No time for that.
It was time to see who was who and what was what. Sam raised his hands high and a ball of cold brilliant light formed in the air.
In the eerie half-light Sam saw a dozen of Zil’s thugs, half armed.
A mob was running away from them.
Another group, smaller, and looking oddly like doddering old people, kicked through the surf toward the distant marina.
Zil and his crew knew immediately who was responsible for the revelatory light. It could only be…
“Sam!”
“It’s Sam!”
“Run!”
“Shoot him! Shoot him!”
Three shotgun blasts in rapid succession. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Sam fired back. Pencils of blistering green light scoured the sand. A cry of pain.
“Don’t run away!”
“Cowards!”
BLAM! BLAM!
Someone firing methodically now, working the shotgun pump.
Sam felt a sharp sting in the meat of his shoulder. He hit the dirt, knocking the wind from his lungs.
People running past. He rolled onto his back, hands at the ready.
BLAM!
The pellets hit the sand near enough for Sam to hear the impact.
He rolled away, over and over.
BLAM! BLAM!
Then a click. A curse. More feet running, pummeling the sand.
He leaped up, aimed and fired. The killing green light drew a scream of pain or fear, but the retreating figure didn’t stop.
Sam got up more slowly this time. Sand was in his shirt, his mouth, his ears. In his eyes. Smoke and sand and his eyes were streaming. He saw nothing but blurs.
Now the light was working against him, making him an easy target. He waved and the tiny sun blinked out. The beach was dark again, though a faint hint of gray pearled the sky over the ocean.
He spit, trying to get the sand out of his mouth. Rubbed his eyes gently, trying to dislodge the grit.
Someone behind him!
The pain was like fire. A lash that cut through his shirt and tore his flesh.
Sam spun from the impact.
A dark shape.
A razor-sharp whistling sound and Sam, too stunned to move, felt the lash on his shoulder.
“Hey there, Sammy. Long time, huh?”
“No,” Sam gasped.
“Oh, yes,” the voice snarled. The voice Sam knew. The voice he dreaded. The voice that had laughed and crowed as he lay on the polished floor of the power plant, screaming in agony.
Sam blinked, struggled to open one eye, to see what could not possibly be real. He raised his hands and fired blind.
The whistling, whooshing sound. Sam ducked instinctively and the blow went harmlessly by.
“The demon!” a girl’s voice cried.
But it came from behind Sam because he had turned and run.
He ran. Ran blindly down the sand.
Ran and fell and jumped up to run again.
He didn’t stop until he hit the concrete beach wall, smashing his calves. He landed facedown on the ground and lay there, panting.
Quinn had turned the boats to shore, dreading what he would find when they reached land.
The fire had spread and now seemed to cover half the town, although there were no new explosions. The smoke had reached them out at sea. Quinn’s eyes stung. His heart was in his throat.
Not another massacre, not another atrocity. Enough! He just wanted to fish.
The rowers were silenced by the awful spectacle of their homes burning.
They reached the first of the piers and saw a group of kids staggering onto it, no doubt panicked kids running away, thinking the marina would be safe.
Quinn called out to them.
No answer.
His boat touched the bumper that sloshed in the water. His moves were automatic from long practice. He tossed a rope loop over the piling and pulled his boat closer. Oars were shipped. Big Goof jumped onto the pier and secured the second line.
The staggering gaggle of kids on shore ignored them and kept moving. They moved strangely. Like frail old people.
Something strange about them…
And familiar.
The dawn was still an hour away. The only light was from the fire. The false stars were blotted by the pall of smoke.
Quinn jumped onto the pier.
“Hey there! Hey!” he yelled. Quinn was responsible for the boats. The marina was his.
The kids kept moving, like they were deaf. They headed down a parallel pier toward the two boats that were kept fueled for rescues: a bass boat and an inflatable Zodiac.
“Hey!” Quinn yelled.
The foremost of the kids turned to face him. They were separated by fifty feet of water, but even in the faint fire glow Quinn recognized the shape of shoulders and head.
And he recognized the voice.
“Penny,” Caine said. “Keep our friend Quinn busy.”
From the water a monster erupted in a tremendous geyser.
Quinn bellowed in terror.
The monster rose, taller and taller. It had a head like a tortured, deformed elephant. Two black, dead eyes. Curved teeth. The jaw gaped open to reveal a long, pointed tongue.
It roared then, a sound like a hundred massive cellos played with garbage cans for bows. Hollow. Tortured.
Quinn fell back. He fell from the pier. His back hit the edge of his boat. The impact knocked the air out of his lungs and he fell head-down into the water.
Panicked, he breathed. Salt water filled his throat. He gagged and coughed and strained with all his might not to breathe again.
Quinn knew the water. He’d been a good surfer and a very good swimmer. This was not his first experience of being upside down and turned around underwater.
He grabbed onto his fear and kicked hard to bring himself around. The surface, the barrier between water and air, death and life, was ten feet up. One foot kicked dirt. The water was not deep here.
He began to rise.
But the monster was reaching beneath the pier. Insanely long arms, with impossible clawlike hands.
The arms reached for him and he backpedaled away. Panicky, kicking, pushing at the water, lungs burning.
Too slow. One gigantic hand closed around him.
The fingers went through.
No pain.
No contact or sensation at all.
The second claw swiped through the water. It would disembowel him.
But it passed through him.
Illusion!
With the last of his strength Quinn reached the surface. He gagged on air and vomited seawater from his stomach. The monster was gone.
Big Goof hauled him like dead weight into the boat. Quinn lay on the bottom of the boat, uncomfortable atop the oars.
“You okay?”
Quinn couldn’t answer. If he tried he knew he would retch again. His voice was not yet back. He still felt as if he were breathing through a straw. But he was alive.
And now it all fell into place. That monster. The sound it made. He knew them.
Cloverfield.
It was the monster from the movie. The exact monster, the exact sound.
He sat up and coughed.
Then he stood up in the rocking boat and saw Caine and his crew climbing aboard the two motorboats.
Caine caught sight of him and sent him a wintry, ironic smile. There was a strange girl with him. She, too, stared at him, but she did not smile. Instead, she bared crooked teeth at him in a grimace that was far more threat than smile.
An engine started, throaty and rough. Then a second.
Quinn stayed where he was. No chance he could take on Caine. Caine could kill him with a gesture.
The two motorboats chugged slowly, cautiously, away from the pier.
There came the sound of running feet. A rush of kids, some armed. Quinn recognized Lance, then Hank. Finally Zil, hanging back, letting the other two get out in front.
They reached the end of the pier. Hank stopped, aimed, and fired.
The shot hit the Zodiac. The air blew out in a sudden exhale. The boat’s motor chugged beneath the water as the stern collapsed and sank.
Quinn climbed halfway up onto the pier to see. His jaw dropped.
Caine, wet and furious, rose and levitated above the sinking Zodiac.
He yanked Hank and his gun up into the air. Hank soared, twisting, crying out in terror, helpless. Up and up and up, and all the while Caine floated as his companions foundered.
A hundred feet in the air, Hank came to a stop. And then, down he came. But not falling. Too fast to be a fall. Too fast for it to be mere gravity.
Caine hurled Hank down from the graying sky. Like a meteor. Impossibly fast, a blur.
Hank hit the water. A huge spout went up, like someone had fired off a depth charge.
Quinn knew the waters of the marina. It was no more than eight feet deep where Hank hit. The bottom was sand and shell.
There was not the slightest chance that Hank would come bobbing back up to the surface.
Caine floated as Zil looked on in helpless horror.
“Now that,” Caine shouted, “was a mistake, Zil.”
Zil and his crew turned tail and ran. Caine laughed and lowered himself into the second boat. Five of his people were still in the water, calling out and waving and then cursing and raging as the motorboat roared away.
TWENTY-SEVEN
13 HOURS, 32 MINUTES
“GET UP,” PEACE whispered. She shook Sanjit’s shoulder.
Sanjit had long been accustomed to being awakened at odd hours. That part of being the oldest kid in the Brattle-Chance family had long since lost its charm.
“Is it Bowie?” he said.
Peace shook her head. “No. I think the world is burning.”
Sanjit raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That seems kind of extreme, Peace.”
“Just come.”
Sanjit groaned and rolled out of bed. “What time is it?”
“It’s almost morning.”
“The key word being ‘almost,’” Sanjit complained. “You know what’s a better time to get up? Actual morning. Much better than ‘almost’ morning.”
But he followed her down the hall to the room she shared with Bowie and Pixie. The house had twenty-two bedrooms, but only Sanjit and Virtue had chosen to sleep by themselves.
Pixie was asleep. Bowie tossed and turned, still under attack from the fever that would not go away.
“The window,” Peace whispered.
Sanjit went to the window. It was almost floor-to-ceiling, a stunning view during the day. He stood there gazing toward the far-distant town of Perdido Beach.
“Go get Choo,” he said after a moment.
She came back with a poisonously cranky Virtue, rubbing sleep from his eyes and muttering.
“Look,” Sanjit said.
Virtue stared, just as Sanjit had done. “It’s a fire.”
“You think?” Sanjit shook his head, awestruck. “The whole town must be on fire.”
Red and orange flames were a bright dot on the horizon. In the gray predawn light he saw a massive pillar of black smoke. The scale seemed ridiculous. The bright fire was a dot, but the smoke seemed to be miles high, shaped like a twisted funnel.
“So that’s where I’m supposed to fly the helicopter?” Sanjit said.
Virtue left and returned a few moments later. He was carrying a small telescope. It wasn’t very powerful. They’d used it at times to try to see details in the town or on the wooded shore closest to the island. It had never shown much. It showed no more now, but even slightly magnified the fire looked terrifying.
Sanjit looked at Bowie, who was whimpering in his sleep.
“I’m getting a very bad feeling,” Virtue said.
“It’s not like the fire can spread here,” Sanjit said, trying to sound nonchalant and failing.
Virtue didn’t say anything. He just stared. And it dawned on Sanjit that his brother and friend was seeing more than just the fire.
“What is it, Choo?”
Virtue sighed, a heavy sound that edged toward a sob. “You never ask me about where I came from.”
Sanjit was surprised by the turn in the conversation. “Africa. I know you come from Africa.”
“Africa’s a continent, not a country,” Virtue said with a faint echo of his normal pedantry. “Congo. That’s where I’m from.”
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t mean anything to you, does it?”
Sanjit shrugged. “Lions and giraffes and all?”
Virtue didn’t even bother to sneer. “There’s been war there for, like, ever. People killing one another. Raping. Torturing. Stuff you don’t even want to know about, brother.”
“Yeah?”
“I wasn’t in an orphanage when Jennifer and Todd adopted me. I was four years old. In a refugee camp. All I remember is being hungry all the time. And no one taking care of me.”
“Where were your real mom and dad?”
Virtue didn’t answer for a long time, and some instinct warned Sanjit not to push him.
Finally, Virtue said, “They came and started burning down our village. I don’t know why. I was just a little kid. I just know my mother-my birth mom-told me to run and hide in the bush.”
“Okay.”
“She told me not to come out. Or look. She said, ‘Hide. And close your eyes tight. And cover your ears.’”
“But you didn’t.”
“No,” Virtue whispered.
“What did you see?”
“I…” Virtue took a deep, shuddering breath. In a strained, unnatural voice he said, “You know what? I can’t tell you. I can’t use words for it. I don’t want the words to come out of my mouth.”
Sanjit stared at him, feeling as if he was looking at a stranger. Virtue had never talked about his early childhood. Sanjit berated himself for being so self-centered, he’d never asked.
“I see that fire and I just have a bad feeling, Sanjit. I have a bad feeling it’s getting ready to happen again.”
Taylor found Edilio with Orc, Howard, Ellen, and a few others. They were retreating from the worst of the fire.
Voices cried pitifully from the upper floors of a house that burned like a match head. Taylor saw Edilio press his hands to his ears.
Taylor grabbed his hand and pulled it away. “There are kids in that house!”
“Yeah?” Edilio said savagely. “Do you think?”
It was so unlike Edilio, it shocked Taylor. The others looked at her like she was an idiot. They all heard the cries. “I can do it,” Taylor said. “I can pop in and out before the fire gets me.”
Edilio’s furious glare softened just a little. “You’re a brave girl, Taylor. But what are you going to do? You can bounce, but you can’t carry anyone out with you.”
Taylor stared at the house. It was half a block away and even from this distance the heat was like a furnace.
“Maybe I can…” She faltered.
“What’s happening in there? You can’t stop it. And you don’t want to bounce in there just to see it. Believe me,” Edilio said. “You don’t want to see it.”
The cries were not heard again. A few minutes later the roof collapsed inward.
“The fire is spreading on its own now. We should try to make a fire break,” Ellen said.
“A what?” Edilio asked.
“A fire break. It’s what they do in forest fires. They knock down the trees that are in the path of the fire. It stops the fire from moving tree to tree.”
“You talking about knocking down houses?” Howard said. “You talking about Orc knocking down houses. That’s going to-”
“Shut up, Howard,” Orc said. Not mean, but definite.
Howard shrugged. “Okay, big guy, if you want to get all altruistic.”
“Whatever,” Orc said.
Dekka ran into Edilio. Literally. She was obviously half blinded by smoke.
“Dekka!” Edilio cried. “Have you seen Sam?”
Dekka tried to answer, choked, coughed, and ended up shaking her head.
“Okay. Come with us. The fire is still spreading.”
“What are you-?” she managed to ask.
“We’re going to make a fire break,” Edilio said. “The fire is jumping house to house. We’re going to knock some houses down and push them back.”
“Get Jack, too,” Dekka said, squeezing the words out and biting off the racking cough that followed.
“Good idea,” Edilio said. “Taylor?”
Taylor disappeared.
“Come on, guys,” Edilio said, trying to rally his sick, dispirited group. “We can maybe still save a lot of the town.”
He led the way and the others followed.
Where was Sam? Usually it would be Sam leading the way. Sam handing out orders.
Was Sam okay? Had he caught up with Zil? Had he done what he threatened to do? Had he killed Zil?
Edilio could still hear echoes of the cries from the burning house. He knew he would be hearing them in his dreams for a long time to come. He wasn’t going to manage too much sympathy for Zil if Sam had carried out his threat.
But even now it didn’t sit well with Edilio. It was just another symptom of a world gone crazy.
Taylor bounced back as they reached Sheridan Avenue. There was smoke everywhere. The fire was moving across backyards from Sherman to the west side of Sheridan.
“Jack’s on his way. Breeze tried to get up but she took like three steps and folded.”
“Is she okay?” Dekka asked.
“Flu and super speed don’t go too well together, I think,” Taylor said. “She’ll live.”
Edilio tried to make sense of the lay of the land. Fire raged to the west. There was no normal wind, there never was in the FAYZ, but it seemed as if the fire was making its own wind. Blowtorch heat blew. No question the fire would follow that wind.
“It’s coming this way,” Ellen said.
“Yeah.” The fires on Sherman made silhouettes out of the row of houses on the west side of Sheridan.
Suddenly, out of a swirl of smoke came a small boy pulling a larger one behind him.
“Hey, little man,” Edilio said. “Get straight out of here.”
The little boy, Edilio recognized him now, was Justin. Mary had asked him to keep an eye out for Justin. And Roger. Roger was in a bad way, unable to speak or even open his eyes.
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