Hunger

by Michael Grant

  As he was discovering.

  He was, in effect, lying on his side at the moment, trying to come all the way around to face the ground. You couldn’t really push against air.

  But that was okay. He’d figure it out.

  One thing he was considering was picking some cabbages or melons. Not now, not with the sun going down. But maybe in the morning. All that lovely, lovely food right out there in the fields. And he would be able to float just above the ground, out of range of the zekes, but able to reach down and snag a nice, juicy cantaloupe.

  Only problem was, how to get out over the field to begin with. And then, how to get back. If there was no breeze, he might stay hovering above a deadly zeke field forever.

  That was not a happy thought. Not at all. To make his power really useful he would have to learn how to move once he was in the air.

  Right now he was having a hard enough time just keeping his eye on the ground below.

  Something was definitely going on down below. There was some big thing going on in the plaza. Someone had driven a convertible right onto the grass. Sam was not going to be happy about that. And now there were maybe fifty kids down there, all milling around like they were having a party.

  Duck smelled the meat before he saw it.

  He had to squint hard in the failing light. There it was, across the hood of the car. A deer.

  Now someone was building a fire in the dry bed of the fountain. The smoke was rising toward Duck, just a whiff, really, although he supposed it could get to be irritating eventually.

  He was drifting on the slight breeze, so he wasn’t too worried. What he was, was ravenous. The smell of meat was overwhelming. No wonder kids were freaking out.

  He couldn’t see who the kids were, just the tops of their heads, which didn’t tell you much. But then he saw that one boy was tied by a rope to the bumper of the car.

  Suddenly Duck had a very bad feeling about this gathering.

  He spotted a face he knew, Mike Farmer, one of Edilio’s soldiers. He was staring straight up at Duck.

  Duck gave a little wave. He smiled. He was about to say, “Hey, what’s going on down there?”

  Then Mike yelled, “There’s one up there! Look! It’s one of them!”

  One of who? Duck wondered.

  Face after face looked up at him. Even the boy who was tied up. Hunter. It was Hunter, and not looking good, either. Looking like he’d been beaten up.

  Others in the crowd looked up at Duck. And then, Zil.

  Duck found himself staring down at Zil. Meeting his eyes. Realizing in one terrible moment what was happening below. Sam, gone. Edilio, gone. No one in charge. All of the leaders off. And Zil with Hunter as his prisoner and fresh meat on the menu.

  “A chud spy!” Turk shouted.

  “Get him!” Zil shouted.

  Someone threw a rock. Duck saw it rise toward him, arc gracefully, and fall away.

  Another rock, closer, but still too low.

  Then Mike raised his rifle to his shoulder and took aim.

  Sam was on the bus. Sun shining so bright through the windows.

  It was bouncing along. Quinn there beside him. But something was wrong with Quinn, something Sam didn’t want to look at.

  Sam felt people staring at him. Eyes on the back of his head. Music playing from far away. Against Me! singing “Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart.”

  Something was happening at the front of the bus. The driver. He was clutching at his heart.

  I’ve been here, Sam thought. This happened.

  This happened.

  Only it would be different this time. Last time, so long ago, he had taken the wheel as the driver slumped over from his heart attack.

  But had the driver had a tentacle around his throat?

  And had Sam been screaming?

  Sam lurched to his feet, startled to find himself doing it. He hadn’t intended to. But he was up and lurching from side to side, grabbing seatbacks for support, eyes staring at him.

  The driver turned and grinned at him with teeth dripping blood.

  The guardrail swung open like a big gate, and the bus roared through and plunged over the cliff. Falling, falling, the rocks and the sea rushing up at him, the whole bus full of kids not really reacting, not caring, just staring and the driver grinning, and now the worms…

  Sam tried to cry out, but his voice didn’t work. He was choked by the driver’s snake arm, choked and spinning.

  Sam knew it was a dream, yes, had to be because the bus just kept falling forever and nothing could fall forever. Could it?

  The dreamscape changed suddenly and he was no longer on the bus. He was coming around the corner into his kitchen and Astrid, not his mother, whom he expected to see, but Astrid, was yelling at someone he couldn’t see.

  No time for this, Sam told himself. No time for dreaming.

  No time to waste here.

  Wake up, Sam.

  But no part of his body worked anymore. He was glued down. Tied with a thousand tiny ropes that squirmed and writhed like snakes or worms.

  And yet now, now, somehow he was moving.

  He opened his eyes. Was he seeing this? Was he seeing the room, the floor, the dome ceiling a million miles away?

  Was any of it real?

  On the floor lay what looked like something washed up from the bottom of the deepest ocean. Pale and fleshy, moist. No more than eighteen inches long. It was pulsating slightly, just a ripple that moved it very slightly. Like a slug might move.

  Sam felt sure he should know what the thing was. But he wasn’t even sure it was real. And he had to go now. Now or never. Up out of the dark pit and out into the world while the morphine lasted.

  Not real, he thought as he moved past the slug.

  Maybe, he said to himself, as he shifted one foot forward. Maybe none of it is real. Except for this foot. And that foot. One then the other.

  Duck felt the breeze of the first bullet.

  He zoomed upward as fast he could. Which was not very fast.

  The second bullet was farther from its target.

  Duck yelled, “Hey! Stop it!”

  “Freak! Freak!” voices cried up at him.

  “I didn’t hurt anyone!” Duck yelled back.

  “So why not come on down here?” Turk shouted. Then, like he had said something brilliant, he accepted a high five from some chubby kid with a bottle of booze in one fist.

  Maybe fifty faces were gaping up at Duck, orange highlights and black shadows in the light of the bonfire. Halloween colors. They looked strange. Little ovals with staring eyeballs and open mouths. He could barely even recognize them because this wasn’t how you looked at people, from way up high, them with their necks craning.

  He saw the barrel of the gun, and the face behind it, one eye open, the other squinted shut. Aiming. At him.

  “Get him!” Zil encouraged. “You get the first steak if you can hit him.”

  “Mike!” Duck yelled. “You’re a soldier, dude. You’re not supposed to—”

  Duck saw the muzzle flash. He heard the bang.

  “Why are you shooting at me?” Duck cried.

  Careful aim. A muzzle flash. A loud crack.

  “Stop, man, stop!”

  “You’re missing him,” Zil yelled.

  “Let me have that stupid gun,” Hank demanded. He jumped out of the convertible and ran toward Mike.

  It may have been Hank’s jostling that saved Duck’s life. The third bullet whizzed by.

  Hank grabbed the gun away.

  Meanwhile, Duck had risen another thirty or forty feet, higher than he’d gone before. He was up to a giddy height now. He could see the roof of town hall. He was higher than the steeple of the church had been. He could see the school in one direction, Clifftop in the other. He could see far out to sea.

  He was probably a hundred feet up now, ten stories. And up here was just a bit more of a breeze blowing off the water, pushing him gently, like a loose helium balloon, back in
land.

  Too slow.

  Hank fired. A miss. But a close one.

  It was insane. He was rising, rising, but too slow, too slow, and Hank had all the time in the world to take careful aim, to line up the back sights with the front, to settle them just below his target, and squeeze off a round.

  Duck tensed, awaiting the bullet. Wondering if it would hit his leg, his arm, and merely cause horrible pain. Or strike his heart or head, and finish him.

  Hank squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

  Hank threw the gun at Mike in disgust.

  Mike frantically reloaded, but in the time it took him to slide in more bullets, Duck had floated and drifted higher and farther.

  Hank fired. By the time the bullet had come close to Duck, gravity had slowed it. Duck could see it fly past his head. He saw the moment it reached its apogee. And then he watched it drop back toward the ground.

  Duck threw up as he drifted over the church. Sacrilege, probably. But his stomach was empty, so not much rained down on the shattered building below.

  Duck floated on. Away from the horror unfolding in the plaza. They were going to kill Hunter. Hunter, who had begged for his help.

  Nothing he could do: he went where the wind blew. And nothing he could have done—except get shot—if the wind blew him the other way.

  “Superpowers,” he said to himself, “don’t always make you a superhero.”

  She had lost herself again.

  She kept coming and going. One minute there, the next gone.

  Sometimes she was inside herself. Inside her own brain. Other times she was somewhere else, looking at herself from a distance.

  It was so sad seeing what had become of Lana Arwen Lazar.

  Then she would be there, right inside her own lolling head, looking out through her own red-rimmed eyes.

  She walked now. Two feet. Walking.

  Seeing the stone walls beside her.

  Danger ahead—the gaiaphage felt it, and so did she. So did she. Had to be stopped.

  Something Lana was supposed to get. Something she had dropped.

  She stopped. The gaiaphage didn’t know what to call it. And for a moment Lana couldn’t make sense of the images in her head. The flat-steel surfaces. The cross-hatched grip.

  “No,” she begged the creature.

  “No, I don’t want to,” she cried as she knelt.

  Her hand groped for it. Fingers touched it. It was cold. Her index finger curled around the trigger. If she could just raise it to her own head, if she could…

  But now she was walking, and the weight was in her hand, so heavy. So terribly heavy.

  She reached the truck, still locking the mine shaft entrance. She crawled onto the hood, sobbing. Slid through the shattered window, indifferent to the glass as it cut her palms and knees.

  Why couldn’t she stop herself? Why couldn’t she stop this hand, that foot?

  The light of the stars overhead was blinding as she stepped into the mouth of the mine shaft.

  The enemy there, the danger.

  Lana knew the enemy’s name. She knew what the enemy would do. When the gaiaphage had fed, he would be ready for Dekka. More than ready.

  But not yet.

  “Don’t,” Lana said to Dekka. “Don’t.”

  Dekka froze. There was a look of horror on her face.

  The other one stood to one side. He carried a gun. Lana knew his name, too. Edilio. But he was not the danger.

  “It’s Lana,” Dekka said.

  “Lana, run to us,” Edilio said. He held out his hand.

  Lana felt an overwhelming feeling of sadness. A sob that filled the world. It was as if that outstretched hand was all she could see, all she could feel.

  She wanted so badly to reach for it.

  “Come on, Lana,” Edilio urged.

  Tears filled Lana’s eyes. Her head moved slowly, side to side. “I don’t want to,” her voice said.

  Lana lifted the gun.

  “I don’t…,” Lana whispered.

  She took aim. Inside her head a scream a scream a scream.

  “Lana, no!” Dekka cried.

  Lana didn’t hear the shot. But she felt the gun buck in her hand. She saw the jet of flame.

  And she saw Edilio fall straight back.

  She saw him land on his back.

  His head bounced as he hit.

  Lana shifted her aim. Sights lined up on Dekka who seemed paralyzed in shock.

  Lana squeezed the trigger.

  Click.

  Click.

  Dekka raised her hands. Her expression was furious, determined. But she did not use her power. Her eyes flickered. She lowered her hands and rushed to Edilio.

  Dekka knelt over Edilio. She gasped. Pressed her hand against the wound in his chest. Trying to hold the blood in.

  “Lana. Lana,” Dekka pleaded with tears running down her cheeks. “Help him.”

  Lana stood confused. The gun wasn’t working. Why wasn’t it working? The question was not hers, the thought not her thought.

  The gaiaphage was confused. Why did the weapon not kill? It did not understand. So much it knew. But not everything.

  The gun slipped from Lana’s fingers. She heard it clatter on stone.

  “Lana, you can save him,” Dekka pleaded.

  I can save no one, Lana thought. Least of all myself.

  Lana took two steps back.

  The last thing she saw was Dekka rushing to Edilio.

  Lana returned to her master.

  FORTY

  38 MINUTES

  THE SUN WAS sinking into the sea. Shadows were lengthening in Perdido Beach. The plaza was full of kids, far more kids than Zil could possibly feed with one deer.

  It worried him at first. But then he realized the simple solution: Those who would take part in the sacrificing of Hunter would eat. Those who would only watch, would not.

  Those who laid hands on Hunter would be a part of Zil’s group. They would have demonstrated their loyalty beyond all doubt. Their bridges would be burned. He would own them, body and soul after that.

  They would be lifetime members of the Human Crew.

  A big fire had been built in the dried-out fountain. Someone clever had raided the hardware store and had rigged a spit onto which big hunks of the deer, chopped into slabs with an ax, were roasting.

  The smell was amazing.

  Turk had grabbed spray cans and tagged the fountain and some of the sidewalks with Lisa’s stylized “HC” logo.

  “How we doing this, man?” Antoine asked.

  “Doing what?” Zil answered.

  “Hunter. How we doing it?”

  Hunter had recovered a little from the hit to the head. He had tried to free his hands, but Hank had smacked him good. Cheers had risen from some of the crowd. Others had looked queasy.

  “Yank,” Turk said, and made a comic hanging motion.

  “Where? Is what I mean, man,” Antoine said. He was slurring badly, almost to the point of not being intelligible. Drunk.

  “There.” Lance pointed to the tumbled-down church.

  “Where the door used to be? It makes an arch. You can pass a rope up through that hole. One end around Hunter’s neck, right? The other end can be really long. You can extend it all the way down through the square, so you could have, like, a hundred kids pulling on it.”

  He frowned and glanced back and forth. “Pull him up, then you can tie the rope off to one of the trees, around the base.”

  Zil considered Lance curiously. It seemed strange to find this popular kid getting involved, actually coming up with a plan for an execution. Weird. Lance had none of Hank’s seething, crazy rage. None of Turk’s desperate toadying. He wasn’t a pathetic burn-out like Antoine.

  “That’s a good plan, Lance,” Zil said.

  Hank’s eyes glittered dangerously.

  “If we’re going to do this, we better get on with it,” Turk said. “Astrid’s a freak-lover. And that Brianna. She could be bringing Sam.�
��

  “Sam’s busy. Besides, I’m not afraid of Sam. We have all these kids with us,” Zil said, sounding far more confident than he felt. “But yeah, let’s get this thing going. Hank. Lance. Start stringing the rope.”

  Zil climbed up onto the trunk of the convertible. “Everybody! Everybody!”

  He had everyone’s attention almost instantly. The crowd was hungry, desperate, and very impatient. Several kids had tried to rush at the meat and grab some right from the flames. They’d had to be beaten back by Hank and a group of kids he’d enlisted as bodyguards.

  “The food is ready,” Zil announced to loud cheers.

  “But we have something more important to do, first, before we can eat.”

  Groans.

  “We have to carry out some justice.”

  That earned a silent stare until Turk and Hank started raising their hands and yelling, showing the crowd how to act.

  “This mutant, this nonhuman scum here, this freak Hunter…” Zil pointed, arm stretched out, at his captive. “This chud deliberately murdered my best friend, Harry.”

  “Na troo,” Hunter said. His mouth still didn’t work right. Brain damage, Zil supposed, from the little knock on his head. Half of Hunter’s face drooped like it wasn’t quite attached right. It made it easier for the crowd of kids to sneer at him, and Hunter, yelling in his drooling retard voice, wasn’t helping his case.

  “He’s a killer!” Zil cried suddenly, smacking his fist into his palm.

  “A freak! A mutant!” he cried. “And we know what they’re like, right? They always have enough food. They run everything. They’re in charge and we’re all starving. Is that some kind of coincidence? No way.”

  “Na troo,” Hunter moaned again.

  “Take him!” Zil cried to Antoine and Hank. “Take him, the murdering mutant scum!”

  They seized Hunter by the arms. He could walk, but only by dragging one leg. They half carried, half marched him across the plaza. They dragged him up the church steps.

  “Now,” Zil said, “here is how we’re going to do this.” He waved his hand toward the rope that Lance was unspooling back through the plaza.