The Infects Read online

  And then Swann was there.

  Smelling crisp, like an apple that had just been halved.

  They stood side by side at the top of a rise.

  Far below, Jack Oh was disentangling Idle and Billy, who’d fallen into a patch of poison oak. On purpose.

  “So, uh, what are you in for?” Nero asked.

  She yawned. “The fascinating small talk.”

  Good one. Next time, put her in a figure-four headlock. That’s what I used against Hulk Hogan to win the belt.

  Swann unzipped her jacket, flashing perfect clavicles and the astonishingly lickable dewy spot at the base of her neck.

  “Listen, can I ask you a question?”

  “Yes, I have a boyfriend.”

  “No. I wanted to ask about —”

  “Look, you think just because we’re standing here for five minutes I’m going to see what a sensitive, misunderstood guy you are and suddenly confide, like, ‘Oh, my mom’s a rich drunk and my stepdad does coke and I cut my thighs at night with a paring knife while reading dipshit vampire books,’ right before we lean in for the most special kiss of your mopey virgin life?”

  Crickets cricketed.

  Beetles scurried.

  Larvae hatched.

  The voice in your head remained silently awed.

  “That is seriously high-quality,” Nero finally said.

  “High-quality what?”

  “Cynicism. Think you can you front me a dime?”

  Swann laughed, chewing her fingernail.

  Below them, Bruce Leroy was trying to push Heavy D through the next crevasse. None of the boys helped, except Yeltsin, who kept saying, “You must toss stick of butter up trail as enticement, then he gets himself loose.”

  “Look, it’s a bad habit. I know. But it’s hard to break.”

  “What is?”

  Swann fluffed her bangs. “Operating in eff-off mode all the time. It drains the batteries.”

  “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “Boning the limo driver.”

  “Huh?”

  “What I’m in here for. You asked.”

  “Seriously?”

  “My father caught us in the carport, practicing with the clutch. I was finally getting the hang of reverse. Three days later, bam, pink jumpsuit.”

  Nero wiped his nose with an orange mitten. “That’s really kind of perfect, actually.”

  “Yeah.”

  Petal. Remember her? The reason you ran this steeplechase? Or are you just going to stand here flirting all afternoon?

  “Hey, can I ask you another question?”

  “Yes, I still have a boyfriend.”

  “No, I —”

  Bruce Leroy finally pried Heavy D loose. The rest of the clients trudged up the ridge. Swann stepped away and started accessorizing the waistband of her pack with tiny pinecones.

  “You want to watch it with Miss Purple, by the way. She’s not what you think.”

  “I don’t think anything about her.”

  Swann frowned. “Will you knock off the innocent routine? Eat me? I saw the whole thing in the van. Everyone did.”

  Nero shook his head. “No, she was . . . that was . . . I was actually trying to —”

  “You’ve got lousy taste, Fiddler.”

  “Who’s Fiddler?”

  “Nero, stupid. Like, what he did while Rome burned?”

  You got any clue what she’s talking about? I must have failed that class.

  “You two! Separate!” Jack Oh yelled, coming around the corner. He took Swann by the arm and pushed her ahead, taking any information about Petal with him.

  AN HOUR LATER, THEY CAME TO A SMALL clearing. A fire pit had already been dug; it was lined with stones and surrounded by worn logs. Branches furled at odd angles. Everything looked exhausted and leached of color. Half-burned garbage was strewn about, wrappers impaled in the dense scrub.

  “Congratulations, gentlemen. This is it,” Bruce Leroy announced.

  Idle and Billy threw down their packs and immediately lay in the dirt.

  Nero spread out his tarp.

  “Want to share?” Estrada asked, holding a tent. His eyes were flat, fixed. He looked mean, hair slicked down against his scalp, random whiskers and high cheekbones.

  That convict will cut your back as soon as breathe on you.

  “Okay,” Nero said.

  Estrada helped assemble the poles. Taking turns holding the sides, they staked each one firmly with rocks.

  You guys are buddies now, huh? Hey, that’s great. Next stop: marriage equality.

  Swann set up her own tent, quick and tight, on the far side of Jack Oh’s. War Pig set up lopsided poles, then tried to fix them by jamming them in even harder. Yeltsin and Tripper got theirs upright but argued about who got to sleep near the flap.

  “You are to sleep in the back, skinjob.”

  “Screw that,” Tripper said, tapping his head three times. “I need fresh air. I’m not sleeping deep while you cut gravy all night.”

  “And you are going to squeeze out the lavender? I do not think so. I am sleeping in front.”

  Tripper tried to kick Yeltsin in the balls, missed, and fell on his back. Jack Oh made Tripper share with Heavy D instead. That put Yeltsin in with Mr. Bator.

  “No! I do not share with the Showerbator!”

  “No way I’m sharing with Augustus Gloop!”

  “We have an extra tent,” Bruce Leroy said, helping Heavy D set it up. “You can’t fault a man for his size.”

  “Yes, you can,” Tripper said.

  “You do realize you’re a midget, correct?” Heavy D asked.

  Tripper tried to kick Heavy D in the balls, missed, and fell on his back.

  Estrada and Nero sat on a rock, watching.

  “This routine’s better than Jackass.”

  Nero chuckled, unable to shake the suspicion that Estrada wanted something.

  He does. Be sure of it.

  Or shake the feeling that he was being a tool for doubting that Estrada might just be friendly. Or shake the guilt from talking to him without admitting, “By the way, I’m also having a conversation with someone in my head.”

  Hey, forget the tent. Maybe you two should share a sleeping bag.

  “Can the Rock shut it with the rampant homophobia, already?”

  “You’re mumbling, son,” Estrada said.

  Nero blew into his hands. “I said, it’s freaking cold. Not like this in Mexico, I bet.”

  “Wouldn’t know, ese. I never been to Mexico. Born right there in San Fran.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I just thought —”

  Racist.

  “Bet you thought I killed a gang member too, huh? Like, in an initiation rite?”

  Nero started to deny it, then didn’t bother. “Pretty much, yeah.”

  Estrada pretended to wipe his blue tear away. “You one of them dudes believes what every convict tells you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why you holding out on me?”

  “You mean about what I did to get sent here?”

  Bawk bawk ba-gawk. Tell him about the Chickocaust. Tell him about Poultry Bed Death.

  “No disrespect, homes, but I don’t really give two shits.”

  “Then what?”

  “What you and chula blondie were talking about, kid! I saw you together. Would have paid serious Benjamins to be up on that rise instead of your pale ass. No offense.”

  “Who you calling pale, ese? I was born in Tijuana.”

  Estrada laughed, holding out his hand for a bump. “You all right, Fiddler. Gimme some bones.”

  They cracked knuckles. Not too soft, not too hard, with just the right clang. It was supposed to hurt a little.

  Bruce Leroy walked to the edge of the clearing.

  “Lend me your ears, gentlemen. But mostly your arms.”

  “Huh?”

  “C’mon, there’s laboring to be done.”

  They followed him into the scrub to help gather wood. Most of
it was rotting or full of worms and had to be thrown back. Nero found a few usable pieces and snapped them under his boot.

  “Counselor Bruce?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What was up with that fleece?”

  Bruce Leroy snapped a huge branch over his knee, but it didn’t break. It just bent, and then brown sap oozed out. He flung it away in disgust.

  “What fleece?”

  “The one you found. On the trail. That was . . . stained?”

  Bruce Leroy loaded a few logs into Estrada’s arms.

  “What you think, young bucks? We got enough wood yet?”

  He turned and walked back to the clearing. They dumped the kindling, and then Jack Oh built a fire. The other boys immediately gathered around, warming respective hands and feet and asses as the sun went down.

  “So can we eat now?” Heavy D asked. “Puh-lease?”

  “You sure can,” Jack Oh said, sliding the pack with the Fresh Bukket behind his tent. “But whiners don’t get rewards. And you all whined the entire way up. That was the rules, and the rules have been broke. So break out your MREs.”

  “No way. We earned that shit, Ponytail.”

  “I want my Chixx Nuggets, man. Like right now.”

  Bruce Leroy stepped forward, making calming motions. “You sure that’s the way you want to handle this, Counselor?”

  Jack Oh fake-coughed, “Convicts learn a lesson.”

  Tripper spun around. “But you promised.”

  Jack Oh coughed again: “Comes around goes around.”

  “Okay, okay,” Bruce Leroy said. “That’s enough of that. Listen here, y’all, we’ll com-pro-mise, meaning disparate parties coming together.”

  “You come together.” Yeltsin said. “No doubt is not the first time of your Brokeback mingling.”

  “How about in the morning —”

  “Fuck a morning,” War Pig said, kicking over the water jug. He hurled his pack out into the darkness, threw his orange hat into the fire, and then rammed into his already leaning tent.

  “Oh, well,” Swann said. “I prefer the South Beach diet, but I guess this will work too.” She gave Jack Oh the finger and then zipped her tent shut.

  The other boys slowly followed, grumbling under their breath, “pony dick, starving dick, food dick, cowboy dick, rip-off dick, kill-him dick, nuggets dick, promise dick, jerk-it dick, mayobake dick, dickhead dick.”

  Within an hour, most of them fell asleep listening to the sounds of Styrofoam creaking, wax paper being unwrapped, and cold gravy being poured as the smell of fry grease settled on the forest floor.

  “Six more days,” Estrada whispered in their tent as he tore open a pot-roast-and-gravy MRE.

  Nero looked at his pork chops ’n’ applesauce before throwing it to the side.

  “It can’t be that bad.”

  “I don’t eat meat.”

  Estrada peered over a spoonful of brackish goop. “You have got to be shitting me.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not, man? Meat tastes sooo good.”

  Nero shrugged. “Childhood trauma, I guess.”

  “What-hood what?”

  “It’s not, like, political. I don’t think I’m saving the world or whatever.”

  “Then why get all Gandhi when you could be downing a plate of chorizo?”

  “I guess it just freaks me out to eat anything with a face.”

  Estrada thought about it for a while. “Okay, I can dig that. Good thing, though, huh?”

  “Good thing what?”

  “Pussy don’t have a face.”

  They both laughed into their sleeping bags, while in the distance, someone began to snore.

  In the farther distance, someone cut lavender.

  “Hey, I forgot to ask,” Nero said. “When we were talking before, how did you know she called me Fiddler?”

  “Who called you who?”

  “Swann. Fiddler.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “What, so that was just a coincidence?”

  Estrada sighed. “You’re Nero, okay? What else does Nero do but sit on his ass and play violin all day while everything around him burns?”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s history, dude. Read up. The Romans? We doomed to repeat them. Or at least resemble them.”

  Around the clearing, the clients hunkered deep in their bags.

  Listening to the crackle of fire and the crackle of wrappers.

  As Bruce Leroy and Counselor Jack Oh’s low voices rumbled.

  It was almost impossible to tell if they were arguing or laughing.

  NERO OPENED HIS EYES. THE MOON WAS high, skirted by a ring of gloom. Outside the tent was a crinkling noise, like foil being unwrapped. He eased up the flap and peered out, his money on a raccoon.

  Or Heavy D.

  But it wasn’t either.

  There was a bare calf, a tight thigh, sheer hotness in pink.

  Swann crouched over the garbage pile, jumpsuit top barely covering her panties.

  Nero’s eyes bulged. Audibly.

  She spun around, gnawing a chicken bone.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Oh, that’s something, all right.

  Swann gathered a pouch of discards into her top. Moonlight reflected off her navel.

  “You want some?”

  Want some what?

  “No.”

  She held out half a chewed breast. “Come here. Have a bite.”

  “No.”

  Her lip curled upward. “You scared to get in trouble?”

  Yes.

  “No.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  It’s perfectly natural.

  “There is no problem.”

  “There’s not?”

  “I, uh . . . just can’t stand up right now.”

  “How come?”

  Smuggling a crowbar in your jumpsuit?

  “My foot’s asleep.”

  Swann laughed. “Want me to rub it?”

  “No!”

  “No?”

  “I also . . . just don’t like Fresh Bukket.”

  “Who doesn’t like Fresh Bukket?”

  “Me.”

  “Too bad for you.”

  Swann bit off another chunk of meat, then stuck the bone entirely in her mouth and sucked off the fat.

  Nero wanted to drive a tent stake into his skull.

  She tossed the bone into the fire, belched, pulled gristle from between her teeth, flicked it at him, and then slipped into her tent.

  You, my friend, are a worthless turd.

  Nero rolled over and lay on his back.

  And thought.

  About varicose veins. And moldy cottage cheese. And waiting in line at the vacuum-repair store.

  Which helped a little.

  But even so, it took, seriously, almost forever to fall back asleep.

  At dawn, light out but just barely, the air smelled like cold MREs and unbrushed teeth. Estrada was snoring quietly, his orange sleeping bag pulled over his face. There was frost on the lip of the tent. It was even colder than the day before.

  There was also a smacking noise.

  Nero’s hand began to throb, all along the gash.

  The stitches were red and raw and pulsed.

  The smacking got louder.

  It had to be Heavy D for sure, already up and into the powdered eggs. Nero pulled on his boots and stepped outside. The clearing was covered with frost, a fog clinging to the tree line.

  It wasn’t Heavy D making the noise.

  Swann either.

  In fact, no one else was up except the counselors, their tents collapsed beneath them.

  Bruce Leroy was lying on top of orange nylon. Jack Oh was crouched, leaning over him.

  Slip out the back, Jack.

  “Huh?”

  Make a new plan, Stan.

  “What?”

  Hop on the bus, Gus.

  Nero took a step closer.

&n
bsp; “Everything okay?”

  Jack Oh’s skin was gray and pale, his ponytail unfurled wildly. There was a terrible smell coming off of him.

  “Um . . . Counselor?”

  Jack Oh looked up and grinned. His knife jutted out of the meat of his shoulder, sunk to the handle. It didn’t seem to be bothering him much.

  “You need some help?”

  Jack Oh didn’t answer. His teeth were red and wet, his eyes yellow and pinned. He was stubbornly chewing something, probably a wad of Skoal.

  Right?

  Nero took a step closer. Didn’t want to, but had to.

  Had to see.

  If it was.

  Skoal.

  Another step.

  Then another.

  Nope.

  Wasn’t tobacco at all.

  Matter of fact, Counselor Jack Oh was eating chunks of Counselor Bruce Leroy.

  Okay, that’s gross.

  Nero moaned. And then nearly pissed himself.

  Very, very nearly.

  Jack Oh stared, no recognition in his eyes, his chin like a paintbrush dipped in red, two of Bruce Leroy’s fingernails stuck deep into his cheek.

  Nero moved a bit to his left, and Jack Oh growled a warning.

  Try tossing him a Milk-Bone.

  Nero moved to his right.

  This time Jack Oh didn’t growl.

  Instead, he swiveled and pounced.

  Nero dove to the side, and Jack Oh went right over him, collapsing War Pig’s tent.

  “Hey, get off, assclown.”

  Jack Oh flailed in the orange nylon, his cowboy boots kicking wildly. The other boys crawled into the clearing. War Pig saw Nero standing there and jumped up, red hair highlighted by the rising sun.

  “I swear, man, I am seriously about to kick your —”

  Nero pointed to Bruce Leroy. Lying on his tent like a crime scene. Missing pieces. Missing parts.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Behind you!”

  Jack Oh leaped again. He landed on War Pig’s back and pulled him to the ground, teeth bared and snapping. War Pig jammed his forearm into Jack Oh’s neck, just managing to push his mouth away. It banged open and shut, razors on springs.

  You just gonna watch, Fiddler? Maybe place a few bets this time?

  Hands shaking, Nero grabbed a log from the fire pit and charged. Estrada, right behind him, grabbed a tent stake. Idle and Billy had iron skillets. They began to beat Jack Oh as War Pig managed to work himself free.