C’mon, C’mon, she thought.
A light fluttered in the circle beneath the ladder. One foot, two… Christine slipped and Marnie sprinted to catch her. She recovered, clutching the ladder rungs for a moment. Then she smiled at Marnie and handed her the flashlight. Christine reached up and pulled the trap door slowly down, willing it not to creak. She bounced down the rest of the rungs, feeling better immediately. “Sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean to worry you. I just wanted to move a few boxes to cover up the trap door. Just in case.”
Marnie nodded.
“You remember the way?” asked Christine.
“Yes, and you have the map in your pack.”
“Good, I’d hate to get lost down here.” Christine shuddered as something whisked over her shoe.
“It won’t take long to get out. We should reach an exit outside the City by this afternoon. It’s the open that I’m worried about.”
Christine reached an arm around Marnie to hug her. “It won’t be like before. You won’t be out there alone anymore.”
Marnie led the way down the tunnel. “About my friend— he asked me to go with him, to the farm. He came to find me and bring me there. But I said, ‘no.’ I don’t know if he’s going to want me anymore.” She stepped down into the T-junction. “I’m not even certain if he knows I’m still alive.”
Forty
“Leave the damn door open!” shouted Henry, half turning from his task.
The girl anchoring the fence jumped back. “Okay,” she mumbled. She wasn’t much older than Marnie.
“Sorry,” said Henry, his face reddening. “Bad memories.”
The girl gave him a weak smile and propped the pen door open with a rock before moving on to the plot across the way to repeat the process. Henry went back to digging the waste hole. He tried to calm down.
Rickey watched him from the other side of the fence as he cut tie rope from a large spool. “It’s okay Henry,” he said, “It isn’t the same. We’re going to take care of them. If we had a nice, clean hospital or something, we’d use it. But we don’t. We’re doing the best we can with what we’ve got.”
“I know,” said Henry, wedging up a stone with his shovel, “but I wanted to be— I don’t know. I wanted to keep hating Phil for how we were treated. It was hard to let go. It was hard not to just kill him. But I did it. It’s another thing entirely to— to—”
“To understand him?” supplied Rickey.
“Yeah. I never wanted to understand him. I never wanted to identify with him.”
Rickey picked up a square of canvas and a hammer and rounded the fence. He flopped onto his knees beside Henry, attaching ropes to the grommeted canvas. “Well,” he said, “I’m not Vincent or anything, but isn’t that part of actually forgiving someone?”
Henry leaned on the shovel and swatted at a deer fly. “This whole thing doesn’t bother you?”
Rickey shrugged. “It bothers me that we could get infected again. It bothers me that Vincent seems to have some sort of death wish. It bothers me that we had to use the last of the gas to go pick up this stuff when I was hoping to go neck with Melissa in the truck and get stuck somewhere.” He grinned and Henry couldn’t help a small smile back.
“But you aren’t bothered that we’re penning them up? That we’re becoming like Phil?”
“No,” said Rickey, pounding a stake into the dirt. “Because we aren’t becoming like Phil. We’re doing what Marnie’s folks did. We’re doing what that lady at the mental hospital did for Father Preston’s people. We’re doing what those doctors did for the Cured, and for us. We’re protecting them as best we can. We aren’t trying to hurt them. We’re not using their illness to get something out of them. We’re not even asking them to give us something in return. We can’t all be Phils or Vincents, Henry. Most of us just exist in between. You can’t spend the rest of your life obsessing over whether every action will be good or evil in the end.” He paused to pound in another stake. “Well, I guess you can. But it’s kind of exhausting. And nothing ever gets done that way. Maybe instead of worrying about what we can’t do, what we aren’t doing, you should accept that the “best we can do” is good enough. And way more than the Phils of the world do.” He jerked his head toward Henry’s hole. “I mean, shit or get off the pot already, you know?”
Henry smiled. “You know,” he said, “Every time I think you’re going to commiserate with me about how shitty life is, you surprise me. And it always makes me feel better. You’re wiser than you let on.”
“Damn straight. You seen the lids for those crappers? You should tell Stephanie to sand em. A splinter in the bum is against the Geneva convention.” He pulled the tent taut over the central rope while Henry shook his head with a snort of laughter.
“And then you say something like that,” said Henry.
“What?” shrugged Rickey, “You think a wise man doesn’t watch out for bum splinters?” He winked and picked up his hammer, heading for the next pen. “Hey, did you hear about the cannibal who passed his friend in the woods?” he called over his shoulder.
Henry groaned and went back to shoveling.
Forty-one
Gray watched the pretty young girl changing Father Preston’s bandages. She’d been spared the scars that most of the others had, spending most of the years of her Infection in Juliana’s hospital. Gray had enjoyed sleeping with her for the past few months. She was delirious in her worship of Father Preston, but since he was celibate, Gray had been close enough.
Father Preston had discovered them, early on. Their camps had been hasty and not very private. He’d walked in on them in his own tent. Gray watched him turn pale and leave. The girl never knew, she hadn’t seen him. Gray had taken his time to finish.
He’d played the penitent choir boy when Father Preston raged at him later, but he hadn’t stopped the affair. He made certain to keep his tent close to the priest’s after that, taking special pleasure in making the girl moan as loudly as possible. He climaxed every time picturing the disgust on Father Preston’s face.
But Father Preston had kept him around. Gray wondered why. He could only assume it was because Gray knew the secret. But the priest seemed to forget more and more that there was a secret. That he wasn’t the miraculous messenger of God.
Well, Gray was going to remind him. Not as blackmail. No. He’d taken that as far as he could. He wasn’t going to be tied to the man who seemed so bent on martyrdom. This was purely for his own enjoyment. And seeing the look of disbelief on the girl’s face was going to top it all. Fucking idiot zombies. If I knew they’d be so gullible I’d have stopped hunting them years ago. I could have my own kingdom by now. Instead of stuck in this shitty backwater farm while the rest of civilization goes to hell. Well, we’ll fix that. Just a bump in the road, Gray. A few months from now we’ll go back to the City and get the juice running again. Call back the other Immunes with the radio. No more rotting zombie tail. Primo pussy ever after. Primo everything. Just got to give him a shove out the door. He didn’t even bother to disguise his smile as he walked up to them.
“Your ride’s here,” he said.
Father Preston glanced up at him from his seat. “What’s that?”
“I’d say I’m going to miss you,” said Gray, “but that’s obviously a lie.” He pulled the cure dart from his pocket and stabbed it into the little wooden table that sat between them. Its tube shone like a pale star. Father Preston stared at it silently.
“You may have fooled these other chumps. You may even have fooled half the zombies in this colony. But you and I know exactly how Lisa here was cured. She and all her friends. Wasn’t you. Wasn’t God.”
Father Preston stood up, his camp chair teetering behind him. “Take care, Gray.”
“Or what? You’re all done. You’re no threat to me. In two minutes, you’ll be walking out to that refugee camp and you’re never coming back. You’re going to go out there and fake it. Maybe even to yourself. But you’re still going to slide
right back into the disease. You’re going to be the same gibbering demon-monster that you dread. Maybe I should send Lisa with you. You might enjoy eating her as much as I did.”
Lisa slapped him. Gray laughed and grabbed her arm to stop her. Father Preston’s face twisted into a dark snarl. Gray pushed the girl at him.
“And when these people finally realize you were a fraud and are looking for more practical leadership— you know, the kind of leadership that doesn’t fuck around because it might hurt the feelings of two old broads? I’ll be here. And when they ask me to put you out of your misery, when they can’t stand the howls and shrieks and blood any more, it will be my extreme pleasure to put you down like a rabid dog.”
The tent flap opened behind Gray. The color drained out of Father Preston’s face.
“I’m sorry, to interrupt, Brother Michael,” said Vincent. Gray smiled even more broadly without turning to look at him. “But the first people are coming up the road. I’m going to meet them.”
Father Preston nodded. “Very well. I will bring the last of my things down into the camp and meet you there, Brother Vincent.”
The flap closed again with a rustle. “Well, Lisa,” said Gray, stroking the tiny tassel at the back of the cure dart, “What’s it going to be? Are you going to trust in Father Preston’s healing hands and be his nursemaid down in the camp or are you going to run back to my loving arms? What would you advise her to do, Father?”
Lisa bent down and picked up the small bag that sat on the floor. “Come on, Father, there are people that need you.” She took Father Preston’s hand and led him out of the tent.
The last pen was barely completed before the first of them arrived. The colony’s wall was nowhere near done, everyone had scrambled to get the camp ready first. They came in the morning, when the sky was still gray with dawn and dew trembled on the fence wires and made tiny pools in the slack of the canvas tents. They stumbled up the road as Molly watched them through binoculars. Whether they were sick or just exhausted, she couldn’t tell. She rang the huge bell they’d hung at the top of the silo. The colony drifted out of their huts and tents, pulling toward each other like quickly swirling snowflakes. They stood at the wall, watching the two men struggle up the road. Molly heard pounding footsteps on the ladder behind her and twisted around. It was Henry.
“Is it Marnie?” he asked, gasping for breath, “Is it a girl?”
Molly shook her head. “Sorry, Henry.”
He nodded.
“Maybe it’s better that she’s staying away,” Molly offered. “Maybe by the time she comes back, it’ll be safe and you won’t have to worry about her getting sick.”
He climbed into the window with her. She hugged him with what was left of her arm. “You’re right,” he said. “She’s safe where she is. She’s too scared of other people to get infected.”
“At least that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about,” said Marnie. They watched Vincent’s skinny figure walk calmly down the road toward the other men. Molly turned her head into Henry’s shoulder and sobbed. He hugged her tightly.
“I’m going to go with him. Or after him. You know, to finish everything. Once we figure out how.” She mumbled into his chest.
He nodded, his chin brushing her hair. “Me too,” he said.
Other Books in the After the Cure world:
Other Books in the world Of Poveglia:
After The Cure
http://www.amazon.com/After-Cure-Deirdre-Gould-ebook/dp/B00ERVTFCM
The Cured
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J2EJAOM/
Krisis
http://www.amazon.com/Krisis-After-Cure-Book-3-ebook/dp/B00TA9YHR4
The 40th Day
http://www.amazon.com/40th-Day-After-Cure-Book-ebook/dp/B01AYE5ZTM
Curing Khang Yeo (companion story)
http://www.amazon.com/Curing-Khang-Yeo-Deirdre-Gould-ebook/dp/B013V3NIII
Andy and Igor (companion story)
http://www.scullerytales.com/?p=1279
Pet Shop (companion story in Tails of the Apocalypse)
http://www.amazon.com/Tails-Apocalypse-David-Bruns-ebook/dp/B016E5JIRU
Non-Zombie Stuff:
System Failure in The Robot Chronicles
http://www.amazon.com/Robot-Chronicles-Samuel-Peralta/dp/1500600628
Iteration in The Future Chronicles
http://www.amazon.com/Future-Chronicles-Special-Samuel-Peralta/dp/0993983251
The Moon Polisher’s Apprentice: The Moth Queen
http://www.amazon.com/Moon-Polishers-Apprentice-Part-Queen-ebook/dp/B00J8U6WB4/
Sans Zombie:
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Poveglia (After the Cure Book 4) Page 23
