Plague

by Michael Grant

Lance played along. “I have no idea, Turk.”

  “Maybe because of this,” Turk said. He leveled his rifle at Albert’s face.

  Something exploded.

  Albert heard no sound.

  He was on his side.

  Blood covered his right eye, blinding him. Or maybe his eye wasn’t there anymore, he didn’t know.

  He tried to breathe and heard gurgling in his lungs. Heard his heart slow . . .

  Turk looked at once alarmed and ecstatic. Lance’s face became sullen. The two younger kids backed away, tripping over each other, and ran.

  Lance punched Turk’s shoulder in rough congratulations. Albert’s one good eye went dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  12 HOURS, 48 MINUTES

  “THAT IS A lake,” Sam said. “That is definitely a lake.”

  “I can’t believe we didn’t even know this was here,” Dekka said.

  The sun was still not up, but a pearly gray light showed a long slope heading down to a vast body of water. Bigger than anything Sam had seen outside of the ocean.

  Dry grass grew in tufts. Amazingly scraggly, stunted pine trees showed here and there, but the shore itself was formed by a line of large jumbled rocks broken up by narrow, halfhearted sand beaches.

  At the limits of their vision was a small marina with perhaps two dozen boats at the dock.

  The barrier sliced right across the lake, but the part on the inside was more water than the kids of Perdido Beach could ever need or want.

  “You think it’s drinkable?” Dekka wondered.

  “Let’s find out,” Sam said. He jogged downhill toward the shore, careful not to trip, but anxious to see and taste. It would be too cruel to get here and find that it was salt water. That would be one more dirty trick, one more disappointment. Not to mention the fact that it might doom them all.

  He reached the lakeshore with the others close behind. The pale rock was shifting and unsteady, so he felt his way gingerly.

  He pulled off his shoes and then impulsively dived in a flat arc into the water.

  It was shallow near the shore and he scraped his chest on submerged rocks, but with two strokes he was out in water over his head.

  Sam gulped a mouthful. Treading water he looked back to see Jack, Dekka, and Toto standing uncertainly on the rocks. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Sam said, his face split by a huge grin, “we have fresh water.”

  In something less than five seconds, the three of them splashed in after him.

  “It’s water!” Jack cried.

  “It is so totally water!” Dekka agreed.

  “She’s telling the truth, Spidey!” Toto said.

  Sam turned a joyful somersault. The lake was cold but not bone-chilling. The surfer part of his brain calculated he’d have been warm and toasty enough with a 3/2 wetsuit.

  He gulped some more water and swam over to his friends.

  “Fresh water,” Dekka said. “Cold fresh water. Brrr.”

  Sam scanned the shore. “This isn’t a great place to set up a new town, really. We’d need something flatter. And then we’d have to be careful about not having everyone’s sewage end up flowing into our drinking water. I guess we . . .” He stopped himself. Albert and Edilio could figure out the details. He had done what he needed to do.

  “I saw boats,” Jack remarked. “I wonder if there are fish.”

  Toto said, “Fish, yes, fish.”

  “You know something?” Sam asked him.

  “My dad used to take me fishing.” Then, as if puzzled by his own words, he looked for the Spidey head that wasn’t there and said, “This isn’t that lake, is it? No, that was Lake Isabella.”

  “Okay,” Dekka said patiently. “Were there fish in that lake?”

  “Trout,” Toto said. “Bass. Also crappie. Fish.”

  “If we find fishing poles and stuff on the boats, it means there are fish,” Jack pointed out.

  “It’s only, like, half a mile. We could swim,” Sam said.

  “You could swim half a mile,” Dekka said. “Me, I’ll walk.”

  They climbed out, Sam with great reluctance. It was invigorating, this new and unexplored body of water. Who knew what might be found on or around the lake?

  But he understood that Dekka and the others might not be thrilled by a long, cold swim.

  The shore was a series of curves, like the edge of a lace doily made with sketchy sand beaches and rocky promontories. They soon came upon a trail and were laughing and chatting lightheartedly.

  Sam knew logically that without gas—and a lot of it—they’d never get enough water down to—

  He stopped dead. “Marinas,” he said. He felt a chill that had nothing to do with temperature. “Marinas. You know what they have?”

  “Boats?” Jack suggested, like he was afraid it was the wrong answer.

  “Boats.” Sam grinned. “Sailboats, maybe. But you know what else? Motorboats. Jet skis.”

  “You want to jet ski?”

  “What do jet skis run on, my friend?”

  “I want to say water,” Dekka said.

  “Gas!” Jack cried.

  Sam slapped him on the shoulder. “Yes! A marina isn’t a marina if they don’t have fuel.”

  He grinned and started to run toward the marina. A nagging voice in his head warned him not to hope, not to expect a good answer. It’s the FAYZ, the voice said.

  It’s still the FAYZ.

  But after so much pain, so many disappointments, and so many horrors, surely they were due for some good news?

  Surely.

  Lana opened her eyes.

  Patrick licked her face. Which was probably why she opened her eyes.

  Something heavy lay on her chest. A head. Long, dark hair.

  She pushed it away and it groaned, and said, “I’m awake.”

  Sanjit sat up, looked at her, and wiped drool from the corner of his mouth.

  Lana was on the beach. The sun was up but had not yet cleared the mountains. How she had come there she did not know. Instinctively she felt for her gun. It was not in her waistband. It had become tangled in the blanket.

  “How did I get here?”

  “I brought you here.”

  Lana absorbed that. “Why?” she demanded suspiciously.

  “You passed out.”

  Lana ran her hands through her tangled hair. She wiped her mouth and made a face, tasting the inside of her mouth. “You have any water?”

  “Sadly, no,” Sanjit said.

  She sighed and looked at him with tired eyes. “What is it with you? You don’t even have a blanket,” Lana said.

  “I wasn’t going to sleep.”

  “Tell me you weren’t watching me sleep, because then I’d have to throw up.”

  Sanjit grinned. “I did. I watched you sleep. And heard you sleep, too.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, you farted once. But mostly you talk in your sleep. Groan in your sleep.”

  “What did I say?”

  Sanjit made a show of trying to recall. “Well, mostly it was, urrgh, mmmm, unh, unh, don’t try to . . . urggh. And the fart was very, um, genteel. Like: poot-poot! Almost musical.”

  Lana stared at him.

  He shivered.

  “Are you cold?” she asked.

  “Just a little chilly. You know, from just waking up.” He shivered again and wrapped his arms around his drawn-up legs.

  She pulled her top blanket off, balled it up, sand flying, and shoved it at him. He draped it over his shoulders.

  “How many more dead?” she asked.

  “It was five total when we left.”

  Lana hung her head down for a moment and Sanjit remained silent. Then she stood up. She walked down to the water’s edge. She stripped off her outer clothing, leaving only her underthings.

  Then, gritting her teeth, she ran into the surf, and as soon as the water was up to her knees, she dove headfirst. It was freezing. But it was clean. It washed away the blood and the grim
e.

  She rinsed her mouth with salt water.

  Then, shivering, she came back out of the water and ran back to Sanjit.

  “You’re staring,” she said.

  “Yes. I am. I’m a teenage boy. Beautiful girls in wet underwear have a tendency to cause staring in teenage boys.”

  She bent down, picked up the blanket, shook the sand out of it, and wrapped it around her. Sanjit stood up.

  She kissed him on the mouth.

  A real kiss.

  He cupped her wet head in both hands and kissed her back.

  “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Lana said.

  For once, she noted with satisfaction, Sanjit did not seem to have a glib comeback. In fact he looked just a little sick, and very much as if he meant to kiss her again.

  “Back to the hospital,” she said.

  Brittney rose to consciousness on a narrow dirt path. Seven-foot-high dirt and stone walls hemmed her in, towered over her. And perched atop those walls, coyotes leered down, their mouths open, tongues lolling out.

  Jamal was behind her, checking the wire that held her arms pinned together at wrist and elbow.

  Her ankles, too, were tied, but with a loose rope so that she could take short steps, but not run.

  “Where are we?” Brittney asked.

  Jamal shrugged with his one good shoulder. “Somewhere Drake wants us to go.” He yawned, glanced up nervously at the coyotes, and yawned again.

  “You should get some rest,” Brittney said. “You’re in pain and tired.”

  “Here?” He laughed bitterly. “This feel like the place for a nap?”

  No, Brittney acknowledged silently. There was something dark about this place, even though the sun was up in the sky. Something about the air. Something about the look in the eyes of the coyotes. A darkness that reached inside to her un-beating heart.

  “I want to go back,” Brittney said.

  “Yeah? Me, too,” Jamal said. “But if I do, old Drake will whip the skin off me.”

  He shoved her forward. She stumbled when the rope snapped at her ankles and almost fell. But she caught herself and shuffled on, not knowing what else she could or should do.

  What must I do, Lord, to earn my true death and my place in your heaven?

  “This is a bad place, Jamal,” Brittney said. “I can feel it.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Drake is a bad boy, and he goes to bad places. But better off with him than against him, I figure.”

  They emerged from the cut-through in view of a half-ruined hole in the side of a sheer rock face. There was just enough pale pink light to see that the mine shaft was blocked by tons of fallen rock. The massive timbers that framed the hole were splintered and looked as if they might snap.

  Whatever evil Brittney felt, it came from there, from that hole, that pile of rocks.

  “Where are we?”

  “The mine shaft,” Jamal said. “Haven’t you heard all about that? In there? That’s the thing that gave Drake his whip.”

  “In where?” Brittney said. “It’s all collapsed. It’s sealed up.”

  “That’s probably good, huh? ’Cause if that thing feels this bad from out here, I don’t want to know what it feels like up close.” He bit his lip and in a low voice said, “Like a big claw holding your heart. Like icicles in your brain.”

  “Jamal, if you ran away . . .”

  He shook his head. “Drake would come after me. Look, you can’t be killed, right? And he can’t be killed, right? Which means, I betray him, sooner or later he gets me.”

  “Maybe fire,” Brittney said softly. “Maybe God’s holy fire can destroy us both.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t happen to have any of that.”

  “Only Sam can end this.”

  Jamal put up his hands in a who, me? gesture and said, “I am cool with that. If big Sam wants to take Drake out, I’m not going to say anything to stop him. But listen: all you’re trying to do is slow Drake down, girl. Him and Sam, they’re going to get into it eventually, right? So maybe you should be trying to speed him up, you see what I’m saying?”

  Brittney stared at Jamal. Was it a trick?

  Is this the devil tempting me?

  “What did the demon Drake ask you to do?”

  Jamal nodded at the cave. “He just said be here. He’s got in his head that he can talk to that thing in there. Or at least hear what it says.”

  Brittney could believe that. How could she not believe in things that seemed supernatural? Her brother sometimes spoke to her as an angel. And God was with her always. Wasn’t He?

  And she herself, this gruesome remnant of the girl she once was, she herself was something outside of nature.

  Was Sam the Lord’s servant? The very tool God had chosen to liberate Brittney? She’d begged Sam often for liberation. But God’s ways were not knowable to her. His time was not her time. His will be done.

  “What does Drake want of me?” Brittney asked.

  “Just, you know, don’t always be trying to run away so I have to tie your legs and slow us down and all.”

  “Is he going after Sam? Is that his plan, to go after Sam?”

  She thought she caught just the slightest falseness in Jamal’s eyes as he said, “That’s exactly his plan. Straight for Sam, as soon as he checks in with . . . you know.”

  “You can sleep, Jamal,” Brittney said. “Sleep until Drake comes back. I won’t run away.”

  “How am I going to trust you?”

  “Because I swear it. On the blood of the Lamb, I swear it.”

  Jamal woke to the pain of Drake kicking him.

  “What?”

  Drake was actually smiling. It wasn’t a good look for him.

  “You were asleep,” he said. “And I’m still here.”

  Jamal jumped up and quickly untied Drake. “Yeah, I did just what you said, Drake. Just like you said. I told her that you would go after Sam first thing. Then Sam would burn you both up and . . .”

  He gulped, suddenly realizing that this might be taking it too far.

  But Drake was in a charitable, expansive mood. He patted Jamal lightly on the cheek with the tip of his whip. “You did good. And I will get Sam Temple. Sooner or later.”

  Drake gazed at the mine shaft. What he felt toward the Darkness within was something very much like love. Fear, yes, but the Darkness deserved his fear. His fear and his devotion.

  If he had to pull the rocks out of there one by one, and if it took weeks, he would reach the Darkness and free him.

  “My old body’s down there,” Drake said, realizing it for the first time. “My old body is down there with him.”

  Drake felt a sudden pang of longing. He wanted to press his body against the rocks in the mine’s mouth. It would bring him closer. Maybe the Darkness would reach out to him, touch his mind, tell him what to do next.

  But he couldn’t do that in front of Jamal.

  “Start hauling rock,” Drake said. “You have to pile it, like, back over there.” He pointed a relatively flat space. “I don’t know how far the rock fall goes. It may take us a while. Put Brittney Pig to work when she comes back.”

  For two hours or more they lifted and carried. It would have helped if they had a wheelbarrow. It would have helped if Jamal’s arm weren’t broken. They had to lift each chunk of stone, each shattered timber. Some were big enough that they had to each take an end. Some were so big they couldn’t even budge them and had to just go around them.

  At the end of two hours they’d moved no more than a foot and a half deeper into the shaft.

  Brittney had reappeared once during that time and she had bought into the idea of helping with the digging. But Drake couldn’t kid himself: they weren’t getting anywhere. It could take months. Years. Forever.

  The coyotes came and went, watching, no doubt thinking about eating Jamal. So when Drake heard the sound of movement coming from around the bend in the road, he assumed it was coyotes.

  Only it
wasn’t the usual stealthy pad-pad-pad of coyotes. This was a sound with clicks and sudden rushes.

  Drake wiped his brow and turned warily toward the sound.

  It looked like something from a science fiction movie. Like an alien or a robot or something, because it was way too big to be just an insect.

  It was silver and bronze, dully reflective. It had an insect’s head with prominent, gnashing mouthparts that made Drake think of a Benihana chef flashing knives ceremonially. Its wickedly curved mandibles of black horn or bone protruded from the side of its mouth.

  It smelled like curry and ammonia. Bitter but with a tinge of curdled sweetness.

  More came now, scurrying up beside the first. They had eyes and antennae. The eyes were arresting: royal blue irises that could almost pass as human. But with nothing of human awareness, nothing of human vulnerability or emotion. Like ice chips.

  They ran in a rush on six legs, stopping, starting, then skittering forward again at alarming speed. Their tarnished silver wings folded back against bronze carapaces, like beetles or cockroaches. The wings sometimes flared slightly as they ran.

  Bugs. Maybe. But each at least five feet long and three feet tall, with antennae adding another foot.

  Drake stared into the soulless blue eyes of the first bug.

  He was ready with his whip hand, and Jamal was ready with his rifle, but Drake didn’t like his chances much if they were looking for a fight. There were a dozen of the creatures, jostling around one another, like ants pouring from a mound or wasps storming angrily from a disturbed hive.

  Drake felt a stab of fear: could he survive being eaten? Chopped into chunks by those gnashing mouths and swallowed?

  A coyote, keeping a cautious distance, loped to the top of the rise and spoke in the strangled speech his species had achieved.

  “See the Darkness,” the coyote said.

  “Them?” Drake asked. The coyotes and these monstrosities could communicate? “They want to see the Darkness? Fine,” Drake said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the mine. “Go for it.”

  “They hungry,” the coyote said.

  Drake didn’t have to ask what he was supposed to do about that. Because now the same foul, insinuating voice that was speaking through the coyote reached him directly, touched his willing, submissive mind and flooded it with a deep and awful joy.