She was almost out of food, down to MREs—meals ready to eat, the overly salted meals in a pouch that soldiers and some campers ate. She told herself that she was coming down from the forest at long last for food. Just for food.
Now Orsay watched from a safe distance, concealed by darkness, as a real-life monster, a boy with a thick, powerful tentacle in place of one arm, said good-bye to a boy who simply disappeared.
She waited as he lost the fight with sleep.
And then, ah yes, such strange visions.
Drake. That was his name. She could hear the echo of that sound in her head.
Drake Merwin.
Whip Hand.
For what felt like a very long time she wandered through dreams of pain and rage. She had to shield herself from the physical agony, memories of which kept flooding the boy’s dreams.
In Drake’s dream Orsay saw a different boy, a boy with piercing eyes, a boy who made things fly through the air.
And she saw a boy with fire coming from his hands.
Then she saw the girl, the dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty. And the angry, resentful visions took a turn to something worse still.
Far worse.
For weeks before the great disappearance Orsay had been tortured by dreams she couldn’t shut out, many of them the dreams of adults filled with disturbingly adult imagery.
But she had never entered a dream like this.
She was shaking. Feeling as if she couldn’t breathe.
She wanted to look away, spare herself from witnessing the sick boy’s vile nightmares. But it was the curse of her condition: She had no power to block the dreams out. It was like she was strapped into a chair, eyes pried open, forced to look at images that made her sick.
Only distance would protect her. Sobbing, Orsay crawled away, crawled toward the desert, indifferent to the stones that cut her knees and palms.
The dreams faded. Gradually, Orsay steadied her breathing. This had been a mistake, coming down from the forest, a terrible mistake.
She had told herself she was going in search of food. But in her heart she knew there was a deeper reason for leaving the forest. She missed the sound of a human voice.
No, that wasn’t the whole truth, either.
She missed the dreams. The good ones, the bad ones. She found herself longing for them. Needing them. Addicted.
But not this. Not this.
She sat with eyes closed tight, rocking slowly back and forth in the sand, trying to—
The tentacle was around her, squeezing her tight, squeezing the air out of her lungs before she could even scream.
He was behind her. Her movement had awakened him, and he’d found her and now, now . . . Oh, God . . .
He lifted her up and turned her around to face him. His face would have been handsome if she had not known what lurked behind those icy eyes.
“You,” he whispered, his breath in her face. “You were in my head.”
Duck had found the cause of the ocean sounds. It was, in fact, the ocean.
At least that’s what it seemed like. He couldn’t see it. It was as black as everything else. But it smelled of salt. And it moved like a heaving body of water should, rolling up to his toes and receding. But he could see nothing.
He told himself it was dark outside, out beyond the mouth of the cave. That’s why he couldn’t see anything. It was obvious now that this had to be a sea cave, a cave cut into the land by the constant motion of water over a long, long period of time. Which meant there had to be a way out.
In his mind he pictured it opening onto the beach below Clifftop. Or somewhere near there. Anyway, the important word was: opening.
Had to be.
“You keep saying ‘had to be’ like that makes it so,” he said.
“No, I don’t,” he argued. “I was thinking it, I didn’t say it out loud.”
“Great. Now I’m arguing with myself.”
“Not really, I’m just thinking out loud.”
“Well, try thinking more and arguing less.”
“Hey, I’ve been down here for, like, a hundred hours! I don’t even know what time it is. It could be three days from now!”
He bent down and touched wet sand. Water surged over his fingers. It was cold. But then, everything was cold. Duck had been cold for a long time now. It was slow work walking when you couldn’t see where you were going.
He raised wet fingers to his tongue. Definitely salt. So yes, it was the ocean. Which meant that yes, this cave opened onto the ocean. Which meant there was a pretty good mystery as to why he couldn’t see any light at all.
He shivered. He was so cold. He was so hungry. He was so thirsty. He was so scared.
And suddenly, he realized, he was not alone.
The rustling sound was different from the water-sloshing sound. Very different. It was a distinctly dry sound. Like someone rubbing crinkly leaves together.
“Hello?” he called.
“No answer,” he whispered.
“I know: I heard. I mean, I didn’t hear,” he said. “Is someone there?”
The rustling sound again. It was coming from overhead. Then a chitter-chitter-chitter noise, soft but definite. He didn’t miss many sounds now, not with his eyes useless. Hearing was all he had. If something made a sound, he heard it. And something had made a sound.
“Are you bats?” he asked.
“Because if they were bats, they would totally answer.”
“Bats. Bats are not a problem.” He chattered.
“Bats have to have a way out, right? They can’t live in a cave all the time. They have to be able to fly out and . . . and drink blood.”
Duck stood frozen, awaiting the bat attack. He would never see it coming. If they came after him, he would jump into the water. Yes. Or . . . or he could get mad and maybe sink through the ground and be safe in the dirt.
“Yeah, that’s a great plan: bury yourself alive.”
The bats—if that’s what they were—demonstrated no interest in attacking him and drinking his blood. So Duck returned to the question of what exactly he should do next. In theory he could jump into the water and swim out into the ocean.
In theory. In reality he could not see his own hand in front of his face.
He squatted in a dry corner of the cave, well away from the water. And in an area that seemed somewhat less populated by weird rustling sounds.
He hugged himself and shivered.
How had he ended up here? He’d never hurt anyone. He wasn’t some evil guy, he was just a kid. Like any other kid. He just wanted to go online and play games and watch TV and listen to music. He wanted to read his comics. He didn’t want to be able to sink through the ground.
What kind of a stupid power was that, anyway?
“The Sinker,” he muttered.
“Weightman,” he countered.
“The Human Drill.”
There was no chance he would ever be able to sleep. But he did. Through the worst night of his life, Duck Zhang drifted into and out of a weird nightmare, asleep, awake, and something in between that made him wonder if he was going slowly crazy. He dreamed of food. At one point he dreamed of a pizza chasing him, trying to eat him. And him wishing the pizza just would.
Then at last he woke up and saw . . .
Saw!
The light was dim, but it was bright enough.
“Hey! I can see!” he cried.
The first thing he could see was that the cave did not open onto the outside. The mouth of the cave was underwater. That was the source of the light, it filtered up through the blue-green water itself. The open air couldn’t be too terribly far away, no more than a hundred feet maybe, but he would have to swim underwater to get there.
The second thing he saw was that the cave was bigger than he’d imagined. It had widened out and was large enough that you could park five or six school buses and have space left over.
The third thing he saw were the bats.
They hung from the cave ce
iling. They had leathery wings and big blinking yellow eyes. There were thousands packed close together.
They stared at him.
That’s when it occurred to him: bats didn’t stay in caves at night, they went out at night and hid during the day.
Plus, normally, bats weren’t blue.
And suddenly they began dropping, opening their wings. He was enveloped in a leathery tornado.
He dove for the water. Freezing cold. He powered down and forward, aiming for the light. Much safer underwater, even with sharks or jellyfish or—
The water around him churned and boiled.
He screamed into bubbles.
Thousands of bats swam around and past him, spun him around in a waterspout, slapped wetly at him with wings that suddenly seemed far more like flippers.
He gagged on salt water, kicked and motored his arms in a panic crawl.
He ran out of air after fifteen seconds. But he still did not see a way out. Should he turn back?
He stopped. Froze in place. Enough air to make it back? And then what? Learn to live in a cave?
Duck kicked his feet and plowed ahead, no longer sure which way he was going. Forward or back?
Or just swimming in circles?
At last he came up. His head broke the surface as ten thousand bats erupted from the water all around him, wheeled overhead, then dove straight back into the sea a hundred yards off.
It wasn’t far to the beach. He just had to swim there. Before the water bats came back.
“Just don’t get mad,” Duck chattered. “This would be a bad time to sink.”
NINE
82 HOURS, 38 MINUTES
IT WAS MORNING. The buses were in the square. Edilio behind the wheel of one, yawning hugely. And Ellen, the fire marshal, behind the wheel of the other. Ellen was a small, dark, very serious girl. Sam had never seen her smile. She seemed to be a very capable girl, but she hadn’t really been put to the test much yet. But she was a good driver.
Unfortunately, neither Ellen nor Edilio had many kids to drive.
Astrid was standing there with Little Pete, offering moral support, Sam supposed.
“I guess we don’t really need two buses,” Sam said.
“You could just about go with a minivan,” Astrid agreed.
“What is the matter with people?” Sam fumed. “I said we needed a hundred kids and we get thirteen? Fifteen, maybe?”
“They’re just kids,” Astrid said.
“We’re all just kids. We’re all going to be very hungry kids.”
“They’re used to being told what to do by their parents or teachers. You need to be more direct. As in, Hey, kid, get to work. Now.” She thought for a moment then added, “Or else.”
“Or else what?” Sam asked.
“Or else . . . I don’t know. We’re not going to let anyone starve. If we can help it. I don’t know the ‘or else.’ All I know is you can’t expect kids to just automatically behave the right way. I mean, when I was little my mom would give me a gold star when I was good and take away a privilege when I wasn’t.”
“What am I supposed to do? Tell three hundred kids spread out in seventy or eighty different homes that they can’t watch DVDs? Confiscate iPods?”
“It’s not easy playing daddy to three hundred kids,” Astrid admitted.
“I’m not anyone’s daddy,” Sam practically snarled. Another sleepless night, in a long string of them, had left him in a foul mood. “I’m supposed to be the mayor, not the father.”
“These kids don’t know the difference,” Astrid pointed out. “They need parents. So they look to you. And Mother Mary. Me, even, to some extent.”
Little Pete chose that moment to begin floating in the air. Just lifted off a foot, eighteen inches, hovered there, his arms floating, toes pointed downward.
Sam noticed immediately. Astrid didn’t.
“What the—”
Sam stared, forgetting all about the empty school buses.
Little Pete floated. His omnipresent Game Boy had fallen to the ground. In front of him, just a few feet away, something began to materialize.
It was no bigger than Little Pete himself. Shiny red, laced with gold, a doll’s dead-eyed face atop a bowling pin body.
“Nestor,” Little Pete said, almost happy.
Sam recognized it. It was the nesting doll that sat on Little Pete’s dresser. Identical Russian dolls, shells, really, that nested one inside the other. Sam didn’t know how many there were. He had asked Astrid about it once. She’d said it was a souvenir from Moscow sent by some traveling uncle.
It was supposed to be for Astrid, but Little Pete had taken to it immediately. He’d even given it the name: Nestor. And because Little Pete never identified much with toys, Astrid had let him keep it.
“Nestor,” Little Pete repeated, but troubled now, uncertain.
As Sam stared, transfixed, the nesting doll began to change. Its smooth, lacquered surface rippled. The colors ran together and formed new patterns. The eerie painted face grew sinister.
Arms grew from its side, like twigs. The twigs thickened, grew flesh, grew talons.
And the doll’s painted smile split open, revealing dagger-sharp teeth.
Little Pete reached for the image, but the floating creature seemed to be made of Teflon: Little Pete’s hands slid over it, pushed it aside like someone trying to poke a globule of mercury, but never quite touched it.
“No arms,” Little Pete said.
The doll’s arms withered, shriveled, and turned to smoke.
“Petey. Stop it,” Astrid hissed.
“What is it?” Sam asked urgently. “What is that thing?”
Astrid didn’t answer. “Petey. Window seat. Window seat.” It was a trigger phrase Astrid used to calm Little Pete down. Sometimes it worked. Other times not. But in this case, Sam didn’t think Little Pete seemed upset, he seemed fascinated. It was a weird thing to see that kind of alert, even intelligent, involvement on Little Pete’s usually blank face.
The doll’s mouth opened. As if it would speak. Its eyes focused on Little Pete. Malevolent, hate-filled eyes.
“No,” Little Pete said.
The mouth snapped shut. It was a painted line once again. And the furious eyes dimmed. Painted dots once more.
Astrid made a sound like a sob, quickly stifled. She stepped in, whispered, “Sorry,” and slapped Pete’s shoulder, hard.
The effect was immediate. The creature disappeared. Pete fell in a heap, sprawled out on the brown grass.
“Are you sure you should—” Sam began.
Little Pete was capable of . . . well, no one was quite sure what he was capable of. All that Sam and Astrid knew was that Little Pete was far and away the most powerful mutant in the FAYZ.
“I had to stop him,” Astrid said grimly. “It gets worse. It starts with Nestor. Then the arms. Then the mouth and the eyes. Like it’s trying to come alive. Like . . .” She knelt beside Little Pete and hugged him to her.
Sam looked sharply toward the buses. The question in his mind—had Pete been observed?—was answered by the slack-jawed stares of the kids with their noses pressed against the dusty windows.
Edilio was definitely wide awake now, and coming their way fast.
Sam cursed under his breath. “This has happened before, Astrid?”
She stuck out her chin defiantly. “A couple of times.”
“You might have warned me.”
“What the—I mean, what was that, man?” Edilio demanded.
“Ask Astrid,” Sam snapped.
Astrid handed Little Pete his Game Boy and pulled him gently to his feet. She kept her eyes down, unwilling to meet Sam’s accusing glare. “I don’t know what it is. It’s some kind of waking nightmare, maybe.” There was a distinct note of desperation to her voice.
“The doll, the thing, whatever it was,” Sam said. “It was fighting Pete, and Pete was fighting back. Like it was trying to come to life.”
“Yes,” Astrid whisp
ered.
Edilio was the only other person who knew Little Pete’s history. It had been Edilio who had retrieved the videotape from the power plant that showed the moment of the nuclear meltdown when a panicked, uncomprehending Little Pete, there with his father, had reacted by creating the FAYZ.
Edilio asked the question that was on Sam’s mind. “Something was fighting Little Pete?” Edilio asked, “Man, who or what has the power to take on Little Pete?”
“We don’t talk about this with anyone else,” Sam said firmly. “Someone asks you about it, you just say it must have been some kind of . . .”
“Some kind of what?” Edilio asked.
“Optical illusion,” Astrid supplied.
“Yeah, that’ll work,” Edilio said sarcastically. Then he shrugged. “Kids got other things to worry about. Hungry people don’t waste much time on questions.”
If others learned of Little Pete’s guilt . . . and his power . . . he would never be safe. Caine would do anything it took to capture if not kill the strange little boy.
“Edilio, put everyone on one bus. Take a couple of your guys and start driving down residential streets. Go door to door. Round up as many kids as you can. Pack the bus, then take them to pick some melons or whatever.”
Edilio looked dubious but said, “Okay, Mr. Mayor.”
“Astrid. You come with me.” Sam stalked off with Astrid and Little Pete trailing.
“Hey, don’t start getting all high and mighty with me,” Astrid yelled at his back.
“I’d just appreciate it if you’d let me know when some new weirdness breaks out. That’s all.” Sam kept moving, but Astrid grabbed his arm. He stopped, glancing around guiltily to make sure no one was in eavesdropping distance.
“What was I supposed to tell you?” Astrid demanded in a terse whisper. “Little Pete’s hallucinating? He’s floating off the ground? What were you going to do about it?”
He held up his hands in a placating gesture. But his voice was no less angry. “I’m just trying to keep up, you know? It’s like I’m playing a game where the rules keep changing. So today’s rules are, hey, killer worms and hallucinating five-year-olds. I can’t do anything about it, but it’s nice to get a heads up.”
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