Hunger_A Gone Novel

by Michael Grant

  it and it made him mad.

  Not today. Not yet. Not until Caine took care of Sam.

  Drake coiled the whip. He had a way of wrapping it sinuously around his waist. But the arm was never entirely still, so it always looked like a pink and gray anaconda squeezing

  him, always looked like Drake was its prey.

  “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Diana? Me fighting Caine.

  Sorry to disappoint you. I am one hundred percent loyal to

  Caine. We’re like brothers, the two of us. Not like him and

  Sam, more like blood brothers.” He winked at her. “The

  brotherhood of the Darkness, Diana. Me and him, we’ve both

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  been there. We’ve both faced it.”

  Drake knew Diana was eaten up with curiosity about the

  thing in the mine shaft, the thing that had given Drake his

  arm after Sam had burned his old arm off. But Drake wasn’t

  going to give her anything. Let her wonder. Let her worry.

  “Let’s go see the boss.”

  Caine looked better already. Whatever sickness had been

  consuming him these last three months, imprisoning him in

  a world of fevers and nightmares, must have finally run its

  course.

  Too late for Chunk.

  The memory made Drake smile. Fat-ass Chunk flying

  through the air, smacking into a solid wall, hitting it so hard,

  he actually went through it. Man, that had been something

  to see.

  After that, no one—including Drake—had been crazy

  enough to be around Caine. Even now Drake was wary. Only

  Diana was desperate enough to stay and change Caine’s soiled

  sheets and spoon-feed him soup.

  “You look good, Caine,” Drake said.

  “I look like hell,” Caine said. “But my head is clear.”

  Drake thought that probably wasn’t true. He’d spent just

  a few hours with the Darkness himself, and his head still

  wasn’t clear of it, not by a long shot. He heard the voice in

  his head, sometimes. He heard it. And he was pretty sure

  Caine did, too.

  Once you heard that voice, you never stopped hearing it,

  Drake thought. He found the idea comforting.

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  “Bug, are you in here?” Caine asked.

  “Right here.”

  Drake almost jumped. Bug was just three feet away, not

  quite invisible but not quite visible, either. He had the mutant

  power of camouflage, like a chameleon. Looking at Bug when

  he was using his power, the most you might notice was a sort

  of ripple in the scenery, a bending of light.

  “Knock it off,” Caine growled.

  Bug became visible as the snot-nosed little creep he was.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I just . . . I didn’t . . .”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not in the mood to throw anyone into a

  wall,” Caine said dryly. “I have a job for you, Bug.”

  “Go into Perdido Beach again?”

  “No. No, that’s what Sam is expecting,” Caine said. “We

  stay out of Perdido Beach. We don’t need the town. They can

  have the town. For now, anyway.”

  “Yeah, let them keep what we can’t take away. That’s very

  generous,” Diana said, mocking them.

  “It’s not about territory,” Caine said. “It’s about power. Not

  powers, Drake, power.” He put his hand on Bug’s shoulder.

  “Bug, you’re the key person on this. I need your skills.”

  “I don’t know what else I can see in Perdido Beach,” Bug

  said.

  “Forget Perdido Beach. Like I said, it’s about power. Nuclear

  power.” Caine winked at Diana and slapped Drake’s shoulder, working his old charm, getting them to believe in him again. But Drake wasn’t fooled: Caine was weak in his body

  and disturbed in his mind. The old confidence was subdued:

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  Caine was a shadow. Although he was a shadow who could

  throw a person through a wall. Drake’s whip hand twitched

  against the small of his back.

  “That power plant is the town’s lifeline,” Caine said. “Control the electricity and Sam will give us whatever we want.”

  “Don’t you think Sam knows this? And probably has

  guards at the power plant?” Diana said.

  “I’m sure there are guards. But I’m sure they won’t see Bug.

  So, fly now, little Bug. Fly away and see what you can see.”

  Bug and Diana both turned to leave. The one excited, the

  other seething. Drake stayed behind.

  Caine seemed surprised, maybe even a little worried.

  “What is it, Drake?”

  “Diana,” Drake said. “I don’t trust her.”

  Caine sighed. “Yeah, I think I get that you don’t like

  Diana.”

  “It’s not about me not liking the . . .” He’d been about to

  use the “b” word, but Caine’s eyes flared and Drake reworded

  it. “It’s not about me not liking her. It’s about her and Computer Jack.”

  That got Caine’s full attention. “What are you talking

  about?”

  “Jack. He’s got powers now. And I’m not just talking about

  his tech skills. Bug saw him down in Perdido Beach. That

  backhoe they have? The wetback was digging a grave, and the

  backhoe toppled into it. Bug says Jack picked it up. Just pulled

  it up out of the hole like it was no heavier than a bike.”

  Caine sat down on the edge of his bed. Drake had the

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  impression Caine had needed to sit down for a while, that

  standing for more than a few minutes was still heavy work.

  “Sounds like he’s at least a two bar. Maybe even a three,”

  Caine said. Diana had invented the system of bars, copying

  the idea from cell phones. Diana’s own power was the ability

  to gauge power levels.

  Drake knew that there were only two known four bars:

  Sam and Caine. There was speculation about Little Pete,

  who had demonstrated some major stuff, but how dangerous

  could a half-brain-dead little five-year-old really be?

  “Yeah, so Jack could be a three bar. Only not according

  to Diana, right? Diana says she read him at zero bars. So

  maybe the power develops late, okay. But from zero to three?”

  Drake shrugged, not needing to push the issue, knowing that

  Caine—even a sick, weakened Caine—was connecting the

  dots in his head.

  “We never did get an explanation for why Jack switched

  sides and ran to Sam,” Caine said softly.

  “Maybe someone put him up to it,” Drake said.

  “Maybe,” Caine said, not wanting to admit the possibility.

  “Get someone to watch her. Not you, she knows you watch

  her. But get someone to keep an eye on her.”

  The worst thing about the FAYZ from Duck Zhang’s point of

  view was the food. It had been great at first: candy bars, chips,

  soda, ice cream. That had all lasted a few weeks. It would

  probably have lasted longer but people had wasted it—leaving

  ice cream to melt; gorging on cookies, then leaving the bag

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  out where dogs could get at it; letting bread mold.

  By the time they’d
burned through all the sweets and

  snack food it was too late to do anything about the fact that

  all of the meat and chicken, with the exception of bacon,

  sausage, and ham, and all the fresh produce except potatoes

  and onions was expired or rotten. Duck had been forced to

  help clean all that out of Ralph’s. A crew of resentful kids had

  shoveled rotting lettuce and stinking meat for days. But what

  could you do when Sam Temple looked right at you, pointed

  his finger, and said, “You.” The boy could fry you. Plus, he

  was the mayor, after all.

  Then had come the canned soup, dry cereal, crackers and

  cheese period.

  Right now Duck would give anything for a can of soup.

  His breakfast had been canned asparagus. Which tasted like

  vomit and everyone knew it made your pee stink.

  But there were good things about the FAYZ, too. The best

  thing about the FAYZ, from Duck Zhang’s point of view, was

  the pool. It wasn’t exactly his pool, but it might as well be

  because here he was, floating in it. On a Monday morning in

  early March when he normally would have been in school.

  No school. Nothing but pool. It took some of the sting out

  of hunger.

  He was a sixth grader, small for his age, Asian, although

  his family had been American since the 1930s. Back in the

  day his folks had worried he was getting fat. Well, no one was

  very fat in the FAYZ. Not anymore.

  Duck loved the water. But not the ocean. The ocean scared

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  him. He couldn’t get past the idea that a whole world was

  down there below the waves, invisible to him while he was

  visible to them. Them being squids, octopi, fish, eels, jellyfish

  and, above all, sharks.

  Pools on the other hand were great. You could see all the

  way to the bottom.

  But he’d never had a pool of his own. There was no public pool in Perdido Beach, so he could only swim when he happened to have a friend with a pool, or when he was on

  vacation with his parents and they stayed at a hotel with a

  pool.

  Now, however, with kids in Perdido Beach able to live

  pretty much wherever they liked, and go pretty much wherever they liked, Duck had found a perfect, secluded, private pool. Whom it belonged to, he couldn’t say. But whoever

  they were, they had a great setup. The pool was big, kidney-

  shaped, with a ten-foot depth at one end so you could dive in

  headfirst. The whole thing was the prettiest shade of aqua tile

  with a gold sunburst pattern in the bottom. The water—once

  he’d figured out how to add chlorine and clean the filters—

  was as clear as glass.

  There was a nice wrought-iron table with an umbrella

  in the middle and some very comfortable chaise lounges

  for him to lie out on if he chose. But he didn’t choose to lie

  out. He chose to lie back on a float. A bottle of water bobbed

  alongside him on its own separate float. He had a cool pair of

  Ray-Bans on and a light coating of sunblock and he was—in

  a word—happy. Hungry, but happy.

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  Sometimes, when Duck felt particularly good, it almost

  seemed as if he didn’t even need the raft to hold him up.

  Sometimes if he was happy enough he could actually feel the

  pressure of his back on the plastic lessen. Like he weighed less

  or something. In fact he’d once awakened suddenly from a

  happy dream and had fallen a couple of feet into the water. At

  least, that’s what it seemed like, although it was obviously just

  part of the dream.

  Other times, if he became angry for some reason, maybe

  just remembering some slight, it seemed to him that he grew

  heavier and the float would actually start to sink into the

  water.

  But Duck was seldom either very happy or very angry.

  Mostly he was just peaceful.

  “Yeee-ahhh!”

  The shout was completely unexpected. As was the huge

  splash that followed it.

  Duck sat up on his raft.

  Water sloshed over him. Someone was in the water. His

  water.

  Two more blurs raced toward the pool’s edge and there

  were two more shouts, followed by two more cannonball

  splashes.

  “Hey!” Duck yelled.

  One of the kids was a jerk named Zil. The other two Duck

  didn’t recognize right away.

  “Hey!” he yelled again.

  “Who are you yelling at?” Zil demanded.

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  “This is my pool,” Duck said. “I found it and I cleaned it.

  Go get your own pool.”

  Duck was aware that he was smaller than any of the

  three. But he was angry enough to feel bold. The float sank

  beneath him and he wondered if one of the boys had poked

  a hole in it.

  “I’m serious,” Duck yelled. “You guys take off.”

  “He’s serious,” one of the boys mocked.

  Before he knew it Zil was leaping up from beneath the

  water and had grabbed Duck by the neck. Duck was plunged

  underwater, gasping, choking, sucking water into his nose.

  He surfaced with difficulty, fighting with suddenly leaden

  arms to stay afloat.

  They hit him again, just roughhousing, not really trying

  to hurt him, but forcing him under once more. This time he

  touched down on the bottom of the pool and had to kick his

  way back to the surface to gasp for air. He clutched at the

  float, but one of the boys yanked it away, giggling loudly.

  Duck was filled with sudden rage. He had one good thing

  in his life, this pool, one good thing, and now it was being

  ruined.

  “Get out!” he shrieked, but the last word glub-glub-glubbed

  as he sank like a rock.

  What was going on? Suddenly he couldn’t swim. He was

  on the bottom of the pool, in the deep end, under ten feet of

  water. He kicked at the tile bottom, trying to shoot back up,

  but his foot shattered the tile and sent pieces of it spinning

  through the water.

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  G R A N T

  Now panic took hold. What were they doing to him?

  He kicked again, both feet as hard as he could. But he did

  not rise to the surface. Instead, both feet punched through

  the tile. He rose not at all. In fact, he was still sinking. His

  feet were sinking through the tile, scraping through jagged

  mortar and crumbled concrete, down into mud beneath.

  It was impossible.

  Impossible.

  Duck Zhang was falling through the bottom of the pool.

  Through the ground beneath the bottom of the pool. It was

  as if he were standing in quicksand.

  Up to his knees.

  Up to his thighs.

  Up to his waist.

  He thrashed madly but he only fell faster.

  Broken tile scraped his flanks. Mud slithered into his bathing suit.

  His lungs burned. His vision was blurring now, head

  pounding, and still he fell through solid earth, as if the

  ground itself were nothing but water.

  As the tile reached his chest he
slammed his arms down to

  block himself falling farther, but his arms plowed through the

  tile and the concrete beneath and the dirt beneath that, and all

  of it swirled around his head in a cloud of murk and mud.

  The pool water was now rushing down around him, pushing into his mouth and nose. He was a loose plug caught in a drain.

  Duck Zhang’s world swirled, crazy flashes of feet kicking

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  above him, sparkling sunlight, then his vision tunneled, narrowed, and darkness crowded out the light.

  It had been funny for the first minute or so. Zil Sperry had

  enjoyed sneaking up on Dork Zhang: he and Hank and

  Antoine creeping around the side of the house, shoving one

  another playfully, suppressing giggles.

  It was Hank who’d found out about Duck’s secret swimming pool. Hank was a born spy. But it was Zil’s idea to wait until Duck had it all cleaned up, until he adjusted the chlorine and got the filter working.

  “Let him do the work first,” Zil had argued. “Then we take

  it from him.”

  Antoine and Hank were cool, Zil realized, but if there was

  serious thinking or planning to be done, it was up to him.

  They had achieved total surprise. Duck had probably wet

  himself. Stupid dork. Big, whiny baby.

  But then things had gone wrong. Duck had sunk like a

  rock. And kept sinking. And suddenly the sun-dappled water

  had turned into a whirlpool of shocking power. Hank had

  been standing on the steps and managed to leap up and out

  of the pool. But Antoine was with Zil in the deep end when

  Duck pulled the plug.

  Zil had managed, just barely, to grab on to the end of the

  diving board. The water sucked at him, practically pulled his

  bathing suit off. He barely held on, fingertips scrabbling at

  the sandpapery surface of the board.

  Antoine had been swept away, drawn into the circular

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  motion. The force of the water had rammed him into the

  chrome ladder, and Antoine had managed to wedge one fat

  leg between the ladder, and the side of the pool. He was lucky

  he hadn’t broken his ankle.

  Hank hauled Zil to safety. The two of them together helped

  Antoine clamber awkwardly up where he collapsed like a

  beached whale on the deck.

  “Dude, we almost drowned,” Antoine gasped weakly.

  “What happened?” Hank asked. “I couldn’t see.”

  “Duck, man,” Zil said, his voice shaky. “He, like, sank