The Eleventh Plague (20 page)

Mischief.

“What’s on the other side of those trees?”

“The Henry house,” Jackson said. “Why?”

My mind raced. I turned back to the soldiers arrayed along the ground.

“Steve?”

I felt what I always imagined Dad and Grandpa felt in times like these, a moment when all the twisting confusion and uncertainty collapsed into a simple straight path.

A moment of being sure.

“Come on,” I said, pushing between the two of them and up the trail. “Follow me.”

I led the two of them at a run through the woods.

“Where are we going?” Jackson asked from behind me, more insistent now that it was the third time he’d asked without me answering. I ducked beneath a low-hanging branch and took the last leg at a sprint. The rocky ground gave way to the snow and grass that surrounded the house, and I had to stop, unsure where to go next. Luckily, as soon as we made it to the yard, Jenny knew exactly what we were doing.

“Stephen, you’re a genius,” she said. “Come on, it’s this way.”

She took off. I started to follow her, but Jackson grabbed my coat and jerked me back.

“What are we doing here?”

“There’s no time to explain,” I said, but he wasn’t backing off. The mix of fear and anger in his eyes was electric.

“Why should I trust you?” he asked through gritted teeth. “After what you and Jenny did — you just left. You didn’t even say anything. I thought we were friends.”

“We are.”

“Then why —”

“I was trying to protect you!”

“Well, I don’t need your protection!”

“Look, this whole thing was my fault. I know that, but I need your help to fix it. I’m sorry I left. I am. I didn’t know what else to do.”

Jackson didn’t relent. He held me there, sure that I was lying; sure that it was a trap. The distrust in his eyes bored through me. Some part of me that was still Grandpa’s wanted to push him away and finish things with Jenny, but I held my ground.

“It’s not going to be like before,” I said. “We’re not going to let them have this place, Jackson. And we’re not going to run. I swear.”

Jackson fixed me hard with his eyes, looking deep for the lie. A clatter of gunfire rose behind us, followed by three deep booms that lit up the sky in orange flashes. Jackson pushed me aside and ran after Jenny. Praying I was right, I followed.

We found Jenny at the northern edge of the Henrys’ big house, kneeling down and peering out around a corner of the wall. In the darkness all we could see was the sharp outline of two paddocks and the wall of trees that separated them from the Henrys’ pigs and sheep. Inside the pens, the horses and cows, anxious after the night of gunfire, were a confusion of restless shadows, snorting and attacking the ground with their hooves. The sound of it, angry and wild, made a piece of my heart lodge firmly in my throat.

Jenny nudged Jackson with her shoulder. “Whatcha think, Jackie boy?”

Jackson’s forehead furrowed as he put it together. “Will it work?”

“Did last time,” I said, earning a glare from Jackson and Jenny. “What? It did.”

Jackson stared into the darkness, his hands fidgeting and seizing into fists, relaxing, then doing it again.

“We can do this,” I said quietly, just to him, hoping it was true.

Jackson turned to me and something seemed to click inside him. He stood up and swept the rifle off his shoulder. Without another word, he tore out into the open.

Jenny and I followed him, running out across the Henrys’ yard, slowing as we came to the pens. Closer up, I could see how panicked the animals really were. The horses paced and bucked fitfully in their small area, thousands of pounds of muscles and fear, the whites of their eyes flashing in the low moonlight. Near Jenny, the group of twenty or more cows lowed and snorted and dug their hooves into the ground, swinging their horns wildly around them. My stomach twisted with nerves as I set my hand on the flimsy latch that held the wooden gate closed. Whenever one of the horses so much as touched a rail the whole thing shook. Jenny looked up at me. I took a deep breath and nodded.

“Okay!” Jenny called out. “Now!”

Four shots from Jackson’s rifle exploded into the air across from us. The animals reared up and crashed into one another, filling the air with their high-pitched squeals. When they started moving, the ground beneath us shook. Jenny and I yanked the gates open, scrambling to get out of the way as the animals came boiling out as a single mass, like water exploding from a burst dam. They trampled through the mud and snow past the house, headed for the trees, throwing up a haze of debris all around them, their dark bodies shooting through it. I pressed my back against the wooden gate until I saw a flash of Jackson through the dust. He was moving south, firing his rifle into the air, herding them along.

I left the pen after the last horse had cleared it and followed along behind. I didn’t see Jenny anywhere — the cloud of mud and smoke was too thick and the roar of the animals was deafening. I was swept away with it, running, stumbling, barely able to see the ground beneath
my feet, my mouth and nose clogging with dust. I thought I heard someone calling my name, thought I saw someone up ahead, but then it would all disappear in the gray churn and all I could do was run and hope I didn’t fall.

It was worse when we moved out of the field and into the woods. There, the rumble and blare of the stampede were enclosed in the trees and focused, like an avalanche finding its course. The animal surge tore apart everything in its path: brush and leaves, exposed roots and saplings. All of it was shredded and sucked into the deluge, leaving a barren strip of land in its wake.

The herd spread out as it poured into the field. When the firing and screams began, I knew they had found their mark. Out in the open now, I could see the animals breaking around the body of the jeep. Most of the soldiers had heard them coming and fled, but as I ran I passed the few who hadn’t, lying beaten and bruised on the ground, the conscious ones gasping for air as though they’d nearly been drowned.

I didn’t know if Marcus and his people were taking the opportunity to attack or not — there was too much confusion to be sure — but up ahead I did see the one thing that mattered.

Somehow the man with the scar had managed to hold his place on the machine gun at the back of the jeep. He was no fool either. He knew what was happening and wasn’t paying the slightest attention to the stampede around him. He was aiming squarely ahead, fully prepared for Marcus and his people to attack.

I ran toward him as he leaned into the gun and a tongue of orange flame roared out of it. Taking three quick strides, I leapt up to the lip of the jeep’s bed. My foot hit the edge of it and I pitched forward, piling into him. He jerked around and, not missing a beat, dropped his fist
like a hammer. The breath shot out of me. I gasped but somehow managed to hold on to him. He struggled, squirming and punching, until his feet hit a pile of shell casings that littered the floor of the jeep and he went down. I fell on top of him, my legs landing on either side of his chest. He looked up at me and a sudden burst of recognition shot through him.

“You,” he growled.

Before he could say anything more, I braced my forearm on his throat and pressed down with all my weight.

I stared down at his white face, craggy and pitted and hard as Grandpa’s. His teeth were bared, his eyes burning but empty. I saw him coming at us in the plane, drunken and full of hate. For so long I had blamed Dad for what had happened. But I knew right then, leaning over that monster, that it was this man’s fault, everything was. All Dad had been trying to do was be a better man than him.

I grabbed my wrist and leaned in, pressing down onto his throat. His fists slammed into my sides but I barely felt them. I wasn’t going to miss my chance. He gasped and his eyes widened, but he was far from giving up. He struggled even harder, his balled-up fists beating at my ribs, then grabbing at my shoulders. His hands went white, trying to tear me off. His left hand made it to my throat, his fingers clamping down as his right braced against my chest.

I had to let go of him to pull his hand from around my neck. As I thrashed, his other hand closed around my throat as well. He pushed me over onto my side, then rolled on top of me, both hands on my throat.

“Stupid kid,” he said as he squeezed. “You may have helped that woman and her brat, but looking for you and your dad led us right here where we made some nice new friends. I should thank you.”

I threw my fists into him, but they bounced uselessly off his thick shoulders. I gasped for air as he put me down on my back and leaned over me, squeezing his big hands tighter and tighter.

Gunfire crackled around me as the world tripped into darkness, collapsing until there was just his face, twisted into a snarl or a smile — I couldn’t tell which — hanging over me like an awful moon.

The shouting and gunshots faded, receding farther and farther away. As darkness seeped in, I saw Mom and Dad. He had his arm around her, drawing her in close to his side. They were standing in a sun-drenched field against a blue sky, smiling, skin bronze and shining. Mom was in her red and gold dress, her hair blowing in the breeze.

Mom’s hand grazed my cheek, then took my shoulders and brought me in between her and Dad so I could feel the warmth of their bodies and the steady rhythm of their breath, in and out, in and out, all around me.

I looked up and saw the flash of her smile like a winking star.

Then there was a
crack,
like thunder, and everything went black.

I was being dragged across the ground by my wrists, my arms thrown over my head, aching badly.
Shackles. I’m in shackles.
Rocks and shell casings scraped my back, and when I tried to breathe, the air was thick with smoke and my throat was wrecked. My head pounded.

I was alive. How? I opened my eyes, but they stung from the smoke. All I could see were hazy blooms of light in the sky. Orange and yellow and then a smear of bloody red. I wrenched my head back, hoping to see who had me, but I couldn’t see any farther than my own wrists and the pair of hands that were clamped around them. Not shackles. Hands. Pulling me. But to where? I writhed, trying to free myself, but I was too weak.

“Who are you?” I croaked. My throat was ragged, dry, and swollen like it was full of thorns. “Where are you taking me? Where’s Jenny?”

A canopy of trees closed over us and whoever was pulling me dropped my hands and stalked a few feet away. I tried to sit up, but my back screamed in pain, so I lay there catching my breath, trying to ready myself for whatever was next. The fighting was a distant series of thumps and cries somewhere out on the field.

A shadow fell over me and I cringed, attempting to get my hands over my face to protect myself. But all that came was a cool rush of water sweeping down over my forehead and across my eyes, wiping away the grime and the burning. I opened my mouth to let the water rush down my throat. Once I drank all I could, I opened my eyes again.

Sitting behind me, a canteen in his hand, was Jackson. He wasn’t looking at me. His arm was wrapped in a bandage that was soaked through with blood. There was a clatter of gunfire way out in the field and then the yellow flash of an explosion that lit up his dirty face.

“You okay?” I asked.

Jackson nodded.

“Where’s Jenny?”

“With Dad and the others. They’re chasing the last of them out now.”

I urged myself up to my elbows painfully. A low fog hung over everything, and a column of smoke billowed into the sky from the corner of the school’s roof that was visible.

What had once been a baseball field was pitted and torn. A few animals stood here and there, lost. Some lay dead on the ground. The fighting had moved east into the woods. The jeep sat in the middle of the field.

“What happened to …”

And then I saw him. Just behind the jeep lay the man with the scar. He was facedown in the mud, his arms thrown over his head. The snow around him was stained a deep red.

I turned to Jackson. His rifle lay on the ground next to him. He stared across the field at the man, looking hundreds of miles away.

Jackson shuddered, then dropped his head into his hands, his chest heaving as he sobbed.

I dragged myself closer and put my hand on his shoulder. I wanted to say thank you. I wanted to say I was sorry. I wanted to say a lot of things, but right then it seemed best to say nothing at all, so I sat there with him until his breathing slowed, thinking how the end of the world had made so many of us unrecognizable, even to ourselves.

Soon, Jenny came running across the field and dropped down beside us. Her clothes were torn and dirty and there was a smear of blood on her forehead, but I couldn’t tell if it was hers or someone else’s.

“Are you —”

She lunged across me and grabbed Jackson into a hug. He seemed surprised at first, but then his hands tightened around her back, grasping her to him.

“Mom and Dad are all right,” Jenny told him breathlessly after they parted. “After the man with the dreadlocks ran, the rest started to fold. There are a few stragglers, but we’re pushing them back.”

“How many of our people —”

“Don’t worry about that now. We can —”

“How many?” I insisted.

Jenny looked at her brother, then at me. A tattoo of rifle shots crackled through the air, followed by the boom of explosions like a waning thunderstorm.

“Twenty,” she said. “Maybe more.”

“Will?”

Jenny turned to track a low rumble that rose in the east.

“He’s dead.”

It was like the deep toll of a bell, leaving us silent, kneeling together under that stand of trees.

We all turned as some kind of commotion broke out down the hill on the way to town. The few adults who remained were racing up the road past the school, shouting back and forth to one another.

“What’s going on?”

Jenny helped me and Jackson up, and together we trotted across the field and down the road. We reached town just behind the gathering group of people. They were all hurrying into the park, but the three of us froze where we were.

Sam’s house was a wall of fire. Three houses down the road from it were smoking, their windows lit a livid orange from inside. Trees were burning like torches and spreading the fire from house to house. The slavers may have gone but we had a new problem now.

Settler’s Landing was in flames.