The Eleventh Plague Read online

  Would Mom still be alive?

  The redheaded girl tapped my arm with a second jar of home brew that had made its way around the circle. I shook my head and she passed it along down the line.

  “I’m Wendy, by the way,” she said quietly, her small fingers grazing my arm. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m —”

  “Cann-on-ball!”

  There was a gigantic splash that soaked all of us. When I looked up, Derrick was shooting to the surface of the churning water, in his underwear, a dopey smile on his face. Two of the mason jars sat empty where he had been sitting. Jeers came from every corner of the quarry, but they were all mixed with laughter.

  “Derrick!”

  “Derrick, you jerk!”

  “You got us all wet!”

  Derrick laughed a deep stuttering laugh and floated lazily on his back.

  Wendy shook her great head full of curls and chuckled. “Love, hate. Love, hate. That’s all it ever is with him.”

  “Okay!” Carrie said, rising unsteadily from John’s lap. “I think that’s our cue, babe.”

  John offered me his hand. “Hey, man, good job today.”

  “Thanks. You too.” Carrie dragged John up and the two of them said their good-byes and headed down the path to town with their arms around each other’s waists. Soon, other couples emerged from the woods and drifted home.

  “Well,” Jackson said, “I guess we should go pull him out.”

  Martin and Jackson and I stripped off our shoes, rolled our pant legs up high, and went in after Derrick. Luckily by that time he was pretty tired, so it wasn’t too hard to catch him. The trick was getting his bulk out of there and to shore while he mumbled over and over how much he loved us.

  “Really, honestly, totally, you dudes are awesome. Just awesome,” he said, struggling with his pants.

  After we finally got Derrick up and dressed, but before we could get him moving down the path, he lurched forward and grabbed me up into a soggy bear hug, pushing us away from the others.

  “This is what it’s like, Steve,” he whispered intently only inches from my ear. His breath was heavy with the sweet cherry smell of the home brew.

  “What what’s like, Derrick?”

  He pulled back slightly and for a moment didn’t seem drunk at all. His eyes were clear and focused.

  “This is what it’s like to have friends,” he whispered.

  I stood there in the silence as a grin grew across Derrick’s face and then he fell into Wendy’s and Martin’s arms. “Home, friends! Take me to my home! And you! Wendy! Off with your pants! You too, Marty!”

  He giggled as Wendy and Martin led him down the path back to town. I stood there motionless, surrounded in the rhythmic chatter of the grasshoppers and cicadas and the gentle lapping of the quarry’s water. Everything seemed to hang in perfect balance, all of it strange and welcome at the same time.

  This is what it’s like to have friends.

  “You okay?”

  Jackson was standing in the shadows, waiting.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”

  We left the quarry and made our way through the woods to Jackson’s house. Before we got there, though, we slowed without a word and stopped in the park across the street. Jackson sat on one of the swings and I climbed up onto the jungle gym next to him.

  To our left, the road wound out of town and away like a ribbon. The pinpricks of candlelight in the windows around us gave the neighborhood the look of a constellation come to Earth.

  “So how’d you guys end up here?” I asked. “You never said.”

  Jackson twisted the toe of his sneaker into the dirt. For a second I thought he hadn’t heard me. “We were in, I don’t know, Kentucky, I think, with some other families in a little tent city. Mom and Dad were out doing some hunting, and Jenny and I were by this stream downhill from the camp playing Go Fish with some cards she had made. The sun had just gone down and it was all orange and gold.” Jackson’s fingers curled tight around the swing’s chain. “That’s when we heard them coming. There were maybe fifteen of them. Twenty. They looked just like us. Maybe a little better off. They came into camp, all smiles, asking if they could have some water from the stream. Nice as could be.

  “The man who I guess was their leader was walking with Mr. Simms. Mr. Simms was a friend of my dad’s and was in charge of us when Mom and Dad were away. He was older than my folks and lost his whole family to P Eleven and kind of adopted all of us.

  “Anyway, the new group’s leader, this big hulk of a guy, put his arm around Mr. Simms’s shoulder as they walked. After a few steps he pulled Mr. Simms close and said, ‘Knock, knock,’ which is the start to this old joke. When Mr. Simms said, ‘Who’s there?’ the man reached into his jacket, pulled out a gun, and pressed the barrel right into Mr. Simms’s temple.”

  Jackson’s voice caught in his throat. His eyes were far away, remembering. “I saw him do it and I thought, ‘Oh, this is a joke. It’s a joke.’ But then the man pulled the trigger and there was this explosion and Mr. Simms … dropped.”

  Jackson’s Adam’s apple rose and fell and his lips pressed into a tight line.

  “Everyone froze. All of us. There wasn’t a sound, just Mr. Simms hitting the ground. Jenny and I stood there watching this fan of blood spread out around his head. Then someone screamed and then everyone was screaming and rushing to their tents for their guns or to escape, but it was too late. The man and his people were everywhere, shooting anyone they could, laughing like it was all this big game, like the rest of us weren’t even real.

  “There were about twenty-five, maybe thirty, of us in all. Men and women. Some kids me and Jenny’s age. The leader and his group killed all but us and a couple others. Then they put their guns away, took whatever supplies we had, and strolled back out of town.”

  A cold wind blew across the playground and made the trees around us moan. Jackson dug his hands into his jacket pockets.

  “Whole thing didn’t take but five minutes. When Mom and Dad came back, we took our things and ran as fast as we could, but no matter how far away we got, I thought they were right around the corner, ready to pop out again, just … smiling and shooting.”

  By now the dark of night was settling in. Everything around us — the trees, the houses, the curves of the land — was looming shapes, like animals prowling beneath dark water.

  Jackson looked back at me, but I didn’t know what to say to him. If we were friends, like Derrick had said, what did friends do? What did they say?

  “Guess somebody like you has never felt like that,” Jackson said quietly, turning away from me. “Afraid.”

  Shadows of leaves played over Jackson’s drawn, pale face. I stared down at my lap. Something ached deep in my chest. The idea that I had never been afraid was ridiculous but I knew what Grandpa would have said. Never admit fear. Never admit weakness.

  “I’m afraid all the time,” I said. “After my mom died, I couldn’t sleep. Not for months. I’d lie awake at night and think about Dad or Grandpa getting sick. One of them dying. Dad told me we’d be fine. He said nothing would ever change again, but then Grandpa died and he …”

  I shut my mouth tight and closed my eyes. Saying all of that, thinking it, even, made the whole ugly mess real all over again. It was like this darkness that I could keep at bay most of the time, but if I got too close, if I touched it, it would seize up and have me.

  “Hey.”

  I opened my eyes with a start. Jackson had left the swing and was standing right beside me.

  “You’re here now,” he said. “We both are, right? No matter what happens. Me and my folks, all of us, we won’t let anything happen to you.”

  I looked away from him, along the houses and up the street. How could I tell him that it would only be a matter of time before all of this was gone and we were scattered to the wind? Did a friend say that?

  “Probably time for dinner, isn’t it?” I said, slipping off the jungle gym.


  Jackson lagged behind as I crossed the park and went up the stairs and into the house. The fireplace smelled smoky and warm. Timbers creaked above me. I stood by Dad’s bed, looking down at him. His chest rose and fell weakly as he breathed.

  “We’ve been here five years now,” Jackson said from behind me in the hallway that led to the kitchen, half in and half out of the light. “I don’t know if it’ll be forever, but we’ve almost been wiped out by storms and droughts and bad crops and a hundred other things, and we’ve always made it. We just stuck together and never gave up.”

  Later that night, when I closed my eyes and headed to sleep, it was as though I could feel all of them: Marcus and Violet and Dad and Jackson and, somewhere outside in places of their own, Derrick and Martin and Wendy and Carrie and Jenny too. I felt each of them like blooms of heat pulsing out in the night, separate but connected.

  Instead of the tomblike stillness of the previous nights, the house felt warm around me, like all of us were settled underneath a thick blanket with the cold winds and the world safely outside.

  Was Jackson right? Was it real? Could it last?

  I didn’t know. But right then, lying there in that quiet and warmth, I hoped. For the first time, I hoped.

  SIXTEEN

  The next morning before school I helped Violet carry tin buckets of hot water from the fire out back to a white tub in the bathroom upstairs. She said she figured I must be dying for a bath — meaning she was dying for me to take a bath but wanted to save my feelings. It was a good effort. And a few whiffs of myself confirmed that it was probably past due.

  Once we were done and she was gone, I stripped and lowered myself into the tub. The homemade lye soap Violet gave me felt like it was taking a layer of skin off with the dirt. As I scrubbed, I thought how easy it must have been when she and my dad were my age, back before the Collapse. Turn a faucet and out came hot water. Flick a switch and there was light. It must have seemed like magic.

  When I was done, Violet came back in with a razor and a pair of scissors. She cut my hair and shaved the light fall of whiskers on my cheeks, then sent me off to Jenny’s room. There I found a pair of nearly new-looking jeans, a red button-up shirt, and a handmade black wool sweater. There was even a slightly scuffed pair of brown hiking boots. On the floor next to the bed were my old clothes: a dirty, heavily patched heap of greasy cloth I had been wearing almost daily for the last year or two. I knew every hole, every tear, every patch, wrinkle, and worn spot.

  I lifted my old pants and turned them over. Sewn on the right knee was a rectangular scrap of red cloth with gold ducks on it. Dad had put the patch on when I’d worn through the knee a few months ago. The square of cloth had come from one of Mom’s old dresses, her favorite one. After she died, Grandpa had insisted we trade her clothes away, but Dad had kept that one dress, hiding it like I hid my books.

  Standing there, I didn’t think I could do it — throw aside these old things for the new. I told myself I was being crazy. If I’d come across these new clothes on the trail, I’d have taken them. And if I’d come across my old clothes, I would’ve walked right on by.

  “Stephen?” Violet called from downstairs. “You okay?”

  I dressed quickly in the new clothes before heading out into the hall. When I turned to close the door, there were my old clothes, blue and black with a flash of red and gold. Dad’s knife lying on top in its sheath.

  They’re just clothes, I told myself and shut the door. When I came downstairs, Violet was sitting at Dad’s side with a bowl of oatmeal in her lap. “Hey, Violet, I …”

  When Violet turned back, I saw the feeding tube down Dad’s throat. He lay there, his mouth unnaturally wide, his teeth clamped down on the hard plastic. Something shuddered inside me, seeing him like that. Part of me wanted to run over and tear it out of him, to make her leave him alone, but I marshaled myself and crossed the floor slowly until I was just behind her.

  “How’s he doing?”

  Violet spooned the last bit of food down the tube.

  “About the same,” she said. “I wish I could say more, but without tests …”

  “I’ve been talking to him at night.”

  “That’s good.” Violet looked back over her shoulder and smiled. “You look really great, Stephen.”

  I pulled awkwardly at the new clothes. “Thanks.”

  “You ready?”

  Jackson had just come down the stairs and was standing behind me.

  I moved to the bed and squeezed Dad’s hand tight. “Thanks,” I said again to Violet before leaving with Jackson.

  “Mr. Waverly!” Jackson announced cheerily as Martin and an extremely bleary-looking Derrick joined us. Jackson clapped him on the back. “How’s it going, buddy?! Rough night last night?”

  “Ugghhhh,” Derrick groaned and halfheartedly pushed Jackson away. He trudged along behind us, grumbling as we made our way to school.

  “You playing today?” Martin asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Stunk pretty badly at the end of the game yesterday.”

  “Yeah,” Derrick said. “In fact, I think he was lying when he told me he was descended from a real New York Yankee. Don’t let him play, Martin.”

  “We’re not letting you play,” Jackson said.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re a mess.”

  “Quinn, buddy, I was just kidding about how much you suck. Defend me here. Am I a mess?”

  I regarded Derrick carefully. His hair was a greasy tumbleweed. All his clothes were rumpled. “Definitely. A total mess.”

  “Ha!” Martin laughed and punched me in the arm. “I liked you better when you didn’t talk,” Derrick grumbled.

  Carrie and Wendy mixed in with us at the bottom of the hill as we all filed in behind the mass of little ones.

  “Lookin’ awful snazzy there, Steve,” Carrie said with a grin.

  “Oh,” I said, looking down at my new clothes, strangely embarrassed. “Thanks. Marcus’s old things.”

  Wendy reached across and drew her finger across the hair that fell just above my eyebrows. “Your hair’s out of your face too,” she said. “I can see your eyes.”

  I didn’t know what to say. She was wearing a pink and white sweater and jeans, her hair loose and flowing coppery over her shoulders. I was surprised to find myself nervous as she fell into place next to me.

  Once we got to school we all split up and the rest of that morning was pretty uneventful. Tuttle lectured and while everyone else was struggling to stay awake I leaned over my paper and took careful notes. He talked about math and poetry and the Holy Roman Empire. I had no idea there was so much world out there to learn about. At noon he let us out for lunch.

  It had grown colder in the past few hours and some clouds had begun to pile up, signs of fall moving headlong toward winter. All of us spilled out onto the yard, pulling our lunches out of bags and buckets. The little ones immediately swarmed around the slide and swing sets, fighting over who got to do what first.

  “Okay!” Martin announced as he pulled a wrinkled sheet of paper out of his back pocket. “Time to make the lineup! Waverly is benched!”

  “What? No way!”

  “Quinn is taking your place.”

  “You know,” Derrick said. “You people don’t appreciate me. I’m gonna start hanging out with Will Henry.”

  “Oh go take a bath, Derrick,” Wendy said.

  I laughed and the lineup talk went on. They all seemed so comfortable with each other, laughing and joking, trading mock punches. I looked around at everyone else in the school yard as they ate their lunches in their own small groups. The inside jokes and chatter of each one joined with the others into a low roar that somehow didn’t seem as grating as it had just a few days earlier.

  I turned back to the negotiations, and when I did, I saw Jenny. She was sitting under the big sycamore, facing away from the school, in her torn-up jeans and Red Army jacket with her knees pulled up in front of her, sketchi
ng furiously in her sketch pad.

  My body tensed immediately. The note. I had almost forgotten. I tried to stay calm, nibbling at my sandwich and keeping my eye on her, waiting for an opportunity. All the noise and movement below her — the laughing and yelling and flirting, the squeak of the old swing sets — didn’t seem to distract her in the least. She drew with great looping strokes and slashes, leaning down into the pad like she was wrestling with it and just barely winning.

  When she was done, Jenny dropped the sketch pad on the grass and stretched out against the tree. She reached up and tucked a length of hair behind her ear, leaving the rest of it to blow over her face like smoke drifting over beach sand.

  “I don’t know why she even bothers coming.”

  Jackson had moved out of the lineup negotiations and was eyeing Jenny too.

  “Does she always just sit up there drawing and stuff?”

  “No, that one’s new,” he said. “She just started coming to school again the other day.”

  Up the hill Jenny leaned over her sketch pad, erasing, drawing again. I thought of that lone horse, locked in the classroom.

  “Sometimes I wish …” Jackson’s forehead wrinkled, his lips hardening into a tense slit as he watched her. Whatever he was going to say, he pulled it back before it could get loose.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes I wish she would go,” Jackson said, his voice a harsh whisper. “Just leave. Before she does something that gets us all thrown out of here.”

  “Would they really do that?”

  Jackson eyed me a moment like he was trying to make a decision.

  “There was a family,” he said, “a few years back. The Krycheks. Had a little girl, like nine, I think. Mr. Krychek used to be a soldier, but all he did was drink by the time he got here. He hid it pretty well for a while, but it got worse. One night he was drinking out in the woods and tried to build a fire. It went out of control and got within a few feet of spreading to the houses. Caleb called a meeting about it the next day. Mom and Dad tried to speak up for them, but Caleb had more than half the town ready to vote against them and anyone willing to stand up for them. In the end it was pretty much unanimous.”