Gone Series Complete Collection

by Grant, Michael

  “Hey, let me see that hand,” Lana said.

  Albert seemed puzzled. He looked at his own hand, swollen and discolored from punching Orc’s stone face.

  “Oh, yeah,” Albert said as Lana briefly took his hand in hers. “Thanks again.”

  Lana put her headphones back on and trotted a few steps. Then she stopped. She turned and took them off. “Hey. Albert. The money thing.”

  “Yes?”

  She hesitated, knowing that in this moment she was perhaps starting a chain reaction. Knowing that it was dangerous to the point of madness. It was eerie, as if fate had intervened in the person of Albert, showing her the way to her half-formed goal. “Wouldn’t gold work? I mean, as money?”

  Albert’s sharp eyes found hers. “Should we get together and talk?”

  “Yeah,” Lana said.

  “Stop by the club tonight.”

  “The what?”

  Albert grinned. He fished a half sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

  Lana glanced at it. Then at him. She laughed and handed it back. “I’ll be there.”

  She started running again. But her thoughts were taking a different tack than before. Albert was planning for the future, not just letting it happen to him. That was the thing to do. To plan. To act. Not just to let things happen.

  She was right to plan.

  Come to me.

  Maybe I will, Lana thought. And maybe you won’t like it much when I do.

  ELEVEN

  70 HOURS, 11 MINUTES

  “MOTHER MARY WANTS to draft two more kids,” Astrid told Sam.

  “Okay. Approved.”

  “Dahra says we’re running low on kids’ Tylenol and kids’ Advil, she wants to make sure it’s okay to start giving them split adult pills.”

  Sam spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “What?”

  “We’re running low on kid pills, Dahra wants to split adult pills.”

  Sam rocked back in the leather chair designed for a grown man. “Okay. Whatever. Approved.” He took a sip of water from a bottle. The wrapper on the bottle said “Dasani” but it was tap water. The dishes from dinner—horrible homemade split-pea soup that smelled burned, and a quarter cabbage each—had been pushed aside onto the sideboard where in the old days the mayor of Perdido Beach had kept framed pictures of his family. It was one of the better meals Sam had had lately. The fresh cabbage tasted surprisingly good.

  There was little more than smears on the plates: the era of kids not eating everything was over.

  Astrid puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “Kids are asking why Lana isn’t around when they need her.”

  “I can only ask Lana to heal big things. I can’t demand she be around 24/7 to handle every boo-boo.”

  Astrid looked at the list she had compiled on her laptop. “Actually, I think this involved a stubbed toe that ‘hurted.’”

  “How much more is on the list?” Sam asked.

  “Three hundred and five items,” Astrid said. When Sam’s face went pale, she relented. “Okay, it’s actually just thirty-two. Now, don’t you feel relieved it’s not really three hundred?”

  “This is crazy,” Sam said.

  “Next up: the Judsons and the McHanrahans are fighting because they share a dog, so both families are feeding her—they still have a big bag of dry dog food—but the Judsons are calling her Sweetie and the McHanrahans are calling her BooBoo.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not kidding,” Astrid said.

  “What is that noise?” Sam demanded.

  Astrid shrugged. “I guess someone has their stereo cranked up.”

  “This is not going to work, Astrid.”

  “The music?”

  “This. This thing where every day I have a hundred stupid questions I have to decide. Like I’m everyone’s parent now. I’m sitting here listening to how little kids are complaining because their older sisters make them take a bath, and stepping into fights over who owns which Build-A-Bear outfit, and now over dog names. Dog names?”

  “They’re all still just little kids,” Astrid said.

  “Some of these kids are developing powers that scare me,” Sam grumbled. “But they can’t decide who gets to have which special towel? Or whether to watch The Little Mermaid or Shrek Three?”

  “No,” Astrid said. “They can’t. They need a parent. That’s you.”

  Sam usually handled the daily dose of nonsense with equanimity, or at least with nothing worse than grouchy humor. But today he was feeling it was finally too much. Yesterday he’d lost E.Z. This morning he’d seen almost no one show up for work. And Edilio had been forced to track kids down for two hours. Even then they had come back with a pitiful amount of cantaloupes, barely enough to feed the day care. All of that followed by Duck Zhang and some crazy story about falling through the ground into a radioactive tunnel full of water bats.

  The only person who’d been productive was Orc. He had picked several hundred cabbages before the worms had nearly killed him.

  “What is that music?” he demanded, angry and needing to yell at someone or something. Sam stomped to the window and threw it open. Immediately the volume of the music, most of it vibrating bass, increased dramatically.

  Down in the square things were dark but for the streetlights and a strobe light blinking through the front window of McDonald’s.

  “What in the . . .”

  Astrid came and stood beside him. “What is that? Is Albert throwing a party?”

  Sam didn’t answer. He left without a word, annoyed, angry, and secretly glad of any excuse to get out of answering kids’ stupid questions and handling their stupid problems.

  He took the steps two at a time. Down to the ground floor, out through the big front door, ignoring a “Hello” from the kid Edilio had guarding the town hall, and down the big marble steps to the street.

  Quinn was passing by, clearly heading toward McDonald’s.

  “Hey, brah,” Quinn said.

  “What is going on, do you know?” Sam asked.

  “It’s a club.” Quinn grinned. “Man, you must be working too hard. Everyone knows about it.”

  Sam stared at him. “It’s a what?”

  “McClub, brah. All you need is some batteries or some toilet paper.”

  This announcement left Sam baffled. He considered asking Quinn for clarification, but then Albert appeared, formally dressed, like he thought it was graduation or something. He actually had on a dark sports coat and slacks in a lighter shade. His shirt was pale blue, collared, and ironed. Spotting Sam, he extended his hand.

  Sam ignored the hand. “Albert, what is going on here?”

  “Dancing, mostly,” Albert said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Kids are dancing.”

  Quinn caught up then and stepped in front of Sam to shake Albert’s still-extended hand. “Hey, dude. I have batteries.”

  “Good to see you, Quinn. The price is four D cells, or eight double As, or ten triple As, or a dozen Cs. If you have a mix, I can work it out.”

  Quinn dug in his pocket and produced four triple A batteries and three D cells. He handed them to Albert, who agreed to the price and dropped the batteries into a plastic bag at his feet.

  “Okay, the rules are no food, no alcohol, no attitude, no fights, and when I call ‘time,’ there’s no arguing about it. Do you agree to these rules?”

  “Dude, if I had any food, would I be here? I’d be home eating it.” Quinn put his hand over his heart like he was pledging allegiance to the flag and said, “I do.” He jerked a thumb back at Sam. “Don’t bother with him: Sam doesn’t dance.”

  “Have a good time, Quinn,” Albert said, and swung open the door to admit him.

  Sam stared in absolute amazement. He was torn between outrage and an urge to laugh in admiration.

  “Who told you you could do this?” Sam asked.

  Albert shrugged. “Same person who told me I could run the McDonald’s until we ran
out of food: no one. I just did it.”

  “Fine, but you gave away the food. Now you’re charging people. That’s not cool, Albert.”

  “You’re trying to profit?” This from Astrid, who had followed Sam, Little Pete in tow.

  Inside, the music had shifted from hip-hop to a song Sam happened to love: the ridiculously hooky Tim Armstrong tune “Into Action.” If he ever were to dance, this might be the tune that did it.

  Albert considered Astrid and Sam. “Yes. I’m trying to make a profit. I’m using batteries, toilet paper, and paper towels as currency. Each is something that will eventually be in short supply.”

  “You’re trying to get all the toilet paper in town?” Astrid shrilled. “Are you kidding?”

  “No, Astrid, I’m not kidding,” Albert said. “Look, right now, kids are playing with the stuff. I saw little kids throwing rolls of it around on their lawns like it was a toy. So—”

  “So your solution is to try and take it all away from people?”

  “You’d rather see it wasted?”

  “Yeah, actually,” Astrid huffed. “Rather than you getting it all for yourself. You’re acting like a jerk.”

  Albert’s eyes flared. “Look, Astrid, now kids know they can buy their way into the club with it. So they’re not going to waste it anymore.”

  “No, they’re going to give it all to you,” she shot back. “And what happens when they need some?”

  “Then there will still be some left because I made it valuable.”

  “Valuable to you.”

  “Valuable to everyone, Astrid.”

  “It’s you taking advantage of kids dumb enough not to know any better. Sam, you have to put a stop to this.”

  Sam had drifted away from the conversation, his head full of the music. He snapped back. “She’s right, Albert, this isn’t okay. You didn’t get permission—”

  “I didn’t think I needed permission to give kids what they want. I mean, I’m not threatening anyone, saying, ‘Give me your toilet paper, give me your batteries.’ I’m just playing some music and saying, ‘If you want to come in and dance, then it’ll cost you.’”

  “Dude, I respect you being ambitious and all,” Sam said. “But I have to shut this down. You never got permission, even, let alone asked us if it was okay to charge people.”

  Albert said, “Sam, I respect you more than I can even say. And Astrid, you are way smarter than me. But I don’t see how you have the right to shut me down.”

  That was it for Sam. “Okay, I tried to be nice. But I am the mayor. I was elected, as you probably remember, since I think you voted for me.”

  “I did. I’d do it again, man. But Sam, Astrid, you guys are wrong here. This club is about all these kids have that can get them together for a good time. They’re sitting in their homes starving and feeling sad and scared. When they’re dancing, they forget how hungry and sad they are. This is a good thing I’m doing.”

  Sam stared hard at Albert, a stare that kids in Perdido Beach took seriously. But Albert did not back down.

  “Sam, how many cantaloupes did Edilio manage to bring back with kids who were rounded up and forced to work?” Albert asked.

  “Not many,” Sam admitted.

  “Orc picked a whole truckload of cabbage. Before the zekes figured out how to get at him. Because we paid Orc to work.”

  “He did it because he’s the world’s youngest alcoholic and you paid him with beer,” Astrid snapped. “I know what you want, Albert. You want to get everything for yourself and be this big, important guy. But you know what? This is a whole new world. We have a chance to make it a better world. It doesn’t have to be about some people getting over on everyone else. It can be fair to everyone.”

  Albert laughed. “Everyone can be equally hungry. In a week or so, everyone can starve.”

  A group of kids were leaving, pushing open the door. Sam recognized them, of course. He knew everyone in town now, at least by sight if not by name.

  They came out laughing, giggling, happy.

  “Hey, Big Sam,” one of them said.

  Another said, “You should go in, dude, it’s great.”

  Sam just nodded in acknowledgment.

  The decision could no longer be put off. Close down the club or let it go. If he didn’t close it down he was giving ground to Albert and would probably have another stupid fight with Astrid, who would feel as if he’d ignored her.

  Not for the first time, or even the hundredth time, Sam wished he had never, ever agreed to become anyone’s leader.

  Sam stole a glance at the watch on Albert’s wrist. It was almost nine P.M.

  “Close it down,” Sam said firmly. “Close it. At ten thirty. Kids need sleep.”

  Inside the club Quinn relaxed into the beat. Some ska-punk, sure. Maybe later some hip-hop. Some classic old tunes, maybe.

  Give it up for Albert: the guy had turned the Mac’s into a decent dance club. The main lights were all off, just the menu boards were illuminated. But they didn’t show Happy Meals and combos. Albert had covered them with pink tissue paper so they gave off a mellow glow, just enough to light the whites of people’s eyes and their teeth when they smiled.

  Hunter, what was he, seventh grade? He was the one spinning the CDs and scratching the turntable. He wasn’t exactly a professional, but he was good enough. Cool enough kid, Quinn thought, even though the rumor was he was developing some killer powers. Time would tell if he would stay cool, or turn as arrogant as some of the freaks. Like Brianna, who was suddenly calling herself “the Breeze” and demanding everyone else play along. Like she was a comic book superhero. The Breeze. And he’d kind of liked her, once.

  Speaking of which, there she was, dancing like a crazy person, speeding herself up, feet flying, bouncing up and down so fast, she looked like she might start flying around the room.

  She’d been telling everyone who would listen how she beat a bullet. “I’m now officially faster than a speeding bullet. Me and Superman.”

  In another corner the weird little kid named Duck was peddling some crazy story involving fish-bats and an underground city or whatever.

  And then there was Dekka, sitting by herself, nodding almost imperceptibly to the beat, eyes on Brianna. No one really knew much about Dekka. She was one of the Coates kids, one of the ones who had been rescued from Caine and Drake’s cruel cinderblock torture.

  She had a vibe to her, Dekka, a feeling she gave off that she was strong and a little dangerous. There was some history there, Quinn thought, something in her past, like with almost all the Coates kids. Coates was known as a school for troubled rich kids. They weren’t all rich, they weren’t all troubled, but the majority had some serious issues.

  Quinn slid between two fourth graders, a guy and a girl, dancing. Together. When Quinn was that age he would never have danced with a girl like they were on a date. In fact, he still didn’t. But things were different now, he supposed. Fourth grade was like . . . like middle-aged or something. He himself was old. Old, old, old at almost fifteen.

  Birthday coming up. The question was, what would he do? Stay or step outside?

  Mostly, ever since Sam had survived, kids who had hit the Fatal Fifteen had survived. Sam had told them how to do it.

  Computer Jack, who back in those days was with Caine, had used high-speed photography to record a captive kid up at Coates hitting the moment, the AoD, the Age of Destruction. Jack had come to Perdido Beach with the tale of the tape, the great revelation that in that fateful moment your world would slow down, slow down to a crawl as you approached infinity. And there, in that moment, would come a tempter to beckon to you, call to you, ask you to cross over.

  But the tempter was a fraud. A liar. Like a devil, Quinn thought, like a devil. He backed into someone and turned to apologize.

  “Hey, Quinn.” It was Lana, shouting over the music so that it was halfway to lip-reading for Quinn. The Healer actually speaking to him.

  “Oh. Hi, Lana. This is cool, huh
?” He indicated the room with an awkward motion.

  Lana nodded. She looked a little bleak, a little forlorn. Which seemed impossible to Quinn. Lana was second only to Sam in hero status. And the difference was that some people really kind of hated Sam, while no one hated Lana. Sam might make you do something—pick up garbage, take care of the prees at the day care, shoot someone with a machine gun—but all Lana ever did was heal people.

  “Yeah. It’s kind of cool,” Lana said. “But I don’t really know anyone.”

  “No way. You know everyone.”

  Lana shook her head ruefully. “No. Everyone knows me. Or at least they think they do.”

  “Well, you know me,” Quinn said, and made a kind of slanted grin so she’d know he wasn’t trying to get above himself and act like her equal.

  But that wasn’t how she took it. She nodded, so serious that she looked like she might cry. “I miss my parents.”

  Quinn felt the sudden, sharp pang he’d felt about every hour back when all this started, and now felt only a couple of times a day. “Yeah. Me too.”

  Lana held out her hand, and Quinn, after a moment’s amazed hesitation, took it.

  Lana smiled. “Is it okay if I just hold your hand and don’t, you know, heal you of anything?”

  Quinn laughed. “Whatever’s wrong with me, it isn’t something even you can heal.” Then, “You want to dance?”

  “I’ve been waiting to talk to Albert, standing around here for like, an hour, and you are the first person to ask me,” she said. “Yeah. I would kind of like to dance.”

  The song had just changed to a hip-hop tune, a raucous, flatly obscene rap. It was a few years old, but still catchy, and had the added attraction of being a song no one in the room had been allowed to listen to three months earlier.

  Quinn and Lana danced, even bumped hips a couple of times. Then Hunter changed the mood to a moderately slow, dreamy song by Lucinda Williams. “I love this song,” Lana said.

  “I . . . I don’t know how to dance slow,” Quinn said.

  “Me neither. Let’s try it, though.”

  So they held each other awkwardly and just swayed back and forth. After a while Lana laid her face against Quinn’s shoulder. He could feel her tears on his neck.