Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch(64)

Black River was hushed and still. I left the school and moved along the empty streets until I came to the dogwoods on the other side of the park. I found a place beneath one of them. Wind rustled the leaves, filling the night air with the scent of it. I thought of you and Mom and Dad and Greer and Hannah, and then I turned toward Lucy’s Promise and watched as the first traces of dawn stretched over the summit, turning the black sky a deep ocean blue.





25


THE SUN ROSE over the town and fell again. I stepped onto the bridge that spanned Black River Falls.

The Marvin barricade was a mile and a half up the road, shadowed in the blue-gray twilight. I didn’t see anyone manning it, just a line of sandbags and razor-topped fence. I walked out to the middle of the bridge and knelt in the roadway. The roar of the falls was like a radio caught in between stations. I laid my hand against the concrete and closed my eyes, praying there’d be nothing there, just darkness.

But no. Greer ran past, bare-chested, a blade flashing in his hand. There was a crack of thunder and then the sound of the knife hitting the ground. The world stopped, rewound, unspooled again.

I left the road and went to the stone guardrail. Forty feet below, the Black River was a ribbon of slate turning to foam as it went over the rocks. The sound was tremendous. I saw myself standing beside you down on the bank. It was summer. A month after we’d moved. We were tossing rocks into the water and you were telling me that as soon as you learned how to kayak, you were going to be the first guy ever to go over the falls and live to tell the tale. You laughed, but then the river was gone and I wasn’t on the bridge anymore. I was in the yard across the street from our house, watching as you came stumbling out of the kitchen and onto the porch. You looked like you’d been laughing, but then your hand dropped away from your side and you fell against the wall next to the open door. Dad appeared and was gone again. And then I was on the porch, taking your hand. It was cold, and you were pale. There was the sound of wind chimes. Someone struck me from behind. Greer. Running past. I was on the bridge. There was the flash of a knife and then a crack and the ping of steel on concrete. A door slammed. I was in my room. Mom was running down the stairs. I followed. Dad’s eyes were red. His back was pressed up against the stove. He had a knife in his hand. He raised the knife. There was a scream, and then you came stumbling out of the kitchen and onto the porch, your hand pressed into your side like you’d been laughing. Wind chimes clattered and pinged. The world smelled like the burnt head of a match. Cardinal told me the great secret of the world, and then he slipped a knife into my hand. His armor was torn. His wings were gone. There was a crack and then a scream and then the clang of a knife hitting the ground. You came stumbling out of the kitchen and onto the porch.

I took hold of the light post at the end of the bridge and climbed onto the railing. It was narrow and peaked in the middle, so my toes hung over the edge and I tipped forward. All I could see was stone and white water. Gravity tugged at me. I closed my eyes again, but you were still there and so were Greer and Mom and Dad.

“Cardinal.”

It was a man’s voice. Quiet enough not to startle me. I saw gray hair and a black coat out of the corner of my eye.

“Leave me alone, Freeman.”

“Just come down off the railing,” he said. “We can talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.” He came closer, trying to get within arm’s reach. “I said leave me alone!”

I faltered. Righted myself. Freeman backed off and put up his hands.

“You’re immune,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

The wind whipped at my clothes. I nodded.

He took a small step toward me. “I knew it. All that time with those kids. You had to be. Think about what this means, Cardinal. Whatever’s in your blood might be able to keep people from getting this. Maybe cure the ones who do.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“I know that’s not true. Cardinal—”

I was sick of talking. My fingers uncurled from the lamppost and came free. I shuffled down the railing, out toward the center of the bridge where it rose the highest over the falls. Freeman shouted, but I ignored him. I stopped halfway across. Jagged rocks reached up toward me. Water spun in eddies around them and then shot away. I shut my eyes and thought of Hannah and the kids, but it lasted only a second before I was back where I belonged—with you and Greer in the Gardens of Null. I took a deep breath. The muscles in my legs tensed.

“I can make you forget!”

I looked over my shoulder. Freeman was just behind me on the sidewalk, his white hair dancing in the wind.

“The virus can be changed,” he said, his voice trembling. “Re-engineered. A version can be made that will infect you.”

“How do you know that?”

Freeman took another step closer. He held out his hand.

“Because,” he said. “I’m the one who created it.”





26


“EVERYTHING STARTED with Henry Allan Forrest.”

We had left the bridge and were moving fast up Main Street. Freeman had his head down and his hands stuffed in his coat pockets.

“Henry was a U.S. Marine from Indiana. The son of a barber and an elementary school teacher. Blue eyes. Freckles. Red hair. Twenty-five, but he looked nineteen. He served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan before returning home to a hero’s welcome. Two and a half weeks later, while his parents were out getting the car washed, he used the dog’s leash to hang himself in their basement.”