The Fireman

by Hill,Joe

  “Oh, another of my little goofs. A bit of fireworks to impress the natives and fortunately something I can manage from long range. You and a few reliable hands will want to find a side street well away from camp. Verdun Avenue would be fine, that’s across from the graveyard, and I happen to know number ten is empty. Park in the driveway there and—”

  “How do you know number ten is empty?”

  “Sarah and I used to live there. One week from tonight, I want you to call 911. Use a cell phone, I think Ben held on to a collection of them. Tell emergency services your dear old dad is having a heart attack. When they ask, promise them you don’t have Dragonscale. Tell them you need an ambulance and wait.”

  “They won’t send an ambulance without a police escort.”

  “Yes, but don’t worry about that. That’s what the Phoenix is for—my little light show. When they pull up out front, I’ll see that everyone is chased away and you can scarper with all the supplies you need. I wish you could simply drive off with the ambulance, but—”

  “It’ll have LoJack. Or some other way to trace it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t want anyone hurt. The people in the ambulance are risking their lives to take care of others.”

  “No one will be hurt. I’ll scare the pants off them, but that’s all.”

  “I hate asking you for help. You always do this. You make things mysterious that don’t have to be mysterious, because you like to keep everyone wondering about you. It’s a cheap high.”

  “Don’t deny me my little pleasures. You’re going to get everything you want. There’s no reason I can’t have a little of what I want, too.”

  “I’m not getting everything. If I could do what you can do, I wouldn’t need to beg for your help. Please—John. Can’t you at least try to teach me?”

  His gaze shifted past her to the furnace and back. “Might as well ask a fish to teach you how to breathe underwater. Now go away. My sides hurt and I need to get some sleep. Don’t come back without cigarettes.”

  “Did you try and teach her? Sarah?”

  He seemed to shrink from her. For an instant, there was so much shock and hurt in his eyes, it was as if she had slugged him in the ribs. “No. Not me.” Which was, she thought later, an odd sort of denial. He stretched out, turning onto his good side, so she was looking at the bony curve of his back. “Don’t you have other people to look after? Give someone else the soothing balm of your bedside manner, Nurse Willowes. I’ve had all I can take.”

  She rose and put her shoes on. Zipped herself into her parka. Collected her bag. She stopped with her hand on the latch.

  “I spent three hours hiding in a cupboard today, with my ex not a dozen feet from me. I had three hours to listen to him talk about the things he’s done to the sick. Him and his new friends. Three hours to listen to him talk about things he’d do to me if he had half a chance. From their point of view, we’re the bad guys in this story. If he sees me again he’ll kill me. If he had the opportunity, he’d kill everyone in camp. And after he did it, he’d feel he had done a good day’s work. In his mind he’s that guy in the cowboy hat from The Walking Dead, wiping out the zombies.”

  To this, the Fireman said nothing.

  She continued, “You saved me once. I will owe you for that the rest of my life, however long that happens to be. But if I die in the next couple of months, and you could’ve taught me how to be like you—how to protect myself? It’ll be just the same as if you hid in the woods that night and let Jakob kill me.”

  Bedsprings creaked uneasily.

  “I’m going to live to have this baby. If God can help me make it through the next three months, I’ll pray. If Carol Storey can keep me alive, I’ll sing ‘Kumbaya’ with her till my throat is hoarse. And if you can teach me something useful, Mr. Rookwood, I will even put up with your superior attitude and lack of manners and half-baked philosophy lectures. But don’t imagine for a minute I’m going to drop it. You’ve got some keep-alive medicine. I want it.” She opened the door. The wind wailed in a tone that was at once both terrifying and melodic. “One other thing. I didn’t say I don’t have any cigarettes. I said I don’t have any cigarettes for you. And I won’t . . . until you put your teacher hat on and give me my first class in surviving spontaneous combustion. Until that day, my Gauloises will stay in my shopping bag.”

  As she shut the door, he began to yell. Harper learned a few new obscenities on her way back to the boat. Cunt-swill was a good one. She would have to save that one for a special occasion.

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  9

  Harper didn’t know anyone was waiting for her on the dock until the boat bumped up against it and someone reached down to take the bow.

  “Help you out there, Nurse?” Jamie Close offered a hand.

  It was as if the darkness itself were speaking. Harper could hardly make out Jamie’s squat, chunky figure against the black swaying pines and the black turmoil of black clouds in a black sky. Someone else was with her, cleating the front of the boat. Allie. Harper knew her by her lithe, boyish frame and quick grace.

  Harper took Jamie’s hand, then hesitated. The cloth sack of supplies was pushed in under the bench on which she sat, a canvas shopping tote containing the rum, cigarettes, instant coffee, and tea, among other things. What was hers belonged to all, according to the old rules of camp—but she was writing her own rules now. If liquor and smokes could buy the Fireman’s secrets, then camp would have to do without.

  Harper reached under the seat and plucked the first aid kit from the top of the sack. She rose, leaving the rest behind.

  She looked past Jamie, trying to catch Allie’s eye, but the girl had already stood up from the cleat and turned her back. She was trembling—from rage, Harper thought, not the cold. She had her rifle over her shoulder. So did Jamie.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get back sooner, Allie. I understand if you’re mad at me. If you’re in any kind of trouble at all, I’ll talk to Ben or Carol or whoever, and make them understand you bear no responsibility. But I don’t see why you should be in trouble. I said I was going to check on the Fireman and come back and that’s what I did. More or less.”

  “You left out the part about goin’ home first, though, din’cha, Nurse?” Jamie said.

  So they knew she had taken a detour on her way to the Fireman’s island. She had kept to the trees on her way out of camp, but had looked back once and wondered if Michael, up in the church tower, was peering down at her. The eye in the steeple sees all the people.

  “The infirmary was short on some critical supplies. Fortunately I knew I could get what I needed from my own basement.”

  The two fell in on either side of her. Harper was reminded of a police escort walking a prisoner into court.

  Jamie said, “That was all kinds of fortunate. You know what else was fortunate? You weren’t clubbed to death with pool sticks. We was fortunate, too. We was fortunate they didn’t follow your tracks, into the woods and all the way back to camp. Oh yeah. We seen ’em. The Cremation Crew that turned up right after you went in. Allie had a rifle, but she told me to take it. She couldn’t bear the thought of being the one who had to pop you when they dragged you out. We hid in the woods watchin’ till we lost the daylight. Then there wasn’t no point.”

  Harper and her escorts came out of the firs and up alongside the soccer pitch, a snowy basket filled with moonglow. Harper couldn’t tell if the thudding pain in her abdomen was a cramp of tension or the baby driving a heel into her.

  “Allie,” Harper said, “I’m sorry I scared you. I shouldn’t have put you through any of that. But you have to understand, I can’t bear the thought of sending a kid into danger when it’s something I can do myself. And you’re a kid. All of you Lookouts are k
ids.”

  “See, but you did put us in danger. You put the whole camp in danger,” Jamie told her.

  “I was careful. They wouldn’t have found my tracks.”

  “They didn’t need to find any tracks. They only needed to find you. Maybe you think you wouldn’t a said nothing, but it’s funny how a pool cue up the snatch will loosen someone’s lips. You shouldn’t a gone. You knew you shouldn’t a gone. And what tore Allie up the worst was knowing she shouldn’t a let you. We made promises to keep people safe. To keep well-meaning dipshits like yourself in camp, under watch. All the Lookouts promised Mother Carol—”

  “Mother WHO? She’s no one’s mother, Jamie.” Harper thought Mother Carol and the Lookouts sounded like a band that might’ve been playing Lilith Fair in 1996.

  “We promised her and we promised each other and we blew it. Carol was sick to death when she heard you were gone. Like she hasn’t been through enough already.”

  “Fine. You’ve said what you had to say. Tell Carol you delivered her message, and next time if I feel like a breath of fresh air, I’ll be sure to try and drop her a note. And Allie, you can quit the silent treatment. I’m a little too old to be impressed by that one. Got something to say? Do me a favor and spit it out.”

  Allie turned her head and glared at Harper with wet, accusing eyes. Jamie snorted.

  “What?” Harper asked.

  “You think you’re in trouble. Ain’t nothing compared to the hill of shit Allie is under for lettin’ you go. Allie is doin’ penance for it now. She asked for a chance to make amends and Mama Storey gave it to her.”

  “How? Did she take a vow of silence?”

  “Not exactly. You remember what Father Storey used to do? That thing about suckin’ on a stone when he needed to think?”

  Snow squealed underfoot as they climbed the hill. Harper needed to the count of three to figure it out. It had been a long night.

  “You have to be shitting me.”

  “I shit thee not. Allie is carrying a stone in her mouth to think over her mistakes and refocus on her obligations. The last time we let down our guard, someone took a stone and used it to crush Father Storey’s head in. We all carry rocks now, to remember.” Jamie removed one hand from her pocket and showed Harper a stone as big as a golf ball.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. So how long are you going to walk around sucking on that thing, Allie?” Harper asked her, as if there was any hope of an answer.

  Allie looked like she wanted to spit the rock into Harper’s face.

  “That all depends on you, see?” Jamie asked. “Now, you weren’t at the meeting when we agreed there needed to be consequences for people who think they’re above the rules. No one is too pissed at you. Mikey saw you row out to the Fireman’s island, so we’ve known you were safe for a while. Ben and Mother Storey had a talk and agreed it wouldn’t be fair to make a big deal out of you leaving safe territory. At the same time, Carol was worried the rest of the camp would get ugly if you were held to looser standards’n everyone else. So they come to a decision and Allie agreed. Allie only has to carry the stone in her mouth until you take it from her. And you only have to carry it in your mouth for—”

  “Jamie, I appreciate you being so direct with me. But you need to know, no matter what you think you all decided, that I am not ever going to suck on a stone in some medieval act of penance. If you think I will, then Allie isn’t the only one with rocks in her head.”

  They emerged at the southeastern corner of the chapel, near the steps down into the women’s dorm in the basement. Three Lookouts sat on logs, singing a rustic and curiously brutal hymn, “They Hung Him on a Cross.” Their eyes were bright as brass coins, and the Dragonscale on their exposed hands was lit like burning lace, bathing the snow in crimson light. Their breath unspooled from their lips in threads of red steam. All of them were starved looking, bones showing in their faces. Thin hands, thin necks, sunken temples, concentration camp haircuts. A random, disassociated notion occurred to Harper: When your stomach is empty, so is your head.

  “Well, I hope you change your mind, nurse. ’Cause Allie’s contrition doesn’t end until yours begins.”

  “Allie,” Harper said, “I take responsibility for my fuck-up. Full responsibility. Which means if you want to play martyr, that’s up to you. I’m not making you do it.” She cast a sidelong look at Jamie, and added, “And no one is making me do it, either. It’s degrading and infantile. If someone wants me to peel potatoes or scrub pans, I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty. But I’m going to pass on this particular grotesque act of self-abasement, thank you.”

  “Allie is ready to do what it takes to make things right. People look up to you, Nurse—sure would be nice if you’d do the same. Allie is glad to serve as an example, for however long it takes.”

  “Or until dinner.”

  “Nope. Wrong on that. If you won’t take the stone from her and carry it yourself, it stays in, breakfast, lunch, and dinner . . . although you might recall we Lookouts gave up our lunch a while back, so the likes of you could eat. I guess Allie’ll have to take it out and put it under her pillow when she sleeps, but that’s it.”

  “I don’t know which of you is worse. Her with her mouthful of stone, or you with your mouthful of nonsense.” Harper stopped walking, turned her back on Jamie Close, and spoke to Allie with her hands.

  “Stop this,” she said, in the language of silence that Nick had taught her.

  Allie met Harper’s gaze with cold, hating eyes. She had only ever learned how to finger-spell, and so her reply came in a slow trickle that Harper had to sound out in her mind:

  Y-O-U

  K-N-O-W

  H-O-W

  T-O

  M-A-K-E

  M-E.

  The last part of this statement involved the use of Allie’s middle finger and was widely known even to people who hadn’t studied sign language.

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  Book Five Prisoners

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  1

  From the diary of Harold Cross:

  June 30th

  BACK FROM THE CABIN. SHOULDN’T HAVE HAD THAT THIRD HOT POCKET. AM HALF-SICK FROM IT AND EVEN MY SMOKY DAMN FARTS SMELL LIKE PEPPERONI.

  INTERESTING NEWS FROM CORDOBA. TWO HUNDRED INFECTED KILLED AT THE JESUIT MONASTERY IN ALTA GRACIA, BODIES BULLDOZED INTO A PIT BY THE MILITARY. DR. BÁ WAS ABLE TO RECOVER FOUR CORPSES, INCLUDING THE BODY OF EL HORNO DE CAMINAR, WHO SINGLE-HANDEDLY HELD OFF THE MILITARY’S ASSAULT FOR MOST OF AN HOUR BY CREATING SOME KIND OF FLAMING TORNADO, AN ACT THAT ALLOWED ALMOST A THOUSAND PEOPLE WITH DRAGONSCALE TO ESCAPE INTO THE JUNGLE. SOUND LIKE ANYONE WE KNOW? TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH, EL HORNO DE CAMINAR MEANS “THE WALKING FURNACE.”

  DR. BÁ HAD A CHANCE TO WORK ON THE RECOVERED BODIES AND EMAILED ME THE PRELIMINARY FINDINGS. INTERESTING STUFF. HE AUTOPSIED THE BRAIN OF A RECENTLY INFECTED CHILD AND IT SHOWED ONLY A DUSTING OF THE SPORE IN HIS SINUSES AND ON THE MEMBRANE SHEATH AROUND THE CEREBRAL CORTEX. BUT THE ARGENTINEAN FIREMAN HAD BEEN INFECTED FOR MUCH LONGER AND THE DRACO INCENDIA TRYCHOPHYTON HAD PENETRATED DEEP INTO HIS SUPERIOR TEMPORAL GYRUS.

  EL HORNO DE CAMINAR GAVE AN INTERVIEW TO AN ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE BLOG, IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE PLAGUE, AND EXPLAINED HOW HE WAS ABLE TO CONTROL FIRE WITHOUT EVER BEING HURT BY IT. “YOU CAN ASK THE SPORE TO KEEP YOU SAFE, BUT YOU MUST FORGET YOUR OWN VOICE FIRST. YOU CAN ASK IT TO FIGHT FOR YOU, BUT YOU MUST COME TO IT AS A SUPPLICANT WITHOUT LANGUAGE.” PROBABLY A CRAP TRANSLATION, BUT IT STRUCK ME AS INTERESTING. THE SUPERIOR TEMPORAL GYRUS HARBORS WERNICKE’S AREA, ONE OF THE SEATS OF SPEECH. I FEEL HE HAS EXPLAINED EVERYTHING AND YET I UNDERSTAND NOTHING.

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  2

  Harper read the notebook in the bathroom, with the door locked, to prevent someone from walking in on her and finding her with it. She felt vaguely like an adolescent, privately examining a work of pornography with a dry mouth and a tripping heart.

  When she finally stepped back into the ward room and the milky glow of dawn, she discovered a white rock on the foot of her cot, a sheet of paper under it. when will you take your medicine? someone had written.

  Father Storey drowsed in one bed, Nick in the other. With both of them asleep in the same pose, and with the same frowning look of concentration on their faces, it was impossible not to see the close familial resemblance. The child was still inside Father Storey somewhere, as a fly remains perfectly preserved in a bead of amber. The old man waited for Nick, a baggy overcoat that he would be ready to slip on in six decades.

  Harper glanced at the curtain into the waiting room, to be sure she was unobserved, and put the notebook back in the ceiling. Then she picked up the stone and ducked into the next room.

  Mindy Skilling, a pretty, waifish girl of about twenty, was on watch. Harper had treated her last month for a urinary tract infection. Mindy gave Harper a dewy, pitying look. She had a lovely, expressive face—bright eyes and long curling lashes—and Harper remembered that in a former life Mindy had studied acting.

  “Did you put this on my bed?” Harper held out the stone.

  Mindy shook her head.

  “Who did?”

  “Wouldn’t you feel better,” Mindy asked, “if you just got your punishment over with? I know Allie would feel better.” Her eyes widened in sudden inspiration. She scooted to the edge of the couch. “What if you just put the rock in your mouth for five minutes? I’d tell everyone it was a whole half hour.”