The Marbury Lens (10 page)

I knew him.

Brian Fields, my friend from the Glenbrook cross-country team, lay staring up at the white sky behind me with dead eyes, a hole as big as my hand lay open the side of his neck just below the crease of his young jaw.

“Brian?”

This isn’t fucking happening.

“Brian!”

I spun around, and just then another of the things leapt down from the top of a train car and took me into the ground. His mouth was open, dripping his slobber over my face. I twisted my head to the side and the thing licked my mouth. I saw the teeth, sharp and long; and he squealed and put them right against my chest and bit into me.

I howled, tried to roll over on top of him. I tried pulling my gun around, but the stock was pinned beneath my leg. He clawed at my belly, brought his hand right up into my balls and twisted; and I screamed and let go of my rifle. I fought against his hand and he pulled his face back, mouth open. He was smeared with my blood, but I couldn’t feel where he’d bitten me, only the pain in my crotch, where it seemed my guts were being pulled out from my body.

It was my best friend, Conner Kirk, who was attacking me.

“Conner! What the fuck!”

He tried biting again, aimed for my throat, but I palmed his forehead back. I heard the licking, smacking of his lips.

“Conner!”

Then there came the crack of a gunshot. Conner ducked and rolled off me. He ran away on all fours, scampering like a frightened dog, toward the front end of the train. I looked back and saw Griffin, wearing nothing, trying to steady his .45. Shaking, he took another shot at Conner, hit the locomotive, and Conner disappeared around the front.

I stood up, saw the blood running down my chest, the double moon-arcs of blackened teeth marks above my right nipple. My guts hurt so bad, I bent forward and threw up.

Conner bit me.

I fell down onto my face in the salt and passed out.

Then I felt Seth lying on top of me, melting again.

What the fuck is happening to me?

Griffin’s hand between my shoulders, rubbing, trying to bring me back.

It hurt so bad, like I was torn inside out.

“Get up, Jack. We don’t have much time.”

I could hear him, but I couldn’t open my eyes.

“Jack.”

I heard Ben coming up. “What the fuck?”

Griffin said, “Two scouts. Jack got one of them. But the other got away.”

Ben grabbed under my arm.

“Come on. Let’s get him inside. Then we gotta get the fuck out of here.”

“I’ll be okay.” I raised myself onto my hands and knees. The boys steadied me when I stood; and they walked me back to the last car.

We had to hurry now. They’d be back soon.

While Griffin patched me up again, Ben started putting together some makeshift saddlebags by using pieces of luggage that he strapped to one another with belts from the men passengers. He’d made one for each of us, and began filling them with anything we might be able to use: clothes, food, ammunition.

“This looks nasty, Jack. As bad as what that arrow did, maybe worse.” Griffin smeared ointment into the bites with his thumb. His face was so close to me, I could feel his breath. “I can’t stitch it, though.”

“I don’t want you to.”

He looked at me. “You said something to ’em both. I heard you.”

“I know who they were.”

“How could you know that?”

“I just do.”

“Doesn’t matter. That one’s going to keep coming back till he fucking kills us now.”

“Here.” Ben dropped Griffin’s clothes at his feet. “Jack wants you to wear them, so you’re wearing them. We’re not going to get chased across this desert with you running around naked like that.”

“I’m not done yet.”

“And here’s your shirts, Jack. I got just about everything I could think of, so when he’s done and dressed, we better get moving. It’s not going to take that scout too long to get them all coming this way.”

Conner.

Griffin Goodrich stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth, concentrating, as he smoothed out the white medical tape on my chest. “There.”

“Now get dressed,” Ben said.

Griffin tossed the underwear and socks aside. “Not these. I can’t stand them.”

I could tell Ben was about to get mad.

“It’s okay, Ben. Let him go.” I slipped my T-shirt over my head. It hurt. My chest was stiff. I began buttoning the outer shirt, tucking it in.

“One last thing,” I said. “We need to take care of all those guns back there.”

“I thought about that,” Ben said. “I don’t think we can carry them all.”

Griffin laced up his boots.

“We don’t need to. Come on.”

I led the boys back to the car where the soldiers had killed themselves. I showed them how to break down the guns. With what we’d taken, there were only a few more than a dozen of them left, anyway. We took the barrel from each of them, then I used my knife to pry open the flap valve in the toilet at the end of the car, and we dropped every one of the barrels down into the blackness of the tank.

I slid the black valve, a big eyelid, back across the bottom of the toilet bowl.

“They’ll give up looking before they figure that out,” I said.

When we went outside, I saw the shining black forms of the harvesters moving onto Brian Fields’s body. I could hear the clicking sound of their jaws cutting into his flesh. It made me sick.

We rode away from the train.

Griffin looked back every few minutes. We all did.

If there was any haze being kicked up by the Followers as they made their way across the desert toward us, it blended right into the white of the sky. At times, I began remembering about this ruined world, how it had been before the disease, before the war. It was a long time; so long, kids like Griffin couldn’t remember anything else.

And Griffin said, “With tracks like we’re leaving, we might as well pave them a road to follow.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s why we got to get into the mountains.”

“With the guns and bullets we got, I bet we could kill a thousand of them,” Ben said.

“We might have to.”

“That would be fun,” Griffin said.

Fun game.

I kill Conner or he kills me.

So I didn’t get away from anything. Not here, not there. I knew there was nothing real that could save me.

We rode.

I knew where I was.

Somehow I’d gotten myself twisted around on the floor and woke up—if I can call it that—entirely under the bed. My foot was numb, still locked by that nylon strap to the metal frame where it was welded to the crossbar. I looked out toward the narrow slash of light.

I saw the glasses lying on the floor.

The sun was up.

What the fuck is wrong with you, Jack?

Freddie Horvath did something to my brain.

The phone was ringing. How many times?

How long was I there for this time?

I slid out from under the bed. The ringing of the telephone stopped.

I’d left scissors on the nightstand. I cut myself free and then crawled to the toilet so I could throw up, but my stomach was empty. I only managed to retch up a burning yellow mucus that stuck in my throat and nose. I curled up on my side on the cool floor and stayed like that until I felt like I could move again.

Get up, Jack.

You fucked up.

No more.

No more.

No more.

You fucked up again. Just like you did the night of the party, and it’s all your fault.

You deserve this, asshole.

I got onto my knees, ran the water in the shower, and put my head over the edge of the tub.

I went back into the room. My hair dripped cool water onto my body. It rained a trail on the floor. The place was such a mess. I’d thrown my stuff everywhere. I twisted the clock around on the nightstand so I could see it. Six in the morning. I had to leave. Conner was coming.

I stripped off my underwear and stumbled along the wall, got into the shower, and turned it on full cold. I strained as my lungs imprisoned a scream that wasn’t only from the shock of the water.

How would I even be able to look at Conner?

I fooled myself into thinking that I could get away from all that shit back home by coming over to England, but like the voice in my head kept telling me: I hadn’t gotten away from anything.

And now I believed I killed Brian Fields, too.

I was sick and pale, shaking, as I sat on the train and stared out the window, seeing nothing, on the way out to Heathrow.

There are dead people on this train.

Quit it, Jack.

On Monday mornings, the trains to Heathrow got crowded, even in first class.

I must have looked like a smuggler or something; and I was certain that everyone in the car had been watching me, were whispering about the sick-looking kid who stared blankly and leaned his wet hair against the window.

Then the conductor came through, punching tickets.

And it was the same man that Ben, Griffin, and I had found curled up beneath that table in the first car with the dead bodies. The guy who died with his eyes open, hiding from something. He smiled at me, and my hand shook so badly I couldn’t get it down inside my pocket to grab my ticket.

I had to stand up to do it, felt like my knees would give out beneath me.

The conductor’s smile faded to a look of concern, maybe irritation.

He must have thought I was on drugs or something.

I saw you dead.

And, when I stood, I looked back down the length of the aisle. A woman and a man sat together at the back of the car. He wore a pressed, striped blue shirt, and there was a water bottle on the seat next to his hip. They both smiled at me. Three kids played on the bench seats across from them: two girls and a boy, laughing, dressed nicely.

I’d seen them before, too.

I handed my ticket to the conductor, my eyes fixed on the same oval brass name tag on his uniform I’d seen under a table in Marbury. As soon as he punched it, I collapsed back into my seat.

Fuck this place.

I stood right in front, waiting for Conner to come out from the customs hall. I tried to look as normal as I could, but I was certain everyone there was staring at me. I kept my eyes on the feet of the people coming out through the automatic doors. I’d know Conner’s shoes. But he probably wouldn’t know my eyes; at least I convinced myself that he’d see something in them. He had to. We knew each other too well to cover up shit like this. So when Conner passed through the doorway, I waited there on the other side of the blue ropes and he dropped his backpack, then ran around the end and hugged me.

I didn’t want him to touch me, forced myself to put my arms around him, anyway.

It seemed like years since I’d seen him.

Years and worlds.

I held him at arm’s length so I could look straight at his eyes. They were clear and gray, like they’d always been. Just Conner. None of that white-eye, black-eye bullshit that I must have been hallucinating.

Crazy Jack.

This is real.

“Dude,” Conner said. “Are we getting ready to kiss or something?”

I forced a smile. “Asshole. I guess I just missed you, Con.”

“It’s only been three days.”

I thought about it. Conner stood there looking at me like he was expecting me to confess to something.

“You look different. Did something happen to you?” he said.

“I don’t think so.” I cleared my throat. “Let’s get on the train. You’re going to like it, Con.”

“I want to hear about that imaginary girl you met.”

“Imaginary girls don’t talk on phones or show up in pictures,” I said. “And please tell me you brought my charger.”

While we waited on the platform, Conner dug through his pack to prove he hadn’t forgotten it.

“Stella bugged me about it every day,” he said. “She actually bought an extra one so I could bring two in case you lost it again.”

“I guess I have been kind of losing it.”

Conner laughed.

“Hey, let me see your phone,” I said.

Conner handed me his cell. “You gonna call that girl? Nickie?”

“No. Later.” I thumbed through his contacts list, found what I was looking for, hit the send button, and put the phone up to my ear. Then I turned my back to Conner and took a few steps away from him. He understood. I didn’t have to say anything to him about my not wanting to be heard right then.

I came back and gave him his phone as the train entered the station.

There were dozens of people waiting for it, all of them spaced at careful distances from one another.

Conner opened his phone as he hefted his pack over one shoulder. I took his day bag in my hand.

“Why’d you call Brian?”

“Oh. Nothing. I remembered I promised I’d call him when we were both in London together.”

“Oh.” Conner shrugged. “What did he say?”

“He was pissed. I forgot. It’s the middle of the night.”

Conner laughed. “You really are losing it, Jack.”

We got on the train.

I tried to stay focused. But I couldn’t. Finally, Conner’d had enough and he punched me in the chest.

“What the fuck, Con?”

“You have to quit it, Jack.”

He didn’t know how right he was.

“I know. Sorry.” I shifted in my seat and rubbed the spot where he hit me.

“’Cause there’s nothing that can be done about it, anyway. So stop beating yourself up and just settle things in your stupid head.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I am so glad you’re here, Con. Are you tired or anything?”

“No. I want to go out.”

“You bring stuff to run?”

“Yeah.”

I kept telling myself on the ride in to London that it was finally over, that I wasn’t going back to Marbury ever again. Then the Jack and Conner from Marbury could settle what they had to one way or another, and it wouldn’t matter to me because this is where I was going to stay.

I kept telling myself I’d have to find a way to get rid of those goddamned glasses.

I kept telling myself.

“Let’s do a few miles when we get back. It’ll make you feel better,” I said.

“That sounds good. Then can we go out and get a couple beers after?”

“Sure.”

“You been drinking?”

“Nickie doesn’t drink. I did once. Beer.”

I thought about the whiskey I drank with Ben Miller—and when was that, anyway?

Quit it, Jack.

Get rid of those goddamned things.

I only hoped Ben and Griffin would be okay.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t been partying, Jack.”

I forgot about how messy I’d left the place.

“And don’t tell me you didn’t bring that Nickie around and nail her. This place says ‘Jack’s been having crazy rough sex’ all over it.”

I felt myself turning red. I began crumpling up the notes I’d scattered around, kicking my stuff into a pile so I could stuff it all back into the pack.

“Not like that. She’s not like that, Con,” I said. “I got pissed off last night, I guess.”

I could almost feel Conner’s shoulders slump when I said it.

Subject change: “Check out the trapdoor shower,” I said.

Conner went into the bathroom. I heard him peeing, and I got everything wadded up, back inside my pack. I plugged my phone into the charger, and the voltage adapter that I did remember to bring. Missed calls and text messages. I didn’t want to look at them.

The glasses—somehow I’d kicked them under the bed. I got down onto my hands and knees and pulled them out. The cut zip tie was under there, too.

Roll. Tap. Tap. Tap.

I panicked. I folded the glasses and shoved them as far down into my pack as I could get them.

Roll.

“Shhhh…,” I said, whispering, pleading. “Don’t.”

Tap. Tap.

Conner came out from the bathroom.

“Yeah,” he said, “this place is kind of odd. What side of the bed do you want?”

“Whatever one you’re not on.”

Conner smiled. “You never know.”

I pointed out the window to Regent’s Park. “That’s a great place to run. You ever see a cricket match?”

We changed into our running clothes. I was tense, kept turning my head, cocking my ear to listen for the sound of Seth making his little signs, but it didn’t come.

Take a deep breath, Jack.

Calm down.

This is real.

“Before we go, you gotta see this,” I said. I took my camera out and turned it on, scanning through the images—the ones I’d taken that first day, that I couldn’t remember, ones of Nickie in the park, the picture of the two of us together when we’d said good-bye at the Underground.

“This is me and Nickie.” I handed the camera to Conner.

“Okay,” he said. “I guess she is real. And hot.”

He studied the picture for a while. He messed around with the zoom. Then he smiled and handed the camera back to me and said, “That guy in the background looks a little creepy, though. Stalker ex-boyfriend, maybe?”

I didn’t even notice it. Standing half in the shadows behind the turnstile at the Tube station, Henry Hewitt had been watching us.

He was still following me.

I looked at Conner and shrugged. “I don’t know who that guy is.”

But I’m a terrible liar. Conner had to know there was something wrong with me.

How could he not see it?

“Hey, Con,” I said. “Come here. Let’s take a picture together.”

We put our arms around each other’s shoulders and smiled. We stood in front of the open window while we both steadied the camera at arm’s length. My thumb found the shutter button.

Tap.

Then I tossed the camera onto the bed and said, “Let’s get out of this place.”

The run was good. I pushed him hard, and he started to complain a couple times about being tired from the plane, but I wasn’t really listening. We stopped and drank at a fountain, then stretched for a while in the shade beside the lake.

I started running again, and Conner was right behind me.

“You got somewhere to go, or something?” he said.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “I’ve been thinking about some crazy stuff.”

“Oh.” There was disappointment in Conner’s voice.

“Not like that,” I said. “You know how you just think about stuff when you run? How it just kind of pops into your head?”

“Sorry, Jack,” Conner said. “If I do think when I run, it’s usually about having sex.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“And, of course, you never do that, do you? Okay, Einstein, so what were you thinking about?”

So I told him.

I said, “You know those weird nesting dolls that Stella collects? The ones that open up and have all kinds of different things inside them?”

“Yeah. So. You think about
dolls
when you run?”

I had to laugh at that. And I thought that no matter what crazy shit I was dreaming up, that I’d always have Conner Kirk here as my best friend; that he could always manage to get a smile out of me, and I loved him for it, and it was real.

“I was thinking, What if the world was like that? What if we only saw one surface of it, the outside, but there was all kinds of other stuff going on, too? All the time. Underneath. But we just don’t see it, even if we’re part of it? Even if we’re in it? And what if you had a chance to see a different layer, like flipping a channel or something? Would you want to look? Even if what you saw looked like hell? Or worse?”

Conner stopped running. I didn’t expect him to do that. I’d gotten a few paces in front of him, so I had to double back to where he stood.

“Have you been smoking pot, Jack?”

I shoved him. “Asshole.”

“You sound like you’ve been seriously hitting the weed, dude.”

I laughed. “I was just thinking.”

“I recommend next time you start wondering about shit like that, tell me about it so I can convince you to start thinking about sex,” Conner said. “You know, like a normal kid does. Someone needs to seriously straighten you out.”

“I’ll remember that,” I said, and smiled at my friend. “But you know, Conner. You’re like the only person I can talk to about shit.”