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 whipping 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?
“I’m sorry,” said my dad. “That was out of line. I didn’t mean anything.”
“I know you didn’t,” I found myself saying. “I’m cool.”
My dad looked to both me and Trina and shook his head. “I really am proud of the two of you,” he said. “You’re so grown up. Just yesterday I was sitting up all night feeding you bottles and changing your poopy diapers.”
“Ew,” we both said at once.
“Way to kill the mood, Dad,” Trina added.
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Lifetime Movie moment’s over.”
He smiled. “Go,” he said. “Just be careful.”
There were some towels for sale on one of the racks. They were covered with pictures of moose. I’ve lived in Massachusetts all my life and I still don’t understand what’s with all the moose references. I’ve never seen one and never heard of anyone seeing one. Squirrels I get, maybe even bunnies, but moose? Here?
Prianka grabbed a pile of the tacky towels and handed one out to each of us. She came up a few short.
“That’s okay,” said Trina. “Jimmy and I can share.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my father’s fiery glare melting Jimmy’s wheels to the floor. Jimmy just smiled and said, “Sure thing.” Then he winked at my dad.
I think a blood vessel popped in Dad’s eye, but I wasn’t sure.
“Alrighty, then,” I said to diffuse whatever tension there was. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
Prianka went to scoop up Krystal but Aunt Ella said no. “She has stitches in her arm. She can’t get them wet.”
“Oh,” said Prianka. “That makes sense.” Instead, she grabbed Sanjay’s hand. Andrew cawed and flapped his wings once or twice, then settled back down on his shoulder. Sanjay looked uncertainly at my dad.
“It’s okay,” Dad said. “Everyone is getting better.”
Sanjay held his stuffed dog to his ear. “Necropoxy is bad,” he finally whispered. “Poopy Puppy says so.”
“Yes it is,” agreed my dad. “Just not this time.” He smiled and went to ruffle Sanjay’s hair but Sanjay pulled away. “Oh, sorry,” my dad said and just put his hand up and waved goodbye. Sanjay did the same. Then we all filed out the front door and made our way back across the parking lot.
36
JIMMY PUMPED HIS wheels through the mounds of dead leaves like they weren’t even there. The hard bicycle treads on the heavy rubber of his wheelchair tires made it easy for him to maneuver through the steadily growing piles.
I wondered if there used to be trucks that came by on a daily basis to clear the leaves off the road. I bet there were, because there were a gazillion of the little dead things and they had to go someplace or the roads would be impassable.
How could such a little nuisance become such a major roadblock? I wondered about all the other little nuisances we took for granted but couldn’t anymore. Things like who was going to scrape up road kill? Well, that was a stupid thought because, hello, no cars. Seriously though, I’m sure there were tons of things that just automatically happened in our pre-poxer world that wouldn’t anymore.
We were just going to have to wait and find out what those things were. Lucky us.
A short way down the road we came to Gate 29. All it amounted to was a big metal bar that was already opened in front of a sunlit trail that meandered off into the woods. The sign in front of the gate said: ‘Welcome to Gate 29, a nature preserve protected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Black Point Fort Aquaduct, 1.2 miles. Accessible by foot only.’ Underneath that was written the same disclaimer about domestic pets and no parking that the other sign had, but I already used up a joke on that one so I kept my mouth shut.
It was hard.
“What’s this?” asked Prianka as she bent over the sign. We crowded around her and found a little plaque showing a map with arrows on it.
“Cellar holes,” said Sanjay.
We all looked down at him.
“What’s a cellar hole?” asked Bullseye.
Sanjay cleared his throat. “In the book Reservoir Remnants by McCormick Block, sold for $8.95 at Swifty’s Country Store in Hollowton, Massachusetts, it states: Most areas around the Quabbin Reservoir are accessible only by foot, except for three distinct boat launches. Few people ever go into the deep woods, and the Quabbin has become a wildlife preserve.
We all listened to Sanjay like he was a tour guide. I wondered if we had to tip him at the end of his explanation.
“Many towns were submerged to create the reservoir basin, and as such, homes were deconstructed or moved to other locations, leaving many cellar holes throughout the region. Some cellar holes have been filled in, but many are still open and can be found along paths deep in the woods. Visitors are discouraged from entering cellar holes and disturbing wildlife that now make them their home.”
“Who cares about the cellar holes?” I said. “What’s Black Point Fort Aquaduct?”
“I know, right?” exclaimed Jimmy. “That sounds awesome.”
“It does sound cool,” agreed Bullseye. “Sanjay, what i
s it?”
We all looked at him, expecting a flow of information to pour out of his mouth. Instead he looked at his feet. Newfie stood beside him and stared up at his face with his round, vacant eyes.
“Table of contents,” he said. “Page one—‘Introduction’, page seven—’ What was here first’, page twenty-one . . .”
Prianka stopped him. “That’s okay, Sanjay.” Then she turned to us. “He didn’t finish reading the book. He’s done that before. Either he got distracted or he fell asleep. Still, if he’s asked a question from a book that he’s only partially read, he’ll try to find the answer in the table of contents.”
Creepy, creepy.
“No problem,” I said, grabbing her hand. “We haven’t had an adventure in, oh, an hour or so. Who’s game for walking a mile down a sunny path through the woods to some freaky fort and a chance to wash our hair?”
What was I saying? I hated the woods. I guess the fact that I was with my friends, and the path was sunny, made a hell of a big difference.
Prianka squeezed my hand. “I’m game. My hair must look like a rat’s nest.”
“Your hair looks great,” I said.
Trina rolled her eyes.
“Jealous,” I said to her.
“Hardly.”
Jimmy had already started pumping his muscled arms down the path. The ground was hard-packed, and his chair bounced around a little bit, but all in all, he was having the time of his life. I think he was in his element. I bet if he hadn’t been in that chair, he would have been one of those guys who went rock climbing and stuff. I already knew he loved to kayak because he had one back at his house in Amherst.
Trina walked next to him ahead of us. They laughed and joked. I’d never seen her this happy with a guy before—certainly not Chuck Peterson. What a douchebag he was. That was a million years ago and this was now. I was genuinely happy for her.
Bullseye was ahead of us, too. He had his pistol sticking out of the back of his pants, only partially covered by his t-shirt. Sanjay walked a little behind him. I don’t know if he was quite sure what to make of Bullseye just yet. I hoped he would end up thinking of him like a brother or something, because I did feel like we were all a family.
The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 2): Wicked Dead Page 15
