Plague

by Michael Grant

  “Pack Leader not know.”

  Sam nodded. “How do we kill it? The Darkness, I mean? How do we kill the gaiaphage?”

  “Pack Leader not know.”

  Sam sighed. “Yeah, well that makes two of us.”

  Sam could see the creatures writhing within Pack Leader’s skin. Like he was a baggie full of worms.

  “Ready?”

  “I am Pack Leader,” the coyote said. He tilted back his head and howled at the sky.

  Sam aimed both his palms at the beast just as his hide split open.

  The killing light burned and burned. Pack Leader was dead instantly. His fur stank as it burned. His flesh crisped like bacon.

  The creatures, the insects, whatever they were, crawled out of the flames and popping fat. Unfazed. Unharmed. Bright-lit and yet seemingly invulnerable.

  Sam had used his power to burn through concrete and solid rock and steel. It was impossible that he couldn’t kill these things. It was like they had some magical power to shrug off his deadly light. Like they had developed an immunity to him.

  “Jack,” Sam said. “Get a rock. A big one.”

  Jack was frozen until Dekka smacked him on the back of the head. Then he leaped to a rock the size of a Smart Car. It was half-buried in the ground. Jack grunted with the effort, but the rock tore free of the dirt with a little gravity-canceling help from Dekka.

  Jack lifted the rock high over his head. He smashed it down with all his strength on two of the squirming, escaping bugs.

  The rock hit so hard it shook the ground, literally making Sam bounce.

  “Now push it back off,” Sam ordered.

  Jack did. The rock rolled easily from Jack’s shove.

  Beneath it were two very crushed bugs. Their carapaces were dully reflective, like smoky mirrors. They had short, crushed wings held tight against their bodies. Their wicked, curved mandibles had not been broken. Their slashing mouthparts still glittered like tiny knives.

  “Like cockroaches,” Sam said. “Hard to kill. Not impossible.”

  “Yeah. Roaches. A couple more over there,” Dekka said, and pointed. As she pointed she suspended gravity and the two bugs lifted into the air. They motored helplessly on their legs.

  “Your turn, Jack,” Sam said.

  Dekka let gravity flow, the boulder rose and fell and scored two more dead bugs.

  Others, though, were skittering down the hill.

  Sam, Dekka, and Jack pelted after them, high on the discovery that the nasty creatures could in fact be killed.

  Half a dozen of the monsters raced over rock and through scrub grass.

  Jack snatched up a smaller boulder and threw it one-handed. It hit one of the bugs and missed the others.

  “Dekka!”

  “Yeah,” she said, and raised her hands. Dirt and litter and gravel floated into the air ahead. Another one of the insects floated with it. Jack grabbed a rock but it wouldn’t come free, it was an outcropping of something too big even for Jack’s strength.

  He scrabbled and found a head-sized rock. He threw it hard and missed the floating bug.

  “The others are getting away!” Sam yelled.

  “What’s that noise?” Dekka cried, and made a shushing gesture.

  The three of them froze and listened. A sound like a mountain stream rushing over stones.

  No, a beating of wings.

  “Greenies!”

  The flying snakes came in a cloud, rushing up from their lair below like swarming bats emerging from a cave at sundown.

  Like tiny dragons, most just a few inches long, some as much as a foot long. They had leathery wings and whipped their tails back and forth to sustain a very shaky aerodynamic ability.

  Sam yelled a curse and fired. Too late to catch them by surprise. A mistake that might prove fatal.

  Bright beams of light sliced through the attacking cloud. Greenies burned and fell flaming.

  Not enough. Not nearly enough and the greenies were not backing off.

  Dekka canceled gravity beneath the leading edge of the swarm, but it only had the effect of disorienting some of the snakes, who responded by flying upside down or in wild circles.

  They began to squirt greenish-black fluid.

  Sam remembered Hunter telling him about being hit by some secretion from a greenie.

  “Don’t let them hit you!” Sam yelled. “Run!”

  Running uphill would be too slow on the steep slope. They ran at right angles to the swarm, ran all-out, panic speed, tripping and jumping back up, oblivious to bruises and scrapes.

  The swarm was slow to react, but react they did, and wheeled after them.

  Sam hit the road, staggered, caught himself, and spun around. The swarm was still emerging from its lair in the rock face above. Sam aimed hastily and fired.

  Brush on the hillside instantly caught fire. Rocks heated and cracked. He played his light on the cave itself, lighting it up, making it a bright, blazing green mouth.

  The swarm was lost now, unsure. It swirled in the air, dropping green-black droplets like an evil rain, but not over Sam and the others, not yet.

  Confident he had burned out the cave, Sam swept his light upward into the swarm itself.

  A mistake. Attacking their lair confused the greenies, but a direct attack on the swarm gave them a target.

  Sam aimed again at the rock wall, hoping to distract them. Too late: the swarm was coming.

  “Run! Run!”

  Dekka ran backward, canceling gravity behind her. A cloud of gravel and dirt rose into the swarm. This slowed them.

  Dekka turned and ran full speed after Sam and Jack.

  The swarm seemed to be losing interest in following them. But a few of the more persistent greenies were still after them as they ran.

  Dekka fell hard. Sam could see she was winded. He ran back to her but the greenies were faster than he was.

  Dekka rolled over and looked up just as one of the greenies fired its fluid. The dark drop hit her bare shoulder. A second drop hit her jeans. Other drops fell around her.

  Sam fired. The hovering greenies flamed.

  Dekka jumped to her feet. “It got me, it got me!”

  “Get your jeans off,” Sam ordered.

  She complied. Jack grabbed the garment and carefully inspected the fabric. “It didn’t get through.”

  “My shoulder,” Dekka moaned. “Oh, my God, it got me. It got me. Oh, God.”

  “Hold out your arm, Dekka,” Sam ordered. “This is going to hurt.”

  “Do it,” Dekka agreed. “Do it, do it!”

  Sam formed a narrow beam of light. Carefully, carefully he moved it closer and closer to the dark splotch on Dekka’s shoulder.

  Dekka gritted her teeth.

  The beam of light burned and she cried out in pain but then yelled, “Don’t stop, don’t stop!”

  But Sam did stop. He quickly grabbed Dekka as she came close to fainting. “Let me see the arm,” he said.

  There was a burned scoop mark in Dekka’s skin. Maybe half an inch deep. Twice as wide. The flesh was cauterized, so there was no blood.

  “Got it,” Sam said.

  “You don’t know that,” Dekka said through gritted teeth.

  “I got it. It didn’t get anywhere else. I burned it off.”

  Dekka grabbed the neck of Sam’s shirt. “Don’t let it happen, Sam.”

  “It’s not going to, Dekka.”

  “Listen to me: don’t let it happen. You understand? You see it happen, you take care of me. Like Hunter.”

  “Dekka . . .”

  “Swear to me, Sam. Swear it to me by God or by your own soul or whatever you believe, swear to me, Sam.”

  Sam gently pried her fingers loose.

  “I won’t let it happen, Dekka. I swear it.”

  “Stay inside unless absolutely necessary,” Edilio shouted into the megaphone. Using up precious batteries. Albert had not wanted to give up the batteries. But he really didn’t care what Albert wanted or didn’t want.r />
  He walked down San Pablo, shouting through the mega-phone. “We have flu going around and it’s dangerous. Stay inside unless absolutely necessary! Work is canceled today. Mall is closed.”

  Flu. Yeah. A flu that makes you cough up your insides.

  It was unreal, Edilio thought as he walked halfway down the street and repeated the loudspeaker warning.

  Epidemic. The so-called hospital was full. All through the morning, feverish, coughing kids had dragged themselves to the hospital. The disease was spreading like fire and Lana was useless.

  No way to know how many it would kill.

  Maybe everyone who got it.

  Maybe everyone, period.

  “Quarantine,” Dahra had said, pounding her fist into her palm. “You have to shut everything down.”

  “Kids have almost no food or water in their homes,” Edilio had protested.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Dahra had cried in a shrill voice tinged with panic. “If we don’t stop this epidemic, no one will be thirsty, they’ll be dead. Like Pookie. Like that Jennifer girl.”

  Kids poked their heads out of windows or stepped out onto the darkening streets. Which was kind of the opposite of what he was going for.

  “I already had the flu,” kids would yell.

  “Yeah, well, no one is immune,” Edilio would shout back.

  “How am I supposed to eat?”

  “I guess you’ll be hungry for a day. Give us time to work things out.”

  “Is this the thing with bugs coming out of your body?”

  How had that news spread so fast? Everyone knew about Roscoe being locked up. No phones, no texts, no email, nothing, and still kids heard things almost instantly.

  “No, no, this is just flu,” Edilio said, stretching the truth almost to the breaking point. “Coughing and fever. One kid’s already died, so just do what I’m asking, okay?”

  In fact, three kids had died. Pookie and a girl named Melissa and Jennifer H. Three, not one. And maybe more than that, no way to know what was happening in every house in this ghost town. No point in spreading more panic than was necessary.

  One death should be enough to get their attention. Three deaths, on top of the bugs some kids were nicknaming maggots and others were calling gut-roaches, that was enough to create panic.

  Edilio had no idea if a quarantine would work. He would get his guys to try and enforce it: the sheriffs at least would still be on the street. But what were they supposed to do if kids decided to ignore it? Shoot them to save them?

  He couldn’t tell people to wash their hands: no one had washing water in their home. He couldn’t tell them to use hand sanitizer: not enough to go around and what they had was just for the so-called hospital.

  Nothing they could do but ask kids to stay home.

  Probably too late.

  Three dead. So far.

  Edilio thought of Roscoe locked in his prison. Were the bugs eating him from the inside yet?

  He thought of Brianna—Lana’s healing touch had fixed her, but the Breeze was shaken up. Scared.

  He thought of the monstrous thing that was both Drake and Brittney.

  He thought of Orc. No one had seen him. Plenty had heard him, and there were a few smashed cars testifying to his previous presence.

  He thought of Howard, out walking the streets looking for Orc, refusing to stop, even when Edilio ordered him to get to some shelter and stay inside.

  And he thought of the two people who had held his job before him: Sam and Astrid. Both beaten into despair by trying to hold this group of kids together in the face of one disaster after another. Both of them now happy to let Edilio handle it.

  “No wonder,” Edilio muttered.

  “Stay inside unless absolutely necessary,” Edilio shouted, and not for the first or last time wished he was still just Sam’s faithful sidekick.

  Chapter Sixteen

  33 HOURS, 40 MINUTES

  BLAZING SUNLIGHT, DIRECTLY overhead, woke Orc.

  It took him quite a while to sort out where he was. There were desks. The kind they had in school. He was on the floor, a cold linoleum-tile floor, and the desks were tossed and piled around him. Like someone had tossed them all around in a rage.

  Someone had.

  There was a chalkboard. Something was written on it, but Orc’s eyes wouldn’t focus well enough to read it.

  The really confusing thing was the hole in the ceiling and part of the wall that allowed sunlight to pour so directly on his face, on his blinking eyes. The wall had been partly torn down, and without support a part of the ceiling had collapsed.

  He felt something in his right hand. A hunk of wallboard.

  He had done it. He had attacked the desks and the windows and the walls.

  The memories were flashes of desaturated color and wild, jerky motion. He saw, as if standing outside himself, a drunken rock-bodied monster storming and rampaging and finally beating at the walls with great stone fists.

  Orc groaned. His head was pounding like someone was using a sledgehammer on it. He was thirsty. His stomach felt as if it had been filled with coals.

  Other memories were coming back. Drake. He had let that psycho creep get loose.

  Howard would . . . well, actually, Howard wouldn’t say much. Howard knew better than to ever really attack Orc.

  But what about Sam? And Astrid?

  Sudden fear. Astrid. Drake would go after her. Drake hated Astrid.

  He should do something. Go and . . . and find Drake. Or guard Astrid. Or something. Astrid had always been good to him. She’d always treated him nice, like he wasn’t a monster. Even back in school.

  Suddenly Orc recognized the room. It was the room they used for after-school detention. Astrid would sometimes come tutor him there.

  Truth was, he had always liked it better in detention than at home.

  Orc squeezed his eyes shut. He needed a bottle. Too many things coming into his head. Too many pictures and feelings.

  He noticed an awful smell and knew right away what had caused it. When he had passed out his muscles had all gone slack. He’d wet himself and worse.

  He was lying in a puddle of urine and feces.

  With a sob he rolled over onto hands and knees. The fatguy sweatpants he wore were stained and reeking.

  Now he would have to walk down to the beach to clean off. He’d have to walk down there like this, like this depraved, disgusting, drunken, stinking monster.

  Which was what he was. What he’d always been.

  And then, one more memory. A sick little boy. A stop sign.

  God, no. God . . . no.

  Orc stumbled from the room, sick and weeping and hating himself so much more than anyone else could ever hate him.

  Drake became conscious and was likewise confused about where he was and why.

  His hands were tied behind his back and the wire cut uncomfortably into the pulpy flesh of his whip hand.

  “Untie me,” he snapped at Jamal, who was dozing with his back against a palm tree, rifle cuddled to his chest like a stuffed animal. Jamal looked about six years old when he was asleep.

  Drake noticed a rope tied from his ankle to Jamal’s ankle. He yanked on it and Jamal snapped awake.

  “Untie me,” Drake repeated.

  Jamal crawled over and fiddled with the knot until Drake was free.

  “Where are we?” Drake asked.

  “Down the highway. You know, up past Ralph’s?”

  “What are we doing here?”

  “I had to get Brittney out of town,” Jamal said. “I barely got you out of the church before Edilio came.”

  Drake remembered the fight with Brianna. It brought a savage grin. “Did you finish that skinny little witch?”

  Jamal shrugged. “I shot her.”

  “Did you finish her?”

  “No, man, I don’t think so.”

  Drake stared hard at him. “I told you to do her.”

  “Did you?” Jamal licked his lips. “I
saw you saying something, but you were, you know, changing and all. It was hard to understand.”

  Drake knew he was lying. Jamal had disobeyed him. But did he really want a Jamal tough enough to shoot a helpless person in the face?

  No, he needed Jamal to be a little weak. Just a little. Still . . .

  Drake snapped his whip and caught Jamal across the back.

  Jamal cried out and backpedaled away.

  “Don’t disobey me,” Drake said. Then he smiled in what he hoped was a friendly way. “I didn’t cut too deep. Just a little reminder for you.”

  “It burns like fire!”

  “Yeah, well, man up, Jamal. And get me some water. I’m thirsty.”

  “Don’t have any water.”

  “Well get some!”

  “Where?”

  Drake jumped up and looked around. They were near where the road came down from Coates and met the highway. He tried to think if there was anything left at the old school. Had to be some kind of water up there.

  Or he could head back into town. Of course they’d be ready for him now. And by the time he got there he might be Brittney Pig again.

  Drake felt a surge of frustration. If it was just him, he’d go straight into town and take out anyone who got in his way. He might not be able to take Orc down, but he could wear the stupid, fat drunk out. And Brianna? Bring it on.

  With Sam and Caine both away there was no one who could take him on in a fight. But if Brianna was backed by a few of Edilio’s guys with rifles, well, they might be able to get Jamal, and if they got Jamal, they could grab him when the Brittney Pig emerged. Lock him up again. And this time when Sam came back Sam would finish the job.

  It had been supernaturally cool putting himself back together after being sliced in three pieces. But he wasn’t sure that would happen if Sam incinerated him, burned him to ashes.

  Threw the ashes in the ocean.

  That image made Drake very nervous.

  He had to find a way to rid himself of the Brittney Pig. Otherwise he’d be dependent on Jamal. But how was he supposed to do that? It was hopeless. For a moment Drake felt despair. He would be trapped like this forever.

  But then, faint hope. Maybe there was someone who could help. He felt its touch on his mind. It had never forgotten him.

  “Get up. We’re going,” Drake said.