It didn’t fly open, it simply came apart. The frame shattered and splintered. The door itself split. And Orc tore through.
“Want to laugh at me?” he roared as he pounded up the stairs and emerged in the kitchen.
Jamal was still standing next to the hole, laughing.
“You wanna laugh?” Orc roared.
Jamal spun around, realizing too late the danger he was in. Orc was over six feet tall and almost as wide as he was tall. His legs were like tree trunks, his arms like bridge cable.
Jamal fumbled for his gun, but Orc wasn’t having any of that. He grabbed Jamal by the neck, lifted him off the floor, and threw him down the hole.
Jamal hit hard. The gun flew, scraping across the floor.
Orc was panting, sweating, heart pounding in his chest. Now reality was starting to penetrate the alcohol-fueled rage and he saw what he had done.
Howard. He should . . . Or Sam . . . Someone, he should tell someone, get someone . . .
It was all over now for Charles Merriman. He had redeemed himself, he had been given something important to do. But now all that was gone. And he was just Orc again.
He wanted to cry. He couldn’t face it. He couldn’t face Howard’s disappointment and pity. Sam’s cold anger.
Down in the dark basement a long, reddish tentacle reached for the gun.
Orc turned and ran.
Sanjit Brattle-Chance had not enjoyed his first week in Per-dido Beach. Virtue Brattle-Chance had enjoyed it even less.
“It’s like a giant lunatic asylum,” Virtue said.
“Yeah. It is, kind of,” Sanjit said. They had spent the afternoon inspecting the helicopter. Edilio had assigned them the job of reporting back on whether it was totally broken or just mostly broken.
So far it was looking totally broken. Both skids—the ski-like things it landed on—were crumpled. Part of the glass bubble canopy was shattered, just gone, and the rest of it was starred and cracked.
Night had fallen and that was the end of inspecting anything. Virtue had wanted to go straight home. Sanjit had stalled.
“Let’s just hang out and talk, Choo,” Sanjit said. “I mean, look, we’ve had all this stress, right? But now Bowie’s getting well—”
Virtue made a rude noise. “If you believe that so-called Healer.”
“I believe her completely,” Sanjit said.
The girl named Lana had come and laid her hand on Bowie. She’d barely spoken, had replied to polite inquiries with single-syllable answers or grunts. Or annoyed silence.
But Sanjit had been fascinated. He’d thought about little else ever since. After all, how could he not be attracted to a girl who could heal with a touch and yet walked around with a massive automatic pistol stuck in her belt?
His kind of girl.
He had learned that she lived up here at Clifftop. In fact Edilio had carefully and repeatedly warned Sanjit not to irritate her while he was checking out the helicopter.
His exact words had been, “For God’s sake, don’t get in Lana’s way.”
To which Sanjit had said, “Is she dangerous?”
Edilio had given him a strange look. “Well, she shot me once. But it was under the influence of the Darkness. Which she had tried to kill all by herself with a truckload of gas. And then she healed me. So I don’t know if that makes her dangerous. But if it was me, I would definitely not make her mad.”
So Sanjit and Virtue sat on the grass and watched the sun go down and the stars appear. And Sanjit secretly watched the hotel.
“Did you hear about the talking coyotes?” Virtue demanded. Like if there were such a thing, it was Sanjit’s fault.
“Yeah. Creepy, huh?”
“And the thing they call the Darkness?” Virtue shook his head dolefully. He’d always been gloomy. The cloud to Sanjit’s sunshine, the pessimist to Sanjit’s optimist. They were adopted brothers, from Congo and Thailand, respectively. From a desperate refugee camp, and from the tough streets of Bangkok.
“Yeah. I wonder what it is?”
“The gaiaphage. That’s the other word they use. ‘Gaia,’ as in world. ‘Phage,’ as in a worm or something that eats something up. I’m going to go way out on a limb here and say I don’t think something that calls itself a ‘world eater’ is a good thing.”
“No?” Sanjit made an innocent face, deliberately provoking his brother.
“Fine.” Virtue pouted. “But have you seen the graveyard they put in the plaza? There’s, like, two dozen graves there.”
Sanjit twisted around to look back at the helicopter. It had saved them. It seemed a shame just to let it lie there dead. “I’d need some big wrenches. A ladder. Hammer. And then, you know, someone who actually knew what to do with all of it.”
“Fine, you don’t really want to talk.”
They had landed the helicopter—well, crashed it, anyway— behind Clifftop hotel. In some scruffy trees and bushes just past the parking area.
The barrier was close at hand. So even if the helicopter could ever be flown—and Sanjit couldn’t imagine what the point would be—it would take a lot of luck not just to fly it straight into the barrier.
The barrier was a trickster. At ground level it was opaque, while suggesting translucence.
Higher up it was sky. But when you were up there it wasn’t like you could see beyond the barrier. If you tried, the barrier was just opaque again.
Tricky tricky. Like a street magician’s sleight of hand, Sanjit thought.
He realized Virtue was talking again.
“ . . . once Bowie’s completely better. Maybe Caine isn’t totally unreasonable. I mean, he was starving before and that would make anyone unreasonable.”
“Choo,” Sanjit said. “Caine is pure, distilled essence of evil. What are you even talking about?”
“Okay, even if he’s evil, maybe we can work out some kind of deal.”
“You don’t even believe that,” Sanjit said.
Virtue slumped back, deflated. “Yeah.”
“We are not going back to the island, my brother. We’ve been voted off. This is our home now.”
Virtue nodded. He looked like a kid who had just gotten the news that he would be shot at dawn.
“Cheer up, Choo,” Sanjit said. “There are a lot of good things about this place.”
“You heard about the zombie, right? The one they’ve got locked in a basement? Half the time it’s this nice Christian girl. And the rest of the time it’s a psychopath with a whip for an arm?”
Sanjit made a thoughtful face. “I do believe I heard something about that. But really, Choo, it’s not like a basement-dwelling Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde zombie is all that unusual.”
Despite himself Virtue very nearly smiled. “Fine. Be that way, Wisdom.”
“Don’t use my slave name.” It was an old joke between them. Sanjit had been born Sanjit, a homeless Hindu street kid in Buddhist Bangkok. When the actors Jennifer Brattle and Todd Chance had adopted him, they’d given him an aspirational name: Wisdom.
It never had fit. Wisdom meant . . . well, wisdom.
“You’re not looking at the bright side, Choo,” Sanjit said. He had in fact just spotted the bright side.
“Bright side? There’s no bright side. What bright side?”
“Girls, Choo,” Sanjit said, smiling hugely. “You’ll understand in a few years.”
Lana had come around the back of the hotel and was throwing a tennis ball to her dog. They were outlined against the faint glow of western horizon, and illuminated by the light of the moon just coming from behind the hills.
“I’m going to refuse to do puberty,” Virtue grumbled. “It makes you stupid.”
Sanjit barely heard him. He was walking toward Lana.
“Hi.”
“What are you doing here?” Lana snapped. “No one comes to Clifftop without me saying so.”
Sanjit said, “You missed a beautiful sunset.”
“It’s an illusion,” Lana said. “It’s not the real sun. None of
it’s real. The moon, the stars, all of it.”
“Still beautiful, though.”
“Fake.”
“But beautiful.”
Lana glared at him. And Sanjit had to admit: the girl could glare. The pistol in her waistband definitely added to the tough-girl look. But more it was that hurt-but-defiant expression.
“So asking you to take a moonlit walk with me, that would totally not work?”
“What?” Again that glare. “Go away. Stop being an idiot. I don’t even know you.”
“You’re healing my little brother Bowie.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t make us friends, kid.”
“So no moonlight.”
“Are you retarded?”
“Sunrise? I could get up early.”
“Go away.”
“Sunset tomorrow?”
“Just what is your problem, kid? Do you know who I am? No one messes with me.”
“Do you know my name?”
“Which part of ‘go away’ do you not get? I could shoot you and no one would even say anything.”
“It’s Sanjit. It’s a Hindu name.”
“One word to Orc and he’d play basketball with your head.”
“It means ‘invincible.’”
“That’s great,” Lana said.
“Invincible. I can’t be vinced.”
“That’s not even a word,” Lana said. Then she ground her teeth, obviously annoyed with herself for having been baited.
“Go ahead: try to vince me,” Sanjit said.
Just then Patrick came rushing over. He dropped the ball at Sanjit’s feet, grinned his delirious dog grin, and waited.
“Don’t play with my dog,” Lana said.
Sanjit snatched up the ball and threw it. Patrick went tearing after it.
“You don’t scare me,” Sanjit said. He held up a hand, cutting Lana off before she could answer. “I’m not saying I shouldn’t be scared. I’ve heard some of the stories about you. About what happened. You went up against this gaiaphage thing all by yourself. Which means you are the second bravest girl I ever met. So I probably should be scared. I’m just not.”
He watched her struggle to resist asking. She lost. “Second bravest?”
“I’ll tell you the story when we go for that walk,” Sanjit said. He jerked a thumb toward the helicopter. “I better get back to town. Edilio wants a report from me.”
He turned and walked away.
Chapter Nine
54 HOURS, 9 MINUTES
SAM FOUND HIS little crew where they were supposed to be.
Dekka was almost smiling. Almost smiling was giddy for Dekka.
Taylor was checking her fingernails, being elaborately bored. Sam wondered if he should say something about the kiss. Something like, “I’m really sorry I groped you.”
Yeah: that would be really helpful.
Better to pretend it all never happened. Unfortunately Taylor was not known for letting things just drop.
Furthermore, she irritated Dekka. Dekka was Sam’s friend and his ally. The three people Sam knew he could always count on were Edilio, Brianna, and Dekka. Strange, because it wasn’t like they hung out together. Sam spent his time alone or with Astrid. He barely saw Edilio lately. He had nothing at all in common with Brianna—she was too young, too crazy, too . . . too Brianna to be someone Sam would hang with.
Quinn had been his best friend back before. But Quinn had a big job, a job he loved. Quinn’s friends were all his fishing crews. They were as tight as a very close family, the fishermen.
The fourth member of the expedition was Jack. Formerly Computer Jack—there were no longer any functioning computers around. Jack was wasting his days reading comic books and pouting.
Jack’s superhuman strength might come in handy, but Jack had never been much use. Although, Sam noted thoughtfully, Jack had stepped up during the big fire. Maybe he was growing up a bit. Maybe getting his head out of a computer was actually a good thing.
“You guys up for this?” Sam asked.
“Do I have to go?” Jack whined.
Sam shrugged. “Albert’s paying you, right? It’s better than playing strong man for him all day, isn’t it?”
Jack’s eyes flashed. Albert had started using Jack’s physical strength—to carry loads to the market, to move furniture— and Jack resented it. In Jack’s mind he was still the tech genius, the supergeek, not the freak strong man.
“Why do we have to do this in the middle of the night?” Taylor asked.
“Because we don’t want the whole town knowing why we’re going and where we’re going.”
“How can I tell anyone if I don’t even know myself?” Taylor stuck out her lower lip.
“Water. We’re going to look for water,” Sam said.
He could almost hear the wheels in Taylor’s head spinning. Then, “OMG, we’re out of water?” She bit her lip, took a couple of dramatic breaths, and wailed, “Do you mean we’re all going to die?”
“That would be a pretty good example of why we’re keeping this secret,” Sam said dryly.
“I just need to go—”
“Uh-uh!” Sam said. “No you don’t, Taylor. You don’t bounce anywhere or talk to anyone without me agreeing. Are we clear?”
“You know, Sam, you’re nice. And so very, very hot,” Taylor said. “But you’re not really much fun.”
“Let’s get out of here while we can,” Dekka said. “I brought a gun, by the way.”
“Are we going to be in danger?” Taylor cried.
“The gun’s in case you get on my nerves, Taylor,” Dekka warned.
“Oh, so funny,” Taylor said.
Sam grinned. For the first time in a while he was actually looking forward to something. A mission. And at least a temporary escape from Perdido Beach.
“Dekka’s right. Let’s get out of here before something happens I have to deal with,” Sam said.
Just at that moment he heard a sound like something large breaking. It was some distance away. A noise like twigs snapping. Probably some drunk idiot.
Sam chose to ignore it. Edilio’s worry, not his.
He headed toward the dark hills above town.
After a while Dekka took Sam’s arm and slowed him down. She let Jack and Taylor move out in front.
“Did Edilio or Astrid tell you?”
“I haven’t talked to Edilio. I steered clear. He’s going to be mightily annoyed with me when he realizes I skipped town and didn’t even tell him.”
Dekka waited.
“Okay,” Sam said with a sigh. “Tell me what?”
“It’s Hunter. He’s got some kind of . . . Well, it’s like these bugs all inside him. Astrid says they’re parasites.”
“Astrid says?” Sam snapped. “So I guess you did see her before you left. And she didn’t tell you?”
“We had other things going on.”
“Oh?”
“No,” Sam said. “Not like that. Unfortunately. Tell me about Hunter.”
Dekka told him.
Sam’s face grew darker as he listened. So much for getting out of town before anything went wrong. This had “wrong” written all over it.
It sounded as if Hunter wasn’t going to be hunting much longer. Which meant the town would be running out of meat as well as water. They could probably survive without Hunter’s kills, but it sure would increase the sense of panic.
This mission had just gotten more important, not less.
“He said the greenies are on the morning side? Off the lake road? That’s what he said?”
Dekka nodded.
Sam called up to the other two who were arguing over something stupid. “Taylor! Jack! Veer right up there. We’re stopping off to see Hunter.”
Hunter woke suddenly. A noise.
It was a noise unlike anything he’d ever heard before. Close! Very close.
Like it was on him. Like it was . . .
Just in one ear.
He twisted his head. It was f
ull night. Black as black in the woods far from the starlight.
He couldn’t see anything.
But with his hands he could feel. The thing on his shoulder.
His ear . . . gone!
A terrible fear wrung a cry of horror from Hunter.
He couldn’t feel it, his ear, or his shoulder, couldn’t feel with anything but his fingers and he felt, reached beneath his shirt, felt the flesh of his belly pulse and heave.
Like something inside him.
No, no, no, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair!
He was Hunter. The hunter. He was doing his best.
He cried. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
Who would bring meat for all the kids?
It wasn’t fair.
The sound of munching, crunching started again. Just in one ear.
Hunter had only one weapon: the heat-causing power in his hands. He had used it many, many times to take the life of prey.
He had fed the kids with that power. And in a moment of fear and rage he had accidentally taken the life of his friend, Harry.
Maybe he could kill the thing that was eating his ear.
But it was too late for that to help.
Could he kill himself?
He saw Old Lion’s head, eyes closed, hanging where he’d hung him for skinning. If Old Lion could die, so could Hunter.
Maybe they would meet again, up in the sky.
Hunter pressed both palms against his head.
Drake was free! Before him the shattered door. Above him a collapsed ceiling. His jail cell had been torn apart by his own jailer.
Now Drake was worried. At any minute the Brittney Pig might emerge. She could call for help, run to Sam, something, anything.
Drake had Jamal’s gun. He ran his whip hand over it, loving the feel of it, loving the weight of it in his hand. With this gun and his whip he was unstoppable.
Except that he wasn’t just himself, he was Brittney, too.
His mind raced feverishly. What could he do?
Jamal groaned. He started to get up but leaned on an arm that gave way with a sickening crunch.
Jamal shrieked in pain. His left arm hung limp, the shoulder dislocated. There was blood running freely from his nose. Blood seeping out of his ears. Oh yeah, Drake thought, the boy had taken a hard fall.
Drake straddled Jamal. He wrapped his whip arm around Jamal’s throat, cutting off his cries of pain. He pressed the gun barrel against Jamal’s forehead.