The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) (24 page)

“Look, I know it’s a long shot, okay? This whole plan is insane. But I’m hoping we can do what the lady in the City did. If I can figure out how to trigger the emergency broadcast, maybe other stations will pick it up too. We were listening, maybe others are too. Maybe they’ll spread the word. We have to try. Otherwise, we just have to shoot anyone that approaches the Colony for a year in case they’re sick.”

“Sounds like we’re going to have to do that anyway,” he grumbled.

Melissa nodded. “Probably, but maybe the other groups out there will be protected if they don’t make the same choice.”

“How many people could have gotten out?”

She sighed. “I hope this is as pointless as you are making it out to be Rickey, I really do. If there’s nobody listening or nobody infected then we made a six-day hike for nothing. It’s not really a big loss, is it?”

Rickey grinned. “I dunno, six days alone with you might ruin my reputation. People might talk.”

She rolled her eyes.

The trees fell away and brush took over, green melting into scarlet and purple of high blueberry barrens clinging to the thin dirt and cracked stone at the top of the mountain. The station was a lone spike in a sea of twisted branches that sighed and flashed at its knees as the breeze swept through. Rickey stooped to pull a few berries.

“We should come back here. If we’re alive next summer. There’s enough for the entire Colony. And Amos and Molly could probably transplant a few.” He popped a few into his mouth and made a face. “Yech. Needs sugar.”

A shadow peeled itself away from the station’s tower. Melissa froze beside him and put a hand on his arm. “Shh,” was all she said. The bulky shadow lumbered slowly toward them.

“Shit,” whispered Rickey. “Is that a bear?”

“Lie down.”

He didn’t argue. They sank into the brush, the sharp twigs pricking them and held their breaths listening. The animal was still too far from them to hear. “Maybe if we go back to the woods—” Rickey whispered.

Melissa shook her head. “There’s no shelter back there. It can climb.”

“We can’t stay
here,
” he hissed, “all I’ve got is a little pocket knife and a lighter that doesn’t work half the time. I’m not exactly intimidating.”

“If we play dead, it won’t be interested.”

“Bullshit. It’ll just bat us around a little, right? So I’ll be mauled instead of chewed. We’re going for the station.”

“No! If you run, it will chase you and it can run faster.”

“Not going to run. We’re going to crawl. Then we can be dead if it finds us like you want, okay?”

“If we just leave it alone, it’ll go away. It probably just wants us gone.”

He started pulling her arm and inching forward. “Melissa, you were a mailperson. What did dogs do when they wanted you gone?”

“What?”

He pulled her up onto her knees and peered over the top of a bush. The bear was sniffing around, still walking toward them. “You ever see a strange dog quietly amble up to you? Animals make noise when they want you gone. They let you know. That bear isn’t defending itself. That bear is hunting. And it’s hunting us. No more deer, no more cattle, just a hell of a lot of blueberries and us, a couple of sticks of tasty turkey jerky in its field. No more debate. Let’s go.”

He sank back into the bushes and pulled her forward again, their bodies making soft slithering whooshes through the bracken. She tried not to notice that his hand around her wrist was shaking. She didn’t dare crawl, fearing the pack on her shoulders would stick above the branches and the movement would catch the bear’s attention. Instead, she slid on her belly, trying to pull herself along beside him over the rocky gravel. They were blind, the gold-red flash of the blueberry bushes swallowing the edge of the hill, the station ahead, everything but the startling blue of the sky above. She hoped they were headed the right way. The swoosh of their bodies through the leaves fell into a rhythm and Melissa began to let it lull her into a hesitant calm. Surely, it would have attacked if it was going to. A low snuffle near her foot made her freeze and adrenaline tore painfully up her sore muscles. Rickey squeezed her wrist painfully tight. He looked over at her and his eyes were wide, his breath made little puffs in the dust below the bushes. “Don’t. Run.” She mouthed at him. She wasn’t sure he really saw her until his chin dipped in a slight nod.

Another snort and then a weight came crashing down onto her pack. Her breath puffed out in a dusty plume. Rickey sprang up.

Don’t run,
she willed at him.

He started yelling and waving his arms. She felt the weight lift from her back. She scrambled to her feet. Rickey was clapping his hands and shouting. She turned to look at the bear. It began to circle, still making no noise, a massive shadow pacing past, threatening to come between them and the station. Melissa swung her pack down from her shoulder. Her mind raced. There were tools in there, things to fix the radio if necessary. No good if they were dead. She pulled it back and hurled it. It knocked into the bear’s flank with a metallic clank as the tools smashed into each other. The bear drifted sideways, surprised. It stopped to sniff the pack, and she grabbed Rickey’s arm pulling him steadily back toward the station. He stopped yelling and they backed steadily away. She glanced behind them. They were closer than she’d expected. “You got food in that pack?” he asked.

“No, it’s all in yours, remember?”

The bear abandoned her pack and turned back toward them. It broke into a run. “Shit,” swore Rickey, fumbling with his own pack. The bear stopped just shy of them. Rickey threw the pack over its head. It turned its head but then refocused. After a throaty bark, it moved to circle them again. Melissa looked around. Nothing but flimsy branches and pebbles.

“I’ll pull it away,” said Rickey softly, “you get to the station. See if there’s a gun or a flare or something.”

“No.”

“We have to. It’s coming and it’s hungry. It’s going to get one of us.” He was pressing her behind him, still backing toward the station. Two dozen yards. A sprint.

“We’ll run together.”

The bear was closing in, snuffling and slapping at the ground as it came.

“No. You can fix the radio. I can’t. If one of us is getting hurt, maybe we have a chance to determine which. Just play it safe—”

“Fuck that,” said Melissa. She yanked him backward as the bear charged and shoved him toward the station. She squared her shoulders and turned back to the bear, planting her feet on the uneven ground. The bear closed in on her, its shoulders bouncing, its top lip folding back. The teeth were dull yellow and thick, its tongue lolled, drooling as it sniffed the air. It was easy once she let go, falling back into the primal instincts that had governed her life for the past several years. Falling back into that guttural shriek that meant she was about to attack. About to feed. Rickey’s skin crawled as he watched. He began to salivate at the familiar sound, even as he held up his hands to block it. The bear stopped just short of her. It reached a massive claw toward Melissa, intending to knock her sideways. She darted in toward it instead and closed her teeth around its wet nose, biting until her jaw ached with the pressure. The bear’s nose squished between her teeth and it yelped and shook its head. She let go, falling backward into the brush, its massive paw batting her backward and slicing her shirt and skin. The bear took off, bounding toward the trees, the crimson field rustling and parting in a clumsy wedge behind it. Rickey ran to pick her up. She was laughing.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his legs still shaking and his hand searching for a cigarette that he didn’t have. He didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re fucking crazy. Why didn’t you listen?”

She wiped her eyes as the laughing faded. “Tired of listening. Tired of playing it safe. That’s how we got here.”

“What on earth were you thinking?” he asked, helping her up and checking the shallow scratches that the bear had left on her stomach.

“I was thinking that I’m sick of cowering and waiting to get eaten. For a decade, I’ve been sitting around waiting to get eaten. And then I remembered that
I
did the eating. I was a zombie, what’s scarier than that? It’s
my
world too. They used to be scared of
us
. Bears, dogs, other people. We used to be predators.
I
was a predator. I can be dangerous too.”

Rickey ran a hand through the wild tangle of hair on his head. “The bear agrees. Me too. You scared the crap out of me.” He retrieved the packs, jogging gently back toward the station. “If it’s all the same to you, though,” he said when he reached her again, “let’s not do that again anytime soon.”

“Don’t worry,” she said spitting into the bushes. “I don’t want seconds. Bear tastes awful.”

Thirty-one

Vincent was standing in front of the fence. Frank had seen his shadow through the tent flap as he woke. He pressed a hand to his bleary eyes and slowly pulled his arm from underneath Nella’s shoulder, careful not to wake her. He glanced up, but the shadow was still there, waiting. He wondered why it didn’t call him. Frank stretched and pressed himself up, flipping the tent flap back as he rose.

“Father?” he said, blinking in the early sunlight. “Do you need Nella?”

Vincent shook his head. He had tried to clean himself up, his hair was neatly tied back and he had shaved, but Frank thought he looked ten years older and ten pounds thinner than he had the day before. It was a long moment before he said anything.

“No, thank you. She did her best yesterday for me— for Molly. I’ve come to ask a favor.”

“Of course, whatever we can do.”

“We are burying her today. I’d like to give her a real service— I mean, I’ve given them all real services, but she has friends that want to say goodbye. If I wear a mask, maybe they can be there. Outside the fence, of course. Maybe it would be safe. Do you think?”

“Yes— that should— I think we’ve got some in the pack. One minute.”

Nella sat up sleepily as he pushed back into the small tent.
Thirty-three,
her mind murmured rebelliously. “What’sit? What’s happened?” she asked.

Frank paused to smooth her hair away from her face. “Nothing’s happened. It’s okay.” He turned away, his face falling into a frown at the slur.
It’s just from waking up,
he told himself, but his own mind echoed hers,
thirty-three
, it hissed.

“Here we go,” he said with a tight smile, holding up the flimsy yellow masks. “Do you need more than one? Is Father Preston going too?”

Vincent looked lost.

Frank took his hand through the fence, pressing three masks into it. “This should be enough. Don’t worry, we have a few more.”

The priest nodded and turned to walk away.

“Vincent—” called Frank in a low voice. “How many days do you have left?”

Vincent shook his head. “I’m not certain. Ten? Twelve? We’ll leave when Rickey and Melissa return. That should give us enough time. We just wanted to make sure the broadcast was heard by as many as possible.”

“Won’t that make it dangerous to be on the road?”

He shrugged. “Isn’t dying the entire point? I hope healthy people will be too frightened to get near enough to hurt us. And we’ll take nothing of value. I don’t want to tempt grave robbers either.”

Frank nodded.

“What did you really want to ask?” said Vincent.

Frank hesitated and glanced over his shoulder. “The slurring and stumbling— when should we see it?”

Vincent shook his head. “I don’t think you will. It’s only been the last few days for the people who have turned here. It starts with fatigue a few weeks before. Fatigue and not being able to say what you really want. Don’t you remember?”

“I remember, I just wasn’t sure I remembered right. It’s so easy to see it in every little action.”

“Is she—”

Frank shook his head. “I just— I don’t want us to wait too long.”

“You won’t. I promise. Not even love can disguise it when it comes.”

“Thank you,” said Frank, though he wasn’t certain what for.

“And thank you,” replied Vincent, holding up the masks before turning to walk away.

The tents around them flapped suddenly in a quick, forceful breeze. Frank looked up to see clouds deepening on the horizon as they crashed into each other and piled.

“That’s going to be a bad thunderstorm,” said Nella, coming up to the fence. She curled her fingers around the wire. “Makes me a little nervous, being in this giant grid of metal with nothing else around.”

“It’s still pretty far. Maybe it’ll blow itself out by the time it gets here.” Frank shivered though and pulled her away from the fence. The morning was quiet except for the wind snapping the canvas at intervals and the steady thud of Vincent digging at the end of the rows of cells. There was movement up in the Colony, but it was too far to hear.

Frank frowned as he looked up at the wall.

“What’s wrong?” asked Nella.

“Just— She hurt Gray, pretty badly. But if he doesn’t die— I hope they are ready.”

“It’s beyond our help, Frank. We don’t get to see that part of the story. Believe in the happy ending and be at peace with it.”