Fear: A Gone Novel

by Michael Grant

  But he was real, not just a sound and a resistance at the fingertips.

  “Yeah. But what does that mean if more go one way?” She could see perhaps half a dozen of the suns spreading out to the right. Just four to the left. “I mean, they could be blocked. And it’s not like they show up all that well anyway. If we had a compass… I mean, Orc, we don’t even know which way is which. We don’t know if Sam is moving right or left from this point.”

  “I have an idea. But it’s probably stupid,” Orc said.

  “Stupid ideas are all we’ve got. So what is it?”

  “Well, can’t you see better if you’re up high?”

  Dekka said, “Yes, as a matter of fact. And that’s not stupid at all. In fact, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it.”

  Orc shrugged his massive shoulders. “You’re having a bad day.”

  This was such an understatement, and yet so kind in a way, that Dekka had to laugh. “You could say that. So, Orc, you want to fly a little?”

  “Me?”

  “Why not you? There’re some rocks over there. Better than dirt, because when I switch off gravity the dirt tends to float up and get in your eyes.”

  They moved to a rock outcropping. Orc stood stiff, like he was on display and wanted to look right. Dekka did her thing and Orc rose. At ten feet he let out a huge, delighted guffaw.

  “Hah! This is fun!”

  At thirty feet she could no longer see him at all. “What do you see, Orc?”

  “Fire,” he said. “And I think the Sammy suns are going that way.”

  “I’m bringing you down now.”

  When he was back on terra firma Dekka said, “The fire. What did it look like?”

  “Like it was two or maybe three different fires, but all close together.”

  “Perdido Beach?”

  “Maybe,” he said reluctantly.

  “Okay, so we follow the Sammy suns toward town.”

  But Orc hesitated. “You can do that, Dekka. But me, I set out to find Drake and kill him.”

  “Orc, you must know we can’t look for anything. Not in this pitch-black. It could take us forever to just accidentally run into Drake.”

  He nodded, but he wasn’t really agreeing. “I don’t mind the dark as much you do, Dekka. In the dark I don’t have to be like I am. You know? People can’t see me. Anyway, there’ll likely be some booze back there in town. So I’m just going to go on in the dark. It’s probably better for me.”

  He held out his oversize paw and Dekka felt strangely moved taking it. “Thanks, big guy. You saved me, you know.”

  “Nah.”

  “No, listen to me, Orc. I know you have some bad stuff on your conscience.”

  He nodded and muttered, “But I’ve been forgave of that. I prayed and I was forgave.” Then he added, “But that don’t mean it doesn’t weigh me down.”

  “That’s what I’m saying, Orc. When all that weighs you down, you remember that you saved me. Okay?”

  He didn’t look too sure of that. But he may have smiled. It was hard to tell. And then he went galumphing off into the dark.

  Dekka followed the lights leading left.

  “There’s a light out there. Down the highway. It just appeared!” Lana said.

  “A Sammy sun!” Quinn said. The sense of relief was amazing. Sam was coming.

  He felt like he might well faint from the sheer release of tension.

  Quinn, Lana, and Caine—with Patrick as well—had snuck away from the dying campfire, leaving some of Quinn’s people in nominal charge. Not that anyone was able anymore to do more than yell, “Knock it off!”

  Torches were spreading through Perdido Beach, little knots of kids looking for food, water, beloved toys, or just a bed.

  Now Sammy suns were blossoming like radioactive flowers on the highway.

  Patrick barked once, announcing himself, and took off down the highway.

  “Hail the conquering hero,” Caine muttered. “Mr. Sunshine.”

  After ten minutes a new Sammy sun appeared, perhaps no more than a hundred feet away, and they walked toward it, still moving carefully. The highway was littered with debris up to and including entire trucks.

  Then Quinn could make out two forms dimly outlined.

  The two groups came together and Sam illuminated the scene.

  “Quinn, Lana,” Sam said. One hand was scratching Patrick’s ruff. “Caine.”

  “Hey, brother. How’s it going? Some weird weather we’re having, huh?” Caine said.

  “What happened to your hands?” Sam asked.

  Caine raised his hands, still patched with concrete. “Oh, this? It’s nothing. I just need a little lotion.”

  “Astrid?” Lana said. “You’re back?”

  “About time,” Quinn said under his breath.

  “Well, then, it’s a happy ending,” Caine said savagely. “I love a happy ending.”

  Quinn was about to say something to Caine, something along the lines of shut up. But he stopped himself. Caine was a power-mad tool, but he’d been through hell this day. Sarcasm wasn’t the worst thing he was capable of.

  “You here to turn on some lights?” Lana asked. “Because as good as that would be, we have bigger problems. The gaiaphage is coming.”

  “How?” Astrid asked sharply. “Everyone says the gaiaphage is a green encrustation in the bottom of a mine shaft.”

  “I don’t know how,” Lana said, a little evasively. “It just is. That’s why we’re standing out here. We weren’t waiting for you. We’re waiting for it.”

  “I won’t ask how you know,” Astrid said.

  “Yeah?” Lana shot back. “Well, here’s my question, Astrid: why aren’t you arguing more? I tell you this is happening and you just meekly accept it? You know something.”

  “Oh, Astrid? She knows everything,” Caine said.

  “It has Diana,” Astrid said. She tilted her head and considered Caine. “And your baby, Caine. At least, Diana says it’s yours.”

  “Yeah,” Caine said. He seemed about to say something more, but stopped himself and just muttered, “Yeah. A baby.”

  “Wait,” Lana interrupted. “Sanjit. Did…”

  “Barely,” Sam said. “But as far as I know he’s safe at the lake. I got your message. Too late. And Astrid was bringing a message to you as well.”

  “Funny how things fall apart when the lights go out,” Quinn said. “Lots of plans, and nothing works.”

  “The gaiaphage is looking for a body,” Astrid said. “It needs a physical body. The barrier is dead. It’s going to crack open. It’s finally going to be over. But when that happens the gaiaphage is going to try to get out.”

  “And you know this because of your amazing geniusness?” Caine said, smirking. “You know what time this is all supposed to happen? Because I have to say, I’m ready to get out of this place. Can’t happen soon enough for me. I’ve been really craving some ice cream.”

  “I don’t know when. It could be months. Your son or daughter isn’t due for—”

  “Stop that!” Caine snarled, abandoning his snarky pose. “Don’t play that game with me, Astrid. What do you think I’m going to do? Suddenly become a different person just because I had sex with Diana?”

  “You got her pregnant,” Astrid said quite calmly. “I thought maybe that fact might make you consider something besides yourself.”

  “Oh, it does, Astrid,” he said with savage sarcasm. “It makes me want to go toss the football around in the backyard. Maybe barbecue some steaks. Real daddy kind of stuff. Only slight problem is this darn darkness.”

  A flame leaped into the air not far from the road. They heard the agitated voices of young children.

  “Thanks, that’s better,” Caine yelled over his shoulder. “So Lana says the gaiaphage is coming, and you guys say it’s got Diana—by the way, great job protecting her, Sam—and I should be taking parenting classes, plus, oh, by the way, the barrier is coming down. Someday. Probably after we’ve all st
arved to death.”

  All the while Sam had been watching Caine like a specimen under a microscope. Trying to figure him out. “You going to fight or not?”

  “Who, me?” Caine laughed. “What’s the matter with you, Sam? Genius girl says the barrier is going to come down. And you want to run out and get killed before that happens? Let the barrier crack open like an egg. If the gaiaphage wants to walk on out I say we wish him well, wait until he’s a ways down the road, and then leave ourselves.”

  “Taking Diana and your … and the baby,” Sam said.

  “You hear what Albert did? Did you?” Caine tried to point in the direction of the ocean and the island, but it drew attention to his still-encrusted hand, so he dropped it to his side. “As soon as Albert realized what was happening he caught a boat and ran for the island. And the best part? He’s been planning it for a long time. He bribed Taylor. He apparently got hold of some missiles—who knows how he pulled that off; he’s Albert—and moved them out there, too.”

  Quinn saw Sam’s jaw clench hard at that.

  “Now,” Caine went on, “Albert’s sitting out there eating cheese and crackers and laughing his butt off at fools like us.”

  Sam ignored, or at least pretended to ignore, all of that. He said, “Look, Caine. I don’t know where Brianna is, or Dekka, or Orc. Jack is maybe dead by now. Anyway, he won’t be coming to the fight. So maybe I can take down Drake myself, and maybe not. But I don’t even know what it means to say the gaiaphage is coming. Coming how? Coming as what? With what kind of power? I don’t even know if—”

  Quinn held up his hand and Sam stopped. “Penny,” Quinn said. “We followed her until she crossed the highway. She’s out there somewhere, too. Out there in the dark.”

  “There’s no reason to think she would run into Drake,” Lana said, but she sounded worried.

  “Now, there,” Caine said, holding up his crusted index finger, “there’s someone I’ll fight. Show me Penny and I’ll kill her for you. I’ll kill her twice.”

  The conversation died. And they stood there in silence, the five of them and one dog, underneath a weak mockery of a light.

  Quinn said, “Everyone saw you, Caine. Dragging that cement bowl around. Hunched over like a monkey walking on its knuckles. That crown stapled into your scalp. You got beat. King Caine, and all you could do was be Penny’s little monkey. Kids will be laughing about that for a long time. Yeah. If the barrier comes down, you’ll be hearing stories about that on TV. Internet jokes about it.” Quinn watched Caine’s hands warily. He was hoping someone would stop Caine before he struck and threw Quinn against and through the nearest wall.

  Caine turned with menacing slowness to Quinn. Quinn felt the heat of his malevolence. Humiliation was dangerous stuff to play around with.

  “What do you think your story will look like, Caine? Always swaggering around, playing all bad and tough. You did one right thing, Caine: you went out, helped Brianna, and you fought those bugs back, and that’s why the people said, yeah, he can be our king.”

  “I helped Brianna?” Caine snapped. “She helped me.”

  “All that, though, that gets wiped out, because the end of the story is how Penny humiliated you—”

  “Enough, all right?” Caine said sharply.

  “What people remember is the end of the story. And if the barrier comes down, the end of the story will be how you cried and crapped yourself and danced like a trained monkey for Penny.”

  There was no way to know whether Caine was as pale as he seemed by the light of the Sammy sun. His eyes were narrow, and his lips were drawn back, almost like a wolf baring its teeth. His face was right in Quinn’s.

  He kept his gaze on Quinn but spoke to Sam. “Your loser friend here must have grown a pair, Sam.”

  “Seems like,” Sam said, sounding amazed.

  Then Caine spoke to Quinn. “Tell you what, Quinn, since you’re so worried about my … legacy. Is that the right word, Astrid? Since you’re worried about my legacy, Quinn, I’ll go out Drake hunting with my brother there if.”

  “If what?” Quinn asked.

  “If you come with us,” Caine said with a cruel smile. “You’ve been a pain in my ass, fisherman. It’s because of you I had a beef with Penny in the first place. So it’s real dark out there, and most likely Drake and maybe even our old friend Penny are out there. Not to mention Mr. Nasty himself.”

  Quinn couldn’t stop himself glancing out toward the utter darkness within which he knew monsters hid.

  “He’s a fisherman,” Sam said. “He doesn’t even have a weapon.”

  Caine laughed. “Have you been to Perdido Beach? It’s a nice little town. Not much food, no entertainment, plenty of weapons. Weapons are the one thing we do have. And he’ll need one.”

  “I don’t even know how to shoot,” Quinn protested.

  Caine laughed cruelly. “It’s not for you to shoot Drake or Penny, let alone the Darkness, if he’s actually coming,” he mocked. “It’s for you to stick in your mouth and pull the trigger if any one of them gets hold of you.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  18 MINUTES

  AFTER HOURS AND hours of total darkness, the soft glow of her baby’s skin allowed Diana to walk with more confidence. She was a light in the darkness.

  Gaia. Her baby.

  She felt still the horror at seeing the green pixels, that swarm that was the gaiaphage enter her daughter’s nose and mouth. She would never, ever be able to block that out.

  So many things she would never be able to forget.

  But against it all was this person. This soft, chubby little girl, who looked up at her with eyes so absurdly blue and so unnaturally aware.

  She seemed to grow heavier even as Diana carried her down through the ghost town beneath the mine shaft. Soon Gaia would not need to nurse. Already Diana could feel tiny teeth biting.

  And then what would Gaia do with her mother?

  “Doesn’t matter,” Diana whispered. “It doesn’t matter. She’s mine.”

  Brittney walked beside her, peering in eagerly to see Gaia’s face. Brittney wore the expression of an ecstatic believer. Diana knew that if Gaia somehow spoke and told Brittney to leap off a cliff, Brittney would do it.

  But Gaia spoke through Diana now.

  She spoke through her mother.

  Diana could feel her baby’s mind probing inside her own. Not the mind of a baby, true, but not quite the cold violence of the gaiaphage, either. The two were becoming one: Gaia and the Darkness. The two were growing together, and the resulting entity might be more than or less than, but definitely not equal to, either the baby or the monster.

  Just one thing, though, that Diana couldn’t dismiss from her thoughts. Just one thing. The way Gaia reached into Diana’s memory and opened it up as if she was thumbing through a picture book. Like she was looking for something. Something the baby sensed must be there.

  Not rustling around blindly, but looking for something.

  Diana had no defenses against Gaia. She could hide nothing from her. Diana could only watch as her memories unfolded to reveal pictures of things past. And of people.

  Gaia was studying the people Diana knew. Now Brianna. Now Edilio. Now Duck and Albert and Mary.

  Not Panda. No.

  Caine. Gaia lingered long on pictures of Caine. A first meeting at Coates. The many flirtations. The teasing. The way Diana had made him want her. The dark ambition she had seen in him. The first time he had revealed his power to her.

  The terrible things they had done. Battles.

  Murder.

  Yes, but don’t look any further; all that I confess, Gaia, my daughter, but enough. Enough.

  Please don’t.

  The smell. That was what the baby found first. The aroma of roasted human flesh.

  Diana’s eyes filled with tears.

  “What’s the matter?” Brittney asked.

  The baby tasted what Diana had tasted.

  The baby felt her stomach gratefully recei
ve the meat that had been a boy named Panda.

  Yes, Diana said to the mind within her own, I’m a monster, and so are you, little Gaia. But your mommy loves you.

  “There’s a string of lights up there,” Penny said. “They look like Christmas lights.”

  Yes, go there, Gaia said inside Diana’s thoughts.

  “Go to the lights,” Diana said without even thinking about it. “Then follow them to the left.”

  “Shut your mouth, cow,” Penny said. “You don’t give orders.”

  Gaia kicked against Diana’s enfolding arms. She pushed herself up so that she could see over Diana’s shoulder. She looked at Penny.

  The baby pushed her clenched fist over Diana’s shoulder, opened her hand, and Penny screamed.

  Diana stopped. She watched and listened. And did it fill her with a brutal sort of joy to see Penny writhe in terror and pain? Yes. As it pleased her daughter to cause that terror.

  Gaia laughed a baby’s innocent, gurgling laugh.

  Penny’s scream seemed to last a very long time. Long enough that Drake merged from where Brittney had been.

  When at last Penny stopped, and just sat on her meager haunches, staring, staring in horror at the baby, Drake said, “So, the baby has game.” He unwrapped his whip from around his waist and said, “Don’t think that means I can’t do what I want with you, Diana.”

  Diana met his dead gaze. It occurred to her for the first time that she felt better. Much better. She had just gone through hell, but she felt … fine. She inventoried her body, checking in with her whipped back, her bruises, her murderously stretched belly, her torn parts.

  She was fine.

  Gaia had healed her.

  “Actually, Drake,” Diana said, “I think it means you’d better watch very carefully what you do or say to me.”

  Gaia, once more cradled in her mother’s arms, grinned a two-toothed grin.

  “Something coming down the highway,” Sam said.

  “It’s a light,” Astrid said.

  “A light called Darkness,” Lana said in a faraway voice.