Gone

by Michael Grant

  “Bug. You know what to say. Go.” He pushed Bug away, and the chameleon blended into the background. The door opened and closed.

  Caine took Diana’s hand. She wanted to pull it away, but she didn’t. “Everyone out of here,” Caine said.

  Howard got heavily to his feet. Lana as well. When it was just the two of them, Caine and Diana, he drew her close into an awkward embrace.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded stiffly.

  “I’m probably going to die tonight.”

  “That’s kind of melodramatic, isn’t it? One minute you’re invincible, and the next—”

  He interrupted her with a rushed, lunging kiss. She let him for a few seconds. Then she pushed him back, though not with enough force to free herself from his embrace.

  “What was that for?” she asked.

  “It’s the least you owe me, isn’t it?” Caine said. He sounded childish, needy.

  “I owe you?”

  “You owe me. Besides, I thought you…you know.” His cockiness had given way to petulance and now his petulance was dissolving into embarrassment and confusion.

  “You’re not very good at this, are you?” Diana mocked.

  “What am I supposed to say? You’re hot, all right?”

  Diana threw her head back and laughed. “I’m hot? That’s what you want to tell me? One minute you’re master of the FAYZ, and the next minute you’re like a pathetic little kid going for his first kiss.”

  His face went dark and she knew immediately she had gone too far. His hand, fingers splayed, was in her face. She tensed, awaiting the blast of energy.

  For a long time they stood that way, frozen. Diana barely breathed.

  “You’re scared of me, after all, Diana,” Caine whispered. “All your attitude and all, and underneath it, you’re scared. I can see it in your eyes.”

  She said nothing. He was still dangerous. At this range he had the power to kill her with a thought.

  “Well, I don’t want to seem like a pathetic little kid going for his first kiss,” Caine said. “So how about you just give me what I want? How about from now on you just do what I say?”

  “You’re threatening me?”

  Caine nodded. “Like you said, Diana, we didn’t make the FAYZ, we just live here. Here in the FAYZ it’s all about power. I have it. You don’t.”

  “I guess we’ll see if you’re as powerful as you think, Caine,” Diana said, cautious but unbowed. “I guess we’ll see.”

  FORTY-THREE

  02 HOURS, 22 MINUTES

  THE DAY CARE had no window facing the plaza. Sam had snuck around into the alley to peek in one of the high-on-the-wall windows. He had seen the coyotes. He had recoiled from the sight of Drake.

  The coyotes had instantly noted his presence. It was all but impossible to sneak up on them. Drake, looking him right in the eye, had uncoiled his whip hand and languidly drawn the shade.

  The kids were huddled together, practically on top of one another, solemn and terrified and half watching The Little Mermaid on the TV.

  Sam returned to the plaza. Neither Drake nor the coyotes could see him there. But he felt eyes on him just the same. He only slowly became aware of the kid standing beside him.

  “Who are you? And how did you get there?”

  “They call me Bug. I’m good at sneaking up on people.”

  “I guess you are.”

  “I have a message for you.”

  “Yeah? What does my brother want?”

  “Caine says it’s you or him.”

  “I figured that.”

  “He says if you don’t do what he says, he’ll turn Drake and the coyotes loose on the prees.”

  Sam stifled the urge to punch the little monster for the smug way in which he had delivered his vicious threat. “Okay.”

  “Okay. So, everyone has to come out in the open. All your people. Out in the open, out in the plaza where we can see them. If anyone stays in hiding, you know what happens.”

  “What else?”

  “Your people all set their guns or whatever on the steps of town hall. All your freaks go into the church.”

  “He’s asking me to surrender before we even fight,” Sam said.

  Bug shrugged. “He said if you argue, Drake is going to start turning the coyotes loose on one kid at a time. You have to do all this and then Caine and you go mano a mano. If you win, no problem, Drake lets the littles go. All your side goes free. Caine goes back to Coates.”

  “Why are you doing this, Bug? You’re okay with this? Threatening little kids?”

  Bug shrugged. “Man, I’m not going to mess with Caine or Drake.”

  Sam nodded. His mind was already elsewhere, trying to find a way, trying to find a path. “Tell Caine I’ll answer him in an hour.”

  Bug grinned. “He said you’d say that. See? He’s smart. He said you have to send your answer back with me. Yes or no, with no extras or anything.”

  Sam glanced at the steeple. He wished Astrid was here. She might have an answer.

  The terms were impossible. He was absolutely sure, sure beyond any reasonable doubt, that even if he won, even if somehow Caine admitted defeat, Drake would never just walk away.

  One way or the other, he had to beat Drake as well as Caine.

  There were a thousand thoughts in his head, a thousand fears, yammering at him, crowding one another, demanding attention as Bug stared at him, impatient to be on his way. There was no time to make sense of it all. No time to plan. Just as Caine had intended.

  Sam’s shoulders slumped. “Tell Caine I accept.”

  “Okay,” Bug said, no more concerned than he would have been by an announcement that he was having chicken for dinner.

  The chameleon blended into the background, all but disappearing. Sam watched him trotting off, a warping of light and image. He soon became impossible to make out.

  Sam keyed the walkie-talkie. “Astrid. Now.” Edilio had been watching from his post in the hardware store. He came trotting out.

  Sam steadied his breathing, kept a careful poker face. There were too many eyes on him. Too many people needing to believe in him.

  On that school bus so long ago, no one had even realized there was a problem before Sam was up and taking charge. It was harder being bold when the whole world seemed to be watching your every move.

  With Astrid and Edilio beside him, Sam quickly related Caine’s terms. “We have very little time. Caine will send that chameleon back to spy, right after he reports back to Caine. Caine will move fast, he won’t want to give us any time to prepare.”

  “Do you have a plan?” Astrid asked.

  “Kind of. A piece of a plan, anyway. We need to stall a little. Bug sees Caine, Bug comes back, that’s probably five minutes minimum wherever Caine is, probably a little more. Then Bug has to see whether we are doing what we’ve been told to do. He’s going to see people out in the open, and he’s going to see our Coates friends heading into the church. Then he’ll report that back. Caine will say, ‘Make sure they’re all in.’”

  “More time.” Astrid nodded agreement. “We don’t hurry. In fact, maybe we have to force some of the kids, maybe they’re arguing. You’re right, Caine won’t show up till he’s sure.”

  “If we’re lucky, we have a half hour,” Edilio said. He glanced at his watch, not easy to read in the swiftly falling night.

  “Yeah. Okay. All I’ve done so far is screw up. So if this is crazy, someone tell me.”

  “You’re our guy, Sam,” Edilio said.

  Astrid squeezed his hand.

  “Then here’s what we do.”

  Mary read.

  She sang.

  She did everything short of tap-dance. But there was no distracting the children from the horror before them. With solemn, fearful expressions they followed Drake’s every move. The whip hand filled every eye.

  Some of the coyotes had gone to sleep. Others, though, eyed the children with a look that could only be described as hungry.
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  Mary wished she had another Diazepam or maybe three or maybe ten. Her hands shook. Her insides churned. She needed to go to the bathroom, but she needed to stay with the children, too.

  Her brother, John, was changing a diaper, no different from usual, except that John’s mouth was an upside-down “U” of trembling lips.

  Mary read, “I would not eat green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”

  And in her head, going around and around like a crazed merry-go-round she could not stop, was the question: What do I do? What do I do if…What do I do when…What do I do?

  A boy named Jackson raised his hand. “Mother Mary? The dogs stink.”

  Mary kept reading. “I will not eat them in the rain. I will not eat them on a train…”

  It was true, the coyotes did stink. The smell of them was suffocating, the heavy scent of musk and dead animals. They urinated freely against crib legs and tables and chose the corner with the dress-up clothes to defecate.

  But the coyotes were not at ease, far from it. They were jumpy, nervous, unused to being in an enclosed space, not used to being around humans. Pack Leader maintained order with snarls and yips, but even he was jumpy and unsettled.

  Only Drake seemed at ease. He lounged in the glider that Mary used to rock the tinies to sleep at night or feed them a bottle. He was endlessly fascinated by his whip hand, kept holding it up for inspection, coiling and uncoiling it, reveling in it.

  Save the kids? Save John? Could she save anyone? Could she save herself?

  What do I do?

  What do I do when the killing starts?

  Suddenly a girl was there. Taylor. Just there in the middle of the room.

  “Hi. I brought food,” she announced. She held a plastic McDonald’s tray. It was piled high with uncooked hamburgers.

  Every coyote head snapped around. Drake was too slow to react, caught off guard.

  Taylor flung the tray against the common wall shared by the day care and the hardware store. Meat slid down the gaily painted cinder blocks.

  Drake’s whip hand cracked.

  But Taylor was gone.

  The coyotes hesitated only a moment. Then they lunged toward the meat. In a flash they were snarling and snapping at one another, pushing, jostling, climbing over one another in a feeding frenzy.

  Drake jumped to his feet and yelled, “Pack Leader, get a grip on them.” But Pack Leader had joined the frenzy, laying about him viciously to establish his dominance and his share of the sudden bounty.

  Two things happened at almost the same instant. The wall shuddered and cracked and the coyotes nearest to it suddenly floated upward, their paws scrabbling in midair.

  “Dekka,” Drake snarled.

  There was a blinding flash of green-white light and like a butane torch cutting through tissue paper, a hole two feet across appeared in the cinder block. The hole was high up on the wall, well above the heads of the children but right about where the suddenly weightless coyotes were floating. One of the coyotes caught a straight blast. The beam of light cut it in two. The segments floated, spraying weightless globules of red.

  The children screamed and John screamed and Drake backed away from the wall, away from the zone of weightlessness.

  Edilio’s head appeared in the hole. “Mary. Down on the floor.”

  “Everyone get down!” Mary screamed, and John threw himself onto a runaway toddler.

  Edilio yelled, “Sam, go!”

  A new hole burned lower down, chest level, and this time the beams of light scoured the room, blasting walls covered in faded art projects, burning through coyotes, setting them alight to float like flaming Macy’s parade balloons.

  “Okay, Dekka,” Edilio yelled.

  The coyotes hit the ground hard, some dead, some alive, but none with any desire for a fight. The door flew open, yanked by some unseen hand, and the animals ran over one another trying to escape.

  “Pack Leader!” Drake bellowed. “You coward!”

  The annihilating beam of light swung toward him. He hit the floor, cursing, and rolled out toward the door.

  Quinn felt as well as heard the wall between the day care and the hardware store rumble and crack.

  A few seconds later he saw the coyotes pouring in a panicked jumble into the alley and racing off this way and that.

  And then Drake appeared.

  Quinn shrank down behind the parapet. Brianna rushed boldly to look over.

  “It’s Drake. Now’s your chance.”

  “Get down, you idiot,” Quinn hissed.

  She rounded on him, furious. “Give me the gun, you wimp.”

  “You don’t even know how to shoot it,” Quinn whined. “Besides, he’s probably already gone. He was running.”

  Brianna looked again. “He’s hiding. He’s behind the Dumpster.”

  Quinn nerved himself to look, just a peek, just enough to see. Brianna was right: Drake was behind the Dumpster, waiting.

  The back door of the hardware store opened and Sam emerged alone. He looked left and right, but was unable to spot Drake.

  Brianna yelled, “Sam, behind the Dumpster.”

  Sam whirled, but Drake was too quick. He snapped his whip, slashed Sam’s defensive arm, and ran straight at and over Sam.

  Sam landed on his back and rolled over quickly, but not quickly enough. With inhuman speed, the whip hand sliced the air and cut a bright stripe across Sam’s back, right through his shirt.

  Sam cried out.

  Brianna began hauling the aluminum ladder to the edge, but her speed betrayed her. She lost control of the ladder and it clattered down into the alley.

  Drake had his whip around Sam’s throat now, choking, squeezing. Killing.

  Quinn could see Sam’s face turning red. Sam thrust his hands back over his shoulders and fired blind.

  The beams singed Drake’s face but did not stop him. He threw Sam hard against the alley wall. Quinn heard the sickening crunch of skull on brick. Sam slumped, barely conscious.

  “Forget Caine,” Drake crowed, “I’m taking you down myself.”

  He raised his whip hand, ready to bring it down with enough force to lay Sam open from hip to neck.

  Quinn fired.

  The kick of the gun in his hands surprised him. It had happened without conscious thought. He hadn’t aimed, hadn’t carefully squeezed the trigger like he’d learned to do, he’d just fired on instinct.

  The bullets left pockmarks in the brick.

  Drake whirled, and Quinn rose shakily to his feet, standing now in full view.

  “You,” Drake said.

  “I don’t want to have to kill anyone,” Quinn said in a shaky voice that barely carried.

  “You’ll die for this, Quinn.”

  Quinn swallowed hard, and this time took careful aim.

  That was too much for Drake. With a furious snarl he ran from the alley.

  Sam was slow getting up. To Quinn, he looked like an old man standing up after slipping on the ice. But he looked up at Quinn and performed a sort of salute.

  “I owe you, Quinn.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get him,” Quinn answered.

  Sam shook his head. “Man, don’t ever be sorry you don’t want to kill someone.” Then, spotting Brianna, he shook off his weariness and said, “Breeze? With me. Quinn, anyone comes back toward the day care, you don’t have to shoot them, all right? But fire into the air so we know.”

  “I can do that,” Quinn said.

  Sam ran toward the plaza, confident that Brianna would catch up quickly. She was with him in seconds.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Everyone’s putting on a show of complying with Caine’s terms. If we’re lucky, Bug will report back that we’re obeying before Drake gets back to tell Caine that we’ve retaken the day care.”

  “You want me to go after Drake?”

  “Use those fast feet. Find him if you can, but don’t try to fight him, just tell me.”

  She was gone before
he could add, “Be careful.”

  Sam broke into a trot that seemed painfully slow compared with the way Brianna moved. The kids, the normals, more than a hundred of them, all who could be rounded up on short notice, were milling around at one end of the plaza. Sam was counting on Caine not knowing exactly how many kids were in Perdido Beach, or how many were in town as opposed to hiding in their homes. He needed to make it look convincing, but Caine’s demand left room for some few to still be hidden away with Edilio.

  Astrid and Little Pete, Dekka and Taylor and the rest of the Coates Freaks were entering the church, protesting loudly, making a show of it.

  Sam strode to the fountain and jumped up on the side. “Okay, Bug, I know you’re watching. Go tell Caine we’ve done what he asked. Tell him I’m waiting. Tell him if he’s not a coward, to come here and face me like a man.”

  He jumped down, ignoring the stares of the hundred or more kids huddled scared and vulnerable in the plaza.

  Had Bug seen what went down in the day care? He had certainly heard the shots. Hopefully he would interpret them as coming from Drake himself, or as target practice.

  And just as dangerous, would Drake be able to warn Caine? He should find out soon. Either way, Sam doubted that Caine could resist a face-to-face confrontation. His ego demanded it.

  Sam’s walkie-talkie crackled. He had the volume turned down low and had to hold it to his ear to hear Astrid.

  “Sam.”

  “Are you okay in the church, Astrid?”

  “We’re both okay. We’re all okay. The day care?”

  “Safe.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Listen, get everyone in there to lie down. Get them under the pews—that may give them some protection.”

  “I feel useless here.”

  “Just keep Little Pete calm, he’s the wild card. He’s like a stick of dynamite. We don’t know what he might do.”

  “I think a vial of nitroglycerin would be a more apt analogy. Dynamite is actually quite stable.”

  Sam smiled. “You know it always gets me hot when you say ‘apt analogy.’”

  “Why do you think I do it?”

  Knowing that she was right there, just fifty feet away, smiling sadly, scared but trying to be brave, sent a wave of longing and worry through him that almost brought tears to his eyes.