The Infects Read online

  Just as the van finished gassing up and moved away from the pump with a chirp.

  Which gave Nero an excellent view of the restrooms and the highway ramp.

  Unbelievable.

  Nero Sole was a convict.

  Petal Gazes was a convict.

  Because of him.

  And he couldn’t be entirely sure, but she seemed to be mouthing the words I’m sorry.

  BRUCE LEROY AND JACK OH STOOD OUTSIDE the boys’ van with the other two counselors: Exene, a tall brunette, and Velma, a smaller blonde with thick glasses.

  The Fresh Bukket bags steamed at their feet.

  Nero tore weather stripping away from his window and pressed his ear against the glass. He was barely able to make out the conversation. Mr. Bator asked if everyone could please be quiet. They all kept talking. Estrada told Tripper to shut the fuck up, and he did. So did everyone else.

  “We can’t handle her anymore,” Velma was saying. “She has either majorly pissed off or made an outright enemy of every girl in there.”

  “What’s her name?” Bruce Leroy asked.

  “Portia Rebozzo. Trek Handle Swann.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Exactly. We keep her, there’s going to be a real problem.”

  “It’s not so much Swann as the rest,” Exene said, a beer pooch showing through her tight shirt. “No way we even make it to the trail before some of them jump her.”

  “Big deal,” Jack Oh said, shaking his hair free. He pulled it tight and then twisted a new band around it. “Let them go at it for a bit. Sounds like she deserves a taste.”

  “Yeah, normally that’s fine. But —”

  “But what?”

  “But that girl is Bobo Rebozzo’s daughter.”

  Bam!

  “Who?” Jack Oh asked.

  “You really are new, aren’t you?” Velma said.

  “Bobo Rebozzo owns practically everything in the valley,” Exene explained. “This station. Fresh Bukket. Not to mention, um, Inward Trek?”

  “What are they saying?” War Pig whispered.

  “They’re trying to trade us a girl,” Nero said.

  There was cheering and a repeated slapping of five.

  “Be quiet,” Estrada hissed.

  The boys fell silent again.

  “You have to take her,” Exene was saying. “That princess goes home with even a mark on her, we’re all screwed. Ass-hats at base camp overbooked us hard. We got fourteen in a van outfitted for ten. You guys only have nine total.”

  “But why did this Rebozzo send his kid to us?” Jack Oh asked as a random dad bumped into him. The guy’s eyes were unfocused. His gums looked too red. Jack Oh shoved him away. The guy growled, dropping half a Baster Pastry, and just kept walking.

  Velma spun the leather bracelet on her wrist. “Rich girls. You know how it is. Teach her a lesson. Live among the lower castes.”

  Exene nodded. “Talk to her for ten minutes and you’ll be surprised he didn’t send her to Devil’s Island.”

  “Feels wrong,” Bruce Leroy said, eyeing the growler dad, who was now standing in the middle of the lot, staring at the sun. “Especially now. There’s something funky in the air.”

  “C’mon, you don’t have a hard case in the bunch,” Velma said. “I saw their sheets. That’s one of the softest crews we’ve ever taken up here.”

  “What did she just say?” War Pig demanded, rolling his thick neck.

  “What a bunch of scary badasses we are,” Nero said, wondering if Velma had read his file first: Keep subject fifty yards away from poultry at all times.

  Bruce Leroy looked over and considered his clients through the window: Nero rubbing his temples, eyes shut. Heavy D probing his nose, three knuckles deep. Tripper idly pinching half-moons into his cheek.

  “Yeah, it’s hardly The Dirty Dozen, but adding a girl . . .”

  “Pretty please?” Exene said. “Sugar on top? Sugar on the sides? Sugar rubbed all around where it feels good?”

  Velma rolled her eyes.

  Jack Oh gulped.

  A man chased a woman past the pumps. She ran, laughing. Or maybe crying.

  “Okay. Fine. But it’s inopportune. That’s in-opp-or-tune, meaning y’all owe us a big one.”

  “A really big one,” Jack Oh said, pulling his jeans even tighter.

  “Gross,” Velma said.

  Exene blew them both kisses. Jack Oh caught his and put it in his front pocket. Velma climbed onto the top of the van and lowered a backpack and some gear. There was a big commotion in front of Fresh Bukket, pushing and shoving. Someone’s arm bled. A teenager in a fry cook’s outfit stood there and moaned. The manager came out and waved the whole group away from the restaurant and threatened to call the cops.

  “This everything?” Bruce Leroy asked.

  Velma got in and revved the engine. “That’s it.”

  “Wait, what about the paperwork?”

  “Suckers!” Exene called as the girls’ van pulled away, horn beeping shave and a haircut. Swann was left standing in a cloud of exhaust. She was tall and model-thin, with a high forehead and straight blond hair that fell to the center of her back. Her smirk was a dare. Her eyes were a smirk. She held the pink jumpsuit cinched tightly around her waist like a halter top, so they could see her belly button, which was nestled along a plane of tight, flat stomach.

  Somehow she’d cut the jumper in half and made separates.

  “How’d you do that?” Jack Oh asked.

  “Couture is a state of mind.”

  Bruce Leroy cleared his throat. “I realize this . . . situation is less than ideal, but if everyone stays cool, we’ll get through it okay.”

  “No, we won’t,” Swann said, pulling a lollipop from her sock. “This has disaster written all over it.”

  “Candy is contraband,” Jack Oh said. “Not allowed.”

  Swann smiled, stuck the lollipop in her mouth, and swirled it around. The dull orb became bright red. She pointed it at him. “You guys are on crack, agreeing to take me. And not the good kind.”

  Bruce Leroy picked up Swann’s bag and put it in the hold, then adjusted her ankle cuff.

  “I know who your father is,” he said in a low voice.

  “So do I,” she answered in a lower one.

  “That means you know the drill, right?”

  “That means I am the drill.”

  Jack Oh took her elbow and walked her to the door. “You sit up front. No fraternizing with the boys.”

  “I don’t fraternize with boys. Show me a man around here, we’ll talk.”

  “This is such a bad idea,” Jack Oh said, thumbing his inseam.

  “Yeah, well, Ponytail, I’m not so happy about it either,” Swann said, and then climbed on board.

  IT WAS ANOTHER HOUR WINDING THROUGH the approaches. The van’s engine loudly girded against the ascent. As they rose almost straight up, the sun began to fade, snow now visible along the craggy peaks. Sweat turned to frost, the air thin and crisp. Swann had been given the front seat, forcing Idle and Billy to sit in the aisle, chained to the gate. Ten minutes after Jack Oh’s warning about appropriate behavior around a female client, Swann planted her boot in Billy’s sac when he pretended to touch her leg by accident.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, braiding her hair into pigtails. “Did that hurt?”

  Billy moaned, curled up, air whistling through his braces.

  “Try rubbing it clockwise.”

  Billy moaned some more.

  “Kick me too,” Idle said, spreading his legs. “Please?”

  “Shut up,” War Pig said. “Have some respect.”

  “My hero,” Swann said, pretending to gag.

  “She’s mean,” Mr. Bator whispered.

  “It’s a curse to be pretty,” Nero said, sucking in his cheeks. Mr. Bator just stared, considering the merit in it.

  Tough crowd.

  They came around a corner and almost drove into the scene of an accident. Two cars on the side of th
e gravel road had somehow managed to crash head-on; a cooler full of ice and food was strewn in the dirt. The drivers both seemed dazed, drooling, unconcerned with their injuries. In the long grass, one man was chasing another, his arms outstretched.

  “Aren’t we going to stop?” Swann asked.

  “People need to solve their own problems,” Jack Oh said.

  “I didn’t mean to help,” Swann said. “I just thought there might be something good in that cooler.”

  Heavy D burst out laughing, a falsetto cackle. His yellow perm shook with mirth.

  Yeltsin leaned forward into Swann’s seat. “Hello. I am named Yeltsin. And my junk, he is named Trotsky.”

  Swann yawned. “Trotsky was murdered in Mexico City. In fact, they cut off his head.”

  Everyone inhaled as one.

  Yeltsin began to perspire under his glasses. “That I did not know.”

  “Karma’s a bitch. Also, namewise on your penis? I figure maybe you should switch to Ted. Or Ken. Something . . . shorter.”

  Billy giggled, still rubbing himself.

  Yeltsin cleared his throat and raised his voice: “Of less import is disputed historical precedent. This Trotsky, my Trotsky, has laid contentedly between the ass cheeks of many fine American females such as yourself.”

  “No kidding?”

  “Yes. And, further, this is service I am prepared to offer you. Of course, free of charge.”

  The van was silent.

  Full seconds ticked away without comment. The engine thrummed through the floorboards.

  “Okay,” Swann finally said.

  “Okay?”

  “But you’re going to have to show me first.”

  Yeltsin shifted position, his grin evaporating. “What, here? Now?”

  “Yes, here. Yes, now.”

  “You heard her,” War Pig said.

  “Yeah, produce the goods, big talker,” Tripper said.

  Yeltsin faked a laugh and looked at the other boys as the van went around a tight curve. Tires spun, grappling for purchase. Everyone hung on, except Swann, who seemed to have preternatural balance. She half stood, as far as the ankle cuff would let her, like the captain in the prow of a ship.

  Tripper knelt in front of her and unzipped his jumpsuit. “I want to ink your name right here.” He pointed to a blank stretch of skin just above his nipple, between Godzilla playing bass, a cup of coffee, the Germs circle, a lawn mower, the Black Flag flag, a crate of grenades, the Flipper fish, a jar of varnish, some H. R. Giger eggs, a quote from Atlas Shrugged, dead Elvis, robot Elvis, Han shooting Greedo, various caliber bullets, and naked Tawnii Täme.

  “Why, I’d be honored,” Swann said in a southern accent, touching the end of his nose with her lollipop.

  The van skidded to a halt at a fork in the road. A big wooden sign had a map carved into it, showing the two main trails up the side of the mountain.

  “Exene and the girls got Overlook Pass this time,” Bruce Leroy said, pointing to the right. “That way is us.”

  “That way’s you, maybe,” Jack Oh said, turning the wheel. The van rumbled up the final mile of dirt road and parked under the sentinel of an enormous dead oak. The trees around it were black and bare of leaves. Some were rotted, beetles clicking and snapping as their heads poked though the bark. Others leaned listlessly as if they’d smoked their last cigarettes with too many hours left before the bar opened again. Buried half in a stand of pines was an abandoned SUV. Jack Oh turned off the lights and locked the doors while Bruce Leroy uncuffed the client’s legs in pairs.

  Everyone was issued a backpack and hiking boots while the Fresh Bukket bags were stowed.

  “You will march in single file,” Jack Oh said, hands on narrow hips and lip distended with chaw. His squint was flat and hard. “No one leaves the trail. No one sprints ahead; no one lags behind. And no one talks to the girl.”

  “The woman,” Swann said.

  “No one talks to her. As far as food, when we get to base camp, you will each get the same meal. Anyone who bitches about this arrangement or drags ass or talks to her isn’t getting squat to eat. Am I clear?”

  “It’ll be cold by then,” Heavy D said.

  “I will bet all is cold now,” Yeltsin said.

  “Listen up,” Bruce Leroy said, going for a smile and not really getting it. He looked worried, repeatedly glancing over his shoulder. “This hike has power. I’ve seen the miles be trans-form-a-tive, meaning they can turn bad into good. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth having ever is.”

  “What about an orgasm?” Swann asked.

  Bruce Leroy pushed his glasses up his nose. “In this world there’s two ways to handle your business: the right way and the shortcut. Ask a hundred men in the penitentiary; ninety-nine of them thought they saw a quicker route. So, gentlemen, which path are y’all gonna take today?”

  “The short one,” Idle said.

  “The even shorter one than that,” Billy said.

  “Can we, perhaps, complete this hike online?” Yeltsin asked.

  Estrada shouldered his gear and stood next to Nero. His eyes looked angry, but his voice was calm and low. “Can you believe it?”

  “What?”

  “The girl.”

  All Nero could think of was Petal driving away in the other van.

  “Who, Swann?”

  Estrada laughed. “No, Jenny from the block. Yeah, man, Swann. One minute it’s a rolling sausage fest, and then suddenly we toting around the hottest chula I seen in forever.”

  You keep him talking; I’ll go look up chula in the dictionary.

  Bruce Leroy opened the equipment shell on the roof and handed each pair of boys a tent. Then he gave them sleeping bags, cookware, hiking boots, freeze-dried MREs (meals ready to eat), full water bottles, iodine tablets, orange survival jackets, orange hats, and orange mittens. INWARD TREK was stenciled with black paint on every item.

  “Who wears orange?” War Pig said, yanking the pom-pom off his hat. “We look like a handful of dicks.”

  “All clients got to gear up,” Bruce Leroy said, eyeing the horizon. The clouds were thin, the sun a distant point of gray. “Gonna be cold tonight.”

  Swann went first, playing an imaginary flute. Estrada sniffed the air deeply as she passed. Nero and Bruce Leroy went second, following Swann past a sign that said FABRIZIO T. REBOZZO MEMORIAL TRAIL, into the first stand of pines. Jack Oh took up the rear.

  “Jack Oh’s taking it up the rear,” Tripper said.

  “C’mon, y’all,” Bruce Leroy said, clapping his hands. “Time to man up.”

  “Actually, I believe it is time to man down.”

  “I’m only seventeen. I won’t be a man for another five months.”

  They humped along the trail until it came to a series of natural stone steps. With all the gear, it was a full-on ascent.

  “Is this where we line up for the funicular?”

  “What’s a funicular?”

  “Like a gondola.”

  “What’s a gondola?”

  “Like a douche bucket on a string.”

  “Oh. Why we wanna line up for that?”

  Mr. Bator wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Can’t we just, like, camp here?”

  When no one answered, he peeked up the trail and added, “Because I have a really bad feeling about this.”

  THEY SPENT THE AFTERNOON CROSSING creeks, stepping over mossy rocks, and taking short breaks between inclines. The woods were unusually dark. The trees seemed too close, as if they hadn’t had the sense to give each other space. A thick layer of dead leaves gave off a rotting stench, muffled voices and breath and feet. Nothing seemed to move in the scrub. No happy birds, no angry birds. No birds at all. Just an insectoid buzz that seemed to come from everywhere at once, tiny things digging in against the cold.

  Or something even worse.

  “Where’s all the animals, yo?”

  “Yeah, where’s Shrek?”

  Yeltsin picked a piece of food from between his
teeth and then wiped it on Mr. Bator’s neck. “Shrek is not an animal, shitdips.”

  “Then what is he?”

  “Um, I believe is called a cartoon?”

  Swann kept a steady pace, always twenty yards in front of the group, a pair of braids flitting between mealy redwoods.

  “I’m tired,” said Mr. Bator.

  “Me too,” said Heavy D.

  “Can’t do the climb, don’t do the crime,” said Jack Oh.

  Eventually, Heavy D and Mr. Bator began to lag behind. Bruce Leroy alternated between towing them by their chest straps and pointing out the Latin names for different trees and flowers.

  “Great. Tree names in Chinese.”

  “That’s not Chinese, dick.”

  “How you know what Chinese dick is?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Bet you know what it tastes like, though.”

  Swann laughed. It echoed off the trees as she disappeared around the next bend. Sun backlit the mountain, light spearing through the branches like it’d been Photoshopped. The air hardened, condensed. A predusk gloom drew the clients out of focus, shadows skeletal, a religious procession on the way to a shrine that didn’t exist.

  “Hold up,” Bruce Leroy said, reaching between a pair of shrubs. He rooted around and yanked on something until it finally came free.

  It was a fleece.

  A woman’s, brand-new.

  Torn.

  Bruce Leroy folded the jacket and stuck it in his pack, but not before Nero noticed it was spattered.

  Brownish red.

  “Um, Counselor?”

  “Not now,” Bruce Leroy said, and then took Jack Oh aside.

  “Counselor,” Nero insisted, “the jacket? I mean, did you see the —?”

  “I said not now, son.”

  Everyone lurched forward, moaning. They spread out almost immediately, Swann in the lead as usual. Tripper fell behind, nylon chuffing between his short legs. Estrada stopped to help Mr. Bator. Both counselors argued with Idle and Billy, who locked arms and refused to move.

  Petal, find out what supermodel knows about Petal!

  Nero doubled his pace trying to catch up.

  Swann held branches as if to help but then let go so they snapped in his face before speeding ahead again, a pink triangle disappearing like a deer’s tail. After a mile, Nero had a welt on his forehead and two scratches across his cheeks. He threw down his hat and gave up, sweating into the hard pack.