Gone (41 page)

"Hey, yeah." Howard jumped from the car and started running. Ore lumbered after him.

The twin beams of a car moved at an intercept angle to them. If they slowed down, the car would miss them, never see them.

"Hurry up," Howard yelled.

"Catch them." Ore urged Howard on as he gave up the race and slowed to a heavy-tooted slog.

"Okay," Howard yelled. His foot caught on something, and he sprawled into the dirt. Hepickec himself up and only then felt the sharp pain in his ankle.

"What the—?" He froze. There was something there in the darkness. Not Ore, something that smelled rank and panted like a dog.

Howard was up and running in a heartbeat."Something is after me," he yelled.

The car lights were vectoring toward him. He could make it. He could make it. If he didn't fall again. !f the monster didn't get htm first.

Howard's feet hit blacktop and he was illuminated, brilliant white. The car screeched. It came to a stop. The monster was nowhere in sight. "Howard?"

Howard recognized the voice Panda was leaning out of the window.

"Panda? Man, am I glad to see you. We've been—" Something dark and swift leaped and caught Panda's arm. He let out a shriek.

From inside the car, a dog barked frantically. Something hit Howard in the back and he hit the pavement on his hands and knees.

The car lurched forward. The bumper stopped six inches from Howard's head-There came a scream, a male voice. Ore. Ore back in the darkness somewhere.

There were dogs everywhere, swarming around Howard. No, not dogs, he thought, wolves. Coyotes.

The car door opened, and Panda fell out, wrapped half around a coyote.

A loud bang and a stab of orange light. But ihe coyotes didn't stop.

Another shot, and one of the coyotes yelped in pain. Drake staggered into view, looking like a scarecrow in the headlights.

The coyotes retreated, out of the light but by no means gone. Howard got slowly to his feel.

Drake pointed the gun at Howard's face. "Did you set these dogs on me?*'

"They chewed on me too, man* Howard protested. Then he yelled out at the desert, "Ore. Ore, man. Ore"

A voice like w£t gravel, but with an eerie high-pitched tone, said, "Give us female."

Howard peered into the night trying to make sense of it. It wasn't Ore. Where was Ore?

"What female?" Drake demanded. "Who are you?"

Slowly, on every side, all around the car the desert moved. Shadows crept closer. Howard shrank back, but Drake stood firm.

"Who's out there?" Drake demanded.

A mange-eaten coyote with a scarred muzzle that gave him a sinister grin stepped into the circle of light. Howard almost fell down when he realized it was this coyote who spoke.

"Give us female."

"No," Drake said, recovering quickly from the shock/She's mine. I need her to heal my arm. She has the power and I want my arm back"

"You are nothing," the coyote snarled.

*Vm
the kid with the gun* Drake said.

The two of them, two of a kind, it seemed to Howard, stared holes in each other.

"What do you want with her?" Drake demanded.

"Darkness say: bring female"

"Darkness? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Give us female" Pack Leader said, returning to his single-minded point."Or we kill all"

"I'll kill plenty of you."

"You die," Pack Leader said stubbornly.

Howard felt it was time to speak up. "Guys. Guys. We have a standoff here. So why don't we see if we can figure out an arrangement?"

"What are you talking about?*

"Okay, look, Drake, you said iomeibing about the female healing your arm?"

"She has the power. I want my arm back"

"And
Mu
um... coyote... ycu're supposed to take her to some other dog called Darkness?"

Pack Leader eyed Howard in a way that suggested he was considering how to butcher and eat him.

"Okay" Howard said shakily."! think we can work a deal."

74 HOURS, 10 MINUTES

"ASTRID,* EDILIO SAID. "I'm so sorry about your house"

Astrid squeezed Edilio's hand. "Yeah. I have to admit, it was hard for me to see."

"You could stay over at the firehouse with me and Sam and Quinn," Edilio offered.

"It's okay. Petey and I are going to room with Mother Mary and Brother John for a while. They're hardly ever home. And when they are, well, ycu know, it's good to have people around"

The three of them, Edilio, Astrid, and Little Pete, were in the office that had once belonged to the mayor of Perdido Beach and most recently had been occupied by Caine Soren. Sam had resisted the idea of takingthe office, feeling it made him seem self-important. But Astrid had argued that symbols were important and kids wanted to think that someone was in charge.

She settled Little Pete into a chair and handed him a Baggie full Of Rice Chex. Little Pete liked to eat them plain, no milk. "Where's Sam?" Astrid asked. "And why are we here?"

Edilio looked uncomfortable "We have something to show you "

Sam opened the door. He did not smile at Astrid. He looked warily at Little Pete. He said hello, then, "Astrid, there's something you need to see. And Pm thinking Little Pete shouldn't see"

"I don't understand,"

Sam flopped into the chair last occupied by Caine. Astrid was struck by how alike the two boys looked superficially. And by how different a reaction >he had to their similar features. Where Caine hid his arrogance and cruelty beneath a smooth, controlled surface, Sam et his emotions play out on his face. Right now he was sad ard weary and concerned.

"I wonder if L. P. could sit wit!) Edilio in the other room"

"That sounds ominous" Astrid said. The expression on Sam's face did not contradict her

She managed to get Little Pete to move, though not without a struggle. Edilio stayed with him.

Sam had a DVD in his hand He said, "Yesterday I sent Edilio to the power plant to get iwo things. First, a cache of automatic weapons from the guardhouse"

"Machine guns?"

"Yeah. Not just for us to have, but to make sure the other side doesn't get them."

"Now we have an arms race" Astrid said.

Her lone seemed to irritate Sam. "You want me to leave Ihem for Caine?"

"I wasn't criticizing, just. .. you know. Ninth graders with machine guns: it's hard to make that a happy story"

Sam relented. He even grinned. "Yeah. The phrase 'ninth graders with machine guns' isn't exactly followed by 'have a nice day/"

"No wonder you looked so grim." As soon as she said it, she knew she was wrong. He had something else to tell her. Something worse. The DVD.

Tve been wondering, like you, why the FAYZ seems to be centered on the power plant. Ten miles in every direction. Why? So Edilio went through some of the security video at the plant"

Astrid stood up so suddenly, she surprised herself."! really shouldn't leave Petey alone"

"You know* what this DVD will show, don't you?" It wasn't a question. "You guessed it that first night. I remember we were looking at the video map. Y:>u put your arm around Little Pete and you gave me a very weird look. At the time, I didn't know what to make of that look."

"I didn't know you then" Astrid said. "I didn't know if I could trust you"

Sam slid the DVD into the player and switched on the TV, "The sound quality is pretty bad."

Astrid saw the control room of the power plant from a high vantage point with a wide angle.

The camera showed the control room. Five adults, three men and two women. One of them was Astrid's lather. The image brought a lump to her throat. There he was, her father, rocking in his chair, joking with the woman at the next station, leaning forward to till out some paperwork.

And sitting in a chair against the far walk his face lit by the glow of his omnipresent Game Boy. was Little Pete-

The only sound was muddy, unintelligible conversation.

"Here it comes." Sam said.

Suddenly a Klaxon sounded, harsh and distorted on the audio.

Everyone in the control roorr jumped. People rushed to the monitors, to the instrument readouts. Astrid's father shot a worried glance at his son, bul then leaned into his monitor, staring.

Other people swept into the room and moved with practiced efficiency to the untended monitors.

Panicky instructions were shouted back and forth. A second alarm went oft, more shrill than the first-A strobe warning light was flashing. Fear on every face.

And Little Pete was rocking frantically, his hands pressed over his ears. He had a look of pain on his innocent face.

The ten adults now in the room were a terrifying pantomime of controlled desperation. Keyboards were punched, switches thrown. Her father grabbed a thick manual and began snapping through the pages, and all the while people shouted and the alarms blared and Little Pete was screaming, screaming, hands over his ears.

"I don't want to see this "Astrid >aid,but she couldn't look away.

Little Pete jumped to his feet.

He ran to his father, but his father, frantic, pushed him away. Little Pete went sprawling against a chair He ended up Hung against the long table, staring at a monitor that Hashed, flashed, Hashed a warning in bright red.

The number fourteen.

"Code one-four," Astrid said dully. "I heard my dad say that one time. It's the code for a core meltdown. He would make a joke out of it. Code one-one, that was minor trouble, code one-two, you worry, code one-three, you call the governor, code one-four, you pray. The next stage, code one-five, is ,.. obliteration."

On the tape. Little Pete pulled his hands from his ears. The Klaxon was relentless.

There was a flash thai blanked out the tape. Several seconds of static.

When the picture stabilized, the warning alarm was silent. And Little Pete was alone.

"Astrid. you'll notice that the time signature on the tape says November tenth, ten eighteen a.m. The exact time when every person over the age of fourteen disappeared."

On the tape. Little Pete stopped crying.

He didn't even look around, he just walked back to the chair where he had been sitting, retrieved his game, and resumed play.

"Little Pete caused the FAYZ," Sam said flatly.

Astrid covered her face with her hands. She was surprised by the tears she felt rising, and their force. She struggled to keep from sobbing. It was a tew minutes before she could speak. Sam waited patiently.

"He didn't know he was doing it" Astrid said in a low, unsteady voice. "He doesn't know what he's doing. Not the way we do. Not like, if I do 'this,* then 'that* will happen"

"I know that."

"You can't blame him" Astrid looked up, eyes blazing defiantly.

"Blame him?" Sam moved to sit beside her on the couch. Close enough that their legs were touching. "Astrid, I can't believe I'm saying this to you, but I think you overlooked something."

She turned her tear-stained face to him, searching.

"Astrid, they were having a meltdown. They didn't seem to be getting it under control. They all looked pretty scared."

Astrid gasped. Sam was right: she had missed it. "He stopped the meltdown, A meltdown might have killed everyone in Perdido Beach "

"Yeah. I'm not crazy about the way he did it, but he may have saved everyone's life"

"He stopped the meltdown," Astrid said, still not grasping it fully.

Sam grinned. He even laughed. "What's funnv?" she demanded.

"I figured something out before Astrid the Genius. I am totally enjoying that. I'm just going to gloat here for a minute."

"Enjoy it, ii may never happen again," Astrid said.

"Oh, believe me, I know that" He took her hand, and she was very glad to feel his touch. "He saved us. But he also created this whole weird thing"

"Not the whole thing" Astrid said, shaking her head."The mutations prefigure the FAYZ. Indeed, the mutations were the sine qua non of the FAYZ. The thing without which the FAYZ could not have occurred "

Sam refused to be impressed."You can hammer me all you want with your 'indeeds* and your prefigures* and your'sine qua nons,* I am still gloating here."

She raised his hand to her lips and kissed his fingers.

Then she released him, stood up, paced across the room and back, stopped, and said, "Diana. She talks about it being like cell phone bars. Two bars, three bars. Caine is a four bar. You are, too, I would guess. Petey... I guess he's a five or a seven "

"Or a ten," Sam agreed.

"But Diana thinks it's like reception. Like some of us can get better reception. If that's true, then we aren't generating the power, just using it, focusing it."

"So?"

"So where's it coming from? To extend the analogy: Where's the cell phone tower? What is generating the power?"

Sam rose with a sigh. "One thing for sure: This never gets out. Edilio knows, I know, and you know. No one else can ever know"

Astrid nodded. "People would hate him. Or try to use him."

Sam nodded. "I wish .. "

"No," Astrid said, and shrugged helplessly. "There's no way to get him lo undo it"

"That's a pity" Sam said, making a wry smile that did not reach his eyes. "Because tick-tock, tick-tock."

Lana stumbled through the night.

Back with the coyotes. A nightmare revisited.

And now, adding to the misery, Drake and Howard stumbled along with her.

Drake with his gun. Drake cursing his pain.

And Howard calling,"Ore, Ore" into the night.

Greater than any misery, the dread of that mine shaft and what lay at the bottom.

She had disobeyed the Darkness-

What would the seething monster do to her?

"Let's stop and I'll try to fo Drake's arm, okay?" she pleaded.

"No stop," Pack Leader snarled.

"Let me try, at least"

Pack Leader ignored her, and they ran and tripped and picked themselves up and ran some more. No escape now. No possibility of escape. Unless.

She maneuvered closer to Drake. "What if he won't let me heal vou?"

"Don't try to play me" Drake said tersely. "Anyway, now I want to see this thing that has you so terrified."