Hunger (42 page)

0
MINUTES

KIND OF LIKE
the first time, Duck thought.

At the pool that day. Like that. Falling and the water rushing down with him.

Only this water was more like sand. A billion tiny crystals all sucked down the drain that Duck had made in the earth.

He could see nothing as he fell. The crystals filled his eyes and ears and mouth.

He couldn’t breathe, and this panicked him and he fell even faster, trying to outrun the monster that fell with him.

No air.

Mind swirling, crazy, not even afraid now, just…

Memories flashed like a jerky video. That day when he fell off a pony at his fifth birthday party.

That time he ate the whole pie…

His mom. So pretty. Her face…

Dad…

The pool…

He stopped falling. Something had stopped him at last.

Too late, he thought.

Can’t fall through to China, Duck thought.

Well, Duck thought, I guess I did want to be a hero.

And then Duck stopped thinking anything at all.

CAINE STOOD IN
darkness.

Sam’s light was gone.

There was a soft, slurry sound. Like rushing water but without water’s music.

Caine stood in darkness as the sound died slowly away.

And now, silence as well as darkness.

Diana. He would never save her now. He might survive, but for the first time in his life, Caine knew that his life, without Diana, would be unbearable.

She had teased him. Abused him. Lied to him. Manipulated him. Betrayed him. Laughed at him.

But she had stuck by him. Even when he had threatened her.

Could what they had really be described as love? He’d blurted it, that word. But were either of them capable of that particular emotion?

Maybe.

But no longer. Not now. Up above, up on the surface, she
was dead or close to it. Her blood seeping into the ground.

“Diana,” he whispered.

“Am I still alive?”

At first Caine thought it might be her voice. Impossible.

“Light,” Caine said. “I need light.”

There was no light. For what seemed like an eternity, no light. The voice did not speak again.

Caine sat in the dark, too beaten to move. His brother curled in a ball. Dead, or wishing he was. And Diana…

Quinn fought panic as he descended the irregular shaft Duck had cut. The rope felt thin in his hands. The walls of the vertical shaft scraped his back and sides as he descended. Rocks kept falling on his head.

Quinn knew he was not brave. But there was no one left. Something was wrong with Brianna. She was doubled up on the ground, clutching her stomach and crying.

Quinn didn’t know what was happening down below. But he knew that if Sam and Caine didn’t bring Lana back up out of there, there would be too many deaths for Quinn to even think about.

Had to do this.

Had to.

He reached the bottom of the shaft and felt his legs swing freely. He lost his grip and fell the final few feet.

He landed hard, but without breaking anything.

“Sam?” Quinn whispered, a sound that died within inches of his mouth.

He fumbled for the flashlight in his pocket. He snapped the
light on. His eyes had adjusted to the dark. The light seemed blinding. He blinked. He aimed the beam ahead.

There, not a hundred feet away, a human figure in silhouette. Moving.

“Caine?”

Caine turned slowly. His face was stark and white. His eyes rimmed red.

Caine rose slowly, like an arthritic old man.

Quinn rushed to him and shone his light around, sweeping the area. He saw Sam facedown.

And there, standing with her arms at her side, stood Lana.

“Lana,” Quinn said.

“Am I alive?” Lana asked.

“You’re alive, Lana,” Quinn said. “You’re free of it.”

A dark shadow passed over Lana’s face. Her mouth twisted downward. She turned and began to walk away.

Quinn put his arm on her shoulder. “Don’t leave us, Healer. We need you.”

Lana stopped.

“I…,” she began.

“Lana,” Quinn said. “We need you.”

“I killed Edilio,” she said.

“Not yet you didn’t,” Quinn said.

Mary Terrafino woke to the taste and smell of fish.

Instantly she twisted her face away. The smell was disgusting.

She looked around wildly. To her amazement she was tied
up. Tied to an easy chair in her day care office.

“What am I doing here?” she demanded, bewildered.

“You’re having dinner,” her little brother said.

“Stop it! I’m not hungry. Stop it!”

John held the spoon in front of her. His cherubic face was dark with anger. “You said you wouldn’t leave me.”

“What are you talking about?” Mary demanded.

“You said you wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t leave me alone,” John said. “But you tried, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re babbling about.” She noticed Astrid then, leaning against a filing cabinet. Astrid looked like she’d been dragged through the middle of a dog fight. Little Pete was sitting cross-legged, rocking back and forth. He was chanting, “Good-bye, Nestor. Good-bye, Nestor.”

“Mary, you have an eating disorder,” Astrid said. “The secret is out. So cut the crap.”

“Eat,” John ordered, and shoved a spoonful of food in her mouth. None too gently.

“Swallow,” John ordered.

“Let me—”

“Shut up, Mary,” John snapped.

Diana first. Caine would allow no other choice.

Then Edilio, who was so close to death that Lana thought he must have had his hand on the gate of Heaven.

Dekka. Horribly hurt. But not dead.

Brianna, with her hair falling out in clumps.

Last, Sam.

Quinn had hauled him up on the rope, helped greatly by Caine.

Lana sat in the dirt as the sun came up.

Quinn brought her water. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

She could say the words he wanted to hear, but Lana knew she could not make him believe. “No,” Lana said.

Quinn sat next to her. “Caine and Diana, they took off. Sam is sleeping. Dekka…I don’t think she’s over it yet.”

“I can’t cure a person of memories,” Lana said dully.

“No,” Quinn agreed. “I guess if you could, you’d cure yourself.”

He put his arm around her shoulders, and she started crying then. It felt like she could never stop. But it didn’t feel bad, either. And Quinn did not leave her. Far off there was the sound of a car’s engine.

Quinn said, “Hey, Brianna zipped back to town. Brought Astrid and someone else.”

Lana didn’t care. Lana didn’t think she would ever care about anything again.

But then, there was the sound of a car door opening and closing. And suddenly, Patrick was there, his cold, wet nose thrust insistently against her neck.

Lana put her arms around him, hugged him close, and cried into his fur.

IT WAS LATE
the next day before Edilio could bring himself to the job at hand. But then he fired up the backhoe and dug two holes in the corner of the plaza.

Mickey Finch. A bullet hole in his back.

Brittney, mangled so badly, no one could look at her. Some sort of slug seemed to have attached itself to her, an eighteen-inch-long thing that could not be pried away from her.

In the end, they buried it with her. She was dead, after all: she wouldn’t care.

There was no hole for Duck Zhang. But they put up a cross for him. They had searched the cavern as best they could. But all they’d found was a hole that went down and down seemingly forever.

The hole was collapsing in on itself as Sam shone his light down. It was already filling with tons of rock and dirt.

“No one knew Duck all that well,” Sam said at the service. “I don’t think anyone would have guessed he’d be a hero. But he saved our lives. He did it willingly. He made
the choice to give his life for us.”

They put a few wildflowers on the graves.

After the service Edilio took a can of black spray paint and began to paint over the “HC” tags that had appeared on too many storefronts.

“
SO, HOW’S IT
going to work, Albert?” Sam asked. He wasn’t as interested as he should be. Probably because he hadn’t slept much yet. Too much to do. Too much to figure out.

He was done. He’d told them all: He was done. Done being
the
Sam Temple. From now on he was just a kid. Like any other. No longer
the
anything.

But not just yet. Right now there was still too much to do. Kids to feed. A terrible rift to be somehow patched up.

Memories of suffering that would have to be dealt with, somehow, absorbed, accepted.

They were at the edge of the cabbage field. Sam, Astrid, Albert, Edilio, and Quinn.

Quinn was standing in the bed of a pickup truck wearing tall rubber boots. In the truck were a dozen of Duck’s famous blue bats. They kept being hauled in by Quinn and Albert’s fishermen. Perfectly good protein, but so noxious, so foul that
even the starving couldn’t gag down the putrid meat.

“We disburse a given amount of gold to every kid,” Albert was explaining. He at least was excited. “Then, if they want, they trade it for paper currency, the McDonald’s game pieces. The gold is kept in a central deposit. They can come back and trade their paper currency for gold anytime they want. This is how they know the paper currency has lasting value.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said for about the millionth time. He hid a yawn as well as he could.

In the three days since the horror in that cavern, Sam had been kept running. It was a game of whack-a-mole. One crisis after another.

They had found Zil. He had three broken ribs and was in terrible pain. No one felt very sorry for him. Astrid wanted him imprisoned. It might still happen. But Sam had too many other problems on his plate.

Fresh anti-freak graffiti continued to appear in Perdido Beach.

Mary was eating, but Astrid had warned him that that alone meant very little. Mary was a long way from being well.

The power plant was damaged, probably beyond repair. The lights were out everywhere now. Probably forever.

The FAYZ had gone dark.

But Jack was with them again, and maybe Jack could do penance by making things work again. He stood awkwardly near Brianna.

Dekka watched them and kept her silence.

“Let’s do this,” Sam said to Quinn. Then, to Astrid, “I’ll bet you five ’Bertos this doesn’t work.”

Howard had dismissed Albert’s list of names for the new currency and had dubbed them “Albertos.” ’Bertos. The name had stuck. It was Howard’s peculiar genius to invent names for things.

“I don’t need money,” Astrid said. “I need to cut your hair. I like seeing your face. Although I can’t imagine why.”

“Done.” Sam shook her hand, sealing the bet.

“Ready?” Quinn called out.

“Orc, you ready?” Sam asked.

Orc nodded his head.

“Do it,” Sam said.

Quinn lifted one of the blue bats and hurled it into the cabbage field. In a flash, the worms swarmed over it. In seconds it was just bones, like a turkey after a Thanksgiving feast.

“Okay, let’s test this,” Sam ordered.

Quinn tossed the second bat to Orc. Orc caught it and walked into the field. After a dozen steps, he tossed the blue bat ahead of him.

Again, the surge of worms. Again, the zekes reduced it to bones.

“Okay, Orc,” Sam said.

Orc bent down and yanked up a cabbage.

He tossed it back to land at Sam’s feet. A second and a third cabbage followed.

The zekes made no move toward Orc.

But they wouldn’t be sure until the zekes were offered
something more easily digested than Orc’s stone feet.

“Breeze?” Sam said.

Brianna hefted a bat and zipped into the field. Sam waited, tense, knowing she was faster than the worms, but still…

Brianna tossed the bat. The zekes hit it.

And Brianna ripped a cabbage from the ground.

“You know,” Astrid said, “I seem to recall a certain condescending—one might even say contemptuous—response when I first suggested negotiating with the zekes.”

“Huh,” Sam said. “Who would ever be dumb enough to be condescending to you?”

“Oh, it was this bald guy I know.”

Sam sighed. “Okay. Okay. Grab your scissors and do your worst.”

“Actually,” Astrid said, “there’s something else you have to do first.”

“Always something,” Sam said gloomily.

Quinn joined them and apologized for stinking of fish.

“Brah, don’t apologize. You’re a very big part of keeping people from starving.”

The other reason the danger of mass starvation had receded for a while, at least, was Hunter. He had recovered most of his function, although his speech seemed permanently slurred, and one eye drooped above a down-twisted mouth.

Hunter had been charged with killing Harry. He had been sentenced to exile from Perdido Beach. He would live apart from them, alone, but living up to the name his parents had given him.

So far, Hunter had killed a second deer and a number of smaller animals. He dropped them at the loading dock of Ralph’s. He asked for nothing in return.

Dekka bent over and lifted one of the cabbages. “This would go great with some roasted pigeon.”

Hunter’s trial had been carried out by a jury of six kids, under rules set up by the Temporary Council: Sam, Astrid, Albert, Edilio, Dekka, Howard, and the youngest member, Brother John Terrafino.

“Well, back to work, huh?” Sam said.

“Get in the car,” Astrid said.

“What are—”

“Let me rephrase. By order of the Temporary Council: get in the car.”

She steadfastly refused to explain what was happening on the drive back to town. Edilio drove, and he was equally mum.

Edilio pulled up and parked in the town beach parking lot.

“Why are we going to the beach? I have to get back to town hall. I have, like, all this stuff—”

“Not now,” Edilio said firmly.

Sam stopped walking. “What’s up, Edilio?”

“I’m supposed to be the sheriff, right? That’s my new title?” Edilio said. “Okay, then, you are under arrest.”

“Under arrest? What are you talking about?”

“You are under arrest for trying to kill a kid named Sam Temple.”

“Not funny.”

But Edilio persisted. “Trying to kill a kid…just a
kid
…
named Sam Temple. By stressing him out with the whole load of the world on his back.”

Sam didn’t find it amusing. Angry, he turned back toward town. But there was Astrid, close on his heels. And Brianna. Quinn, too.

“What are you all up to?” Sam demanded.

“We voted,” Astrid said. “It was unanimous. By order of the Perdido Beach Temporary Council, we sentence you, Sam Temple, to relax.”

“Okay. I’m relaxed. Now can I get back to work?”

Astrid took his arm and all but hauled him across the beach. “You know what’s interesting, Sam? I’ll tell you what’s interesting. A fairly small disturbance in deep water, creating a ripple, a surge, can become a pretty impressive wave as it nears shore.”

Sam noticed that someone had set up a tent on the beach. It looked forlorn.

Out to sea, a boat putted by, its motor chugging in low gear.

“Is that Dekka out on the boat?” Sam asked.

They reached the tent. Lying in the sand there were two surfboards. Quinn’s. And Sam’s.

“Your wet suit’s inside, brah,” Quinn said.

Sam resisted. But not for long. After all, the council had authority now. And if they said he had to go surfing, well…

Ten minutes later Sam was facedown on his board. His feet were already tingling from the cold water. The sun was
already baking his back through the wet suit. The taste of salt was in his mouth.

Out to sea, the boat had anchored. Dekka stood in the bow and raised her hands high. The water rose, rose, a big bulge of water temporarily released from the force of gravity.

Dekka let it drop, and the ripple fanned out.

“You even remember how to get up on that thing?” Quinn teased.

The ripple had become a wave. A fast-moving wave. It would break big. Not north shore Oahu big, maybe, but big enough for a ride.

Sam smiled at last. “You know, brah? I think it may just come back to me.”

In a hole. Lightless. Soundless.

Not even the sound of a beating heart.

Nothing moved but the pale slug that shared this terrible place with her.

Pray for me, Tanner,
Brittney begged.

Pray for me…