“Kind of like my sister,” a kid piped up, and was poked by his sister in retaliation.
Howard drifted closer to the front of the room. “So these E.Z. killer worms are smart.”
“I’m not implying that they can read or do quadratic equations,” Astrid said. “But they’ve gone from brains that were a bundle of cells that did nothing more than manage the organism’s negative phototropism to a brain with differentiated hemispheres and distinct, presumably specialized, regions.”
Sam hid a smile by looking down. Astrid was perfectly capable of simplifying the way she explained things. But when someone was irritating her—as Howard was doing now—she would crank up the polysyllables and make them feel stupid.
Howard came to a stop, perhaps paralyzed by the word “phototropism.” But he recovered quickly. “Look, bottom line, you step into a field full of these E.Z. killers, these zekes, and you’re dead. Right?”
“The large brains confirm the possibility that these creatures are capable of territoriality. My point is, judging by what Sam, Edilio, and Albert observed, the worms may stay perfectly within their territory. In this case, the cabbage field.”
“Yeah?” Howard said. “Well, I know someone who could walk right through that field and not be bothered.”
So that was it, Sam thought. Inevitably with Howard, it all came back to Orc.
“You may be right that Orc would be invulnerable,” Sam said. “So?”
“So?” Howard echoed. He smirked. “So, Sam, Orc can pick those cabbages for you. Of course he’s going to need something in exchange.”
“Beer?”
Howard nodded, maybe a little embarrassed, but not much. “He has a taste for the stuff. Me, I can’t stand it. But as Orc’s manager I’ll need to be taken care of, too.”
Sam gritted his teeth. But the truth was it might be a solution to the problem. They had quite a bit of beer still at Ralph’s grocery.
“If Orc wants to try it, fine with me,” Sam said. “Work something out with Albert.”
It was not fine with Astrid. “Sam, Orc has become an alcoholic. You want to give him beer?”
“A can of beer for a day’s work,” Sam said. “Orc can’t get very drunk on—”
“No way,” Howard said. “Orc needs a case a day. Four six-packs. After all, it’s hot work out there in the field picking cabbage.”
Sam shot a glance at Astrid. Her face was set. But Sam had the responsibility for feeding 331 kids. Orc was probably invulnerable to the zekes. And he was so strong, he could yank up thirty thousand pounds of cabbage in a week’s work. “Talk to Albert after the meeting,” Sam said to Howard.
Astrid fumed but sat down. Howard did a jaunty little finger-pointing thing at Sam, signifying agreement.
Sam sighed. The meeting wasn’t going the way he’d planned. They never did. He understood that kids were kids, so he was used to the inevitable disruptions and general silliness of the younger ones. But that even so many of the older kids, kids in seventh, eighth grade, hadn’t bothered to show up was depressing.
To make things worse, all this talk of food was making him hungry. Lunch had been grim. The hunger was almost always present now. It made him feel hollow. It occupied his brain, when he needed to be thinking of other things.
“Look, people, I’m announcing a new rule. It’s going to seem harsh. But it’s necessary.”
The word “harsh” got almost everyone’s attention.
“We can’t have people sitting around all day playing Wii and watching DVDs. We need people to start working in the fields. So, here’s the thing: everyone age seven or older has to put in three days per week picking fruit or veggies. Then Albert’s going to work with the whole question of freezing stuff that can be frozen, or otherwise preserving stuff.”
There was dead silence. And blank stares.
“What I’m saying is, tomorrow we’ll have two school buses ready to go. They hold about fifty kids each and we need to have them mostly full because we’re going to pick some melons and it’s a lot of work.”
More blank stares.
“Okay, let me make this simple: get your brothers and sisters and friends and anyone over age seven and be in the square tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.”
“But how about—?”
“Just be there,” Sam said with less firmness than he’d intended. His frustration was draining away now, replaced by weariness and depression.
“Just be there,” someone mimicked in a singsong voice.
Sam closed his eyes, and for a moment he almost seemed to be asleep. Then he opened them again and managed a bleak smile. “Please. Be there,” he said quietly.
He walked down the three steps and out of the church, knowing in his heart that few would answer his call.
SEVEN
88 HOURS, 54 MINUTES
“PULL OVER HERE, Panda,” Drake said.
“Why?” Panda was behind the wheel of the SUV. He was getting more and more confident as a driver, but being Panda, he still wouldn’t go more than thirty miles an hour.
“Because that’s what I said to do, that’s why,” Drake said irritably.
Bug knew why they were stopping. And Bug knew why it bothered Drake. They couldn’t risk driving down the highway to the power plant. In the three months Caine had spent hallucinating and yelling crazy stuff, the Coates side had grown steadily weaker while the Perdido Beach side cruised right along. Drake had pulled off his raid at Ralph’s, but he didn’t dare do anything more.
Bug knew. He’d been in and out of Perdido Beach many times. They might be running low on food in town but they still had more than Coates. It was frustrating for Bug because he should have been able to steal more of that food, but his chameleon powers didn’t work that well on things he was carrying. The best he could do was slip a package of dried soup or a rare PowerBar inside his shirt. Not that there were PowerBars to be found nowadays. Or dried soup.
“Okay, Bug, we hike from here,” Drake said. He swung his door open and stepped out onto the road. Bug slid across the seat and stood beside Drake.
Bug’s real name was Tyler. His fellow Coates kids assumed he had earned his nickname from his willingness to accept crazy dares—specifically, eating insects. Kids would dare him and he’d say, “What do I get if I do it?” Mostly, in the old days, he’d gotten kids to give him money or candy.
He didn’t mind most bugs. He kind of liked the way they would squirm before he would bite down on them, ending their little insect lives.
But Bug had been called that before ever coming to Coates, before he’d gotten a reputation as the kid who would try anything. The nickname Bug had stuck to him after he was caught recording parent-teacher conferences at his old school. He’d posted the conversations on Facebook, embarrassing any kid with a psychological issue, a learning disability, a bedwetting problem—about half his class.
Bug hadn’t just been sent to Coates as punishment; he’d been sent for his own safety.
Bug edged nervously away as Drake unlimbered his tentacle, stretched it out, and rewrapped it around himself. Bug didn’t like Drake. No one did. But if he was going to get caught out in the open sneaking toward the power plant, he figured Drake would do all the fighting while he himself just disappeared. At night he was completely invisible.
They left Panda behind with firm instructions to stay where he was until they got back. Which was on a back road that went from tarmac to gravel, back and forth, as though the guys who’d built it couldn’t make up their minds.
“We have a good two miles to cover to get to the main road,” Drake said. “So keep up.”
“I’m hungry,” Bug complained.
“Everybody’s hungry,” Drake snapped. “Shut up about it.”
They plunged off the road into some kind of farmland. It was tough walking because the field was plowed into furrows, so it was hard not to trip. Something was growing there, but Bug had no idea what, just that it was some kind of plant. He wondered if
he could eat it: he was that hungry.
Maybe there would be some food at the plant. Maybe he could find something while he was scoping the place out.
They walked in silence. Drake was not one for small talk, and neither was Bug.
The highway’s lights were visible from far off. It was impossible, even now, to see those bright lights and not think of busy gas stations, bright Wendy’s and Burger Kings, bustling stores, cars, and trucks. Just south of Perdido Beach had been a long strip of such restaurants, plus a Super Target where they sold groceries, and a See’s candy store where…
Bug couldn’t stand it that it was all there, just outside the FAYZ wall. If there was an outside anymore.
See’s candy. Bug would have just about cut off his ear to have five minutes inside that store. He liked the ones with nuts in them, especially. Oh, and the ones with raspberry cream. And the kind of brown sugar ones. The ones with caramel, those were good, too.
All out of reach now. His mouth watered. His stomach ached.
It was so quiet in the FAYZ, Bug thought. Quiet and empty. And, if Caine succeeded in his plan, it would soon be dark as well.
Only some portions of the highway were lit up. The part that went through town, and here, at the turn-off to the power plant. Bug and Drake stayed well away from the pool of light.
Bug looked left, toward town. No sign of movement coming down the road. Nothing to the right, either. Across the highway and a little distance down the access road Bug knew there was a guardhouse. But that shouldn’t be any problem.
“You have to stay off the road and go cross-country,” Drake told him.
“What? Why? No one can see me.”
“There might be infrared security cameras at the plant, moron, that’s why. We don’t know if you’re invisible to infrared cameras.”
Bug acknowledged that could be a problem. But the prospect of covering another couple of miles going uphill and down, through tall grass and across unseen ditches, wasn’t very exciting. He would probably get lost. Then he would never get back in time for breakfast.
“Okay,” he said, having no intention of obeying.
Suddenly Drake’s creepy tentacle wrapped around him. Drake squeezed hard enough that Bug had to struggle to breathe.
“This is important, Bug. Don’t screw it up.” Drake’s eyes were cold. “If you do? I’ll whip the skin off you.”
Bug nodded. Drake released him.
Bug shuddered as the tentacle slithered away. It was like a snake. Just like a snake. And Bug hated snakes.
It was easy for Bug to turn the camouflage on. He just thought about disappearing and passed his hands down his front like he was smoothing his shirt. He saw Drake’s confused stare, his mean eyes not quite able to focus on Bug’s true location. He knew he was all but invisible. He raised a middle finger to Drake.
“Later,” Bug said, and crossed the highway.
Bug hiked cross-country until he was well away from Drake. The moon was up but it was only a sliver and touched only the occasional rock, the odd stalk of weed. He walked straight into a low-hanging tree branch and fell on his butt, mouth bleeding and bruised.
After that he cut back to the road. The road curved high above the glittering ocean, affording a pretty, if disquieting view. Something about the ocean always felt ominous to Bug.
Bug figured if he was visible on infrared, well, too bad. He could always switch sides like Computer Jack had done. Of course then he’d be in trouble if Drake ever got hold of him.
He took Drake’s threats seriously. Very seriously.
Bug had been beaten many times. His father had been quick with a slap or, when he was good and drunk, a punch. But his father had some limits on his behavior: he was always worried that Bug’s mother would be able to take custody away from him. Not that his father loved him so much—it was that he hated Bug’s mother and wouldn’t do anything that would allow her to win.
At the worst of times, when his father had been out drinking with his girlfriend and they’d had a fight, Bug had learned to hide. His favorite place was in the attic because it was stuffed with boxes, and behind the boxes there was a spot where Bug could crawl under the eaves and lie flat on the insulation between cross-beams. His father had never found him there.
It seemed like forever before Bug began to catch sight of the brightly lit power plant. A glimpse through a crease in the hill, a glow coming from beyond a bend in the road. It felt like another forever before he came upon the second guardhouse, the one that squatted across the road with a chain-link and barbed-wire fence extending out in both directions.
Caine had speculated that the fence, which only one Coates kid had ever seen, might be electrified. Bug wasn’t going to take any chances. He walked along the fence, uphill, into the rough, away from the guardhouse for a hundred yards. He found a stick and began to scoop out the dirt below the fence. It wouldn’t take much, he wasn’t very big.
Bug felt very exposed. As long as he was digging with the stick, he was visible: sticks did not have the power of camouflage. The moon that before had seemed to cast no light at all now felt like a searchlight focused right on him. And the power plant itself was like some vast, terrifying beast crouched beside the water, blazingly bright in the blackness.
Bug crawled under the fence on his back. Dirt found its way inside his shirt, but he did not get electrocuted. Not that he really thought the fence was electrified. Still, better to be careful.
Bug stood up, brushed himself off, and began marching down the hill toward the power plant.
He was hungry. He would spy and do all the things Drake had told him to do. But first, he would look for food.
Sam tried to sleep. Wanted desperately to sleep.
He was in the spare bedroom at Astrid and Mary and John’s house. In the dark. On his back. Staring up at the ceiling.
Downstairs, in the kitchen, there were a half dozen cans of food. He was hungry. But he had had his ration for the day. He had to set the example.
Still, he was hungry, and the hunger didn’t care about setting an example.
Food downstairs. And Astrid down the hall.
A different kind of hunger, that. And there, too, he had to set a good example.
I am nothing but good examples, he told himself gloomily.
Not that Astrid would…although, how could he know for sure?
His head buzzed with a crazy list of things he had to do. Had to get people working on picking crops. Had to get people to start carrying their trash to one central location: rats were taking over the nighttime streets, scurrying from trash pile to trash pile.
Had to get a whole list of younger kids set up in houses with older kids. There were five-and six-year-olds living alone. That was crazy. And dangerous. One of them had thrown a hair dryer into a bathtub last week and blown out power in their home. It was just sheer luck no one had been electrocuted. Two weeks before that a second-grade boy, living by himself, had set his house on fire. Deliberately, it seemed. As a way to get someone, anyone, to pay attention. The blaze had consumed three homes, half a block, before anyone got around to telling the fire department. By the time Ellen had driven the huge old fire truck to the scene, the fire had almost burned itself out.
The kid had survived with painful burns that Lana had healed. But only after the little boy had writhed and cried in unbearable agony for hours.
Was Astrid still awake? Was she lying there in the dark? Same as him? Thinking the same thoughts?
No. She was thinking he was a jerk for authorizing Albert to bribe Orc with beer. Thinking he had no morals. Thinking he was losing it.
Maybe she was right.
Not helpful. Not helpful when what you needed was sleep. Not helpful to go over the list of things you needed to do, and the list of things you couldn’t do.
How crazy was it that he was reduced to fantasizing about a can of chili, the last slightly tasty thing he’d eaten? How long ago? A week? Fantasizing about canned chili. Hamburg
ers. Ice cream. Pizza. And Astrid, in her own bed.
He wondered what it would be like to be drunk. Did it make you forget all of that? There was still plenty of alcohol in the FAYZ, even though some kids had started drinking it.
Could he stop them? Should he bother? If they were going to starve to death, why not let them drink?
Little kids, drinking rum. He’d seen it. Drinking vodka. They’d make faces at the horrible taste and the burn of it, then they’d take another sip.
Food poisoning last week, two kids sharing something they had dug out of the garbage. They’d staggered into Dahra’s so-called hospital with fevers. A hundred and four degrees. Vomiting. Vomiting the water and the Tylenol she’d tried to get down them. Thank God for Lana, she’d saved them, but it was a close call. Lana’s power worked better on wounds, things that were broken.
There would be more electrocutions. More fires. More poisonings. More accidents. Like the boy who had fallen off the roof. He’d fallen two stories, and no one had seen him fall. His sister had found the body.
He was buried in the town square now, next to the victims of the battle.
Caine was still out there. Drake. Pack Leader. All of them still out there, somewhere. Sam had fooled himself into believing he was done with them, until Drake and his crew hit Ralph’s.
In the old days if you had just a little money you could make a phone call and, thirty minutes later, there would be Papa John’s bringing you a giant pizza.
Melted, bubbly, brown cheese. Greasy pepperoni. Just like that. Just like it was no big deal. He would sell his soul for a pizza.
Astrid was religious, so probably no, she was not lying in her bed thinking of him. Almost certainly not. Although when they kissed she didn’t seem like she was pulling away. She loved him, he knew that for sure. And he loved her. With all his heart.
But there were other feelings, in addition to love. Kind of attached to the love feeling, but different, too.
And Chinese. Oh, man, the little white cardboard boxes full of sweet-and-sour chicken and lemon chicken and Szechuan prawns. He’d never cared much for Chinese food. But it beat cans of butter beans and half-cooked pinto beans and what passed for tortillas made out of flour and oil and water and burned on a stove.