Hunger_A Gone Novel, Page 4

  playing on the rock pier that extended into the ocean. Fortunately there was no surf. But the rocks were like jumbled razor blades in places, sharp and slick. She ought to . . .

  Later. Enough responsibility. She was not a responsible

  person, and she was sick of having it forced on her.

  Various adult vices were spreading through the population of the FAYZ. Some as benign as coffee. Others—pot, cigarettes, and alcohol—were not so harmless. Lana knew of

  six kids who were confirmed drinkers. They had tried to get

  her to cure their hangovers.

  Some others were smoking their way through bags of weed

  found in their parents’ or older siblings’ bedrooms. And on

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  31

  just about any day you could see kids as young as eight choking on cigarettes and trying to look cool. She’d once spotted a first grader trying to light a cigar.

  Lana couldn’t cure any of that.

  Sometimes she wished she was back at Hermit Jim’s cabin.

  It was not the first time she’d had that thought. She had

  often thought of the strange cabin in the desert with its quirky

  little lawn—now all brown and dead, most likely.

  It’s where she had found sanctuary after the crash. And

  then again, briefly, after escaping from the coyote pack.

  The cabin itself had been burned to the ground. It was

  nothing but ash. And gold, of course. Hermit Jim’s stash

  of gold might have been melted, but it would still be there

  beneath the floorboards.

  The gold. From the mine.

  The mine . . .

  She took a big gulp from the Styrofoam cup and burned

  her tongue. The pain helped her focus.

  The mine. That day was clear in her memory, but it was

  the clarity of a well-remembered nightmare.

  At the time she hadn’t known that the FAYZ meant the

  disappearance of all adults. She’d gone to the mine in search

  of the hermit, or hoping at least to find his missing truck and

  use it to get to town.

  She’d found the hermit, dead in the mouth of the mine.

  Not disappeared, dead. Which meant he’d been killed before

  the FAYZ.

  The coyotes had come after her then and driven her deeper

  into the mine. And there she’d found . . . it. The thing. The

  32 M I C H A E L

  G R A N T

  Darkness, the coyotes called it: the Darkness.

  She remembered the way her feet had felt heavy as bricks.

  The way her heart had slowed down and thudded, each beat

  like a blow from a sledgehammer. The dread that went deeper

  than simple fear. The sickly green glow that made her think

  of pus, disease, a cancer.

  The dream state that had overtaken her . . . the heavy-

  lidded eyes and mind gone blank and the feeling of being

  invaded, of . . .

  Come to me.

  “Ah!”

  She had crushed the cup. Hot coffee all over her arm.

  Lana was sweating. Her breathing was labored. She took

  a deep breath and it was as if she’d forgotten how until that

  very moment.

  It was in her head still, that monster in the mine shaft.

  It had its hook in her. Sometimes she was sure she heard its

  voice. A hallucination, surely. Surely not the Darkness itself.

  It was miles away. Far beneath the ground. It couldn’t . . .

  Come to me.

  “I can’t forget it,” she whispered to Patrick. “I can’t get

  away from it.”

  In the early days after she had come out of the desert and

  joined this strange community of children, Lana had felt

  almost at peace. Almost. There had been, from the start, a

  sense of damage done, an invisible wound with no specific

  location except that it was inside her.

  That unseen, unreal, unhealed wound had reopened.

  She told herself at first that it would go away. It would heal.

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  33

  A psychic scab would form. But if that was true, if she was

  healing, why did it hurt more with each passing day? How

  had that dreadful voice grown from faint, distant whisper to

  insistent murmur?

  Come to me. I need you.

  It had words now, that urgent, demanding voice.

  “I’m going crazy, Patrick,” Lana told her dog. “It’s inside

  me, and I am going crazy.”

  Mary Terrafino woke up. She rolled out of bed. Morning. She

  should go back to sleep: she was exhausted. But she would not

  fall back to sleep, she knew that. She had things to do.

  First things first, she stumbled to her bathroom and used

  her bare foot to pull the scale across the tile floor. There was

  a special spot for the scale: aligned with the center of the mirror over the sink, upper-right corner of the scale precisely in line with the tile.

  She removed her sleep shirt and stepped onto the scale.

  First reading. Step off.

  Second reading. Step off.

  Three times made it official.

  Eighty-one pounds.

  She’d been 128 pounds when the FAYZ came.

  She still looked fat. There were still pockets of chubbiness

  here and there. No matter what anyone else said. Mary could

  see the flab. So no breakfast for her. Which was fine, given

  that breakfast at the day care would be oatmeal made with

  powdered milk and sweetened with pink packets of Sweet’n

  Low. Healthy enough—and much, much better than what

  34 M I C H A E L

  G R A N T

  most people were getting—but not exactly worth gaining

  weight over.

  Mary popped her Prozac, plus two tiny red Sudafed and a

  multivitamin. The Prozac kept depression at bay—mostly—

  and the Sudafed helped keep her from getting hungry. The

  vitamin would keep her healthy, she hoped.

  She dressed quickly, T-shirt, sweatpants, sneakers. Each

  was roomy. She was determined not to wear anything more

  body-conscious until she had really lost some weight.

  She went to the laundry room and spilled a dryer full of

  cloth diapers into a plastic bag. There were still a few disposable diapers in storage, but they were saving those for emergencies. They had made the switch to cloth a month

  earlier. It was gross and everyone hated it, but as Mary had

  pointed out to her grumbling workers, the Pampers factory

  wasn’t exactly delivering anymore.

  Down the stairs with the bag bump-bumping along.

  Sam was with Astrid and Little Pete in the kitchen.

  Mary didn’t want to interrupt—or be nagged about having

  breakfast—so she let herself quietly out the front door.

  Five minutes later she was at the day care.

  The day care had fared badly in the battle. The wall it

  shared with the hardware store had been blown out. So now

  the gaping hole was covered by plastic sheeting that had to be

  retaped just about every day. It was a reminder of how close

  they had come to disaster. The coyote pack had been in this

  very room, holding these same children hostage, while Drake

  Merwin preened and gloated.

  H U N G E R

  35

  Mary’s brother, John, was already at the day care waiting

  for her.

  “Hey, Mary,” John said. “You s
houldn’t be here. You should

  be sleeping.”

  John was working the morning shift, 5:00 a.m. to noon,

  breakfast to just before lunch. Mary was supposed to take

  over at lunch and work straight through until 10:00 p.m.

  Lunch through dinner through sleep time, with an hour at

  the end to work out schedules and clean up. Then she’d have

  time to go home, watch some DVDs while she worked out on

  the treadmill in the basement. That was the schedule. Eight

  hours of sleep and a few hours free in the morning.

  But in reality she often spent two or three hours exercising

  at night. Going after those last few pounds. On the treadmill,

  down in the basement, where Astrid wouldn’t hear her and

  ask her why.

  Most days she consumed fewer than seven hundred calories. On a really good day it would be half that.

  She hugged John. “What’s up, little brother? What’s today’s

  crisis?”

  John had a list. He read it off his Warriors notebook. “Pedro

  has a loose tooth. He also had an accident last night. Zosia

  claims Julia punched her, so they’re fighting and refusing to

  play together. I think maybe Collin has a fever . . . anyway,

  he’s kind of, you know, cranky. I caught Brady trying to run

  away this morning. She was going to look for her mommy.”

  The list went on and as it did, some of the kids ran over to

  hug Mary, to get a kiss, to get an appreciation of their hairdo,

  36 M I C H A E L

  G R A N T

  to earn an approving “good job” for the way they had brushed

  their teeth.

  Mary nodded. The list was about like this every day.

  A guy named Francis came in, pushed rudely past Mary.

  Then he realized whom he had just shouldered aside, turned

  back to her with a scowl, and said, “Okay, I’m here.”

  “First time?” Mary asked.

  “What, am I supposed to be sorry? I’m not a babysitter.”

  This scene, too, had been repeated every day since peace

  had come to Perdido Beach. “Okay, here’s the thing, kid,”

  Mary said. “I know you don’t want to be here, and I don’t

  care. No one wants to be here, but the littles have to be taken

  care of. So lose the attitude.”

  “Why don’t you just take care of these kids? At least you’re

  a girl.”

  “I’m not,” John pointed out.

  Mary said, “See that easel? There are three lists on there,

  one list for each of the daily helpers. Pick a list. That’s what

  you do. Whatever is on the list. And you smile while you’re

  doing it.”

  Francis marched over and checked the list.

  John said, “I’ll bet you a cookie he doesn’t pick diaper

  duty.”

  “No bet,” Mary said. “Besides, there are no cookies.”

  “I miss cookies,” John said wistfully.

  “Hey,” Francis yelled. “All these lists suck.”

  “Yes,” Mary agreed. “Yes, they do.”

  “This all sucks.”

  “Please stop saying ‘sucks.’ I don’t want to have three-year

  H U N G E R

  37

  olds repeating it all day.”

  “Man, when my birthday comes, I’m stepping out,” Francis sulked.

  “Fine. I’ll be sure not to schedule you after that. Now, pick

  a work list and do it. I don’t want to have to waste Sam’s time

  calling him over here to motivate you.”

  Francis stomped back to the easel.

  “Stepping out,” Mary said to John, and made a face. “How

  many people have hit the magic fifteen so far? Only two have

  poofed. People talk about it. But they don’t actually do it.”

  The FAYZ had eliminated everyone over the age of fourteen. No one knew why. At least, Mary didn’t, although she had overheard Sam and Astrid whispering in a way that made

  her think they might know more than they admitted.

  A fourteen-year-old who reached his fifteenth birthday

  would also disappear. Poof. If he let himself. If he decided to

  “step out.”

  What happened during what kids called Stepping Out

  was now known to just about everyone. The way subjective

  time would slow to a crawl. The appearance of the person you

  loved and trusted most to beckon you across, to urge you to

  leave the FAYZ. And the way this person transformed into a

  monster if you resisted.

  You had a choice: stay in the FAYZ, or . . . But no one knew

  just what the “or” was. Maybe it was escape back into the old

  world. Maybe it was a trip to some whole new place.

  Maybe it was death.

  Mary noticed John looking intensely at her. “What?” she

  said.

  38 M I C H A E L

  G R A N T

  “You wouldn’t ever . . .”

  Mary smiled and ruffled his curly red hair. “Never. I would

  never leave you. Missing Mom and Dad?”

  John nodded. “I keep thinking about how many times I

  made them mad.”

  “John . . .”

  “I know. I know that doesn’t matter. But it’s like . . .” He

  couldn’t find the words, so he made the motion of a knife

  stabbing his heart.

  Someone was tugging at Mary’s shirt from behind. She

  looked around and with a sinking heart saw a little boy

  named . . . named . . . she couldn’t remember his name. But

  the second little boy behind him she remembered was Sean.

  She knew why they were there. They had both recently had

  their fifth birthdays. The age limit for the day care was four.

  At age five you had to move out—hopefully to a house with

  some responsible older kids.

  “Hi, kids. What’s up?” Mary asked as she brought her face

  down to their level.

  “Um . . . ,” the first one said. And then he burst into tears.

  She shouldn’t do it, she knew she shouldn’t, but she

  couldn’t stop herself from putting her arms around the little

  boy. And then Sean started crying as well, so the embrace

  was extended, and John was in there, too, and Mary heard

  herself saying of course, of course they could come back, just

  for today, just for a little while.

  FOUR

  106 HOURS, 8 MINUTES

  C O A T E S A C A D E M Y W A S quite a bit the worse for wear.

  Battles had damaged the façade of the main building. There

  was a hole in the whitewashed brick so big, you could see an

  entire second-story classroom, a cross-section of the floor

  beneath it, and a jagged gap that didn’t quite reach to the top of

  the first-story window below. Most of the glass in the windows

  was gone. The kids had made an effort to keep the elements

  out by duct-taping sheets of plastic over the holes, but the tape

  had loosened and now the plastic and the tape hung limp, stirring with the occasional breeze. The building looked as if it had been through a war. It had been.

  The grounds were a mess. Grass that had always been

  trimmed to obsessive perfection in the old days now grew

  wild in some areas and had gone yellow as hay in others. And

  weeds pushed up through the circular gravel driveway where

  once parents’ minivans and SUVs and luxury sedans had

&nbs
p; lined up.

  40 M I C H A E L

  G R A N T

  The plumbing was out in half the building, toilets overflowing and reeking. The smaller buildings, the art classroom, and the dormitories were in better shape, but Drake insisted

  on staying in the main building. He had occupied the office

  of the school shrink, a place where in the old days Drake had

  standing appointments for counseling and testing.

  Do you still dream of hurting animals, Drake?

  No, Doc, I dream of hurting you.

  The office was an armory now. Drake’s guns, nine of them,

  ranging from hunting rifles with scopes to handguns, were

  laid out on a table. He kept them unloaded, all but two, the

  guns he carried on him. He’d hidden the ammunition for the

  other guns: there was no one Drake trusted. The ammunition, never enough of it, to Drake’s thinking, rested behind the ceiling tiles and in air-conditioning vents.

  Drake sat watching a DVD on the plasma screen he’d stolen. The movie was Saw II. The sound effects were so great.

  Drake had the volume up high enough to rattle one of the

  few surviving panes of glass. So he didn’t at first hear Diana’s

  voice when she said, “He wants you.”

  Drake turned, sensing her presence. He flicked his tentacle

  arm, the arm that gave him his nickname, Whip Hand, and

  turned off the set. “What do you want?” he demanded with

  a scowl.

  “He wants you,” Diana repeated.

  Drake loved the fear in her eyes. Tough-chick Diana:

  snarky, sarcastic, superior Diana. Scared Diana. Scared of

  him and what he could do to her.

  H U N G E R

  41

  “Who wants me?”

  “Caine. He’s up.”

  “He’s been up before,” Drake said.

  “He’s back. Mostly. He’s back and he wants you and Bug.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’ll get there when I get there.” He flicked

  his whip and turned the set back on. “Great, now I missed

  the best part. Where’s the remote? I can’t rewind without the

  remote.”

  “You want me to tell Caine to wait?” Diana asked innocently. “No problem. I’ll just go tell him you’re too busy to see him.”

  Drake took a deep breath and glared at her. Slowly the

  whip moved toward her, the end twitching with anticipation,

  wanting to wrap around her neck.

  “Go ahead, do it,” she challenged him. “Go on, Drake. Go

  ahead and defy Caine.”

  His cold eyes flinched, just a little, but he knew she’d seen