Plague

by Michael Grant

  She kissed him back.

  He kissed her harder. And she slid her hand under his shirt, fingers stroking his bare flesh.

  Then he pulled away, fast.

  “Sorry, I . . .” He hesitated, his wallowing brain arguing against a body that was suddenly aflame.

  Sam stood up very suddenly and walked away.

  Taylor laughed gaily at his back. “Come see me when you get tired of mooning over the ice princess, Sam.”

  He walked into a sudden, stiff breeze. And any other time, in any other condition, he might have noticed that the wind never blew in the FAYZ.

  Chapter Two

  72 HOURS, 4 MINUTES

  IT WAS AMAZING what decent food could do for a starving girl’s looks.

  Diana looked at herself in the big mirror. She was wearing clean panties and a clean bra. Skinny, very skinny. Her legs were knobby, with knees and feet looking weirdly big. She could count every rib. Her belly was concave. Her periods had stopped and her breasts were smaller than they’d been since she was twelve. Her collarbones looked like clothes hangers. Her face was almost unrecognizable. She looked like a heroin addict.

  But her hair was starting to look better, darker. The rusty color and the brittleness that came from starvation, they were disappearing.

  Her eyes were no longer dead, empty shadows sunk into her skull.

  Now her eyes sparkled in the soft lamplight. She looked alive.

  Her gums weren’t bleeding as much. They were pink, not red, not so swollen. Maybe her teeth wouldn’t fall out after all.

  Starvation. It had driven her to eat human flesh. She was a cannibal.

  Starvation had deprived her of her humanity.

  “Not quite,” Diana said to her reflection. “Not quite.”

  When she had seen that Caine would destroy the helicopter with Sanjit and his brothers and sisters she had sacrificed her own life. She had toppled from the cliff to force Caine to make the choice: save Diana or kill the children.

  Surely that act of self-sacrifice balanced out the fact that she had bitten and chewed and swallowed a cooked chunk of Panda’s chest.

  Surely she was redeemed? At least a little?

  Please? Please, if there is a God watching, please see that I have redeemed myself.

  But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. She had to do more. For as long as she lived she would have to do more.

  Starting with Caine.

  He had shown just a glimmer of humanity, saving her and letting his intended victims go free. It wasn’t much. But it was something. And if she could find a way to change him . . .

  A sound. Very slight. Just a scrape of foot on rug.

  “I know you’re there, Bug,” Diana said calmly, not looking back. Not giving the little creep the satisfaction. “What do you think Caine would do to you if I told him you were spying on me in my underwear?”

  No answer from Bug.

  “Aren’t you a little young to be a pervert?”

  “Caine won’t kill me,” a disembodied voice said. “He needs me.”

  Diana crossed to the California king–sized bed. She slipped on the robe she’d chosen from among the many in the closet. They belonged to the woman whose bedroom this had been. A famous actress with very expensive taste who was only one size bigger than Diana.

  And her shoes fit almost perfectly. Close to seventy pairs of designer shoes. Diana slipped her feet into a pair of fleece-lined slippers.

  “All I have to do to get rid of you, Bug, is to tell Caine your powers are increasing. I’ll tell him you’re becoming a four bar. How do you think he’ll react to having a four bar sharing this island with him?”

  Bug faded slowly into view. He was a snotty little brat of a kid. He’d just turned ten.

  For a moment Diana felt something like compassion for him: Bug was a damaged, messed-up little creep. Like all of them, he was scared and lonely and maybe even haunted by some of the things he’d done.

  Or not. Bug had never shown any evidence of a conscience.

  “If you want to see naked girls, Bug, why don’t you creep up on Penny?”

  “She’s not pretty,” Bug said. “Her legs are all . . .” He twisted his fingers around to demonstrate. “And she smells bad.”

  Penny was eating better, like Diana. But she was getting worse. She had fallen from one hundred feet onto water and rocks. Caine had levitated her back up the cliff. But her legs were broken in a dozen places.

  Diana had done what she could to set the breaks, made splints out of duct tape and boards, but Penny was in constant agony. She would never walk again. Her legs would never heal.

  She lived now in one of the bathrooms so that she could drag herself to the toilet when she needed to. Diana brought her food twice a day. Books. A TV with a DVD player.

  There was still electricity in the house on San Francisco de Sales Island. The generator supplied a weak and faltering current. When Sanjit had lived here, he’d been worried that fuel for the generator was running out. But Caine could do things Sanjit couldn’t. Like levitate barrels of fuel from the wrecked yacht rusting at the bottom of the cliff.

  Life here was very good for Diana and Caine and Bug. But life would never be good for Penny. Her power—the ability to make others see terrifying visions of monsters and flesh-eating insects and death—was of no help to her now.

  “She scares you, doesn’t she, Bug?” Diana asked. She laughed. “You tried, didn’t you? You snuck in on her and she caught you.”

  She saw the answer on Bug’s face. The shadow of a terrifying memory.

  “Best not to make Penny mad,” she said. She pulled on slacks. Then she patted Bug on his freckled cheek. “Best not to make me mad, either, Bug. I can’t make you see monsters. But if I catch you spying on me again, I’ll tell Caine it’s either me or you. And you know who he’ll choose.”

  Diana left the room.

  She’d resolved to be a better person. And she would be. Unless Bug kept bothering her.

  The three Jennifers. That’s what they called themselves. Jennifer B was a redhead, Jennifer H was blond, and Jennifer L had her hair in black dreadlocks. They hadn’t even known one another before the FAYZ.

  Jennifer B had been a Coates kid. Jennifer H was home-schooled. Jennifer L was the only one who’d attended the regular school.

  They were twelve, twelve, and thirteen, respectively. And for the last couple of months they had shared a house on a cul-de-sac away from the center of town.

  It was a good choice: the big fire had come nowhere near the development.

  Now, though, it seemed like a bad choice. The so-called hospital was blocks away and the three of them could all have used a Tylenol or something because they all had the same headache, the same sore muscles, and the same hacking cough.

  It had started twenty-four hours ago, and they had just figured it was the flu coming back around. There’d been a mini-epidemic of flu that had left a lot of kids feeling bad. But it hadn’t been very dangerous except that it kept some kids immobilized who could have been working.

  Jennifer B—Jennifer Boyles—had been asleep for no more than an hour when she was awakened by a loud, percussive sound close by, not from outside, from the room next to hers.

  She sat up in bed and fought down the woozy, head-swimming feeling. She felt her forehead. Yeah, still hot. Definitely hot.

  Whatever the noise was, forget it, she told herself. Too sick to get up. If something was breaking into the house to kill her, so much the better: she felt rotten.

  Kkkrrraaafff!

  This time the walls seemed to shake. Jennifer B was up and out of her bed before she could think about it. She coughed, paused, then veered toward the door, eyes not quite focused, head pounding.

  In the hallway she found Jennifer L. Jennifer L was coughing, too, and looking as scared as Jennifer B. They were both in sweatpants and T-shirts, both miserable.

  “It’s in Jennifer’s room,” Jennifer L said. She had her weapon,
a lead pipe with a grip bound with black electrical tape.

  Jennifer B was annoyed with herself for having forgotten her own weapon. You didn’t jump out of bed at night in the FAYZ without going armed. She staggered back to her bed and fished out the machete. It was stuck into a canvas scabbard between her mattress and box spring, handle protruding.

  It wasn’t all that sharp, but it looked crazy dangerous and it was. A two-foot-long blade with a cracked wooden grip.

  “Jennifer?” Jennifer B called at Jennifer H’s room.

  Kkkrrraaafff!

  The door rattled on its hinges. Jennifer B opened the door and stood with her machete at the ready. Jennifer L was right behind her, pipe clenched in nervous hand.

  Jennifer H had always had a fear of the dark so she had a very small Sammy sun in one corner of the room, hovering beneath what had once been a hanging light fixture. The light was green and eerie, more creepy than illuminating. It showed Jennifer H. She wore a flower-print nightgown.

  She was standing up in her bed. She clutched her throat with one hand and held her stomach with the other.

  She looked like she’d seen death.

  “Jen, you okay?” Jennifer L asked.

  Jennifer H’s eyes bulged. She stared at her two roommates.

  Her stomach convulsed. Her chest heaved. She squeezed her own throat like she was trying to choke herself. Her long, blond hair was wet, sweat-matted, plastered to her face and neck.

  The cough was shockingly loud.

  Kkkrrraaafff!

  Jennifer B felt the explosion of air. And something wet slapped her face.

  She reached her free hand and peeled a small shred of something wet from her cheek. She looked at it, unable to make sense of it. It looked like a piece of raw meat. It felt like chicken skin.

  Kkkrrraaafff!

  The power of the cough threw Jennifer back against the wall.

  “Oh, God!” she moaned. “Oh . . .”

  Kkkrrraaafff!

  And this time Jennifer B saw it. Pieces of something wet and raw had flown from Jennifer H’s mouth. She was coughing up parts of her insides.

  KKKRRRAAAAFFF!

  Jennifer H’s entire body convulsed, twisted backward into a crazy C. She crashed into the windowpane. It shattered.

  KKKRRRAAAAFFF!

  The next spasm threw Jennifer H into the wall headfirst. There was a sickening crunch.

  The other two stared at her in horror. She wasn’t moving.

  “Jen?” Jennifer B called timidly. “Jen? Jen? Are you okay?” Jennifer L asked.

  They crept closer, now holding hands, weapons still at the ready.

  Jennifer H did not answer. Her neck was twisted at a comic angle. Her eyes were open and staring. Seeing nothing. Liquid, black in the eerie light, ran from her mouth and ears.

  The two Jennifers fell back. Jennifer B sank to her knees. Her strength was gone. She let the machete fall from her hand.

  “I . . . ,” she said, but had no second word. She tried to stand but couldn’t.

  “We have to get help,” Jennifer L said. But she too had sunk to her knees.

  Jennifer L tried to stand but sat down again. Jennifer B crawled back to her room. She wanted to help Jennifer L, she did. But she couldn’t even help herself.

  Jennifer B struggled to push herself up and into her bed. Need help, she thought. Hospital. Lana.

  Some still-functioning part of her delirious mind understood that the best she could hope to accomplish for now was to reach the sanctuary of her bed.

  But finally even that was too much. She lay on the cold wood floor staring up at her bed, at the motionless ceiling fan. With the last of her strength she pulled the mess of dirty sheets and blankets down on top of herself.

  She coughed into the once-soft quilt she’d taken from her mother’s room long ago.

  The thing on Hunter’s shoulder didn’t hurt. But it did distract him. And he couldn’t be distracted when he was hunting Old Lion.

  The mountain lion never bothered Hunter. The mountain lion didn’t want to eat Hunter. Or maybe it did, but it had never tried.

  But Hunter had to kill the mountain lion because Old Lion had stolen too many of Hunter’s own kills. Old Lion crept around behind Hunter after he had taken a deer. Hunter was off chasing other prey and Old Lion had snuck around and dragged off Hunter’s deer.

  Old Lion was just doing what he had to do. It wasn’t personal. Hunter didn’t hate Old Lion. But just the same he couldn’t have the mountain lion running off with the food for the kids.

  Hunter hunted for the kids. That’s what he did. That’s who he was. He was Hunter the hunter. For the kids.

  Old Lion was out of the woods now, over the hill, over where the dry lands started and the rocks grew big. Old Lion was heading home for the night. He had eaten well. Now he was heading back to his lair. He would spend the day lying out on the sun-baked rocks and toasting his bones.

  Hunter walked carefully, weight balanced, light on his feet, quick but not rushing. Dangerous to rush about with nothing but moonlight to show the way.

  He had learned a lot about hunting. The killing power from his hands didn’t reach very far. He had to get close to make it work. That meant he had to really concentrate, which was hard ever since his brain had gotten hurt. He couldn’t concentrate enough to read or remember lots of words. And words still came out of his mouth all messed up. But he could concentrate on this: on swift and quiet walking, on weaving through the red rocks while keeping his eyes peeled for the cat’s faint star-silvered tracks in the little deposits of sand.

  And he had to look out for Old Lion changing his mind and deciding he would like him a tasty boy after all. Old Lion didn’t just steal food, he killed it, too. Hunter had seen him once, his tail flicking, his whiskered jaw juddering, quivering with anticipation as Old Lion watched a stray dog.

  Old Lion had exploded out of cover and crossed one hundred feet in about one second. Like a bullet out of a gun. His big paws had caught the dog before the dog could even flinch. Long, curved claws, fur, blood, a desperate whine from the dog and then, almost leisurely, taking his time, Old Lion had delivered the killing bite to the back of the dog’s neck.

  Old Lion was already a hunter back when Hunter was just a regular kid sitting in class, raising his hand to answer questions and reading and understanding and being smart.

  Old Lion knew all about hunting. But he didn’t know that Hunter was coming after him.

  Hunter smelled the cat. He was close. He smelled of dead meat. Dried blood.

  Hunter was below a tall boulder. He froze, realizing suddenly that Old Lion was right above him. He wanted to run, but he knew that if he backed up, the cat would drop on him. He was safer closer to the rock. Old Lion couldn’t drop straight down.

  Hunter pressed his back against the rock. He stilled his own breathing and heard the big cat’s instead. But Old Lion wasn’t fooled. Old Lion could probably hear the heart pounding in Hunter’s chest.

  The thing on Hunter’s shoulder squirmed. It was growing. Moving. Hunter glanced and could see it move beneath the fabric of his shirt. It seemed almost to be trying to chew a hole through Hunter’s shirt.

  Hunter had no word for the thing. It had grown over the last day. It had started out as a bump, a swelling. But then the skin had split apart and gnashing insect mouthparts had been revealed. Like a spider. Or a bug. Like the bugs that crawled on Hunter as he slept.

  But this thing on his shoulder wasn’t a regular bug. It was too big for that. And it had grown right where the flying snake, the greenie, had dropped its goo on him.

  Hunter strained to think of the word for the thing. It was a word he used to know. Like worms on a dead animal. What was the word? He leaned forward, hands to his head, so mad at himself for not being able to find the word.

  He had lost focus for just a few seconds but it was enough for Old Lion.

  The cat dropped like mercury, liquid.

  Hunter was knocked to the
ground. His head banged against the rock. Old Lion had missed his grip, though, and he had to scramble in the narrow space. The cat spun, bared his yellow teeth and leaped, claws outstretched.

  Hunter dodged, but not fast enough. One big paw hit him in the chest and knocked him back against the rock, knocked the wind from him.

  Old Lion was on him, claws on his shoulders, snarling face just inches from Hunter’s vulnerable neck.

  Then, suddenly, the mountain lion hissed and leaped back, like it had landed on a hot stove.

  The lion shook its paw and flung droplets of blood. One claw toe had been badly bitten. It hung by a thread.

  The thing on Hunter’s shoulder had bitten Old Lion.

  Hunter didn’t hesitate. He raised his hands and aimed.

  There was no light. The heat that came from Hunter’s hands was invisible. But instantly the temperature in Old Lion’s head doubled, tripled, and Old Lion, his brain cooked in his skull, fell dead.

  Hunter pulled his shirt back from the shoulder. The insect mouthparts gnashed, chewing on a bloody chunk of the lion.

  Chapter Three

  72 HOURS, 3 MINUTES

  ASTRID HAD FED Little Pete.

  She read a little, perched beside the window, book held at an uncomfortable angle to try and take advantage of the faint moonlight.

  It was slow going.

  It wasn’t a book she’d ever have read back in the old days. She wouldn’t have been caught dead reading some silly teen romance. Back then she’d have read a classic, or some work of great literary merit. Or history.

  Now she needed escape. Now she needed not to be in this world, this terrible world of the FAYZ. Books were the only way out.

  After just a few minutes Astrid set the book aside. Her hands were trembling. Attempt to escape into the book: failed. Attempt to forget her fear: failed. It was all right there, still, right there in front of every other thought.

  Outside, a breeze caused tree branches to scrape the side of the house. A corner of Astrid’s mind noticed, and wondered, but set it aside for more pressing concerns.

  She wondered where Sam was. What he was doing. Whether he was longing for her as she longed for him.