Hunger_A Gone Novel

by Michael Grant

Mind swirling, crazy, not even afraid now, just . . .

  Memories flashed like a jerky video. That day when he fell

  off a pony at his fifth birthday party.

  That time he ate the whole pie . . .

  His mom. So pretty. Her face . . .

  Dad . . .

  The pool . . .

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  He stopped falling. Something had stopped him at last.

  Too late, he thought.

  Can’t fall through to China, Duck thought.

  Well, Duck thought, I guess I did want to be a hero.

  And then Duck stopped thinking anything at all.

  FORTY-SIX

  C A I N E S T O O D I N darkness.

  Sam’s light was gone.

  There was a soft, slurry sound. Like rushing water but

  without water’s music.

  Caine stood in darkness as the sound died slowly away.

  And now, silence as well as darkness.

  Diana. He would never save her now. He might survive,

  but for the first time in his life, Caine knew that his life, without Diana, would be unbearable.

  She had teased him. Abused him. Lied to him. Manipulated him. Betrayed him. Laughed at him.

  But she had stuck by him. Even when he had threatened her.

  Could what they had really be described as love? He’d

  blurted it, that word. But were either of them capable of that

  particular emotion?

  Maybe.

  But no longer. Not now. Up above, up on the surface, she

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  was dead or close to it. Her blood seeping into the ground.

  “Diana,” he whispered.

  “Am I still alive?”

  At first Caine thought it might be her voice. Impossible.

  “Light,” Caine said. “I need light.”

  There was no light. For what seemed like an eternity, no

  light. The voice did not speak again.

  Caine sat in the dark, too beaten to move. His brother

  curled in a ball. Dead, or wishing he was. And Diana. . .

  Quinn fought panic as he descended the irregular shaft Duck

  had cut. The rope felt thin in his hands. The walls of the vertical shaft scraped his back and sides as he descended. Rocks kept falling on his head.

  Quinn knew he was not brave. But there was no one left.

  Something was wrong with Brianna. She was doubled up on

  the ground, clutching her stomach and crying.

  Quinn didn’t know what was happening down below. But

  he knew that if Sam and Caine didn’t bring Lana back up out

  of there, there would be too many deaths for Quinn to even

  think about.

  Had to do this.

  Had to.

  He reached the bottom of the shaft and felt his legs swing

  freely. He lost his grip and fell the final few feet.

  He landed hard, but without breaking anything.

  “Sam?” Quinn whispered, a sound that died within inches

  of his mouth.

  He fumbled for the flashlight in his pocket. He snapped the

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  light on. His eyes had adjusted to the dark. The light seemed

  blinding. He blinked. He aimed the beam ahead.

  There, not a hundred feet away, a human figure in silhouette. Moving.

  “Caine?”

  Caine turned slowly. His face was stark and white. His

  eyes rimmed red.

  Caine rose slowly, like an arthritic old man.

  Quinn rushed to him and shone his light around, sweeping the area. He saw Sam facedown.

  And there, standing with her arms at her side, stood

  Lana.

  “Lana,” Quinn said.

  “Am I alive?” Lana asked.

  “You’re alive, Lana,” Quinn said. “You’re free of it.”

  A dark shadow passed over Lana’s face. Her mouth twisted

  downward. She turned and began to walk away.

  Quinn put his arm on her shoulder. “Don’t leave us, Healer.

  We need you.”

  Lana stopped.

  “I . . . ,” she began.

  “Lana,” Quinn said. “We need you.”

  “I killed Edilio,” she said.

  “Not yet you didn’t,” Quinn said.

  Mary Terrafino woke to the taste and smell of fish.

  Instantly she twisted her face away. The smell was disgusting.

  She looked around wildly. To her amazement she was tied

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  up. Tied to an easy chair in her day care office.

  “What am I doing here?” she demanded, bewildered.

  “You’re having dinner,” her little brother said.

  “Stop it! I’m not hungry. Stop it!”

  John held the spoon in front of her. His cherubic face was

  dark with anger. “You said you wouldn’t leave me.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mary demanded.

  “You said you wouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t leave me alone,”

  John said. “But you tried, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re babbling about.” She noticed

  Astrid then, leaning against a filing cabinet. Astrid looked

  like she’d been dragged through the middle of a dog fight.

  Little Pete was sitting cross-legged, rocking back and forth.

  He was chanting, “Good-bye, Nestor. Good-bye, Nestor.”

  “Mary, you have an eating disorder,” Astrid said. “The

  secret is out. So cut the crap.”

  “Eat,” John ordered, and shoved a spoonful of food in her

  mouth. None too gently.

  “Swallow,” John ordered.

  “Let me—”

  “Shut up, Mary,” John snapped.

  Diana first. Caine would allow no other choice.

  Then Edilio, who was so close to death that Lana thought

  he must have had his hand on the gate of Heaven.

  Dekka. Horribly hurt. But not dead.

  Brianna, with her hair falling out in clumps.

  Last, Sam.

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  Quinn had hauled him up on the rope, helped greatly by

  Caine.

  Lana sat in the dirt as the sun came up.

  Quinn brought her water. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

  She could say the words he wanted to hear, but Lana knew

  she could not make him believe. “No,” Lana said.

  Quinn sat next to her. “Caine and Diana, they took off.

  Sam is sleeping. Dekka . . . I don’t think she’s over it yet.”

  “I can’t cure a person of memories,” Lana said dully.

  “No,” Quinn agreed. “I guess if you could, you’d cure

  yourself.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders, and she started crying then. It felt like she could never stop. But it didn’t feel bad, either. And Quinn did not leave her. Far off there was the

  sound of a car’s engine.

  Quinn said, “Hey, Brianna zipped back to town. Brought

  Astrid and someone else.”

  Lana didn’t care. Lana didn’t think she would ever care

  about anything again.

  But then, there was the sound of a car door opening and

  closing. And suddenly, Patrick was there, his cold, wet nose

  thrust insistently against her neck.

  Lana put her arms around him, hugged him close, and

  cried into his fur.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  I T W A S L A T E the next day before Edilio could bring himself to the job at hand. But then he fired up the backhoe and dug two holes in the corner of the plaza.


  Mickey Finch. A bullet hole in his back.

  Brittney, mangled so badly, no one could look at her. Some

  sort of slug seemed to have attached itself to her, an eighteen-

  inch-long thing that could not be pried away from her.

  In the end, they buried it with her. She was dead, after all:

  she wouldn’t care.

  There was no hole for Duck Zhang. But they put up a cross

  for him. They had searched the cavern as best they could. But

  all they’d found was a hole that went down and down seemingly forever.

  The hole was collapsing in on itself as Sam shone his light

  down. It was already filling with tons of rock and dirt.

  “No one knew Duck all that well,” Sam said at the service. “I don’t think anyone would have guessed he’d be a hero. But he saved our lives. He did it willingly. He made

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  the choice to give his life for us.”

  They put a few wildflowers on the graves.

  After the service Edilio took a can of black spray paint and

  began to paint over the “HC” tags that had appeared on too

  many storefronts.

  THREE DAYS LATER

  “ S O , H O W ’ S I T going to work, Albert?” Sam asked. He

  wasn’t as interested as he should be. Probably because he

  hadn’t slept much yet. Too much to do. Too much to figure

  out.

  He was done. He’d told them all: He was done. Done being

  the Sam Temple. From now on he was just a kid. Like any

  other. No longer the anything.

  But not just yet. Right now there was still too much to do.

  Kids to feed. A terrible rift to be somehow patched up.

  Memories of suffering that would have to be dealt with,

  somehow, absorbed, accepted.

  They were at the edge of the cabbage field. Sam, Astrid,

  Albert, Edilio, and Quinn.

  Quinn was standing in the bed of a pickup truck wearing

  tall rubber boots. In the truck were a dozen of Duck’s famous

  blue bats. They kept being hauled in by Quinn and Albert’s

  fishermen. Perfectly good protein, but so noxious, so foul that

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  even the starving couldn’t gag down the putrid meat.

  “We disburse a given amount of gold to every kid,” Albert

  was explaining. He at least was excited. “Then, if they want,

  they trade it for paper currency, the McDonald’s game pieces.

  The gold is kept in a central deposit. They can come back and

  trade their paper currency for gold anytime they want. This

  is how they know the paper currency has lasting value.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sam said for about the millionth time. He hid a

  yawn as well as he could.

  In the three days since the horror in that cavern, Sam had

  been kept running. It was a game of whack-a-mole. One crisis

  after another.

  They had found Zil. He had three broken ribs and was in

  terrible pain. No one felt very sorry for him. Astrid wanted

  him imprisoned. It might still happen. But Sam had too many

  other problems on his plate.

  Fresh anti-freak graffiti continued to appear in Perdido

  Beach.

  Mary was eating, but Astrid had warned him that that

  alone meant very little. Mary was a long way from being

  well.

  The power plant was damaged, probably beyond repair.

  The lights were out everywhere now. Probably forever.

  The FAYZ had gone dark.

  But Jack was with them again, and maybe Jack could do

  penance by making things work again. He stood awkwardly

  near Brianna.

  Dekka watched them and kept her silence.

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  “Let’s do this,” Sam said to Quinn. Then, to Astrid, “I’ll

  bet you five ’Bertos this doesn’t work.”

  Howard had dismissed Albert’s list of names for the new

  currency and had dubbed them “Albertos.” ’Bertos. The name

  had stuck. It was Howard’s peculiar genius to invent names

  for things.

  “I don’t need money,” Astrid said. “I need to cut your hair.

  I like seeing your face. Although I can’t imagine why.”

  “Done.” Sam shook her hand, sealing the bet.

  “Ready?” Quinn called out.

  “Orc, you ready?” Sam asked.

  Orc nodded his head.

  “Do it,” Sam said.

  Quinn lifted one of the blue bats and hurled it into the cabbage field. In a flash, the worms swarmed over it. In seconds it was just bones, like a turkey after a Thanksgiving feast.

  “Okay, let’s test this,” Sam ordered.

  Quinn tossed the second bat to Orc. Orc caught it and

  walked into the field. After a dozen steps, he tossed the blue

  bat ahead of him.

  Again, the surge of worms. Again, the zekes reduced it to

  bones.

  “Okay, Orc,” Sam said.

  Orc bent down and yanked up a cabbage.

  He tossed it back to land at Sam’s feet. A second and a third

  cabbage followed.

  The zekes made no move toward Orc.

  But they wouldn’t be sure until the zekes were offered

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  something more easily digested than Orc’s stone feet.

  “Breeze?” Sam said.

  Brianna hefted a bat and zipped into the field. Sam waited,

  tense, knowing she was faster than the worms, but still . . .

  Brianna tossed the bat. The zekes hit it.

  And Brianna ripped a cabbage from the ground.

  “You know,” Astrid said, “I seem to recall a certain condescending—one might even say contemptuous—response when I first suggested negotiating with the zekes.”

  “Huh,” Sam said. “Who would ever be dumb enough to be

  condescending to you?”

  “Oh, it was this bald guy I know.”

  Sam sighed. “Okay. Okay. Grab your scissors and do your

  worst.”

  “Actually,” Astrid said, “there’s something else you have

  to do first.”

  “Always something,” Sam said gloomily.

  Quinn joined them and apologized for stinking of fish.

  “Brah, don’t apologize. You’re a very big part of keeping

  people from starving.”

  The other reason the danger of mass starvation had receded

  for a while, at least, was Hunter. He had recovered most of his

  function, although his speech seemed permanently slurred,

  and one eye drooped above a down-twisted mouth.

  Hunter had been charged with killing Harry. He had been

  sentenced to exile from Perdido Beach. He would live apart

  from them, alone, but living up to the name his parents had

  given him.

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  So far, Hunter had killed a second deer and a number of

  smaller animals. He dropped them at the loading dock of

  Ralph’s. He asked for nothing in return.

  Dekka bent over and lifted one of the cabbages. “This

  would go great with some roasted pigeon.”

  Hunter’s trial had been carried out by a jury of six kids,

  under rules set up by the Temporary Council: Sam, Astrid,

  Albert, Edilio, Dekka, Howard, and the youngest member,

  Brother John Terrafino.

  “Well, ba
ck to work, huh?” Sam said.

  “Get in the car,” Astrid said.

  “What are—”

  “Let me rephrase. By order of the Temporary Council: get

  in the car.”

  She steadfastly refused to explain what was happening on

  the drive back to town. Edilio drove, and he was equally mum.

  Edilio pulled up and parked in the town beach parking lot.

  “Why are we going to the beach? I have to get back to town

  hall. I have, like, all this stuff—”

  “Not now,” Edilio said firmly.

  Sam stopped walking. “What’s up, Edilio?”

  “I’m supposed to be the sheriff, right? That’s my new title?”

  Edilio said. “Okay, then, you are under arrest.”

  “Under arrest? What are you talking about?”

  “You are under arrest for trying to kill a kid named Sam

  Temple.”

  “Not funny.”

  But Edilio persisted. “Trying to kill a kid . . . just a kid . . .

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  named Sam Temple. By stressing him out with the whole load

  of the world on his back.”

  Sam didn’t find it amusing. Angry, he turned back toward

  town. But there was Astrid, close on his heels. And Brianna.

  Quinn, too.

  “What are you all up to?” Sam demanded.

  “We voted,” Astrid said. “It was unanimous. By order of

  the Perdido Beach Temporary Council, we sentence you, Sam

  Temple, to relax.”

  “Okay. I’m relaxed. Now can I get back to work?”

  Astrid took his arm and all but hauled him across the

  beach. “You know what’s interesting, Sam? I’ll tell you what’s

  interesting. A fairly small disturbance in deep water, creating

  a ripple, a surge, can become a pretty impressive wave as it

  nears shore.”

  Sam noticed that someone had set up a tent on the beach.

  It looked forlorn.

  Out to sea, a boat putted by, its motor chugging in low

  gear.

  “Is that Dekka out on the boat?” Sam asked.

  They reached the tent. Lying in the sand there were two

  surfboards. Quinn’s. And Sam’s.

  “Your wet suit’s inside, brah,” Quinn said.

  Sam resisted. But not for long. After all, the council

  had authority now. And if they said he had to go surfing,

  well . . .

  Ten minutes later Sam was facedown on his board. His

  feet were already tingling from the cold water. The sun was

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  already baking his back through the wet suit. The taste of salt

  was in his mouth.