Antoine lay on the ground, crying loudly. He had pulled off his shirt to see the wound in his side. He lay there, fat and jiggly, as he cried about the pain.
“Man up,” Hank said harshly.
“Are you crazy?” Antoine cried. “I have a hole in me! I have a hole in me! Oh, God. It hurts so bad!”
Perdido Beach was burning. At least a big part of it was. Zil climbed atop a Winnebago in the beach parking lot. He could see much of the town from there.
Sherman was ablaze. It looked like a volcano had erupted in the middle of town. And now the flames were advancing toward the center of town along Alameda.
His doing, all of this. His creation. And now they would all know that he was serious. Now they would all know that you didn’t mess with Zil Sperry.
“Take me to Lana,” Antoine moaned. “You guys have to take me to Lana!”
The sun wasn’t up yet, so it wasn’t possible to see the smoke plume, but Zil sensed that it was huge. There was not a star to be seen in the sky.
“Think we got Sam?” Lance asked.
No one answered.
“Should we go back and get more gas?” Turk asked. He, like everyone else, was ignoring Antoine.
Zil couldn’t answer. A part of him wanted to burn it all down. Every last house. Every vacant, useless store. Burn it all down and dance up here atop the Winnebago while it burned.
The plan was to create chaos. And to help the freak Caine to escape.
“Leader, we need to know what to do,” Turk urged.
“Help me,” Antoine moaned. “We gotta stick together, don’t we? Don’t we?”
Hank said, “Antoine, shut up or I’ll shut you up.”
“He burned a hole in me. Look at it! Look at it!”
Hank glanced up at Zil. Zil turned away. He didn’t have an answer to the problem of Antoine.
The truth was, Zil hated seeing wounds of any kind. He’d always been squeamish about blood. And the one quick glance he’d stolen at Antoine’s injury had made him sick to his stomach.
Which probably didn’t help Antoine much.
Hank said, “Come on, Antoine. Come with me.”
“What? What are you…I’ll be good, it’s just that it hurts, man, it hurts so much.”
“Dude, come on,” Hank said. “I’ll get you to Lana. Come on.”
Hank bent low and propped Antoine up as he struggled onto his feet. Antoine shrieked in pain.
Zil climbed down the ladder that was bolted to the back of the Winnebago.
“What do you think, Lance?” Handsome Lance. Tall, cool, smart Lance. If only, Zil thought for not the first time, all Human Crew could look like Lance. Lance reflected well on Zil. Whereas fat, drunken Antoine, Turk with his dragging foot, and Hank with his nasty ferret’s face made it seem that he was surrounded by losers.
Lance looked thoughtful. “Kids are spread all over the place. All confused. What do we do if they decide we were responsible for burning the town and decide to come after us?”
Turk laughed derisively. “Like the Leader hasn’t thought of that? We tell people it was Sam.”
Zil was surprised by the suggestion. He’d given it no thought, but obviously Turk had.
“Not Sam,” Zil corrected, thinking on the fly. “We blame Caine. Kids won’t believe it was Sam. We say it was Caine and everyone will believe us.”
“Kids saw us throwing Molotov cocktails,” Lance argued.
Turk snorted. “Man, don’t you know? People believe all kinds of stuff if you tell them it’s true. People will believe in flying saucers and stuff.”
“It was Caine,” Zil said, making it up as he went along and liking it more with each word he spoke. “Caine can make people do what he wants, right? So he used his powers to force some of us to do it.”
“Yeah,” Turk said. His eyes lit up. “Yeah, because he wanted to make us look bad. He wanted it to be on us because he’s a freak and we fight the freaks.”
Hank reappeared. He took a position behind Lance. The contrast between the two was all the more clear when they were close together.
“Where’s ’Toine?” Turk asked.
“Dumped him down the beach,” Hank said. “He’s not going to make it. Not with that hole in him. He’d just slow us down.”
“Then he’ll be the first to give his life for the Human Crew,” Turk said solemnly. “That’s major. That’s hard-core. Murdered by Sam.”
Zil reached a sudden realization. “If people are going to believe Caine is responsible for all this, we have to fight Caine.”
“Fight Caine?” Turk said blankly. He took an unconscious step back.
Zil grinned. “We don’t have to win. We just have to make it look real.”
Turk nodded. “That’s really smart, Leader. Everyone will think Caine used us and then we managed to chase him off.”
Zil doubted everyone would believe that. But some would. And that doubt would slow down Sam’s reaction as the council tried to make sense of everything.
Each hour of chaos would leave Zil stronger.
Would his big brother, Zane, have figured it all out this well? And would he have had the nerve to pull it off? Not likely. Zane would have been on Sam’s side.
It was almost a pity he wasn’t here.
TWENTY-FIVE
14 HOURS, 2 MINUTES
EDILIO HAD WATCHED Sam go with a feeling of doom. What chance was there if Sam had lost it? What chance did Edilio have to fix anything?
“Like I could,” he muttered. “Like anyone could.”
It was very hard for him to see what was happening around him. He heard screams. He heard shouts. He heard laughter. He saw only smoke and flame.
Gunshots rang out. From where, he couldn’t say.
He glimpsed kids running. So brightly lit, they looked like they were burning. Then they were obscured by the smoke.
“What do I do?” Edilio asked himself.
“Too bad we don’t have marshmallows. This is an amazing fire.”
Howard emerged through the smoke behind Edilio. Orc was with him.
“This sucks,” the monster growled. “Burning everything up.”
Ellen, the fire chief, showed up with two other kids. And Edilio began to realize that they were all looking to him for answers. “Fire chief” was a mostly empty title now. There was no water in the hydrants. But at least she had a clue, which was more than Edilio had.
“I think the fire is moving toward the center of town. Lot of kids live between here and there,” Ellen said. “We need to make sure kids get out of the way.”
Yeah,” Edilio agreed, grateful for any useful suggestion.
“And we got to see if anyone is still inside any of these houses that are already burning. Anyone that we can save.”
“Right. Right,” Edilio said. He took a deep breath. “Okay, good, Ellen. You and your guys run ahead of the fire, get people out. Tell them either go toward the beach or cross the highway.”
“Right,” Ellen agreed.
“Orc and Howard and I’ll see if we can save anyone.”
Edilio didn’t bother to ask Howard or Orc’s opinion on that. He just started moving. Straight back down Sherman. He didn’t look back to see if they were following. Either they were, or they weren’t. If they weren’t, well, he couldn’t really blame them.
Down the burning street.
The fire was on both sides now. It made a sound like a tornado. The roar rose and fell and rose again. There came a loud crash as a roof collapsed and sparks like an eruption of fireflies billowed into the sky.
The heat reminded Edilio of sticking his face into his mother’s oven when she was baking. A blast of burning air first from one side and then the other, buffeting him back and forth.
Glancing back Edilio saw Howard lose his balance and fall. Orc grabbed him and propped him back up.
Smoke filled the air, scalding Edilio’s throat, seeming to shrivel his lungs. He breathed in pints, then cups, then teaspoons of air.
He stopped walking. Through the pall he could see an endless vista of flame and smoke ahead. Parked cars burned in driveways. Overgrown, unwatered lawns burned with almost explosive force.
Glass shattered. Beams collapsed. The blacktop street bubbled at the edges, liquefied.
“Can’t,” Edilio gasped.
He turned again to see that Howard was already retreating. Orc stood stolidly, unmoving.
Edilio put a hand on his pebbled shoulder. Unable to speak, choking and crying, Edilio guided him back away from the flames.
Roger did not wake up. The Artful Roger did not wake up.
Justin had to run. He ran into the backyard.
But he couldn’t just do that, he couldn’t, he couldn’t.
So he ran back inside. And he heard Roger coughing like crazy. He was awake! But it was like he couldn’t see, his eyes were closed, all the smoke, and Roger ran but he hit a wall.
“Roger!”
Justin ran to him and grabbed his shirt tail. “It’s this way!”
He pulled Roger toward the kitchen, toward the back door.
Roger stumbled along with him. But it wasn’t right because the fire and the smoke were in front of him now. The fire had circled around and filled the kitchen.
The dining room. It made him think about the picture album upstairs under his bed. Maybe he could go and grab it really fast.
Maybe, but probably not. There was no door from the dining room into the backyard. But there was a big window, and Justin led Roger to it.
“I’m—” Justin started to say he was going to open the window, but the smoke was everywhere now stinging his eyes, so he had to shut them and choking his throat so he couldn’t talk.
He felt blindly for the window handles.
Caine kept pushing the pace. Push over a fence and move through. Backyards choked with weeds. Stinking swimming pools that had been turned into toilets. Garbage strewn everywhere.
In the dark they stumbled over fence posts and forgotten toys. They banged into rusting swing sets and barbecues.
They were making a lot of noise. Off the street, but noisy. Kids yelled down at them from dark windows: “Hey, who is that? Get out of my yard.”
Caine ignored them. Keep moving, that was the key. Keep moving, get to the beach.
They had one chance, one chance only. They had to reach the marina within minutes. Sam and his people would be confused by the destruction, running around like crazy trying to figure it out. But sooner or later it would occur to someone, Astrid if not Sam, that it was all a diversion.
Or Sam would take Zil and squeeze him. Then the little punk would give Caine up. In a heartbeat.
Caine did not want to reach the marina to find Sam waiting for him. Caine was holding on by his fingernails, desperate. He couldn’t take Sam on. Not now. Not this night.
Even here, blocks from the fire, the air reeked. The smell of burning was everywhere. Almost enough to cover the smell of human waste.
They reached another street. No alternative but to cross it, as they had earlier streets. But there were too many kids here to easily avoid them. No way around, nothing to do but bluff and keep moving.
They pushed past terrified refugees.
“Keep moving, keep moving,” Caine yelled as some of his people peeled off in a vain attempt to beg food from two traumatized, soot-covered five-year-olds.
Then, just down the street, wreathed in smoke, a shape.
“Down!” Caine hissed. “Stop!”
He peered through blurry eyes. Was it? No. Of course not. Madness.
The shape resolved into a kid, a regular kid, with regular hands and arms and nothing at all like that other form he had seen in the smoke.
Caine stood up, feeling foolish for having been spooked. “Move on, move on,” he yelled.
He raised his hands and used his power to shove the group forward. Half of them stumbled and fell.
He cursed them. “Move!”
The earlier form in the smoke. That tall, lean body. The arm that went on and on. Impossible. An illusion, just like this one. Imagination fed by exhaustion and fear and hunger.
“Penny, are you doing anything?” Caine demanded.
Penny rasped, “What do you mean?”
“I thought I saw something,” Caine said. Then he amended. “Someone. Before.”
“It wasn’t me,” Penny said. “I would never use my powers on you, Caine.”
“No,” Caine agreed. “You wouldn’t.” His confidence was draining away. His mind was playing tricks on him. The others would sense it soon. Diana already did. But then she’d had the same hallucination, hadn’t she?
“This is too slow,” Caine said. “We have to go straight down the street. Penny, either you or me, one of us takes down anyone that gets in our way. Right?”
He plunged down the street, aiming for the beach. He had to fight the urge to look over his shoulder for the boy who could not possibly be there.
They made it safely as far as the beach. But there they ran into a group of maybe twenty kids, all milling around gaping at the fire, crying, giggling, encouraging one another. Half like they were watching a show, half like they were personally burning in those flames.
At first the gaggle of kids didn’t notice Caine’s group, but then one glanced over and his eyes widened as he saw Diana. And then, Caine.
“It’s Caine!”
“Out of my way,” Caine warned. The last thing he wanted was a stupid, pointless, and time-wasting fight. He was in a hurry.
“You!” another kid cried. “You started the fire!”
“What? Moron.” Caine pushed past, using his actual hands, not his powers, not looking for trouble right now. But the cry was being taken up by others and now a dozen furious, terrified kids were in his face, yelling and crying and then one threw a punch.
“Enough,” Caine yelled. He raised a hand, and the nearest kid went flying. He landed with a sickening crunch twenty feet away.
Caine never even saw the person who brained him with a crowbar. The blow seemed to come out of nowhere. He was on his knees, too confused to be scared.
He saw the crowbar just before it hit the second time. A weaker blow, and badly aimed, but shockingly painful on the bone of his left shoulder. It sent a numbing electricity all the way down to his fingertips.
He wasn’t going to wait for a third blow. He raised his right hand, but before he could pulverize the little boy, Penny made her move.
The boy leaped back, almost as far as if Caine had thrown him.
He screamed and swung his crowbar wildly around him. When the crowbar flew from his fear-weakened grip, he began punching and clawing the air, eyes wild.
“What’s he seeing?” Caine asked.
“Very large spiders,” Penny answered. “Really large. And they jump really fast.”
“Thanks,” Caine grunted. He stood up and rubbed his numbed arm. “Hope they give him a heart attack. Come on,” he yelled. “It’s not far now. Hang in with me, everyone, by morning you’ll be eating.”
Mary didn’t have the energy to go home. Not much point, really…no shower…no…
She sagged onto the chair in the cramped office. She tried to lift her legs, rest her feet on a cardboard box, but even that required too much energy.
She rattled the pill bottle on her desk. She pried the top off and looked at what she had. She didn’t even recognize the pill, but it must be some kind of antidepressant. That’s all she ever got from Dahra.
She downed it dry.
When had she last taken a pill? She needed to keep track of them.
Two kids down with some kind of flu.
What was she supposed to…
What might have been dreams melded seamlessly with memory and Mary wandered for a while in a place filled with sick children and the smell of pee and her mother making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in giant stacks for some event at school and Mary wrapping the sandwiches in Ziploc bags, counting them into recycled
plastic Ralph’s bags.
“Did you wet yourself?” her mother asked.
“I guess so. It smells like it.” She wasn’t embarrassed, just annoyed, wishing her mother wouldn’t make an issue out of it.
And then the door was opened and a little girl came and crawled onto Mary’s lap but Mary couldn’t move her arms to hug because her arms were made out of lead.
“I’m so tired,” Mary told her mother.
“Well, we’ve made eight thousand sandwiches,” her mother explained, and Mary saw from the stacks and stacks that teetered comically like something from a Dr. Seuss book, that it was true.
“You look sickly.”
“I’m fine,” Mary said.
“I want my mommy,” the little girl said in her ear, and warm tears rolled onto Mary’s neck.
“You should come home now,” Mary’s mother said.
“I have to do the laundry first,” Mary said.
“Someone else will do it.”
Mary felt a sudden sharp sadness. She felt herself sinking into the tile floor, shrinking as her mother watched, no longer making sandwiches.
Her mother held the knife covered with peanut butter and raspberry preserves. Globules of red, red fruit dripped from the edge of the knife, which was awfully large for making sandwiches.
“It won’t hurt,” her mother said. She held the knife out for Mary.
Mary jerked awake.
The girl on her lap had fallen asleep and peed. Mary was soaked by it.
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, get off me! Get off me!” she yelled, still half in her dream, still seeing that knife floating, handle toward her, dripping.
The girl fell to the floor and, stunned, began to cry.
“Hey!” someone yelled from the main room.
“I’m sorry,” Mary mumbled, and tried to stand up. Her legs gave way and she sat down again, too suddenly. As she fell she reached for the knife but it wasn’t real, though the little girl’s cry was, and so was the voice yelling, “Hey, you can’t come in here!”
On the next try Mary managed to stand up. She staggered out. Three kids, faces dull with terror.
Not her age group. Too old.