Hunger

by Michael Grant

  “I guess I am,” he said. “Long day. Hey, did you know Quinn is fishing? He caught something big this morning.”

  “I didn’t know. That’s good.” She looked troubled. “We should have thought of that. Fishing, I mean.”

  “We’re not going to think of everything, I guess,” Sam said wearily. That was the problem with having one person in charge. People expected you to come up with all the answers. They stopped coming up with answers for themselves. Quinn had opened up a new possibility all by himself. And now he was turning to Albert for help, not to Sam.

  “What’s he doing with the fish?”

  “We sent a lot of it over to the day care this morning. We got some protein to the littles, at least.”

  “A lot of it?” She raised an eyebrow. “What’s Quinn doing with the rest? He’s not hoarding it, I hope.”

  “He’s…” Sam stopped himself. The last thing he wanted was to argue about Quinn and Albert and fish. “Actually, can we talk about that tomorrow? The important thing is that the littles got some protein today. Can we just be happy about that?”

  Astrid laid her hand against his cheek. “Go to bed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He trudged upstairs, feeling better than he had all day. He passed Mary coming down. “Hey, Mary. Back to work?”

  “What else would I be doing?” she said. “Sorry, that sounded cranky.”

  “If you can’t be cranky, who can?” Sam said. “But hey, are you getting enough to eat?”

  Mary seemed startled. “What?”

  “I was wondering if you were getting enough food. You’ve lost some weight. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you look good.”

  “Thanks,” Mary managed to say. “I’m um…Yes, I’m getting plenty to eat.”

  “Did you get some of the fish this morning?”

  Mary nodded. “Yes. It was really great.”

  “Okay. Later.”

  Sam had the use of what had once been a guest room. It was nicely made up, had its own bathroom, with very soft matching towels. He kept the room very neat and clean because it was still somehow not his room. He couldn’t imagine it ever being his room. This house belonged to…well, that was a good question. But it sure wasn’t his.

  Which did not stop him from sliding between the sheets and passing almost instantly from hectic consciousness to sleep.

  But there was no peace in his dreams. He had a dream of his mother. Only she wasn’t really his mother in the dream, not the real person. She was the creature who had called for him in the midst of what would have been the poof.

  Happy fifteenth birthday, Sam, now step out of the FAYZ into…into no one knew what.

  Some kind of illusion. Seeing what you wanted to see. And yet, it had seemed so real at the time. In his dream, Sam relived that moment.

  He saw Caine, his fraternal twin, within a circle of blistering light. He saw their mother. And he saw a girl, maybe twelve, thin, with a lot of thick ponytail. He wondered in a vague sort of way about the girl. There had been no girl there during the poof. Not inside the distortion. No girl.

  But now that dream was dissolving into another. Sam was standing at the bottom of the town hall front steps and there were cans as big as trash barrels rolling down the steps. It started with a can of beans. And then another. And then a can of ravioli. The cans started coming faster and now Sam was trying to climb the steps but he couldn’t because every time he lifted a foot to set it down on a step, he found another can hurtling toward him.

  Now a cascade of little cans, almost like insects scurrying around under his feet. He was tripping, slipping and sliding in a cascade of cans, unable to rise.

  In his dream he looked up and saw a girl, the same girl again. Lots of brown hair drawn back in a long ponytail. The girl. She was at the top of the stairs. But she wasn’t throwing the cans.

  The cans became Junior Mints. In cans, oddly, but with the familiar green Junior Mints label. Cans of them rolling and tumbling and tripping Sam, who now was buried under them.

  Sam was aware of someone standing beside him. Not a person, an insect, a bug of indistinct shape.

  The giant bug picked up a Junior Mint, which now was not a can but a big, novelty-sized box.

  Sam woke suddenly.

  Astrid was shaking him, yelling right in is face, scared. “Wake up!”

  He was up in a flash, almost knocking Astrid over.

  “What?”

  “Petey,” Astrid cried. Her eyes were wild with fear.

  Sam ran for Pete’s room. He stopped dead in the hallway outside it. The door was open.

  Pete was in his bed. He wasn’t moving. His eyes were shut. His face was peaceful. He was asleep. But how he could sleep was beyond Sam, because the room around Pete was filled with monsters.

  Literally filled. Wall to wall. Up to the ceiling.

  Monsters. A hundred nightmares’ worth of monsters. They slithered from under his bed. They crawled from his closet. They floated like they were helium balloons. Like an entire Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in miniature had floated into Little Pete’s room. But instead of cartoon Shrek and the Cat in the Hat there were things much more sinister in their place.

  One of the smaller ones had purple wings in three pairs, grasping tendrils hanging from its belly, a head like the end of a syringe with bloodred eyeballs perched on top.

  The largest was a shaggy monstrosity like a grizzly bear with eighteen-inch spikes at the ends of its paws.

  There were creatures that were all sharp edges, as if they’d been assembled out of razor blades and kitchen knives. There were creatures of glowing magma. There were creatures who flew and others who slithered.

  “Like the other day? In the plaza?” Sam asked in a shaky whisper.

  “No. Look: they cast shadows,” Astrid said urgently. “They’re making sounds. They smell.”

  The big shaggy monster shifted shape as they watched. The brown fur lightened toward white, then veered suddenly to green.

  Its mouth moved.

  Opened.

  A sound came from it, like a strangling cat. An eerie mewling.

  Then the mouth snapped shut with an audible click. The mouth melted and disappeared beneath new-grown fur.

  “It was trying to speak,” Astrid whispered.

  A mustard-colored creature with a vaguely canine shape, pickax head, antennae, and twin tubes mounted on its eyeless head was changing shape as it floated. Its feet were shifting, from mere pads to sharp-ended, fishhook-barbed spears. The barbs clicked in and out. Like the creature was practicing with them, discovering their use.

  And then, with its shape determined at last, it too attempted to speak. This time the sound was even less coherent, a chittering, insect sound that died out suddenly when a fleshy membrane grew over its mouth.

  “Do they see us?” Sam wondered aloud.

  “I don’t know. See how they’re staring at Petey?”

  It was absurd to think about reading the faces of the monsters—some had five eyes; some had a single eye; some had gnashing, razor teeth and no eyes at all. But to Sam they seemed to be gazing with something like awe at Little Pete, who snored softly, oblivious.

  A snake as long as a python slithered by, twisting in midair. Tiny centipede legs grew from it, reminiscent almost of the zekes, though these legs looked like they were made for sticking like Velcro.

  The snake’s mouth hissed. The hissing grew in volume, then stopped abruptly: the snake’s entire head had simply disappeared.

  “They’re trying to communicate,” Astrid said. “Something is stopping them. Something won’t let them speak.”

  “Or someone,” Sam said. “If they attack us…” He raised his hands, palms out.

  Instantly Astrid pressed his hands down. “No, Sam. You might hit Petey.”

  “What happens if he wakes up?”

  “The other times the visions just disappeared. But this is different. Look. Look at the curtains, they’re singed where that…that
lava thing got near them.”

  Sam made up his mind. “Wake him up.”

  “What if—” she began.

  “Look, maybe they’re not a threat. But maybe they are. If they are, I’m not just going to let them hurt you, I’m going to burn them.”

  Then he added, “If I can.”

  “Pete,” Astrid called in a quavering voice.

  Until that moment none of the creatures had taken any notice of the two frail-looking humans standing there gawking. But now every eye, every set of eyes, every quivering antenna, turned toward them. It was so sudden, Sam imagined he heard their eyeballs click.

  Red eyes, black eyes, yellow-slitted eyes, globular blue eyes, maybe fifty eyes in all, stared straight at Sam and Astrid.

  “Try again,” Sam whispered. He stretched out his arms again, opened his palms toward the monsters, ready.

  “Petey,” Astrid said more urgently.

  Now monstrous bodies shifted. They moved almost as one, some clumsy, some like lightning, but all moving as if they were Disney animatronics operating off the same signal. They turned to face Sam and Astrid.

  One after another their mouths opened. Sounds came from those mouths. Grunts and hisses, hoots and growls; sounds like steel dragged on porcelain, sounds like the chirping of crickets, sounds like mad dogs barking. Not words, but sounds that wanted to be words, were struggling to be words.

  It was a chorus of fury and frustration. And it stopped as suddenly as if someone had yanked the plug from a stereo.

  The monsters glared at Sam and Astrid, as though they were to blame for the silencing.

  Sam cursed softly.

  “Walk backward. Down the hall,” Sam ordered. “They’ll have to come at us one by one and Pete won’t be in the line of fire.”

  “Sam…”

  “Not really a good time for a debate, Astrid,” Sam said through gritted teeth. “Back slowly away.”

  She did. He followed, one foot directly behind the other, arms up, his mutant’s weapons at the ready.

  But no way he’d get them all if they came. No way. He could get a few, maybe, if they could even be burned. How did you burn a creature made of magma?

  Step by step till they were halfway down the hall. Ten feet. Fifteen. The monsters would have to come at him down that hallway. That gave him all the advantage he was going to get. Pete was out of the direct line of fire.

  “Call him again. Louder this time.”

  “He doesn’t always respond.”

  “Try.”

  “Pete,” Astrid shouted, fear giving volume to her voice. “Petey, wake up! Wake up, wake up!”

  Through the doorway Sam saw the floating creatures, all those that didn’t have wings anyway, suddenly land with convincing weight on the floor. The floorboards jumped from the impact.

  The six-winged creature was first. Fast as a dragonfly it zoomed straight for Astrid.

  A scorching green-white light shot from Sam’s hands. The winged thing burst into flame. But it already had too much momentum.

  Sam dropped, reached back to yank Astrid down, found that she had already ducked. The flaming corpse, wings shriveled like burning leaves, blew over their heads.

  Mary Terrafino blundered into the hallway. “What is happening!”

  “Mary! Back! Backbackback!” Sam yelled.

  Mary jumped back into her room as the mustard-colored, eyeless dog with antennae attacked, feet clicking and scrabbling on the hardwood.

  It had two tubes on its head. Sam was sure it hadn’t had them just moments earlier.

  Something pale blue shot from the tubes. Slime covered one of Sam’s hands, thick as oatmeal, sticky as rubber cement.

  With the other hand, Sam fired again. The thing burned, slowed, but did not stop.

  And now all the nightmares were pushing and shoving to get through the door, jostling for the chance to attack, and then—

  Then they were gone.

  Simply gone.

  All but the still-sizzling remains of the six-winged bug and the goo-spraying canine. Astrid rushed into Little Pete’s room. Sam was only a step behind. Little Pete was sitting up in bed, eyes open, unfocused.

  Astrid threw herself onto the bed and put her arms around him.

  “Oh, Petey, Petey,” she cried.

  Sam crossed quickly to the window. The curtain that had been singed was now burning. He yanked at it, pulled it down to stomp on it, and in the process knocked a shelf full of nesting dolls to the floor. Sam stamped the fire out. One foot crushed one of the gaily painted red nesting dolls. The outer doll splintered. The doll nestled within rolled free into the flame.

  Sam stamped it all out.

  “You have a fire extinguisher?” he asked. He was trying to wipe the mucousy substance from his hand and not having much luck. “Just to be safe, we should—”

  But then, through the window he saw something almost as frightening as the monsters. There was a girl standing across the street. She was gazing up at him.

  She had huge dark eyes, and an abundance of brown hair pulled back into a ponytail.

  The girl from his dream.

  Sam ran from the room, tumbled down the steps, and burst out onto the street.

  The girl was nowhere to be seen.

  Sam ran back inside to face a terrified Mary and Astrid, who, to his amazement, was taking notes on a pad of paper even as she hugged her brother.

  “What in the—” Sam began.

  “They were adapting, Sam,” Astrid interrupted urgently. “Did you see? They were changing as we watched them. Altering their physical shapes. Evolving.”

  She scribbled, wiped tears from her face, and scribbled some more.

  “What is going on?” Mary Terrafino asked in an abashed, diffident whisper, like she was intruding.

  Sam turned to her. “Mary. You don’t talk about this.”

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” Mary asked, looking at Little Pete, who was yawning now and beginning to drift back to sleep. “There’s something about him.”

  “There are a lot of things about him, Mary,” Sam confessed wearily. “But it stays between us. I need to be able to trust you on this.”

  Mary nodded. She seemed torn between staying and arguing and returning to the relative sanity of her room. Sanity won out.

  “This isn’t right,” Astrid whispered as she laid her brother back on his pillow.

  “You think?” Sam asked shrilly.

  Astrid stroked Little Pete’s forehead. “Petey, you can’t do that again. You might hurt someone. You might hurt me. And then who would take care of you?”

  “Yeah, no more monsters, Petey,” Sam said.

  “No more monsters,” Astrid echoed.

  Little Pete closed his eyes. “No more monsters,” he said through a huge yawn.

  “I made him be quiet,” Little Pete added.

  “Made who be quiet?” Sam asked.

  “Petey. Who?” Astrid pleaded. “Who? Who was it? What did he want to say?”

  “Hungry,” Little Pete said. “Hungry in the dark.”

  “What does that mean?” Astrid pleaded.

  But Little Pete had fallen asleep.

  FOURTEEN

  36 HOURS, 47 MINUTES

  “SHE’S BEEN LIKE this ever since.” Bug—the visible Bug—waved his hand at Orsay, who sat knock-kneed and slump-shouldered on the front steps of Coates Academy.

  Caine stared down at her with more than casual interest. He touched the top of Orsay’s head and noted the way she flinched. “Been there. I think,” he said.

  Diana yawned. She was still dressed in her silk pajamas with a robe pulled around her as if it was cold. It was never really cold in the FAYZ.

  Bug swayed back and forth, barely able to stay awake.

  “What was happening when she started zoning out?” Caine asked Bug.

  “What?” Bug snapped his head forward, jerking himself awake. “She was in one of Sam’s dreams. Something about cans of food. Then all of a sudden ther
e’s this, like, creepy light show going on in one of the other rooms in the house and then it was like Orsay was on drugs or something.”

  “What do you know about drugs?” Diana asked.

  Bug shrugged. “Joe junior, my big brother, he got high a lot.”

  Caine knelt down in front of Orsay. Gently he lifted her face. “Snap out of it,” he said.

  There was no response. So he slapped her once, hard but with no malice. His palm left a pink stain on her cheek.

  Orsay’s eyes flickered. She looked like a person waking up many hours too early.

  “Sorry,” Caine said. He was very close to her. Close enough to inhale her breath. Close enough to hear her heart pounding like a cornered rabbit’s. “I need to know what you saw.”

  The corner of her mouth turned down, like a crudely drawn cartoon of fear and sadness and something else.

  “Come on,” Caine cajoled. “Whatever dreams you had, I’ve had worse. Terrible stuff you don’t even want to know about.”

  “They weren’t terrible,” Orsay said in a small voice. “They were…overpowering. They made me want more.”

  Caine shifted his weight away from her. “Then why are you all freaked out?”

  “In his dreams…in his dreams the world…Everything is so…” She formed her hands as if trying to make a shape out of something that defied definition.

  “Sam’s dreams?” Caine demanded, half skeptical, half angry.

  Orsay looked sharply at him. “No. No, not Sam. Sam’s dreams are easy. There’s no magic in them.”

  “Then tell me about them. That’s what I sent you to find out.”

  Orsay shrugged. “He’s…I don’t know. Like, worried. He’s distracted,” she said dismissively. “He thinks he’s screwing up and, anyway, he just wants to get away from it all. And of course, he thinks about food a lot.”

  “Poor baby,” Diana said. “All that power. All that responsibility. Boo-hoo.”

  Caine laughed. “I guess being the boss isn’t what Sam thought it would be.”

  “I think it’s exactly what he thought it would be,” Diana argued. “I don’t think he ever wanted any of this. I think he just wanted to be left alone.” That last sentence she spoke pointedly.

  “I don’t leave people alone when they screw with me,” Caine said. “Useful information, Diana.”