Black River Falls (23 page)

There wasn't much left of the carnival. The Ferris wheel and a few wooden booths were about the only things still standing. Everything else had been trampled under the feet of nearly five thousand infected who stood shoulder to shoulder below me, fists raised and shouting. They were facing a stage that sat on the far side of the park. It was empty except for a podium and a couple of knocked-over mic stands. There was a knot of Marvin blue to one side of it. It looked like they'd been trying to make their escape, but had been blocked by a wall of infected. Three of their vehicles had been flipped over and were spewing flames and black smoke. Hannah had mentioned there was going to be an announcement at the carnival. I was pretty sure I knew what it was and about how well it had gone over.

Gonzalez had been right. Black River was nothing but a contract to the Marvins. Everything Raney had done had been to keep us quiet until the Guard was gone and no one was watching.

A horde of Marvin vehicles arrived with a screech of sirens. They began lining the road that circled the park, like bricks in a wall surrounding it. Once they were all in position, they'd have the infected trapped. They'd only have to load them onto trucks and drive them away. I scanned the crowd, becoming more and more anxious, until I caught a flash of green. Hannah. She was locked in the middle of the mob with Greer and the kids. They were bunched together, hand in hand, making a chain to fight the tides of people pushing against them. They were barely a hundred yards away, but a trio of Marvin trucks sat between us. I looked up and down the line but didn't see a single break.

A black bus pulled up near the stage. An amplified voice came from loudspeakers on top of it.

“By order of the governor, you are to disperse. Return to your homes and await further instruction. Anyone who does not comply is subject to immediate arrest.”

A door opened in the side of the bus, and dozens of Marvins poured out. They were in riot gear—black body armor, helmets, gas masks. As they advanced toward the crowd, they beat truncheons against Plexiglas shields. The infected retreated at first, but then there was a rallying cry and they threw themselves forward. Another patrol car was flipped onto its side, with a crunch of broken glass. More carnival booths collapsed. Once the infected saw what they could do, they surged even harder. The riot cops were pushed back, but the reaction was immediate. Two of the three Humvees in front of me backed out of their spots and headed toward the center of the chaos. It was my opening. I bolted down the hill.

“Hannah! Greer! This way!”

Hannah turned, and when she saw me, she grabbed Greer's arm and he started shouting at the kids, turning them in my direction. There were screams on the other side of the park, single voices at first and then a chorus. Fire from one of the burning patrol cars spread to the stage, and flames shot out over the crowd. Silhouetted by the blaze, the infected looked like trees writhing in a forest fire. My stomach flipped and my vision started to collapse, but I couldn't give in to it. I waved the kids past me and up the hill, then followed behind. By the time we all made it to the top, the kids were nearly hysterical with fear. Not Hannah, though. She seemed almost eerily calm. Her eyes were filled with the same kind of hunted intensity as the first time I'd seen her.

“Did you hear what they're going to do?” she asked. “They must have been planning it the whole time.”

Behind her, Eliot wailed. “They're going to split us up. They're going to send us away!”

“What do we do?” Astrid cried. “What are we going to do?”

Everyone was looking to me. I searched around us, trying to find some kind of out. Somewhere to go. Something to do. All I saw was the dark outline of Lucy's Promise rising above the town.

“We go back up the mountain,” I said. “It's our only choice.”

“They'll come looking for us,” Hannah argued. “Every infected person in Black River is getting cleared out. That's what they said.”

“Then we'll go deeper into the woods,” I countered. “Over the quarantine fence if we have to. We stick together and we stay out of sight until people find out what the Marvins are trying to do. There's no way they'll let them get away with it.”

There was a roar as another helicopter streaked over the trees toward the park.

“Go!” I yelled. “Run! And don't look back.”

Hannah took the lead and the kids ran after her. I started to follow until I realized that Greer wasn't behind me. He had moved to the edge of the hill, his head down, his hands curled into fists.

“Greer, we have to go. Now!”

I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. His gray eyes locked on mine. It was as if time had slipped its gears and turned backwards. It was the old Greer. I stepped back without thinking, my hand falling to the hilt of the knife.

“They can't do this,” he roared. “Black River is ours! It's our home.”

Just then five trails of white arced over the heads of the infected. Tear gas. When the canisters landed, plumes of smoke billowed in every direction. The crowd screamed and reared back. People were clawing at their eyes and struggling to breathe. The Marvins waded into them, clubs raised over their heads.

“You want to go?” Greer cried. “Then go! Run!”

He turned away, but I managed to get a hold of his arm and yank him back. The glare he gave me was the same one he'd given a hundred kids on the schoolyard. It had always been enough to send us all running, but right then I refused to back off, refused to wither like I had so many times before.

“Hannah and I need you,” I said. “We
have
to stay together!”

“Greer! Card!”

Hannah had stopped running. The kids were huddled behind her. Benny. DeShaun. Astrid. Makela. Eliot cradled Margo in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder. They were all streaked with soot and tears. I turned back to Greer, and it was as if a switch flipped inside him. His arm slipped out of my hand and he ran toward Hannah. He took Margo from Eliot and waved them all down the other side of the hill. I turned for a last look back at the park. The Ferris wheel had fallen over, and every last trace of the carnival was gone, crushed underfoot. A house on an adjacent street was burning. Smoke from the fires mixed with the tear gas, churning in the rotor wash from the helicopters. Deep inside the haze, faceless forms grappled hand to hand.

Behold, Abaddon.

I turned and fled. By the time we hit the roadway on the other side of the hill, the riot had spilled into the streets. Main was blocked by a barricade of vehicles, so we ended up twisting through Black River's neighborhoods, just barely avoiding the Marvins. I kept my eyes locked on the summit of Lucy's Promise with every turn we took, frustrated by how it drew closer and slipped away over and over again.

At Washington Street we stumbled into one of the clouds of tear gas and the kids started coughing violently. I could breathe because of my mask, but it was like a swarm of bees gouging at my eyes. Greer pushed everyone into a nearby yard, then stripped off his shirt and told Ren and Eliot to do the same. He handed the shirts to me and I used my knife to cut them into wide strips. Greer and Hannah moved through the group, tying the fabric tightly around mouths and noses. It wasn't much, but it was all we had, and it was enough to get everyone back on their feet and moving.

There was a full-on brawl underway at the end of Washington, so we jumped fences until we hit the next street over. I caught a flash of the bridge up ahead and called out to the others, but by the time we'd turned toward it, a Marvin patrol cut us off and we lost sight of it again. We tumbled from street to street, as if we'd fallen into the churn of Black River Falls. The world became flickers of light and darkness. There and then gone again. I saw riot clubs falling. Clouds of smoke. People running. All around us was the sound of broken glass and sirens and the
pop pop pop
of gunfire.

Astrid fell, and I helped her up and pushed her on. Blood poured from a cut on the side of her head and across her pale skin, but she didn't seem to notice. Hannah had DeShaun in her arms. Greer carried Margo. Makela snatched a rock off the street and hurled it at a passing car. Every few minutes another mass of infected crashed into us, overwhelming and scattering our group. We fought to pull ourselves together again and again, clasping hands, making a chain.
Stay together. Keep moving.
It was all I could think. All I could do.

“Card! Look!”

My head snapped left at Hannah's voice. Gray stone showed through the trees, and then there was a rush of sound that I took for the roar of voices until I realized what it really was—white water crashing over the falls.

By then we'd mixed in with at least three other groups of infected. We turned a corner, and suddenly there it was. The bridge. The roadway was clear. It was a straight shot to Lucy's Promise. Seeing it gave us a jolt, and we raced out onto it. Hannah and I looked around wildly as we ran, counting heads, making sure everyone was there. I panicked when I didn't see Tomiko, but then the crowd shifted and I caught sight of her.

We were halfway across when the truck appeared. It shot out of a side street and came to a stop at the far end of the bridge, blocking our way. Marvins in riot gear poured out, ten or fifteen of them, some with shields and clubs, some with tear gas launchers, some with sleek black rifles hanging from their shoulders and side arms strapped to their hips. The crowd didn't turn back, didn't even slow. We hit them as one body, determined to break through. Clubs fell. Gas billowed. An older man crumpled beside me, eyes shut, blood on his forehead. A woman went down next. I heard a scream and turned to see Jenna and Tomiko trapped by the flow of the crowd, their backs pressed against the stone guardrail. I tore through a clot of infected and pulled them away from the Marvins.

“Go! Run!”

By then the Marvins were advancing, pushing us back to the other side of the bridge, toward Black River and away from Lucy's Promise. There were still a few infected out in the middle of it though, some fighting, others who just couldn't escape.

I led Jenna and Tomiko to a spot on the grass, then started searching for everyone else as a stream of escaping infected raced by. I found them on the other side of the road, huddled around Hannah. They were trapped by the riot, but safe. Ren. Eliot. Makela. Astrid. Crystal. Isaac. Hannah. Greer. DeShaun. Carrie. Ricky. Margo.

Someone was missing. Benny.

I stood up and saw him among a group out in the middle of the bridge. The crowd was thinning, but he was caught in an eddy of people near the Marvin line and couldn't get away. I ran for him, but the retreating infected slammed into me, knocking me backward.

“Benny!” I called, throwing my elbows out to try to clear a path. “Let me through! Benny!”

Someone rammed into me from behind and hurtled past. I saw a flash of skin and a black tattoo. Greer. He punched a hole through the crowd and grabbed Benny by the shoulder, tossing him back out of danger. As he went to follow, a Marvin jumped out of the line and swung his club, connecting with Greer's side. I heard one of his ribs snap with a wet pop. He spun to face the man, teeth bared, his fist whipping out to the side as he turned. The Marvin flinched. There was something in Greer's hand. A flash of silver and black. My hand dropped to my hip. The sheath was empty. My knife was gone.

I threw myself against the tide, screaming Greer's name as the Marvin dropped his club and went for his side arm. Greer looked back at me, and for a split second our eyes met; then he turned to the Marvin, the knife still clenched in his fist. The Marvin's gun cleared his holster and the black barrel rose. Greer took a step forward.

“No!”

There was the crack of a gunshot and then a second of quiet so huge it was as if all the noise had fallen out of the world. It was followed by a single bright ping as the knife hit the concrete, and then the thump of a body falling to the ground. No one moved. No one made a sound. We all stood there, frozen, listening to the roar of the water as it crashed over the falls.

T
HE NEXT THING
knew, I was lying on the floor, knees to chest, wedged into the corner of a dark room. It was noisy—raised voices, thumping steps, slamming doors—but it all seemed far away, echoey, as if I were listening from deep under water. Dark shapes swam all around me, appearing and disappearing as they moved past a line of bright rectangles along the wall. I tried to sit up, but every muscle in my body was cinched into a series of knots.

Someone pushed a plastic bottle into my hands. Water. My throat was burning. I pulled my mask aside and took a long drink, then poured the rest over my eyes to try to clear my vision. Everything shimmered, then came into focus.

I was in a square chamber, lit by flashlights and candles. There was a large wooden desk in front of me and, beyond that, rows of smaller desks and metal chairs. A classroom. In the high school. Strangers moved in and out, hauling away the furniture and replacing it with makeshift cots. Some of the people on the cots were crying, some were screaming, some weren't moving at all. The scent of smoke and sweat and blood was heavy, even through my mask.

Someone ran down the hall screaming. “We did it! We pushed them out. We pushed them right the hell out!”

Whoever it was laughed loudly and madly and then was gone. Why wasn't I with the others? I had to find them. I had to make sure everyone was all right. My backpack was beside me. I grabbed it, then reached for my knife, but the sheath was empty. I made it to my hands and knees, grasped for the edge of the teacher's desk, and climbed to my feet. My legs wobbled and my vision grayed out, but I managed to stay standing. My clothes were torn and filthy, and there was a strip of white cloth tied tight around my leg. Blood showed through it. I tried to remember how it had happened, but nothing came to me.