The 40th Day (After the Cure Book 5) by Deirdre Gould Read Free Book Online Page B

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