by Tim McBain
For the plague.
I think they were trying to keep it pretty hush-hush, but somehow word got out. Everyone was in quite a tizzy about it yesterday and today. The camp rumor mill was churning out end-of-the-world-themed gossip at a furious pace. Sgt. Grantham (he’s the dude in charge of everything here, I guess) called a camp meeting to try to calm everyone down. I ended up sitting with Breanne during the meeting, so I only caught bits and pieces. Such as:
That the tent will be situated a discreet distance from the main camp. That it will be staffed with healthcare professionals trained to take all necessary precautions to prevent the spread of infection. Rigorous something-something, blah, blah, blah.
I don’t know if he really convinced anyone, but it’s not like we have a say. He might as well have marched up there and said, “Hey assholes. We have guns, you don’t. The plague tent is here to stay. Deal with it.”
Personally, I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. If those stories out of Florida are true, we’re basically inviting a whole tent full of zombies into our midst.
Hold on, Breanne just showed up…
Erin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
5 days before
Kel-
OK, I know I was right in the middle of something last time and never officially signed off, but change of subject.
I don’t even know where to start.
I was sitting on my cot yesterday, writing this here note to you. I looked up, and Breanne was poking her beak into the tent.
“What are you doing?”
I closed the notebook and stuffed it into my bag.
“Nothing.”
“Let’s go, then,” she said, waving impatiently.
I unfolded my legs and followed her outside.
“Where are we going?”
“For a walk.”
I’ve figured out by now that Breanne likes to be mysterious sometimes, so I didn’t bother asking for more details. Once we stepped beyond the last row of tents, I didn’t really need to. We were heading for the gap in the fence again, and I had a feeling I knew what (and who) we’d find next to the river beyond the little copse of trees.
The Humvee wasn’t there this time, but the guys were. Max, Bennett, Jimbo, and the others hunkered down in the grass and on a few scattered rocks and logs.
Bennett had a magazine in his lap. Both hands fiddled at something, and as we stepped closer, I realized he was rolling a joint. He heard our footsteps crunching over the twigs and dried leaves and glanced up.
“Oh. Great,” he said, not looking happy to see us.
“What? You told me to come,” Breanne said.
“I didn’t know you were going to bring the professor.”
A couple of the guys chuckled at the nickname. Max smiled at me.
Breanne turned and studied me, almost like I was some kind of lost puppy that had followed her here even though she’d been shooing me away. I guess that would make me the new Izzy.
“She’s not going to say anything.”
You know how I hate when people talk about me like I’m not standing right there.
So I said, “Who knows? Maybe she will say something. Maybe she’ll say all kinds of things. Maybe she’ll produce a lock of Kurt Cobain’s hair as a conversation piece.”
Breanne and Bennett didn’t laugh, but I could tell Max thought it was funny.
Bennett pursed his lips and examined me for a minute. Like he was trying to figure out if I was worth addressing directly.
“How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
He raised one eyebrow at Breanne and then resumed his joint rolling.
“I don’t know why you even brought her. You kiddies run along now.”
A pouty little scoff came out of Breanne’s nostrils. She grabbed my sleeve and yanked me back down the path through the trees. We stopped at the edge of the clearing.
“You should go back to camp,” she said.
“What?”
“He only made me leave because of you.”
Her voice was all whiny and accusatory. Like she hadn’t been the one to nose her way into my tent and drag me back here with her. Of course I didn’t say that.
“I don’t get it. Who cares if I’m sixteen?”
“Because no one here is going to make a big stink if they get caught smoking pot. They can’t afford to. Bennett told me so. But if they get caught smoking pot with a minor…”
“But you’re only a year older than me,” I said. Then I caught that wicked look in Breanne’s eyes. “You told him you were eighteen.”
She grinned.
I shook my head and started to stomp over the path of trampled undergrowth that led back to the camp perimeter.
“I’ll let you know if anything cool happens,” she called after me.
“Oh, thank God. I’m sure the suspense would just eat me up.”
When I reached the edge of the fence, I gazed back the way we’d come. Breanne was already gone from sight. I felt kind of weird about letting her go back there with a bunch of older guys, but if I’d tried to stop her, she probably would have been even more determined.
A whiff of porta-potty stench mixed with the chipped beef they served at dinner wafted over to me. I decided not to go back into the camp. Instead, I picked my way along the edge of the fence. There’s a huge catalpa tree on the edge of the cornfield to the east that I’ve been meaning to check out. Even from a distance, you can tell it’s a perfect climbing tree, twice the size of that mulberry in your backyard we used to play in.
Two of the lowest branches stretch almost straight out, parallel to the ground. They’re thick and almost flat. You can walk right up and sit on it like a bench. So that’s what I did. I turned to face the cornfield, so I wouldn’t have to see (or smell) the camp. And then I got out my phone and read some Frankenstein.
I don’t know how long I was reading before I heard footsteps right behind me. You know how I get in the zone when I’m reading. The sky along the edge of the cornfield was starting to turn pink, so it had probably been almost an hour.
I figured it was Breanne, coming to fill me in with all of the juicy details I couldn’t care less about hearing.
But when the figure hopped up onto the catalpa branch next to me, it wasn’t Breanne. It was Max.
“What are you so buried in over there that you didn’t even hear me walking up? I thought you might have turned into one of those zombies, you were sitting so still. You weren’t even blinking.”
I turned off the screen super fast. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want him to know I was reading. I guess even though Bennett is an asswipe, all that professor stuff from earlier got to me.
“Just… playing a game.”
“That’s not what it looked like. You were all quiet and intense.”
“Maybe that’s how I look when I play games.”
Max nodded slowly, watching me. Finally, he turned his head, freeing me from those green eyes. There are flecks of gold in the irises, right around the pupils. You can cue the gagging sounds, because I know I sound like I’m fawning over him right now, but I’m not. I’m merely documenting the moment.
And at that moment, I happened to notice he had very dreamy eyes.
Max pointed at the edge of the corn, where you could make out the swaying of the individual stalks in the breeze.
“What’s that?”
Kelly, you know how we have already established several times in this letter that I am sixteen years old? Well, I think that must be wrong, because my eyes flicked over to where he pointed so fast, it really would make more sense that I was born yesterday.
Like a chipmunk on meth, his non-pointing hand darted out and plucked the phone from my grasp.
“Hey!”
He danced away from me, reading the text on the screen out loud. “…with a sensation of horror not to be described, I saw at the open window a figure the most hideous and abhorred. A grin was on the face of
the monster; he seemed to jeer as with his fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife.”
“Interesting game you’re playing,” he said, tossing it back to me. “Where I come from, we call that reading a book. Frankenstein, right?”
“Congratulations. You caught me. I’m a big huge nerd reading a book.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not that. I just… Forget it.”
I shook my head.
“No, I wanna know. Why would you want to hide the fact that you were reading?”
Chewing my lip, I stared down at my fidgety hands.
“I guess I didn’t want you to think I was lame,” I said. Then I added, “Not just you, I mean. People in general. I don’t want people to think I’m some dorky bookworm.”
Max digested that for a moment.
“You don’t want people to know you’re smart?”
I’ve never quite thought about it like that, but I suppose it’s kind of true.
“No. I guess I don’t.”
“Why not? That thing with the roman numerals was awesome. Everyone here knows that Bennett is full of shit, but no one ever says anything. They don’t have the balls.”
I didn’t confess that it had mostly been a case of Erin’s big mouth working faster than Erin’s big brain.
“You shouldn’t hide it from people. Lots of guys like smart, sexy women.”
Gulp.
“Do you know who Hedy Lamarr was?” he asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“She was a movie star in the 1930s and 40s. Total historical hottie.”
I snorted, and Max continued.
“But she was also an inventor. During World War II, she patented a system that made Allied torpedoes jam-proof by using frequency hopping. Basically, it was a spread spectrum signal transmission system based on a piano roll that determined the pseudo-random pattern for jumping to a new frequency…”
My eyes must have started to glaze over at all the jargon, because he trailed off.
“Sorry, engineering major. Suffice it to say that the invention never got used during the war, but in the 50s the patent was rediscovered, and now the technology she invented is everywhere. You’re holding it in your hands right now.”
I looked at my phone.
“This?”
Max nodded. “Wi-Fi.”
He wiggled his eyebrows up and down with each syllable.
“So?” he asked.
“What?”
He gripped my shoulder and jostled me back and forth. It was a pretty brotherly move as far as physical contact goes, but I still felt the warmth from his fingers spreading over my skin like hot fudge melting on a sundae.
“Did I convince you to stop hiding your genius IQ?”
“I never said I was a genius,” I said. I felt my cheeks get hot again.
“You know what I mean.”
“OK. Yeah, fine. I promise to embrace my nerdiness going forward.”
“Good.” Max grinned and slid off the bench-branch. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m on shit-burning detail tonight. Bennett’s way of punishing me for agreeing with your roman numeral thing.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“What a cock.”
“Yep.”
We both laughed. And then Max turned all serious.
“Hey, speaking of Bennett. You should try to avoid him.”
I couldn’t help but respond with sarcasm.
“That’ll be a real sacrifice.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve seen your friend hanging around him a few times and thought I should warn you.”
“Breanne?”
He nodded.
“I doubt she’d listen to me. But… are you saying he’s dangerous or something?”
“I don’t want to make it sound like he’s a predator or anything. He’s just kind of a dick.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” I said, and we both laughed again.
When he was about ten yards from the tree, he turned back to me.
“See ya, Hedy.”
“See ya,” I said. My head felt a little swimmy.
So yeah… that was yesterday, and I’m still in a stupid happy daze about it. And I know what you’re thinking. Erin, you moronic cheeseball. This Max character is in the military.
Meaning he’s an adult.
Meaning he has no interest in some girl that hasn’t even started her Junior year of high school yet.
Damn your eyes, Kelly! Why do you have to rain on my parade with all of your convenient little facts? Besides, don’t you think I know what an idiot I am? But go ahead… try to crush my silly schoolgirl dreams. I’ll just be over here daydreaming about one Specialist Max Rippingale.
Your hot-and-bothered BFF,
Erin
Delfino
Rural Missouri
9 years, 133 days after
I listened for the sound of the car door — the click and scrape of it coming out of the frame, the slam of it closing — but it didn’t come. Nothing did.
Instead, the silence threatened all around. Ominous and total. Lording itself over me.
The pace of my rocking increased, and my nostrils flared in strange involuntary spasms each time I inhaled.
I couldn’t take it anymore, so I lifted my head, blinked open my eyes.
Darkness again.
Endless black.
My heart beat faster now, breaking into a wild gallop.
This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Not at all.
Those first tendrils of cold panic snaked through my gut, and the words occurred to me from nowhere.
Scared to death.
Those were the stakes here, of course. Life and death. Only one of us would be walking away from this. And I was heading into the moment blind. Pretty fucked.
I changed my grip on the gun. Clenched my jaw. Focused on steadying my thoughts.
The Fiesta must be out there. Headlights off. Waiting.
I didn’t know why just yet, but that was the reality. I’d have to wait and see where it went from here.
And then I heard it.
Another car.
I swiveled my head toward the hill, toward the place where those beams had cut open the dark. But it wasn’t right, I realized right away. The sound wasn’t right. This car approached from the opposite direction.
My head pivoted that way, and I could see it.
The tiniest illumination. A speck flickering at the horizon. Slowly, slowly growing.
Two cars. I suspected two vehicles were tracking us as a team all along. But I had hoped to dispatch them one at a time for the obvious reasons. Or reason, I guess.
Not wanting to die, I mean. That’s the reason.
The light swelled over the landscape as the car kept on, tufts of grass and the texture of the blacktop taking shape in the nothingness.
I tried to get a look at the scumfuck in the Fiesta, but I couldn’t see through the glass for shit. Like trying to gaze into a mucky pond or something. All black thickness.
I ducked once more and waited.
That strange tautness in my gut released, and a calm came over me at last. I rocked back and forth still, but the rhythm changed. Steadied.
The second car pulled up, slowed, and I could hear that pitch change again when it shifted into park.
When the sound cut out, I wanted to look, but I fought the urge. It wasn’t the time for it.
At last the sound of the car door I’d been waiting for came, although it had an echo.
“Looky here,” a gruff voice said. “A little car trouble, it would seem.”
“They bailed?”
The second voice had a strange honk to it. Loud. Inarticulate. Dim.
“I expect we’ll find the lot of ‘em just up ahead.”
They were quiet for a beat.
“The gas station?”
“It’s the only place to go all the way ou
t here.”
Metallic clicks ensued. Maybe someone pulling back the bolt on a gun or something.
“Better to go in on foot,” the grainy voice said. “Quiet.”
“Yeah. Right. That makes sense.”
“Kill your headlights, and let’s roll out.”
From the sound of their footsteps trailing away, I knew that one man walked in the gravel along the side of the road, and the other scuffed along on the asphalt. I’d have to make that work.
When the sound moved out of range, I got to my feet.
Erin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
4 days before
Kelly-Belly-
Saw Max this morning when Breanne and I were walking laps around camp. He called me Hedy. (Cue the sitcom audience cheering, “Wooooo!”)
“Heady? As in, gives good head?” Breanne asked.
“No and gross,” I said.
I didn’t bother to explain it. Not that she asked me to.
So I told you how my mom has been volunteering and organizing crap around camp. Naturally that means it’s only a matter of time before she starts signing my ass up for stuff.
Today’s task: help out in the Kids Tent. It’s kind of a daycare-type set up so the kids in camp don’t drive everyone batshit. Mostly I ended up sitting at a table, playing with Play-Doh.
Breanne came along after a lot of pissing and moaning about how stupid it was. And then she refused to interact with the kids, spending a majority of the two hours reading one of those magazines that advertises 21 Ways to Show your Sexpertise in Bed! Probably studying up for tricks to use on Bennett. (In her dreams.)
Of course Izzy was drawn to her like a magnet.
I tried to make things entertaining by sculpting animals for the kids and then letting them smash the figures into blobs when I was finished.
I asked Izzy what her favorite animal was.
“An elephant.”
“Me too,” I said and gave her a high-five.
So I made her an elephant. When I told her she could smush it, she frowned.
“I don’t want to wreck it. I want to keep it.”
