Albert picked up his omnipresent notebook and left.
To a now empty, silent room, Astrid said, “Don’t die, Sam. Don’t die.”
Taylor found Edilio already en route to the gas station. He had just one soldier with him, a girl named Elizabeth. Both were carrying machine pistols, part of the armory they’d found long ago at the power plant.
Elizabeth spun and almost sprayed Taylor when she popped in.
“Whoa!” Taylor yelled.
“Sorry. I thought…We heard gunfire.”
“Gas station. Sam’s on his way, told me to get you going in that direction.”
Edilio nodded. “Yeah, we’re on our way.”
Taylor grabbed him and pulled him aside so Elizabeth wouldn’t overhear. “Sam is fighting with Astrid.”
“Great. That’s just what we need: the two of them at each other.” Edilio ran his hand back over his brush-cut hair. He still kept it short unlike most kids, who had given up on personal grooming. “I haven’t heard anyone shooting in the last few minutes. Probably just some drunk fool got hold of a gun.”
“That’s not what your guy said,” Taylor corrected him, talking fast. “He said the station was being attacked.”
“Caine?” Edilio mused.
“Or Drake. Or Caine and Drake.”
“Drake’s dead,” Edilio said flatly. Then he made the sign of the cross over his chest. “At least I sure hope so. Where is Brianna? Where’s Dekka?”
“Next on my list,” Taylor said and bounced to the house where Dekka was staying. The house was dark but for a Sammy Sun burning grimly in the living room.
“Dekka?” Taylor yelled.
She heard a stirring coming from upstairs. Taylor bounced to the bedroom to find Dekka sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
“Sam sent me. Said you should haul butt to the gas station. Someone’s shooting the place up.”
Dekka coughed. Covered her mouth and coughed again. “Sorry. I guess I have a—” She coughed again, more violently. “I’m okay,” she managed to say.
“Whatever you’ve got, don’t give it to me,” Taylor said, backing away. “Hey, do you know where Brianna is?”
Dekka’s already gloomy expression darkened further. “She’s at her place. With Jack, in case you’re looking for him, too.”
“Jack?” Taylor said, momentarily distracted by the possibility of good gossip. “She’s with Computer Jack?”
“Yeah, Computer Jack. Nerdy kid, glasses, does stupid things like turn off the power plant? That Jack. He’s sick and she’s taking care of him.”
“Okay. Bouncing…Wait. I forgot. You might want to keep an eye out for Drake.”
Dekka’s eyebrows shot up. “Say what?”
“Welcome to the FAYZ,” Taylor said, and changed the channel. Dekka’s dark bedroom became Brianna’s.
Jack had set up a cot in the corner of Brianna’s bedroom, but he wasn’t lying on it. Jack was in a big office chair, feet up on a side table with a blanket wrapped around him. He was snoring. His glasses were on the floor. Brianna was in her bed.
“Wake up!” Taylor yelled.
Jack didn’t stir. But Brianna was up and off of the cot in less time than it took for Taylor’s shout to echo.
Brianna said, “What are you—” and then she started coughing.
It was a strange thing to witness because Brianna coughed fast. She did everything fast. It used to be it was only when she ran—something she could do at about the speed of sound. But more and more lately that speed had translated to the rest of her movements, too. So now she coughed much faster than a normal person would cough.
And then she sat down as suddenly as she’d stood up.
Jack’s eyes fluttered open. “Huh,” he muttered. He blinked a couple of times and fished around for his fallen glasses. “What?”
“Trouble,” Taylor said.
“I’m coming,” Brianna said. She stood up again and sat back down again.
“She’s sick,” Jack said. “Like the flu or whatever. What I had.”
“What do you mean she’s sick?” Taylor demanded. “Dekka told me you were sick.”
“I was,” Jack grumbled. “I still am, a little, but I’m getting better. Now Brianna’s got it.”
“Interesting,” Taylor said with a leer.
“What’s…,” Brianna began, and then started coughing again.
“What’s happening?” Jack asked, completing Brianna’s thought.
“You don’t even want to know,” Taylor said. “Take care of Breeze. Sam can probably handle whatever this is by himself.”
“Handle what?” Brianna managed.
Taylor shook her head slowly, side to side. “If I said Drake Merwin, what would you say?”
“I’d say he’s dead,” Jack said.
“Yeah,” Taylor said, and bounced out of the room.
Sam reached the station. Edilio was already there. Alone.
Edilio didn’t waste any time. “I got here a minute ago,” he said. “Me and Elizabeth. No one here but Marty and he’d been wounded. Shot in the hand. I sent him to Clifftop with Elizabeth to have Lana fix him.”
“What’s going on, can you tell?” Sam asked.
“Marty says a whole crowd was here. Shooting, yelling, ‘Death to freaks.’”
Sam frowned. “Zil? That’s what this is? I thought…”
“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, man. This isn’t a Drake kind of thing,” Edilio said. “Drake shows up, you know it’s him, right? He makes sure you know it’s him.”
“Where are your other soldiers?”
“Run off.” Edilio sounded disgusted.
“They’re just kids,” Sam said. “People shooting at them. In the dark. All of a sudden. Almost anyone would run off.”
“Yeah,” Edilio said curtly. But Sam knew he was embarrassed. The army was Edilio’s responsibility. He picked the kids and trained them and motivated them as well as he could. But twelve-, thirteen-, fourteen-year-old kids were not supposed to be dealing with this kind of craziness. Not even now.
Never.
“You smell that?” Edilio asked.
“Gas. So Zil stole some gas? You think that’s it? He wanted to be able to use a car?”
In the pitch black Sam couldn’t see Edilio’s face but he could feel his friend’s doubt. “I don’t know, Sam. What’s he going to do with a car? Why’s he need it so bad, he’s going to do this? Zil’s a creep but he’s not totally stupid. He’s got to know this is over the line and we’ll go after him.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah.”
“You okay, man?”
Sam didn’t answer. He peered into the darkness. Searched the shadows. Clenched. Ready.
Finally, he forced his fists to relax. Forced himself to take a breath. “I’ve never set out to hurt anyone,” Sam said.
Edilio waited.
“I never set out thinking I’m going to kill someone. I go into a fight and I think, maybe I’ll have to hurt someone. Yeah. I think that. And I have. You know: you’ve been there.”
“Yeah, I’ve been there,” Edilio said.
“If it’s him, though, I mean if Drake is somehow back…it’s not going to be about just doing what I have to do. You know?”
Edilio did not answer.
“I’ve done what I had to do. To save people. Or to save myself. This won’t be like that. If it’s him, I mean.”
“Dude, it’s Zil. Zil and Human Crew did this.”
Sam shook his head. “Yeah. Zil. But I know he’s out there, Edilio. I know Drake is out there. I feel it.”
“Sam…”
“If I see him, I’ll kill him,” Sam said. “Not self-defense. I’m not waiting until he attacks. I see him, I burn him.”
Edilio grabbed him by both shoulders and got in his face. “Hey! Listen to me, Sam. You’re getting freaked out here. The problem is Zil. Okay? We have real problems, we don’t need nightmares. And, anyway, we don’t do cold-blooded murder
. Not even if it is Drake.”
Sam firmly pried Edilio’s hands off his shoulders. “If it’s Drake, I’m burning him down. If you and Astrid and the rest of the council want to arrest me for doing it, fine. But I’m not sharing my life with Drake Merwin.”
“Well, you do what you got to do, Sam, and I will, too. Right now what we got to do is figure out what Zil is up to. So, I’m going to go and do that. You want to come? Or do you want to stand here in the dark talking about murder?”
Edilio stomped away, swinging his machine pistol down into firing position.
For the first time, Sam followed Edilio.
TWENTY-TWO
14 HOURS, 17 MINUTES
DOWN THE ACCESS road they marched, the station lost behind them in the night.
Their numbers had diminished a little. Kids, the weak and scared ones, had peeled off unnoticed, slinking home once they’d had a taste of violence.
Weaklings, Zil thought. Cowards.
Just a dozen of them now, the hard core, pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with softly clinking bottles, trailing the smell of gasoline.
Left at the school. Past the gloomy, darkened buildings. So alien now. So long ago, all of that.
Zil couldn’t make out individual windows in the edifice, but he could see approximately where his old home room had been. He imagined himself back then. Imagined himself sitting, bored during morning announcements.
And now here he was at the head of an army. A small army. But dedicated. All together in a great cause. Perdido Beach for humans. Death to freaks. Death to mutants.
On stiff legs he led the march. The march to freedom and power.
Right at Golding. Golding and Sherman, off the northwest corner of the school, that was the target zone, as agreed with Caine. No idea why. Caine had only said that they should start at Golding and Sherman. And move along Sherman toward the water. Burn all they could till they reached Ocean Boulevard. Then, if they still had any left, they could go along Ocean toward town. Not toward the marina.
“If I see you nitwits heading toward the marina, our little agreement is over,” Caine had warned.
Nitwits. Zil seethed at the memory. Caine’s casual arrogance, his contempt for anyone who wasn’t a freak like him. His time would come, Zil vowed.
“We’re here,” Zil said. But that wasn’t a very historic thing to say. And this, make no mistake, was history happening in the FAYZ. The beginning of the end for the freaks. The beginning of Zil being in control.
Zil turned to faces he knew were expectant, giddy, excited. He could hear it in their whispered conversation.
“Tonight we strike a blow for humans,” Zil said. That was the line Turk had come up with. Something everyone would be able to quote. “Tonight we strike a blow for humans!” Zil cried, raising his voice, no longer afraid.
“Death to freaks!” Turk shouted.
“Light up!” Hank cried.
Lighters and matches flicked. Tiny yellow pinpoints in the black night, casting eerie shadows on wild eyes and mouths pulled back in grimaces of fear and rage.
Zil took the first of the bottles—Molotov cocktails, Hank said they were called. The spark of the lighter caught the gasoline-saturated wick.
Zil turned and heaved the bottle toward the closest house.
It arced like a meteor, spinning.
It crashed onto the brick steps and burst. Flames spread over several square feet of porch.
No one moved. All eyes were fixed. Faces fascinated.
The spilled gasoline burned blue. For a while it seemed it would do nothing but burn itself out on the porch.
But then a wicker rocking chair caught fire.
And then the decorative lattice.
And suddenly the flames were licking up the pillars that supported the porch roof.
A wild cheer went up.
More bottles were lit. More wild arcs of twirling fire.
A second house. A garage. A parked car sitting on deflated tires.
Cries of shock and horror came from inside the first house.
Zil didn’t let himself hear them.
“Onward!” he cried. “Burn it all down!”
Down through the dark they shuffled and stumbled, Caine’s starved and starving remnants.
“Look!” Bug cried. No one could see him, of course, or his outstretched pointing hand. But they looked, anyway.
An orange glow lit the horizon.
“Huh. The stupid punk actually did it,” Caine said. “We have to hurry. Anyone falls out, they are on their own.”
Orsay climbed to the top of the cliff, weary but propelled by Nerezza’s helping hand.
“Come on, Prophetess, we’re almost there.”
“Don’t call me that,” Orsay said.
“It’s what you are,” Nerezza said softly but insistently.
The others had all gone ahead. Nerezza always insisted that the supplicants leave the beach first. Orsay suspected it had to do with Nerezza not wanting anyone to see Orsay struggling and scraping her knees on rocks. Nerezza seemed to think it was important for kids to see Orsay as above all that normal stuff.
A prophet.
“I’m not a prophet,” Orsay said. “I’m just a person who hears dreams.”
“You are helping people,” Nerezza said as they rounded a buried boulder that always gave Orsay trouble. “You are telling them the truth. Showing them a path.”
“I can’t even find my own path,” Orsay said as she slipped and landed on her palms. They were scraped, but not too badly.
“You show them the way,” Nerezza said. “They need to be shown a way out of this place.”
Orsay stopped, panting from exertion. She turned to Nerezza, whose face was just two faintly glowing eyes, like a cat’s eyes. “You know, I’m not totally sure. You know that. Maybe I’m…maybe it’s…” She didn’t have the word for what she felt at times like this, times of doubt. Times when a small voice down deep inside her seemed to be whispering warnings in her ear.
“You need to trust me,” Nerezza said firmly. “You are the Prophetess.”
Orsay topped the cliff. She stared. “I must not be much of a prophet. I didn’t foresee this.”
“What?” Nerezza called up from just below.
“The town is burning.”
“Look, Tanner,” Brittney said. She raised one arm and pointed.
Her brother, now glowing a dark green, like a billion little nodules of radioactivity, but still Tanner, said, “Yes. It is time.”
Brittney hesitated. “Why, Tanner?”
He gave no answer.
“Are we doing the Lord’s will, Tanner?”
Tanner did not answer.
“I am doing what’s right. Aren’t I?”
“Go toward the flames, sister. All your answers are there.”
Brittney lowered her arm to her side. It seemed strange, somehow. All of it. All of it so very strange.
She had burrowed up through the wet dirt. How long? Forever and ever. She had burrowed like a mole. Blind. Like a mole. No. Like an earthworm.
Tanner began chanting in a singsong voice. An eerie poem that Brittney remembered from so very long ago. A class assignment, a thing memorized and quickly forgotten.
But it was still buried in her memory. And now it came from Tanner’s mouth, his dead mouth gaping with black-edge fire dribbling like magma.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs…
Tanner smiled a ghastly smile and said, “In human gore imbued.”
“Why are you saying that? You’re scaring me, Tanner.”
“Not for long, sister,” Tanner said. Soon you will understand the Lord’s will.”
Justin woke suddenly. He immediately rolled to on
e side and felt the spot where he’d been sleeping. Dry!
See? He’d been right all along. He didn’t wet this bed.
But just to be safe he should run out to the backyard and pee because he could feel a little pressure. He was wearing his same old pajamas; they’d been in his same old drawer. They were so soft because they were still from the old days. His mommy had washed these pajamas and made them all soft.
The floor was cold under his bare feet. He hadn’t been able to find his old slippers. Roger had even helped him look. The Artful Roger was nice. The only new thing in this room was a picture Roger had colored for him. It showed a happy Justin with his mommy and daddy and a ham with sweet potatoes and cookies. It was taped on Justin’s wall.
Roger had also found the picture album for him. It was downstairs in the cupboard in the dining room. It was full of pictures of Justin and his family and his old friends.
Now it was under Justin’s bed. It made him feel pretty sad looking at it.
Justin crept down the stairs so he wouldn’t wake up Roger.
The old toilets didn’t work anymore. People all peed and did number two in holes in their backyards. No big deal. But it was scary going out at night. Justin was scared the coyotes would come back.
It was easier than usual to find the hole. It was kind of light out, a flickery orange light.
And it wasn’t quiet like it usually was. He could hear kids yelling. And it sounded like someone dropped a glass and broke it. And then he heard someone screaming, so he ran back in the house.
He stopped, amazed. The living room was burning.
He could feel the heat. Smoke was pouring out of the living room, swooping up the stairs.
Justin didn’t know what to do. He remembered he was supposed to stop, drop, and roll if he ever caught on fire. But he wasn’t on fire—the house was.
“Call 911,” he said aloud. But that probably wouldn’t work. Nothing worked anymore.
Suddenly a loud beeping noise. Really loud. It was upstairs. Justin covered his ears but he could still hear it.