Hunger

by Michael Grant

  The third thing he saw were the bats.

  They hung from the cave ceiling. They had leathery wings and big blinking yellow eyes. There were thousands packed close together.

  They stared at him.

  That’s when it occurred to him: bats didn’t stay in caves at night, they went out at night and hid during the day.

  Plus, normally, bats weren’t blue.

  And suddenly they began dropping, opening their wings. He was enveloped in a leathery tornado.

  He dove for the water. Freezing cold. He powered down and forward, aiming for the light. Much safer underwater, even with sharks or jellyfish or—

  The water around him churned and boiled.

  He screamed into bubbles.

  Thousands of bats swam around and past him, spun him around in a waterspout, slapped wetly at him with wings that suddenly seemed far more like flippers.

  He gagged on salt water, kicked and motored his arms in a panic crawl.

  He ran out of air after fifteen seconds. But he still did not see a way out. Should he turn back?

  He stopped. Froze in place. Enough air to make it back? And then what? Learn to live in a cave?

  Duck kicked his feet and plowed ahead, no longer sure which way he was going. Forward or back?

  Or just swimming in circles?

  At last he came up. His head broke the surface as ten thousand bats erupted from the water all around him, wheeled overhead, then dove straight back into the sea a hundred yards off.

  It wasn’t far to the beach. He just had to swim there. Before the water bats came back.

  “Just don’t get mad,” Duck chattered. “This would be a bad time to sink.”

  NINE

  82 HOURS, 38 MINUTES

  IT WAS MORNING. The buses were in the square. Edilio behind the wheel of one, yawning hugely. And Ellen, the fire marshal, behind the wheel of the other. Ellen was a small, dark, very serious girl. Sam had never seen her smile. She seemed to be a very capable girl, but she hadn’t really been put to the test much yet. But she was a good driver.

  Unfortunately, neither Ellen nor Edilio had many kids to drive.

  Astrid was standing there with Little Pete, offering moral support, Sam supposed.

  “I guess we don’t really need two buses,” Sam said.

  “You could just about go with a minivan,” Astrid agreed.

  “What is the matter with people?” Sam fumed. “I said we needed a hundred kids and we get thirteen? Fifteen, maybe?”

  “They’re just kids,” Astrid said.

  “We’re all just kids. We’re all going to be very hungry kids.”

  “They’re used to being told what to do by their parents or teachers. You need to be more direct. As in, Hey, kid, get to work. Now.” She thought for a moment then added, “Or else.”

  “Or else what?” Sam asked.

  “Or else…I don’t know. We’re not going to let anyone starve. If we can help it. I don’t know the ‘or else.’ All I know is you can’t expect kids to just automatically behave the right way. I mean, when I was little my mom would give me a gold star when I was good and take away a privilege when I wasn’t.”

  “What am I supposed to do? Tell three hundred kids spread out in seventy or eighty different homes that they can’t watch DVDs? Confiscate iPods?”

  “It’s not easy playing daddy to three hundred kids,” Astrid admitted.

  “I’m not anyone’s daddy,” Sam practically snarled. Another sleepless night, in a long string of them, had left him in a foul mood. “I’m supposed to be the mayor, not the father.”

  “These kids don’t know the difference,” Astrid pointed out. “They need parents. So they look to you. And Mother Mary. Me, even, to some extent.”

  Little Pete chose that moment to begin floating in the air. Just lifted off a foot, eighteen inches, hovered there, his arms floating, toes pointed downward.

  Sam noticed immediately. Astrid didn’t.

  “What the—”

  Sam stared, forgetting all about the empty school buses.

  Little Pete floated. His omnipresent Game Boy had fallen to the ground. In front of him, just a few feet away, something began to materialize.

  It was no bigger than Little Pete himself. Shiny red, laced with gold, a doll’s dead-eyed face atop a bowling pin body.

  “Nestor,” Little Pete said, almost happy.

  Sam recognized it. It was the nesting doll that sat on Little Pete’s dresser. Identical Russian dolls, shells, really, that nested one inside the other. Sam didn’t know how many there were. He had asked Astrid about it once. She’d said it was a souvenir from Moscow sent by some traveling uncle.

  It was supposed to be for Astrid, but Little Pete had taken to it immediately. He’d even given it the name: Nestor. And because Little Pete never identified much with toys, Astrid had let him keep it.

  “Nestor,” Little Pete repeated, but troubled now, uncertain.

  As Sam stared, transfixed, the nesting doll began to change. Its smooth, lacquered surface rippled. The colors ran together and formed new patterns. The eerie painted face grew sinister.

  Arms grew from its side, like twigs. The twigs thickened, grew flesh, grew talons.

  And the doll’s painted smile split open, revealing dagger-sharp teeth.

  Little Pete reached for the image, but the floating creature seemed to be made of Teflon: Little Pete’s hands slid over it, pushed it aside like someone trying to poke a globule of mercury, but never quite touched it.

  “No arms,” Little Pete said.

  The doll’s arms withered, shriveled, and turned to smoke.

  “Petey. Stop it,” Astrid hissed.

  “What is it?” Sam asked urgently. “What is that thing?”

  Astrid didn’t answer. “Petey. Window seat. Window seat.” It was a trigger phrase Astrid used to calm Little Pete down. Sometimes it worked. Other times not. But in this case, Sam didn’t think Little Pete seemed upset, he seemed fascinated. It was a weird thing to see that kind of alert, even intelligent, involvement on Little Pete’s usually blank face.

  The doll’s mouth opened. As if it would speak. Its eyes focused on Little Pete. Malevolent, hate-filled eyes.

  “No,” Little Pete said.

  The mouth snapped shut. It was a painted line once again. And the furious eyes dimmed. Painted dots once more.

  Astrid made a sound like a sob, quickly stifled. She stepped in, whispered, “Sorry,” and slapped Pete’s shoulder, hard.

  The effect was immediate. The creature disappeared. Pete fell in a heap, sprawled out on the brown grass.

  “Are you sure you should—” Sam began.

  Little Pete was capable of…well, no one was quite sure what he was capable of. All that Sam and Astrid knew was that Little Pete was far and away the most powerful mutant in the FAYZ.

  “I had to stop him,” Astrid said grimly. “It gets worse. It starts with Nestor. Then the arms. Then the mouth and the eyes. Like it’s trying to come alive. Like…” She knelt beside Little Pete and hugged him to her.

  Sam looked sharply toward the buses. The question in his mind—had Pete been observed?—was answered by the slack-jawed stares of the kids with their noses pressed against the dusty windows.

  Edilio was definitely wide awake now, and coming their way fast.

  Sam cursed under his breath. “This has happened before, Astrid?”

  She stuck out her chin defiantly. “A couple of times.”

  “You might have warned me.”

  “What the—I mean, what was that, man?” Edilio demanded.

  “Ask Astrid,” Sam snapped.

  Astrid handed Little Pete his Game Boy and pulled him gently to his feet. She kept her eyes down, unwilling to meet Sam’s accusing glare. “I don’t know what it is. It’s some kind of waking nightmare, maybe.” There was a distinct note of desperation to her voice.

  “The doll, the thing, whatever it was,” Sam said. “It was fighting Pete, and Pete was figh
ting back. Like it was trying to come to life.”

  “Yes,” Astrid whispered.

  Edilio was the only other person who knew Little Pete’s history. It had been Edilio who had retrieved the videotape from the power plant that showed the moment of the nuclear meltdown when a panicked, uncomprehending Little Pete, there with his father, had reacted by creating the FAYZ.

  Edilio asked the question that was on Sam’s mind. “Something was fighting Little Pete?” Edilio asked, “Man, who or what has the power to take on Little Pete?”

  “We don’t talk about this with anyone else,” Sam said firmly. “Someone asks you about it, you just say it must have been some kind of…”

  “Some kind of what?” Edilio asked.

  “Optical illusion,” Astrid supplied.

  “Yeah, that’ll work,” Edilio said sarcastically. Then he shrugged. “Kids got other things to worry about. Hungry people don’t waste much time on questions.”

  If others learned of Little Pete’s guilt…and his power…he would never be safe. Caine would do anything it took to capture if not kill the strange little boy.

  “Edilio, put everyone on one bus. Take a couple of your guys and start driving down residential streets. Go door to door. Round up as many kids as you can. Pack the bus, then take them to pick some melons or whatever.”

  Edilio looked dubious but said, “Okay, Mr. Mayor.”

  “Astrid. You come with me.” Sam stalked off with Astrid and Little Pete trailing.

  “Hey, don’t start getting all high and mighty with me,” Astrid yelled at his back.

  “I’d just appreciate it if you’d let me know when some new weirdness breaks out. That’s all.” Sam kept moving, but Astrid grabbed his arm. He stopped, glancing around guiltily to make sure no one was in eavesdropping distance.

  “What was I supposed to tell you?” Astrid demanded in a terse whisper. “Little Pete’s hallucinating? He’s floating off the ground? What were you going to do about it?”

  He held up his hands in a placating gesture. But his voice was no less angry. “I’m just trying to keep up, you know? It’s like I’m playing a game where the rules keep changing. So today’s rules are, hey, killer worms and hallucinating five-year-olds. I can’t do anything about it, but it’s nice to get a heads up.”

  Astrid started to say something, but stopped herself. She took a couple of calming breaths. Then, in a more measured tone, she said, “Sam, I figured you had enough on your shoulders. I’m worried about you.”

  He dropped his hands to his sides. His voice dropped as well. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not,” Astrid said. “You don’t sleep. You never have a minute to yourself. You act like everything that goes wrong is your fault. You’re worried.”

  “Yeah, I’m worried,” he said. “Last night we had a kid who killed and ate a cat. The whole time he’s telling me about it he’s weeping. He’s sobbing. He used to have a cat himself. He likes cats. But he was so hungry, he grabbed it and…”

  Sam had to stop. He bit his lip and tried to shake off the despair that swept over him. “Astrid, we’re losing. We’re losing. Everyone is…” He looked at her and felt tears threaten. “How long before we have kids doing worse than killing cats?”

  When Astrid didn’t answer, Sam said, “Yeah, so I’m worried. You look around the plaza here. Two weeks from now? Two weeks from now it’s Darfur, or whatever, if we don’t figure something out. Three weeks from now? I don’t want to think about it.”

  He started toward his office but plowed into two kids absorbed in yelling at each other. They were brothers, Alton and Dalton. It was clear they’d been fighting for a while.

  Under normal circumstances it might not have been a big deal—fights were breaking out all the time—but both boys had submachine guns hanging from their shoulders. Sam lived in fear of one of Edilio’s soldiers doing something stupid with the guns they carried. Ten-, eleven-, twelve-year-old kids with guns weren’t exactly the U.S. Army.

  “What now?” Sam snapped at them.

  Dalton stabbed an accusing finger at his brother. “He stole my Junior Mints.”

  The mere mention of Junior Mints made Sam’s stomach rumble.

  “You had…” He had to stop himself from focusing on the candy. Candy! How had Dalton managed to hoard actual candy? “Deal with it,” Sam said and kept moving. Then he stopped. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you two supposed to be out at the power plant?”

  Alton answered. “No, our shift was last night. We came back this morning in the van. And I did not steal his stupid Junior Mints. I didn’t even know he had Junior Mints.”

  “Then who stole them?” his brother demanded hotly. “I ate two each shift. One at the beginning, one at the end. I ate one when I got there last night and I counted them all. I had seven left. And then this morning when I went to have another one, the box was empty.”

  Sam said, “Did it ever occur to you it might be one of the other kids standing guard?”

  “No,” Dalton said. “Heather B and Mike J were at the guardhouse. And Josh was asleep the whole time.”

  “What do you mean Josh was asleep?” Sam said.

  The brothers exchanged nearly identical guilty looks. Dalton shrugged. “Sometimes Josh sleeps. It’s no big deal—he’ll wake up if anything happens.”

  “Doesn’t Josh watch the security cameras?”

  “He says he can’t see anything. Nothing ever happens. It’s just like pictures of the road and the hills and the parking lot and all.”

  “We stayed up. Mostly,” Alton said.

  “Mostly. How much is ‘mostly’?” Sam got no answer. “Get going. Go ahead. And stop fighting. You weren’t supposed to be hoarding food, anyway, Dalton. Serves you right.” He wanted badly to ask where the kid had found candy, and ask if there was more, but that would have been the wrong message. Bad example.

  Still, Sam thought, what if there was still candy? Somewhere? Somewhere in the FAYZ?

  Edilio’s bus began to pull away. Ellen was onboard and Sam figured Edilio would stop off and grab a couple of his soldiers to help with the drafting of workers for the fields.

  Sam could imagine the scenes that would be played out house by house. The whining. The complaining. The running away. Followed by a lazy, mostly wasted effort to pick fruit by kids who didn’t want to work in the hot sun for hours.

  He thought briefly of E.Z. Of the worms. Albert was taking Orc to the cabbage field this morning, to test Howard’s suggestion that he would be invulnerable. Hopefully, that would work.

  For a brief moment he worried that the worms might have spread. But even if they had, surely not to the melon field. It was a mile from the cabbages.

  A mile was a long distance to cover if you were a worm.

  “Beer me,” Orc bellowed.

  Albert handed Howard a red and blue can of beer. A Budweiser. That’s what Albert had the most of, and Orc didn’t seem to have any particular brand loyalty.

  Howard popped the tab and extended it out of the driver’s side window, reaching back. Orc snatched it as they drove down the pitted dirt road.

  Orc sat in the bed of the pickup truck. He was too big to fit in anything smaller, too big to fit inside the truck’s cab. Howard was driving. Albert was in the front seat, squeezed in beside a large polystyrene cooler. The cooler had the logo of the University of California, Santa Barbara. It was full of beer.

  “You know, we should have hung out more, back in the old days,” Howard said to Albert.

  “You didn’t know I existed, back in the old days,” Albert said.

  “What? Come on, man. There’s, like, a dozen brothers in the whole school and I didn’t notice one?”

  “We’re the same shade, Howard. That doesn’t make us friends,” Albert said coolly.

  Howard laughed. “Yeah, you were always a grind. Reading too much. Thinking too much. Not having much fun. Good little family boy, make your momma proud. Now look at you: you’re a big man in the FAYZ.�
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  Albert ignored that. He wasn’t interested in reminiscing. Not with Howard, for sure, not really with anyone. The old world was dead and gone. Albert was all about the future.

  As if reading his mind, Howard said, “You’re always planning, aren’t you? You know it’s true. You are all business.”

  “I’m just like everyone else: trying to figure out how to make it,” Albert said.

  Howard didn’t respond directly. “The way I see it? It’s Sam, top dog. No question. Astrid and Edilio? They’re only something because they’re in Sam’s crew. But you, man, you are your own thing.”

  “What thing is that?” Albert asked, keeping his tone neutral.

  “You got two dozen kids working under you, man. You’re in charge of the food. Between you and me? I know you have a food stash somewhere.”

  Albert did not so much as blink. “If I have a secret food stash, why am I so hungry?”

  Howard laughed. “Because you are a smart little uptight dude, that’s why. I’m smart, too. In my own way.”

  Albert said nothing. He knew where the conversation was going. He wasn’t going to help Howard lay it out.

  “Both of us are smart. Both of us are brothers in a very white town. You with the food. Me with Orc.” He jerked a thumb back toward the monster. “Time may come you need some muscle to go along with all that planning and ambition of yours.”

  Albert turned to face Howard, wanting to send the signal clearly, unambiguously. “Howard?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I am loyal to Sam.”

  Howard threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, man, I’m just messing with you. We are all of us loyal to Sam. Sam, Sam the laser-shooting surfer man.”

  They had reached the deadly cabbage field. Howard pulled over and turned off the engine.

  “Beer me,” Orc yelled.

  Albert dug in the cooler, hand plunged into ice water. He handed the can to Howard. “Last one till he does some work.”

  Howard handed it back to Orc.

  Orc yelled, “Open it, moron, you know I can’t pop the tab.”

  Howard took the beer back and popped the tab. It made a sound just like a soda, but the smell was sour. “Sorry, Orc,” Howard said.