The boy looks confused at the mentioning of Leadville. It’s the second time I’ve mentioned it now, but the effect it has on Russell and me isn’t shared by him, I can tell. What’s in Leadville, he asks? I try to explain everything Russell and I believe in—it’s stopped raining there, the whole town is still above the water line. It’s the highest town in the United States. Not a tarp town, but a regular town with brick buildings and electrical power. The boy laughs until he realizes it’s hurting my feelings. It’s like he thinks I’m full of it, or I’ve been conned. But he doesn’t say any of that. Just that he’s met a few castaways from Colorado and they hadn’t wanted to go back that way. Said the whole region sweeps down from the Rockies with a great push, shoving everything east and into the great waterspout rapids. Where everything boils, and the water is more foam than brown. He thinks we’re crazy to push anywhere but west. But you fled from the west, I tell him. He tells me that they’re going to go back, that they’re building a great big barge. Something as big as a small island, along with a lot of smaller boats. And that they’re going to head straight out to the Sierra Nevada mountains. That’s where it’s at, he says. Then he looks me dead in the eyes and tells me I should come. I can’t believe what he’s asking, especially since I’ve just told him my whole life has been about Russell and me getting to Leadville. Everything depends on getting there. I tell him I can’t and I look away. I don’t know why he’s looking at me so long, and so hard, like something’s wrong with me. But I look up and he’s still there, watching me, half smiling too. You need a shower, he tells me. Come on. I can’t resist the thought, and I follow him. He leads me through a narrow strip of tarp. Then we come to a hanging flap and he tells me to get in. Turn the knob on the left. You’ll have hot water. I don’t know what to say, except that I can hardly believe him about the knob. That there’s hot water that will come out of this rusty pipe hanging over my head. There’s a hook in there that you can hang your clothes on. And I might have some stuff that’ll fit you when you’re done. Just holler for me, he says.
I’m torn. Already I want to try to convince Russell that we need to stay here, with these people, and go with them, wherever they do, because they’ve got it all figured out. And as I hear the footsteps recede, I realize I don’t know the boy’s name. I call out to him.
“What’s your name?” The comment is unnatural, because it seems entirely unnecessary. It’s like names that aren’t Russell or Tanner are just missing pieces of the veneer, inconsequential and unneeded until we reach Leadville. No point in knowing any of them. They haven’t mattered since the Sea Queen Marie.
“Dustin. I mean Dusty,” he says. Then he keeps on walking away.
I take off my clothes slowly, peeling first the plastic away, and then the wet cotton, dirtied and shredded in most places. I think I must really stink but I can’t tell. I think about how awful I must look. I look around and thank god there’s no mirror in here, just four blue walls and the silver pipe hanging over my head. I see my legs, my chest, my arms. They’re caked in brown. I think of Dusty, and then my razors in the food sack back in the tent. I almost run to get them, but then I stop—I’m naked. I feel exposed for the first time in forever. Open and alone. I turn the knob and the water comes out freezing cold and I jump back, thinking that it was too good to be true anyway. But then it starts to steam, and it gets too hot, and I have to turn the knob the other way. Then I get under it, and my whole body melts. There’s nothing to clean myself with so I use my hands and turn the water on as hot as I can stand it. How are they getting hot water? But I can’t stop to think it over, it feels too good. I run my hands over every part of my body and rub it all away, let the almost scalding water dissolve the dirt and grime and the rain. No welts on my legs, my arms. No rubber skin. I breathe easier. I open my mouth to the running water and let it pour inside. It bounces off my tongue and my shoulders, runs down my hair. Dirt-streaked water falls off me at first, but then it becomes clear. I stop thinking about what’s going to happen next, and every other thought. I become one with the water, and all I know or feel is the heat.
Chapter 6
I call out for Dusty. He brings me a towel, poking his arm in so he won’t see me. I tell him thanks and dry myself off. I feel cleaner than I ever have in my life. Be right back with clothes he says, and then he’s gone again. The tarp door starts to open and I jump back, startled, wondering if he’d try coming in. But it’s just Marvolo. He’s curious and I tell him to wait outside, pushing him back. Dusty returns and hands in some clothes. I grab them and say thanks. He says to leave the dirties on the floor and we’ll get them later. Then I bring the new clothes up to my nose. They smell like clean nothing. I breathe deeply into them, taking in the blank scent again and again. Just plain dry and clean. There’s a pair of sweat pants and a sweater and a pair of boxer shorts. And dry socks. I put everything on and head back out, thinking about Russell. At the door of the tarp house, Dusty is standing by, his plastic suit off now, just in a sweater of his own. His hair is dry again, but he’s holding his rifle. What’s wrong? I ask him. There’s been a report of a raid coming in. Might hit tonight. Where’s Russell? I ask. He’s still in the infirmary he tells me, and then shows me how to get there if I want to go. I ask him what he’s going to do. I have to stand watch on this end of the tarp entrance, he says. Standard procedure. Do you have a weapon? he asks me. Just in case, he says. I go to show him the knife.
The shower has created more hope than I can deal with. I just want to stay and talk to Dusty, find out what he’s like. But I have to see Russell so I follow the way he showed me, down a long connecting series of tarps toward a split, and take the left, like he told me. I run into Dusty’s dad in the room of moving people, the only face I recognize.
“He’s pretty sick,” says Dusty’s dad. I look over at Russell who’s lying on a white bed. He’s dirtied the blanket. “But he should get through fine now that he’s on medicine.”
“I don’t know how to thank you,” I say. Dusty’s dad tells me I can make up for it by standing guard for the raid, and he asks whether or not Dusty told me about the raid. I say he did, and that I just want to talk to Russell. He tells me I can try, but he’s in and out. I lean down at the side of the bed.
“Russell,” I say. He comes to life at the sound of my voice, turning his head to me, opening his eyes. “Hey.”
“It’s warm here,” he says, then he closes his eyes tightly like he’s got a sharp headache.
“They’re fixing you up.” I grab his hand to see if he’s any warmer. He feels just as cold as before. And his face is still beat red.
“They are?” he says, like he has no idea what’s going on. “Tell them I don’t take antibiotics.”
“I will,” I say. I press my lips to his forehead, kiss him. I can’t help but tell him I love him, because I’m so overwhelmed with everything, that we’ve arrived somewhere safe, warm, dry.
“Tan,” he says. I look at him, his eyes are open again.
“Yea?”
“We’ll get out on the boat again tomorrow. It’s not Leadville.” And I don’t even begin to answer him. It must be delirium. I can’t imagine Leadville will stick in his brain once he sees where we’ve landed. How good we have it again now. But he just repeats it again, that we’ll leave tomorrow, and that he’s sorry to have delayed us on the trip. I tell him it’s okay, and I grab his hand again. I feel like he’s going to make it now. A woman and a man walk up and eye me over. Who are you? they ask me. I explain it in as brief a way as I can and ask how he’s doing. I gather they’re the ones who are working on the sick bodies that crowd this part of the tarp town. He’s got an infection in his leg, one tells me. I cringe. It’s back. And he’s got pneumonia, says the other. But we’ve given him the strongest stuff we’ve got, and we think he’ll pull through. I hear the loud report of gunfire interrupt the steady rain, and I look around for Dusty’s dad, but he’s gone. I remember what he told me, to help watch for the raid. The face
eaters are coming. And I look back to Russell, but he’s asleep again, the gun didn’t even wake him up. Before saying goodbye to the man and the woman working in the infirmary I run back the way I came, toward Dusty’s house. The tarp goes by in a blue blur, the rain pattering over my head, and no more gunfire. But when I get there Dusty stares at me and for the first time he doesn’t look like his calm peaceful happy self. Can you use a pistol? is all he says, and his rifle is raised up to his shoulder, pointed out into the long expanse of muddy brown land where there are no more tarps. The wilderness of the ridge.
I tell him I’ve used one before but I don’t tell him I never shot at a person. He points me to a rack behind him and tells me to grab a gun quick.
“Get behind me,” he says urgently, like something is seriously wrong now. “Two of them coming up this side.”
Marvolo runs out into the rain, like he’s scouting ahead. But then I see a face in the distance, it rises over the brown hill of the ridge, and it looks like the head of every other face eater I’ve ever seen. Except as this one rises up a gun rises up with him, a rifle a lot like Dusty’s. The face eaters are armed.
“Marvolo, get back!” yells Dusty, and he crouches and hides inside the blue tarp to get out of sight. I get down and move behind him. I wait, afraid I’ll hear some kind of painful yelping and Marvolo will be shot. I hear a gunshot and there’s no yelp. Marvolo comes bounding back into the tarp, unhurt.
“Don’t move, boy!” Dusty says, anger and firmness in his voice for the first time. Marvolo obeys and walks around to the hall leading to the shower. Dusty looks at me, staring deep into my heart, confident, unafraid, and asks me if I’m ready. I nod, but I’m not sure if I am. I look at the gun in my hands, and I remember to check the safety but it’s already off. At that moment, Dusty leans around the edge of the tarp entrance, pokes his head and shoulder out where the face eaters will be able to see him, and takes aim in the rain. The loud bang of a gunshot splits the sky.
Part 3
Chapter 7
The rifle fire tears through my head. It’s the loudest thing I’ve heard in months. A bullet pierces the tarp wall with a plastic pop, just above our heads. Dusty ducks down and moves back inside the tarp. He didn’t get a shot off. I stay behind him, afraid to look out because I think I’ll see the face eaters charging at us, pointing their guns, ready to fire at first sight of anything. I almost tell Dusty not to poke his head back out but he does it before I can utter a sound. He nests his face against the sight of his rifle, takes aim and fires. The bang feels like it’s making my ears bleed. I poke my head out for a second to see if he hit something. Out there on the brown hill are two face eaters, both of them running full speed toward us. He didn’t hit either one of them.
“Shit,” he says, pulling back inside and sitting against the tarp wall. “We have to move.” I don’t object and follow him as he races away into the tarp hallway that leads in the direction of the infirmary. As soon as we leave, another gunshot sounds from the hill. I hear the same plastic ripping pop above our heads that means a new hole has opened in the tarp. They must see our silhouettes moving.
Halfway down the tarp hall Dusty kneels down and pulls up a tiny flap near his feet. He ushers me and Marvolo out of the way and squats on the plastic floor. I keep my eyes down the hallway on the room we just left, expecting the face eaters to come charging inside at any moment. But they were far away enough that Dusty has another chance to shoot one of them. On the ground he raises the rifle to his eye again and slides the barrel through the tarp, out into the rain. I have no idea if they see it coming. He fires.
A loud cry of pain breaks the sound of the rain pounding on the roof. Got one, he says. Let’s go.
And he stands again and tugs me for a second, just enough that I know he means it’s life or death. I follow behind him and look at the pistol in my hands. I put my index finger on the trigger very lightly, because I don’t want to accidentally kill one of us. But I know I might have to use it. How many are there? I ask him. Lately it’s been waves of ten or twelve, he says. They’ve started to work together more and more. I glance back as we near the split in the corridor. To the left is Russell and the infirmary room, to the right, I have no idea. My heart sinks as Dusty leads me to the right.
“We have to get Russell,” I say. Dusty pauses and looks at me, his face full of fright. “What is it?” I ask at the same time as he yells for me to duck down. He reaches out and grabs my shoulder and forces me hard to the ground. I hit my knees and feel a shock roll through me, twisting around to see what he did it for. I don’t have to see anything though because I hear another gunshot. It came from the surviving face eater. He’s fixed aim on us from the end of the hallway, and as I look, knowing he missed with his first bullet, I realize he won’t miss again. Instinctively I raise my pistol and pull the trigger. The sound of my gun deafens me further and smoke rises from the tip, a silver shell flying into the wall next to me. The face eater ducks down. At first I think I’ve hit him, but he just stands up again. Dusty lines up his rifle over my shoulder and fires. The face eater collapses to the ground with a loud groan, clutching at his stomach. Direct hit. Come on, Dusty tells me, keep moving. He runs back the way we came, to the face eater writhing on the ground, clutching its stomach. Marvolo and I chase him back. Dusty stops over top of the man and looks down. I look too. I see pleading eyes, desperate from madness, or hunger, or something else entirely. I can’t say what, and I almost look away but I can’t. His skin looks like it’s overexposed, a rubber crust, ready to fall off. I watch the life pass from his body as Dusty shoots him close range, directly in his heart. He stops squirming. That might be all of them, Dusty says. And he’s gone, back to the tarp door to check the ridge. He freezes there and looks out. Shit, he says. There’s no panic in his voice, just calm disappointment. What is it, I ask. But I get there in time to look out for myself and he doesn’t have to say anything. There are three, then four, then five coming over the hill. Each one has a gun. Shoot! he yells. Then he yells at Marvolo to get back again as the dog tries to run out into the rain again toward the invaders.
I don’t think I can hit anything that far away but I try. I hide behind Dusty until he moves out into the open again to take his own shot. He edges just slightly past the tarp wall and puts one of the face eaters in his sights. I flop onto the ground and edge past his legs, pointing my pistol straight out into the brown abyss. I see the face eaters running like it’s a race. They look haggard and worn out and I can’t understand how they’re moving so quickly. We fire at nearly the same time. One of the face eaters topples to the ground. I can’t tell who hit him. Another one appears from behind the ridge, replacing the one we killed. Too many, Dusty says. He backs up and bolts into the tarp hallway for escape. Come on, he commands me. Can’t defend this on our own.
I chase after him and Marvolo, who has gone ahead of both of us. We veer right again at the fork and hear more gunfire. It’s coming from in front of us now, where it shouldn’t. I shudder and realize the face eaters are attacking there too.
“They’re hitting the other side,” Dusty mutters, checking his rifle, making sure it’s ready. We walk into a large square room with boxes and shelves. On the opposite side of the room are two entrances to more tarp hallways. A loud scuffle sounds from the one on the right. It sounds like someone’s in a fight, and metal cans are getting knocked over. Wait here, Dusty says. He pulls me over to a pile of boxes. I duck down and look around, waiting for one of the face eaters to explode into the room but nothing happens. Dusty gets down behind a box next to me, waiting for some clue to give us a sign whether we should advance or not. They’ll be here any second, he alerts me, and he rotates around to face the hallway we came from. Keep an eye on that side, he tells me. I can’t argue because I know they might come from both the front and the back, but I know how many are coming the way Dusty’s watching. There are too many for him to take on alone. I’m dying to look in the direction he is guarding, but I keep
my eyes focused on the front.
Footsteps start stomping somewhere down the hall. They’re racing up, the five face eaters we saw on the ridge, a herd moving toward us. Then some seem to trail off in a different direction and I panic. They’re going for Russell, I whisper urgently. Dusty doesn’t react except to quiet me. He puts his finger to his mouth and glares at me. It means there’s nothing we can do. But I feel like I have to do something. What if no one is in there with Russell? What if he’s all alone on the bed, still passed out? A set of footsteps is too close to us now for me to think about playing the hero and running to find out. I sit and wait next to Dusty, concealed as best as I can be by the boxes. Marvolo sits silently like he understands that we have to be quiet despite all the racket. Aim, whispers Dusty.
Two face eaters rush into the room and run by us, directly for the hallways at the opposite side. They look possessed by demons and they don’t even bother to look around the room. You hit right, he whispers. I stare at the backs of the face eaters as they diverge, one running to the left hall and the other, mine, to the right. I raise my pistol and aim squarely at the back of the mindless runner. Dusty fires first, and the sound startles me, but I steady my hand and shoot before I lose my target. My face eater crumples to the floor just after Dusty’s. Good shot, he says, but leaves me the second after they fall. Come on, he calls softly. He heads back to the hallway leading to the infirmary. I bolt after him, Marvolo on my heels, and we take a u-turn toward where Russell should be. We rush into the hospital room with our guns drawn and see one of the face eaters is in there, but he doesn’t take notice of us. He’s bent over one of the white beds, only the bed is splattered with blood now. He’s put his face down into the body of one of the patients. The patient isn’t fighting back.
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