so much pain. I'm glad it was a good day." He handed Quaid a live chicken in a bag, promising another next month.

"Why do you do them that way?" Ali asked as they left the house. "Why suffocate them? Isn't there a better way?"

Quaid stopped at the gate staring at her. "Look, I do this my way, with my own two hands. It doesn't leave a mess or a mutilated body for the bereaved to worry and cry over. Considering I have next-to-nothing to work with, I do manage to slip my patients over to the next life in as peaceful a manner as possible." He swung away from her.

Halfway home a man hailed them. They followed him to Hopetown. His wife, a shriveled young woman, lay on a bed of old straw. Ali felt a pang of sadness -- the place resembled her old hut. The woman suffered great pain, though her mind was sound. The plague again, affecting each victim differently, but always the unbearable pain, the festering red welts oozing smelly yellow pus.

The woman had made this decision. She wanted peace -- rest from the anguish. Her husband had nursed her for three long years. They kissed, and Quaid ministered to her. Ali stood across the room hugging herself. When Quaid turned from his work, the man sobbed. They left with no payment.

Outside, Ali slapped Quaid's face. "You are a monster. Why didn't you cure her? She was young, she wasn't crazy."

"Told you before, I can't--"

"I know. You can't cure anyone."

"Right." He turned and headed for home.

"My ass."

A heavy hand gripped her shoulder, spinning her around. "My, my. Such a foul mouth." Rafe scanned her up and down, sniffing. "Why, ain't you the little changeling?"

Ali stifled a startled scream and pulled away from him. He stepped in closer, his hand caressing her neck. His breath smelled of hooch.

"What do you want?" She nodded at the receding figure down the road. "I'm with Quaid." She hated having to hide behind the old man's protection.

"Last time we met, you looked like filthy pig skin pulled over a six-inch pipe. But you clean up nice. Got some meat on you too. Keep this up an' suitors'll be swarming all over the old Doc's house trying to steal you away."

"I'm not interested in suitors."

"No? Quaid's fine by you, eh?" He laughed, then turned serious. "Old Doc's got secrets, and he ain't gonna last forever. Who's gonna keep the wolves off you, and his secrets, when he goes? You best be nice to me."

"I'm most definitely not interested in you." She wrenched away from him, standing her ground.

"Hey, I'm a little soused right now, but give it time, little one. I'm a lot more presentable when I sober up. Give it time." He shuffled off toward Hopetown, snickering to himself and twirling his shotgun.

She spat after him and ran to catch up with Quaid.

* * *

Ali heaved several carrots out of the ground and stumbled for the back door. She was fitter now after weeks of food and exercise. In the kitchen, she dumped the load of vegetables in the sink and lit the alcohol lamp against the growing darkness. Wiping her brow, she started back out to bring in water from the well. But something stopped her.

Tiptoeing down the hall she found the door standing open. Quaid must've gone down there again, as he did at least once a day. But this time he left it open.
She fingered the handle, deciding ... then light-footed it down the stairs. A second door stood ajar at the bottom. Beyond that was a well-lit basement. Quaid had stuffed one corner with lab equipment and cages full of white rats. Cool air hissed out of vents in the ceiling.

A life-size picture of someone's living room covered the wall opposite. No ... that was glass! The room existed behind it. The solar panels on the roof must supply the power for this. That's why nothing was left for the rest of the house.

A transparent cubicle was attached to the center of the glass wall. Ali peered in. A single chair faced two holes, which opened into the room beyond. A pair of thick rubber gloves sealed the holes. Quaid could stick his hands in and work on the other side without coming in contact with whoever, or whatever lived there. Hypos, a centrifuge, and several other medical instruments filled a shelf on the other side, along with two empty cages and a decontamination airlock with a sliding shelf, so small items could be slid in.

"My God," she whispered. "He's got someone locked in there."

"Help me." The moan came from the opposite side of the cubicle.

Ali found Quaid on the floor -- his face deathly white. Small red pustules erupted yellow goo as she watched. His body writhed in agony, arms and legs cramped and stiff. She'd seen this before. The plague. Quaid had it bad.

"Why didn't you tell me." She fell to her knees, but kept her hands to herself, knowing any touch would just bring more agony to him.

"Didn't want anyone to know," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Bad for business."

"Oh God. How long?"

"Four years."

"Four years? How the hell did you keep it a secret? Someone must have found out. Someone who came to ask for your help must have seen you like this sometime."

"Rafe. When it's bad he won't let anyone close. My mind's okay -- just this pain once in a while." He grinned. "A mild case."

"Why didn't you take the easy way out, like your patients?"

Quaid convulsed as another voice answered.

"He wouldn't abandon the people in Hopetown."

Ali's head jerked up. A woman stood in the room beyond, hands pressed against the glass.

"Who are you?"

The woman stared at Quaid, tears filling her eyes. "His daughter."

Ali flashed on the picture upstairs, the little girl hugging young Quaid's leg.

The woman's eyes flicked to her and bored in. "Helena."

"What do you want, Helena?"

"It's bad this time. Real bad. It's been getting worse the last few months. He can't go on anymore. You must release him."

"Release him? God! You mean kill him, don't you? Murder him, like he's been doing to others. I can't do that."

"You've been helping him."

"Only because I thought he had a cure, I wanted to find it, give it to the world. I never took a life myself -- it was always him."

Quaid moaned and rolled into a tight ball, whimpering.

Helena's eyes took him in, then fixed themselves back on Ali. "He did what he had to do. What you have to do now, for him. There is a cure. It's me. You must take over for him."

Rafe burst in from the stairwell and knelt beside Quaid. He checked the old man's pulse, turning his head to study the red pustules. He shook his head to Helena. "It's bad."

"I know." Helena faced away.

Rafe glared at Ali. "She told you?"

"Some. I'm suppose to put him out of his misery -- take over his job."

"It won't be easy. People hate him for what he does. When he killed my parents I hated him too -- until I found out." He flicked a look at Helena. "They'll hate you too."

"Me? Why not you? You're the law around here."

"Folks wouldn't trust me if I did the Doc's work. People gotta trust the law. Some folks don't like it that I support Doc, and I drink too much sometimes. I never hurt anyone though, even if they break the law. Him, they hate and fear, but they need his help ... or someone like him."

Ali whirled to Helena. "You then ... you're his daughter."

Helena turned and rapped on the glass, a deep, rich thud. "I can't leave. I may have the cure in my blood, but it's not ready yet. If I came out now it'd start a whole new epidemic, even among the immunes. There'd be no one left."

"When? When can you come out?"

She shook her head. "The virus has to mutate in the right direction. It's a gamble. It could happen tomorrow ... or never."

"How will you know?"

Helena nodded at the small, attached cubicle. "Father passes two of those rats in here -- one recently infected, the other immune -- and injects them with my blood. If they both survive, I'm out."

Ali's gaze drifted. "We could make a serum from your blood. Inoculate sufferers. Make more serum from their blood. Shit, we could wipe out this damn plague."

"Whoa. The virus has to mutate correctly first. We have no control over that. It changes constantly -- we only hope that someday it'll change the way we want it to."

"Okay, it's just a hope. I can live with that."

"Father said you were a nurse ... even had some medical training. No one else here can do this. You must help." She turned her eyes on her father again. Quaid was still curled up, whimpering in pain. "He can't go on. It's too much, too often. Release him from his misery."

"What if the cure comes tomorrow? How could I ... we ... stand that?"

"Even if it does come, it can't help someone as far gone as father. And it might be years, or never. He's suffered too much -- I can't take it." Her eyes pleaded with Ali. "Neither can he."

Ali's pictured her hut with Brian and Millie. The two of them rolling into tight balls, howling in anguish, "Help us!" Festering red welts oozing rancid yellow puss. Their eyes begging.

"I can't kill you!" She could never bring herself to help them in the way they really needed.

Millie smiled up at her.

Ali kneeled ... fastening her hands around the girl's throat. Millie grinned, her mouth already locked in rictus, as Ali squeezed and squeezed until her daughter's body turned blue, then blackened and faded to dust. Ali buried her head in the ashes and chocked out a sob.

"Thank you."

Startled, Ali straightened up and realized where she was. Relief washed over Helena's face. Some tears remained, but the tension had gone.

Ali rose from Quaid's lifeless body, wiping her hands on her jeans.

Rafe put a hand on her arm for support.

"I'll need an assistant." Ali said, pushing him away. "I'm not strong enough by myself."

"I'll find one." Rafe nodded toward the small cubicle. "It's time for Helena's blood test. Can you handle that now?"

"Try and stop me." She glared at Helena. "We're gonna beat this thing. I don't want to ..." she glanced down at Quaid, "... do that, many more times."

Helena frowned and started to protest.

"I know." Ali lifted her hand and shook her head. "You can't promise anything. But it is going to happen. It has to."

END