Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(26)

“How what works?”

“If you’re going to do something stupid, then so am I.”

“Greer—”

He jogged past me, swinging the backpack onto his shoulders.

“Come on, birdman! Let’s get stupid!”



Once we got down the mountain, I took the lead, with Greer in the back and the girl between us. My hand hovered by the hilt of the knife as I checked every overgrown yard and vacant house we passed—for infected, for Marvins, for Guard. I felt an edge of panic gathering from being back in town again, but I pushed it away as best I could and focused on what I was doing.

After we crossed the bridge, I led them down Harding Street to keep us away from the center of town for as long as possible. We’d be at the sculpture garden in ten or fifteen minutes and then back on Lucy’s Promise a half hour after that. Easy. We just had to keep moving.

We came to the end of Harding and turned onto Warren. The boughs of the red maples on either side of the street met above us, making it feel as if we were in this shady tunnel. I felt something inside of me ease a little and I let my pace slacken. Soon the girl had drawn close, as close as I could let her anyway. The clothes I’d seen Greer stuffing into his backpack had been for her. She had her hair tucked up under a Yankees cap and she’d traded her old button-down for a hooded sweatshirt. She hadn’t said a word since we’d started out, just plowed forward with her head down.

“You all right?”

She nodded, but didn’t look at me. Her lips were pressed tight, like a hairline crack in a block of marble.

“You know what I was thinking? What do me and Greer know, right? I mean, seriously. Two guys with a stack of yearbooks and a test they made up one day when they were bored? It’s not exactly scientific. Like, there were a few home-schooled kids in Black River. They wouldn’t be in the yearbooks at all.”

She glanced over at me, clearly unconvinced.

“Okay, fine, maybe it’s a long shot, but your family is here somewhere. We’ll find them. Did I ever tell you that me and Greer were world-famous private detectives before the outbreak?”

The corners of her mouth lifted, faintly. “I just keep wondering what it will be like when we find them,” she said. “I mean, if I was standing in a room with my mom and dad, if they were right there in front of me . . .”

“They might seem familiar,” I said. “Sometimes things from an infected person’s old life feel that way. Certain people. Certain situations. Kind of like déjà vu, I guess.”

“But when I see them will I feel anything? Will I still . . .”

She trailed off, but it didn’t matter. I knew how the question was going to end. Will I still love them?

Warren Street hitched to the left. We followed it past the empty playground outside Kinderbrook Elementary. Part of me wanted to tell her that love conquered all, even this, but then I saw Mom standing in that alleyway, sunlight streaming over her shoulders, and I couldn’t do it. I shook my head. The girl didn’t so much as break her stride, but I could see in the way she went back to studying the cracks in the pavement that it was a blow.

“But they’ll love you,” I said, dipping down to try to catch her eye. “And, you know, with enough time together, you’ll love them again too.”

Our eyes met and she smiled. A real one this time. It sent a wave of heat through my chest. Her hand was swinging beside her as she walked. It took everything in me not to reach out and take it.

Greer shouted from behind us. “Yo! Guys! Heads up!”

A truck was rolling into the intersection down the street. It was one of the big Marvin ones like we’d seen earlier, but with a dark canvas top covering the back. We ducked off the road and around the side of a nearby house as the vehicle slowed to a stop on the other side of the intersection. I heard voices beneath the engine’s rumble, and then a flap opened in the back. A bundle the size of a large trash bag spilled out onto the roadway, and then the truck belched a cloud of exhaust and was gone.

Greer just shook his head. “Here one day, and they’re already littering. No respect.”

“It’s not trash,” the girl said.

“What?”

The bundle shifted and began to unfold. It was a man—gray-haired, wearing a long, dark coat. He moaned as he sat up, clutching the shoulder they’d dropped him on.

“Is that Freeman?”

Greer was right. Freeman Wayne—the town librarian. The same man I’d seen taken away by the Marvins at the ration drop.

“Come on,” I said. “We better keep mov—”

Before I could finish, Greer darted out from behind the house and into the street.

“Looks like you got yourself into a bit of trouble there,” he said to Freeman. “What’d you do? Refuse to renew somebody’s copy of Encyclopedia Brown?”

The girl looked back at me, and then she joined Greer. The two of them helped Freeman onto the curb, and Greer handed him a bottle of water from his pack. The spire of St. Stephen’s rose just beyond the houses across from us. We were five minutes from the sculpture garden, maybe less. Damn it. I looked both ways for more Marvins, then crossed the road.

Freeman Wayne was well over six feet tall and scrawny, with a beaklike nose and a rat’s nest of white hair. Gray stubble ran from his jawline to the edge of his cheekbones. Despite the heat, he wore a dingy white button-down shirt and black pants, the knees shiny from wear, under the coat. I’d have bet anything that if Black River had any homeless people before the outbreak, Freeman was one of them.