Fear (26 page)

The dogs fell back, but snarled and foamed and barked so loud he felt he might go deaf.

Caine dragged his burden up one step after the next.

At the top, in the very place where he had often addressed crowds as king, he collapsed, shaking with fatigue. He fell onto his imprisoned hands.

After a while someone pushed his head back and he felt a jar touch his lips. He drank the water, gulping it down, choking but not caring.

Caine opened his eyes and saw that the crowd had grown. And it had edged forward. Their faces wore expressions of horror and fear.

He had made enemies during his four months in charge. But what was happening now obliterated all of that. Right now this crowd was scared. Deep-down scared. Eyes went skyward again and again, checking to see if there was still any light, any light at all.

Caine searched the crowd through bleary eyes. He had one hope: Albert.

Albert would not let this stand. Albert had armed guards. He was probably figuring out right now how to save Caine.

But another part of Caine’s mind was yammering that there was no way to escape the concrete. He knew: he had inflicted this on freaks early on. And the only reason any of them had been able to escape was that Little Pete had intervened.

Caine hadn’t known at the time that it was Little Pete’s doing. He had been deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid not to realize the little autistic creep was the real power. And now Little Pete was dead and gone.

Which left breaking the concrete chip by chip with a sledgehammer.

The pain would be unbearable. It would break every bone in his hands. Lana might be able to help, but first would come the pain.

As soon as Albert dealt with Penny.

“Here’s your king!” Penny cried in a gloating voice. “See? See the crown I gave him? Do you like it?”

No one answered.

“I said, don’t you like it?” Penny screeched.

A couple of the kids nodded or muttered, “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Penny said. “Okay, then.” She sounded unsure what to do next. Her fantasy hadn’t gone any further than this. And now, Caine knew, she was trying to figure out how to enjoy her victory.

Her temporary victory.

“I know!” Penny said. “Let’s see if King Caine can dance. How about that?”

Again, the stunned and traumatized audience didn’t know how to respond.

“Dance!” Penny roared in a voice that disappeared into a squeak. “Dance, dance, dance!”

And suddenly the limestone beneath Caine’s feet burst into flames. The pain was instant and unbearable.

“Dance, dance, dance!” Penny cried, jumping up and down. She was waving her awkward arms at the kids, urging them to chant along with her.

As the flames crisped the flesh on his legs Caine kicked and jerked madly in a bizarre parody of dancing.

The flames stopped.

Caine panted, waiting for the next assault.

But now Penny seemed to be out of steam. She slumped a little and looked at him. Their eyes met and he burned hatred at her. But it had no effect. Caine knew she was insane. He’d known all along that she was a psycho, but psychos could be useful.

But this wasn’t as simple as Drake’s evil ruthlessness. This was madness. He was looking at eyes that were no longer partaking of reality.

She was insane.

He had helped to drive her mad.

And now all her rage, all her jealousy, all the hate that Caine had used for his own purposes was being turned against him.

He was a powerless toy in the hands of a lunatic with the power to make him as crazy as she was herself.

The FAYZ, Caine thought dully. I always knew it would end in madness or death.

For the first time, his thoughts went to the baby inside Diana. His own son or daughter. All that would be left of him when Penny was finished.

It might have gone either way for Penny at that moment. The crowd was nervous and unsure.

“Now I am the queen, and I am the boss in charge,” Penny announced. “And I don’t have to tell any of you what I can do. Do I?”

No response. Cautious silence.

Then a voice from the back. “Let him go. We need him!”

Caine didn’t recognize the voice. Neither, apparently, did Penny.

“Who said that?”

Silence.

Caine could hear Penny panting. She was in a very excited state. Mostly she didn’t know what to do next. She had expected … something. But she had not expected to be completely overshadowed by this terrible darkness.

“Where is Albert?” Penny demanded petulantly. “I want him here so I can tell him how it is now.”

No answer.

“I said, bring me Albert!” she screamed. “Albert! Albert! Come out, you coward!”

Nothing.

But now the crowd was moving from fearful to mad. They didn’t like this. They were scared and they had come seeking reassurance. What they were getting instead was a shrieking girl who had disabled the most powerful person in town precisely when they desperately needed someone to do something about the fact that the light was dying.

“Let him go, you stupid witch!”

Caine appreciated that, but the cold, calculating part of his mind was wondering just where Albert was. Albert had half a dozen guys who would shoot Penny if he ordered it. For that matter Albert could say something as simple as, “Everyone who wants a job tomorrow, attack her now.”

Where was he?

The top third of the dome was brightening. But that only made it easier to see the tendrils of stain, like a circle of teeth, slowly advancing.

Where was Albert?

Quinn led his boats into the marina.

Last time, maybe, he thought. It made his heart want to break.

He had awakened very early in his camp up the coast—his biological clock ran on fisherman time—and seen that the stain would eat the sun.

They had fished for what they could get in the early hours. But the heart was gone from them. The strike was over whether they wanted it or not: their world was dying, and they had bigger problems than the injustice done, or the loyalty they owed, to Cigar.

Albert and three girls were coming down the dock toward him. The three girls each had a backpack. Albert carried the big ledger book he used to keep track of his businesses.

“Why aren’t you fishing?” Albert asked.

Quinn wasn’t buying that act. “Where are you going, Albert?”

Albert said nothing. How rare, Quinn thought: Albert speechless.

“Not really your concern, Quinn,” Albert said finally.

“You’re running out.”

Albert sighed. To his three companions he said, “Go ahead and get in the boat. The Boston Whaler. Yes, that one.” Turning back to Quinn he said, “It’s been good doing business with you. If you want, you can come with us. We have room for one more. You’re a good guy.”

“And my crews?”

“Limited resources, Quinn.”

Quinn laughed a little. “You’re a piece of work, aren’t you, Albert?”

Albert didn’t seem bothered. “I’m a businessman. It’s about making a profit and surviving. It so happens that I’ve kept everyone alive for months. So I guess I’m sorry if you don’t like me, Quinn, but what’s coming next isn’t about business. What’s coming next is craziness. We’re going back to the days of starvation. But in the dark this time. Craziness. Madness.”

His eyes glinted when he said that last word. Quinn saw the fear there. Madness. Yes, that would terrify the eternally rational businessman.

“All that happens if I stay,” Albert continued, “is that someone decides to kill me. I’ve already come too close to being dead once.”

“Albert, you’re a leader. You’re an organizer. We’re going to need that.”

Albert waved an impatient hand and glanced over to see that the Boston Whaler was ready. “Caine’s a leader. Sam’s a leader. Me?” Albert considered it for a second and shook the idea off. “No. I’m important, but I’m not a leader. Tell you what, though, Quinn: in my absence you speak for me. If that helps, good for you.”

Albert climbed down into the Boston Whaler. Pug started the engine and Leslie-Ann cast off the ropes. Some of the last gasoline in Perdido Beach sent the boat chugging out of the marina.

“Hey, Quinn!” Albert shouted back. “Don’t come to the island without showing a white flag. I don’t want to blow you up!”

Quinn wondered how he would ever reach the island. And how Albert would be able to see a white flag if he did. Unless something changed no one would be seeing anything. It would be a world of universal blindness.

That thought made him think of Cigar. Cigar and his creepy little BB eyes. He had to locate Cigar. Whatever happened, he was still crew.

He heard a surge of sound from the plaza, voices yelling, and one shrill voice screeching. He knew that screech.

He started toward town, then stopped and waited as his fishermen gathered around him. “Guys, I … I, um, don’t know what’s happening. We may never fish together again. And, you know… But I’m thinking it’s better if we stick together anyway.”

As an inspirational rallying speech, it was pretty lame. And yet, it worked. He walked toward the sounds of fear and anger with all his people behind him.

Lana kept her hoodie pulled close around her face. She did not want to be recognized by anyone in the crowd. She had come down to town only to see whether Caine would arrange an armed escort for her. She’d found a scene out of some deranged horror novel.

In eerie shadows the crowd of some two hundred kids, armed with spiked baseball bats, crowbars, table legs, chains, knives, and axes, dressed in mismatched rags and remnants of costume, stood facing a prancing, fist-shaking, wild-eyed, barefoot lunatic and a handsome boy with a crown stapled to his scalp and his hands trapped in a block of concrete.

Now they were taking up a chant. “Let him go. Let him go.”

They were chanting for Caine. They were scared to death and now, finally, they really wanted a king. They really wanted anyone who would save them.

“Let him go! Let him go!”

And a second chant: “We want the king! We want the king!”

Sudden screams from those closest to the steps. Lana could see kids falling back, clawing at their faces, crying out.

Penny had attacked!

“Kill the witch!” a voice bellowed.

A club went flying through the air. It missed Penny. A chunk of concrete, a knife, all missed.

Penny raised her hands over her head and screamed obscenities. A chunk of something hit her arm and drew blood.

The kids who’d been struck by her visions panicked and ran from her, but other kids were shoving forward. It was a melee, a tangle of arms and legs and weapons, shouts, orders; and suddenly from the far side came a wedge of disciplined kids moving forward with arms linked, pushing between the steps and the crowd.

Lana recognized the boy at the center of that wedge. She laughed in rueful surprise.

“Quinn,” she said to herself. “Well.”

Penny was staring transfixed at the wound on her arm, but she tore herself away to advance on Quinn. “You!”

Quinn cried out in agony. There was no way to know what Penny was doing to him, but it must have been awful.

Lana had had enough. There were injured kids. There were about to be more injured kids. Her mission to warn Diana wasn’t going to happen.

Lana drew her pistol. “Get out of my way,” she snapped at two kids blocking her path. She moved quickly, unnoticed, down First Avenue, skirting the crowd from the opposite direction that Quinn had taken.

A panicky riot had broken out at the base of the steps as Penny wreaked all the damage her sick mind could conjure. Kids were attacking one another, seeing monsters where none existed.

Lana flinched as a crowbar rose high and came down with a sickening crunch.

She made it to the church steps and crossed over from there to town hall. Caine glanced and saw her. Penny did not.

Lana leveled the gun at Penny. “Stop,” Lana said.

Penny’s reddened face grew pale. Whatever visions she was inflicting on the people below her stopped. Kids cried in pain, sobbed from the memories.

“Oh, everyone has to kiss your butt, don’t they, Healer.” Penny spit that last word. She made her hands into claws and pawed at the air. Her lips were drawn back in a teeth-baring animal snarl.

“If I shoot you, I won’t heal you,” Lana said calmly.

That caught Penny off guard. But she recovered quickly. She put her head down and started to laugh. It began low and rose a few decibels at a time.

Lana’s arm burst into flame.

A noose was flung from the ruined church wall. The rope dropped over her head, landed on her shoulders, and tightened around her throat.

The limestone beneath her feet was suddenly a forest of knives all stabbing up at her.

“Yeah,” Lana said. “That won’t work on me. I’ve gone one-on-one with the gaiaphage. He could teach you a few things. Stop it. Now. Or bang.”