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room. The tiles had once been white but were discoloured now.
Some had cracked and others had fallen away to reveal the wall behind them,
with red brickwork that seemed covered in mold. In a corner of the room there
was another table, a smaller one, and a chair.  Stacks of paper littered the table
top. I walked over and glanced at them, and I had an idea what the papers were.
     
    After we had met the unhinged
scientist Whittaker and I had killed him, we had taken his research notes with
us. I’m not sure why I saved them, other than the fact that I knew that it
wouldn’t have done  any good if he was right and I had destroyed his notes.
     
    “Are those what I think they are?” I
said, pointing at the notes.
     
    Charlie followed my finger with his
gaze. I couldn’t say for sure, but I thought I saw his eyes widen for a split
second.
     
    “They are the notes of Barry
Whittaker, yes,” he said.
     
    “Barry, huh? Never had him down as a
Barry. It doesn’t really seem like the right name, for a mad scientist.”
     
    Charlie rolled his eyes. “Mad
scientist. That’s an offensive stereotype.”
     
    “A true one, in this case.”
     
    Charlie crossed the room and stood
over the table in the corner. He picked up a file and began to leaf through it.
Casually at first, but I noticed that the pages seemed to suck him in, and
within a few seconds they had enraptured him. I felt like waving my arms to
remind him that I was in the room. Eventually, he looked up.
     
    “He was getting close,” said Charlie.
His voice sounded strange. “So close that I bet he could almost taste it.”
     
    “What do you mean?”
     
    Charlie scanned the notes in front of
him again. His eyes seemed to bounce from word to word.
     
    “He could have had a cure if he’d
gone about it slightly differently. I could figure it out myself, it’s just
that there’s no way to test it. Except if…..”
     
    The seconds drew out while I waited
for Charlie to finish his sentence. I grew tired of the subject.
     
    “Forget it,” I said.
     
    Any topic that involved Whittaker was
a dark one, and I don’t want to lead Charlie down a path filled with shadow. We
needed him too much.
     
    “Listen,” I said. “I suppose you’ve
heard about the sickness going around camp?”
     
    “People are shitting their arses
off,” said Charlie.
     
    I moved my head back in surprise. I
had never heard Charlie swear before.
     
    “It’s a phrase I heard Gregor Horlock
use,” he explained.
     
    I shook my head. “Anyway. Some people
haven’t eaten in days, and a lot of them are struggling to make it out of their
tents to actually go to the toilet. Only, some of us are okay. I was away from
camp a couple of days, so I guess that explains why I’m still perky. How about
you, Charlie? You seem fine to me. So how come you aren’t sick?”
     
    “I did put a little thought into it.
It comes down to this, to my mind. I boil my water before drinking it.”
     
    “How come?”
     
    He shrugged. “Just the way I am. An
old boyfriend used to say that I wouldn’t even go for a pee without wearing
gloves.”
     
    “Is that true?”
     
    “He was exaggerating.”
     
    “Anyway, Darla thought it was the
food,” I said
     
    Charlie dropped the notes back onto
the table and turned to face me.
     
    “It’s the water. We don’t all eat
exactly the same food, but we all drink from the same stream.”
     
    “And you didn’t think to say anything
to anyone else?”
     
    He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been
busy.”
     
    “Okay then,” I said. “I guess I
better go check the stream.”

 
    Chapter 6
     
    The stream which supplied our
drinking water was to the east of camp, and it ran a twisting channel away and
into the countryside. With Lou, Mel, Reggie and a guy named Samuel, we followed
the stream out of camp without a clue as to what we were looking for. We just
hoped that we would know when we saw it.
     
    I had told Reggie that he didn’t