Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(20)

“We’ll wait a few days before we start figuring out who they are,” Greer said. “Let ’em get settled. Gonzalez won’t blow a gasket over that, right?”

I shook my head. Greer stood up and stretched.

“Well, that’s two lives saved for the day. How about we shoot for the trifecta? I’ll go see if I can find angry-girl-with-knife. Now her we can get moving along.”

I jumped up. “It’s okay. I’ll find her.”

He gave me a look.

“What?”

He smiled. “Nothing. You know what? You’re absolutely right. You go after her. I’ll grab my things and get set up.”

Greer jogged off. I gathered some food into a paper bag and set out along the trail. It wasn’t long before the noise of the camp receded behind me. The morning was warm and the rain clouds from the day before had passed, leaving the sky achingly blue.

I found the girl right where I’d left her the night before, sitting at the edge of the mountain wedged between two boulders. She had her back to me and was looking out at the valley below. Her shirt was drying on one of the rocks, leaving her in a gray tank top that exposed the curve of her shoulders, which were as taut as a strung bow. I’d barely made it into the clearing when she heard me and turned, knife in hand.

I lifted the bag . “Thought you could use something to eat.”

She studied it like she was trying to decide if it contained a hidden explosive device.

“There’s this girl in our camp,” I said, stepping from the dirt trail to the grass. “Tomiko? She’s twelve. Greer found her hiding out in the health-and-beauty aisle of a Rite Aid. Literally all he did was show her this cookbook he got from the library, and in no time she was making the most amazing biscuits ever. Cakes, too. You know, when we can get sugar and stuff. Which isn’t very often, but—” I suddenly realized I was babbling. “Anyway, I managed to score you a few before the kids devoured them all.”

I took another step toward her, and she jabbed the knife out into the space between us.

“Right. No problem. I’ll just leave ’em here.” I set the bag at the base of the boulders and retreated. “They’re really at their best when they’re warm, so you might wanna—”

The girl turned her back again. There was a clatter as she set the knife down within easy reach. It would have been nice if I’d had a plan at that point, but I didn’t, so I just found a spot on the grass halfway between her and the tent and settled in to wait. The tent looked like it hadn’t been slept in, and I saw through the flap that the clothes I’d brought were still in a neat pile right beside the uneaten food.

Greer was the master detective, but I couldn’t resist starting to look for clues.

Her clothes were unremarkable. Cutoff shorts. Tank top and an old button-down shirt. Black combat boots. It was the kind of thing anyone might have picked out of a Salvation Army delivery.

Her skin was pale, but there were traces of pink on her shoulders, which made me think she had been spending most of her time indoors until just recently. Not surprising, if she’d been hiding out in the QZ with a bunch of uninfected for the last year.

The only really odd thing was her hair. Fully dry, it was a lighter green, like leaves with the sun behind them. How could she have done that? Hair dye certainly didn’t come in a Guard supply drop. A looted salon, maybe? There was a black market in town run by a couple of enterprising guardsmen, but it usually dealt in booze and cigarettes. Of course, I was pretty sure they’d supply green hair dye if the price was right. So, that was something. She must have had access to money or at least something worthwhile to trade.

I picked up an acorn and rolled it in my palm as a story started clicking together in my head. She’s hidden away with her family since the outbreak, maybe in one of those mansions uptown. She gets bored. Dyes her hair green. It’s not enough. One day when Mom and Dad aren’t looking, she sneaks out of the house for a few thrills and gets careless. And then, boom. Here she is.

It was plausible. Probable, even. It was a little depressing, though, to feel the mystery of her drain away so easily. Surely there had to be more to her than that. Maybe—

“Why do I know how to tie my shoes?”

I looked up. The girl was leaning forward, elbows on her knees, knife in hand. Her eyes were wolflike.

In the universe of questions I thought she might ask, this one was nowhere to be found. “I don’t under—”

“When I woke up this morning I bent over and tied my shoelaces without even thinking about it. How can I do that if the memory of learning how to tie my shoes has been erased?”

Luckily, months of living with Lassiter’s had made us all experts on the subject of memory.

“Because different types of memory are stored in different parts of your brain,” I said. “There’s episodic memory, which is your memory of all the events in your life, kind of like your own personal autobiography. Semantic memory is general knowledge type stuff, basic things you know about yourself and the world. Cultural stuff, language and symbols, your name, where you’re from. Procedural memory is like muscle memory: it’s your memory of things you’ve learned to do through lots of practice.”

“Like tying my shoes.”

“Exactly.”

“So the virus erases episodic and semantic memory.”