Jeff Hirsch - The Eleventh Plague

“Only if they look friendly, Mom.”

“And if they don’t?”

“I shoot them on sight.” Jenny grinned, but then pulled it back when Violet didn’t so much as crack a smile. “If I see more than a couple people together, I run and hide. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. It’s fine. I promise.”

We ate lunch while Marcus quizzed Jenny about how many people she had seen, what kinds of animals and plants, any sign of a government. Then we lingered there, drinking glasses of sweet tea that Violet made from an herb she’d discovered growing wild in the woods. It was my favorite time, everyone sitting there with the afternoon sun streaming in from the porch window, yellow as a dandelion, voices mixed with the bright clinking of forks and knives on plates.

The months after the fight hadn’t been easy, even for us. It had taken time to mesh back together again. But, like everything, it couldn’t last. I knew that as soon as Jenny slid her plate out in front of her.

“I’m going to go past the mountains.”

The silence was like a granite wall. Violet looked over at Marcus. He swallowed and set his fork down neatly next to his plate. “To do what?”

“To see what’s there.”

“It’s not a vacation,” Marcus said.

Jenny leaned across the table on her elbows. “Look, you need a scout—”

“Why does it have to be you?” Jackson asked. He was sitting across from Jenny, his fork still in his hand, his fingers white around its metal body. He was trying to cover it, but I could hear what was in his voice. Something welled up in Jenny’s eyes, but she pulled it back.

“Because I want to,” she said. “And because there’s no one who will be better at it than me. We can’t sit here with our heads down and hope everything’s going to be okay. The slaver, the one with the dreadlocks, is still alive, and there are more like him. You need to know if there’s danger out there, or people like us we can join forces with.”

Marcus and Violet exchanged a look and entwined hands.

“You know it’s true.”

Violet pulled in a shaky breath. “You weren’t meant for one place,” she said. “I know that, but… we just got you back.”

Jenny set her hand on top of Violet’s, and along with Marcus they held on to it.

“I’ll come back,” Jenny said. “I’ll always come back. This is my home.”

There was more talk, but the sound of it dropped away for me. I dug my thumbnail into the soft wood at the edge of the table and wondered if it was true, if she really would come back or if there would be a time when that rubber band stretched as far as it could go and would snap, releasing her into the world, never to return. The thought of that was more than I could stand.

“I’m going too.”

I didn’t even know I’d said it out loud until the talk at the table went silent. When I looked up, everyone was staring at me.

“Stephen…” Violet began.

“I’ve thought about it a lot, and it’s what I want to do.”

Violet glanced at Jenny, who dropped her hand onto mine, squeezing my palm under the table.

“Well…” Violet said after a long pause. “I guess we better get both of you packed up, then.”

Violet pushed away from the table to gather things for Jenny, and I went up to my room, Jenny’s old one, and packed my things. Soon Jackson drifted into the doorway. I folded a shirt and a sweater that Violet had knitted for me and placed them down in the bottom of my bag.

“You’re really going?” Jackson asked.

I picked up the rest of my clothes and tucked them in the bag. “I’ll be back,” I said. “We’ll be back.”

“What books do you want to take with you?”

“Those are yours.”

“Yeah. I know. It’s just…”

I pulled my tent out of the closet and started folding it up. “What?”

Jackson leaned against the edge of the door and crossed his arms, his eyes on the messy carpet at my feet. “Nothing,” he said, and disappeared back into his room.

I got the tent into its pack and lashed it to the outside of my backpack, then went back through the closet, looking for anything I’d missed. The bat and glove that Jackson and Derrick had given me as a present at the start of the season sat in the corner. I ran my fingertip down the face of the bat, dipping in and out of its dents. The well-seasoned leather of the glove smelled spicy and sharp. I left them there at the back of the closet.

I was about to close my pack when Jackson reappeared with a stack of paperbacks in his hand.

“Take them,” Jackson said. “If you don’t, you’ll have to spend all your time talking to Jenny. I’ve read them all. That Piers Anthony is really good. And the Peter Straub.”

“Thanks,” I said, stuffing my bag with the books. “You guys have a good game today.”

Jackson studied me with that penetrating look of his, the same one I had seen for the first time as he’d struggled along behind the wagon that brought me here. He’d changed so much since then, and I was sure he would change more. I wondered how long it would be until Jenny and I would be back this way and who he would be then. I wondered if I’d even recognize him. If I’d recognize any of them. Or if they’d recognize me.

Jackson ran his fingers down the door frame. “Yeah. We’ll try,” he said quietly. Then his shoes whispered down the carpeted hallway and he descended the stairs, leaving me there alone.

I took my bag’s straps in my hands, but it felt like it was full of bricks. I couldn’t move. I stood listening to the hollow silence of the house until Violet’s voice drifted up the stairs.

“Stephen?”

“Coming,” I called weakly, but it was a struggle to lift the pack up off the ground and place it on my shoulders, a struggle just to reach the door. I stopped in the doorway and ran my hand down the smooth wood alongside it. Marcus had covered over the spot where Jenny had caved in the wall months ago. All that was left now was a small depression in the plaster.

The house was empty by the time I got downstairs. I moved through the silent place like it was a museum, remembering the strangeness of it all when I’d first come there: the smell of the food, the sounds of people talking.

I made it through the kitchen and the front room to find everyone waiting outside, gathered around Wind and finishing their good-byes. I threw my pack down at the horse’s feet and hugged Violet and Marcus. Sam appeared from his house and shook my hand. I didn’t know what to say. Violet squeezed my arm, then hugged me tight again. Her eyes began to glitter with tears that she sniffed back. Marcus gave me a firm handshake before laying his arm over Violet’s shoulder and walking her across the park along with Sam.

Jackson hugged Jenny again. “Be careful.”

“I will.”

“Come back, okay?”

“I will,” Jenny said. “I promise.”

Jackson didn’t move away or take his hands from her shoulders.

“Yo! Jackson! Quinn! Time’s wasting! Let’s go!”

Derrick and Martin and Carrie were crossing the park, heading toward the road that led to school and the baseball field. Martin was throwing the ball up high into the air and racing to get under it. There was a snap as it fell into his glove.

Jackson’s hand slipped off Jenny’s arm and he glanced at me one last time.

“See ya,” he said, then ran off and joined his friends, disappearing down the road with them and a wave of others who followed.

“You ready?”

Jenny was standing with Wind’s reins in her gloved hand. I nodded and lifted my pack up off the ground to load it onto Wind with Jenny’s equipment, her tent and rifle and provisions. I stopped when Jenny’s hand fell on my arm, holding it down.