The Burnouts

by Lex Thomas

  “Stop!” Will cried. “What are you doing?”

  The campus was chaos. Infected fled past David, away from the white fog, where thick streams of black blood flung through the air like a casino water-fountain show. David dashed toward Will. His brother was trying to tear one of the hoses away from a man in a haz-mat suit. David couldn’t process what was happening. He saw parents trying to help the kids escape. He saw Bobby’s mother shoving him into a pickup truck. He saw other parents fighting the men in the white haz-mat suits, trying to stop the massacre.

  He was still so far from Will. He watched his brother lunge at the man holding the hose, and tear at the material of his haz-mat suit, trying to rip it open. He could see the panic in the way the man jerked back and strained to get away from Will. One of the guy’s buddies rushed up to help, and he had a rifle.

  The man leveled the rifle at Will.

  A spray of red burst from Will’s head, and David heard the shot a moment later. The tiny shape of Will’s skull looked wrong for a second, like an apple with a bite taken out of it, then Will dropped like a bag of rocks.

  The shock wiped David’s mind blank. He wasn’t aware of turning around and running. He just knew his feet were pumping and he couldn’t catch his breath, and he was halfway to the wall, and Will was dead. So many were dead. The aluminum ladder glinted in the sunlight up ahead. Fleeing infected were climbing it and jumping the wall. David reached the ladder and climbed. When he got to the top, infected were running for the woods. He looked for Lucy below him, and he saw tire tracks that tore a path through the tall grass, all the way to the road.

  28

  IT WAS GOING TO BE A BEAUTIFUL DAY. DAVID could feel the first crispness of fall in the morning air. It was a primal thing, the way a change in the weather could alter a person’s mood. The whisper of leaves, the sparkle of the sun, the trees turning the color of pumpkins and roses made him happy. He welcomed that feeling.

  The gravel in the driveway crackled under his boots. He opened the back of the Jeep and tossed in his bag. The car was the exact same year and model as the one he used to have, the one he used to drive Will to school. His father had bought it for him, in an effort to restore a sense of normalcy, but it just made him think of Will. In the Jeep, when the music was loud enough, and the wind whipped hard enough to strip everything away, David could feel Will sitting beside him, in the passenger seat, laughing at how hard he was rocking out.

  David clicked the back door shut, trying not to make too much noise.

  “David,” his dad said.

  Too late.

  David turned around. His father stood on the porch, still in his plaid pajamas. A beige mug of coffee steamed in his hand and he blocked out the morning sun by holding a folded magazine up to his brow. He still had a little bit of bed head. David loved his dad, and felt so lucky that he’d been able to track him all the way to Nebraska, but he hated seeing the guy in his pjs. He couldn’t explain it.

  He’d found his dad in a town at the border of the infected zone, where the military had been releasing McKinley graduates earlier in the quarantine. His dad had spent a year and a half watching other parents get reunited with their children, until the day the government had told the parents that there had been a gas leak in McKinley, and that all of their children were dead. When David had shown up on his father’s doorstep, his dad had fallen to his knees. He’d thought he’d lost his son forever.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I, uh, I’ve got to take another trip.”

  His dad stepped down from the porch. David’s instinct was to get in the Jeep, but that would come off as rude. And he didn’t want to make his dad feel insecure. He knew how guilty his dad already felt for not being among the parents who’d helped the school, or that he hadn’t somehow, some way stopped that bullet from entering Will’s brain. David didn’t want to make his dad feel worse by thinking his only remaining son hated him.

  “You just got back from your last trip, David. Why don’t you stay? I’ve still got a month of leave at work. We haven’t had one solid week yet to just … hang out.”

  His dad tucked the magazine under his arm and rubbed the back of David’s head. He glanced at David’s eye patch, then looked to the ground, and looked back to David’s good eye. He did that occasionally, as if the sight of the injury overloaded his brain, and he had to descramble it.

  “I’m sorry about that. I really am, but there’s a lot that goes into getting a farm on its feet.”

  “But you’re not even at the farm.”

  “I’m piecing together the workforce.”

  “There’s plenty of people around that are out of work, David. All you’ve gotta do is put a job post online.”

  David wasn’t sure, but it felt like this was the thousandth time they’d had this conversation.

  “Dad—”

  “I know, I know. That’s not the point. But you’ve got enough trouble as it is being registered as a former infected. I just … I just worry that you’re only making things harder for yourself by going state to state and consorting with more of them.”

  “These people I’m ‘consorting’ with—they’re my friends. And a lot of them don’t have any place to go, because they’ve been registered and no one wants anything to do with them.”

  “I understand that. I’ve seen kids like that around, begging for change, but you’re not like that, David. You’re a good kid. And you’ve got me. I mean, why can’t these other kids go be with their families?”

  “I am their family,” David said.

  His dad tried to answer, but couldn’t. So, he took a sip of coffee. He looked down the wooded driveway to the road at the bottom of the hill, then to the Jeep.

  “How you doing on gas?”

  “I’ve got a half tank.”

  “Well, there’s not a working station until you get to—”

  “I know. I’ll make it.”

  “Do you have cash, because cards don’t work like they used to—”

  “I know. I’ve got some.”

  “You know. You know,” his dad said with a touch of frustration. “Well, I guess I better shut up, then.”

  David gave his father a hug. His father held him tight.

  “You’re doing a good thing, David. You’re a good kid. It’s just hard for me. I want to keep you safe.”

  David nodded and patted his father’s back. He knew his dad was crying even though he couldn’t see his face over his shoulder. His voice was plump.

  “I wish your mom could see the man you are now,” he said. “She’d take one look at you and shove an elbow in my ribs and say ‘Told you so.’ ”

  David laughed, and his father let him go.

  “I’ll call you when I get there,” David said.

  “Where’s there?”

  “Canada.”

  David’s dad shook his head with an exasperated grin.

  “Get outta here,” he said.

  David gave his dad a wave and got in the Jeep. He started it up. The purr of the engine excited him. He had a long trip ahead, but that was always his favorite part. To watch the world go by, to know that there were thousands of miles of road ahead of him. Sam’s dad had started a new farm in rural Nebraska on the same model as the one in Pale Ridge, only this one employed the previously infected rather than keeping them locked up. David was trying to find former McKinley kids to work there. So many ex-infected had scattered to the wind after graduating. And David was making himself an expert on finding them, especially former Loners. He’d found Nelson in Reno spinning signs for a used car lot and doing a bad job of it. He’d found the twins living in an abandoned amusement park in Texas, living off berries and mushrooms. Belinda had been the easiest to find. She was working as a waitress at a truck stop in Hays, Kansas, and generally hating life. He’d found Loners living in storm drains and abandoned houses. That had become the norm for much of Colorado’s teen population who hadn’t been welcomed back by their families, or who had
ventured out into the world only to find their loved ones dead. And so they traveled, looking for someplace to call home, where they weren’t persecuted or driven off by locals who wanted to keep their communities “clean.”

  He’d heard about others. Zachary had written David a letter and said that he’d phased out of infection and was living in New York. He was doing costumes for a small theatre company there, dating up a storm, and he’d changed his name to Dane. David had heard from Gonzalo that Kemper, the old leader of the Nerds, was working in the back of an electronics store in Santa Fe. He said Kemper was consumed with the goal of getting into MIT, and that he’d cried when Gonzalo told him that Violent had died. Each of the two times David had crossed paths with Gonzalo he’d tried to give him any info he could to help in the big guy’s ongoing search for Sasha. Gonzalo’s hope was uncrushable.

  David turned up the stereo. The wind howled. He’d found thirteen McKinley kids in just about two months. It felt good to be busy. It helped to fill the void in his heart.

  A vision of Will being shot in the head seized David.

  He jolted and slammed on the brakes. He gripped the steering wheel and squeezed with all the power in his fists until his breathing slowed.

  He had a new lead to follow, and he prayed that it was real. He threw the Jeep into first gear and started driving again. He’d seen a lot of familiar faces recently, and had helped them find a better life, but if this lead panned out, he’d get to see the one face he missed most of all.

  29

  LUCY WAS GETTING FAT. SHE BLAMED HER mother and her grandmother. They were the ones who had stocked Lucy’s kitchen full of rich food from the local gourmet markets. They said they couldn’t help themselves. They were so happy to have her back. Every morning, she’d find a care package waiting for her. She stood in front of her open cabinets, staring at all of her options. She’d been “quarantined” in her grandparents’ guesthouse for a little over two months, and still she couldn’t help but marvel at the bounty in her cupboard.

  There was sweet peach chutney, strawberry black peppercorn fruit spread, French lemon curd, apricot salsa dulce, and cinnamon-infused maple syrup. There was faux foie gras, homemade olive bread, wild boar terrine, and lobster pâté. She could choose between Tasmanian leatherwood honey and raw thistle honey, whatever those were. Pumpkin butter, fig and olive relish, white truffle mayonnaise, fire-roasted poblano peppers, champagne garlic mustard, cherry tomatoes in oil, and summer sausages—that was just one small shelf. She’d experimented with crazy combinations. Her favorite was pickles dipped in Sir Kensington’s Spiced Scooping Ketchup. It did taste great, but mostly she just liked saying it. She’d consumed so much sugar she was sure she’d start sweating frosting soon. Saltwater taffy, hot cashew brittle, marzipan fruit, key lime chocolate wafers, dark chocolate caramel apples. She liked to start her day with handmade vanilla marshmallows and coffee sweetened with rock candy swizzle sticks. For lunch she’d have stomachaches. And then, there was Lucy’s fridge. She had cheeses from nearly every country in the UN. Sharp, extra sharp, soft, semisoft, spreadable. She was surrounded by so much food these days that she was starting to forget what it felt like to be hungry. Not that she minded.

  The weeks following the massacre at McKinley had drawn on every survival skill Lucy had learned in McKinley. She’d fled into a landscape where the government’s last push to eradicate the virus had been in high gear. Tremendous quantities of “the cure” had been manufactured and distributed to police and citizens all across the United States. Infected were getting cured left and right, if they didn’t get a bullet in the head first. Lucy had driven north from Pale Ridge until she’d run out of gas. She’d had no money, no food, and she was the enemy. For a moment, she’d considered trying to steal fuel, but any human interaction meant the chance of death—if not for her, then for them. And killing Gates had been enough murder for this lifetime. At two a.m., with a handful of change, at the only pay phone in Rapid City, South Dakota, Lucy had faced down one of her greatest fears: finding out if her parents were alive or dead. She’d dialed her father’s cell phone number, praying that it wasn’t disconnected.

  The call had gone through and she’d heard her father’s voice for the first time in two years.

  Within twenty-four hours, Lucy had found herself hidden in a cargo truck, crossing the border into Canada. She was sealed inside a crate that was meant to contain artisanal patio bricks, but really had half a futon on the floor, a battery-powered reading lamp, a stack of magazines, a box of meal replacement bars, water, and a bedpan. Not the most fragrant of environments after the first twelve hours. After she was through with the magazines, and after she had lain or sat in every position possible in her four-by-four-foot box, she had been dying to stand, and on the cusp of losing her mind. The box had been jostled and battered around, and there had always been rumbling. Lucy had never known where she was.

  When the top had finally popped off and she had seen her parents and grandparents in haz-mat suits, looking down at her with tears in their eyes, she had felt like she was being born anew. Lucy remembered looking around at her grandparents’ lush estate and seeing the world as titanic. Endless. She’d thought the feeling would’ve passed in the days after, but it hadn’t. They’d set her up in the guesthouse, where they’d sealed all the windows and vents shut. They talked to her every day on the phone, standing just outside her window. Even now, weeks later, she still found the world breathtaking in its enormity, and Lucy was grateful to be a tiny part of it all, to be part of her family, to be one of the living.

  South of the border, the US government touted victory. The claim was that there were no more infected. It was all over the news, with a public divided over the morality of how the job had been done. Canadian news coverage was more condemnatory, mainly because the virus hadn’t made it to Canada. The reports were always hard for Lucy to watch. They made her think of what had happened at McKinley, and how the kids had come spilling over the top of the farm wall, climbing the fence, running for their lives, and how she’d gunned it out of there. How she had left David behind. How she’d seen Ritchie while she was on the run, and he’d told her that Will had been killed.

  All the food in the world, this safe house she lived in, and all the love her family could pile on her, none of it could heal the crack that ran through her heart now that Will was gone. She appreciated her family more than she could put into words, but her sorrow couldn’t be pacified. None of her good fortune made it all right that Will’s life had stopped that day.

  There was a knock at the kitchen door.

  The door had a window panel in it, and there was David on the other side. She nearly fainted. He mimed the action of opening the door. He smiled behind the face shield of his mask. Lucy unlocked the door. This was crazy. No one in her family liked to come inside, none of them had. They were too afraid, but here came David in a gas mask, walking in like it was nothing. She swore the colors in the room grew richer and more luminous as soon as he’d entered. He still had that power over her, a gravitational pull that she couldn’t fight.

  “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  He hugged her right away, and it felt good to be touched again.

  “You’re alive,” David said. He squeezed harder. “Thank God, you’re alive.”

  “You too,” she said. It was the best response she could summon, her emotions were swarming on her.

  They separated enough to look into each other’s eyes. She wanted to kiss him.

  “I’m still infected,” she said.

  “Yeah, your parents told me.”

  “I really wanna make out.”

  David laughed. He pinched her arm playfully as they separated, and then he bopped around the kitchen, checking the place out.

  “So, how many bathrooms you got here? Is there more than one bedroom?”

  “What are you, apartment hunting?”

  “I was thinking about it.”

  “What do you mean?”
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  David’s jovial manner grew more serious.

  “I want to be around. To make sure you transition out and everything turns out fine. I already talked to your folks about it.”

  “You mean stay here? In this house, in a gas mask all day and night?”

  David shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “It could be months.”

  “I left you behind once, and you had to face McKinley alone. I can’t forgive myself for that.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re okay.”

  “Now I’m really upset that we can’t kiss,” she said with a little laugh and a few tears.

  He walked to her and took her hands in his.

  “Will you give me a tour?” he said.

  Lucy’s smile went away. She knew David hadn’t meant to say his brother’s name, but hearing David say the word will made her blood go cold.

  “I’m so sorry about Will,” she said.

  David’s light and airy demeanor crumbled.

  “He …,” David said, but couldn’t find the words. She saw a deep anguish in him that matched her own and far exceeded it. If she had a crack in her heart, David must have a chasm.

  Lucy’s cell phone rang. It was her mom’s phone technically, but she’d been using it. Her mom was calling. It was pretty much always her mom calling. She walked into the living room, to the window that faced the main house, and saw her mother rushing up the sloped lawn. Her mom’s baggy linen outfit was fluttering in the wind, and she shook her phone in her outstretched hand. She was in such a hurry that she’d left the door hanging open in the big house behind her. Her mom never did that. Lucy answered the call as her mother ran.

  “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  “Lucy, I don’t know how to tell you this,” her mom said as she made it to the window and put her fingers to the glass. There was a glob of blackberry jelly on her mom’s blouse.