“You’re the people who were supposed to come get us,” said Marnie, “We were supposed to wait until you came to help.”
Frank nodded.
“I thought there were a bunch of you,” said the girl. “I thought you had an army or something. Where’ve you been?”
“Trying to figure out how to get to you and what we were going to do when we found you,” said Frank, a needle-thin tone of defensiveness creeping in. “We were going to the Colony to get help.”
Nella finished cleaning the cut. “Why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you wait for us? We wouldn’t have left you.”
“I know, I know,” cried Christine, “but there were other people who wanted the shelter. They would have found a way in. We’d get sick if they broke in.” Christine laughed. “Too late,” she said. “Too late for ‘Vita. Too late for me. Too late for the baby. But you aren’t too late. You can take Marnie to her friend. You can stop me before I hurt someone.”
“What?” said Marnie, “No, there’s got to be something else we can try. You don’t know for sure, yet. Maybe something’s gone wrong with the pregnancy. Wait until we get to the Colony, they’ll have doctors there.”
Christine shook her head. “Two doctors here. Or close ‘nuff. I knew long time ago. Didn’t want to. Nella knows. She’s seen it hun’ert times an’ more.”
Nella glanced over at Marnie. “Did she hit her head recently? Or eat something she shouldn’t have or that was bad?”
“We— we were attacked in the tunnels when we left the City, maybe she hit her head then?”
Christine shook her head. “No, just my side. Besides, wouldn’t explain this.” She wiggled her wounded hand.
“Maybe it’s just a craving. Maybe you just need more protein or something,” said Marnie.
Christine shook her head. “Lots of wom’n had babies in the City. No more meat than me. Never ate their own hands.”
The little group was silent for a moment as Nella played with the bandage on her lap, trying to decide whether or not to put it on Christine’s hand. Did it even matter? Should she persuade her to go to the quarantine camp where she’d likely just turn into a threat to everyone there? Should she persuade her to turn back to the City and hope she didn’t infect anyone on the way back? Christine knew what she was thinking about. She closed a hand around Nella’s and squeezed.
“I know ‘Vita was your best friend. I know I can never be what she was. But you’re my best friend. I knew you’d find us. I just wish ‘Vita were here, so we could go together. I don’ want a stranger to do it, Nella. I don’ want to starve in the woods or hur’ anyone.”
Nella cleared her throat and looked down at Christine’s hand. “We went north, Frank and I. We found this place. This hospital. A woman was taking care of the Infected. For years. She didn’t know about the Cure, maybe never expected one. But the people in her care were healthy and well fed.”
Christine shook her head. “Not your burden, Nella. An’ not your choice. Mine. I can still choose.”
“But if there’s a cure someday— if we could save the baby and you could see it someday—”
“We both know the baby won’t make it. Not even if you tied me up. Too much adrenaline. Too little food and medicine now. It would be Infected too, probably. It’d die anyway from the infection. An’ even if I could come back someday— would you want to?”
Nella shrugged as more tears dissolved into her mask.
“Frank,” said Christine, “would you choose to come back, if you got sick again?”
They all looked at him. He glanced at Nella, his face drawn down into a deep, sad frown of sympathy. He slowly shook his head. Christine turned back to Nella. “Please. There’s nobody else.”
“I can’t,” said Nella. “What if Marnie is right? What if it’s not the Plague?”
“If you belie’ed, could you do it? If you see, will you help me?”
She nodded.
“Then— will you stay until I turn? I’m afraid to turn alone. I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’ll stay,” said Nella. She pulled the small gun gently out of the side pocket of her bag and placed it carefully in her lap. Frank leaned over and kissed the top of Christine’s head through his mask.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and stood up. He picked up Nella’s pack and turned to Marnie. “Let’s go find your friend, okay?”
“You can’t really mean to do this,” said Marnie, “You can’t expect me just to let you kill her.”
“Marnie, you killed the man yesterday. Said it was mercy. Do I deserve less? What would you do with me?”
“We kept Henry safe. We kept him for years. We can keep you safe too.”
Christine nodded. “Go with Frank then. Fin’ Henry. Ask ‘im. Ask ‘im if it’s worth it. You can come tell me what he says.”
“You come find Henry. Come with us.” Marnie gently pulled on Christine’s arm.
“Too tired, too dizzy. Just going to sit with my friend a while.”
“You can do it,” cried Marnie, “it’s not even a mile. Just across the field—” she pulled harder on Christine’s arm. Frank put down the extra pack and put a hand on Marnie’s shoulder.
“It’s time to go now,” he said calmly. “Let’s go find Henry. Nella and Chris can catch up in a few minutes.”
“No!” Marnie flung his hand away from her. Frank hesitated and then grabbed the girl around the waist. He pulled her away from Christine and lifted her, kicking at him, from the ground and began walking grimly toward the Colony. Marnie twisted and yelled but he hung on until they were out of sight.
It was almost noon and a breeze sent the long grasses flashing white and gold as it passed over Christine and Nella and raced away toward the deep green woods at the edge of the field.
“Do you ‘member the day we found that baseball field, Nella?” asked Christine, stretching out to lie on her back in the grass.
“You mean the one with the wild raspberries?”
“Yeah. It was like this. All overgrown and secret. I thought it was sad. The dugout all slumped and shadowy like an old woman’s eye. And the fence all swallowed up by grass. Like we never were. Like all we ever leave behind are empty bases and ruined shacks. But ‘Vita said I was wrong. There were swallows living in the dugouts. An’ if you flipped over one of the rotten bases all those tiny gold snakes swam ‘way. Even the fence helped the berries grow. She said if we left emptiness behind, it was only as growing space for something else. That if we all passed ‘way, ev’ry lass one, the world would still ‘member.”
“Are you scared no one would remember you?” asked Nella.
Christine smiled. “Don’ pull that psych stuff on me, Nella. You know me too well for that. I’m scared the world will ‘member what people like Pazzo did. That it’ll be a big empty scar. Where nothing grows back. But all the little things, all the tiny memories of love and kindness and mercy we add, those’ll all be forgot. Swep’ ‘way in a quick breeze. They’re so small against such big and terrible things we’ve done.”
Nella sank down to lie in the grass beside her. “They’re sticky though.”
“Sticky?”
“Yeah. All those little things. They’re sticky. Like rain. They collect. They attract each other. By themselves, they seem so small. A raindrop never grew anything. But they keep collecting. First a puddle, then a stream and on to the river. Your quick breeze might evaporate one raindrop, but it can’t hurt an ocean. World’s full of ocean. Those little memories are what make up most of life. The bad stuff just looks flashier. But all scars fade eventually. Even big ones.”
“Do it before I make a scar then.”
“What?” asked Nella.
“I’m angry. I can feel it growing in my chest like water about to boil. I don’t want to leave the world with my last feeling being hatred and rage.” Christine rubbed her eyes with her hands. “It’s not fair. We were good people, ‘Vita an’ I. We din’t do anything bad. Tried to help people. But we�
��re apart. Dying alone. That scum Pazzo got to see his revenge coming true.”
“He died of it, Christine.”
“He got to see that other scientist go first. Why should his wish come true? Why should anyone’s? Why aren’t you sick? Why isn’t Frank? Frank killed people. Why does he get to live?”
Nella sat slowly up, her hand tightening around the gun. “Nobody deserves to get sick, Christine. Not you, not Sevita, not anyone. It just happened. It wouldn’t make you feel better to see him sick, not really.”
“It’s this rage, Nella. It hurts. It hurts worse than the cravings. Don’t let it change who I am. Don’t let it devour me. Do it, Nella, please.”
Nella shook her head and stood up.
“Please, Nella, before it’s too late.” Christine had gotten to her knees, her hands shaking by her side. She raised one of them to her mouth, frantically biting the nail of her index finger, not stopping as she reached the quick.
Nella cocked the gun and pointed it at her friend’s head. The metal just brushed Christine’s skin and slid past. Nella steadied it with her other hand.
Christine shut her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.
“I’ll remember,” said Nella and pulled the trigger.
Twelve
They sat on the end of a rotting log pile just in sight of the quarantine camp. It was obvious they’d been spotted. A man was sitting in the road leading to the camp, waiting for them to approach. Frank wasn’t willing to go farther without Nella. Marnie had struggled until they reached the pile and then the distant crack of a gun made her sag in Frank’s arms. He set her gently on the pile and sat next to her without saying anything. Marnie curled herself inward and tried to pretend she didn’t see the clean handkerchief Frank offered her.
“You were supposed to save us,” spat Marnie at last.
“We tried,” said Frank, pulling at the splintering wood beside him. “We were trying long before you ever went into that bunker.”
“You could have stopped this. Even if it was a lie. She would have believed you if you lied.”
“You mean about choosing to be cured.”
“Yes.”
“There’s no cure, Marnie.”
She sat up. “Then what was the harm in lying to her? What difference did it make?”
Frank stood up. “It made a difference to her. She got to choose while she still could. What difference would it have made for everyone else whether she died now or tomorrow or the next day? What difference does it make to you?”
“She was my friend!”
“Yeah, mine too. That’s why I told her the truth, while it could still help her.” Frank paced a little way back into the field, rubbing a nervous hand over his scalp, hoping to see Nella trudging up it. But nobody appeared. There was only one shot, he told himself, wandering back to the pile. Marnie was still glaring at him. “What did you think was going to happen when we got here?” he asked.
“They could have saved the baby. She said it wasn’t infected yet, that’s not how it works.”
Frank shook his head. “It was too little, it couldn’t be born yet.”
“We could have tied her up. Kept her safe and fed until it was ready. She said the world needed babies. That people needed hope so they didn’t just run down and die like old clocks.”
“You can’t just tie people up and keep them prisoner like that.”
“Why not? She wouldn’t be a person once she turned. And we could have got the baby in a few months.”
Frank gripped the back of his neck with one hand, trying to remind himself that the girl had been a tiny child when the Plague first hit. That she didn’t know better, couldn’t know. He leaned toward her trying to catch her gaze. “Christine was a person. She would be a person whether she was still immune or she was infected or cured, like me. We’re real. We aren’t monsters, though some of the things we’ve done may seem monstrous. I’m a human being, Marnie, just like you. I hurt, just like you. I get scared and worry and grieve, just like you.”
“But you didn’t!” shouted the girl, standing on the pile so she could hover over him. “You didn’t feel anything. Just hungry. Just angry. You were as bad as a sick dog, once. That’s why you wouldn’t want to come back, because then you finally have to feel what you did. Then you finally have to hurt like the rest of us have for years. At least Christine might have given the world a baby. Another chance. What have you done since you were cured? You didn’t save us. You’re just like Henry. You left us to rot until it was too late so you could spend months or years wallowing in self-pity while the rest of us struggled on.”
Frank was very still and his face was almost as pale as the surgical mask that covered its bottom half. “You’re on your own, which must mean your parents didn’t make it. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happened to you, but I wish it hadn’t. Nella would understand better. Maybe you should talk with her sometime. I hope someday you grow enough to be ashamed of your words, and when you do, I want you to remember that I forgive you. I’m not a monster. Henry is not a monster. Christine wasn’t going to be one either. I knew, even during the infection, that what I was doing was wrong. I tried, we all tried, to stop. We failed, but that doesn’t mean we didn’t feel it. That we didn’t or don’t grieve. We’re not dogs. We’re not cattle or slaves or prey. We’re not vending machines for babies. I did what was right for Christine, because I cared about her. I’m as sad as you are that she got sick and that she died, but that doesn’t make what I’ve done wrong. Maybe someday, you’ll understand. I hope not. I hope you never have to.”
Frank fished a flattened mask from his bag and tossed it to Marnie, then turned back toward the field and began walking away.
“Where are you going?” shouted Marnie.
“To find Nella. I shouldn’t have left her alone. I thought I was helping but you aren’t the kid I thought you were. You have any trouble go find your friend Henry. Looks like someone’s waiting for us anyway. Make sure you wear the mask. You’ve been exposed, he may not have been.”
Marnie slumped down on the pile to wait as Frank disappeared over a gentle rise.
Nella crouched in the shallow trench of damp dirt, stabbing at the ground with a jagged stick. Her eyes kept blurring as sweat rolled into them. The filthy mask billowed in and out as she dug, her breath straining and wheezing against the small square. She didn’t look at Christine or up at the field, only at the dark scrape of hard earth beneath her. After a long while, the stick shattered and she tossed it away, raking at the dirt with her bare hands and pushing it to one side. The sky gradually receded above her and the walls to either side began to grow. The dirt was damp and smelled like spring, like the Farm just tilled. Nella could almost hear the quiet chatter and songs of the stone pickers who smoothed it out.
She heard her name being called but she didn’t look up. Frank’s long hand was a ghostly white as it closed over her mud-caked one. She stared at it, not quite knowing who it belonged to. Then she sat up. “I can’t leave her like that,” she said.
“We won’t.”
She was spattered with soil and blood, old leaves caught in the gore and her hair, crusted with a second skin except where the sweat had washed trails down her face and neck. Frank slid down into the ditch in front of her. He threaded a finger around one of the mask’s loops from behind her ear and gently pulled it off.
“I have to finish,” she said, her voice hoarse and thick.
“I’ll help you. Have a drink.” He held the canteen to her lips. She expected the water to be metallic and warm, an echo of the death beside her. But it was cool and clean. He recapped the canteen and pulled a clean mask from his pocket.
“I don’t have a shovel,” she said, and small sob leaked out. She half reached for him and remembered she was covered in infected blood and pulled back. He pulled his own mask off and kissed her. Then he looped the new mask over her ears and pressed it carefully into place.
“We’ll get it done. We won’t leave
it this way,” he said and pulled his mask back over his face. “And then this day will be over.”
She nodded, but her shoulders curled around her and she cried anyway. Frank pulled her up to stand and waited until she had calmed down.
“I’m going to finish this, but it won’t be deep enough. There is a pile of small rocks near the road. If you can get just a few—”
Nella walked toward the road, grateful to concentrate on something else, relieved that she didn’t have to see Christine lying so still next to her any longer. She lost track of how many trips she took to the dusty pile of rubble, halfheartedly carrying stones back to the ditch. The sun was well behind the nearby trees when Frank carefully lifted Christine into the hole. They were kneeling beside the grave, carefully arranging the stones, as if they were a kind of puzzle, when Marnie found them, with an older man in tow. Frank thought it might be the man who had been waiting on the road, but he wasn’t certain. Nella sat numbly beside him watching the girl and man approach. Frank ached to take her away, to shield her from the two strangers so she could grieve in peace.
“Is that her?” asked Marnie.
Nella nodded.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said the man quietly. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost when it became dark.
Frank nodded and stood up. Nella touched one of the stones for a moment, her fingernail flaking off a bit of lichen, and stood up as well.
“That’s it?” said Marnie, “You just stick her in the ground and walk away? You aren’t going to say anything?”
Frank’s jaw clenched but the sorrow in Nella’s voice made his anger loosen and drift away. “We said goodbye already, Chris and I. She cannot hear us anymore. There’s nothing left to say.”
Frank reached for her hand but she drew away. “I’m covered in— in her,” she said.
“Nella,” he whispered, his eyes filling, “Your gloves tore hours ago.”
She looked down at the pale shreds of plastic that ringed her wrists. “I can still protect you,” she said.
The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) Page 7
