Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(56)

I pulled on my mask and gloves, then tossed the phone into my pack and threw it over my shoulder. The dogs tried to join me as I came back through the camp, but I warned them off and started down the mountain.

By the time I got to the foot of Lucy’s Promise, Jen, Marty, and a dozen other infected were being loaded into the back of one of the Marvins’ big cargo trucks. I searched for someone in charge and spotted a familiar face right away.

“Raney! What’s going on? Where are you taking them?”

As soon as he saw me, Raney barked an order to his men, then headed for a Humvee that was parked on the side of the road.

I ran to catch up with him. “What the hell are you doing? You said nothing was going to change. You said everything was going to stay just like it was.”

“What did you think?” he barked. “The governor was going to wall off an entire town and play nanny to you and your friends for the rest of your lives? There are thousands of uninfected people out there who want their homes back. Who want their businesses back.” He yanked open the Humvee door. “World’s moving on, kid, starting tonight.”

“Where are you taking them?”

Raney slid into his seat and signaled to the driver. The engine rumbled.

“Good places,” he said. “Safe places. We’ve got facilities in Arizona, Oregon, The Dakotas. A few in Canada. Your friends will be perfectly safe until somebody figures out a cure for this thing. In the meantime, Black River, New York, will be back in business. Hell, a month from now it’ll be like none of this ever happened.”

“But it’s not right! You can’t just—”

I was interrupted by a deep boom coming from somewhere across town. The ground trembled, and then a ball of fire rose over the treetops. All around me radios screeched and Marvins scrambled to their vehicles.

“What was that? What’s happening? Raney—”

But he was already moving. His Humvee sped away, and so did all the others around me. There was another boom, smaller this time, followed by a crash. I spun around, trying to figure out where the sounds were coming from. A third explosion made it clear. They were coming from Monument Park.

I ran flat out, jumping fences and cutting through yards. Every street I passed was full of sirens and flashing lights and roaring engines. When I got to within a block of the park, I heard thousands of voices all yelling at once, so many that they merged into a storm of white noise. I hooked around the back side and climbed the hill, staying low, moving from shadow to shadow until I reached the crest. Once there, I found a thicket of trees and dropped to my belly.

There wasn’t much left of the carnival. The Ferris wheel and a few wooden booths were about the only things still standing. Everything else had been trampled under the feet of nearly five thousand infected who stood shoulder to shoulder below me, fists raised and shouting. They were facing a stage that sat on the far side of the park. It was empty except for a podium and a couple of knocked-over mic stands. There was a knot of Marvin blue to one side of it. It looked like they’d been trying to make their escape, but had been blocked by a wall of infected. Three of their vehicles had been flipped over and were spewing flames and black smoke. Hannah had mentioned there was going to be an announcement at the carnival. I was pretty sure I knew what it was and about how well it had gone over.

Gonzalez had been right. Black River was nothing but a contract to the Marvins. Everything Raney had done had been to keep us quiet until the Guard was gone and no one was watching.

A horde of Marvin vehicles arrived with a screech of sirens. They began lining the road that circled the park, like bricks in a wall surrounding it. Once they were all in position, they’d have the infected trapped. They’d only have to load them onto trucks and drive them away. I scanned the crowd, becoming more and more anxious, until I caught a flash of green. Hannah. She was locked in the middle of the mob with Greer and the kids. They were bunched together, hand in hand, making a chain to fight the tides of people pushing against them. They were barely a hundred yards away, but a trio of Marvin trucks sat between us. I looked up and down the line but didn’t see a single break.

A black bus pulled up near the stage. An amplified voice came from loudspeakers on top of it.

“By order of the governor, you are to disperse. Return to your homes and await further instruction. Anyone who does not comply is subject to immediate arrest.”

A door opened in the side of the bus, and dozens of Marvins poured out. They were in riot gear—black body armor, helmets, gas masks. As they advanced toward the crowd, they beat truncheons against Plexiglas shields. The infected retreated at first, but then there was a rallying cry and they threw themselves forward. Another patrol car was flipped onto its side, with a crunch of broken glass. More carnival booths collapsed. Once the infected saw what they could do, they surged even harder. The riot cops were pushed back, but the reaction was immediate. Two of the three Humvees in front of me backed out of their spots and headed toward the center of the chaos. It was my opening. I bolted down the hill.

“Hannah! Greer! This way!”

Hannah turned, and when she saw me, she grabbed Greer’s arm and he started shouting at the kids, turning them in my direction. There were screams on the other side of the park, single voices at first and then a chorus. Fire from one of the burning patrol cars spread to the stage, and flames shot out over the crowd. Silhouetted by the blaze, the infected looked like trees writhing in a forest fire. My stomach flipped and my vision started to collapse, but I couldn’t give in to it. I waved the kids past me and up the hill, then followed behind. By the time we all made it to the top, the kids were nearly hysterical with fear. Not Hannah, though. She seemed almost eerily calm. Her eyes were filled with the same kind of hunted intensity as the first time I’d seen her.