Plague Year Read Online Free PDF

ripped from screen doors. Grasshopper hunting. Sawyer let the man hike out of sight before he started off again.
    The western end of their high island narrowed into a long, slanting ridge like a diving board. Beyond it, a maze of peaks and valleys tumbled oceanward, falling in elevation until a dinosaur spine of foothills bumped up and formed the horizon. Only the straight lines and switchbacks of the few visible roads gave any sign of the civilization that had once existed in the lowlands, a string of power lines, a far-off radio tower.
    The dirt on the ridge had been holed by marmots, large cousins of the ground squirrel, mostly stiff red-brown fur and tail and tough leg muscle, as quick as a wish. All of the burrows that Cam could see appeared abandoned but they’d placed three of their clumsy box-traps in the area anyway. He hadn’t been out here for several weeks because Manny took genuine pleasure in being in charge and because they didn’t want to scare the marmots off with too much foot traffic. He hoped Sawyer wanted to show him fresh spoor or new digging or signs of young—or, more likely, some proof of total extinction, given Sawyer’s mood.
    Cam smelled sage and pine pollen. He turned his face into the wind, then noticed the discoloration across the valley to the south. “Jesus Christ. Is that what you wanted me to see?”
    Sawyer looked back, confusion evident on his face. Cam gestured and Sawyer cast one short glance.
    Random patches of brittle dead brown and gray marked the evergreen forest below, huge patches, each more than a mile wide. Cam tried to make sense of the scale, his thoughts confused by a cold surge of fear. All this struggle for nothing — “Are the nanos doing that?”
    “Beetles. Maybe termites.” Sawyer shook his head. “If the nanos were self-improving to the point that they’d learned to disassemble wood, they’d have come up over this mountain by now. Let’s move.”
    Cam took two steps, slow and careful, unable to look away.
    Eventually erosion and landslides would wipe out any trees the bugs had missed. Eventually that valley would become a sterile mud pit. Eventually...
    He marched after Sawyer. In twenty yards they’d reach the limit of their world. Seemingly at random, Sawyer stopped. Then Cam saw that he’d laid his hand over a milky vein of quartz. Sawyer measured out three paces, then glanced back upslope before kneeling at a rock. An ordinary stone. From beneath it he pulled a package wrapped tightly in black plastic.
    Cam’s first thought was food. His second was to be glad, grateful. Guilt arrived late and he also looked back upslope, thinking of Erin, of possible witnesses, of salted Spam or rich and gooey beef stew. He closed his eyes to the Christmas promise of rustling, opening—
    Sawyer had a revolver.
    * * * *
    Jim Price was loud like always. “Colorado said they almost had a cure! Them and the space station! They were very close!”
    Cam surveyed the crowd of faces, twenty-two in all. Their entire population had gathered here in the dusty flat outside Price’s hut, even Hollywood, who rested against the wall in a cocoon of blankets. But everyone looked identical. Long months of deprivation had imprinted each face with a death mask.
    Body language had become the best indicator of what someone was thinking—body language, and position. Price’s supporters had gathered tightly around and behind him, making what could have been a circle into a teardrop shape.
    It was interesting that they stood opposite Hollywood.
    Price flapped his arms. “A cure could come anytime now! Colorado has universities, military, and the astronauts are—”
    “Don’t hold your breath.” Hollywood spoke no louder than the breeze, tired, maybe bored. His uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm made it clear to Cam that he’d been repeating this argument all afternoon. “The broadcasts out of Colorado are saying the same thing you heard five months ago. Like they need a little