The Young World

by Chris Weitz

  And behind it is Plum Island.

  It’s nothing but a green lump on the horizon, but it’s hard not to get creeped out by it. On Captain’s map, it’s surrounded by a purple box with the words ACCESS RESTRICTED printed all around. And though it’s only a rough triangle with a thin straight bit sticking out, to my eyes it looks like a rabbit leg that’s been torn off and dropped onto the ground.

  I go up to the front of the boat, where Jefferson is staring at the island. I lean over the rail.

  My hand scrabbles along the metal hull and finds his.

  Me: “There it is.” Ugh. Obviously.

  Jefferson: “Yep.”

  Me: “So… what if we took a personal day? I mean, what’s the rush?”

  Jefferson looks over and smiles sadly.

  I look down at the blue green.

  Me: “I figured.”

  Jeff: “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  Me: “No. I mean—yes. Who else would do this? Who else would dream of it? But—it’s good. I mean, it’s the right thing to do. I think.”

  Jefferson: “What if it’s just an abandoned island? With dusty labs and shredded files? No answers?”

  “Then we tried,” I say. “Anyway, we should be so lucky. The way things have been going for us, it’ll be inhabited by giant man-eating cockroaches.”

  He smiles.

  Me: “You know, we could just blow it off completely. Like, turn the boat around and head home.”

  Jefferson: “That wouldn’t be very courageous.”

  Me: “It’d take more courage than going ahead just because we came this far.”

  Jefferson: “What about Spider and Theo and Captain? They’re supposed to kill us if we don’t figure it out.”

  Me: “Do you buy that? I mean, now that you know them a little?”

  Jefferson: (Shakes his head.) “No. But what if there is an answer? What if we could do something about it? Wouldn’t you want a future, if you could have it?”

  Me: “I have a future. I like my future now. I’d rather have a thousand days with you than a hundred thousand without you.” It’s weird, but when you fall in love, you find yourself saying goofy shit like that. At least, I do.

  Jeff: “I’m not going anywhere. Not yet.”

  Back in the wheelhouse, Captain goes over the map. There’s not much detail to the island, just a few wiry roads and a little dot he says is a helicopter pad.

  On the west face of the island—the edge where the rabbit’s leg would’ve been joined to its body—is a circular symbol with rays coming out of it, like a red eye from too much caffeine.

  Captain: “That’s another lighthouse. You can just about make it out from here. See? Southeast of that is a breakwater. We should be able to moor the ship in there, if the channel to the harbor isn’t blocked.”

  Jefferson: “I think you and Spider should stay with the boat. Theo can come with us.”

  Captain: “Theo does what I say.” It’s been such a smooth trip that I’ve forgotten how uneasy we were with each other less than two days ago. “Anyway, nobody’s doing anything today. I’m not gonna risk being stuck there overnight if I can help it. Not until I know what’s up. We’ll take a look around tomorrow morning.”

  So we get a break after all. Nobody seems too excited about actually getting there anyway, except for Brainbox. He keeps peering at the island through binoculars, whispering to himself. He’s been doing that more and more since SeeThrough died.

  We drop anchor in the channel between Orient Point and Plum Island.

  Rummaging around among the mildewed cushions and greasy rags downstairs, I’ve discovered an ancient, pebble-sized bar of soap and a clean if God-knows-what-this-was-used-for towel. My plan is to take a bath so that, if we do get killed by mutant cockroaches, at least Jefferson will remember me not smelling like a goat. I slip over the side in my undies when nobody’s looking, and, once I get used to the ovary-shriveling cold, luxuriate in the embrace of the water, sloughing off dirt and mud and tears.

  That’s when I see Jefferson breaking it to Kath. At least, that’s what I think it is, because they’re on their own at the back of the ship, and Jefferson is wearing a really serious look on his face, explaining something quietly and deliberately.

  As for Kath, she seems to take it well, judging from the fact that after a particularly long speech from Jefferson, she just shrugs. Jefferson’s eyebrows crinkle together, like he’s not sure she’s really gotten it into her brainpan or something.

  She walks over to the rail, pulling at her shirt. Once she’s wrestled that off, she calmly undoes her bra and drops it with the shirt in a little pile by her feet. The pile gets bigger when she pulls off her pants. Finally, stark naked, she executes this, like, Olympic-caliber dive off the side into the water.

  I’m half hoping that she never surfaces, that this is kind of like some grand suicidal gesture. But no such luck. She pops up, spits out a little stream of water, smiles a toothpaste-commercial smile, and stretches out to float flat on her back.

  This routine has pretty much gotten everybody’s attention. The boys don’t know what to do—they stare for a moment and then look up pensively at the clouds or wander over to the other side of the boat, though I can tell they’re kind of unwilling to lose the view. As for me, I feel a little stupid. Stupid to be the priss in her underwear, like—what was the big deal? Stupid to have taken the time to feel sorry for her. She does a—frankly a kind of obscene—flip backward and underwater, and surfaces again.

  Kath: “Oh, hey.” Like she’s noticing me for the first time, or pretending to. “What’s up?”

  Me: “Uh, nothing. What’s up with you?”

  Kath: “Oh, Jefferson just broke up with me. Which was kind of funny. I thought we were just fucking.”

  Ow.

  I mean, I don’t know why it should bother me. Like, it’d hardly be better if she was all heartbroken or something, but it felt like she was saying, Yeah, whatever, I’m above the little dramas of you losers.

  It’s really hard to think of good comebacks when you’re swimming in your underwear.

  Me: “Oh. Okay. Well, I’ll let you, uh, use the… water.”

  I make my way to the side of the ship where an old tire hangs over the edge. I try to hoist myself up as elegantly as possible, but it’s slippery and I end up looking like a baby monkey crawling on a kid’s swing.

  On deck, Jefferson is still loitering by the back. He casts me a look and, just by instinct I guess, I cover myself up with my arms. It’s, you know, cold. And… we don’t know each other that well. Yet. I don’t know. Things seem insanely awkward all of a sudden.

  You’ve got to hand it to the girl; she knows how to screw things up.

  There’s fresh mackerel fried in cornmeal for dinner, with sweet onions and strawberries on the side. More of that white wine. Damn.

  Tonight it’s less chatty. There’s a sense that we’re on the edge of something, the eve of something, even though we don’t know what. I look over at Jefferson and read apology in his face. I smile and shake my head—no worries.

  Of course Peter clocks all this. I’m in my new spot hanging over the front of the ship when he looms up behind me.

  Me: “Peter, the most amazing thing—”

  Peter: “I’m in love!”

  Wait, what?

  Peter: “Theo’s super cute, isn’t he? All, like, strong and silent and sweet.”

  Me: “Yeah, but he’s—I mean, he seems straight to me.”

  Peter: “Do you think? When Crazylegs went over the side, with her coochie all over the place? Theo totally looked away and went over to the other side, like—‘uccch.’ ”

  Me: “He went ‘uccch’?”

  Peter: “Well, no. But that’s what it was like.”

  Me: “I think that’s just being polite. Like, looking away out of decency.”

  Peter: “Whatever, bitch, don’t bring me down with your decency theory.”

  Me: “Sorry. I’m excited
for you. I am.”

  Peter: “Thanks. Speaking of which. Have you and Jefferson got busy yet? Did I call that or what? Is he totally hung like a mule?”

  I kind of wanted to have a different conversation about me and Jeff, like, a girlie, sighing, hugging, when-is-the-wedding kind of conversation.

  Me: “Dude! We haven’t, like, done anything.”

  Peter: “Why not?”

  Me: “Because?” I gesture toward the tiny confines of the ship. “Besides. It’s not like that.” Then, off his exaggerated look of disdain, “I mean, it is like that. Like, I want to. But not, like, all rushed.”

  Peter: “Hello? Are you going to do it before you die of a painful disease or get murdered? In case you haven’t noticed, time is a-wasting.”

  Me: “So go, like, mack out on Theo, then. Only…”

  Peter: “I know. Don’t get gay-bashed. Don’t worry, I’ll suss it all out. Like, ask him what his favorite club track is first.”

  Me: “I hope it works, Peter.”

  Peter: “I hope it works for you, Donna.”

  We hug.

  Peter: “It’ll be okay, Donna.”

  Me: “It will?”

  Peter: “Sure. We’ll get to the island, and Brainbox will cure the Sickness, and in a couple of days, we’ll be bringing the good news back home. You and Jefferson will have ten Eurasian babies. Me and Theo will adopt half of them. I’ll host a TV show called Apocalypse Wow.”

  Me: “Yeah. Maybe.”

  We look at the island. I don’t want to get there. I want to stay here, for once. Here and now. The past is gone. The island is the future.

  Night lowers all softly. Kath and Spider are on first watch, leaving me, Brainbox, Peter, and Jefferson in the wheelhouse to sleep.

  As we settle down into our sleeping bags, Peter gets up. He stretches with feigned nonchalance.

  Peter: “Hey, Brainbox? I always wanted to figure out which constellation is which. Will you come out on deck and point them out to me?”

  Brainbox: “What constellations do you have in mind?”

  Peter: “Uh, I don’t know. Like, the major ones?”

  Brainbox: (Shrugs.) “Not really interested.”

  Peter tries again. “Well—what about the mechanical winch? Could you show that to me and kind of explain how it works?”

  Brainbox: “I don’t see why you suddenly care about winches.”

  Peter: (Sighs.) “Brainbox, I want us to leave Jefferson and Donna alone so that they can mess around.”

  Brainbox: “Oh.” He looks at us. “Okay.”

  Peter and Brainbox get up and leave. It’s nice of them and all, but kind of a lot of pressure?

  I guess you always think, like, I want the first time to be special. I want it to be with someone I love.

  So this is, like, almost too much of a good thing.

  Jefferson must see that I’m kind of freaked out.

  He smiles. “I’m just glad to be here with you,” he says.

  I unzip my sleeping bag and hold it open for him. He slides over and in, and zips it up behind him. It’s a tight fit, but it’s warm and it feels good. My heart is at, like, rave music speed, like two hundred beats per minute. He kisses my lips, my eyes, my ears, my neck. Everywhere his mouth touches I’m bursting.

  Jefferson: “Is this okay?”

  Me: “Yes.”

  “Is this okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this okay?”

  “Shut up.”

  So he does.

  Is this okay?

  Yes.

  Dream of Charlie and Mom and Dad and the world Before. Everything is only a story and in this one, which is real, we are all together and Charlie is laughing on a swing, and I turn to Jefferson, and I say, Look, the Hundred Acre Wood, and he says, Don’t you know that’s where we’ll live? But the rabbit has been caught by the hunter—pulling, pulling on the leg—

  CHAPTER 35

  I OPEN MY eyes and there’s a knife at my chest, the point drawing blood. For a crazy moment, I think it’s Kath in a jealous rage, but it isn’t; it’s a kid, maybe fourteen, with mad eyes and wild hair, dripping salt water.

  Donna is sitting up, looking at two more smiling children who have their guns to her head.

  “Don’t hurt her,” I say.

  One of them hits me in the face with the butt of his pistol. There’s a crackling sound and a ringing in my ears, and my vision goes out for a second.

  There’s a thud from outside and three shots. A scream. Kath’s voice.

  They tie our hands up behind our backs with wet rope that tears at my wrists. They push us out of the wheelhouse and onto the deck.

  They have Peter and Brainbox, too, and Kath is being dragged from the front of the boat. In the stern, I can see them punching and kicking at Theo, who’s disarmed and down on the deck. Theo can barely protect himself. There must be six or seven of the skinny, wild-eyed kids beating on him. Another kid is sprawled lifeless against the rail. Maybe Theo killed him.

  I’m wondering why we didn’t get alerted by the watch when I slip on something wet. It’s blood. Spider’s body is laid out, arms above his head.

  They dump Spider over the side, and he sinks out of sight. They do the same thing to their own.

  In the predawn, I can see that they’re young—probably not one of them is older than fourteen. Ragged, possibly drugged, judging by their ticky movements and the little scratches they keep worrying at. More and more climb on board, seeming to appear out of the water itself. I twist my neck and see a couple of flat-bottomed boats nestled up to the Annie’s hull.

  Some of the children have knives, some bats, some machetes; some are even carrying assault rifles that look much too big for them. One of them taps a little packet on his hand and comes up with a cigarette. He lights it expertly, and it juts from his lips obscenely.

  I keep thinking I’ve seen this before somewhere, and then I realize that they look like those pictures of child soldiers from the Congo and Burma and other places, before What Happened. They handle the weapons like toys, dangling rifles over their shoulders by their fingers, leaning back to support the metallic burden of a machine gun like they’re holding a baby brother. They have terrifying dead-calm expressions, freezing eyes.

  I ask them what they want. I get a slap across the face from a skinny blue-eyed boy with beads in his hair.

  I ask him what his name is. Slap.

  I tell him mine. He puts the hot snout of his pistol to my eye. I have no doubt at all that he’s going to shoot.

  Then more of them come from below. Captain, his right eye swollen over, is dragged up after them. His arm looks broken.

  I think, All this way, through everything we have suffered, and it ends with the island in sight.

  But that’s not how it ends.

  After grabbing our gear and weapons and some tools from the ship, they force us down into their boats. There are six or seven boats, all of them white-hulled shells, blue on the inside, that look like upturned box tops. We crowd into them, and they push off from the tug with paddles. They must have slipped up quietly from the side, saving the outboard engines, which now thrum to life as they abandon caution.

  The little ships swivel nimbly and head in a flock toward Plum Island.

  Behind us the Annie goes up in flames. I catch sight of Captain and see tears streaking his face. And a look of murder.

  Dawn hits fast, and the sun is sitting on the horizon when we get to the breakwater. Still not a word from our captors. I keep trying to find Donna, who’s on one of the other boats. I want to reassure her somehow. But I don’t know if seeing my bleeding face would do her much good. When I do see her, I’m frightened by how pale and small she looks. But she’s alive.

  Inside the breakwater, a little harbor. They pull up to a rotting dock and heave us out, kicking and punching us when we don’t move fast enough.

  I try to understand what’s happening. My guess is that this is an entire school grade—t
hey must have been around twelve when the Sickness hit. Barely old enough to survive. How did they make it through what followed? These kids aren’t shy and fearful like the Moles. They’re bold. Beyond that. Fearless.

  At the edge of the water there’s an old cube truck covered in amateurish graffiti. They herd us into the back. Some of them follow us in, and the rest climb up onto the roof or hang precariously from the open gate.

  The truck spasms to life, and we rattle along a dusty road past acres of overgrown grass and reeds. I can make out a blocky old lighthouse. A kid with a long rifle perches at the top.

  We take a left at a fork in the road, and out of the back of the truck I can see a big, well-tended field, a variety of crops growing.

  There’s a traffic circle in front of a complex of four or five buildings. The main one is three stories high and about a block wide, with dead windows set into a reddish face. The truck stops, and we are gestured out.

  A sign reads PLUM ISLAND ANIMAL DISEASE CENTER.

  My arms burn; my head buzzes. We are getting to the heart of it.

  Through the doors, a bland, abandoned atrium. Past that, a corridor with big rooms off both sides.

  One room seems to be a dormitory. Mattresses are scattered around. A girl, maybe thirteen, thin as a corpse or a runway model, looks up from a mirror set in a cheap plastic housing. She’s applying lipstick the color of running blood.

  From the other side, the sound of muffled gunfire. I catch a glimpse of a big flat-screen TV. On it, a first-person shooter—Call of Duty, I think—with more feral teens like the ones who’ve taken us prisoner grouped around it, transfixed. A fug of smoke with a chemical tang that isn’t tobacco hangs in the air.

  I keep expecting to see clear Plexiglas, computer terminals, high-tech ID systems. But the farther back we go, the dirtier it gets. Gray concrete painted in government beige, scuffed with shoe rubber and chipped by rolling carts.