Hunger_A Gone Novel
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It made enough noise to wake a deaf person.
“And now,” Caine said, “it’s open. Good-bye, Brianna.”
The girl glared at him and was gone.
“Drake, leave two guys in the guardhouse,” Caine ordered.
“Let’s go get this over with.”
Edilio pulled the Jeep into Zil, Hunter, Lance, and Harry’s
driveway. Sam and Dekka jumped out. The front door of the
house was ajar.
“Edilio? Go. Find Lana. Maybe pick up Taylor on the way,
huh, if she’s in the plaza still? She could help you search.”
“You sure you don’t want me to—”
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“Get Lana.” He slapped his hand on the hood, a signal to
hurry. Edilio gunned it into reverse and then took off down
the street.
“How do we play this?” Dekka asked.
“We see what’s what. If Hunter’s gone nuts, lift him off
the ground, keep him from running away. Bounce him off
the ceiling, if you need to. I’m not looking to hurt him, just
talk to him,” Sam said. He knocked on the open door, which
swung away from him. “Hunter. You in there?”
No answer.
“Okay, it’s Sam, and I’m coming in.” He purposely did not
mention Dekka. Dekka was a weapon he’d as soon keep in
reserve. “I’m hoping there won’t be any kind of problem.”
Sam took a deep breath and stepped inside.
A painting of an attractive but serious-looking woman
with luxuriant red hair hung in the entryway. Someone, presumably one of the current residents, had defaced the painting with a mustache carefully drawn on with a black Sharpie.
The hallway was a mess—a Frisbee on the side table, a
dirty gym sock hanging from a chandelier, a mirror badly
out of alignment and cracked. Not much different from most
of the residences in a FAYZ without parents.
The first room, on the left, was a formal dining room,
dark. The kitchen was ahead, down the hall, past the stairs.
The family room was ahead and to the right. Dekka poked
her head into the dining room, peered under the table, and
whispered, “Clear.”
Sam advanced to the family room.
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The family room was an even bigger mess than the hallway: DVDs strewn here and there, long-emptied soda cans, some sort of bright yellow Nerf projectiles, family photos—
the red-haired woman again, and what was probably her
husband—knocked over on the mantel, dust thick on bookshelves.
At first Sam didn’t see Harry. He had fallen between the
couch and a heavy coffee table. But one step closer, and he
came into view.
Harry was lying facedown. There was a deflating blister
on the back of his neck. It reminded Sam of a balloon three
days after a party.
Sam pushed the table aside, but it was wedged. “Dekka?”
Dekka raised one hand, and the table lifted off the floor.
Sam gave it a shove. It floated aside till it was out of Dekka’s
field, then it crashed to the floor.
Sam knelt beside Harry. Carefully avoiding the blister,
he pressed two fingers against Harry’s neck. “I’m not feeling
anything,” Sam said. “You try.”
Dekka glanced around, searching for what she needed,
and came up with a small, mirrored box. She twisted Harry’s
head to the side and held the mirrored surface close to the
boy’s nostrils.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked.
“If he’s breathing, you’d see it. Condensation.”
“I think he’s dead,” Sam said.
They both stood up then and took a couple of steps back.
Dekka set the box aside, careful, like Harry was asleep and
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she didn’t want to wake him.
“What do we do about this?” Dekka wondered.
“That’s a very good question,” Sam said. “I wish I had a
very good answer.”
“If Hunter killed him . . .”
“Yeah.”
“The freak-versus-normal thing . . .”
“We can’t let it get like that,” Sam said forcefully. “If
Hunter did this . . . I mean, I guess we have to hear what he
says about it.”
“Maybe talk to Astrid, huh?” Dekka suggested.
Sam laughed mirthlessly. “She’ll say we should have a
trial.”
“We could, you know, just make this go away,” Dekka
said.
Sam didn’t answer.
“You know what I’m saying,” Dekka said.
Sam nodded. “Yes. I do. We’re trying to keep from starving. Trying to stay ready in case Caine starts something. The last thing we need is some big argument between freaks and
normals.”
“Of course Zil won’t shut up about it, no matter what we
do,” Dekka pointed out. “We could say we got here, Harry
wasn’t here, we found nothing. But Zil would never believe it,
and a lot of kids would go along with him.”
“Yep,” Sam said. “We are stuck with this.”
They stood side-by-side, staring down at Harry. The blister still slowly, slowly deflating.
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Then Sam led the way back out to the driveway. Edilio
roared up ten minutes later with Dahra Baidoo in the passenger seat.
“Hey, Dahra,” Sam said. “Thanks for coming.”
“I couldn’t find Lana,” Edilio said. “She’s not in her room
at Clifftop. Her dog was gone, too. I got Taylor bouncing
around, looking for her everywhere. The rest are still hanging out in the plaza in case we need them.”
Sam nodded. He was used to Lana’s strange and sudden
relocations. The Healer was a restless girl. “Dahra, take a
look, huh? Inside. On the floor.”
Edilio looked quizzically at Sam. Sam shook his head and
avoided making eye contact.
Dahra was back in less than a minute. “I’m not Lana, but
even she couldn’t do anything here. She’s not Jesus,” she
snapped. “She doesn’t raise the dead.”
“We were hoping he wasn’t dead,” Dekka said.
“He’s dead, all right,” Dahra said. “Did either of you notice
that the skin on his neck wasn’t burned? The hair around it
wasn’t singed? The blister must have welled up from inside.
Which means something cooked him from the inside out.
That leaves you out as a suspect, Sam: I’ve seen your handiwork. You leave people looking like marshmallows that got dropped in the coals.”
“Hey,” Edilio blurted angrily. “You got no reason to be
harshing on Sam.”
“It’s okay, Edilio,” Sam said mildly.
“No. He’s right,” Dahra said. She touched Sam’s shoulder.
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“Sorry, Sam. I’m tired and I don’t like seeing dead bodies,
okay?”
“Yeah,” Sam acknowledged. “Head on home. Sorry to drag
you out.”
She peered quizzically at Sam. “What are you guys going
to do about this?”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t know, but whatever I do, it’ll
probably make everyone mad. Edilio can drive
you home.”
“No reason, it’s a five-minute walk.” Dahra patted his
shoulder again and took off.
When she was gone, Sam said, “I guess we’re going to talk
to Hunter.”
“You guess? Man, this ain’t something can be let slide,”
Edilio said. “This is killing.”
“Orc killed Betty,” Sam pointed out. “And Orc’s still free.”
“You weren’t in charge then,” Edilio said. “We didn’t have
a system.”
“We still don’t have a system, Edilio. We have me being
pestered by everyone with a problem,” Sam said. “That’s not
a system. You see a Supreme Court around here, somewhere?
I see me and you and about a dozen others even giving a
damn.”
“You saying we’re going to have it where kids can kill
someone and that’s okay?”
Sam slumped. “No. No. Of course not. I’m just . . . Nothing.”
“I’ll get my guys, go look for Hunter,” Edilio said. “But
I gotta know: What if he won’t come? Or what if he tries
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to hurt one of my guys?”
“Come get me if that happens,” Sam said.
Edilio did not look happy about that instruction. But he
nodded and left.
Dekka watched him go. “Edilio’s a good guy,” she said.
“But?”
“But, he’s a normal.”
“There aren’t going to be lines like that, between freak and
normal,” Sam said firmly.
Dekka almost, but didn’t quite, laugh. “Sam, that’s a great
concept. And maybe you believe it. But I’m black and I’m a
lesbian, so let me tell you: From what I know? Personal experience? There are always lines.”
NINETEEN
18 HOURS, 35 MINUTES
T H E Y D R O V E T H E SUV through the hole in the fence,
veered around the twisted mess of chain link, and raced to a
skidding halt in the parking lot of the power plant.
The sheer size of the power plant was intimidating. The
containment towers were as tall as skyscrapers. The big turbine building was blank and hostile, like a giant windowless prison.
A door, almost insignificantly small, stood open. No light
shone from inside, but Caine could make out a shape crouching within.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” a young voice challenged.
Caine didn’t recognize the kid, couldn’t really see him.
The plant was very loud, so Caine pretended he couldn’t hear.
He cupped a hand to his ear and yelled, “What?”
“Stop! Don’t come any closer.”
“Come closer? Okay.” Caine kept walking. Diana and Jack
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hung back, but Drake was striding quickly to catch up. Drake
had an automatic pistol in his real hand. His whip slithered
and squirmed at his side, a snake anxious for a chance to
strike.
“Stop! I said stop!”
The doorway was just a hundred feet away now. Caine
never faltered.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot,” the voice cried, scared, almost begging.
Caine stopped. Drake stood beside him.
“Shoot?” Caine demanded, sounding puzzled. “Why on
earth would you shoot me?”
“That’s we’re opposed to do.”
Caine laughed. “You can’t even say it right. Who are you,
anyway? If you’re going to shoot me, I should know your
name.”
“Josh,” the answer came. “It’s me, Josh.”
“It’s ‘me Josh,’ ” Caine mimicked.
Drake snarled, “You better step off, me Josh, or me Whip
Hand is going to hurt you.”
The sudden explosion of bullets was deafening. Josh’s firing was wild, bullets shattering the glass of parked cars far off to their right.
Caine dropped to the pavement.
Drake never flinched. He raised his pistol, took careful
aim, and fired.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
With each shot he advanced a step.
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Josh whinnied in terror.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Each time the noise was stunning. Each time fire flashed
from the barrel of the pistol, lighting Drake’s blank, cold
eyes.
Then Drake broke into a run. Straight for the door, pistol
held level, firing carefully, precisely even as he ran.
Josh fired back, but again the bullets went wild into the
night, missing even the parked cars, doing nothing to stop
Drake.
Bang. Bang.
Click.
Caine stayed on the ground, staring, rapt, at Drake as he
calmly ejected his ammunition clip. The clip clattered on the
concrete.
Drake held the pistol with the delicate end of his tentacle
and fished a second clip out of the hunting vest he was wearing. Using his hand he slammed the clip into place.
Josh fired again. More careful, this time.
Bullets sparked the pavement near Drake’s feet.
Drake raised the gun carefully, fired and moved, fired and
moved, fired and now Josh was gone, running back inside the
building, screaming for help, screaming that someone better
help him.
Caine stood up, feeling shamed by Drake’s cold-blooded
performance. He hurried now to catch up to Drake, who was
through the doorway and inside the building.
Another loud bang, the sound different this time, muffled.
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The doorway was a bright rectangle from the muzzle flash.
A cry of pain.
“I give up! I give up!”
Caine reached the doorway and entered the turbine room.
There, on the floor between massive, howling machines, pitilessly lit by eerie fluorescent light, lay Josh. He sat, stunned, in a black pool of his own blood. One leg was twisted at an
impossible angle.
Caine felt a flash of anger. Josh was a kid, no more than
ten. What was Sam thinking, putting kids in this position?
“Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me!” Josh begged.
Drake raised high his whip hand and brought it down with
sound-barrier-shattering speed on Josh’s upraised hands.
Josh screamed and writhed in agony. The screaming didn’t
stop.
“Leave him,” Caine snapped. “Get to the control room.”
Drake turned a feral snarl on Caine, teeth bared, eyes
wild. Contempt and fury were in those eyes. Caine raised
his hands, ready, waiting for his lieutenant to turn his whip
against him.
Instead Drake kicked the prostrate boy in his damaged leg
and plowed ahead. Josh crawled sobbing toward the door to
the outside.
It all seemed unnatural, nightmarish. Drake stalking
ahead, his gun smoking, his whip twitching. Caine heard
Drake’s soldiers coming up behind, and Diana and Jack
bringing up the rear.
“Door’s locked,” Drake called back.
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Caine caught up to him and tried the doorknob himself.
It was heavy steel set into a heavy steel frame, obviously a
door meant to withstand explosion or attack. If he hit it with
But in the confined area of the hallway it might also reverb
and knock him on his butt. “It won’t be locked for long.”
Caine glanced around, searching for something heavy
enough for his purposes. Back in the turbine room he found
a rolling steel tool chest, four feet tall, strongly built.
Caine raised the chest off the floor and hurled it through
the air, down the hall. It slammed into the locked door.
He was immensely gratified by the spectacle of Drake flattened to the wall to avoid getting hit by the wrenches and sockets and screwdrivers that flew like shrapnel from the
chest.
The tool chest was crumpled, the door barely scratched.
Caine drew the chest back and hurled it forward again.
This time more tools spilled out and the chest was crushed to
half its size. But the door was undamaged.
Caine felt Diana’s hand on his arm. “Hey. Why don’t you
see what Jack can do.”
Caine was torn between the fear of failing if he continued to batter away ineffectually, and the fear of being shown up by the computer geek. This had become as much a contest between him and Drake as it was an attack on the power plant.
“Show us what you got, Jack,” Caine said.
Computer Jack advanced uncertainly, urged on by Diana.
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He placed his hands against the door and tried to get a
good grip on the floor with his sneakers. He pushed against
the door, and his feet slid away beneath him. He fell to one
knee.
“It’s too slippery,” Jack said.
“We have to be through that door before Sam shows up,”
Caine said. “We need hostages, and we need that control
room.”
His gaze rested on a heavy wrench. “Look out.”
Caine levitated the wrench, lifted it to the ceiling, turned
it vertical, and with a sudden sweep of his hands plunged the
wrench into the floor. It crunched through tile and concrete
and stood like a climbing piton that had been hammered into
a cliff face.
Caine repeated the move three more times, driving heavy-
gauge stainless steel into the floor.
“Okay, use those.”
Jack braced his feet against the tools, placed his hands
against the door, and heaved with all his might.
Edilio did not find Hunter. Instead he found Zil and a crowd
of a dozen kids. They in turn had found Hunter. They had
Hunter cornered on the porch of the house Astrid and Mother
Mary shared.
Why Hunter had gone there, Edilio could guess: Astrid