Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(25)

“What are those?” the girl asked.

“Missing posters.”

She waited for more, but Greer was so absorbed in his work, I jumped in.

“Some people who got caught up in the outbreak didn’t actually live here. The Guard took pictures and put them online so their families could identify them.”

“But you said I just got infected—what? Yesterday?”

“That’s what we thought, but . . .” Greer looked up from his pile of books. “What’s the very first thing you remember?”

“Those two men,” she said. “The ones who were chasing me.”

“And you don’t remember anything before that,” I said. “Nothing at all.”

“No. Why would I?”

I left my place by the trees and came into the meadow. “Once you’re exposed to the virus it takes about ten hours to do its thing. The last couple hours of that, you’re kind of going in and out. You know who you are one second, don’t know the next.”

“Sometimes people will remember bits and pieces from that time,” Greer said. “Maybe one of them will mean something.”

The girl bore down hard. It was as if there was a mountain in her path and she was scaling it one handhold at a time. “I remember standing beside a fence. It was low and black. And then . . . bells. I remember hearing bells.”

“St. Stephen’s,” I said. “This was before the men found you?”

“I think so. I was hot. I smelled flowers. And then I turned around and they were there. Those two men.”

“What did you do?”

“I ran. Oh! I think I dropped something.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “There were bells and then . . .” Her eyes went unfocused on the ground, and then she looked up suddenly. “It was a bag. Like a backpack. That’s what I dropped when I ran. A backpack. It was green. I can see it in my hand and then hitting the ground next to—”

She shook her head.

“Next to what?” I asked.

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“I see a green bag on the ground next to a pink crocodile,” she said. “I must have just been confused.”

Greer and I locked eyes. “The sculpture garden,” I said. “By City Hall.”

“Guys, what is it? What’s happening?”

Neither of us said anything for a second.

“Guys!”

“You’re not in any of the yearbooks,” Greer said. “Not one of them. And you aren’t on any of the missing posters either.”

“So? What does that mean?”

Greer turned to me. There was nothing left to do but tell her.

“It means we have no idea who you are.”





11


“WHOA!” GREER SHOUTED. “Hold on! Would you wait a second?”

“I’m not going to just sit there!”

The green-haired girl had left the meadow and was racing toward camp. Greer and I were struggling to keep up.

“You guys know where I dropped that bag, right?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“So we’ll find it,” she said. “It’ll be a clue.”

I ran out ahead and blocked the way. “We’re supposed to be keeping you under wraps, okay? And besides, those guys from yesterday are still down there.”

“I don’t care! I—”

“We have a friend in the Guard,” I said. “We’ll have him come up here and he’ll be able to figure out who you are. You just have to be patient.”

The girl whipped around, getting right in Greer’s face. “If you thought there was something out there that could tell you who you really are, would you just sit around and wait?”

Greer glanced nervously over her shoulder at me. I mentally urged him to stay strong. “Absolutely! I would wait a reasonable amount of time and then go when all interested parties agreed that it was perfectly safe.”

“Liar.”

She turned and ran on down the trail. Greer came up alongside me.

“Former Navy SEAL slash teen librarian,” he said. “That’s what I’m putting my money on. You’re one day late returning a book and she punches you in the face.”

Greer laughed, but I didn’t join him.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ll go with her and make sure she stays out of trouble.”

“No,” I said. “I brought her up here. It’s my problem.”

“Card—”

“I said I’ll go.”

By the time I got down to Greer’s camp, the girl had passed through the cabins and was at the trailhead that led off the mountain. When she saw me coming, she pressed on, picking up speed. A familiar heat moved up through my stomach as I thought about being back on the streets of Black River. I grabbed hold of the knife to steady myself.

“You all right, man?”

Greer appeared beside me, stuffing some clothes into a backpack.

“You don’t need to come. I can handle this.”

His eyes narrowed. “Dude, do you really not understand how this works by now?”