The Burnouts (23 page)

“How you doing on gas?”

“I’ve got a half tank.”

“Well, there’s not a working station until you get to—”

“I know. I’ll make it.”

“Do you have cash, because cards don’t work like they used to—”

“I know. I’ve got some.”

“You know. You know,” his dad said with a touch of frustration. “Well, I guess I better shut up, then.”

David gave his father a hug. His father held him tight.

“You’re doing a good thing, David. You’re a good kid. It’s just hard for me. I want to keep you safe.”

David nodded and patted his father’s back. He knew his dad was crying even though he couldn’t see his face over his shoulder. His voice was plump.

“I wish your mom could see the man you are now,” he said. “She’d take one look at you and shove an elbow in my ribs and say ‘Told you so.’ ”

David laughed, and his father let him go.

“I’ll call you when I get there,” David said.

“Where’s there?”

“Canada.”

David’s dad shook his head with an exasperated grin.

“Get outta here,” he said.

David gave his dad a wave and got in the Jeep. He started it up. The purr of the engine excited him. He had a long trip ahead, but that was always his favorite part. To watch the world go by, to know that there were thousands of miles of road ahead of him. Sam’s dad had started a new farm in rural Nebraska on the same model as the one in Pale Ridge, only this one employed the previously infected rather than keeping them locked up. David was trying to find former McKinley kids to work there. So many ex-infected had scattered to the wind after graduating. And David was making himself an expert on finding them, especially former Loners. He’d found Nelson in Reno spinning signs for a used car lot and doing a bad job of it. He’d found the twins living in an abandoned amusement park in Texas, living off berries and mushrooms. Belinda had been the easiest to find. She was working as a waitress at a truck stop in Hays, Kansas, and generally hating life. He’d found Loners living in storm drains and abandoned
houses. That had become the norm for much of Colorado’s teen population who hadn’t been welcomed back by their families, or who had ventured out into the world only to find their loved ones dead. And so they traveled, looking for someplace to call home, where they weren’t persecuted or driven off by locals who wanted to keep their communities “clean.”

He’d heard about others. Zachary had written David a letter and said that he’d phased out of infection and was living in New York. He was doing costumes for a small theatre company there, dating up a storm, and he’d changed his name to Dane. David had heard from Gonzalo that Kemper, the old leader of the Nerds, was working in the back of an electronics store in Santa Fe. He said Kemper was consumed with the goal of getting into MIT, and that he’d cried when Gonzalo told him that Violent had died. Each of the two times David had crossed paths with Gonzalo he’d tried to give him any info he could to help in the big guy’s ongoing search for Sasha. Gonzalo’s hope was uncrushable.

David turned up the stereo. The wind howled. He’d found thirteen McKinley kids in just about two months. It felt good to be busy. It helped to fill the void in his heart.

A vision of Will being shot in the head seized David.

He jolted and slammed on the brakes. He gripped the steering wheel and squeezed with all the power in his fists until his breathing slowed.

He had a new lead to follow, and he prayed that it was real.
He threw the Jeep into first gear and started driving again. He’d seen a lot of familiar faces recently, and had helped them find a better life, but if this lead panned out, he’d get to see the one face he missed most of all.

LUCY WAS GETTING FAT. SHE BLAMED HER
mother and her grandmother. They were the ones who had stocked Lucy’s kitchen full of rich food from the local gourmet markets. They said they couldn’t help themselves. They were so happy to have her back. Every morning, she’d find a care package waiting for her. She stood in front of her open cabinets, staring at all of her options. She’d been “quarantined” in her grandparents’ guesthouse for a little over two months, and still she couldn’t help but marvel at the bounty in her cupboard.

There was sweet peach chutney, strawberry black peppercorn fruit spread, French lemon curd, apricot salsa dulce, and cinnamon-infused maple syrup. There was faux foie gras, homemade olive bread, wild boar terrine, and lobster pâté. She could choose between Tasmanian leatherwood honey and raw thistle honey, whatever those were. Pumpkin butter, fig
and olive relish, white truffle mayonnaise, fire-roasted poblano peppers, champagne garlic mustard, cherry tomatoes in oil, and summer sausages—that was just one small shelf. She’d experimented with crazy combinations. Her favorite was pickles dipped in Sir Kensington’s Spiced Scooping Ketchup. It did taste great, but mostly she just liked saying it. She’d consumed so much sugar she was sure she’d start sweating frosting soon. Saltwater taffy, hot cashew brittle, marzipan fruit, key lime chocolate wafers, dark chocolate caramel apples. She liked to start her day with handmade vanilla marshmallows and coffee sweetened with rock candy swizzle sticks. For lunch she’d have stomachaches. And then, there was Lucy’s fridge. She had cheeses from nearly every country in the UN. Sharp, extra sharp, soft, semisoft, spreadable. She was surrounded by so much food these days that she was starting to forget what it felt like to be hungry. Not that she minded.

The weeks following the massacre at McKinley had drawn on every survival skill Lucy had learned in McKinley. She’d fled into a landscape where the government’s last push to eradicate the virus had been in high gear. Tremendous quantities of “the cure” had been manufactured and distributed to police and citizens all across the United States. Infected were getting cured left and right, if they didn’t get a bullet in the head first. Lucy had driven north from Pale Ridge until she’d run out of gas. She’d had no money,
no food, and she was the enemy. For a moment, she’d considered trying to steal fuel, but any human interaction meant the chance of death—if not for her, then for them. And killing Gates had been enough murder for this lifetime. At two a.m., with a handful of change, at the only pay phone in Rapid City, South Dakota, Lucy had faced down one of her greatest fears: finding out if her parents were alive or dead. She’d dialed her father’s cell phone number, praying that it wasn’t disconnected.

The call had gone through and she’d heard her father’s voice for the first time in two years.

Within twenty-four hours, Lucy had found herself hidden in a cargo truck, crossing the border into Canada. She was sealed inside a crate that was meant to contain artisanal patio bricks, but really had half a futon on the floor, a battery-powered reading lamp, a stack of magazines, a box of meal replacement bars, water, and a bedpan. Not the most fragrant of environments after the first twelve hours. After she was through with the magazines, and after she had lain or sat in every position possible in her four-by-four-foot box, she had been dying to stand, and on the cusp of losing her mind. The box had been jostled and battered around, and there had always been rumbling. Lucy had never known where she was.

When the top had finally popped off and she had seen her parents and grandparents in haz-mat suits, looking down at
her with tears in their eyes, she had felt like she was being born anew. Lucy remembered looking around at her grandparents’ lush estate and seeing the world as titanic. Endless. She’d thought the feeling would’ve passed in the days after, but it hadn’t. They’d set her up in the guesthouse, where they’d sealed all the windows and vents shut. They talked to her every day on the phone, standing just outside her window. Even now, weeks later, she still found the world breathtaking in its enormity, and Lucy was grateful to be a tiny part of it all, to be part of her family, to be one of the living.

South of the border, the US government touted victory. The claim was that there were no more infected. It was all over the news, with a public divided over the morality of how the job had been done. Canadian news coverage was more condemnatory, mainly because the virus hadn’t made it to Canada. The reports were always hard for Lucy to watch. They made her think of what had happened at McKinley, and how the kids had come spilling over the top of the farm wall, climbing the fence, running for their lives, and how she’d gunned it out of there. How she had left David behind. How she’d seen Ritchie while she was on the run, and he’d told her that Will had been killed.

All the food in the world, this safe house she lived in, and all the love her family could pile on her, none of it could heal the crack that ran through her heart now that Will was gone. She appreciated her family more than she could put
into words, but her sorrow couldn’t be pacified. None of her good fortune made it all right that Will’s life had stopped that day.

There was a knock at the kitchen door.

The door had a window panel in it, and there was David on the other side. She nearly fainted. He mimed the action of opening the door. He smiled behind the face shield of his mask. Lucy unlocked the door. This was crazy. No one in her family liked to come inside, none of them had. They were too afraid, but here came David in a gas mask, walking in like it was nothing. She swore the colors in the room grew richer and more luminous as soon as he’d entered. He still had that power over her, a gravitational pull that she couldn’t fight.

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

He hugged her right away, and it felt good to be touched again.

“You’re alive,” David said. He squeezed harder. “Thank God, you’re alive.”

“You too,” she said. It was the best response she could summon, her emotions were swarming on her.

They separated enough to look into each other’s eyes. She wanted to kiss him.

“I’m still infected,” she said.

“Yeah, your parents told me.”

“I really wanna make out.”

David laughed. He pinched her arm playfully as they separated, and then he bopped around the kitchen, checking the place out.

“So, how many bathrooms you got here? Is there more than one bedroom?”

“What are you, apartment hunting?”

“I was thinking about it.”

“What do you mean?”

David’s jovial manner grew more serious.

“I want to be around. To make sure you transition out and everything turns out fine. I already talked to your folks about it.”

“You mean stay here? In this house, in a gas mask all day and night?”

David shrugged. “Yeah.”

“It could be months.”

“I left you behind once, and you had to face McKinley alone. I can’t forgive myself for that.”

“You’re too hard on yourself,” she said.

He shook his head.

“I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re okay.”

“Now I’m really upset that we can’t kiss,” she said with a little laugh and a few tears.

He walked to her and took her hands in his.

“Will you give me a tour?” he said.

Lucy’s smile went away. She knew David hadn’t meant
to say his brother’s name, but hearing David say the word
will
made her blood go cold.

“I’m so sorry about Will,” she said.

David’s light and airy demeanor crumbled.

“He …,” David said, but couldn’t find the words. She saw a deep anguish in him that matched her own and far exceeded it. If she had a crack in her heart, David must have a chasm.

Lucy’s cell phone rang. It was her mom’s phone technically, but she’d been using it. Her mom was calling. It was pretty much always her mom calling. She walked into the living room, to the window that faced the main house, and saw her mother rushing up the sloped lawn. Her mom’s baggy linen outfit was fluttering in the wind, and she shook her phone in her outstretched hand. She was in such a hurry that she’d left the door hanging open in the big house behind her. Her mom never did that. Lucy answered the call as her mother ran.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

“Lucy, I don’t know how to tell you this,” her mom said as she made it to the window and put her fingers to the glass. There was a glob of blackberry jelly on her mom’s blouse.

“What? You’re scaring me,” Lucy said.

“It’s just—” Her mom’s mascara was smeared. She’d been crying. “I’m going to patch your uncle in.”

Uncle Phillip? Her uncle was a physician, and he’d come to give her a checkup a week ago to make sure her injuries were healing properly. They’d sworn that he was family
and she could trust him, but now she wondered if that was true.

There was a quiet click.

“Hello, Phillip, are you there?” her mom said.

“Yes, you got me,” Phillip said.

“Okay, Lucy’s on too. Can you tell her what you told me?”

There was a pause.

“You haven’t said anything?” Phillip said.

“I—couldn’t,” her mom said.

Phillip took a deep breath. It sounded like radio static when he blew it out.

“Well, all right. Hey, Lucy,” he said.

“Uh … hey, Uncle Phillip.”

“I’ll get to the point, kiddo. I ran your blood work,” Phillip continued, “and, honey, uh … you’re pregnant.”

Lucy nearly dropped the phone.

“What do you mean, I’m pregnant?”

“What?” David said, and walked over to her.

His eyes were full of hope.

“I …,” Lucy said.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” her mother said.

David grabbed her phone and pressed speakerphone.

“That’s not possible,” Lucy said at her phone with a hint of anger. “I told you—in confidence, Uncle Phillip”—she glanced at her mother through the window and cringed—“that I had a miscarriage.”

“I know you did,” her uncle said.

Lucy turned away from the window. She didn’t want to see what her mom was feeling.

“Well, I wasn’t lying about it, believe me,” she said.

“I don’t think you were,” Uncle Phillip said.

“Then what are you …”

“You were pregnant with twins.”

Joy and heartache swirled within Lucy. David hugged her and didn’t let go.

“I can’t believe it. I’m gonna be an uncle.” David said with wonder.