“There’s just the house up the hill behind the diner,” Kaye said with a sigh.

“You’re getting a motherly look,” Mitch warned.

Mitch backed the car out of the gravel lot and was about to swing out onto the frontage road when the boy waved vigorously. Mitch stopped and rolled down the window. A light drizzle filled the air with silvery mist scented by trees and the Buick’s exhaust.

“Excuse me, sir. You going west?” the boy asked. His ghostly blue eyes swam in a narrow, pale face. He looked worried and exhausted and beneath his clothes he seemed to be made of a bundle of sticks, and not a very large bundle.

The two girls hung back. The shorter and darker girl covered her face with her hands, peeping between her fingers like a shy child.

The boy’s hands were dirty, his nails black. He saw Mitch’s attention and rubbed them self-consciously on his pants.

“Yeah,” Mitch said.

“I’m really really sorry to bother you. We wouldn’t ask, sir, but it’s tough finding rides and it’s getting wet. If you’re going west, we could use a lift for a while, hey?”

The boy’s desperation and a goofy gallantry beyond his years touched Mitch. He examined the boy closely, his answer snagged somewhere between sympathy and suspicion.

“Tell them to get in,” Kaye said.

The boy stared at them in surprise. “You mean, now?”

“We’re going west.” Mitch pointed at the highway beyond the long chain-link fence.

The boy opened the rear door and the girls jogged forward. Kaye turned and rested her arm on the back of the seat as they jumped in and slid across. “Where are you heading?” she asked.

“Cincinnati,” the boy said. “Or as far past as we can go,” he added hopefully. “Thanks a million.”

“Put on your seat belts,” Mitch said. “There’s three back there.”

The girl who hid her face appeared to be no more than seventeen, hair black and thick, skin coffee-colored, fingers long and knobby with short and chipped nails painted violet. Her companion, a white blond, seemed older, with a broad, easygoing face worn down to vacancy. The boy was no more than nineteen. Mitch wrinkled his nose involuntarily; they hadn’t bathed in days.

“Where are you from?” Kaye asked.

“Richmond,” the boy said. “We’ve been hitchhiking, sleeping out in the woods or the grass. It’s been hard on Delia and Jayce. This is Delia.” He pointed to the girl covering her face.

“I’m Jayce,” said the blond absently.

“My name is Morgan,” the boy added.

“You don’t look old enough to be out on your own,” Mitch said. He brought the car up to speed on the highway.

“Delia couldn’t stand it where she was,” Morgan said. “She wanted to go to L.A. or Seattle. We decided to go with her.”

Jayce nodded.

“That’s not much of a plan,” Mitch said.

“Any relatives out west?” Kaye asked.

“I have an uncle in Cincinnati,” Jayce said. “He might put us up for a while.”

Delia leaned back in the seat, face still hidden. Morgan licked his lips and craned his neck to look up at the car’s headliner, as if to read a message there. “Delia was pregnant but her baby was born dead,” he said. “She got some skin problems because of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Kaye said. She held out her hand. “My name is Kaye. You don’t have to hide, Delia.”

Delia shook her head, hands following. “It’s ugly,” she said.

“I don’t mind it,” Morgan said. He sat as far to the left-hand side of the car as he could, leaving a foot of space between himself and Jayce. “Girls are more sensitive. Her boyfriend told her to get out. Real stupid. What a waste, hey.”

“It’s too ugly,” Delia said softly.

“Come on, sweetie,” Kaye said. “Is it something a doctor could help with?”

“I got it before the baby came,” Delia said.

“It’s okay,” Kaye said soothingly, and reached back to stroke the girl’s arm. Mitch caught glimpses in the rearview mirror, fascinated by this aspect of Kaye. Gradually, Delia lowered her hands, her fingers relaxing. The girl’s face was blotched and mottled, as if splattered with reddish-brown paint.

“Did your boyfriend do that to you?” Kaye asked.

“No,” Delia said. “It just came, and everybody hated it.”

“She got a mask,” Jayce said. “It covered her face for a few weeks, and then it fell off and left those marks.”

Mitch felt a chill. Kaye faced forward and lowered her head for a moment, composing herself.

“Delia and Jayce don’t want me touching them,” Morgan said, “even though we’re friends, because of the plague. You know. Herod’s.”

“I don’t want to get pregnant,” Jayce said. “We’re really hungry.”

“We’ll stop and get some food,” Kaye said. “Would you like to take a shower, get cleaned up?”

“Oh, wow,” Delia said. “That would be so great.”

“You two look decent, hey, real nice,” Morgan said, staring up at the headliner again, this time for courage. “But I have to tell you, these girls are my friends. I don’t want you doing this just so he can see them without their clothes on. I won’t put up with that.”

“Don’t worry,” Kaye said. “If I were your mom, I’d be proud of you, Morgan.”

“Thanks,” Morgan said, and dropped his gaze to the window. The muscles on his narrow jaw clenched. “Hey, it’s just the way I feel. They’ve gone through enough shit. Her boyfriend got a mask, too, and he was really mad. Jayce says he blamed Delia.”

“He did,” Jayce said.

“He was a white boy,” Morgan continued, “and Delia is partly black.”

“I am black,” Delia said.

“They were living in a farmhouse for a while until he made her leave,” Jayce said. “He was hitting her, after the miscarriage. Then she was pregnant again. He said she was making him sick because he had a mask and it wasn’t even his baby.” This came out in a mumbled rush.

“My second baby was born dead,” Delia said, her voice distant. “He only had half his face. Jayce and Morgan never showed him to me.”

“We buried it,” Morgan said.

“My God,” Kaye said. “I’m so sorry.”

“It was hard,” Morgan said. “But hey, we’re still here.” He clamped his teeth together and his jaw again tensed rhythmically.

“Jayce shouldn’t have told me what he looked like,” Delia said.

“If it was God’s baby,” Jayce said flatly, “He should have taken better care of it.”

Mitch wiped his eyes with a finger and blinked to keep the road clear.

“Have you seen a doctor?” Kaye asked.

“I’m okay,” Delia said. “I just want these marks to go away.”

“Let me see them up close, sweetie,” Kaye said.

“Are you a doctor?” Delia asked.

“I’m a biologist, but not a medical doctor,” Kaye said.

“A scientist?” Morgan asked, interest piqued.

“Yeah,” Kaye said.

Delia thought this through for a few seconds, then leaned forward, eyes averted. Kaye touched her chin to steady her. The sun had come out but a big panel truck growled by on the left and the wide tires showered the windshield. The watery light cast a wavering gray pall over the girl’s features.

Her face bore a pattern of demelanized, teardrop-shaped dapples, mostly on her cheeks, with several symmetrical patches at the corners of her eyes and lips. As she turned away from Kaye, the marks shifted and darkened.

“They’re like freckles,” Delia said hopefully. “I get freckles sometimes. It’s my white blood, I guess.”