Jeff Hirsch - The Eleventh Plague

By the time I made it around to the parking lot, Sam and Marcus were talking to a small group of armed men. They spoke briefly, then Sam took the men east over the hill and out of sight. Marcus quickened his pace across the lot and toward town.

“Marcus!” I cried out. “Marcus, wait!”

Marcus turned back. “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here, Stephen—”

“It was us,” I said, catching my breath.

“What?”

“Me and Jenny. At the Henrys’ last night. We didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a stupid prank to get back at Will and them.”

Marcus checked behind us, then yanked me off the road toward the shelter of the trees. “Someone said they were from Fort Leonard.”

“That was me. It was dumb. I know. I’m sorry. Look, just tell Caleb. Tell him it was us. We’ll go, we’ll really leave this time. There’s no reason to do what he’s saying. Build an army? Marcus, that’s insane.”

“It’s too late, Stephen.”

“No it’s not. Go back in there and tell them.”

“No,” he barked, almost knocking me back. “Caleb came and got a group of us right after it happened last night and we went out to Fort Leonard.”

Something sunk inside me.

“What did you do?”

Marcus drew a shaky breath, then dropped his eyes to the ground between us.

“Marcus, what happened?”

“We found their settlement early this morning. Figured out one of the buildings was a food storehouse. Caleb had the idea we should raid it like we thought they’d done to us. It seemed simple; the whole town looked to be asleep, but… there were two guards. They fired at us. Caleb shot one. I got the other.”

I jumped as the school doors boomed open behind us and the crowd started pouring into the lot out front.

“Maybe we can talk to them,” I said. “Talk to Caleb, explain. Maybe—”

“The people at Fort Leonard were getting together before we even left,” he said. “It won’t be long before they come looking for us. Our only chance now is to get them before they can get us.”

The rumble of the crowd grew louder as it reached the road.

“You should go. Take Jenny and get out of here. Go to the old casino on the other side of the highway. We’ll come get you when things have calmed down.”

“But, Marcus—”

“Did you listen to that speech? He thinks you two were a part of it, Stephen. That you helped them. We tried to tell him you weren’t any harm, but I don’t know what he’s going to do. Just go, Stephen. Get back to Jenny. Now!”

Marcus left to join the mob as it swarmed up the hill. I slipped into the woods and ran as fast as I could, throwing myself over the fence and dashing off again. Jenny had been alone for more than an hour. The trees rushed by me as I ran leaping over rocks and brush.

I was little more than a mile out when I first smelled smoke.

The air thickened the closer I got. My eyes stung. My heart pounded and I ran until my legs burned, ran until I blew through the trees and came out into the clearing where I was faced with a wall of flame and gray smoke.

Jenny’s barn was on fire.

“Jenny!”

I threw myself into the doors of the barn, scorching my hands and choking on a lungful of smoke. “Jenny!”

Flames were spreading up the walls and tearing into the roof of the barn. I dropped low where the air was clearer and covered my mouth and nose with my sleeve. My eyes stung but I searched the barn, yelling her name as loud as I could. There was a flash of movement by the bed. I raced toward it, finding Jenny on the ground, coughing, her legs pinned under a pile of charred wood from the partially collapsed ceiling. She was trying to get out from under it but was weak and barely able to move. I grabbed her under her arms and pulled but she cried out.

There was a whoosh as the wall next to us caught fire, exploding into a curtain of red and orange. The smoke swelled and thickened.

I dropped to my knees at Jenny’s waist and thrust my hands into the smoldering pile of wood, ignoring the feel of my fingers searing as I threw the timbers off. I shook Jenny by the shoulders, but by then she was unconscious.

I looked all around me. The doors I’d come in had caught fire, as had the walls on every side. Fire flowed over the ceiling. I was trapped. The old wood of the barn, dry and weak from years of neglect, popped and hissed, burning as easily as paper.

I rolled Jenny onto her back, then muscled her up over my shoulder. The ceiling groaned louder. There was no time to waste.

I stood up, eyes watering and lungs aching, then dropped my head and shoulder and ran as fast as I could, straight at one of the burning walls. There was a panicked instant when it resisted, but then the wood cracked and flames gouged into my shoulder and cheek.

Our momentum carried us out of the barn and to the tree line, where I stumbled and Jenny went spilling out into the brush. I collapsed, coughing and heaving beside her. Jenny moaned. Her one good eye was open, but barely. She was breathing.

“You’re going to be okay,” I said. “We’re going to be fine.”

“I thought it was Will and them,” she rasped. “But it wasn’t. It was a group of men. They didn’t even say anything, they just—”

“It’s okay,” I said.

There was a crash behind us as part of another wall fell in. The relief of safety washed away, though, when I realized that everything we owned — my pack and supplies, Jenny’s clothes, Grandpa’s rifle — was all in the barn. We couldn’t go back to Settler’s Landing and without shelter or supplies, and with winter coming on fast, we were dead.

I could still make out the hole in the wall I had broken through, a splintering oval wreathed in flame. Fire had spread nearly everywhere, but the roof still hadn’t come down. I had seconds. If that.

“What are you doing?” Jenny said as I pushed away from her. “Stephen!”

I ran for the barn and took a deep breath before jumping through the gap, stumbling toward what was left of the bed. My lips were sealed tight and my fingers pinched my nose closed. If I tried to take a breath, I was dead. I tripped over a pile of timbers and landed hard. The smoke had dropped almost to the level of the floor. I felt around wildly, squinting into the gray clouds until my fingers hit the side of my pack. I pulled it to me and threw it over my shoulder. My knife was in its sheath next to it. I stuffed it into my back pocket.

There was a crack behind me and the sound of falling wood. I caught sight of the rifle lying next to Jenny’s sketch pad, its barrel pointed toward me. I reached for it but the red-hot metal singed my fingers and I had to yank them back.

There was a growl above me. The roof was coming down. I reached out again and my fingers closed around Jenny’s sketch pad. I scrambled to my feet and ran toward the opening in the wall. The growl above me turned into a long moan. There was a whoosh and the wall behind me collapsed. Then the ceiling started to come down, forcing the smoke and heat down on my shoulders like two giant hands. Burning wood fell at my heels, popping and hissing.

The way before me was closing off. All I could see was gray and livid yellow. I thought of Jenny, lying out there alone, and threw myself into the air.

We stumbled through the woods, our arms clasped around each other, until we crossed the highway and came to the parking lot that surrounded the Golden Acorn casino.

When we got there, I eased Jenny down inside. The lobby was musty and cold. A jumble of gaming tables, chairs, and slot machines, most of which had been stripped of anything useful years ago, littered the main room. I followed a corridor that branched off to one side and was lined on either wall with rows of identical-looking doors. I pushed on each one until I found a door that gave. The room was empty except for a mattress that lay on the concrete floor, stripped of sheets and its metal frame, and the husk of what used to be a giant television set. It wasn’t much. I pulled the curtains back and saw that the big glass window on one wall was still intact. It would do.