Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(57)

“Did you hear what they’re going to do?” she asked. “They must have been planning it the whole time.”

Behind her, Eliot wailed. “They’re going to split us up. They’re going to send us away!”

“What do we do?” Astrid cried. “What are we going to do?”

Everyone was looking to me. I searched around us, trying to find some kind of out. Somewhere to go. Something to do. All I saw was the dark outline of Lucy’s Promise rising above the town.

“We go back up the mountain,” I said. “It’s our only choice.”

“They’ll come looking for us,” Hannah argued. “Every infected person in Black River is getting cleared out. That’s what they said.”

“Then we’ll go deeper into the woods,” I countered. “Over the quarantine fence if we have to. We stick together and we stay out of sight until people find out what the Marvins are trying to do. There’s no way they’ll let them get away with it.”

There was a roar as another helicopter streaked over the trees toward the park.

“Go!” I yelled. “Run! And don’t look back.”

Hannah took the lead and the kids ran after her. I started to follow until I realized that Greer wasn’t behind me. He had moved to the edge of the hill, his head down, his hands curled into fists.

“Greer, we have to go. Now!”

I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. His gray eyes locked on mine. It was as if time had slipped its gears and turned backwards. It was the old Greer. I stepped back without thinking, my hand falling to the hilt of the knife.

“They can’t do this,” he roared. “Black River is ours! It’s our home.”

Just then five trails of white arced over the heads of the infected. Tear gas. When the canisters landed, plumes of smoke billowed in every direction. The crowd screamed and reared back. People were clawing at their eyes and struggling to breathe. The Marvins waded into them, clubs raised over their heads.

“You want to go?” Greer cried. “Then go! Run!”

He turned away, but I managed to get a hold of his arm and yank him back. The glare he gave me was the same one he’d given a hundred kids on the schoolyard. It had always been enough to send us all running, but right then I refused to back off, refused to wither like I had so many times before.

“Hannah and I need you,” I said. “We have to stay together!”

“Greer! Card!”

Hannah had stopped running. The kids were huddled behind her. Benny. DeShaun. Astrid. Makela. Eliot cradled Margo in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder. They were all streaked with soot and tears. I turned back to Greer, and it was as if a switch flipped inside him. His arm slipped out of my hand and he ran toward Hannah. He took Margo from Eliot and waved them all down the other side of the hill. I turned for a last look back at the park. The Ferris wheel had fallen over, and every last trace of the carnival was gone, crushed underfoot. A house on an adjacent street was burning. Smoke from the fires mixed with the tear gas, churning in the rotor wash from the helicopters. Deep inside the haze, faceless forms grappled hand to hand.

Behold, Abaddon.

I turned and fled. By the time we hit the roadway on the other side of the hill, the riot had spilled into the streets. Main was blocked by a barricade of vehicles, so we ended up twisting through Black River’s neighborhoods, just barely avoiding the Marvins. I kept my eyes locked on the summit of Lucy’s Promise with every turn we took, frustrated by how it drew closer and slipped away over and over again.

At Washington Street we stumbled into one of the clouds of tear gas and the kids started coughing violently. I could breathe because of my mask, but it was like a swarm of bees gouging at my eyes. Greer pushed everyone into a nearby yard, then stripped off his shirt and told Ren and Eliot to do the same. He handed the shirts to me and I used my knife to cut them into wide strips. Greer and Hannah moved through the group, tying the fabric tightly around mouths and noses. It wasn’t much, but it was all we had, and it was enough to get everyone back on their feet and moving.

There was a full-on brawl underway at the end of Washington, so we jumped fences until we hit the next street over. I caught a flash of the bridge up ahead and called out to the others, but by the time we’d turned toward it, a Marvin patrol cut us off and we lost sight of it again. We tumbled from street to street, as if we’d fallen into the churn of Black River Falls. The world became flickers of light and darkness. There and then gone again. I saw riot clubs falling. Clouds of smoke. People running. All around us was the sound of broken glass and sirens and the pop pop pop of gunfire.

Astrid fell, and I helped her up and pushed her on. Blood poured from a cut on the side of her head and across her pale skin, but she didn’t seem to notice. Hannah had DeShaun in her arms. Greer carried Margo. Makela snatched a rock off the street and hurled it at a passing car. Every few minutes another mass of infected crashed into us, overwhelming and scattering our group. We fought to pull ourselves together again and again, clasping hands, making a chain. Stay together. Keep moving. It was all I could think. All I could do.

“Card! Look!”

My head snapped left at Hannah’s voice. Gray stone showed through the trees, and then there was a rush of sound that I took for the roar of voices until I realized what it really was—white water crashing over the falls.