Gone (42 page)

"No, you don't" Lana promised.

"What is it?" Howard asked, nervous, almost as scared as Lana herself.

Lana had no answer to that question.

Each step was harder than th* one before, and several times Pack Leader nipped at her to move her along. When he didn't, Drake did, waving his gun at her, threatening her with word and gesture and look.

They reached the abandoned mining camp after the moon had set and as the stars were just fading before the promise of dawn.

She had never felt such dread, it was as if her blood had all been drained and replaced with
x
cold sludge. She could barely move. Her heart beat in loud, shuddering thumps in her chest. She wanted to pet Patrick, to take some tiny measure of comfort from him, but she couldn't make herself bend, couldn't bring herself to speak. She held herself tightly contained, silent, rigid.

Pm going to die here, Lana thought.

"Human light" Pack Leader slurred. He indicated a Hash-light lying wedged between the rocks. Howard leaped at it and switched it on. His hand shook so badly, the light danced across rock walls sending shadows flying like swift-moving ghosts.

Now even Drake seemed leery, frightened of something he couldn't quite explain. He was asking questions, ever more agitated as they stepped into the icebox chill of the mine.

"Someone needs to tell me what we're going to see," Drake insisted.

"I need to know what we're up to" Drake said.

"Maybe we belter talk about our deal" Drake said.

"How much farther?" Drake said.

But all the white, they moved down the shaft.

Lana had to force each brea:h. Had to remind herself: Breathe. Breathe.

Patrick was gone. He'd abandoned them at the mouth of the mine.

"Man, I... I can't do this" Howard said."I gotta .I* He was gasping for breath.

"Shut up" Drake snapped, glad to have someone to take out his frustrations on.

Howard turned suddenly and bolted, taking the flashlight with him.

Pack Leader yipped a command and two coyotes went in pursuit.

With the flashlight gone, Lana could see the faint green glow from the walls. Darkness behind. The Darkness ahead.

"Let him go," Drake said.

"Howard's not important" Drake said-

"I'm important" Drake said. His voice was small.

Una closed her eyes tight, but somehow the green glow penetrated her eyelids, as though it could shine right through her flesh, right through the bone of her skulk

She could go no farther, She sank to her knees.

Close enough. It was there, jus: ahead, just around that last bend, a moving, sliding, grinding pile of glowing rock.

The soundless voice was a cudgel slamming her head. The

Darkness thrust invisible fingers of ice into her mind, and Lana knew ihal she herself was speaking its words.

"The healer" she cried in a tortured, manic parody of her own voice.

She kept her eyes shut but could teel Drake kneeling beside her.

*Why do you come to me?" Lana cried, a puppet, nothing but a tool for the Darkness to use.

"The coyote ..." Drake managed. Faithful Pack Leader," the Daifcness said through Lana, "Obedient, but not yet equal to a human."

Open your eyes, Lana told herself. Be brave. Be brave. See it, face it, fight it. But the darkness was in her skull, pushing and prodding, peeking inside her secrets, laughing at her pathetic resistance.

And yet, she opened her eyes. A lifelong habit of defiance gave her the strength. But she kept ^er eyes cast down, strong enough to force them open, too terrified to look on the face of the thing itself.

The rocks under her knees glowed.

She was touching it, touching the hem of it.

Pack Leader groveled, lowering himself to the fioor of the cave beside Lana, crawling on his belly.

Suddenly, Lana tell an electric shock of terrifying force. Her back arched, her head went back, her arms flew* wide.

A pain like an icicle stabbing her eye and searing her brain.

She tried to scream, but no sound would come out.

Then it was gone and she fell onto her back, legs folded beneath her. She gasped like a landed fish, unable to fill her lungs.

"Defiance"she croaked in a voice not her own.

"She's supposed to fix my arm," Drake said. "If you kill her, she can't help me."

"You are bold to make demands" the Darkness said through Lana.

"I'm not ... it's ... I want my arm back" Drake shouted raggedly.

Lana found she could breathe again. She sucked in oxygen. She pushed out against the floor, scooted inch by inch away from the Darkness-Drake shrieked in agony, Lana saw him as she had been, like he'd grabbed a power line. His body jerked like a marionette.

The Darkness released him.

"Ah," the Darkness said, and twisted Lana's mouth into a rictus. "I have found a much better teacher for you, Pack

Leader*

Pack Leader had dared to stand up. He kept his tail and head>

"This human will teach you to kill humans" Lana said.

Drake spoke as though each syllable was an effort. "Yes. But... my arm "

"Give me the arm " Lana said and, unwilling, crawled to Drake.

Drake stood up, shaky but determined. He extended the burned, sawed-off stump.

"I will give you an arm such as no human ever had" the Darkness said through Lana. "You have no magic within you. human, but the girl will serve"

L*rake moved with surprising speed. He pivoted and yanked Lana up by her hair, "Take my arm " he hissed.

She placed her trembling hand against the melted llesh, feeling the fresh-cut bone beneath it, wanting to throw* up.

The glow deepened. Lana felt her entire body filled with it, not hot but cold, as cold as ice.

Drake's flesh was growing.

She could feel it moving beneath her fingers. But it wasn't human flesh.

Not human llesh at all. "No" she whispered. "Yes," Drake breathed. "Yes."

36 HOURS, 37 MINUTES

And sometimes when you lie to me Sometimes I'll lie to you And there isn't a thing you could possibly do All these half-destroyed lives Aren't as bad as they seem But now I see blood and I hear people scream Then I wake up

And it's just another bad dream...

SAM SANG ALONG to the Agent Orange tune on his iPod, feeling as if the familiar lyrics had crossed the line from being just another self-consciously disturbing song to being too close to describing his life.

He was in the fire station not exactly enjoying a lonely lunch. Quinn was ... well, he never seemed to know where Quinn was anymore. His friend—was that word even appro* priate? His friend Quinn was a shadow who came and went, sometimes joking like his old self, sometimes sitting sullen and watching DVDs he'd seen a million times before.

In any case, he wasn't there for lunch at the fire station, despite the fact that Sam had made enough soup for extra mouths.

Edilio materialized silently in the doorway. He looked discouraged. Sam realized he'd been singing aloud and, embarrassed, dialed down the music and pulled out the earbuds.

"What did you find, Edilio?"

"If she's anywhere in Perdido Beach, she's doing a good job of hiding, Sam," Edilio said. "We've looked. WeVe talked to everyone, tana's gone. Her dog is gone. She was in Elwood's house, then she was gone"

Sam tossed his music player on;o the table. "I have soup. Want some?"

Edilio sagged into a chair. "What's the song?"

"What? Oh. It's called 'A Cry For Help In A World Gone Mad.'"

They shared a mordant laugh.

"Next Pll dial up that old song, what's it called?" Sam searched his memory. "Yeah. REM. 'It's the End of the World as We Know It/"

"It is that," Edilio commented. "I been searching lor a girl who can heal people with magic, and taking some time to learn how* to shoot a machine gun.'

"How'd that go, by the way?"

"I got four boys can more or less handle it, counting Quinn. But, man, we aren't exactly the marines, you know?

Kid named Tom starts shooting and he almost shoots me. I had to dive into a pile of dog poop"

Sam tried not to laugh, but neither of them could stop once it started.

"Yeah, you think it's lunny. Wait till it's you," Edilio said.

Sam was serious again*"] don'l know what's holding Caine back. It's been two days. What's keeping him?"

"What's the hurry? The more time we have, the more we're prepared."

"Dude, tomorrow night I'm o:it of here," Sam said. "You don't know that for sure, man," Edilio said, embarrassed.

"I just wish I knew what was going on up at Coates" Edilio caught on immediately. "You talking about spying them out?"

Sam pushed his soup away. "I don't know what I'm talking about, man. I'm halfway thinking we should take it to them, you know? Go up there and do this/'

"We have guns. We have guys who can drive. We got, in addition to you, four other mutants with powers that might be useful. You know, powers you can fight with, not like this one girl where she can disappear but only if she's really embarrassed."

Sam smiled despite himself. "You're kidding"

"No man, she's really bashful and all, so you say something like, 'you have nice hair,' and suddenly she's invisible. But she's still there. You touch her, but you can't see her"

"That's not exactly going to stop Caine."

"Taylor is working on her teleporting. She can go a couple of blocks now" Edilio shrugged. "Bui in terms of useful, we got that kid, he's nine, he can do like you do with the light, but not as much "

"Nine. We can't make a nine-year-old hurt someone," Sam protested.

"How about an eleven-year-old who can move so fast, you can barelv see her?" "That girl Brianna?"

"She calls herself the Breeze now. Like, as fast as the breeze."

"The Breeze? Like a superhero rame?" He shook his head ruefully. "Great. That's all we need" Sam said. It was one of his mother's favorite phrases, "that's all we need " He felt a sharp pang in his chest, but it passed quickly. "What do we have the Breeze do when she's zipping around?"

Edilio looked uncomfortable. "I guess we give her a gun. She shoots and zooms away and shoots again."

"Oh, God." Sam hung his head."Eleven years old and we're giving her a gun? To shoot at people? At human beings? It's sick."

Edilio didn't have anything to say to that-

"Sorry, man, I'm not laying this off on you, Edilio. It's just... I mean, this is nuts. It's wrong. Bad enough kids our age, but fourth graders and fifth graders?"

There came the clattering of feet on the stairs, and both Sam and Edilio leaped to their teet, expecting the worst.

Dekka, one of the Coates refugees, came barreling into the room and skidded on the waxed floor. Her forehead had been injured, a two-inch gash, and she had refused to let Lana heal il.

"I got that from Drake's shoe when he kicked me " she had said. "Heal up my hands from the plastering, but leave my head. I want something to remember it by"

Sam reflected that that was only the second-most interesting thing about Dekka. Number one would probably be the fact that she seemed to have the power to suspend the force of gravity within a small area.

"What is it, Dekka?" Sam askei

"That guy Ore He just walked into town, all raggedy-looking"

"Ore? Just Ore? No Howard?"

Dekka shrugged, "I didn't see anyone else. He just walked on in, and that guy Quinn told me I better go tell you. He said he was going to follow Ore home."

That would be the house Ore had shared with Howard. It wasn't a long walk.

"Maybe I should bring a gun," Edilio said darkly.

"I think I can handle Ore now" Sam said. His own confidence surprised him. He'd never before in his life thought he could handle Ore.

Quinn was waiting outside the house. Sam thanked Quinn almost formally.."! appreciate you sending Dekka to me and keeping an eye on things."

"I do what I can," Quinn said, more bitterly than he had probably intended.

Sam and Edilio stood by as Quinn knocked on the door.

The bully's all-too-familiar voice yelled,"Come in, morons"

Ore was popping the top of a can of been

"Let me drink this," Ore muttered. "Then you can kill me or whatever"

Ore had lived a bad couple of days. He was scratched, bruised, battered. One eye was swollen and black. His pants were torn and filthy. His shirt was barely recognizable as a shirt. It had been ripped to tatters, then knotted crudely back together.

He was still big, but he looked less threatening than they'd ever seen him before.

"Where's Howard?" Sam demanded, "With them "Ore said, "With who?"

"Drake. That girl, what's her name, Lana. And a talking dog" Ore smirked. "Yeah. I'm crazy. Talking dog. Was the dogs that took me down. Kipped
z
hole out of my guts. Ate my thigh"

"What are you talking about. Ore?"

He drank deep. He sighed. "Man, that's good."

"Talk sense. Ore," Sam snapped.

Ore belched loudly. He stood up slowly. He set down his beer. With stiff arms he pulled his ragged shirt up and over his head.

Edilio gasped. Quinn turned away. Sam just stared.

Great patches of Ore's chest and belly were covered by gravel. The individual rocks were the color of muddy water, green-gray. As Ore breathed, the gravel rose and fell.

"It's spreading" Ore said. He seemed bemused by it. He touched it with his finger."It's warm"

"Ore ... how did this happens* Sam asked,

"I told you. The dogs ate out my leg and my guts and some other parts ! ain't telling you about. Then this stuff kind ctf filled it in."

He shrugged, and Sam heard a faint sound like footsteps on a wet gravel driveway.

"It doesn't hurt," Ore said. "It did. But it doesn't hurt now. Itches, though."

"Mother of God " Edilio said softly.

"Anyway" Ore said. "I know you all hate me. So either kill me or get out. I'm thirsty and hungry."

They left him.

Outside, Quinn walked quickly down the street, stopped suddenly, and threw up into a bush.