Hunger_A Gone Novel

by Michael Grant

  No one was going to be mounting posters of their favorite

  bands on the barrier.

  She tried spray paint. It was fun to try. Fun to imagine

  that the barrier could be covered in graffiti. But spray paint

  sizzled a bit as if it had been sprayed onto a hot frying pan.

  Then it evaporated and disappeared, leaving no trace.

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  It was frustrating. Lana needed a target. And the notion of

  shooting at the wall appealed to her.

  In the end she had dragged a chaise lounge from the pool

  area over to the tennis courts, where the barrier was most

  easily accessible. She leaned the chair up against the barrier—

  you could at least lean things against it—and taped a target

  to the chair.

  It was not a bull’s-eye. It was a copy of a photo she’d found.

  A picture of a coyote.

  Then she took the pistol out of her backpack. It was heavy.

  She had no idea what caliber it was. She’d found it in one of

  the houses she’d previously occupied. Along with two boxes

  of ammunition.

  She had figured out how to load it. She’d gotten pretty fast

  at that. The clip held twelve bullets. There was one extra clip.

  It was easy to slide the old clip out and pop the new one in.

  She’d managed to pinch her finger pretty badly the first time

  she tried, but she was the Healer, and that had certain advantages.

  But she needed to be able to do more than hold it and

  load it.

  She raised the gun in one hand. But it was too heavy to

  hold very steady with just her hand. So she gripped it with

  both hands. Better.

  She took aim at the coyote picture.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  The gun kicked in her hand.

  The explosion was so much louder than it was on TV or in

  movies. It sounded like the whole world had blown up.

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  1

  She walked forward, feeling a little shaky, to check the

  target. Nothing. She had missed. The FAYZ wall behind the

  target was unscathed, of course.

  Lana took aim more carefully. She’d watched Edilio training his people. She knew the basics. She centered the front target in the middle of the rear target, made sure the top edge

  of front and back targets were level. Then she lowered the gun

  until the sights rested just beneath the coyote’s head.

  She fired.

  When she walked forward this time she found a hole in

  the target. Not precisely where she had aimed. But not too far

  off, either.

  The hole in that paper filled her with pleasure.

  “Looks like you have a boo-boo, Pack Leader.”

  Lana fired two clips’ worth of ammunition at the target.

  She hit only half the time, but that was better than hitting

  not at all.

  When she was done she could barely hear for the ringing

  in her ears. Her hands were sore and bruised. She could easily

  heal the bruising. But she kind of liked the feeling and what

  it represented.

  Lana carefully reloaded both clips, slid one back into the

  gun, and put the gun in her backpack.

  Come to me. I have need of you.

  She slung the pack over her shoulder. The sun was going

  down, casting pale orange shadows against the gray of the

  FAYZ wall.

  Tomorrow. She would be there soon.

  SIXTEEN

  22 HOURS, 41 MINUTES

  S H E D I D N ’ T W A N T to cut off her hair. She liked her hair

  long. But Diana took Caine’s threat seriously. She had to

  deliver Jack.

  So she stood before the mirror and lifted the electric

  clippers she’d found in the bedroom closet of the former

  headmaster. There was no point in subtlety, no need to fool

  with scissors and mirror for hours.

  The clippers made a strangely pleasing buzz. They changed

  pitch each time she pushed the blade into a tuft of hair.

  In less than fifteen minutes her dark hair was in the sink

  and spilling out onto the floor. Her head was covered in a

  half-inch-long black burr that made her look like Natalie

  Portman in V for Vendetta.

  She scooped the hair into a trash can and rinsed the sink.

  Next she began removing the last traces of makeup from

  her eyes. There was nothing much she could do about the

  sculpted eyebrows. However, there was plenty she could do

  about clothing. Laid out on her bed was a black World of

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  Warcraft T-shirt two sizes too big, a gray hoodie, a pair of

  baggy boy’s jeans, and a pair of boy’s sneakers. She kept her

  own underthings. There was such a thing as getting too deep

  into the part, after all.

  She dressed quickly and stood back to check the results in

  the full-length mirror that hung behind the closet door.

  She was still obviously a girl. From a distance she might

  pass, but up close, no way.

  She analyzed the problem. It wasn’t her body; that was

  covered effectively. The problem was that she simply had a

  girl’s face. The nose, the eyes, the lips, even the teeth.

  “Not much I can do about my mouth,” she whispered to

  her reflection. “Except not smile.”

  Then, as if arguing with her own reflection, she said, “You

  never smile, anyway.”

  She rummaged in the bathroom until she found some

  medical supplies. Moments later she had a white bandage on

  the bridge of her nose. That helped. She could pass. Maybe.

  She stepped out into the hall. No one there, which wasn’t

  surprising. Dinner, such as it was, had come and gone. Kids

  were hungry and weak, and no one had energy for much

  except lying in their rooms.

  Diana knew better than to take a car. A guard was being

  kept at the entrance to Coates again. They’d be sure to stop

  her and summon Drake.

  Drake might let her go. She was, after all, following Caine’s

  orders.

  But then again, he might not. What better time to arrange

  an “accident” for Diana?

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  So she took a side door out of the dormitory, the door

  nearest the woods. She was acutely conscious of the crunch

  of her oversized boy sneakers on gravel and then grateful for

  the softer sound of pine needles and moldering leaves.

  It was a long walk to skirt the gate. The woods were dark.

  Straight overheard, when she looked at the sky, she could see

  the rich blue of evening. But night fell early under the trees.

  It took her an hour to work her way through brambles and

  over gullies. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to find her

  way back to the road—woods were woods, to Diana, one tree

  like the next. But at last, as night crept up on twilight, she

  climbed a slippery embankment and stepped onto blacktop.

  She had no brilliant plan for getting to Jack. She couldn’t

  exactly knock him on the head and carry him to Caine. She

  would have to rely on other means. Jack had always had a

  crush on her, not that he would ever act on
it.

  A pity she looked like a boy now.

  It was all downhill until she hit the highway. There at last

  were widely separated pools of light cast by the ever fewer

  functioning streetlights, and a faint glow from the empty

  storefronts that hadn’t yet burned out their last lightbulbs.

  She was footsore and weary when she reached Perdido

  Beach and she badly needed a rest. It was going to be a long

  night, of that she was sure.

  Diana walked down Sherman Avenue and onto Golding

  Street, looking for an empty house. They weren’t hard to find.

  Few homes showed any glimmer of light, and this one house

  was so shabby, so run-down, that she was convinced no one

  would be staying here.

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  The lights were off inside and repeated efforts yielded

  only one functioning light bulb, a Tiffany-style lamp in the

  cramped and overstuffed living room. There was a roll-armed

  easy chair decorated with lace doilies and she sagged into it

  gratefully.

  “Some old lady lived here,” she said to the echoing emptiness.

  She put her feet up on the coffee table—something the

  previous resident would no doubt have frowned on—and

  considered how long she should wait before risking the streets

  again. Jack’s place was only a few blocks away, but it would

  mean passing through the more densely populated center of

  town.

  “I would sell my soul for some TV,” she muttered. What

  was that show she used to watch? Something with doctors

  and all kinds of soap opera plots. How could she have forgotten the name? She’d watched it every . . . every what? What night was it on?

  Three months and she’d forgotten TV.

  “I suppose my MySpace and Facebook pages are still up,

  somewhere, back in the world,” she mused aloud. Messages

  and invitations piling up unanswered. Where are you, Diana?

  Can I be your friend? Did you read my bulletin?

  What ever happened to Diana?

  Diana is . Fill in the blanks.

  Diana is . . .

  She wondered what everyone in the FAYZ wondered:

  Where were all the adults? What had happened to the world?

  Was everyone “out there” dead and the only life here in this

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  bubble? Did people in the outside world know what had happened? Was the FAYZ like some giant, impenetrable egg plopped on the Southern California coastline? Was it a tourist attraction? Were busloads of the curious lining up to have their pictures taken in front of the mysterious sphere?

  Diana is . . . lost.

  She got up to search the kitchen. As far as she could see

  in the deep gloom the shelves were empty. They had been

  cleaned out, of course, Sam would have seen to that, marshalling his resources.

  The refrigerator was empty, too.

  Diana is . . . hungry.

  But she found a working flashlight in the kitchen junk

  drawer. With this she explored the only other room, the old

  lady’s bedroom. Old lady clothing. Old lady slippers. Old lady

  knitting needles stuck through a ball of yarn.

  Would Diana still be here, trapped in the FAYZ when she

  was old? “You’re already old,” she told herself. “We’re all old

  now.” But that wasn’t quite true. They’d been forced to act

  older, to behave in ways that were very adult. But they were

  all still kids. Even Diana.

  There was a book beside the old lady’s bed. Diana was sure

  it was a Bible, but when she shone the light on it, she saw

  a reflection from glossy raised lettering. It was a romance

  novel. Some half-undressed woman and a kind of creepy guy

  in what looked like a pirate outfit.

  The old woman had been reading romances. The day

  she poofed out of the FAYZ she was probably thinking, I

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  7

  wonder if spunky Caitlin will find true love with handsome

  Pirate guy?

  That’s how I should reach out to Jack, Diana thought. Play

  the beautiful damsel in need. Save me, Jack.

  Would Computer Jack respond to her now? Would he buy

  the act? Would he be her pirate?

  “Just call me Caitlin,” Diana said, and smirked.

  She tossed the book aside. But that felt wrong, somehow.

  So she picked it up and placed it carefully back where the old

  woman had left it.

  She went out into the night looking for a kid who was very

  strong—and, she hoped, very weak.

  Astrid plugged the cable into her computer and the other end

  into the camera Edilio had brought at her request. He’d told

  her a number of kids had taken pictures. The best of the photographers was an eleven-year-old named Matteo. This was his camera.

  iPhoto opened and she clicked import. The pictures began

  to open, flashing through the viewer as they loaded.

  The first half dozen or so were of kids standing around.

  Shots of the field. A greedy close-up on some melons. Sam

  with the look of cold anger he sometimes wore. Orc slouched

  against a car hood. Dekka self-contained, unreadable. Howard, Edilio, various people.

  Then the moment when the ground rose up.

  The moment when Sam fired.

  Once the photos had loaded, Astrid began to go back over

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  them, starting with Dekka’s suspension of gravity. The boy

  had used a good camera and he’d gotten some very good

  shots. Astrid zoomed in and could clearly see individual

  worms suspended in midair. Or mid-dirt.

  Then came a spectacular shot that captured the first blast

  of Sam’s power.

  Several more, taken in just a few seconds, snapped quickly,

  some shaky, but some perfectly focused. Matteo knew how to

  use a camera.

  Astrid clicked ahead, but then she froze. She backed up.

  She zoomed in tight.

  A worm was turned toward the camera, twisted around

  so that its toothy mouth was aimed at the camera. Nothing

  unusual except that the next worm she panned over to was

  doing the same thing. The same direction, the same expression.

  And the next worm.

  She found nineteen separate images of worms. All were

  turned toward the camera. Pointing in the direction of the

  attack.

  Aiming their devil grins at Sam.

  With shaking hand she moved the mouse to an earlier

  album. She opened the photos she had taken of the dead zeke

  Sam had brought her. She zoomed in on the ugly thing, scanning carefully over the head.

  Sam came into the room. He stood behind her and put his

  hands on her shoulders.

  “How are you, babe?” He had started calling her that. She

  was still deciding whether or not she liked it.

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  “Rough evening,” she said. “I just got past a two-hour Petey

  meltdown. He noticed Nestor.”

  “Nestor?”

  “His nesting doll, remember? The little red things in his

  room, one doll fits exactly inside the other? The other night

  you stomped on it.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

 
“Not your fault, Sam.” She wasn’t sure she liked him calling her “babe,” but she did like the feel of his lips on her bare neck. But after a few seconds she pushed him away. “I’m

  working.”

  “What is it you’re seeing?” Sam asked.

  “The worms. They were looking right at you.”

  “I was the guy cooking them,” Sam said. “For all the good

  it did.”

  Astrid twisted around to look up at him.

  “Oh, I know that look,” Sam said. “Go ahead, genius, tell

  me what it is I missed.”

  “With what are they looking at you?” Astrid asked.

  Sam took a beat. Then, “They don’t have eyes.”

  “No. I just checked again. They don’t have eyes. But somehow, in the middle of being levitated in midair and getting hit with blasts of light energy, they all twist around in midair to

  stare—at least it looks like they’re staring—in the same direction. At you.”

  “Great. So somehow they can see. I think what matters is

  that I killed a bunch of them and they didn’t get the message.”

  Astrid shook her head. “I don’t think you did anything

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  to them. I’m not sure it’s ‘them.’ What if they’re like ants? I

  mean, what if there really aren’t individual worms? What if

  they’re all part of one superorganism? Like a hive.”

  “So there’s a queen worm somewhere?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it’s not so hierarchical, less differentiated.”

  He kissed the nape of her neck, sending pleasant shivers down her spine. “This is all great, Astrid. How do I kill them?”

  “I have two ideas on that. One is a practical suggestion.

  You’ll like it. The other is crazier. You won’t like the crazy

  idea.”

  It was time to get Little Pete ready for bed. She stood up

  and called to him, using the trigger phrase he understood.

  “Beddy boody, beddy boody.”

  Little Pete gave her a hazy look, as if he had heard her

  but had not understood. Then he got up from his chair and

  headed obediently up the stairs. Obedient not to Astrid’s

  authority, really, but to what was, in effect, programming.

  “I have to go do a walk-through in town, and you have to

  get Petey to bed,” Sam said. “So give me the short version.”

  “Okay,” Astrid said. “SUVs running just on their rims, no

  tires. The zekes can’t eat through steel. That’s the practical

  suggestion.”

  “That could work, Astrid,” he said excitedly. “Four-byfours, on their steel rims, use hooks on poles to snag melons or cabbages or whatever. It would take practice, but unless