The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) (6 page)

“Amos, you’re a smart guy,” said Rickey, rocking back onto his heels to rest his back, “but there’s a big difference between being sad that a miracle didn’t work for someone else and finding out you aren’t really, truly special enough to have had a miracle work for yourself. These people feel chosen. Like they have a purpose besides just surviving. Like they were picked out by hand. And you just agreed with them, not a moment ago. You said we needed to protect them. That it was going to be them, and people like them that rebuild the world, while we spend our time scrabbling by. You take that miracle away, you tell them they’ve been tricked, and they’re going to lose that feeling of being special. They’re going to question their purpose. And then they scrabble in the dust like us. We don’t tell them and Father Preston can’t perform, they’ll just think either those other people weren’t special enough or that Father Preston has lost his stuff. Doesn’t change how they feel about themselves.”

“If we don’t tell them, then they remain under Gray’s thumb. He can use them as he wants, whenever he wants.” Henry scowled and threw another shovel load into the bucket.

Rickey shook his head. “He’s got more to lose than we do and he knows it. We expose him and they’ll lynch him. He’s going to test the limits, don’t get me wrong, his kind always do. But if we make it clear that we value these people, that we’re making it a priority to protect them, he’ll have to back off. He’s in a bad position and he knows it. He
let
you find that dart. He was counting on one of us to find it. Because he’s talked you into second-guessing yourself. He’s talked you into feeling guilty for something
he
did. Well, him and Father Preston, anyway. Can’t fall for it, or you’ll stop pressuring him to treat them better.”

Amos leaned on his shovel, heavy with worry. Henry thought he’d never seen the other man looking so worn. He tried to blame it on the lack of light in the narrow pit, but he knew it was more than that. “Gray’s got to go,” Amos said, his voice a low whisper, “Not today, not for a little, but he can’t stay. One way or another, he’s got to go. He’ll twist this place otherwise. He’ll turn us against each other, just so he can climb up the heap a little. I can agree to keeping the dart secret, but Gray’s got to be dealt with. And I don’t mean exile. You thought Phil was bad, but this man’s far, far worse. He’ll just keep coming back. We can’t let that happen.”

Rickey dropped a brick with a thud into the soil and swore. He stubbed out his cigarette. Henry just nodded. He began pulling the basket rope to raise the dirt he’d just dug. Rickey wiped the dirt from the brick and stared at the drying mud where it was meant to go. “How come it’s always us who have to do the shit work?” he said softly. Henry knew he wasn’t talking about digging latrines.

Amos scraped his shovel over the floor. “So that there are other people in the world who can stay clean. So we aren’t
all
dragged down into the muck.”

Eight

It was so fast. He’d expected it to take longer. To be more of a struggle. Something in him rebelled. It
should
be harder. It should have
hurt.
But there they lay, the mother and the son, arms and legs still gently bound as they lay on the plastic sheet. The mother’s head had rolled toward him. Her expression was peaceful, blank. It was
wrong
. The boy’s face was turned toward Father Preston who was still shaking in the folding seat next to him. Vincent wasn’t even breathing heavily. His hands didn’t shake. He had expected a sudden snap of agony in his chest, as if the act of severing the boy’s head also severed his soul. But the misery and guilt had come in the days before. All he felt now was a quiet relief that it was finally done, that the final, irrevocable step had been taken. Part of him was a little frightened that he didn’t feel more. He knelt beside the bodies and wiped the blade on the plastic sheet before sliding it into his belt. He gently arranged the bodies and began wrapping them tightly in the plastic.

“What have you done?” gasped Father Preston at last.

Vincent didn’t look up. “What nobody else was going to do for them.”

“They didn’t have to die.”

“What would you have done?”

Father Preston stood, raking his fingers through his hair. “I was
curing
them.”

Vincent sank back on his heels. “You were trying, but we both know that nothing was helping the boy.”

“I just needed more time. Your doubt has undone everything—”

“The world is filled with doubters. Bigger doubters than me, Brother Michael. It’s never stopped a miracle before.”

“Don’t call me that. You are no brother of mine. You’ve broken the most sacred law. You are no priest. Faithless, wicked, you are my mortal enemy. You are no longer part of the church.”

“I know,” said Vincent quietly, “it comes from a higher authority than you, Michael. It had to happen. It will continue to happen. You will see. Your miracle won’t work here. We have to think of the days ahead. Of the Colony. Of your people and my friends on the hill. There are no more miracles coming, Michael. We have to save ourselves.”

“Do not speak to me. Never speak to me again. I
will
cure these people. I was not given this gift to have it fail now—”

“Perhaps you were mistaken about your gift. Perhaps there was some confusion—”

“Stay away from me. You’re in league with Gray. I should never have trusted him. But I won’t fall into despair because of him. Or you. Stay away. You are unwelcome, unwanted. Keep your bloody hands to yourself,” Father Preston was hissing with rage. He fled the small tent. Vincent was still for a moment and then slowly returned to wrapping the bodies for burial.

He knew Father Preston wouldn’t expose him. It would mean admitting that the miracle had failed. Still, Vincent waited several hours in the small tent for the camp to fall silent around him. He didn’t care what the others thought of himself, but he didn’t want the deaths to cause a panic in the quarantine camp. Near midnight, he slipped out, wheeling the barrow back through the dark pathway to the tent. He placed the bodies inside, the mother’s legs hung out of the end, though Vincent tried to gently bend them into place. He wheeled the barrow quietly past the other cages, their occupants all sleeping. The only light was from the watch fires that capped the ends of the Colony’s now finished wall. There was little fuel to spare for lights in the quarantine camp. That suited Vincent. He didn’t want to be seen. He didn’t want to be distracted. The quarantine fence ended in a large circle. The waste buckets were dumped into a hole here, because it was at the bottom of the hill and couldn’t contaminate the Colony’s water. Vincent didn’t want to bury them here. Not among the filth. But he didn’t trust himself outside the fence either. Despite his memory of how it happened the first time, the Plague was like an ax above him, waiting to fall at any second. He had to stay inside the camp. His own sanity demanded it. He set the barrow as far from the waste buckets as he could. A large crabapple tree grew just outside the fence, its old crooked limbs hanging over it and over Vincent. It would be a quiet spot, that much he could give them. It would smell sweet in the spring with plenty of blossoms and again in the fall as ripe fruit spilled onto the ground.

Nonsense,
Vincent thought.
Just bodies. The mother and boy are gone. They don’t care what happens now. Just lumps waiting to turn back into dirt. Get it done.
He chopped into the grass with a shovel and it released a gentle scent of growing and green. The ground was hard and stiff with years of unchecked grass growth, but soon Vincent broke through to softer earth and soon had a pit large enough. He carried them gently, mother first, then son, into the grave and then sat down on the edge to rest. Vincent looked up at the dark silo that towered over the Colony’s wall. He knew someone was watching the road from there, even if he couldn’t see them. He wondered who it was. He pulled the walkie-talkie from his pocket and turned it on. The click and sharp static startled him, even though he’d kept the volume low.

“Anyone home?” he said quietly.

“Vincent, is that you?” Henry’s voice crackled through the small speaker and Vincent smiled with relief.

“Yeah, it’s me. I just needed someone to talk to.”

“Are you okay? Have— have you noticed anything?”

“I’m not sick. Not yet.” Vincent could almost feel the sigh of relief traveling through the small radio, though Henry didn’t transmit. “But the first one finally turned.”

There was a long silence. “I know you wanted to believe he could do what he said, but— this isn’t a shock is it Vincent?”

“No. I’ve been dreading it. It finally came.”

“Does he realize what he’s done now? Is he ready to cooperate?”

“No. He couldn’t face it. Days and days, he tried to cure them. He wouldn’t give up, I’ll give him that. He was exhausted at the end. He just collapsed. I— I took care of it.”

“I’m so sorry.” Vincent swiped the back of his hand over his good eye. The radio crackled again. “I’m not supposed to tell you this. I don’t know who else can hear us, but I want you to know for sure that you did the right thing. We found a Cure dart. Someone cured the others, someone from the City. Some part of him knows it wasn’t a miracle. He and Gray both knew. He couldn’t do what you did, Vincent, because he’s a coward.”

“It doesn’t make what I’ve done any better. The cardinal law, Henry. The one unforgivable thing. I’m damned.”

“No, what you did was mercy.”

“It was murder. It’s for God to decide life and death, not me.”

“Maybe God
did
decide. Maybe he just used you to do it. Maybe He’s decided for all of us, but we can’t know. If you are damned, then we all are. There was no choice. There’s no return this time. Just madness and suffering and infecting others. Think of it as self-preservation. That’s allowed, right?”

“I’m an evil person. It doesn’t matter how I justify it. I’ve done a terrible thing. And I can’t even repent, because I mean to go on doing it, when necessary.”

“I’m coming down there. I can’t ask you to do this. We didn’t really think far enough ahead about what we were asking.”

“No, Henry, I’ve accepted my role. There is no reason for you to become ill too or to share this burden. I just needed someone to talk to. I was just lonely.”

“We’re missing you here too. I feel like I’ve lost my conscience. Like you were the voice of our better selves. I hate that you are there without a friend. Isn’t there anything I can do to help you? Sitting up here is driving me crazy.”

Vincent took a deep shuddering breath and stood up on the edge of the pit. “I know you aren’t religious Henry, but knowing someone was praying for me, that my name still reached His ear, even after I turned away, that would bring me a great peace.”

“If it will bring you some comfort, then there won’t be a day that I don’t pray for all of us and you in particular. Goodnight, Vincent.”

“Goodnight Henry.” Vincent clicked the radio off and began filling in the pit with the cold soil just as the horizon began to lighten in the approaching dawn.

Nine

Christine watched the sparkle of dust floating in the morning sun. Marnie was awake, looking at the map again, but Christine wasn’t ready to go yet. She’d pretended to still be asleep when Marnie had shaken her shoulder. She was slow. And it was getting worse. She’d stumbled more and more after they left the tunnel. She slid one hand gently over the top of her belly. She’d heard that women grew clumsy, lost their balance during pregnancy. Even that their thought processes were impaired. But was it the baby? Or something else? After Marnie had fallen asleep, Christine had lain awake wondering what was behind the locked door in the back of the abandoned station. Maybe food that the looters had missed. Maybe more jerky. She could still feel the stringy pull of the pieces she’d had earlier, the salt and spices still tingled as she licked her lips. She told herself there was nothing back there, just an empty stock room. Even if the looters had been in too large a hurry to clean it out, the scav teams that hit it later from the City would not have left anything behind. But in the dark, the thought of the jerky grew until the clench and rumble of her empty stomach had woken her in the early morning. It had taken a few seconds to realize that she’d bitten through her bottom lip and was sucking the salty blood from the cut. Christine had shut her eyes again, wondering if she’d missed signs of the Plague, dismissed them as strong pregnancy cravings and symptoms. She pushed the thought away. She should have turned by now, shouldn’t she? Sevita had said a week and it had been two.
Sevita said a week until things got bad in the City, not a week to infection,
she thought, as a panicked cramp squeezed her core.
Could I have been that far behind Sevita? Are there still people turning now?

And the baby? Was there any way to save it?
What for?
She asked herself,
Marnie was right. No reason to bring a baby into this misery.
But Sevita had been so happy. Christine could still see her sweet smile when the test had come back. She could still hear the melody of the lullaby Sevita sang with her cheek against Christine’s stomach. But Sevita was gone. And the baby would end up an orphan. Like Marnie. Its life as bad or worse.