“They got him, they got him,” Howard cried, anguished.
Orc was struggling, staggering, then running toward the
truck, his great stone feet pounding six-inch-deep impressions into the dirt.
One of the worms was on his face.
In his face.
He tripped at the edge of the field and fell hard onto neutral territory.
“Help me. Howard, man, help me!” Orc cried.
Albert broke his trance and ran. Up close he could see the
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worm, just one, but its black snake’s head was buried in pink
flesh, boring through Orc’s cheek.
Up close Albert could see the blur of the tiny paddle feet
driving the worm into strained flesh.
Orc had the tail of the thing in his fist and was pulling
hard. But the worm wasn’t letting go. Orc was pulling so
hard, it seemed he might pull the last of his living flesh away
from the rock skin surrounding it.
Howard grabbed on, too, and he was pulling. Weeping
and cursing and pulling, despite the danger to himself if
the worm should release its grip on Orc and turn against
Howard.
“Bite it!” Albert shouted.
“My tongue!” Orc wailed, his speech garbled as the worm
slid another inch through his cheek.
“Bite it, Orc,” Albert yelled. Then he knelt, and with all his
might delivered an uppercut under Orc’s chin.
It was like punching a brick wall.
Albert yelled and fell back on his behind in the dirt. He
was sure his hand was broken.
Orc had stopped screaming. He opened his mouth and spit
out the worm’s head, along with a gob of blood and saliva.
The rest of the worm came free. Orc smashed it onto the
ground.
There was a one-inch hole in Orc’s face.
Blood spread down his neck and disappeared like rain on
parched soil as it hit the rock flesh.
“You hit me,” Orc said dully, staring at Albert.
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“Brother saved your life, Orc,” Howard said. “The brother
just saved your life.”
“I think I broke my hand,” Albert said.
“Beer me,” Orc said.
Howard raced to comply.
Orc tilted his head back and squeezed the can until the
tab burst. Yellow liquid shot from the can and gushed into
his mouth.
At least half of it ran, foaming pink, from the bloody hole
in his cheek.
TEN
81 HOURS, 17 MINUTES
“ S H E W A S I N my dreams, in my head. I saw her,” Drake
said.
“You’ve lost what little mind you had left,” Diana said.
They were in the dining hall. No one was dining. Meals
at Coates amounted to a few cans put out for kids to fight
over. There were kids who had eaten boiled grass to ease the
hunger pangs.
In the echoing, abandoned, damaged dining hall it was
Caine, Drake, Bug, Diana, and the girl who said her name
was Orsay.
The girl was maybe twelve, Diana figured.
Diana had noticed a look in the girl’s eyes. Fear, of course,
she’d been hauled in by Drake once Bug got back from the
power plant. But that wasn’t all of it: the girl, Orsay, looked at
Diana like she recognized her.
It was not a good look. Her expression made the hairs on
the back of Diana’s neck tingle.
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“I never saw her before in my life, but I saw her in this
dream I was having.” Drake glared hatred at the girl. “Then I
woke up and found her skulking around, hiding.”
It was an unusual feeling for Diana, being in a room with
Drake where she was not the main object of his hatred.
Caine said, “Okay, Drake, we get it. Back before all this
started I’d have said you were nuts. Now?” He waved a languid hand at Diana. “Diana, read her. Let’s see.”
Diana went and stood beside the girl, who looked up at her
with frightened, protruding eyes.
“Don’t be scared. Of me,” Diana said. “I just need to hold
your hand.”
“What’s happened? Why won’t anybody tell me anything?
Where are all the adults? Where are your teachers?” Orsay
had a voice with a built-in tremble to it, like she’d always been
nervous and always would be.
“We call it the FAYZ. Fallout Alley Youth Zone,” Diana
said. “You know about the accident at the power plant back
in the day, right? Fallout Alley?”
“Hey, Caine told you to read her, not give her a history lesson,” Drake snapped.
Diana wanted to argue, but Orsay’s expression, her look
of terror mixed with pity for Diana, was weirding her out. It
was as if Orsay knew something about Diana, like she was a
doctor with a fatal diagnosis she hadn’t quite nerved herself
up to deliver yet. Diana took Orsay’s hand.
As soon as she took Orsay’s hand she knew her power level.
The question was whether she should tell Caine the truth. In
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Caine’s universe there were only two possible categories of
mutants: those who were unquestioningly loyal to Caine, and
those who needed to be disposed of.
At least Orsay wasn’t a four bar. If she had been, there was
little doubt in Diana’s mind that Caine would have turned
her over to Drake.
“Quit stalling,” Drake growled.
Diana released the girl’s hand. She ignored Drake and
spoke to Caine. “She’s a three bar.”
Caine sucked air and sat back in his chair. He considered
the terrified girl. “Tell me about your power. Tell me the
truth, all of it, and you’ll be fine. If you lie to me, I’ll know I
can never trust you.”
Orsay looked up at Diana as though she might be a friend.
“Do what he says,” Diana said.
Orsay twined her fingers together. She sat with her knees
knocked, her shoulders pressed in as though she were trying
to get them to meet.
“It started happening, like, maybe five months ago. Mostly
at night. I thought I was crazy. I didn’t know where it was
coming from. My head would be filled up with these pictures
and sometimes sounds, people talking, flashes of faces or
places. Sometimes they were really short, just a few seconds.
But sometimes they went on for a half hour, one thing after
another, craziness, people being chased, people falling, people having . . . you know, like, sex and all.”
She looked down at her twisting fingers, embarrassed.
“Yeah, we get it, you’re all sweet and innocent,” Drake
sneered.
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Diana asked, “How did you figure out you were seeing
people’s dreams?”
“It usually only happened at night,” Orsay said. “And then,
one night I had this really vivid dream of this woman’s face,
this kind of nice, red-haired woman, right? But she wasn’t
even around, yet. She arrived the next morning. I hadn’t
seen
her before, not in reality, just in her husband’s dream. That’s
when I figured it out.”
“So you’ve been up in the forest this whole time? You must
have been lonely.” Caine was applying a bit of his smile, a
fraction of his charm, putting her at ease.
Orsay nodded. “I’m used to being lonely.”
“How are you at keeping secrets?” Diana asked. She made
her voice casual, but she stared hard into Orsay’s eyes, hoping she would get the message, hoping she knew how great a danger she was in.
Orsay blinked. She was about to say something, then blinked
again. “I never told anyone anything I saw,” Orsay said.
Caine said, “Interesting question, Diana.”
Diana shrugged. “A good spy needs to be discreet.”
When Caine looked blank, Diana added quickly, “I mean,
I assume that’s what you’re thinking. We have Bug, who can
sneak into a place, maybe overhear some conversation. But
Orsay could actually get into people’s dreams.” When Caine’s
expression remained skeptical, Diana added, “I wonder what
Sam dreams about.”
“No way,” Drake said. “No way. You heard her, she gets
anyone’s dreams who happens to be nearby. That means she’s
in our heads, too. No way.”
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“I doubt she wants any part of your dreams, Drake,” Diana
said.
Drake uncoiled his arm and lightning quick wrapped it
around Orsay, who yelped and froze stiff. “I brought her in.
She’s mine. I say what happens to her.”
“Just what is it you want to do with her?” Diana asked.
Drake grinned. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll cook her and eat
her. Meat is meat, right?”
Diana glanced at Caine, hoping to see some sign of revulsion, some acknowledgment that Drake was going too far.
But Caine just nodded as if he was considering Drake’s claim.
“Lets find out what her range is first, huh? Orsay: How far
away can you be and still get someone’s dream?”
Orsay chattered her answer, shaking with fear. “Only
like . . . like . . . like from the ranger station and the nearest
part of the campground.”
“How much distance is that?”
She tried to shrug, but Drake was squeezing her, like a
python, taking advantage of every exhalation to tighten his
coils. “Maybe two hundred feet,” Orsay said.
“Mose’s cabin,” Diana said. “It’s twice that far from the
campus.”
“I said no,” Drake threatened. “She was in my head.”
“We already know it’s a cesspool in there,” Diana said.
“This is uncool, Caine,” Drake said. “You owe me. You
need me. Don’t mess with me on this.”
“Don’t mess with me?” Caine echoed. That was the step
too far.
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7
Caine jumped up, knocking his chair over backward. He
raised both hands, palms out. “You really want to challenge
me, Drake? I can blow you through the wall into the next
room before you can unwrap yourself from that girl.”
Drake flinched. Started to answer, but he never had a
chance. Caine had gone from calm and contained to crazy
in a heartbeat.
“You stupid thug,” Caine raged. “You think you can replace
me? You think if I was out of the way you’d be able to go down
the hill and take out Sam and the rest? You couldn’t even beat
Orc! You nobody!” Caine screamed, spit flying from a mouth
moving as fast as it could but still not fast enough for the fury
within.
The blood had drained from Drake’s hard face. His eyes
burned furiously, his arm twitched, almost out of control. He
looked like he might choke on his own bottled rage.
“I’m the brains!” Caine shrieked. “I’m the brains! I’m the
brains and the power, the true power, the four bar, the one. I
am the one. Me! Why do you think the Darkness kept me for
three days? Why do you think . . . Why do you think it’s still
in my . . . in my . . .”
There was an abrupt change in Caine’s voice. For a second
it was as if he was sobbing, not raging. He caught himself and
righted his voice, swallowed hard. He looked unsteady and
reached for a chairback to hold himself up.
Then he saw the not-quite-pitying look in Diana’s eyes,
and no doubt the shark’s cold gleam of triumph on Drake’s
face as well.
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Caine roared, an incoherent, lunatic howl. He extended
his hands, aiming down and to either side of Drake.
There was an earsplitting sound, stones ripped apart, as
the floor exploded upward in a geyser of shattered floor tile
and dirt.
The pillar of rock and debris shot up, slammed into the
already-scarred and damaged cathedral ceiling and tumbled
back down again, a rain of gravel, as Caine’s howl fell silent.
The only sound was the off-key, musical patter of falling
debris.
Caine stared, blank. Blank.
It went on for too long. But no one dared speak. Then, as
if someone had thrown a switch, Caine’s expression became
human once more. He smiled a shaky smile.
“We can use this girl, Drake,” Caine said calmly. Then, to
Orsay directly, “We can, can’t we? We can use you? You’ll do
whatever I tell you to do? And you will obey only me?”
whisper. She nodded vigorously.
“Good. Because if I ever doubt you, Orsay, I’ll give you to
Drake. You don’t want that.”
Caine slumped, used up. Without another word he weaved
his way to the door.
Lana patted her dog, Patrick, on his thick ruff. “Ready?”
Patrick made his little whimpering sound, the one that
meant, “Come on, let’s get going.”
Lana stood up and checked the Velcro strap that held her
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iPod in place on her arm. She made sure the bright yellow
headphones were in place—her ears were too small for the
standard earbuds.
She dialed up her “running” play list. But, of course, she
didn’t really run now. Running made hunger unbearable.
Now she just walked. And not as far as she had run.
Back in the old days, before the FAYZ, she’d done neither.
But that, like so much, had changed. There was nothing like
dragging through the desert without water or a clue, and then
being made a captive of a swift-moving coyote pack, to make
you think you should get in shape.
She liked to begin in silence. She liked to hear the sound of
her sneaker treads, almost silent on the carpeted hotel floor.
Then satisfyingly loud on the blacktop.
Her route began at the front door of Clifftop. It was an
automatic door, and it still worked. It was weird, still weird
after all this time, that the door’s sensor should be patiently
awaiting the signal to open wide the d
oors to the outside
world.
From Clifftop she would walk down toward Town Beach.
Then she would cut through town, but away from the plaza,
join the highway, and complete the circle back to Clifftop.
Unless she was too weak from hunger. Then she would cut
that short.
She knew she should probably not burn unnecessary calories. But she couldn’t bring herself to stop. To stop, to spend a day lying on the bed, was to surrender. Lana didn’t like the
idea of surrender. She hadn’t surrendered to pain, or to Pack
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Leader, or to the Darkness.
I don’t surrender, she told herself.
Come to me. I have need of you.
As she got beyond the Clifftop approach road and headed
down the slope, Lana punched the iPod’s touchscreen and
her ears were filled with a Death Cab for Cutie song.
But it was the other lyrics she heard, like a whisper, like a
second track beneath this song.
She’d gone no more than a hundred yards along when two
little kids intercepted her, waving their hands to get her attention.
They looked healthy enough to her. She gave them a short
wave and hoped that would be enough.
But the two littles moved to block her way. She stopped,
panting a little, even though she shouldn’t be, and ripped off
her headphones.
“What?” she snapped.
There was some hemming and hawing before the kids
could blurt it out.
“Joey’s got a loose tooth.”
“So what? He’s supposed to be getting new teeth.”
“But it hurts. You’re supposed to fix things that hurt.”
“Supposed to?” Lana echoed. “Look, kids, if you’re bleeding
from some big gaping wound you can bug me. I’m not here
for every little headache or skinned knee or loose tooth.”
“You’re mean,” the kid said.
“Yeah. I’m mean.” Lana settled her headphones back in
place and started off, feeling angry at the kids and angrier
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1
at herself for yelling at them. But kids came after her wherever she was. They interrupted her while she was eating. They harassed her when she was sitting on her balcony reading a
book. They banged on her door while she was pooping.
It was almost never something that needed a miracle. And
increasingly that’s what Lana was starting to think about her
powers, that they were something miraculous. No one had
any better explanation.
And miracles shouldn’t be wasted.