The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch Read Free Book Online

wall by the fire to dry. I huddled up as close as I could to the flames. It was amazing how much difference being warm made. I cleaned and loaded the rifle until the stars emerged and spread across the sky.
    It was quiet then, just the crackle of the fire and the soft ripple of the dwindling river below. The world felt enormous and as empty as a dry well. In my mind I ran through a picture show of campsites we had stayed in over the years: the mall in Virginia, the gas station in South Carolina. I finally settled on the cracked parking lot of a Kroger supermarket in Georgia. The last time we’d been there, years ago, daisies had begun to burst through the concrete. I imagined there werefields of them now. I saw myself unpacking our camp, laying out our bedrolls, and gathering wood for a fire while Dad fed Paolo and then got our dinner together, humming as he did it.
    I sat for a while in that fantasy until darkness began to seep into the picture around the edges and I felt low and cold. My clothes were mostly dry by then so I dressed and turned to Dad, his clothes in hand. When I saw him there, still and broken on that rock, it was like a wave hit me out of nowhere.
    Why did we have to help those people? You said nothing would change. You promised!
    I snapped my left hand closed, urging my fingers deep into the half-moons. A sharp thrill of pain shot up my arm and chased the thoughts away, clearing my head. Blood ran down my hand, but I didn’t care. The pain was a relief. It was easier.
    My head fell back against the rock and my eyes closed. I was exhausted but I wouldn’t let sleep come.
What now?
I thought. I had supplies. Dad seemed stable, but I couldn’t feed him or give him water. I looked up at the gorge wall, black against the gray night sky, and my heart thrummed against my chest.
    I have to get us out of here. But how?
    After I got Dad dressed again I reached behind me and drew his arm over my head and down across my chest, holding on to it tightly, nestling my head into the crook of his elbow. I sat that way for a long time, shivering, until my eyes closed and I slipped off into sleep before I could stop it.
    I don’t know how long I slept, but it seemed like only minutes before I snapped awake to a soft shuffling sound from above us. I closed my eyes, trying to listen past the crackling of the fire.
    Footsteps on the ridge above us.
    Men. Four, maybe five, creeping along the shore of the river downstream with one on the ridge. They were moving slowly and not talking.
    My hand fell to the stock of the rifle.
    Slavers.

SEVEN
    Of course. Grandpa had told me a hundred times. Fuel was incredibly scarce so people who had vehicles never went far from the central place where they stored it. Dad and I had wandered right into the slavers’ territory, stirred up a hornet’s nest, and didn’t even know it.
    Seeing no other choice, I left Dad for an outcropping of rock a few feet upstream. I was too exposed with him. From where I was, I had a good view down the gorge and, since the fire was still going, anyone coming from downstream would be distracted by it and not see me. I pulled my boots on and checked the rifle. One round in the chamber and six more in the magazine. Despite the years of attempted training by Grandpa, I knew I wasn’t a very good shot. I aimed the rifle downstream and waited, hoping that I could at least scare them off.
    The men in the gorge materialized out of the darkness. Three of them. Creeping shadows, sweeping their guns back and forth. My hands grew slick on the rifle’s stock. The cuts on my palm stung.
    The man in the middle stepped into the outer circle of our firelight. He knelt down next to my backpack and started to go through it, balancing his shotgun on his knee, finger on the trigger. He wasn’t one ofthe two from the plane. He was older, Dad’s age maybe. The two others stayed hidden in the shadows behind him. After the man went through my bag, he looked to his left and