Hunger_A Gone Novel, Page 3

her little brother. Pete was five years old, just barely, and

  severely autistic. He could talk, but mostly he didn’t. He had

  become, if anything, even more withdrawn since the coming

  of the FAYZ. Maybe it was her fault: she wasn’t keeping up

  with the therapy, wasn’t keeping up with all the futile, pointless exercises that were supposed to help autistics deal with reality.

  Of course Little Pete made his own reality. In some very

  important ways he had made everyone’s reality.

  The yard was not Astrid’s yard, the house not her house.

  Drake Merwin had burned her house down. But one thing

  there was no shortage of in Perdido Beach was housing.

  Most homes were empty. And although many kids stayed in

  their own homes, some found their old bedrooms, their old

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  family rooms, too full of memories. Astrid had lost track of

  how many times she’d seen kids break down sobbing, talking

  about their mom in the kitchen, their dad mowing the lawn,

  their older brother or sister hogging the remote.

  Kids got lonely a lot. Loneliness, fear, and sadness haunted

  the FAYZ. So, often kids moved in together, into what

  amounted almost to frat or sorority houses.

  This house was shared by Astrid; Mary Terrafino; Mary’s

  little brother, John; and more and more often, Sam. Officially

  Sam lived in an unused office at town hall, where he slept on

  a couch, cooked with a microwave, and used what had been

  a public restroom. But it was a gloomy place, and Astrid had

  asked him more than once to consider this his home. They

  were, after all, a family of sorts. And, symbolically at least,

  they were the first family of the FAYZ, substitute mother and

  father to the motherless, fatherless kids.

  Astrid heard Sam before she saw him. Perdido Beach had

  always been a sleepy little town, and now it was as quiet as

  church most of the time. Sam came through the house, letting himself in, calling her name as he went from room to room.

  “Sam,” she yelled. But he didn’t hear her until he opened

  the back door and stepped out onto the deck.

  One glance was all it took to know something terrible had

  happened. Sam wasn’t good at concealing his feelings, at least

  not from her.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer, just strode across the weedy, patchy grass

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  and put his arms around her. She hugged him back, patient,

  knowing he’d tell her when he could.

  He buried his face in her hair. She could feel his breath

  on her neck, tickling her ear. She enjoyed the feel of his body

  against hers. Enjoyed the fact that he needed to hold her. But

  there was nothing romantic about this embrace.

  At last he let her go. He moved to take over pushing Little

  Pete, seeming to need something physical to do.

  “E.Z.’s dead,” he said without preamble. “I was touring the

  fields with Edilio. Me, Edilio, and Albert, and E.Z. along for

  entertainment. You know. No good reason for E.Z. to even be

  there, he just wanted to ride along and I said okay because I

  feel like all I ever do is say no, no, no to people, and now he’s

  dead.”

  He pushed the swing harder than she’d been doing. Little

  Pete almost fell backward.

  “Oh, God. How did it happen?”

  “Worms,” Sam said dully. “Some kind of worm. Or snake.

  I don’t know. I have a dead one in there on the kitchen counter. I was hoping you’d . . . I don’t know what I was hoping. I figure you’re our expert on mutations. Right?”

  He said the expert part with a wry smile. Astrid wasn’t an

  expert on anything. She was just the only person who cared

  enough to try and make sense in a systematic, scientific way

  of what was happening in the FAYZ.

  “If you keep pushing him, he’ll be fine,” Astrid said of her

  brother.

  She found the creature in a Baggie on the kitchen counter.

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  It looked more like a snake than a worm, but not like any

  normal snake, either.

  She pressed gingerly on the bag, hoping it really was dead.

  She spread waxed paper on the granite counter and dumped

  the worm out. She rummaged in the junk drawer for a tape

  measure and did her best to follow the contours of the creature.

  “Eleven inches,” she noted.

  Then she found her camera and took a dozen photos from

  every angle before using a fork to lift the monstrous thing

  back into the Baggie.

  Astrid loaded the pictures onto her laptop. She dragged

  them into a folder labeled “Mutations—Photos.” There were

  dozens of pictures. Birds with strange talons or beaks. Snakes

  with short wings. Subsequent pictures showed larger snakes

  with larger wings. One, taken at a distance, seemed to show a

  rattlesnake the size of a small python with leathery wings as

  wide as a bald eagle’s.

  She had a blurry photo of a coyote twice the size of any

  normal coyote. And a close-up of a dead coyote’s mouth

  showing a strangely shortened tongue that looked creepily

  human. There was a series of grotesque JPEGs of a cat that

  had fused with a book.

  Other photos were of kids, most just looking normal,

  although the boy called Orc looked like a monster. She had a

  picture of Sam with green light blazing from his palms. She

  hated the picture because the expression on his face as he

  demonstrated his power for her camera was so sad.

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  Astrid clicked opened the worm pictures and used the

  zoom function to take a closer look.

  Little Pete came in, followed by Sam.

  “Look at that mouth,” Astrid said, awestruck. The worm

  had a mouth like a shark. It was impossible to count the hundreds of tiny teeth. The worm seemed to be grinning, even dead, grinning.

  “Worms don’t have teeth,” Astrid said.

  “They didn’t have teeth. Now they do,” Sam said.

  “See the things sticking out all around its body?” She

  squinted and zoomed in closer still. “They’re like, I don’t

  know, like minuscule paddles. Like legs, only tiny and thousands of them.”

  “They got into E.Z. I think they went right through his

  hands. Right through his shoes. Right through his body.”

  Astrid shuddered. “Those teeth would bore through anything. The legs push it forward once it’s inside its victim.”

  “Thousands of them in that field,” Sam said. “E.Z. goes in,

  they attack him. But me and Albert and Edilio are outside, we

  haven’t stepped into the field, and they don’t come after us.”

  “Territoriality?” Astrid frowned. “Very unusual in a primitive animal. Territoriality is usually associated with higher life-forms. Dogs or cats are territorial. Not worms.”

  “You’re being very calm about all this,” Sam said, almost

  but not quite accusingly.

  Astrid looked at him, reached with her hand to gently turn

  him away from the horrible image, forcing him to look at her

  instead. “You didn’t com
e to me so I could scream and run

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  away and you could be brave and comforting.”

  “No,” he admitted. “Sorry. You’re right: I didn’t come to

  see Astrid my girlfriend. I came to see Astrid the Genius.”

  Astrid had never liked that nickname much, but she’d

  accepted it. It gave her a place in the dazed and frightened

  community of the FAYZ. She wasn’t a Brianna or a Dekka,

  or a Sam, with great powers. What she had was her brain and

  her ability to think in a disciplined way when required.

  “I’ll dissect it, see what I can learn. Are you okay?”

  “Sure. Why not? This morning I was responsible for 332

  people. Now I’m only responsible for 331. And part of me is

  almost thinking, okay, one less mouth to feed.”

  Astrid leaned close and kissed him lightly on the mouth.

  “Yeah, it sucks to be you,” Astrid said. “But you’re the only

  you we have.”

  That earned her a bleak smile. “So, shut up and deal with

  it?” he said.

  “No, don’t ever shut up. Tell me everything. Tell me anything.”

  Sam looked down, unwilling to make eye contact. “Everything? Okay, how about this: I burned the body. E.Z. I burned the mess they left behind.”

  “He was dead, Sam. What were you supposed to do? Leave

  him for the birds and the coyotes?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I know. But that’s not the problem. The

  problem is, when he burned? He smelled like meat cooking,

  and I . . .” He stopped talking, unable to go on. She waited

  while he mastered his emotions. “A dead sixth grader was

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  burning, and my mouth started watering.”

  Astrid could too easily imagine it. Even the thought of

  burning meat made her mouth water. “It’s a normal, physiological reaction, Sam. It’s a part of your brain that’s on automatic.”

  “Yeah,” he said, unconvinced.

  “Look, you can’t go around moping because something

  bad happened. If you start acting hopeless, it will spread to

  everyone else.”

  “Kids don’t need my help to feel hopeless,” he said.

  “And you’re going to let me cut your hair,” Astrid said,

  pulling him close and ruffling his hair with one hand. She

  wanted to get his mind off the morning’s disaster.

  “What?” He looked confused by the sudden change of

  topic.

  “You look like a fugitive from some old 1970s hair band.

  Besides,” she argued, “Edilio let me cut his hair.”

  Sam allowed himself a smile. “Yeah. I saw. Maybe that’s

  why I keep accidentally calling him Bart Simpson.”

  When she glared at him, he added, “You know, the spiky

  look?” He tried to kiss her, but she drew back.

  “Oh, you’re just so clever, aren’t you?” she said. “How about

  I just shave your head? Or hot-wax it? Keep insulting me,

  people will be calling you Homer Simpson, not Bart. Then

  see how much Taylor makes goo-goo eyes at you.”

  “She does not make goo-goo eyes at me.”

  “Yeah. Right.” She pushed him away playfully.

  “Anyway, I might look good with just two hairs,” Sam said.

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  He looked at his reflection in the glass front of the microwave.

  “Does the word ‘narcissist’ mean anything to you?” Astrid

  asked.

  Sam laughed. He made a grab for her but then noticed Little Pete eyeing him. “So. Anyway. How’s LP doing?”

  Astrid looked at her brother, who was perched on a kitchen

  counter stool and gazing mutely at Sam. Or, anyway, in Sam’s

  direction—she could never be sure what he was really looking at.

  She wanted to tell Sam what had been happening with Little Pete, what he had started doing. But Sam had enough to worry about. And for a moment—a rare moment—he wasn’t

  worrying.

  There would be time later to tell him that the most powerful person in the FAYZ seemed to be . . . what would the right term be for what Little Pete was doing?

  Losing his mind? No, that wasn’t quite it.

  There was no right term for what was happening to Little

  Pete. But, anyway, this wasn’t the time.

  “He’s fine,” Astrid lied. “You know Petey.”

  THREE

  106 HOURS, 11 MINUTES

  L A N A A R W E N L A Z A R was on her fourth home since

  coming to Perdido Beach. She’d first stayed in a house she’d

  liked well enough. But that house was where Drake Merwin

  had captured her. It felt like a bad place after that.

  Then she’d moved in with Astrid for a while. But she

  quickly discovered that she preferred being alone with just

  her Labrador retriever, Patrick, for company. So she’d taken a

  house near the plaza. But that had made her too accessible.

  Lana didn’t like being accessible. When she was accessible,

  she had no privacy.

  Lana had the power to heal. She’d first discovered this

  ability the day of the FAYZ, when her grandfather had disappeared. They’d been driving in his pickup truck at the time, and the sudden disappearance of the driver had sent the truck

  rolling down a very long embankment.

  Lana’s injuries should have killed her. Almost did kill her.

  Then she discovered a power that might have lain hidden

  within her forever, but for her terrible need.

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  She had healed herself. She’d healed Sam when he was shot;

  and Cookie, whose shoulder had been split open; and many

  wounded children after the terrible Thanksgiving Battle.

  The kids called her the Healer. She was second only to Sam

  Temple as a hero in the FAYZ. Everyone looked up to her.

  Everyone respected her. Some of them, especially the ones

  whose lives she’d saved, treated her with something like awe.

  Lana had no doubt that Cookie, for one, would give his life

  for her. He had been in a living hell until she’d saved him.

  But hero worship didn’t stop kids from pestering her at all

  hours, day and night, over every little pain or problem: loose

  teeth, sunburn, skinned knees, stubbed toes.

  So she had moved away from town and now lived in a

  room in the Clifftop Resort.

  The hotel hugged the FAYZ wall, the blank, impenetrable

  barrier that defined this new world.

  “Calm down, Patrick,” she said as the dog head-butted

  her in his eagerness for breakfast. Lana pried the lid off the

  ALPO can and, blocking Patrick, spooned half of it into a

  dish on the floor.

  “There. Jeez, you’d swear I never feed you.”

  As she said it she wondered how long she would be able to

  go on feeding Patrick. There were kids eating dog food now.

  And there were skin-and-bones dogs in the streets, picking

  through trash next to kids who were picking through trash to

  find scraps they’d thrown out weeks earlier.

  Lana was alone at Clifftop. Hundreds of rooms, an algae-

  choked pool, a tennis court truncated by the barrier. She had

  a balcony that afforded a sweeping view of the beach below

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  and the t
oo-placid ocean.

  Sam, Edilio, Astrid, and Dahra Baidoo—who acted as

  pharmacist and nurse—knew where she was and could find

  her if they really needed her. But most kids didn’t, so she had

  a degree of control over her life.

  She looked longingly at the dog food. Wondering, not for

  the first time, what it tasted like. Probably better than the

  burned potato peels with barbecue sauce she’d eaten.

  Once, the hotel had been full of food. But on Sam’s orders

  Albert and his crew had collected it all, centralized it all at

  Ralph’s. Where Drake had managed to steal a good portion

  of the dwindling remainder.

  Now there was no food in the hotel. Not even in any of the

  mini-bars in the rooms, which once had been stocked with

  delicious candy bars, and chips and nuts. Now all that was

  left was alcohol. Albert’s people had left the booze, not knowing quite what to do with it.

  Lana had stayed away from the little brown and white bottles. So far.

  Alcohol was how she had managed to get herself exiled

  from her home in Las Vegas. She’d snuck a bottle of vodka

  from her parents’ house, supposedly for an older boy she

  knew.

  That was the cleaned-up story she’d managed to sell to her

  parents, anyway. They had still packed her off for some time

  to “think about what you’ve done” at her grandfather’s isolated ranch.

  Now, in the world of the FAYZ, Lana was a sort of saint.

  But she knew better.

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  Patrick had finished his food as coffee brewed in the room.

  Lana poured herself a cup and dumped in a Nutrasweet and

  some powdered cream, rare luxuries that she’d found by

  searching the maids’ carts.

  She stepped out onto the balcony and took a sip.

  She had the stereo on, the CD player that had been in the

  room. Someone, some previous inhabitant of the room, she

  supposed, had left an ancient Paul Simon CD in there, and

  she’d found herself playing it.

  There was a song about darkness. A welcoming of darkness. Almost an invitation. She had played it over and over again.

  Sometimes music helped her to forget. Not this song.

  Out of the corner of her eye she spotted someone down on

  the beach. She went back inside and retrieved a pair of binoculars she’d liberated from some long-gone tourist’s luggage.

  Two little kids, they couldn’t be more than six years old,