The Cured Read Free Page B

said, ‘it’s probably nothing, but you’ll know it when you see it, I hope.’ And then we were disconnected. But this guy was panicked. And he isn’t someone I’ve ever known to lose his cool. So I started watching my patients and watching the news. That’s the only reason we’ve done blood tests on any of these people.” The doctor collapsed backward into his seat. “Look,” he said squinting at the reporter, “I don’t want to cause a panic, you can’t air any of that. I don’t know anything for sure yet. I just thought someone else should be watching out too.”
    The feed cut out and returned to the news room. “Jim,” said the anchor, with an embarrassed smile, “I don’t know if we ought to have run that– ”
    Jim interrupted with a spiel about the public’s right to know and Henry shook himself. This was not a place he wanted to stay. What should he do? He thought about knocking on each door, but there were over thirty apartments in the building. The thought of what he might encounter behind each one made his flesh ache with adrenaline. He walked quickly and quietly out of Mrs. Palmer’s apartment and up to his own. He was still holding the cane as he closed his door behind him. He picked up the phone and called the police. While he listened to the repeated hold message, Henry glanced out of his front window. His car was still the only one in the lot. It’s windshield was a web of fractures. The shattered doll looked like a dead baby from that distance. Henry felt sick. He was finally transferred, but instead of getting an officer, he got the station’s answering machine. He began with the woman at his office and ended with Mrs. Palmer’s cat, hardly knowing what he said. Then he hung up. He flipped the television on and then ignored it, pacing his small kitchen. Finally, he grabbed a marker and some masking tape and headed carefully down the stairs to the building’s front door.
    He covered a large square of the door with masking tape, looking around every few seconds for Mrs. Palmer or whatever had been in the apartment with her. “BE CAREFUL,” he wrote, “Police: Apartment 4A broken into, resident missing maybe injured. Everyone else: Stay inside. Call Henry. Don’t get near anyone.” His hand shook as he wrote it and the wet snow smeared against the tape, but it was legible. Henry didn’t want to hang around to redo it.
    He vaulted up the stairs and into his apartment, locking the door behind him. He looked at the door for a moment, thinking of Mrs. Palmer’s, hanging like a snapped bone in its frame. He pushed the couch against the door and then collapsed into it. He was exhausted and hot. Henry guessed it was the stress. He pulled off his sweatshirt and turned the television on. He didn’t bother changing the channel to the news. It was everywhere now, even the cable channels were broadcasting emergency bulletins. Henry fell asleep in the gray light of the television as the broadcast replayed the same shots of riots and hospitals filled to the brim and the reporters convinced themselves that it was the result of a terrorist plot.
    He woke with a start when the phone rang. It was dark except for the blue light of the television, and Henry couldn’t remember where he was for a few long moments. The phone stopped ringing and Henry at last stood up. He heard running footsteps on the stairs outside his apartment and began pulling the couch away from his door. He stopped as the footsteps outside the door stopped, expecting a knock. But there was no knock. Henry tried to look out the peephole, but the hallway light was too dim to make out who was standing in front of his apartment. He put his ear to the door, holding his breath. He could hear a sort of wheezy snuffling but nothing else.
    “Hello,” he called, “who is out there? Do you need help?”
    Something hit the door with a bang and there was a scrabbling on the wood, as if it were a dog trying to come home. For a split