The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) Read online

  “The corpses hanging on iron beams in the hospital field would say different. How many were there? A dozen? More?”

  “That wasn’t murder. That was justice. Those people hired someone to kill their loved ones, people that depended upon them. People that might have been cured.”

  The woman with the cart shook her head. “You didn’t kill those people for justice,” she cried, “You killed them to force Juliana to give us up. To give us over into your hands where you could use us. But these people stopped you. How foolish were those of us who stayed? How stupid to fall into your trap again. You’ve been using us just the same for months. You let him touch me and you knew.” She turned and pushing past Father Preston and Vincent and she cried, “No more, I won’t let him use the rest of them a minute longer. They have to know.” She ran for the tent at the far end of the camp. Father Preston’s face was deep red, the scars a dark, bruised purple. Nella thought he might have a heart attack. Instead, he pulled the hood of his robe up and shoved Vincent out of the way to go after the woman. Frank caught Vincent as well as he could through the fence.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Vincent recovered his balance. He looked at the two of them, the people who were supposed to be his answer, his angels, and felt ashamed of Father Preston’s friendship. “I didn’t know about the hospital until now. Henry told me he found a Cure dart a few days ago, but I didn’t— we didn’t know what he had intended or that he murdered people. The others still don’t know. They have no idea how dangerous Gray is. We wouldn’t have let them stay.”

  “How could you have known?” asked Nella, “He told you the story he wanted people to hear. He had no one to contradict him.”

  “I feel more and more, that we’ve wasted the chance you gave us. We left the City because we couldn’t find a place in it. We let a pair of liars and murderers into our Colony and believed they were good people. We’re barely keeping infection at bay with this little camp. I cannot keep the Infected, I don’t have a hospital— or time enough.”

  Nella smiled. “We are not your judges. You aren’t indebted to us. We happened to be here on the right day at the right time to help you. Just luck. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I thought about shooting you the next day while you slept. I thought it might be kinder. But Frank showed me there was more to the Cured than just stories of guilt and despair. If you’ve anyone to thank, it’s him.”

  Frank shrugged and traced Nella’s scar with one finger. “I was just trying to save her. We’re just people like you. We’ve done bad things and stupid things and some good too. I’m glad we were here to help, but you don’t owe us an explanation for your lives before or since.”

  Vincent glanced back at the large tent. He turned back to Frank. “You came— he’s only been here a few weeks. His scars weren’t even scabbed over by the time he got here. He didn’t pass through the City.”

  “No,” said Frank, “I think the City was already closed by the time he would have been near enough. We know the radio signal was already working by then, and we got there too late even though we left a few days before Preston did.”

  Vincent stared at them. “You were safe?” he asked. “You knew about the plague and you were safe? Where are your masks? You’ll be exposed. I thought you came from the City. You didn’t tell me—” He spun around as if there were a pile of surgical masks waiting behind him.

  “Vincent,” said Nella, holding up her hand, “It’s done already. There’s nothing to protect us from.” The scratch on her hand glowed a fevered red.

  “You were safe. Why did you come back? Why did you come here?” He was angry but he wasn’t certain why.

  “Because it’s not enough to just be safe anymore,” said Nella. “We spent six years just being safe. Nothing got better. People like you were abandoned, when you could have been cured years ago because we were all playing it safe. We hid behind walls and the world decayed around us because it was safer to ignore it, to pretend the Looters were gone, that the Infected had died out, that we could just wait for someone to come along and rescue us. Things don’t fix themselves. Life doesn’t get put back together by being safe. No one’s coming, Vincent. We have to rescue ourselves instead of running and hoping it doesn’t follow. Frank and I tried to stop it, before, but we failed. We have another chance to stop it now. We have a chance to be better than safe. To do something better than just barely exist.”

  Vincent squeezed Nella’s hand through the fence wire. He shook his head. “I don’t understand, how can you help? What is it you want to do?”

  “The City is closed off,” said Frank, “but not completely. There must be half a dozen exit points in the Barrier and who knows how many people got out before the Barrier collapsed? Some of them are here, most are probably scattered, hopefully too scared of being shot to join other groups. We have to find them before they turn. Most of them won’t willingly submit to a quarantine like this, especially if they know they are sick. We’ll never be able to track them all down in time. We have to find a way to reach them all and to convince them to come back on their own. Not here. They’d overwhelm the Colony. Maybe the City. You believed we had a cure, maybe others will as well.”

  “And then?” asked Vincent.

  “There’s no choice. We have to end the threat. I don’t know how. A bomb maybe? A fire? We were hoping we weren’t the only ones thinking this way. Neither of us are military geniuses, we don’t know what would be best.”

  “The bacteria can last for weeks, months even, in cloth or on surfaces. We’d need something that would sterilize everything,” said Nella.

  “What if some of them are Immune?” asked Vincent.

  “If they aren’t showing symptoms by now and they are from the City, they probably are. But someone not showing symptoms isn’t likely to look for a cure, are they? Your Colony is large enough that they can order the stragglers into the quarantine camp until they can prove they are immune.” Nella squeezed his hand back through the fence. “Sometimes the wrong people die anyway,” she added. “Nobody deserves this. We have to do what we can. Even if it means we aren’t part of what’s saved.”

  “Will you help us?” asked Frank.

  “We all will,” said Vincent.

  Eighteen

  Melissa held the radio as if she didn’t know what to do with it. It had finally gone silent a few seconds ago, snapped off by someone arguing with the woman screaming into it. Melissa looked up to find a large group of people had surrounded her, abandoning the stone wall to listen. They were all silent now. Rickey was leaning on a shovel beside her. He reached for a cigarette, forgetting there were none in his pocket.

  “I knew he was bad,” he said, low enough so only she could hear, “but nothing like this.”

  Some of the people around them were muttering now. “We have to do something, before there’s a riot,” whispered Melissa.

  Rickey shrugged. “Why? If what she says is true, if they were going to use them as slaves, why should we stop them?”

  “Because he’s lived with them for weeks after his plan backfired. He’s obviously not scared of them—”

  “Or us,” offered Rickey.

  “Or us. He’ll fight back, someone else will get hurt.”

  There was a scraping noise as someone picked up the heavy dead blow hammer from the rock wall.

  “Wait,” yelled Melissa, holding up her hands. Rickey shrugged and held up his too, the shovel still clasped in one hand. “Remember that the people in the quarantine camp might not be— they might not be themselves. Maybe this woman— maybe she turned.”

  One of the men twirled a chisel on his palm. “Lisa’s only been down there a few weeks. She wouldn’t be sick yet.”

  “Maybe she’s had to see things that upset her, gave her a bad scare or nightmares—”

  “Well, let’s go find out,” said a woman from behind Melissa.

  There were murmurs of agreement. Melissa glanced at Rickey. He hesitated, then nodded s
lowly. “Yeah,” he said, “why don’t we do that. But let’s leave the tools here, huh?” He chuckled as if it could break the tension. “Can’t exactly replace them easily. That might be the last chisel in a hundred miles you know.”

  The man twirling the chisel looked down at it with a frown. He considered, then gently set the tool down into the grass. The shovels and hammers were quietly piled, one by one against the stone. “There,” said Rickey quietly, “they can be reasonable.”

  Melissa’s skin prickled. “I don’t know if reasonable is the word for it. But at least there’ll be less collateral damage this way. One of us needs to find Henry or Amos.”

  “If they decide to lynch him, I’m not going to stop them,” whispered Rickey as the crowd pushed past them, “and you should know that Henry and Amos won’t either.”

  She stared at him. “You’ve discussed this?”

  “Not this. But him. We knew they were faking Father Preston’s ‘miracle’. But we didn’t know he killed people. Or what he meant to do with the Infected if he gained control over them. We knew he had to go, but if we tried to expose him, who were Father Preston’s people going to believe? We couldn’t let him take them somewhere and keep manipulating them. So we pretended to be friendly. Now we can move against him. One thing’s clear, he can’t stay here. He’s dangerous.”

  “The others should still know,” she said.

  “I think they are finishing the latrine sheds today,” Rickey offered.

  Melissa ran to find them.

  Gray was in the garden with half a dozen of Father Preston’s people. They were meant to be picking the last of the beans for pickling, but he was dozing near the small tool shed. The news was softly spread, but swiftly, like a breeze across the field, and he didn’t wake as the Cured threaded their way toward him, slipping through the rows of corn and stepping gingerly around the green potato tops, knowing what each plant meant, even in their anger. They moved like a single animal, like a snake coiling around its prey, without speaking, without signals. They wrapped around him, armed only with rage, but each of them knew how much damage that alone could do. Most of them had scars to remind them.

  Rickey hung back, watching the others. It wasn’t his injury. Though he didn’t like Gray and he’d make no move to save him, it wasn’t Rickey’s vengeance to take. There was a moment of stillness. A collective intake of breath. Someone in the center of the circle kicked Gray’s leg. He sat up with a grunt, his face tightening with surprised anger as he looked around him.

  “What is this?” he snarled.

  “We know,” said the woman who had kicked him.

  Gray stood up and took a step toward the woman, towering over her. “What is it you think you know, darlin’?” he sneered when she didn’t back up.

  “We know about the Cure,” said a man behind him.

  “And we know about the people you hung at the hospital,” said another.

  “And about what you wanted us so badly for,” finished the woman in front of him.

  “Me?” Gray laughed. “What did I have to do with anything? I was just being faithful. Just following Father Preston. He said the people at the hospital were evil, that they had to be punished, that God said so. I’m just a humble man, who am I to argue with a priest? I just did as I was told. It was him that wanted you, it was him that lied to you. Not poor, guileless Gray.”

  A rumble rolled around him through the crowd.

  Gray turned toward a few of Father Preston’s people who were mixed in with the others. “I stuck with you. I stayed to care for you, keep you safe. But where’s Father Preston? Off doing his medicine show bit for strangers. He doesn’t care about you. You’re old hat. Used up. He needs new people to con. But ol’ Gray didn’t leave you. No, I stayed cause I knew you were alone in the world. That you needed a friend to look after you. I’ve kept you fed, haven’t I? Kept you from getting sold off to slavers or killed by bigger bands. Kept you from getting sick again.”

  “You knew about the Cure,” shouted someone.

  Gray put up his hand. “You’re right. You’re right, I knew. But I’ve made up for it, haven’t I? That one teeny secret? Besides, I thought about telling you, I really did. You can ask Henry if you don’t believe me.” He pointed to Henry who had just come, panting, into the garden. “What good would it have done? Did it matter how you were cured? Nah. What mattered was that you were cured. If you wanted to believe in a miracle, it was harmless. Who was I to naysay it?”

  “You used their belief to manipulate them, Gray. You’ve been acting the lord of the manor since you got here,” shouted Rickey into the crowd. “You got the best food, the best bed, the women of your choice, because they thought you were part of the miracle. Because they didn’t know you were just like them.”

  Henry was still gasping to catch his breath as he pushed his way through the circle. He pulled the Cure dart from his pocket and threw it into the shed wall, where it stuck, the scarlet fronds trembling from its tail. “You didn’t want us to tell them. You wanted to keep living with these people as your servants. And I almost fell for it. I almost bought that these people were so broken, they’d fall apart if they knew the truth. Look around you, Gray. These people aren’t crumbling. They’re reforged, sharp, dangerous. And they know a traitor when they see one.”

  “Then they should take care to point their anger in an appropriate direction,” Gray spat. “I was only following orders, only carrying out Father Preston’s requests.”

  Rickey caught sight of Amos crossing his arms over his chest, hovering behind the crowd.

  “You sure worked hard to make certain no one questioned his version of things,” said Henry.

  There was a deep, throbbing rumble through the crowd again.

  “Someone had to be in charge. Someone had to lead you out of that hospital so you’d survive. If you didn’t believe Father Preston, you would have wandered off, starved, got shot. It would have been chaos.”

  “If you are so faithful to Father Preston,” Amos said, his low voice slicing through the crowd’s restlessness, “perhaps you should join him in his work at the quarantine camp.”

  “Now hold on, I’ve seen that Father Preston was wrong, we went separate ways long ago. You need me here.” He looked around at the crowd, seeking out the familiar faces. “You don’t know how it is out here. You’ve been locked away in that hospital all this time— I’ve been surviving out here. I can help you. These people— they seem nice, but everyone’s out for themselves. We just don’t know what they want yet, but rest assured, they want something.” Gray stabbed a finger toward Henry and a few heads turned to follow. “They’ve done things— they haven’t been kept safe in a hospital. They’ve killed. They’ve slaughtered. Maybe even after they were Cured. They aren’t like you. They don’t know how precious you are, you are chosen.”

  “They’re Cured,” said Rickey, “just like us. Not by miracles. Not by Father Preston. And certainly not by you.”

  “It’s true,” called Melissa, holding up the radio, “the people that cured you are in the quarantine camp right now. The same people that cured us. You belong with us. Not with someone who wanted to use you like animals— who still uses you that way.”

  One of the men shoved Gray toward the edge of the garden. “Get out of here,” the man growled. “Don’t come back.”

  Amos flicked an uneasy glance toward Henry but didn’t move.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” protested Gray, he pushed the man back, “I’ve as much right to be here as you.”

  “Do yourself a favor,” said the man, “Go while you still can.” The Cured pressed in behind him, a wall of restrained hate.

  Gray laughed. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere.” He punched the man in front of him, who crumpled under the blow. “Lesson one,” Gray boomed, a greasy smile slithering over his face, his confidence back, “Might makes right now. I’ve got the brains and the strength to survive. You do not. I spent the past eight years learning
how to thrive. You spent it being diapered and spoon fed. You want to survive out here? You do what I say.”

  Henry watched as a few of the crowd quailed, took a step or two back. He felt a passing wave of disgust at their weakness but he saw Amos look over at him. The world needs innocence, he’d told Henry, These people aren’t useless. They might be the most important ones here. Henry strode through the crowd toward Gray. “They don’t need you to survive anymore. They don’t need to scrabble and fight and kill. They’ve got us. They’ve got this place. Get out of here, Gray. Your kind doesn’t belong here anymore.”

  “My kind?” shrieked Gray, “My kind? That’s rich. You mean Immunes? You mean humans? Cause all I see in front of me is a pack of dogs. You want to know why I treat you like animals? Because that’s what you are. You aren’t cured, you’re just as vicious as you were before. And you want to turn me out?”

  “Actually,” said Henry, “when I said ‘your kind’, I meant thugs, looters, murderers. And for the record, I don’t trust you to leave. I’d rather kill you and be done with it, but these people seem to be kinder than I. If I were you, I’d take them up on their offer while it still stands. And if you ever come back, I’ll rip out your throat with my own teeth and show you what a real animal can do.” He said it coolly, the people around him falling silent as he spoke, but the pounding of his blood in his head, the sound of his own interior fury, was all that Henry could hear.

  Gray must have heard it too, he understood Henry wasn’t bluffing and stumbled toward the wall behind him. They watched him climb clumsily over the unfinished end and careen down the field.

  “He’s not going to go that easy,” said Rickey. “Tonight, tomorrow, next week, he’ll try something. Heaven help us if he finds a few more desperate people to join him.”

  “We’ll be ready,” said Henry grimly.

  Nineteen

  Father Preston’s tent stood alone at the end of the wall, his followers having abandoned the isolated camp within hours. They’d mingled among the other half built houses and the barn, some re-pitching tents in the spaces between buildings, others invited in to share the buildings. Henry thought the large tent of the priest shone like a medal, the first trophy in the battle for the world. But he knew it ought to come down, it was a place to hide if Gray came back and they could use the canvas. It was after dark when he finally began pulling the stakes up, carefully scanning the wall, expecting a darker shadow to climb over it at any time. Molly joined him as the tent collapsed in a billow of air and dry leaves. She helped fold the cloth without comment. The grass crushing below their knees made a sweet green smell and the quiet murmur of the people in the tents around them reminded him of long ago concerts and evening football games. He had a sudden ache in his chest for everything and everyone he’d forgotten to miss.