The Eleventh Plague

by Jeff Hirsch

  It was a ridiculous question. Did I want to be one of the learned? I tried to think of an answer that would satisfy him, but he might as well have been asking me if I wanted to be an astronaut.

  “The times we live in, Mr. Quinn, are teetering between the chaos behind us — an infancy made up of smoke and terror and withering plague — and what adulthood lies ahead for us. Wisdom? Peace? Oblivion? Whatever it is, to get there we must let go of the past. It is dead and gone. It will never return and it cannot be changed. All we have now is one another and whatever new thing we make together.”

  Tuttle unfolded himself from the desk and strode to a shelf along the wall. He pulled down a small stack of books, then laid it on my desk. Mechanical Engineering. Chinese History. World Political Systems.

  “If you have a desire to be more than what you are, if you want the world to be more than it is, study these in addition to your regular work. If not, please feel free to escape to a warm cocoon of petty violence and team sports.”

  With that, Tuttle turned his back on me and planted himself at his desk to begin grading a new stack of papers. The books sat in front of me; I ran my fingers across their glossy covers.

  This is how we got here in the first place, Grandpa would have said, sneering at the books. But then there was Dad’s voice, whispering to me that night in the plane as we watched a doomed woman and boy.

  Grandpa is gone.

  In my head, it sounded like a fallen leaf blowing across a grave.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a thin smile grow on Tuttle’s lips as I scooped the books up into my arms, and dashed into the twilight.

  EIGHTEEN

  I crossed the park, balancing the stack of books in my aching hands, strangely excited to start reading them, when the Greens’ front door flew open and out walked Caleb Henry.

  It was like I hit a wall.

  Caleb was masked by the shadows of the porch at first, so all I could see was his tall frame in jeans, a flannel shirt, and boots. As he descended the stairs and stepped out into the yard, though, it was clear that he was smiling. He didn’t acknowledge me or make a sound as he glided up the street.

  My arms went weak underneath the pile of books. My stomach churned. Of course. Where else would Will have gone after the fight?

  The Greens’ door hung open. No candles had been lit yet, even though it was edging past twilight and into early evening. Inside it was gray and hushed. I set the books down by my bedroll and the neat bundle Violet had made of my old clothes and Dad’s knife while I was away. Then, once I’d checked on Dad, I crossed the room and entered the short hallway that led into the kitchen.

  Marcus and Violet were sitting next to each other in the gloom at the kitchen table. Marcus was hunched over a mug, his hands clamped around it, while Violet sat back in her chair, one hand covering her mouth and chin. The shadows of the room deepened the lines on their ashen faces. I kept to the darkness of the hall and listened. “What choice do we have, Vi?”

  “They can vote if they want to vote,” Violet said. “We’re not giving him up. We’re not like that, Marcus. You’re not like that.”

  “But what if we fight them again and Caleb decides to come after us this time?”

  Violet had no answer. Her silence hung heavy as stone.

  I backed away from the door. Whatever the people of the town thought of Jenny, she was family to the Greens and maybe that protected her. It wouldn’t be the same with me or Dad. We were outsiders. Little better than vagrants, no matter how Violet tried to dress me up.

  I eased back to the front room, then dropped to my knees alongside Dad’s bed. I ripped my bedroll up off the floor and began shoving it along with the rest of my supplies into my backpack. I had put that pack together a million times, but my hands were clumsy now, rushed. I reached for the rifle’s cleaning kit, but my knuckles slammed into one of the bed’s legs and a jolt of fresh pain rocketed up my arm. Finally I just stuffed everything inside and yanked the flap closed.

  There on my knees, I was eye level with the stack of books Tuttle had given me. Politics. History. Science. Little pieces of a larger world.

  Useless, Grandpa’s voice said deep inside me, disgusted, stronger than ever. I yanked my bag off the floor and stood up over Dad. A wave of sadness reared up. I told myself that Violet would take care of him, that if I didn’t protect them, they couldn’t protect him, but it was no use. The wave was too big and coming too fast.

  How many days had it been now since Grandpa was gone? Eight? Nine? How was it possible that everything could have fallen apart so quickly? That our lives could turn over, again and again, in such a tiny packet of time? I longed for my old life, following Dad and Grandpa without question. Pack the wagon. Scan for salvage. Then make our way from landmark to landmark, a slumping mall and its rusted attendees, a parking lot cracked with yellow flowers.

  I wondered if this was what it was like when the end of the world came. A sudden overturning that made every day like stepping alone into an empty room — everything you longed for, every handhold you used to pull yourself along, vanished.

  My pack was heavy as I lifted it up onto my back and cinched the straps tight around my arms and middle. I threaded Dad’s knife onto my belt and checked that the rifle was loaded before hanging it over my shoulder and walking toward the door.

  “Stephen.”

  I stopped where I was. Violet was standing in the hallway, with Marcus in the dimness behind her.

  “You’re not leaving. We won’t let you. We’ll —”

  Violet leaned forward, but Marcus’s hand shot out from the dark and clamped around her wrist.

  My eyes locked on Marcus’s hand, rough and tan. It seemed to glow in the low light as he held her back.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Just take care of my dad.”

  I took the doorknob, but something stopped me before I could turn it. Dad was lying there in his bed, pale and still as always. There was a twist deep in my chest, a hand wrenching at my heart. There was something I still had to do.

  “The second night I was here,” I said, “I stole two bottles of medicine and some instruments. There’s a lightning-struck tree overlooking the highway a couple miles to the west. You’ll find them buried just behind it.” I looked back at Violet and Marcus. Neither of them had moved. “Thanks,” I said. “For everything.”

  Before either of them could say anything, I forced myself out the door and closed it softly behind me.

  When I reached the foot of the steps, I turned and looked up at the house. Jackson’s window glowed with a candle’s flame. I hoped he was there, reading quietly in the calm of his room with no idea how close he’d come to another overturning, this one far worse than the last. I wished I could have said good-bye. I wished I could have explained.

  I went out past the houses and driveways and neglected mailboxes until I came to the town’s iron gates and let myself through with a rusty squeak. I stood on the other side, facing the long plain and the wall of the forest.

  Where to now?

  I put my hands in my pockets to warm them and skimmed the edge of a piece of folded paper I had forgotten was there. Jenny’s note.

  I pulled it out and opened it. The dark letters shone in the moonlight.

  … it’s like I can feel the whole world spinning so fast beneath me, and I’m thinking, what am I doing here? Is this where I belong?

  I folded the piece of paper, returned it to my pocket, and got moving.

  NINETEEN

  The trees grew thicker as I went, choked with deadfall and thornbushes. I pulled myself over the fence that marked the northern edge of town. All around me were the night sounds of the woods: owls hooting and lizards skittering through the underbrush. Farther out were the heavier steps of larger things — deer or wolves or bears — making their own way through the dark.

  I leapt over a fast-running stream and then stepped out into a clearing, caught in the silvery wash of the moon. On the far side were
the remains of a barn. Its arid wood slats were pockmarked with nail holes and overgrown with moss and creeping vines. There was a large ragged hole in the roof.

  The whole place was surrounded by rusting farm implements, hoes and shovels and pitchforks, and what I thought was an old tractor that was covered in vines and weeds.

  This old barn, Jackson had said. North of town.

  I crept up to the barn and slipped in through half-opened doors. The inside was lit with a few flickering candles that sat near an old mattress in one corner. I looked around but there was no one there, just piles of hay bound into moldering blocks against the walls, and rakes and a long rusty scythe hanging on pegs. Something rustled in the loft above me. “Jenny?”

  An owl exploded out through the hole in the ceiling, startling me enough that I almost cried out. I steadied myself and crossed the barn to the mattress. It was covered with a quilt and a couple thin pillows. Scattered around it were scraps of paper, clothes and stubs of old candles, another dog-eared chemistry book. Near the head of the bed was Jenny’s sketch pad.

  I peered into the dark corners of the barn to make sure I was alone, then set the rifle to the side and knelt down. I opened the sketch pad, tipping its face into the candlelight. The drawings at the beginning were mostly of people. Tuttle glowered from one page, surrounded by a dark halo, his ruler in hand. Sam sat in soft candlelight holding a pipe, a half smile on his face and a book draped over one knee. As I got toward the end, the people began to disappear and were replaced by trees, the barn, the school building, empty fields. If there were any people at all, they were seen from far away, their backs turned — dark, faceless walls.

  “What are you doing here?”

  I twisted around so fast I lost my balance and fell in a heap onto the bed, scrambling backward away from the voice. When I looked up, Jenny was standing over me in a bloodstained T-shirt, with a cat’s grin and a black eye.

  “Nice squeal, tough guy.”

  “I didn’t —”

  “Whatever.” Jenny snatched the sketch pad off the floor next to me. “What are you doing here?”

  I stood up warily, awkward in my backpack and coat. I searched the ground for an explanation. “I was … walking.”

  Jenny turned and peered into the dark outside the doors. “There’s no one else here,” I said. “It’s just me.”

  “I thought you were pissed at me.”

  I shrugged. Jenny set the sketch pad on a pile behind the bed. “How’s your hand?”

  I raised my right hand into the light and flexed my fingers. The bleeding had stopped, leaving my knuckles crusted with dirt and blood. The joints ground together when I moved them.

  “We should clean it up,” Jenny said. She retrieved a plastic box from her bedside and stood in front of me. I just looked at her. “What? You want gangrene? Sit down.”

  I slipped out of my coat and pack and did as she said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. Jenny grabbed my hand, examined it, then started scrubbing away with a rag. I hissed and tried to pull back but Jenny held my wrist tight.

  “Take it easy, you big baby. If it’s not clean, I’ll have to amputate.”

  I held my breath as she worked the dirt out of my wounds. Once my hand was clean, she spread some ointment from a small tube on it.

  “How come Violet’s not doing this for you?”

  “Caleb was there when I got back after detention.”

  Jenny looked up with one arched eyebrow.

  “They were going to have a vote tomorrow,” I said. “I left before they could.”

  Jenny stopped what she was doing. Her dark eyes smoldered and she cursed under her breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have —”

  “You didn’t make me do anything.”

  “Your dad, is he —?”

  “He’s with Violet.”

  “Good,” Jenny said. “They won’t mess with her about a patient. Wouldn’t dare.”

  Jenny tossed the tube of ointment back in the kit and took out a roll of gauze. She began carefully winding the bandage around my hand.

  “Well, at least we denied them the pleasure of tossing us out,” she said. “That’s something, right?”

  “Yeah, that’ll show ‘em.”

  Jenny smiled and her breathing slowed as she looped the bandage around my fingers and across my palm. It was strange to see her hard surface swept away. Before, she seemed like a giant. A hurricane. Here she was just a girl. The air around her felt still.

  “So you’re not going back?” she asked.

  “No. You?”

  Jenny glanced up at the rafters. “And leave all of this? It’s easier for everybody if I don’t. No place for me in their American fantasy camp.” She shook her head with a dark laugh. “I mean, it’s hilarious, right? Baseball games. Thanksgiving. American flags. They’re the ones responsible for blowing all that stuff up in the first place, and now they love it so much and want it all back? They even took Fort Leonard and built themselves a little nemesis.”

  “Marcus and Violet aren’t like that.”

  Jenny looked up from under her black hair. “No?”

  “They took me in,” I said. “Took you in too. They didn’t have to do that.”

  “I know,” she said quietly. “They mean well, I know they do, it’s just … they only go so far. You know? They get right up to the edge and then back off.”

  I thought of Marcus’s hand on Violet’s wrist, holding her back. Violet yielding.

  “Like with the Krycheks.”

  “Jackson told you about that? I’m surprised. It doesn’t exactly paint Mommy and Daddy in the best light. I don’t know. Maybe it’s as far as they can go. Maybe it’s safer to just keep things as they are.”

  Jenny secured the bandage with a pin, then put the rest of the gauze away and snapped the med kit closed.

  “Well, I think you’re all set. Should heal up in a few days.”

  “So no amputation, then.”

  “I’ll keep my eye on it.”

  I took my hand back, a little sorry to see it leave the cradle of her palm. We sat there, silently, on the edge of her bed. I needed to go find a camp for the night, needed to search for supplies, but I didn’t move. An owl hooted outside. The candlelight flickered.

  “How is he?” Jenny asked. “Your dad?”

  Her question brought a wave that reared up over me again. My throat constricted and there was a burning in my eyes that I had to fight back. But then Jenny drew closer and laid the flat of her palm against my back. Every curve of it, warm and rough, spread across my ribs and spine. There was maybe an inch between my leg and the calloused plain of her bare foot. A pulse of heat came off her, carrying along with it the scent of pine and spicy earth.

  Everything in me calmed. The heat and noise faded away.

  “Ever since we got here, I’ve been saying, ‘when he wakes up,’ and ‘when he’s better.’ It’s like I’ve been trying to pretend that Violet didn’t say he might never wake up.”

  “Violet can be wrong,” Jenny said. “She’s not perfect. I mean, there used to be, like, tests and instruments and things that told us what was going to happen to us, but not anymore. Right? Now we don’t know much of anything. The future just goes in whatever direction it wants.”

  She was right. I thought of the churn of the river tearing through rock and dirt. Who knew where it would go? What it would wipe away? Who it would spare?

  “Did you really mean that stuff you said in the note?” I asked. “The stuff about the world spinning?”

  “Yeah,” Jenny said. “I did.”

  “What do you do about it?”

  Jenny stretched across the bed behind me, curling around my back, and dug into a bag on the other side. “What are you doing?”

  When Jenny sat up, her hand was closed into a fist. “What I like to do in times like these. When the world’s got you down.”

  “What?”

  Jenny opened her hand into the candlelight. A pile of fat paper
cylinders sat in her palm. There was a twisted white fuse attached to each one.

  “If you thought punching people was good,” she said, “wait till you try blowing things up.”

  Sitting there in the palm of her hand, the little explosives seemed distant, almost imaginary, but a tingling started through my whole body anyway, like that moment when my bat connected with the ball and I ran the bases.

  “What did you have in mind?” I asked.

  Jenny’s grin shone all the way to the corners of her lips.

  TWENTY

  Minutes later I was running through the woods behind Jenny. There was no path I could see, so I had to struggle to keep an eye on her as she ran, slick as a deer, in and out of the pools of moonlight that littered the forest floor.

  She knew the woods better than I did and made a game out of staying ahead of me so that I could follow but never quite catch up. It wasn’t until we both had to slow down to scale the Settler’s Landing fence that I got anywhere near her. She dropped down into a crouch just behind a thick stand of trees. When I came up, Jenny put her finger to her lips and motioned for me to get down. Both of us were breathing heavily, pushing out thick plumes of white steam.

  “Where are we?” I whispered.

  Jenny motioned forward with her chin. “Take a look.”

  In the clearing ahead was a house totally unlike all the others in Settler’s Landing. It was enormous, more of a mansion than a house, with towering white walls and columns flanking the front door like marble generals. Two windows in the upper stories glowed with yellow light and filled the yard with a flickering glow.

  “Casa de Henry,” Jenny said. “What are we doing here?”