Hunger (31 page)

The stuff he had in his room—the clothes, the books, the old school notebooks, the pictures he had taken once with a waterproof camera while he was surfing—none of it meant anything to him. Some other kid’s stuff, not his. Not anymore.

He sat on the end of his bed, feeling like an intruder. A strange feeling since this was the only place he’d stayed in the last three months that he had any real claim to.

He gazed at the ball of light. “Turn off,” he said.

The ball did not respond.

Sam raised his palms, aimed them toward the light, and thought the single word, Dark.

The light disappeared.

The room was plunged into darkness. So dark, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. All over town, kids were sitting in the dark, just like this. He supposed he
could go around and create little light balls in every house in town. Sam, the electrician.

He was no longer afraid of the dark. That realization surprised him. The dark almost felt cozy, now. Safe. No one could see him in the dark.

There was a list in his head, a list that kept scrolling and scrolling. Words and phrases. One after another. Each representing a thing he should be doing.

Zekes. Caine and the power plant. Little Pete and his monsters. Food. Zil and Hunter. Lana and…whatever. Water. Jack. Albert.

Those were the headlines. Buzzing around those great big things were thousands of smaller things, like a nest of hornets. Kids fighting. Dogs and cats. Broken windows. Grass. Gasoline that needed to be rationed. Trash piling up. Toilets plugged. Teeth needing to be brushed. Kids drinking. Bedtimes. Mary throwing up. Cigarettes and pot.

Things to do. Decisions to make.

No one listening.

And what about Astrid?

And what about Quinn?

And what about kids talking more openly about stepping off when the Big One-Five rolled around?

And around and around and around it whirled through his head.

He sat in the dark on the end of his bed. He wanted to cry. That’s what he wanted to do. But there wouldn’t be anyone to come and pat him on the shoulder and tell him
everything would be okay.

There was no one. And things wouldn’t be okay.

It was all coming apart.

He imagined himself facing a tribunal. Stone faces glaring at him. Accusations. You let them starve, Sam. You let normals turn against freaks.

Tell us about the death of E.Z., Mr. Temple.

Tell us what you did to save the kids at the power plant.

Tell us how you failed to find a way out of the FAYZ.

Tell us why, when the FAYZ wall came down, we found kids dead in the dark.

They were down to eating rats, Mr. Temple.

We have evidence of cannibalism.

Explain that to us, Mr. Temple.

Sam heard soft footsteps in the family room. Of course. There was one person who would know where he was hiding.

The bedroom door opened with a squeak. A flashlight found his face. He closed his eyes to block the light.

The flashlight snapped off. Without a word she came and sat beside him.

For the longest time neither of them spoke. They sat side by side. Her leg was against his.

“I’m feeling sorry for myself,” he said at last.

“Why?”

It took him a few beats to realize she was kidding. She knew the list in his head as well as he did.

“Whatever vitally important thing you came here to tell me?” he said. “Just don’t, okay? I’m sure it’s absolutely life or
death. But just don’t.”

He could sense her hesitation. With sinking heart he realized he had guessed correctly. There was some new crisis. Some new thing that absolutely demanded Sam Temple’s attention, his decisiveness, his leadership.

He didn’t care.

Astrid remained silent. Silent for too long. But she seemed to be rocking back and forth, just slightly. And he almost thought he heard her whispering.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m praying.”

“What for?”

“A miracle. A clue. Food.”

Sam sighed. “What food?”

“A Quiznos. Turkey, bacon, and guacamole.”

“Yeah? If God gives you a Quiznos, can I have a bite?”

“No way. You have to pray for your own food.”

“Three hundred kids are praying for food. And yet, we have no food. Three hundred kids praying for their parents. Praying for this all to be over.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. “Sometimes it’s hard having faith.”

“If there’s a God, I wonder if he’s sitting in the dark on the end of his bed wondering how he managed to screw everything up.”

“Maybe,” Astrid said with just a little bit of a laugh.

Sam was not in a laughing mood. “Yeah? Well to hell with your God.”

He heard a sharp intake of breath. It gratified him. Good.
Let her be shocked. Let her be so shocked, she went away and left him to sit here alone in the dark.

Neither of them spoke for a long while. Then Astrid stood up, breaking the slight physical contact between them.

“You don’t want to hear this,” Astrid said, “but they couldn’t find you, so they found me. And now I’ve found you.”

“I really don’t care,” Sam warned.

But Astrid would not stop. “Bug has come over to our side. He was on a mission for Caine. They have a freak who can see dreams and Caine wanted Bug to get her, take her to some mine in the hills. Some monster.”

“Yeah?” Sam said. Not like he cared. Like he was just being polite.

“And Cookie showed up. He had to walk all the way back to town. He walked through the night. He had a note from Lana.”

Nothing. Sam had nothing to say to that.

Astrid sat quiet for a second then added, “Bug says they call it the gaiaphage. Lana calls it the Darkness.”

Sam covered his face with his hands. “I don’t care, Astrid. Handle it yourself. Pray to Jesus and maybe He’ll handle it.”

“You know, Sam, I’ve never thought you were perfect. I know you have a temper. But I’ve never known you to be mean.”

“I’m mean?” He laughed bitterly.

“Mean. Yes, that was mean.”

Their voices were rising swiftly. “I’m mean? That’s the worst you can throw at me?”

“Mean and self-pitying. Does that make it better?”

“And what are you, Astrid?” he shouted. “A smug know-it-all! You point your finger at me and say, ‘Hey, Sam, you make the decisions, and you take all the heat.’”

“Oh, it’s my fault? No way. I didn’t anoint you.”

“Yeah, you did, Astrid. You guilted me into it. You think I don’t know what you’re all about? You used me to protect Little Pete. You use me to get your way. You manipulate me anytime you feel like it.”

“You really are a jerk, you know that?”

“No, I’m not a jerk, Astrid. You know what I am? I’m the guy getting people killed,” Sam said quietly.

Then, “My head is exploding from it. I can’t get my brain around it. I can’t do this. I can’t be that guy, Astrid, I’m a kid, I should be studying algebra or whatever. I should be hanging out. I should be watching TV.”

His voice rose, higher and louder till he was screaming. “What do you want from me? I’m not Little Pete’s father. I’m not everybody’s father. Do you ever stop to think what people are asking me to do? You know what they want me to do? Do you? They want me to kill my brother so the lights will come back on. They want me to kill kids! Kill Drake. Kill Diana. Get our own kids killed.

“That’s what they ask. Why not, Sam? Why aren’t you doing what you have to do, Sam? Tell kids to get eaten alive by zekes, Sam. Tell Edilio to dig some more holes in the square, Sam.”

He had gone from yelling to sobbing. “I’m fifteen years old. I’m fifteen.”

He sat down hard on the edge of the bed. “Oh, my God, Astrid. It’s in my head, all these things. I can’t get rid of them. It’s like some filthy animal inside my head and I will never, ever, ever get rid of it. It makes me feel so bad. It’s disgusting. I want to throw up. I want to die. I want someone to shoot me in the head so I don’t have to think about everything.”

Astrid was beside him, and her arms were around him. He was ashamed, but he couldn’t stop the tears. He was sobbing like he had when he was a little kid, like when he had a nightmare. Out of control. Sobbing.

Gradually the spasms slowed. Then stopped. His breathing went from ragged to regular.

“I’m really glad the lights weren’t on,” Sam said. “Bad enough you had to hear it.”

“I’m falling apart,” he said.

Astrid gave no answer, just held him close. And after what felt like a very long time, Sam moved away from her, gently putting distance between them again.

“Listen. You won’t ever tell anyone…”

“No. But, Sam…”

“Please don’t tell me it’s okay,” Sam said. “Don’t be nice to me anymore. Don’t even tell me you love me. I’m about a millimeter from falling apart again.”

“Okay.”

Sam heaved a huge sigh. Then another. Then, “Okay. Okay. Tell me what’s in Lana’s letter.”

07
HOURS
, 58
MINUTES

HUNTER WAS HUNGRIER
than he would have thought possible. He’d been hungry for a long time, living on the slimy, tasteless, awful stuff they handed out at Ralph’s. Three cans of goo a day. That’s what kids called it. Only sometimes the word wasn’t “goo” but something harsher.

But now he was far beyond that. Now the days of three cans of goo seemed like the good old days.

After leaving Duck he’d been spotted and chased by Zil’s friends. He’d barely escaped. And in order to get away, he’d had to go the one direction they didn’t expect: out of town.

He had crossed the highway. Running, scared, feeling he was being chased even when he wasn’t. Feeling like at any minute Zil and his thug friends might catch him. And then…and he didn’t want to think too hard about what came then.

It seemed so crazy. So impossible. Zil had never been like his best friend or anything, but they had shared a house. They had been buddies. Not close, but buddies. Guys who would
chill and watch a game or check out girls or whatever. Zil and him and Harry and…

And of course that was the problem: Harry.

He hadn’t meant to hurt Harry. It wasn’t really his fault. Was it?

Was it?

Hunter had slunk across the highway and it was like it was a border or something. Like he was crossing from one country into another. Perdido Beach on one side, something else on the other.

He thought at first about going to Coates. But Coates wasn’t the answer to any question that Hunter could think of. Coates meant Drake and Caine and that deceptive witch, Diana. Mostly, Drake. Hunter had seen Drake at the Thanksgiving Battle. Back at the time Hunter had not even known he was developing powers. He was a bystander, mostly getting in the way of the guys who were doing the real fighting. Standing there watching in sheer, wild-eyed terror as Sam fired massive jolts of energy from his hands and Caine picked up things and people and threw them around.

And the coyotes. They were part of it, too.

But it was Drake who had haunted Hunter’s nightmares. Whip Hand, he called himself, and that was accurate enough. But it wasn’t the whip hand that terrified Hunter. It was the sheer, insane violence in the boy. The madness.

No. Not Coates. He couldn’t go there.

He couldn’t go anywhere.

Hunter had spent the remainder of the night hiding in one
of the abandoned homes that nestled up against the hills.

But he had not slept well. The fear and the hunger made sleep impossible.

Well, Hunter told himself, if he was still this desperate in two days, he had a solution. Not a good solution, maybe, but a solution. In two days Hunter would turn fifteen. Fifteen was the poof, the big step-off. Later to the FAYZ.

He had heard all about how to survive. How to stay in the FAYZ, fight the temptation. But he’d also heard that lately more and more kids were saying, forget it: I hit fifteen, I am out of here.

They said at the moment of the poof you were tempted with the one thing you wanted most. By the one person you missed most. If you could reject that temptation, you stayed in the FAYZ. If you gave in…well, that was the thing. No one knew what happened if you went for it.

Hunter knew what would tempt him to accept. A cheeseburger. Or a slice of pizza. Not candy, it wasn’t about candy. Not anymore. It was all about meaty goodness now.

If some demon came to him with a rack of Applebee’s ribs, Hunter had no serious doubt that he would reach for it, whatever the consequence.

He would trade his life for an In-N-Out Double-Double. The only hesitation in his mind was whether the demon would actually let him eat it or would just zap him into nonexistence, still hungry.

Hunter hid in the house all night and well into the morning, afraid to step outside. But no matter how hard he searched, he
found nothing to eat. Nothing. The house had been cleaned out completely. The cupboards were all open, the refrigerator door wide open, all the telltale signs that Albert’s gatherers had been through.

Nothing. To. Eat.

Hunter stood vacant, hopeless, in the living room. He stared at the backyard and thought about the grass and weeds. Weeds were plants, after all. Animals ate them. They would at least fill his stomach.

Grass and weeds. Boiled. He could do that.

Then he saw the deer.

It was a doe. Hyper alert, with a face that managed to be both cute and stupid. The doe blinked her big black eyes.

A deer. As big as a calf.

Hunter was moving toward the back door before he’d thought through what he was doing or why.

He moved swiftly. He opened the back porch door. The deer, startled, took off in a bounding run. Hunter raised his hands and thought, Burn.

The deer did not fall over dead. Instead, it made a squealing sound Hunter had not known deer could make. The deer kept running, but one leg dragged.

Hunter aimed again and thought, Burn.

The deer stumbled. Its front legs kept motoring, but its hind legs were immobilized. It fell on its face.

Hunter ran to it. He found the deer still alive. Struggling. She looked at him with her big, soft eyes and for a moment he hesitated.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

He aimed his hands at her head. In seconds she had stopped thrashing. The dark eyes turned opaque.

She smelled like a steak on the grill.

Hunter burst into tears. He sobbed wildly, out of control. It was like what he’d done to Harry. Poor Harry. And now this poor animal, who was just hungry herself.

He didn’t want to eat the deer. It was crazy. She’d been alive, munching weeds just a minute earlier. Alive. Now dead. And not just dead, but partly cooked.

He told himself he would not eat the deer. But even as he was telling himself he wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t…he was finding the biggest knife in the kitchen.

Orsay Pettijohn was no longer hungry for dreams. She was hungry for food.

Since coming to Coates she had eaten barely enough to stay alive. The situation was desperate. Kids were going into the surrounding woods looking for mushrooms, chasing squirrels and birds. One boy had made a trap and managed to catch a raccoon. The raccoon had bitten the boy repeatedly before being beaten to death with a piece of rebar.

A girl named Allison had collected a bowl full of mushrooms. She had reasoned that cooking them would make them safe. She microwaved them till they were rubbery but fragrant.

Orsay had smelled them cooking and had been driven nearly crazy by the smell. One of the boys had attacked
Allison, beaten, her and stolen the mushrooms as Allison wept and cursed.

Within a few minutes the boy was vomiting. Then he began raving, crying, shouting at things that weren’t there. He’d fallen silent after a while. No one had entered his room since to see if he was dead or alive.

Some kids had gathered grass and weeds and boiled them. They had not gotten very sick, just a little. But they hadn’t really gotten full, either.

Kids were thin. Their cheeks were hollow. They didn’t look like starvation victims yet, because the serious hunger was only a few days old. But soon, Orsay knew, bellies would bloat and hair would turn red and crisp, and deadly resigned lethargy would set in. She had done a report once on famine, never imagining it would be something she would experience.

More and more kids made dark jokes about cannibalism.

Orsay was less and less sure she wouldn’t go along.

Unless, of course, she herself was the meal.

She was lying in her bungalow, in the woods, out behind the school, watching an old download of a show that seemed to be from another planet. The download came with a commercial for Doritos. The characters ate food all the time. It was impossible to believe that world had ever been real.

Suddenly, Orsay was aware of another person in the room. She didn’t see him or hear him. She smelled him.

He smelled like…like fish. Her stomach rumbled and her mouth watered.

“Who’s there?” she demanded, frightened.

Bug appeared slowly. He emerged from the background of Mose’s shabby room.

“What do you want?” Orsay demanded, not really afraid of Bug now that she knew it was him. The smell, the fat, luscious aroma of fish, had her slavering like a hungry dog.

“I need you to do something,” Bug said.

“Did Caine send you?”

Bug hesitated. He glanced aside and for a few seconds faded into the background again. Then he reappeared. His face was twisted into a very un-Bug-like expression of determination. He glanced warily over his shoulder as if fearing that some second version of himself was lurking, listening. “They have fish.”

“I can smell it,” Orsay whimpered.

“I brought some for you,” Bug said.

Orsay felt like she might faint. “Can I have it?”

“First you have to promise you’ll do what I say.”

Orsay knew Bug was a little creep. Who knew what he would want her to do? But she also knew she wasn’t going to resist. There was just about nothing she wouldn’t do for food. Fish would be much, much better than the other type of meat kids were considering.

“What do I have to do?” Orsay asked.

“We have to take a walk. Then you have to do your thing. There’s some, like, creature or whatever. They want you to watch its dreams. See what it wants.”

“The fish,” Orsay whispered urgently. “Do you have it with you?”

Bug drew a Ziploc bag out of the pocket of his hoodie. Inside was white, crumbly, smashed-up fish. Orsay lunged for it, tore the packet open with trembling fingers, and ate it like an animal, sticking her mouth into the bag.

She didn’t stop until she had turned the bag inside out and licked the plastic clean. “Do you have any more?” she begged.

“First, you do your thing. Then we go back to town and talk.”

“We’re doing this for the Perdido Beach kids?” Orsay asked.

Bug snorted. “We’re doing this for whoever gives us the best offer. Right now, Sam’s guys have some fish. So we’re with them. But if Drake gets hold of us, somehow, we’ve been on his side all along. Right?”

“I’m too weak to walk a long way,” Orsay said.

“We only have to get as far as the highway. A guy will be there with a car.”