The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) (22 page)

Rickey looked up at the distant radio tower, its dull red light still blinking fitfully. “We have to try,” he said.

Melissa wiped her face. “What happened to the guy that wanted to run away to the west, out into the empty country where something like a Plague could never reach him?”

Rickey smiled and squeezed the arm he’d draped around her shoulders. “The truth is, I’m too much of a coward to run away alone. Or I was when I originally threatened that.”

“And now?”

His smile grew into a grin. “And now I have to stay because you have a crush on me and I’m too gentlemanly to break your heart.”

She punched his arm gently and laughed. They watched the blinking red light for a few moments in silence.

“It’s going to be okay, you know,” he said.

Melissa sighed. “Maybe for you, you never even wanted to be cured. What do you care if you revert?”

“I care. I just don’t like that everyone was treating the people that cured us like they were some kind of heroes. They were saving themselves. And even if they hadn’t had to, wouldn’t it be just common human decency? If you had the means to cure someone and didn’t, that’d just mean you were rotten. It wouldn’t make you their savior if you did decide to cure them. In the beginning, I was angry. I didn’t want to face what I’d done. Why should I have to? It’s not like I
chose
to do those things. It’s not like I
chose
to get sick. I was busy pushing back against the guilt I could see weighing Henry and Vincent down. And against the City, treating us like animals instead of people. It’s our world too. But I care. I don’t want to go back. I’m here with you, trying to stop it aren’t I?”

She nodded and returned his hug.

Twenty-six

Amos backed into the loading bay of the large farm store. He leaned forward as he parked, squinting into the hazy horizon. “Is that smoke?” he asked, but the sky was a drained gray, a bleached bone and Henry couldn’t pick out any smoke. Amos shook his head. “Just paranoid, I guess. Listen, I’ll find the chemicals if you jump one of the sprayers. You’ll need the gas, whatever’s left in the tanks will be flat and useless after all this time. I’m not even sure any of the trucks will take a charge at this point, but I don’t have another plan. We just have to get lucky this time.”

He jumped out and Henry slid over into the driver’s seat. “We’ll find a way to make it work. Should have traded spots with Rickey though, he’s made vehicles start that I thought were scrap.”

Amos nodded. “Yeah, but Melissa’s going to need that. Besides, I don’t know if I’d trust Rickey to drive what’s basically going to be a giant explosive back to the Colony without blowing himself up smoking a cigarette.”

Henry grinned and pulled the truck out into the lot. Amos looked around. He’d been here before, for seeds and fertilizer. He’d noticed the chloropicrin the first time. Nobody else had reason to notice, but Amos knew what it was. What it could do, on a bad day. He’d thought about hiding it, but it was a huge shipment. Must have been for the entire county. He’d decided it would only draw curiosity if he tried to move it. Sometimes things hid best in plain sight. What were the chances an old soldier like him would stumble on this particular store anyway? It was even more remote that the soldier that did would want to use it as a weapon. Still, Amos breathed a little deeper when he found the canisters still stacked in the far corner, the dust settling in rings around them, untouched. They just had to get it all back safely. He glanced back toward the open bay door, shading his eyes for a moment, almost completely certain he could see smoke coming from the direction of the Colony.

Whatever is happening will happen without me,
he told himself. He went into the dark store, hunting for pesticide spray suits. If they had the chemical, they’d have the gear, he reasoned. He concentrated on picking his way through the dark aisles so that he could let the unrest in his mind cool a little. It was all wrong. It had felt wrong since Vincent had volunteered to go into the quarantine camp, and it just kept getting worse. He’d had friends in the City. When Henry had asked him for help, Amos hadn’t expected to stay separated from them forever. They were most likely dead. He’d left, not because he hated the City or the people in it, but because he
understood.
He knew how the Cured felt. He’d experienced it himself, Before. The Colony was meant to be a new start. A place without memory, without past. For Amos, too. He pulled the masks and suits from the rack, still smooth in their plastic bags, dumping them all into a bucket. He didn’t bother counting. He’d let the others divide them. Let the others choose who lived an hour longer. Let them choose their own murderers. He’d put that part of his life away. This was a close as he was willing to get to picking it back up again.

You’re just a farmer now,
he told himself. Just a farmer that knew how to wipe out a city full of people and knew what men like Gray meant for what was left of the world.

“Amos?” Henry called.

“Yeah, in here.” He shook himself and carried the suits back toward the loading bay.

“Sprayer is running. How do we fill it?”

“We need a standpipe or a well. I hope the pump on the truck is still working.”

Henry shook his head. “We can’t use the farm one. Not unless it rains. It’s dangerously low on water.”

“There’s a fire station down the road, there must be a hydrant near it. We’ll do that first. The longer we can avoid traveling with the chemical, the better. We can pour it in when we get back, that way we only need to worry about one truck exploding.”

He loaded the suits into the pickup, keeping an eye on the horizon. The bulbous forms of smoke were plainly visible now. “We have to hurry, Henry,” he said, pointing, “I think Gray made a move earlier than we expected.”

Henry covered his forehead with one hand. “Alone? He can’t be that stupid. What could he possibly gain by trying to hit us by himself? He wouldn’t be able to steal much.”

Amos shook his head. “Whatever is happening at home, they need help. I wish Vincent wasn’t in that camp.”

“We all do,” said Henry, his gut clenching painfully. Who would they lose this time?

They didn’t waste time discussing it, jumping into the sprayer’s cabin and heading for the fire station before the clouds of smoke could spread even farther across the sky.

Twenty-seven

Gray’s skull throbbed and blood spilled over his eyelashes as he limped to the tree line. He didn’t stop, cursing under his breath instead, each step stretching the open flap of skin and muscle on his calf. He risked a glance behind him as the he reached the dim twilight of the thick woods. No one followed him. The priest must have stopped to pick up the girl. Gray sagged against the root system of a fallen tree. He wiped the blood from his forehead with the back of his arm and swore as he bent to look at his leg.
Fucking zombie,
he thought,
I shouldn’t have bothered stopping to kill her. They’re all dead already. No way they’ll grow enough food now. And now I have to limp thirty fucking miles to the boat.
The leg was gushing with every step and he was dizzy from the blow to his head. He had to find somewhere to hole up and heal for a few days. Gray was in no hurry. He knew their plans now. He had weeks to spare before they’d move out. A small part of him worried that his attack on the Colony would speed up the timeline, but he relaxed into a nasty grin as he realized that nobody knew
why
he’d attacked. Nobody knew what he was after, except Father Preston. And now that Gray had acted, Father Preston would be too much of a coward to speak up until it was too late. They’d blame the priest for not warning them. He wouldn’t risk it. Gray’s secret was safe. For all the Colony knew, he would
keep
attacking. They’d tighten their defenses if anything, not risk more people in trying to get to the City. By the time they figured it out, Gray would have sailed halfway across the ocean.

But not if he bled to death. He hobbled farther into the woods, heading toward the City. There had to be something on the way. A house, a store, someplace he could stop and patch himself up. He hoped Molly was dead with every burning step. It was one thing to get beaten, he was no stranger to pain. It was another to be so wounded by a woman and a cripple. Humiliating.

He might be laid low, but he wasn’t worried. This world was made for him, almost as if he’d shaped it that way himself. He’d waited, Before, his whole life. Biding his time behind a mask of polite civility until the Plague. When things like masks were worse than useless. When people like him, people that
faced
what the world really was, instead of pretending it would revert to what it had been, those people thrived. This world rewarded cunning and strength with power and ease where others scrambled to survive. Certainly, it was dangerous, but Gray wasn’t relying on a barn of burnt vegetables either. And he’d yet to find anyone more cunning or stronger than himself. Even Father Preston had proved a dupe in the end. Gray had thought the religious act just a ruse, another mask, but, in the end, Gray had proven smarter and more practical. This place was used up. He’d never be a farmer. He’d never even be a good thief. Not really. Gray was a leader. A goader. An instigator. He needed people. He’d keep moving until he found some. Nice, gullible people. Who would farm for him and manufacture for him and be happy to do it.

No more Cured. They either collapsed under the weight of their own guilt or they turned out to be uppity and dangerous rivals. No, the further he went, the more likely it’d just be Immunes left. Frightened by the Infected, by the packs of wild animals, by the lack of everything, they’d thank him for saving them.

These are the things he repeated to himself, like a mantra as he stumbled through the woods. It was almost nightfall before he found the hunting shack. He’d lost a good deal of blood and become disoriented. He was farther from the road than when he had started the day, though he didn’t know it. He dragged himself up to the porch. The door was locked and he flung himself at it, but was too weak to break it down. He stood a moment stupidly staring at the unyielding door. At last he looked around for a window and flung a stone through one nearby. He expected it to burst inward, but the crash was dull and the glass clung together in small shards. He used his shirt to carefully punch the glass loose and crawled through, swearing as his hand raked over a jagged piece he’d missed. He was in a small, unfinished bathroom and he pawed through the medicine cabinet for supplies. There was a collection of first aid kits, most were missing the band-aids but little else. He picked up three and walked out into the cabin. The tub that ought to have been in the bathroom was sitting in the middle of the living room floor, filled with packing peanuts and small plastic figurines. Glittering holiday ornaments hung from the unfinished rafters along with a pair of hammocks. Comic books were strewn over the floor. Gray smiled. It was little more than a tree house. Like one that had been in his backyard. He half expected to see a pack of partially smoked cigarettes or a dirty magazine tucked in one of the corners. He hoped the kids who’d been here had left him something to eat. He wouldn’t have to worry about getting jumped and that was worth something. He sank down onto one of the hammocks and pulled open one of the first aid kits. The small hand mirror in the top of the kit showed him a crackled mask of deep rusty brown. He didn’t bother to wipe it away. Instead, he attempted to see the cut on his head. He touched it carefully with one hand. Unlike his leg, it had already scabbed over. He rummaged through the box and found a few foil envelopes with pills. The labels were old and his eyes kept crossing as he tried to focus. He shrugged and downed a few of each, hoping something would help his headache. He opened the other first aid kits and swallowed the pills he found in them as well. Then he bent down to look at his leg. The sudden movement made him pitch forward onto the floor. He fought to stay conscious and a wave of nausea rolled through him.
Fucking zombie,
he thought again. He stayed on the floor for a moment, catching his breath and watching the glittering ornaments sway in and out of focus above him.
No passing out until it’s stitched,
he told himself. He hauled himself up and propped the wounded leg on a nearby chair so he could reach his calf. He fumbled with the alcohol wipes and clumsily swept them one by one through the gash, hissing each time. It still looked red and puffy along the edges. He squinted at it for a while and then shrugged. He’d slap some antibiotic lotion on it after it was closed, he guessed. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to sweat through an infection. He pawed through the kits again and swore. The suture kits were missing. He lay back down. He could wrap it in bandages but the bleeding wasn’t going to stop. He stared at the ornaments above him. If he had to, he could use one of the wire hooks as a needle he supposed. The thought was as far as he got before losing consciousness.

Twenty-eight

Vincent pulled Nella gently away from Molly. Her lips were bloody where she’d been fighting the tide of Molly’s pulse as she blew into the thin straw. Her hands shook, splattering blood across the sleeping bag as she backed away.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sighing. Vincent nodded and sat down beside Molly’s body and folded her hand into his own. Nella stumbled out of the tent into the sizzling summer light. The air was charred and gray ash sparkled in the sun, suspended in the windless day. Father Preston was waiting for her, wringing his hands.