The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) Page 4

  Father Preston’s people had clustered around a large canvas tent, mingling only with the others during meal times. Vincent had told Henry that he thought they could be steered away from idolizing Father Preston, if only after he had gone to the quarantine camp, but Henry hadn’t seen much difference in the past few days. He wasn’t sure how much good a handful of people were going to be anyway. There’d only been twenty, including Father Preston when they arrived and they hadn’t even taken care of themselves very well. He wondered if they knew how. Most of these people had been sick since the outbreak. Maybe the past few weeks with Father Preston had been their entire experience in this new world. Henry understood what that was like. But he and the others hadn’t waited to be rescued either. These people seemed to be waiting for permission to live. He hadn’t even seen anyone enter the large tent that had been the priest’s, though some of his people were reduced to sleeping in the open field without even canvas over them. A few people glanced furtively at him as breached the circle of their camp, but nobody stopped him. Henry looked around for Gray, but didn’t see him. Henry doubted he was sleeping under the stars. He lifted the flap of Father Preston’s large tent. It was mostly empty, though it was clear from the unmade bed and the small pile of clothes that someone was still living inside of the tent. Henry was about to leave and ask one of the others for help finding Gray, when a flickering glimmer on the table caught his eye. It was a slim tube standing up from the wood. Henry walked over to it, curious. What he thought was a tube turned out to be a needle, a dart stuck deep in the table, silky fronds on the top fluttering in the slight breeze that flowed through the tent. He pulled at it, twisting it carefully out of the wood until it lay across his palm. It was definitely a tranquilizer dart. Henry rolled it over his hand. Had Father Preston found it in front of the farmhouse? Was it the one that had cured Vincent? They’d found them in a small pail in the bathroom when they’d awoken. The people that had cured them had carefully brought them into the house and covered them with blankets. They’d left food and a letter, but they’d taken out the darts. Vincent didn’t seem like the type to hold on to that type of memento. Who had brought it here? And why?

  “So you’ve found us out,” said a low voice behind him. Henry turned to find Gray smiling at him. “I wonder what you intend to do.”

  “Do?” asked Henry, his mind scrambling to figure out exactly what he had “found”.

  “I don’t know you well yet, Henry, but what you did at your little Colony meeting told me you were a smart one. I knew you didn’t believe Father Preston’s miracle malarkey any more than I did. But you were sly enough to play along. I just haven’t figured out why. Was it your priest? Did you want him out of the way? Killed two birds with one stone, eh?”

  Henry’s hand closed around the dart. “Vincent is my friend,” he said.

  Gray smiled and held up both hands. “Sorry, didn’t mean to offend. Just figured his fairy tales might be as dangerous as Father Preston’s. But I’ll admit, Vincent seemed more practical than that. If he was such a good friend, why’d you let him go stay in Psycho City? Why didn’t you tell him Father Preston was full of it?”

  Henry began to realize that the dart didn’t belong to him or his friends. “Vincent didn’t need me to tell him. He didn’t go because he believed that Father Preston works miracles. He went because somebody had to. Because he wanted to save anyone he could. The Immunes. Because if he didn’t go, I’d have shot everything that got near the wall. Father Preston was going to go regardless of what we said. Vincent tried to stop him. Tried to reason with him. We didn’t have this to show him, though.” He twisted the dart between his fingers. Gray’s grin grew wider. Henry’s teeth ached and he realized he was grinding them. “We played along in the meeting because we thought you believed. We thought we could help your group, but only if we respected what you knew as truth. Why did you play along? Why didn’t you tell us about the darts? Why didn’t you tell us you’ve had contact with the City? Now we’ve risked the entire Colony—”

  The grin dropped from Gray’s face. “Whoa. Hang on, we didn’t have contact with the City. Never even been near it. I wasn’t ready to take them there without finding out the situation first. We stopped here first because our numbers were close and you weren’t well organized. Frankly, I knew we could match you, if you threatened us.”

  Henry was uneasy. He hadn’t realized their vulnerability had been so obvious. “Who cured you then?”

  “Not me. I wasn’t one of you, not ever.” Gray sneered. “There was a fight. Father Preston was trying to take over this hospital, full of Infected. We were going to train ‘em up, make them useful and take care of them. They were starving and locked up in tiny cells. The people who had them couldn’t see that. They didn’t want to accept that they were wrong. They turned the Infected loose against us when we came to take them. There was a fire and lots of smoke, and the last thing I remember is this skeleton-thing running out of the smoke at me. It was an Infected. I tried to take him down without hurting him, but then this woman stabbed me in the arm with that thing—” Gray pointed a finger toward the dart in Henry’s hand, “and then a big guy punched me hard enough to knock me out. When I woke up, I was inside the hospital with Father Preston and the others. That’s it. No City, no Plague, no need to panic.”

  “Why should I believe you? You lied about the dart, why should I believe anything else?”

  Gray shrugged and the grin crept back. “Would you rather believe the alternative?”

  Henry set the dart down on the little table, his limbs suddenly heavy and useless. Gray was right. He was either lying, and they were all already dead, or he was telling the truth and only the quarantine camp was exposed. Either way, there was nothing Henry could do except continue as if they were going to survive.

  “Besides,” said Gray, “You can ask any of the others. They can tell you we’ve never gone near the City and they weren’t lying about their Cure. Or at least, they don’t know that they are lying. Father Preston and I were the only ones who knew about the dart. And Father Preston was delusional about it anyway. Still,” he said, picking up the dart and twisting it between his thumb and forefinger, “Father Preston’s version does keep them loyal.” He looked up at Henry. “Don’t know what they’d do or who they’d listen to if they ever found out that Father Preston wasn’t the miracle worker they thought he was. Some of them probably wouldn’t believe it, they’d join the priests down in Psycho City just to prove it. Some of them might run off for the City. Some of them might just decide to lay down and die.”

  “You’re asking me not to tell them? Why? So they can keep being duped by you? So you can keep using them as your personal servants?”

  “You need them, Henry. You need me. It’s only been a few days since Psycho City opened up. There’re only a few people in there right now. What’s going to happen to your Colony when more start showing up? Who’s going to make the food to feed them all? Someone’s got to eliminate the ones that turn when Father Preston’s ‘miracle’ doesn’t work. And bury them. And take care of the healthy ones up here. And defend the place from being overrun or looted. And finish building houses for the survivors before winter comes. That’s a lot of ‘ands’, Henry. You think your little Colony can do it all by itself? I can help you. These people believe I’m Father Preston’s right hand. They’ll do anything I ask. Anything, Henry. When it comes time to risk somebody to remove the Infected from the quarantine zone, who would you rather do it? Melissa? Rickey? Or some gullible hick from hundreds of miles away that you don’t know? Someone who will think he’s shooting a sinner so irredeemable that even Father Preston couldn’t save him. Who’ll have no guilt afterward. Unlike your friends, who’d be haunted if they survived. And when it comes time to touch them, to move the bodies and bury them, are you going to dig the pit and toss em in? Or you going to let good ol’ Gray pick one of the more useless ex-zombies to do it? Someone who doesn’t fit or can’t farm or isn’t a natural s
urvivor?”

  “I might need them, but I don’t need you. And they don’t need you either. They deserve the truth. And they deserve to hear it from someone who is like them—” Henry took a step toward the tent flap.

  “But you aren’t like them. Think for a moment, Henry. Think of the people who trusted you and followed you out here. Those people are the ones who are like you. Not Father Preston’s flock. Your people survived. You know what it’s like to do what you have to. To eliminate threats. To make use of the resources available to you. Even after the Cure, you live with what you’ve done, what you have to do. You make tough choices. I can respect that.” The nasty smile on Gray’s face said otherwise. “But Father Preston’s people— they haven’t done what you did. They never killed. They never felt the slick, slippery chew of raw skin between their teeth. They never woke up and found themselves ripe with filth, rotting in all the broken places. They’re soft. Shielded. Not ready. They spent the past decade being fed and cleaned and doctored in a hospital where they couldn’t hurt anyone. Not even themselves. You are more like the Immunes than you are like these people. They are practically pets, Henry. They aren’t going to make it. They’ll only drag the rest of us down. But they don’t have to. They can be useful. But only if you let them be. Let them have their delusion. None of them would thank you for telling them the truth. They’re happier this way.” Gray held out the dart in his palm, offering Henry the choice.

  Henry had a fleeting wish to snatch the dart and stab it viciously into Gray’s grinning face. He picked it up carefully between two fingers instead. “I need your people on the wall. It needs to be finished this week. When you are finished, you’ll report to me or to Amos for your next task. I’m keeping this.” He held up the dart. “I might need that wall up, but it’s not going to come at the price of slavery. If I see you misusing anyone—”

  Gray shrugged. “I’m just a simple, devout man, remember? If ‘foreman’ is too ugly, think of me as a caretaker instead. This needn’t be unpleasant, Henry. I think we understand one another now. You’ll see I’m not so different from you in time.”

  “Just get to work. I’ve my own tasks to attend,” Henry growled and stepped out of the tent.

  Seven

  Henry swiped a crusty rag over his forehead, but it only pushed the dirt and sweat around rather than lift it away. Amos was on the other end of the trench angrily stabbing at the dirt with his shovel. “It’s not right,” he said.

  “Nothing is anymore. I don’t like it either, but what are we supposed to do? He’s right. If we tell them, they’ll fall apart. Some of them will come around, sure, eventually. But we don’t know what kind of things were demanded of them in the name of ‘faith’ before they got here. We don’t know anything about them at all. Gray compared them to house pets, said they’d just be a liability if we didn’t use them the way he saw fit.”

  “That’s a bullshit excuse Henry, and you know it. If a child came to us, you wouldn’t throw it out just because it couldn’t kill to defend itself, would you? If Marnie came— the Marnie you remember from Before, what would you do? We can’t operate that way. I didn’t come along for that.”

  “I’m just trying to be practical. Children grow up, they learn. And maybe these people will too, but what if they don’t? Are we just supposed to keep feeding them while they cower behind a wall and pray? They’ve already been kept that way. That hospital held them for almost a decade. The way they remember living, the way they know from Before, it doesn’t work anymore. Even if we all want it to. I don’t make the rules. We’re back to survival of the fittest now, and these people are weak.”

  “No. You’re wrong. The world needs peaceful people. The world needs innocence. If we go back to might makes right, we may as well put down our shovels and lie down in this pit, because we’re already done. Survival of the fittest, Henry? The Plague won. We should be extinct. And we will be if we don’t protect people like them. We should be happy that these people didn’t have to do what we’ve done. I’d say that’s a miracle in itself. One I’d give my life protecting. These people aren’t useless. They might be the most important ones here. These are the people that are going to rebuild civilization, not old worn out soldiers like me, or shell-shocked survivors like you. We’ve forgotten how it’s supposed to be. If everyone is a fighter, then who is raising the crops? Who is treating the injured and helping babies be born? Who’s digging the latrines?” Amos held up his shovel. “We can’t do everything ourselves forever, Henry. Something’s going to give. We need them. And we need them now, not six months from now after they’ve come to grips with having to fight. And not duped into sacrificing themselves either, the way Gray wants.”

  “So you think I should tell them, then?”

  “Shit, no,” said Ricky around a cigarette. He knelt between them, laying long lines of brick along the wall of the pit. “What good would that do? That’d destroy whatever innocence they had. Gray was right about that part anyway.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “In a few days they’re going to realize that Father Preston’s miracle power has dried up,” said Amos, “wouldn’t it be best if we told them before they find out the hard way?”

  “Amos, you’re a smart guy,” said Rickey, rocking back onto his heels to rest his back, “but there’s a big difference between being sad that a miracle didn’t work for someone else and finding out you aren’t really, truly special enough to have had a miracle work for yourself. These people feel chosen. Like they have a purpose besides just surviving. Like they were picked out by hand. And you just agreed with them, not a moment ago. You said we needed to protect them. That it was going to be them, and people like them that rebuild the world, while we spend our time scrabbling by. You take that miracle away, you tell them they’ve been tricked, and they’re going to lose that feeling of being special. They’re going to question their purpose. And then they scrabble in the dust like us. We don’t tell them and Father Preston can’t perform, they’ll just think either those other people weren’t special enough or that Father Preston has lost his stuff. Doesn’t change how they feel about themselves.”

  “If we don’t tell them, then they remain under Gray’s thumb. He can use them as he wants, whenever he wants.” Henry scowled and threw another shovel load into the bucket.

  Rickey shook his head. “He’s got more to lose than we do and he knows it. We expose him and they’ll lynch him. He’s going to test the limits, don’t get me wrong, his kind always do. But if we make it clear that we value these people, that we’re making it a priority to protect them, he’ll have to back off. He’s in a bad position and he knows it. He let you find that dart. He was counting on one of us to find it. Because he’s talked you into second-guessing yourself. He’s talked you into feeling guilty for something he did. Well, him and Father Preston, anyway. Can’t fall for it, or you’ll stop pressuring him to treat them better.”

  Amos leaned on his shovel, heavy with worry. Henry thought he’d never seen the other man looking so worn. He tried to blame it on the lack of light in the narrow pit, but he knew it was more than that. “Gray’s got to go,” Amos said, his voice a low whisper, “Not today, not for a little, but he can’t stay. One way or another, he’s got to go. He’ll twist this place otherwise. He’ll turn us against each other, just so he can climb up the heap a little. I can agree to keeping the dart secret, but Gray’s got to be dealt with. And I don’t mean exile. You thought Phil was bad, but this man’s far, far worse. He’ll just keep coming back. We can’t let that happen.”

  Rickey dropped a brick with a thud into the soil and swore. He stubbed out his cigarette. Henry just nodded. He began pulling the basket rope to raise the dirt he’d just dug. Rickey wiped the dirt from the brick and stared at the drying mud where it was meant to go. “How come it’s always us who have to do the shit work?” he said softly. Henry knew he wasn’t talking about digging latrines.

  Amos scraped his shovel over the floor. “So tha
t there are other people in the world who can stay clean. So we aren’t all dragged down into the muck.”

  Eight

  It was so fast. He’d expected it to take longer. To be more of a struggle. Something in him rebelled. It should be harder. It should have hurt. But there they lay, the mother and the son, arms and legs still gently bound as they lay on the plastic sheet. The mother’s head had rolled toward him. Her expression was peaceful, blank. It was wrong. The boy’s face was turned toward Father Preston who was still shaking in the folding seat next to him. Vincent wasn’t even breathing heavily. His hands didn’t shake. He had expected a sudden snap of agony in his chest, as if the act of severing the boy’s head also severed his soul. But the misery and guilt had come in the days before. All he felt now was a quiet relief that it was finally done, that the final, irrevocable step had been taken. Part of him was a little frightened that he didn’t feel more. He knelt beside the bodies and wiped the blade on the plastic sheet before sliding it into his belt. He gently arranged the bodies and began wrapping them tightly in the plastic.

  “What have you done?” gasped Father Preston at last.

  Vincent didn’t look up. “What nobody else was going to do for them.”

  “They didn’t have to die.”

  “What would you have done?”

  Father Preston stood, raking his fingers through his hair. “I was curing them.”

  Vincent sank back on his heels. “You were trying, but we both know that nothing was helping the boy.”

  “I just needed more time. Your doubt has undone everything—”

  “The world is filled with doubters. Bigger doubters than me, Brother Michael. It’s never stopped a miracle before.”