“It’s okay, man. I’ll keep my distance.”
Greer kneeled down by an old tree stump and started petting the dogs. I gauged the space between us. It was something I’d gotten pretty good at over the last few months. He was five feet away, maybe six. The virus—technically, it was called Lassiter’s Viral Amnesia, but most of us just called it Lassiter’s—worked like an especially contagious strain of the flu, and you caught it the same way. Once you did, you had maybe ten hours before it took effect. You know how if you put a really big magnet against a computer’s hard drive it’ll delete everything on it? Well Lassiter’s does the same thing, only to people. Who you are, where you’re from, your family, your friends, your whole history—wiped out. Anyway. Like I said, it spreads like the flu. Even without any protection, staying four or five feet away from someone who was infected was generally considered safe. But I hadn’t stayed uninfected as long as I had by taking chances. I took a last breath of the woodsy air, then pulled my mask down over my mouth and nose, cinching the rubber straps tight to make sure I had a good seal. The air that made it through the charcoal filters tasted like hot rubber and sweat. I put on my gloves and started gathering up the branches I’d dropped.
“Did I ever tell you I’m pretty sure I was a professional golfer before the outbreak?” Greer was sitting at the edge of the clearing now, a blade of grass stuck between his teeth.
“Nope,” I said. “Don’t think you mentioned that.”
Luckily, Gonzalez had been able to score me one of the newer masks, so I didn’t sound like Darth Vader with a mouth full of cotton balls when I talked.
“Oh yeah,” Greer said. “Isaac found this old set of clubs in the supply shed. All we had for a ball was a walnut, but—man, when I hit that thing? It just felt right, you know? Like I’ve been doing it my whole life. Do pro golfers make good money?”
“Yeah, but they have to wear weird pants. I thought you were getting the kids ready to go on the supply run.”
Greer picked up an acorn and chucked it into the woods. “Yeah, but I had to get out of there. Breakfast time? Those kids turn into a bunch of piranhas. I try to tell them that I’m, like, their savior. That we both are. That if it wasn’t for us, they’d all be fending off the gropers in that Guard shelter in town.”
“Please tell me you don’t let Benny and DeShaun hear you say things like that.”
He waved me off. “Ah, they’re fine. All I’m saying is you’d think after all we’ve done for them, I’d rate an extra helping of reconstituted powdered egg product in the morning.”
“World’s not a fair place, I guess.”
“Amen, brother. A-men. But don’t worry. Your old buddy Greer hasn’t forgotten you. Despite being weak with hunger, I managed to score you some grub before I left.”
He pulled something out of the pocket of his sweatshirt and pitched it to me. Two biscuits wrapped up in a red bandanna. They were craggy and golden brown. I tossed them back and returned to my work.
“Nah, you go ahead.”
“Dude, these are Tomiko’s biscuits we’re talking about here. If the gods had biscuits, they would be these very biscuits. What? Are you sick?”
“Not hungry.”
“You ate already?”
“Yep.”
“Are you lying to me?”
Those piranhas Greer was talking about? They were this group of infected kids who had been orphaned by the outbreak. Usually the only choice for kids like that was to stay in this crappy shelter the Guard built, but Greer hated the place so much he grabbed a bunch of them and brought them up to Lucy’s Promise instead. Their time together had turned him into a total mother hen. Usually all it took to make him back off was a good hard glare. I gave him one, and he threw up his hands in surrender.
“Hey, it’s your loss. I’ll just have to eat them myself.” He slipped the bundle back into his pocket. “So what’s going on, anyway? You starting up the Farmer Cardinal project?”
“Gathering branches to make the fence.”
Greer dug around in the leaves and presented a branch the size of his pinkie.
“Little bigger than that.”
He jumped to his feet. “Good thing I also used to be an expert finder of branches! Come on, fellas!”
The dogs dashed along beside us as we went tromping through the woods.
“So, for real,” I said. “How’s everybody doing this morning?”
He tossed aside a half-rotten log. “Fine. It’s the usual chaos. You stole my hairbrush. That’s my shirt. You’re stupid. No you’re stupid!”
“You make sure everyone took their meds?”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “Like I’d go anywhere with those kids if half of them weren’t hopped up on happy pills.”
“Oh, hey. I fixed Crystal’s backpack and sewed that button on Ren’s shirt. Left them by their cabins last night. Tell Eliot his shoes are probably a lost cause, though.”