Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(53)

I eased up behind him, the crunch of my feet on the trail overloud in my ears.

“You want to know anything else?”

He slowly turned. When our eyes met, there was a second of acknowledgment—that I’d known and said nothing—and then he looked off into the woods.

“My family,” he said. “Are they here?”

I shook my head.

“What happened to them?”

“You’re sure you—”

“Just tell me.”

I wanted to hand Greer a prettier world than the one he’d grown up in, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. His past belonged to him. If he wanted it back, I had to give it to him.

“You lived on this compound out in the woods near where the quarantine fence is now. You and your mom and dad, and your brother. I think your folks stayed, hoping they could wait out the virus, but then you got infected.”

“And they just . . .”

“Yeah,” I said. “They left.”

Greer scuffed the toe of his shoe in the dust, then looked up at me. “So we knew each other. Back then.”

“Yeah.”

“Were we friends?”

“No.”

“Did I have friends?”

My throat clamped shut, but I forced the words through. “No. You didn’t.”

He was quiet for a moment. A small wind ruffled our clothes.

“It’s weird,” he said. “But I think I knew that.”

“How?”

He shrugged. “All this—you and Hannah, the kids—it feels new. You know?”

Greer turned and started back along the trail. I joined him, and we walked in silence awhile.

“So is there anything else I should know?” he asked a little hesitantly. “I didn’t go around kicking puppies or anything, did I?”

I didn’t want to lie to him, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the whole truth either. I went back over everything I knew about him, everything I’d ever seen or heard. There had to be something he’d want to hear. A bridge between the old and the new. Something good.

“You were never afraid of anything,” I said.

Greer’s eyes brightened. “Seriously?”

“Not anything or anybody,” I said. “Certainly not girls with green hair.”

He smiled to himself. “Cool.”

We came around a bend in the trail and started to hear the kids’ voices from down in the camp.

“And you’re sure I didn’t have any slick moves.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “You definitely didn’t.”

“So . . .”

“So, what?”

“So what do I do now?”

There couldn’t have been a worse person to ask, but I was the only one there, so I tried to come up with something. I remembered our first year in Black River, when Mom and Dad took us to the county fair and you met that girl at the shooting gallery.

“There’s going to be a Ferris wheel at this thing, right?”

“I think so.”

“Wait for it to get dark,” I said. “And then take her up in that.”

“Then what?”

“Just . . . be you.”

“Old me or new me?”

“New you,” I said. “Definitely new you.”



By the time we got back to camp, it was utter pandemonium. Music was pumping from the radio as kids ran from cabin to cabin and in and out of the dining hall. Hershey Bar and Snow Cone were exhausting themselves, barking and jumping as if they wanted someone to simply stop and explain what the hell was going on. To add insult to injury, one of the kids had tied a pink party hat to Snow Cone’s head with a length of green string.

“That dog’s going to snap one day,” I said.

“No kidding.”

Makela ran by, and Greer shouted to her. “Yo! Makela! Where’s Hannah?”

“Haven’t seen her since breakfast,” she said as she disappeared into her cabin.

Greer ran a shaky hand through his hair. “All right, I better go find her so we can get this train moving.”

“Why don’t you let me?” I suggested. “You go get ready.”

“You sure?”

I looked him up and down. He was sweating like a madman and his clothes were rumpled and stained with dirt.

“Yeah. A lack of moves is fine, but looking and smelling like a homeless guy is not going to work in your favor.”

“Right. Good point. See ya later.”

He took off. After a little searching I found Hannah at her old campsite, sitting at the edge of the mountain with her back to me.

“I think you’ve got the right idea,” I said, taking a spot down the ledge from her. “It’s crazy back there. Greer’s going to have to—”

I turned toward her as she hurriedly wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. Her eyes were red and puffy.

“You all right?”

She nodded briskly, then wrapped her arms around her middle and looked out at the valley below. Her hair blew in the wind.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. It’s stupid.”

“Hannah.”