The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) (10 page)

Frank was very still and his face was almost as pale as the surgical mask that covered its bottom half. “You’re on your own, which must mean your parents didn’t make it. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happened to you, but I wish it hadn’t. Nella would understand better. Maybe you should talk with her sometime. I hope someday you grow enough to be ashamed of your words, and when you do, I want you to remember that I forgive you. I’m not a monster. Henry is not a monster. Christine wasn’t going to be one either. I knew, even during the infection, that what I was doing was
wrong
. I tried, we all tried, to stop. We failed, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t feel it. That we didn’t or don’t grieve. We’re not dogs. We’re not cattle or slaves or prey. We’re not vending machines for babies. I did what was right for Christine, because I cared about her. I’m as sad as you are that she got sick and that she died, but that doesn’t make what I’ve done wrong. Maybe someday, you’ll understand. I hope not. I hope you never have to.”

Frank fished a flattened mask from his bag and tossed it to Marnie, then turned back toward the field and began walking away.

“Where are you going?” shouted Marnie.

“To find Nella. I shouldn’t have left her alone. I thought I was helping but you aren’t the kid I thought you were. You have any trouble go find your friend Henry. Looks like someone’s waiting for us anyway. Make sure you wear the mask. You’ve been exposed, he may not have been.”

Marnie slumped down on the pile to wait as Frank disappeared over a gentle rise.

Nella crouched in the shallow trench of damp dirt, stabbing at the ground with a jagged stick. Her eyes kept blurring as sweat rolled into them. The filthy mask billowed in and out as she dug, her breath straining and wheezing against the small square. She didn’t look at Christine or up at the field, only at the dark scrape of hard earth beneath her. After a long while, the stick shattered and she tossed it away, raking at the dirt with her bare hands and pushing it to one side. The sky gradually receded above her and the walls to either side began to grow. The dirt was damp and smelled like spring, like the Farm just tilled. Nella could almost hear the quiet chatter and songs of the stone pickers who smoothed it out.

She heard her name being called but she didn’t look up. Frank’s long hand was a ghostly white as it closed over her mud-caked one. She stared at it, not quite knowing who it belonged to. Then she sat up. “I can’t leave her like that,” she said.

“We won’t.”

She was spattered with soil and blood, old leaves caught in the gore and her hair, crusted with a second skin except where the sweat had washed trails down her face and neck. Frank slid down into the ditch in front of her. He threaded a finger around one of the mask’s loops from behind her ear and gently pulled it off.

“I have to finish,” she said, her voice hoarse and thick.

“I’ll help you. Have a drink.” He held the canteen to her lips. She expected the water to be metallic and warm, an echo of the death beside her. But it was cool and clean. He recapped the canteen and pulled a clean mask from his pocket.

“I don’t have a shovel,” she said, and small sob leaked out. She half reached for him and remembered she was covered in infected blood and pulled back. He pulled his own mask off and kissed her. Then he looped the new mask over her ears and pressed it carefully into place.

“We’ll get it done. We won’t leave it this way,” he said and pulled his mask back over his face. “And then this day will be over.”

She nodded, but her shoulders curled around her and she cried anyway. Frank pulled her up to stand and waited until she had calmed down.

“I’m going to finish this, but it won’t be deep enough. There is a pile of small rocks near the road. If you can get just a few—”

Nella walked toward the road, grateful to concentrate on something else, relieved that she didn’t have to see Christine lying so still next to her any longer. She lost track of how many trips she took to the dusty pile of rubble, halfheartedly carrying stones back to the ditch. The sun was well behind the nearby trees when Frank carefully lifted Christine into the hole. They were kneeling beside the grave, carefully arranging the stones, as if they were a kind of puzzle, when Marnie found them, with an older man in tow. Frank thought it might be the man who had been waiting on the road, but he wasn’t certain. Nella sat numbly beside him watching the girl and man approach. Frank ached to take her away, to shield her from the two strangers so she could grieve in peace.

“Is that her?” asked Marnie.

Nella nodded.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said the man quietly. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost when it became dark.

Frank nodded and stood up. Nella touched one of the stones for a moment, her fingernail flaking off a bit of lichen, and stood up as well.

“That’s it?” said Marnie, “You just stick her in the ground and walk away? You aren’t going to say anything?”

Frank’s jaw clenched but the sorrow in Nella’s voice made his anger loosen and drift away. “We said goodbye already, Chris and I. She cannot hear us anymore. There’s nothing left to say.”

Frank reached for her hand but she drew away. “I’m covered in— in
her,
” she said.

“Nella,” he whispered, his eyes filling, “Your gloves tore hours ago.”

She looked down at the pale shreds of plastic that ringed her wrists. “I can still protect
you
,” she said.

Frank shook his head. “I don’t want to be protected from you.”

“Maybe I’m immune. Maybe— I don’t think my hands are cut. I’ll wash them, it’ll be all right.”

“Of course,” he said with a small smile.

“Maybe I can help,” offered the man who had come with Marnie.

“You’re from the Colony?” asked Frank.

“Yes, my name is Vincent. We have water and food, a place to rest if you like.”

“Have you— have you had many visitors from the City?”

“Some. Not as many as we expected.”

Frank nodded slowly. “We’re too late then.”

“You mean to stop the disease? No. We knew. Are you ill? Did you come hoping for a cure?”

“No, we came back to help,” said Nella.

“Came back? Who are you?” asked Vincent.

“Frank Courtlen, this is Nella and the girl who met you is Marnie. She says she has a friend here.”

“Henry,” said Vincent, fumbling with a radio, “He’ll want to know. And you— you’re the people that cured us. I knew you’d come. This changes everything.”

Nella shook her head, “We’ve been exposed. Marnie and I, certainly. Maybe Frank too. We came to warn you. And to make sure it can’t spread. If we came with you, we’d just infect you.”

Vincent shook his head. “We have a quarantine camp. I’ve been exposed too. The Colony is free of infection. But I have to tell Henry—” He glanced at them as he fixed the radio. The girl was eager, but the adults were exhausted, hopeless. His mood collapsed. He was grateful to see them, as if Frank and Nella were the help he’d prayed for days before. But to see the people who had saved him, who had resurrected him from hell, to see them so beaten and depressed, made him ache to aid them instead. “We can wait, you need rest. Marnie and I can call Henry after we get you settled. Do you think you can go a little farther? The camp isn’t far.”

Nella nodded and picked up her pack. She stumbled a little as she pulled it on. Frank steadied her with a frown. She glanced up at him. “Just tired,” she said, “it doesn’t work that fast.”

“You aren’t infected,” he said.

Vincent stood for a long moment at the graveside.

“What are you doing?” asked Marnie.

“Saying a prayer for her,” he said.

“But you didn’t know her.”

Vincent smiled. “I don’t need to. I can see she was important to you and your friends.”

“Thank you,” said Nella.

Vincent nodded and then turned toward the Colony. He took care to walk slowly, though the light had softened to a dull gold over the field and the breeze became swift and cool over the grass. There was no need to exhaust them further. He knew he was being irrational. They were just people. His heart made them into fierce angels, ones who would vanquish the delusions of Father Preston, ones who would save them all. But they were just humans who had been in the wrong place at the right time. He wasn’t even certain that they’d cured him out of compassion rather than self-preservation. Still, he sent out a prayer of gratitude for their coming and hoped it was heard.

Thirteen

Marnie recoiled as the quarantine camp’s fenced cages came into view. “You want us to stay in there? Locked away?”

“I know it doesn’t look friendly,” said Vincent, “but we really will take care of you. It’s as much to keep you safe from the others as it is to keep the Colony safe from infection. It’s just for a little while, until we’re sure who is Immune or was unexposed. Then we’ll go up to the Colony together. You can talk to Henry any time over the radio, he’s been looking for you since we left the Lodge. He’ll be happy that you’re safe.”

“How many are in there?” asked Frank.

“With you— it will be thirty-three. No, twenty-nine.”

“They are turning already?” asked Nella.

“Most of them were exposed weeks ago, in the City. It won’t be long, another week maybe, before we know who is Immune.”

They approached the wire fence and Vincent unlocked the gate. He rolled the key in his hand and Nella had a dizzying sense of deja vu. “For me, another few weeks. And I’ll pass the keys to someone Immune.”

He opened the door and motioned them in.

“And the ones who aren’t Immune?” asked Frank.

“I— didn’t expect to see you. The message said there was no cure. I did what I had to.”

Nella gently squeezed his elbow, careful to only touch cloth. “There was never a cure for this one. There is no return this time.”

“We can’t tell anyone, though. If there are stragglers, we have to persuade them to return to the City or gather them together somehow. We have to convince the Infected that the City has a cure,” said Frank, his voice low.

“And then?” whispered Vincent.

Frank looked at him for a long moment. “And then we need to make sure there is nowhere for the bacteria to hide, that it can’t survive to threaten the people who are left.”

The light in Father Preston’s tent turned on as the last glow of the day evaporated. Vincent didn’t want them to meet yet. “We can discuss this later,” he said, “we have time, and you need rest.”

Marnie was hesitant to enter her small cage, but relaxed when Vincent promised to return with the radio. He didn’t try to separate Frank and Nella, leaving them in the tent where the mother and boy had been and returning only to bring them water and food. The worry on their faces was too contagious.

Frank pushed their packs into a corner of the small tent. Nella was staring at her grimy hands, holding them near the lantern. He glanced back at the packs, wondering if either of them would ever pick them up again, or if they’d finally reached their final spot, destined to rot away for years and years. He pulled off his mask, crumpling it in one hand as he walked toward Nella, stooping under the sagging canvas.

Vincent had left a bucket of water. Frank dragged it over to the lantern and knelt beside it. “Let me see,” he said, and pulled Nella down beside him.

“Maybe— maybe we can save them for last?” she asked, pulling her hands to her chest.

He dipped a clean handkerchief into the water. “Close your eyes,” was all he said. She felt the cold cloth smooth over her forehead, break the tight shell of sweat and dirt that smeared her cheeks and the corner of her eyes. Then the soft chiming drip of the cloth being soaked again. He pulled the mask from her nose and mouth and the cool air was fresh and sweet with the smell of the crushed grass beneath them. The water dripped and curled down her neck, leaving a trail of relief behind. He reached for one of her hands and her eyes flew open.

“Not yet,” she said, pulling back. “Not yet. Let me pretend a little longer.”

He shook his head, his eyes already red with grief. “Why? What good will it do? Whether you know or not, the outcome is the same.”

“Because if I’m infected, I’ll go to another cell. We’ll be apart. I just want to wait another minute. I won’t touch you, I just want to wait a minute.”

“You aren’t leaving. Besides, I kissed you already.”

“The gloves broke when I was getting the rocks. You aren’t exposed. When I clean my hands, everything will change.”

He pulled at her hand again. “It won’t, Nella.”

She let him pull the shredded plastic from her hand. The soft roll of water swallowed her hand as he submerged it in the bucket, gingerly scrubbing with the kerchief. She pulled it from the water and it shone in the lamplight. Her eyes were too full of tears to focus.

“See?” he said, kissing her palm, “all clean, not a scrape.”

She sobbed as he moved to the other hand. “Everyone’s gone,” she said, “why would I be different? There’s always a price, Frank. Always. I killed my friend. The world doesn’t let that go for free.”

“A disease killed Christine. A disease killed Sevita. Not you. Not me. You have to calm down. Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay.”