It could have been one of a thousand different things.
Still, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Krystal like I was missing something. Trudy seemed to have a raging case of the poxers when she bit into her arm, but Krystal didn’t get sick. She didn’t get anything but a lot of attention, a cool bunch of stitches that would leave a scar that she would be able to brag about someday, and a giant lollypop.
Not that I wanted to see her turn into a poxer. Of course I didn’t. Still, I couldn’t figure out why she was still the same Krystal and not some mini-me of Tattoo Guy or Roger’s Millie, or any of the other billions of people on the planet who were now staggering around like mindless vegetables.
Nothing made sense. I mean, true—Trudy hadn’t really turned into a poxer, but she had turned into something for a bit. Wouldn’t you think she should have passed something on to Krystal?
Anything?
Anything at all?
33
“YOU GAVE MY sister a hickey?” I snapped at Jimmy.
He grinned. “She gave me one too.” He pulled his t-shirt collar down and tilted his neck to one side. “Sweet, right?”
I stared at the angry blue and purple bruise. “No, it’s not sweet. My parents are right inside. Have you seen my dad? He’d squash you like a . . . like a Tonka toy.”
Jimmy’s smile disappeared. “Is that a joke about the wheels, because if it is, that’s so uncool.”
Trina rolled her eyes and got up from Jimmy’s lap. “Once again, Tripp, you’re just jealous.”
The three of us were hanging out in front of Swifty’s while my dad, Aunt Ella, and Dorcas tended to the sick people inside. Even though everyone was getting better, they were still in pretty bad shape. My plan of leaving as soon as we could was pretty much a wash.
Still, I kept looking at the skies and expecting helicopter people to come over the tree tops at any moment.
The air was colder than it had been over the past week. It was windy, too. Leaves rained down on the parking lot at a steady clip, and it occurred to me that no one was ever going to take out a leaf blower to clean them up. Pretty soon they would mound into a blanket of death. Next spring, creepy little mushrooms would bloom on the wet leaf litter.
“Shut up with the jealousy crap, Trina. If you haven’t noticed, I’m with Prianka.”
“Yeah, about that,” she said with her hands on her hips. “Where is she?”
Jimmy rubbed the orange stubble on his face. “Where’s Bullseye?”
I sat down on the front steps next to the little fishing bear. Newfie was with us, lying with his head on his paws. He looked at me with those big, liquid eyes of his like he didn’t want to get involved. I stared back at him. Finally, he sighed and closed them again.
“Last I saw her, Prianka was out back with Bullseye playing damage control,” I said. She was taking a long time. I guess there was a lot of damage to control.
“I figured as much,” said Jimmy. “He was righteously pissed off when you left last night.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “He gave me an earful about that.”
“You can’t blame him,” Jimmy shrugged. “The kid’s lost so much, and the whole gun thing got a little weird.”
“What do you mean?” said Trina as she leaned up against one of the rugged posts holding up the porch. Her eyes gazed past the parking lot and down the road to where more leaves were swirling in the breeze and making mini multicolored wind funnels of maple and oak.
“Remember when you blew the lock off the door last night?” said Jimmy. “Now, all the adults think you’re a loose cannon and they definitely think Bullseye’s a little dangerous. At least it’s coming off that way. They’re probably a little scared of all of us.”
“I am not a loose cannon,” she grumbled.
“No,” I said. “Just loose.”
It was good for a laugh. Well, at least I laughed.
Finally, Trina blew air out her nose. “I want a shower,” she said. “A nice, hot shower with soap and bubbles.”
“There’s a shower at Stella Rathbone’s back in Greenfield,” said Jimmy. We had met the author of ‘Urban Green’, the definitive book on living urban while still being off the grid, on our first pass through Greenfield. She was snug like a bug in a rug in her huge apartment above a used bookstore.
“No,” both Trina and I shouted in unison.
“We need to leave Stella out of all this,” I said. “She’s like our safe house, you know? Like our last resort. Meanwhile, we still have to find a place that’s a little less exposed than, well, here. I know there’s food and all, but every time that stupid chimney blows smoke I feel like we can be seen for miles.”
“What do you mean?” said Trina.
“The helicopters,” I said. “I’ve seen them twice in one day. How long do you think it’ll take for them to find us? And what are we going to do if they come and we’re still here?”
“Then we shouldn’t be here,” she said.
“Easy in theory,” I said. “Not so easy when you have a bunch of adults fighting the zombie pox.”
Prianka came walking around the side of the building, holding Bullseye’s hand. He looked like he had cooled off a lot since our little misunderstanding earlier. As a matter of fact, he came over to the steps and sat down not too far from me and rubbed Newfie’s head.
Prianka sat down on the step below me and leaned back against my legs.
“Not that I want to overstate the obvious,” she said to Trina and Jimmy as she eyed their dual hickies, “But the two of you look like you have some sort of rash.”
“Really?” said Trina. “You, too?”
“Yeah,” I said with a grin. “I’m rubbing off on her.” I kissed her and squeezed her shoulders. Then I turned and eyeballed Bullseye. He wouldn’t look at me, but I could tell that his little hissy fit was over. “We cool?” I said to him quietly.
“For now,” he grumbled. “But I might want to punch you again.”
“Go for it, dude. If that’s what makes you happy.”
“Maybe.”
I gently pushed Prianka forward and stood up. Newfie raised his head and Bullseye tracked me. “We’ll be right back,” I said to everyone else and motioned for Bullseye to follow me. Newfie lumbered after us as we walked across the parking lot to the edge of the road. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but I knew I had to say something. I waited and hoped that the smart part of my brain would kick in and start talking.
Finally, the words came. “I have black and blue marks from where you punched me.”
“I miss my family,” he said. Newfie walked between us. Bullseye put one hand on the dog’s back and let the giant furball guide him along.
“I’d be a dick if I said I understood, because I don’t,” I told him. “All I know is that I wouldn’t have been as strong as you if I had lost everyone I love.”
Newfie stopped and sniffed at a pile of leaves.
“You know,” he said, “sometimes I wish I got sick, too.”
“You mean Necropoxy? No you don’t.”
“It would have been easier.”
“Your parents wouldn’t have wanted that for you—especially your dad. I mean, look what he did for you. He taught you how to defend yourself, and you taught us. Trina and I would have been taken by those soldier guys back in Purgatory Chasm if it weren’t for you. Then none of this would have happened. Everyone inside would probably still be locked up at Site 37—sick, dead, or worse.”
“I guess,” he said.
“Don’t guess, Bullseye. Know. You saved us all and don’t for a second think you didn’t. I’ll always remember that. You’re the real hero of us all.”
“I don’t feel like a hero,” he said. We had stopped at the edge of the parking lot, the wind whip
ping around our faces and leaves swirling in the air like snowflakes.
“Real heroes usually don’t,” I said.
34
WE WERE ALL BACK in front of Swifty’s, hanging out like teens probably did in this armpit part of Massachusetts, when Dorcas came out the front door and lit a cigarette.
She looked tired. Not that all eighty-two-year-olds don’t look tired, but Dorcas really looked beat. I bet last night was harder on her than she let on. Either that, or she was a die-hard adrenaline junkie.
“Can we move them?” I asked her before she even had a chance to suck the foul smoke into her lungs. I was getting jumpy. Trina was right. We needed to be gone if there was any chance the helicopter people could find us here.
She shook her head. “Doubt it.”
“But . . .” I began but that’s as far as I got.
“Did I stutter the first time?” she growled, so I buttoned my lip. Dorcas rubbed the back of her head with her hand. “In all my years, I never imagined that the world would come to this. Dead people walking—adults hunting down children. The government . . . culling the herd. What’s the point of living?”
“It beats the alternative,” said Jimmy.
Dorcas sighed. “Out of the mouths of babes,” she grumbled and leaned down with her elbows on the railing. “And what’s with that kid and the crow?”
“What about him?” snapped Prianka. I could practically feel the temperature around us begin to plummet.
“Just asking,” she muttered as she took another drag off her cigarette.
“He’s autistic, Dorcas,” I explained. She looked genuinely surprised.
“Really?” she gasped. “That kid’s a retard?”
Yikes! Not that word—never that word. I braced myself for Prianka to blow up.
“Differently abled,” I blurted out. Wow, how politically correct am I?
“You wouldn’t know it, listening to him talk to your father,” Dorcas said. “The kid’s got one hell of a noggin on him.”
Good save. I prayed her words were enough to diffuse Prianka, because I wasn’t quite sure if I had to snip the red wire or the blue wire to keep her from blowing. When it came to Sanjay, certain words just sent her over the edge. ‘Retard’ was the biggie. After that was ‘idiot’ and ‘stupid’.
“Why, what’s he saying?” Prianka asked in such a controlled way I was proud of her.
“I don’t know,” said Dorcas. “He’s talking all this herbal medicine jargon and the doc is actually listening to him.”
Prianka smiled a little. Most people wouldn’t have picked a smile out of her stony face, but I knew better.
Disaster averted—until Dorcas snorted and said, “Geez. I would never have pegged him for a retard.”
Crap. I shut my eyes and stared at my feet.
“He’s not a retard,” Prianka screamed at her. “Got it? He’s not a retard.” We were all quiet. There are just certain things you don’t do, and yelling at old people is one of them. Sure, I mouthed off to Diana when she was trying to dissect me back at Site 37, but yelling at Dorcas was different. She was just trying to help.
“Yeah, I get it, girly,” muttered Dorcas. “Loud and clear.” She took another drag and flicked the butt into the wind. Then she turned around and went back inside.
The door slammed behind her.
“Way to go, Katie Ka-Boom,” smirked my sister. “Isn’t Dorcas even older than that Boolah lady? You know, the one whose head you smashed in?”
That happened when we first found Sanjay back at the Patel’s house in Littleham. Prianka’s mom and dad had gone to India and had left an old Indian lady to take care of them while they were gone. She turned into a poxer and Prianka caved in her skull with my dad’s tire iron.
That’s my girl. High five.
“So?”
“So you might want to figure out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are,” Trina said. I hated to admit it, but I agreed with her. She was right. We all had to get along—the kids and the adults. If we couldn’t manage that then we were all goners for sure.
“He’s not a retard,” Prianka mumbled again as she sat back down on the steps with her head in her hands.
I looked at Uncle Don’s watch. It was just around nine in the morning. The sky was a crisp blue—the kind of color you see on postcards of New England. Across the road, leaves fell from the multicolored trees. I watched them swirl on the wind for a bit before I realized something.
There was a sign. I almost hadn’t notice it among the foliage.
“What’s that?” I said, pointing across the parking lot.
“What’s what?” asked Bullseye. Prianka lifted her head and looked, too. Jimmy squinted his eyes but didn’t say anything.
Trina leaned out over the railing. “What does it say?”
It turns out we all wanted to see. Maybe we just needed to move. There’s something about sitting still that doesn’t jive with a teenager’s brain. Before we knew it, we were all crossing the parking lot—me, Trina, Jimmy, Prianka, Bullseye, and Newfie.
Soon, we found ourselves in front of a green sign that said: ‘Quabbin Reservoir Gate 29. No swimming, wading, hunting, skiing, or alcoholic beverages. Please no parking in front of the gate. Please no domestic animals’.
I turned to Jimmy and Newfie. “You guys have to move,” I said. “It says so right here.”
Newfie ignored me. Jimmy gave me the finger.
“What gate?” said Bullseye. “I don’t see a gate.”
Jimmy wheeled out into the middle of the road and spun around. There wasn’t a gate back the way we had come. We would have seen it for sure. He shaded his eyes with his hands and craned his neck the other way.
“There,” he said and pointed down the road. We all backed into the middle of the street and followed his gaze. About a thousand feet away, just before the blacktop curved out of sight, was another sign. We could barely make it out.
Trina walked back over to the first sign.
“Hey, does no wading mean no washing my hair?” She and Prianka shared a knowing glance.
Jimmy’s face turned pale. “No way,” he said. “The Quabbin Reservoir provides all the drinking water for the eastern part of the state.”
“Yeah, so?” said Trina
His face turned white. “But the Quabbin’s a wildlife sanctuary,” he blurted out. “You can’t put soapy chemicals in it.”
“Why?” she said with a smile on her face.
He looked imploringly at the rest of us. “But . . . but . . . it’s pristine.”
“Just like your girlfriend,” Trina said and threw her arms around him. “And I’m a little sick of being a dirty girl unless I’ve had a lot of fun earning the reputation.”
I locked eyes with Prianka and my face turned red.
“Shut up,” she said. I just shrugged. “Not one word.” She turned and marched back across the street and through the leaves piling up in the parking lot.
“Where are you going?” I yelled after her.
She turned and stared at me with her hands on her hips. In the morning light, I have to say she looked kind of hot.
“I’m getting Sanjay and Krystal,” she said. “And I’m getting towels and shampoo.”
Just like that we decided to take a bath in the state’s largest reserve of fresh water. Gross? You betcha. Then again, no one was left alive to drink it, anyway.
35
“NO WAY,” MY DAD had said when we told him we were going down to the reservoir to clean up.
“It’s not safe,” chimed in Aunt Ella.
Dorcas made that coughing noise again that made me think she was going to keel. When she was done she turned to them and croaked, “I think it’s safer than going out in the middle of the night
to find prescription drugs, don’t you?” She felt around in her shirt pocket, probably jonesing for another cancer stick. Still, her argument was a valid one, so she tipped the scales in our favor.
“Fine,” Dad grumbled. “Don’t be seen.”
“Don’t get bit,” I said back, nodding my head toward the people lying on the quilt-covered floor. Honestly, I think the danger was passed, anyway. Everyone seemed a little better. They were less gray, and some hints of pink were flushing back into their skin—but they still looked like crap.
“It was Necropoxy, wasn’t it?” Trina asked him
“I don’t know what else it could have been,” he said as he adjusted the drip on one of the plastic bags hanging above them. “I don’t have much saline left, but I don’t think we’re going to need it.”
He moved from bag to bag checking the solution as the liquid slowly leaked into their bodies. Neither of us ever really saw my dad doctoring before. It was kind of cool—but it only made me mad.
“So this came from Diana or Dr. Marks or those other doctor freaks?” I asked him.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m a doctor freak, too.”
“Not the same.”
“True,” he said. “And yes. This probably came from them. I’m not sure what they were trying to do, but whatever they gave them or injected them with didn’t fully give them the disease. I’m thankful for that.”
A dark cloud fell over me. “I should have stopped them when I had the chance,” I muttered.
“You mean kill them?” asked my dad. “I wouldn’t want that for you. There’s enough blood on your hands.”
That one hurt way down deep. Trina obviously felt it, too.
“What do you mean by that?” she snapped.
My dad stopped because I think he realized what he just said. He didn’t mean anything by it. Sometimes people just say things that come out wrong. This was one of those times—but I couldn’t help but think about Roger Ludlow at Jolly’s pharmacy. He was alive and Dorcas and I just left him to die. Everyone else I torched had just been poxers, but Roger was a living, breathing human being. That made me wonder if I really did have blood on my hands, and if I scrubbed hard enough, would it ever truly come off?
The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 1): Wicked Dead Page 15
