The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) (14 page)

“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.

“Any word from Vincent?” he asked, trying to brush the feeling aside.

“He’s talking to Melissa. The people— the ones from before, they have a plan, but they need us. She went to get everyone. They’ll be here in a minute.”

Henry nodded.

“Are you still going to go?” asked Molly. “Even after what happened today?”

“You mean to the quarantine camp for Marnie?”

Molly nodded, her movement barely visible in the dusk.

“It would be okay. Everyone up here would be okay, if I did. You know how to plant now and keep watch and defend it. And the others are here. Marnie’s got no one. Nobody she knows. She must be frightened. I was.”

“I could go, instead, Henry.”

“What? Why Molly?” He knelt beside her, pushing the air out of the folded cloth.

“People need you here. You’re tough and you can fight and you and Amos are smart. I was just a grocery clerk. I was almost as young as Marnie, Before.” She held up her scarred arm, the fingers of its hand gone, the skin shrunken almost to the bone, no muscle to pad it. “I’m not strong. I’ll never plow a field or build a house or skin an animal. And there are a dozen others like me, who can’t do those things either. We weren’t meant for the world the way it is now. If that man, Gray, if he came back right now, I couldn’t fight him, not like you or the others. But I can sit with Marnie, I can watch her for you. I can do something to help, have a purpose again.”

Henry closed his hands gently around her shoulders, suddenly aware of how young she really was. “Molly, you
do
help. You already have a purpose. You
can
plow or build or fight if you want to, but you’re important for all the things you already do. You’re the best gardener we have, Amos told me. He would have pulled half the corn this year thinking they were too small but you tended each one until it caught up. Rickey says you are the most reliable on watch, that you never fall asleep like some of his guys or wander because you are restless. And since Vincent had to go, no one but you has been able to get the kids to pay attention to lessons. The Colony would
miss
you, Molly. It can spare me for a few weeks to keep Marnie company, but I don’t think it will ever be able to spare you. Anybody can fight, in their way. It’s not many people that can do what you can.” He hugged her and realized how right Amos had been. It was people like Molly who were rebuilding the world. “I’m counting on you to stay, to look after this place. I trust you with it while I’m gone.”

She nodded and he let her go. They finished folding the cloth as their friends gathered around them, lantern light bouncing across the grass.

“Okay,” said Melissa, “we’re all here.”

“We’re here too,” Vincent’s voice was thin, faded through the radio. Henry half expected it to pop like an old record. He wondered if Gray had tried to harass them or if there were a number of people who had just turned, to make Vincent sound so tired.

“How is— everyone down there?” asked Melissa, glancing at Henry. Molly slipped her hand into his and gave it a comforting squeeze.

Vincent sighed. “We had three more turn today, all from the early group. I think— Dr. Ryder thinks Father Preston’s beginning to show symptoms. Paranoia, short temper, irrationality. Marnie is okay. No symptoms. She’d like to talk to Henry. Dr. Ryder and Mr. Courtlen are also showing no symptoms.”

There was a pause.

“And him?” asked Molly.

“And you?” Melissa spoke into the radio.

“I’m— tired. But no stumbling or slurring. No cravings. Nothing that I can remember from last time.”

“Maybe I should go down and help—” started Henry.

“But I don’t want anyone to worry,” continued Vincent, “we don’t need anyone else exposing themselves. I’m still able and I have help now, with Nella and Frank. We have to decide how this ends, that’s why we’ve called.”

“How this ends? It ends when the forty days quarantine is up, doesn’t it?” asked Melissa. “Then you come back with the Immunes.”

“And if I get sick? How will they care for themselves?”

Melissa shook her head, though Vincent couldn’t see. “We’ll deal with that when we get there.”

“If that were the only danger—”

“May I?” a woman’s voice broke in. Her voice was clearer as the radio was handed to her. “This is not the only place with Infected. Sevita tried to close off the City, but she may have been too late, and there are exits she missed. She stopped a flood of refugees from overwhelming this place but there will still be contagious people out there. That’s to say nothing of the City itself. This bacteria can live for weeks in the open. People that know about the City will try to go there, thinking the sickness is over, thinking they can pick up what was left behind. We’ve either got to sanitize it or destroy it so that it won’t be a temptation. And we have to draw the people that successfully fled back for— for the end.”

“Give me that,” scowled Rickey. Melissa handed him the radio. “You keep saying ‘we’, but why do ‘we’ have to do
anything?
Why not let the looters get sick if they rob a graveyard? The winter is coming, the Infected will just die off.”

“But so will others. There are other groups, other settlements of
good
people that will take them in without knowing. The Plague has a long incubation, it can take its time to spread—”

“So go talk to those other good people then. Why’s it got to be us?”

Nella’s sigh was deep and shaky. Rickey felt an immediate slap of guilt in his gut. “It doesn’t,” said Nella, “We came here first because we knew where you were. Frank and I— we’re not virologists or military experts. We’re just— we’re
what’s left.
We came hoping someone here could tell us what to do to stop this thing. You have more people than anywhere else. We thought maybe someone there would know about a bomb or how to set a fire that would gut it or even just how to broadcast a signal that people can pick up to draw them back to the City.”

Rickey glanced at the others, but was determined to have his say. “You came because you cured us. ‘Cause you thought we owed you something.”