The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) (32 page)

The morning was gray and the smell of the acrid poison reached even the boat. They pulled on their suits and slowly rowed back to the docks. Frank was limping and Vincent tried to make him stay on the boat, but Frank insisted, saying he couldn’t leave it unfinished, not now. Nella would want to see it done. He picked up her body and put it gently between them in the rowboat and then held her as he and Vincent rode on the back of the sprayer. They headed first to Frank’s old street, the row houses huddled together against the rest of the City. Vincent and Preston started at the end of his block, but Frank limped down the street with Nella sagging against his chest. The yards of the neighboring houses were blooming with herbs. The air became a battle between summer and the acrid poison that slunk behind him. Someone had planted a sapling in his own yard and he stopped to stare at it.

“I told you, we
aren’t
leaving. You agreed not to come back.”

He jumped and spun around, trying to see through his fogged up mask. A short, reedy man stood behind him, his face curled into a sharp snarl. He was holding a baseball bat and a teen girl with one leg leaned on crutches behind him. The man’s face softened as he saw Nella’s body and realized who it was.

“Frank? You came back?” The baseball bat sagged and then dragged on the cement. “Things have gone really wrong here. Is that—”

Frank nodded behind the mask. “I just wanted to bring her home,” he said, “I didn’t come to hurt you.”

“Course not,” said the man.

“You need to get out of here. Get a mask or something to breathe through and go to the harbor. I’ll meet you there tonight. Stay out of the City. Stay away from the smoke. You’ll be safe on the boat.”

“What is it?”

“Poison,” said Frank, “Poison to kill the plague. So we could keep the rest safe.”

The reedy man nodded. “You came back to help, didn’t you? And her?”

“We tried.”

“I’m sorry.”

Frank nodded. “I’ll meet you at the boat,” he said and turned back to his door. The house was dark and even the leaky sink didn’t drip in the silence. He slowly climbed the narrow steps, adjusting Nella’s weight to hold her higher off the ground. He put her on the bed, the blue sailing charts hung over her, the little islands and rock outcrops like stars against the watercolor sea. He thought about lying down next to her. His stitches stretched and ached and he was exhausted. But no one else knew how to sail the boat. He couldn’t deny them a chance to escape. He stood a long time, looking at Nella. The rumble of the sprayer moved on and he knew it was time. Frank opened his small canister and sprinkled it, like yellow snow over her. He put the old camp lantern on the bedside table and switched it on. She looked waxen. Not real. It made leaving easier. She wasn’t there. Not anymore. Neither was he. He walked down the stairs and back into the street. The bedroom window glowed, keeping the dark away from her. He got into the truck with the others. Lisa drove the other direction this time, hitting the Immune side of town. They overlapped a few streets and a small scattering of bodies told them the poison had been effective overnight.

“Where is everyone?” Vincent asked.

Frank shrugged. “Locked away in their apartments maybe. Nella said—” he broke off and then forced himself to continue. “She said she didn’t even know her neighbors. It was like that on this side of town.”

But except for a few Infected, they found no one until they closed in on the prison. “Maybe they were all captured and cremated,” said Father Preston. “That ash pile was pretty big.”

Lisa pulled up to the short gray building that had been such a large part of Frank’s life. There were several buses in the lot. “Of course it would be here,” he groaned. “Misery floods from this place. They would have locked everyone up for safety.”

“We should check for Immunes before we start spraying,” said Vincent.

They walked into the prison together, Frank holding the heavy glass door open for a moment, wishing that first slushy day in March had never happened. That she’d never met him. That she was somewhere safe in her apartment or consulting at a far-flung Cure camp. He wished he could burn the place down like so much of the rest of the City. Instead, he followed Vincent through to the block where the Infected started shrieking at the sound of the opening door.

Forty

The tire fire burned for a long time. Henry tried not to read into it too much, but it was hard to ignore day after day. Nancy, the other quarantine camp occupant was released on a sunny day at the end of August when the milkweed was bursting and the seeds floating like warm snow over the field. It was Marnie’s time too, but she refused to leave Henry. Nancy shook their hands and quietly walked up to the Colony. Henry could hear the shouts of welcome even below the wall. The days grew cooler and Amos sent down some scraps of plywood left over from building. Henry built a small two room shack, trying not to equate it to the wood shed he’d spent too long in. It kept the wind out, but not the loneliness. He missed Molly, but it was easy to pretend she was up in the Colony sorting and drying vegetables as long as he was down in the quarantine camp. He couldn’t pretend with Vincent. He heard echoes of him everywhere. If only they knew for sure, he could rest easy either way.

He taught Marnie to read, something she hadn’t had since kindergarten. He read anything the Colony would send them, and his head was already filled with plans for next spring. This would be the last hard winter if he and Amos had anything to say about it. There was so much missing. Everyday tasks were harder and took longer than he’d ever expected. But it was the people he missed more than anything else. Their voices, their faces, the comfort of being part of them.

On a blustery, rainy September day, something knocked on their shack. Henry thought it was the food delivery and didn’t open the door, waiting for the person to go away. The knock came again. “You know how this works,” called Henry, “leave it and I’ll come get it after you are gone. Can’t risk exposing anyone else.”

“But it’s the fortieth day,” called a voice.

Marnie looked over at him. “Fortieth day?” she asked.

Henry stood up. “What’s the date?”

“September 27th,” answered the voice.

“The fortieth day,” repeated Henry. He flung the door open.

“Wait, what’s the fortieth day?” asked Marnie.

Henry was swallowed in a hug.

“It’s the last day of quarantine,” said a woman smiling at her. She held out her hand. “I’m Melissa. I’m glad to finally meet you. We’ve heard so very much about you.”

Marnie shook her hand and looked over at Henry who was laughing and slapping a thin, angular man on the back. She decided the fortieth day was a good day.

Forty-one

Henry grunted as he dug his feet into the soil, dragging the heavy blades behind him. “Thought you said you picked this area,” he grumbled. Amos laughed.

“Sure, but the frost always throws up more. Stephanie and Marnie said the settlement we got the apples from has a pair of horses. One of em’s ready to foal. If we can scrape enough together, maybe we can trade for it. It’ll be no good for the plow this year but next—”

Melissa ran up to the edge of the field. “Someone’s coming,” she said, “not a regular visitor either.”

Amos shrugged. “Maybe he wants to start trade.”

“Rickey spotted him a few days ago on that lumber run. He was coming from the City.”

“He’s sure?” asked Henry, letting the tiller go slack.

Melissa nodded. “He said he tried to catch up with him that day, but lost him in the woods beyond the barrier. But he recognized him today. Said it couldn’t hurt to let you know.”

Amos helped Henry slide out of the straps and they walked to the wall where Rickey stood chewing a long piece of grass. “You think he’s exposed?” asked Henry.

Rickey shook his head. “Guy was wearing a gas mask as he climbed through the barrier. Wouldn’t have recognized him today except for this wood crate he’s carrying.”

They watched the figure walk slowly up the long field toward them. He closed the distance between them while gazing steadily at his own feet. He stopped where the quarantine camp had been, the wire fence long gone, only a small circle of unmarked mounds beneath an old apple tree where it had been. He looked up at them and Henry took a step back as he drew closer, unconsciously mirroring Vincent’s reaction to the same man on a spring day two years before.

“I know it wasn’t me you were hoping to see,” said Father Preston, pushing a knit cap back on his head, “But I brought a gift from a friend. I hope you will forgive me for not being Vincent.”

He lay the wooden crate in front of them. Henry crouched and opened the lid. Half a dozen bottles of yellow liquid were cushioned against a burlap sack and a small envelope. Father Preston scratched the back of his neck. “Frank said to warn you that the pineapple wine has a bit of a wallop. He promises to get better at it, but he thought you’d want some of the first batch. The sugar’s from a nearby farm. Frank trades with them an awful lot. I think they’d adopt him if he’d let them. He sent you a letter too, about— about what happened. For my part, I was a fool. I know I can’t ever replace what—
who
I’ve taken from you, or from Frank through my actions, but I hope I can find some way to atone—”

Amos stuck out his hand. Father Preston grasped it and shook. “You made it right,” said Amos, “You went with Vincent and the others until the end. You protected this place and your people.”

“Have you come to stay for a while?” asked Melissa.

Father Preston shook his head. “Maybe a few days, but I have other people to make amends with. I’m on my way home. I need to find Ruth and Bernard, see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“You seem like you’ve been on the road a while,” said Rickey clapping him on the back, “Let us give you a few nights’ proper rest and a couple of good meals…” they kept talking as they turned the priest up toward the little cluster of houses, leaving Henry crouched near the crate. He pulled the slim envelope from where it was tucked in the corner and frowned as something oddly shaped made gentle creases in the paper. He tore it open with one finger and stretched out on the gravel road to read.

It was one sheet of paper and a slim badge of leather, ragged at the edges and glued to fraying black ribbon. Henry would have recognized it anywhere.

I know you didn’t expect to hear from any of us again, and I’ve long hoped the lack of radio broadcasts from your area means that we were successful in containing the Plague. We were able to pull three Immunes from the City before we left, but our own party was less lucky. How I wish this letter was written by any hand except mine. Both Nella and Vincent were pushed too hard in the end. She turned early because of a great shock that I wish I’d prevented. You will never need worry about Gray again. Vincent turned out of exhaustion. He was caring for all of us until the end. Father Preston and I buried him in the grounds of an old monastery, south of the City. I was surprised to find that Vincent didn’t wear a cross, but I wanted you to have something of him to hold onto. He’d said the patch was part of his life after he woke up with you. Father Preston told me something, a little while after we lost Vincent. He told me that when he was a young man, Father Preston thought to be a truly good man was to make it through life as free of sin as one could. That we were living in a world of it and whoever arrived “cleanest” would have proved their goodness. But he said Vincent convinced him that it wasn’t enough to sail above the world’s troubles and arrive unscathed at the end. That the true worth of a person was if they could walk right through the muck and lift other people out of it on his own shoulders if he had to. Both Father Preston and Vincent were sure you were among the worthiest.

I know now, how hard it must have been for Nella to write you that first letter— how much she wanted to be there when you woke up so that she could help you, so she could explain that there were things still out there worth living for, no matter how bad your memories were. I know now, because I wish I was there to tell you about Vincent myself. About the empty City, about the empty world beyond. There are others out here, I want you to know that, in case you need to make a new home someday, like me. Kind people and lonely people and some that were barely touched at all by the Plague. As much as I miss her, as much as you must miss him, the world keeps on spinning and people keep going. The time passes and there are still smiles and joys to be found. I told Nella once that surviving the Plague was the easy part. That once the danger had passed, the really brave work had to be done, the picking up and moving on that would rebuild us. I wish I’d been wrong about how difficult it is. I wish I hadn’t been the one left behind to do it. But it would make them happy to know we were trying. Even if we fail at first. As long as we keep trying.

F.C.

Note to the Reader

Dear Reader,

I just wanted to thank you for sticking with me in this dark post-“zombie” world. Whether you jumped in at After the Cure or one of the later novels or stories, I hope that the book and series have entertained you, made you think, or just moved you in some way. I hope that you loved it, but maybe you’d rather throw the kindle at me instead. I can’t say I’d blame you, but I want you to know I probably miss the characters as much as you (for you skippers-ahead, I’m not going to say who and spoil it all if you are reading this bit first. I know you are out there!), and I will continue to miss them and this world. Will I be returning to them? Maybe, probably. Ruth is still out there, somewhere. In the meantime, I hope you’ll drop me a line and tell me how you feel, I’d love to hear from you, whether you are railing against me or just want to know what the weather in Maine is at the moment. You can always find me at [email protected] and I promise I will do my best to answer any questions you might have or just say hello and make a new friend in zombie- er,
Infected
and post apocalyptic appreciation. Or you can pop in to the After the Cure facebook page to see what’s new, like audiobooks, new stories or what I’m up to next(or to find out about other awesome science fiction and horror books that I’ve run across and want to share):
https://www.facebook.com/Afterthecurenovel