Bertie didn’t miss a beat from his cage. “They’re coming for me! I told ya, didn’t I? Ya bastards. Didn’t I say? They’re coming for me!”
Will shared a nervous look with David.
There was a rush to the wall from all over the farm. Parents wove through the labyrinth of single-lane paths that cut around the crops and gardens. Those closest to the wall were quick to get up it, with weapons ready. Jason Howard was already at Mr. Miller’s side. He climbed to the metal bridge that passed over the gate and was also a checkpoint for interaction with anyone outside. Sam’s dad began to talk to someone unseen below, on the other side of the wall.
David and Will passed the hog pen, and David snatched up a shovel that was leaning against the fence. He choked up tight on the tool, not quite sure what he was ready for, but ready nonetheless. Sam’s dad turned back to face the farm.
“Open the gate.”
David loosened up on the shovel. The parents nearest the gate unfastened the chain that was looped through its giant iron handles. They pulled the doors open. A black minivan idled in the drive. Its paint was flecked with white dings, and an ugly smash had pushed the custom grille guard up on one side, giving it a crooked smile. Five wide metal slats ran across the windshield and side windows like protective venetian blinds.
With a rev, the van cruised in. The parents shut the door behind it. The van stopped, the driver-side door swung open, and a giant figure stepped out. The van seemed to sigh at the relief of no longer carrying its tremendous driver. The guy lifted a thick hand and gave David and Will a wave.
“Is that …?” Will said.
Gonzalo. The ax-wielding Loner who could scare a Varsity with a sneer. He was even bigger than he used to be. He towered over the van, his shoulders level with its roof. David hadn’t seen him in months. His hair was still a frizzy mop that hid his face, but it was shorter. He’d cut off the white.
David stabbed the shovel into the ground, and the brothers hurried to their old friend.
“Big man! Where you been?” David said.
“Up north,” Gonzalo said.
“Did you find her?” David said.
Gonzalo shook his head, jutting his jaw in disappointment.
“Find who?” Will said. “Hold on, you two have seen each other since McKinley?”
It was a long story, and from a period that David had been avoiding telling Will about. A memory he wanted to forget. After he’d broken out of McKinley and escaped the hunters, he’d decided to head east, away from the Rockies, hoping that if he crossed the state line, he might be back in civilization again, and maybe there he could find someone sane who could help him help McKinley. Instead, what he found was more danger and more starvation.
After three weeks, he was living under a railroad bridge with a broken ankle, surviving on fish from a polluted stream and hiding out from a group of infected whom he’d watched torture and kill a hunter. He’d thought of Lucy nearly constantly and wished she were there to nurture and encourage him. He’d been so sure he’d die out there but Gonzalo had found him and taken him away. Gonzalo had been spending his time scouring the infected zone by himself, searching for his girlfriend, Sasha. He told David about what the parents were doing, and helped him get back to the school so he could join the effort.
That was the last time he’d talked to Gonzalo. Seeing him again, now, with Will, was a surprise treat, especially on a campus populated by fiftysomethings.
The three of them sat at a circular beige table under the blue dining tent. Sam’s dad had just left them after inquiring about what Gonzalo had seen outside. He’d told Sam’s dad “nothing much” but that wasn’t what he was telling them now.
“There’s a cure,” Gonzalo said. He was chewing on a piece of venison jerky from the farm stock.
“What?” Will said. He gaped at Gonzalo. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Gonzalo shrugged. “Figured you’d want to know first. You can tell who needs to know.”
“So …,” David said. “They’re handing this cure out or what?”
“I don’t know the details, man. All I know is that people are saying that there is one. I was up in Nebraska. Tracked Sasha there, only it wasn’t her. Dead ringer, though.”
The corners of Gonzalo’s mouth dipped. It was the only hint of disappointment he let on.
“This girl and the crew she was with were headed to Minnesota. Some famous research place there. A hospital or something in Rochester. They heard they had a cure for the virus—”
“They heard,” David clarified.
Gonzalo finished his jerky and wiped his massive hands. “Yeah, heard. But it sounds pretty legit to me.”
“You didn’t go see for yourself?” Will said.
Gonzalo shook his head. “My girl’s still out there, Willie. I gotta backtrack my trail until I catch her scent again. When I find her, then we’ll go for the cure.”
The big guy cleared his throat. David could have sworn he heard his voice crack with emotion.
“But nothing’s distracting me till she’s with me again. That’s all I care about. David knows what I’m talking about.”
Will gave David a piercing look. His face was tensed by a hint of that old jealousy David remembered from when Lucy had been in their everyday life. It had nearly torn them apart back in McKinley. And David wasn’t about to let that happen again. Since Will had gotten out, things between David and his brother had been better than they’d ever been. The last thing he wanted was for some drivel he’d said about Lucy after his breakdown in the infected zone to ruin things. He didn’t even know if he still felt that way about Lucy anymore, anyway.
“You’ll find her. I know it,” David said.
“Yeah, and when you do, we’ll have the cure here, waiting for her,” Will said.
David nodded along for Gonzalo’s benefit, but Will seemed to sense that David was just humoring them.
“I’m serious,” Will said to David. “We should go to Minnesota.”
David glanced over at his brother.
“Uh, I don’t know. That’s pretty far to go on just a rumor. Half the trip, maybe more, is through the infected zone.”
“So?”
“Well, it’s dangerous,” David said.
“It’s dangerous here. It’s dangerous everywhere. My first hour on the farm nearly got me blown up.”