The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) (26 page)

A crack of thunder shattered over them and she jumped.

“You really think I’m that important?” Rickey asked after a moment.

Melissa smirked. “Now you’re just fishing for compliments.”

Rickey shook his head. “I shouldn’t have doubted you. Whatever you broadcast, you’ll definitely convince them.”

Melissa laughed but her smile faded. “I really
would
miss you, Rickey.”

He avoided her gaze, blinking back his own tears. “
Why?
”

“Because you’re funny and smart, although you try really hard to hide it. Because you’re kind and passionate about justice where other people give up and accept the way things are. Because I— I
like
you.”

Rickey’s face snapped back to look at her, to see if she was teasing. “I like you too,” he said at last.

So you’ll stay?” she asked.

“If you protect me from the bear,” he said.

Thirty-three

“Am I going to be down here alone?” Marnie’s voice was worried, stripped of its complexity, as if she were terribly young. Which, she was, Henry realized.

“No, of course not,” he said, keeping his voice light. “You see that truck they’re putting chemicals in?”

“Sure.”

“When it’s full, or in the morning if it gets too late, Vincent and anyone who feels sick will go. After they are gone, I’ll come down there to be with you until it’s time to come back to camp.”

“What if I’m sick too?”

“Do you feel sick?”

“No— but nobody else did either, until the end. Even the doctor, she says she feels fine, but she knows she’s dying anyway. I was with Christine a lot longer than the doctor was. I’m going to get sick too, and— and you’ll chain me to a pole.” The transmit cut out, but Henry knew she was crying.

“No Marnie, never. I’ll never do that to you. I promised your mom I would take care of you. I promised
you
I’d take care of you. I’ll never chain you up. You’re going to be okay. You’re immune, I know it. Like you said, you were with Christine a lot longer. You’d be starting to show signs now. We’re just going to play cards and be bored for a few more weeks, then we’ll come back up here, you’ll see.”

“What if you get sick? From touching things? From being where they were?”

“Vincent is burning the empty tents. The only things that will be left will be what you or anyone else that isn’t sick has touched.”

“There’s only one other woman. She’s the only one not going. She’s not stumbling or anything. She wants to go with Vincent, but he won’t let her. She wants to get the miracle cure, but he says she isn’t sick, she’s just scared.”

Two out of thirty-five,
Henry thought to himself, his heart sinking. He hoped the radio broadcast worked. They had to keep this plague out of the Colony.

“The others— could Christine have gone with them? Could she have turned back?”

Henry closed his eyes, the realization of what they were doing stabbing at his chest, not for the first time. “No, Marnie. There was nothing that could be done for Christine.”
Or any of the rest,
he thought,
sending them on a death march. With Vincent at their lead. How can we do this? What kind of people have we become?

The top of the water truck closed with a bang as Amos climbed down with the last empty cannister, his face hidden by the thick gas mask. Henry watched as the larger man’s shoulders sagged and he brought one hand to his forehead. And for a moment, Henry let the despair overwhelm him. This was no better than simply shooting them. It was worse. It was lying. How was he better than Phil? Even Gray would have given them a better chance at surviving. It was no use arguing that he wasn’t making them miserable while they
were
alive. Dead was dead. And he was driving them there. He watched Amos lift his head and the mask turned toward him, a rubber death’s head looking to him, to Henry, for comfort he didn’t have to give.

He thumbed the radio’s transmit button again. “I’ll see you tonight, Marnie. Can you find Vincent for me?”

“Is it time?” she asked.

“Almost.”

“He isn’t coming back, is he?” She didn’t pause long enough for him to answer. “I should have come with you, when you both came to the Lodge. Maybe it would be different then.”

Henry shook his head. “Vincent chose to do what was right. He would have done the same whether you came with us or not. There was no talking him out of it.”

Rickey was packing a box of plastic suits into the cabin of the sprayer truck. On top, several more canisters of poison were carefully cradled, waiting to be used by hand where the sprayer couldn’t go. The quarantine camp was shuffling and rippling with movement as people prepared to leave. The bonfire where Father Preston’s tent had been was dying down now, Henry could see someone flinging clothing or debris in occasionally, but it was mostly left to smolder. The radio crackled in his hand and Henry looked down.

“I’m here,” said Vincent, his voice already far away, as if he’d been walking for hours before calling. “Is everything ready?”

“Yes, we’ve found everything you will need. There are a few hazmat suits to make certain someone will last long enough to complete the— the spraying. There is roughly enough food and clean water for three or four days, though if you pick anyone up on the way— they will have to fend for themselves. I wanted to send more— enough so that— but the fire…”

“Henry, it’s okay. We don’t need it.”

Henry slid down the ragged stone wall, his t-shirt catching on the irregular lumps. “I can’t do this, Vincent. I can’t let you do this either. How could we live with ourselves if I did?”

“We all have our tasks, Henry. It’s always hard to be left behind, I know. But someone has to help these people keep going. Someone’s got to show them there’s some hope left. I don’t know anyone who is better at that than you.”

“Me? Vincent, I—”

“You kept us going when we woke up. When we wished we had just stayed sick. You persuaded Rickey to stay with us, even when he wanted to break away, to be responsible for no one but himself. You kept Molly alive after she wanted to give up, after everything that she’d done, after she realized she would probably lose her arm, after all that came crashing down on her, you persuaded her to stay with us. To save us, in the end. Your hope for us made dozens of people follow you out here, without enough supplies, without a secure home, nothing but each other to depend on.
You
did that, Henry. And now, you must do it again. Don’t feel bad for me. I just have to walk a few more miles, and then my job is done. I’ve got the easy part.”

“But the others— I know that you know what’s coming, but the others, I’m sending them to die.”

“You are only sending them home. They were already dying.”

“Even worse. I should be caring for them, not banishing them.”

Vincent sighed heavily. “I am caring for them. You must
trust
me, Henry. You already carry so much. Guilt from the past, worry for the future, let me carry this part. Let me
help
.” Vincent laughed and then continued, “It’s my turn to save the world, Henry. Let me.”

“You have been one of my best friends,” said Henry, helplessly.

“And you have been one of the best human beings I’ve ever met. I spent years among good, religious men. People who spent their entire lives trying to be the best, kindest versions of themselves. I don’t know that a single one of them would have had the strength to let Phil go after what he did to us. You asked me once about how much of what we’d done could ever be forgiven. But
you
, Henry, have been my example on that front. You give me hope. Now you must give it to others. Goodbye, my friend.”

“Goodbye, Father,” said Henry, giving Vincent the title he knew he’d wanted most.

He clicked the radio off and watched Father Preston get into the cab of the sprayer. They’d told the quarantined that the truck was to put out any remaining fires in the City. Only the two priests, Lisa, Nella, and Frank knew what it really was. The lie pinched at Henry’s chest. He watched the small line of stumbling people clustering around the truck and wondered how many of them knew what this really was. Undoubtedly a few must know. The ones that were still sane enough to put it together. Amos sank down next to him, the gas mask long abandoned in the truck. He scrubbed at his face as they watched Vincent hand out packages of food that they carried in packs.

“He’s going to have to kill at least a dozen on the road. If they don’t all turn at once and overwhelm him,” said Amos. “He’s already had to put over a dozen down since the quarantine started.”

“He has help.”

Amos shook his head and Henry heard his breath hitch. He turned his face toward Amos and was startled to see the large man shaking with a suppressed sob.

“What is it?” he asked, alarmed.

“I’m not an angel. I’ve done things I’m not proud of in my life. Before the Plague and since. But I always
tried
to be a good person. I always
tried
to own my mistakes and make amends. But this— I know Frank Courtlen. I know Dr. Ryder. And most of the others down there. They are decent people. People that tried to make the world better, most of them. They don’t deserve this. Nobody does. And we’re pushing them out. Like they’re garbage. Sending them away to kill each other or choke to death in some lonely corner of that empty City.

I was able to pretend before this. I was able to pretend I didn’t bear the same load of guilt that the Infected did. I didn’t kill anyone except when I had to. When they were going to kill me. Not even— not even when I should have. I lied to myself. Told myself I was a good soldier, not a barbarian like the Infected. Like some of the Immunes. I pretended you were equal to me, that I believed you couldn’t help yourselves, because of my wife. She was Infected, too. And what she did— I knew she couldn’t have done it if there was anything left of her inside. But— you started coming
back.
You weren’t supposed to come
back
, Henry. You weren’t supposed to be human anymore. So deep down, I never—” Amos shook with another sob, covering his face with his hands. He took a deep breath and watched the sprayer truck start up. “I never really believed you
were
human anymore. Not like me. Not equal. It was just a front.

My dad was a vet for a city zoo. He used to bring me to work with him when I was little. I loved the big cats. He’d let me touch them when they were sedated. Always warned me, though, they might seem quiet. They might
seem
like they loved you sometimes. Like they’d make good pets. But underneath, they were just the same wild, hungry beasts they’d always been. ‘They’re just waiting, Amos,’ he’d say, ‘They just bide their time until they think they’ve got you fooled. It’s not the growlers you need to watch out for. There’s nothing so dangerous as a purring lion.’ And that’s what I thought of you. All this time, you were just quiet lions. That you were pleasant enough, but I shouldn’t expect anything but a bite if I trusted you. And I’d only have myself to blame for it.

But I know better. I’ve always known better. It was easier to pretend. So much easier. Because how could she have hurt our little girl if there’d been anything left? How could I have stopped her the way I did, if she wasn’t just a husk? And it didn’t matter until now. My pretending didn’t hurt anyone. Nobody knew. Even after I came here to help, I reasoned that we don’t let beasts starve. But now— I can’t pretend anymore. How could I watch you day in and day out working yourself to the bone to feed a few dozen strangers and think you weren’t a decent man? And poor, sweet Molly, giving everything to save them from a
real
monster, all alone fighting to rescue a handful of crops. Or Vincent who walked into that quarantine camp with his eyes wide open to nurse people he owed nothing to, people he’d never met and who’d likely have treated him like scum if they had? How could I think you were less? These people we are turning away, they are
real.
They had families once. People they loved as much as I loved my girl. They didn’t ask for this and some of them tried to stop it. And we’re pushing them out, not even hoping they’ll go somewhere else. We’re pushing them out, hoping they’ll die.
We’re
the bad guys, Henry. We’re the villains. No matter what happens, even if we save the people here, even if there was no other way to stop the disease, we can’t undo this. I’ll never be able to justify it to myself. Not really. I’m
bad
. Deep down evil.”

The truck pulled away, trailing its train of stumbling people. Henry saw Vincent raise one long arm and returned the gesture. “Vincent said that we all have our tasks to do. Maybe yours and mine are to accept the roles of villains so that other heroes can save them all. So other stories can survive. What we’re doing— everything we’ve done so far, is to keep going, so that something, some
one
will survive to make the world better than it was. Better than the world Before, better than the shell-shocked scrabble for survival after the plague, better than
us.
Because that’s the choice, Amos. We turn them away and the Colony survives. Or we welcome them as part of us and we all die together. If your daughter were here— if she and Marnie could both know the whole story, maybe it wouldn’t matter so much how they remembered us, if it meant that they were still alive to do the remembering. Maybe I’m okay with being evil if it means Marnie won’t be. If it means these people won’t make the same mistakes we did. Or don’t have to make the same choices that we do.”