Gone Series Complete Collection

by Grant, Michael

  It was unfortunate that none of the workmen had left matches behind. But steel struck with super speed against cement made sparks fly. It was tedious work, but she soon had a fire going. A cheerful little fire in the middle of the vast roof.

  And now there were two pigeons, dozing and cooing in their sleep. One was gray, the other kind of pink.

  “Pink,” she decided.

  The chances of a regular kid catching them was close to zero. But she was not a normal person. She was the Breeze.

  The pigeon never had time to flinch. She grabbed it, hand around its golf ball head. She swung it hard, snapping its neck.

  Two minutes in the fire burned off most of the feathers. Five minutes more and the bird burst open.

  That was the end of her patience. She used the screwdriver to pry slivers of meat from the pigeon’s plump breast and pop them into her mouth.

  It had been weeks since she had tasted anything half as good.

  “The Breeze,” she said, squatting by her fire. “Scourge of pigeons.”

  She lay back, savoring her meal.

  In a minute she would get up and figure out how to escape this rooftop trap.

  But with food in her stomach the weariness of a day spent running at insane speeds over insane distances caught up with her.

  “I’m just going to rest my . . .”

  Duck sank, facedown, mouth full of dirt and rock.

  He was choking, gagging. No way to breathe.

  His head was pounding. Blood pounding in his ears. His chest heaved, sucking desperately on nothing.

  It was over.

  He was going to die.

  Wild with panic, he thrashed. His arms plowed through packed dirt with no more effort than if he had been swimming in water.

  He was no longer acting consciously, legs and arms kicking in a sort of death spasm as his brain winked out and his lungs screamed.

  “Duck! Duck! You down there?”

  A voice from a million miles away.

  Duck tried to sit up, very quickly. He had managed to turn himself over. But his head slammed into dirt, and he took a shower of gravel in the face for his efforts. He tried to open his eyes, but dirt filled them. He spit dirt out of his mouth and found that he could breathe. His thrashing had made a space for him.

  “Duck! Dude! Are you alive?”

  Duck wasn’t sure he knew the answer. He cautiously moved his arms and legs and found that he could, within limits.

  Sudden, overwhelming panic. He was buried alive!

  He tried to scream, but the sound was choked off and now he was falling again, falling through the earth.

  No. No. No.

  He had to stop. Had to stop the anger.

  It was the anger that had sent him plummeting toward the center of the earth.

  Think of something not angry, not fearful, he ordered himself.

  Something happy.

  Buried alive!

  Happy . . . happy . . . the swimming pool . . . the water . . . floating . . .

  Duck stopped sinking.

  That was good. Good! Happy. Floating. Happy, happy thoughts.

  Cookies. He liked cookies. Cookies were great.

  And . . . and . . . and Sarah Willetson that time she smiled

  at him. That was nice. That had given him a nice, warm feeling, like maybe someday girls would like him.

  Also, how about watching TV, watching basketball on TV? That was a happy thought.

  He was definitely no longer sinking.

  No problem. Just be happy. Be happy to be buried alive.

  “Duck?” It was Hunter’s voice calling down to him. It sounded like Hunter was at the bottom of a well. Of course it was the other way around: Duck was at the bottom of the well.

  “Happy, happy,” Duck whispered.

  He was not buried alive, he was sitting down in the movie theater. He was in the seats with the railing right in front where he could rest his feet. And he had popcorn. Buttered, of course, extra salt. And a box of Cookie Dough Bites.

  Previews. He loved the previews. Previews and popcorn and oh, look, there was a Slushee in the seat’s cup holder. Blue, whatever flavor that was supposed to be. Blue Slushee.

  What was the movie? Iron Man.

  He loved Iron Man.

  And Slushees. Popcorn. Swimming pools. Girls.

  Something was scraping against his face, against his arms and legs and chest.

  Don’t think about that, it might make you unhappy and mad, and boy, those are not helpful emotions. They drag you down.

  Way down.

  Duck laughed at that.

  “Duck. Dude.” Hunter’s voice. It sounded closer now, clearer. Was he watching Iron Man, too?

  No, Sarah Willetson was. Sarah was sitting beside him, sharing his popcorn and oh, excellent, she had a bag of peanut M&M’s. She was pouring some into his hand. Happy little football shapes in bright colors.

  The scraping had stopped.

  “Dude?”

  The voice was close now.

  Duck felt a breeze.

  He opened his eyes. There was still dirt in his eyes. He brushed it away. The first thing he saw was Hunter. Hunter’s head.

  The top of Hunter’s head.

  Slowly Hunter’s face turned up toward him with an expression of pure awe.

  “Dude, you’re flying,” Hunter said.

  Duck glanced around. He was no longer buried alive. He was out of the hole. He was across the street from the church, out of the hole, and floating about five feet in the air.

  “Whoa,” Duck said. “It works both ways.”

  “We should just get out. Take Sam’s deal. Walk away,” Diana was saying.

  “I’m in the root directory,” Jack was saying.

  Brittney knew she should be in pain. Her body was a wreck. She knew that. Her legs were broken. The control room door, blown from its hinges, had done that. She knew she should be in agony. She wasn’t.

  She should be dead. At least one bullet had hit her.

  But she wasn’t dead. Not quite.

  So much blood, all around her. More than enough to kill her. Had to be.

  And yet . . .

  “No one’s leaving,” Caine said.

  It was like being in a dream. Things that she should feel, she didn’t. It was like the way sometimes, in a dream—cause and effect went backward, or sideways, things not making sense.

  “We have no food,” Diana said.

  “Maybe I could go for some,” Bug said.

  “Yeah, right. Like you’d come back here if you found any,” Drake sneered. “We’re not here to feed ourselves. We’re here to feed him.”

  “Do you capitalize it when you say ‘him,’ Drake?” Diana’s sarcasm was savage. “Is he your god now?”

  “He gave me this!” Drake said. Brittney heard a loud crack, the bullwhip sound of Drake’s arm.

  With infinite caution, Brittney tested her body. No, she could not move her legs. She could only rotate one hip, and that only a little.

  Her right arm was useless. Her left arm, though, worked.

  I should be dead, Brittney thought. I should be with Tanner in Heaven.

  I should be dead.

  Maybe you are.

  No. Not before Caine, Brittney thought.

  She wondered if she had become a healer, like Lana. Everyone knew the story of how Lana had discovered her power. But Lana had been in terrible pain. And Brittney was not.

  Still, she focused her thoughts, imagined her useless right arm healing. She concentrated all her mind on that.

  “Trapped,” Diana said bitterly.

  “Not for long. We bust out of here and bring him what he needs,” Drake said.

  “Gaiaphage. That’s what Caine calls it when he’s ranting,” Diana said. “Shouldn’t you know your god’s name?”

  Brittney did not feel any change in her arm.

  A terrible suspicion came to her. There was an awful silence from within her own body. She listened. Str
ained to hear, to feel, the ever-present thump . . . thump . . .

  Her heart. It was not beating.

  “Gaiaphage?” Jack said, sounding interested. “A ‘phage’ is another word for a computer virus. A worm, actually.”

  Her heart wasn’t beating.

  She wasn’t alive.

  No, that was wrong, she told herself. Dead things don’t hear. Dead things cannot move their one good hand, squeezing the fingers ever so slightly so no one would notice.

  There could be only one explanation. Caine and Drake had killed her. But Jesus had not taken her up into Heaven to be reunited with her brother. Instead, He had granted her this power. To live, still, a while, though she was dead.

  To live long enough to accomplish His will.

  “A phage is code. Software that sort of eats other software,” Jack said in his pedantic way.

  Brittney had no doubt what God had chosen her to do. Why He had kept her alive.

  She could still see, barely, though one eye was obscured. She could see across the floor to where Mike had left the pistol, just the way she had told him to.

  She would have to move with infinite patience. Millimeter by millimeter. Imperceptible movements of her hip and arm. The gun was underneath the table, far in a corner, seven, eight feet away.

  Satan walked the earth in this evil trinity of Caine, Drake, and Diana. And Brittney had been chosen to stop them.

  Watch me, Tanner, she prayed silently. I’m going to make you proud.

  Quinn and Albert were silent as they drove back to Perdido Beach.

  The truck was heavier by many pounds of gold.

  Lighter by two kids and a dog.

  Finally Quinn spoke. “We have to tell Sam.”

  “About the gold?” Albert asked.

  “Look, man, we lost the Healer.”

  Albert hung his head. “Yeah.”

  “Sam has to know that. Lana’s important.”

  “I know that,” Albert snapped. “I said that.”

  “She’s more important than some stupid gold.”

  For a long time Albert didn’t respond. Then, finally, “Look, Quinn, I know what you think. Same as everyone else. You think I’m just all about me. You think I’m just into being greedy or whatever.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No. Well, maybe,” Albert admitted. “Okay, maybe I want to be important. Maybe I want to have a lot of stuff and be in charge and all that.”

  Quinn snorted. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “But that doesn’t make me wrong, Quinn.”

  Quinn didn’t have anything to say to that. He was sick at heart. He would be blamed for losing Lana Arwen Lazar. The Healer. The irreplaceable Healer. Sam would be disgusted with him. Astrid would give him one of her cold, disappointed looks.

  He should have stuck to fishing. He liked that. Fishing. It was peaceful. He could be alone and not be bothered. Now, even that was ruined with him having Albert’s guys working under him. Having to train them, supervise them.

  Sam was going to blow up. Or else just borrow Astrid’s cold, disappointed look.

  They bounced out onto the highway.

  “The streetlights are out,” Albert said.

  “It’s almost morning,” Quinn said. “Maybe they’re on a timer.”

  “No, man. They aren’t on a timer.”

  They reached the edge of Perdido Beach. It began to dawn on Quinn that something very big was very wrong. Maybe even something bigger and wronger than losing the Healer.

  “Everything’s dark,” Quinn said.

  “Something’s happened,” Albert agreed.

  They drove down pitch-black streets to the plaza. It was eerie. Like the whole town had died. Quinn wondered if that’s what had happened. He wondered if the FAYZ was in some new phase. Just he and Albert left, now.

  Quinn pulled the truck up in front of the McDonald’s.

  But just as Quinn was pulling up to park, he spotted something. He turned the truck around to aim the headlights at town hall.

  There, spread across one wall, in letters two feet tall, was spray-painted graffiti. Bloodred paint on the pale stone.

  “‘Death to freaks,’” Quinn read aloud.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  16 HOURS, 38 MINUTES

  THE PICKUP TRUCK’S battery was dead. It had been sitting for more than three months.

  But Hermit Jim was a prepared guy. There was a gasoline-powered generator and a charger for the battery. It took an hour for Lana and Cookie to figure out how to start the generator and hook up the battery. But finally Lana turned the key and after several attempts the engine sputtered to life.

  Cookie backed the truck up to the gas tank.

  It took some hard, sweaty work to shift the tank into the truck’s bed.

  By the time they were done, so was the night. Lana cautiously opened the warehouse’s door and looked outside. In the shadow of the hills it wasn’t possible to speak of true dawn, but the sky was tinged with pink, and the shadows, still deep, were gray and no longer black.

  A dozen coyotes lounged in an irregular circle, a hundred feet away. They turned to stare at her.

  “Cookie,” Lana said.

  “Yeah, Healer?”

  “Here’s what I want you to do. I’m taking the truck, right? You should hear an explosion. Wait ten minutes after that. I’ll be back. Maybe. If not, well, you need to wait until the sun is all the way up—coyotes are more dangerous at night. Then walk back to the cabin, and from there head home.”

  “I’m staying with you,” Cookie said firmly.

  “No.” She said it with all the finality she could manage. “This is my thing. You do what I say.”

  “I ain’t leaving you to those dogs.”

  Lana said, “The coyotes won’t be the problem. And you have to leave. I’m telling you to. Either the explosion happens or it doesn’t. Either way, if I don’t come back, I need you to get to Sam. Give him the letter.”

  “I want to take care of you, Healer. Like you took care of me.”

  “I know, Cookie,” Lana said. “But this is how you do it. Okay? Sam needs to know what happened. Tell him everything we did. He’s a smart guy, he’ll understand. And tell him not to blame Quinn, okay? Not Quinn’s fault. I would have figured out some other way to do it if Quinn and Albert hadn’t helped.”

  “Healer . . .”

  Lana put her hand on Cookie’s beefy arm. “Do what I ask, Cookie.”

  Cookie hung his head. He was weeping openly, unashamed. “Okay, Healer.”

  “Lana,” she corrected him gently. “My name is Lana. That’s what my friends call me.”

  She knelt down and ruffled Patrick’s fur the way he liked. “Love you, boy,” she whispered. She hugged him close and he whimpered. “You’ll be okay. Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.”

  Quickly, before she could lose her resolve, she climbed into the truck. She fired up the engine and nodded to Cookie.

  Cookie swung open the creaking door of the warehouse.

  The waiting coyotes got to their feet. Pack Leader ambled forward, uncertain. He was limping. The fur of one shoulder was soggy with blood.

  “So, I didn’t kill you,” Lana whispered. “Well, the day is young.”

  She put the truck into the lowest gear and took her foot off the brake. The truck began to creep forward.

  Slow and steady, that would be the way, Lana knew. The pathway to the mine entrance was a mess of potholes, narrow, crooked, and steep.

  She turned the wheel. It wasn’t easy. The truck was old and stiff with disuse. And Lana’s driving experience was extremely limited.

  The truck advanced so slowly that the coyotes could keep up at a walk. They fell into place around her, almost like an escort.

  The truck lurched crazily as she pulled onto the path. “Slow, slow,” she told herself. But now she was in a hurry. She wanted it to be over.

  She had an image in her mind. Red and orange erupting from the mouth of the mine. Debris flyin
g. A thunderclap. And then the sound of collapsing rock. Tons and tons and tons of it. Then billowing dust and smoke and it would be over.

  Come to me.

  “Oh, I’m coming,” Lana said.

  I have need of you.

  She was going to silence that voice. She was going to bury it beneath a mountain.

  There was a sudden jolt. Lana glanced into her mirror and saw the deformed, scarred face of Pack Leader. He had jumped into the back of the truck.

  “Human not bring machine,” Pack Leader said in his unique snarl.

  “Human do whatever she likes,” Lana yelled back. “Human shoot you in your ugly face, you stinking, stupid dog.”

  Pack Leader digested that for a while.

  The truck lurched and wallowed and crept up the hillside. More than halfway now.

  Come to me.

  “You’re going to be sorry you invited me,” Lana muttered. But now, with the mine shaft entrance in view, she found she could scarcely breathe for the pounding in her chest.

  “Human get out. Human walk,” Pack Leader demanded.

  Lana couldn’t shoot him. That would break the window behind her and that would allow the coyotes to come at her.

  She had reached the entrance.

  She put the truck into reverse. She would have to turn the

  truck around. Her hands were white, tendons straining, as she gripped the steering wheel.

  Pack Leader’s evil face was in her way as she turned to check her backward course. He was inches away, separated by nothing but a pane of glass.

  He lunged.

  “Ahh!”

  His snout hit the glass. The glass held.

  Lana was sure the glass would hold. The coyotes had not yet grown hands or learned to use tools. All they could do was bang their snouts into the glass.

  You are mine.

  “No,” Lana said. “I belong to me.”

  The bed of the truck crossed the threshold into the mine. Now the coyotes were getting frantic. A second coyote leaped and landed on the hood. He got the windshield wiper in his teeth and ripped savagely at it.

  “Human, stop!” Pack Leader demanded.

  Lana drove the truck backward. The back wheels rolled up and over the mummified corpse of the truck’s owner.

  The truck was all the way inside now, as far as it would go. The mine shaft ceiling was mere inches above the cab. The walls were close. The truck was like a loose cork in the shaft. The coyotes, feeling the walls closing in, had to decide whether to be trapped by the truck. They opted to slither out of the way, back to the front of the truck where they took turns leaping on and off the hood, snarling, snapping, scrabbling impotently at the windshield with their rough paws.