“I just want my mom.”
“We all do,” Sam said impatiently. “We all want the old
world back. But we don’t seem to be able to make that happen. So we have to try to make this world work out. Which means we need food. Which means we need kids to harvest
the food, and load it into trucks, and preserve it, and cook it,
and . . .” He threw up his hands as he realized he was staring
at rows and rows of blank expressions.
“You crazy with that stuff about picking vegetables?” It was
Howard Bassem, leaning against the back wall. Sam hadn’t
seen him come in. Sam glanced around for Orc, but didn’t see
him. And Orc wasn’t something . . . no, someone, still some
one despite everything . . . you overlooked.
“You have another way to get food?” Sam asked.
“Man, you think people don’t know about what happened
to E.Z.?”
Sam stiffened. “Of course we all know what happened to
E.Z. No one is trying to hide what happened to E.Z. But as far
as we know, the worms are just in that one cabbage field.”
76 M I C H A E L
G R A N T
“What worms?” Hunter demanded.
Obviously not everyone had heard. Sam would have liked
to smack Howard right at that moment. The last thing they
needed was a retelling of E.Z.’s gruesome fate.
“I’ve taken a look at one of the worms,” Astrid said, sensing that Sam was reaching the limit of his patience. She didn’t come up onto the chancel but stood by her pew and faced the
audience, which was now paying very close attention. Except
for two little kids who were having a shoving match.
“The worms that killed E.Z. are mutations,” Astrid said.
“They have hundreds of teeth. Their bodies are designed for
boring through flesh rather than tunneling through the dirt.”
“But as far as we know, they’re just in that one cabbage
field,” Sam reiterated.
“I dissected the worm Sam brought me,” Astrid said. “I
found something very strange. The worms have very large
brains. I mean, a normal earthworm’s brain is so primitive
that if you cut it out, the worm still keeps doing what it normally does.”
“Kind of like my sister,” a kid piped up, and was poked by
his sister in retaliation.
Howard drifted closer to the front of the room. “So these
E.Z. killer worms are smart.”
“I’m not implying that they can read or do quadratic equations,” Astrid said. “But they’ve gone from brains that were a bundle of cells that did nothing more than manage the organism’s negative phototropism to a brain with differentiated hemispheres and distinct, presumably specialized, regions.”
H U N G E R
77
Sam hid a smile by looking down. Astrid was perfectly
capable of simplifying the way she explained things. But when
someone was irritating her—as Howard was doing now—she
would crank up the polysyllables and make them feel stupid.
Howard came to a stop, perhaps paralyzed by the word
“phototropism.” But he recovered quickly. “Look, bottom
line, you step into a field full of these E.Z. killers, these zekes,
and you’re dead. Right?”
“The large brains confirm the possibility that these creatures are capable of territoriality. My point is, judging by what Sam, Edilio, and Albert observed, the worms may stay perfectly within their territory. In this case, the cabbage field.”
“Yeah?” Howard said. “Well, I know someone who could
walk right through that field and not be bothered.”
So that was it, Sam thought. Inevitably with Howard, it all
came back to Orc.
“You may be right that Orc would be invulnerable,” Sam
said. “So?”
“So?” Howard echoed. He smirked. “So, Sam, Orc can pick
those cabbages for you. Of course he’s going to need something in exchange.”
“Beer?”
Howard nodded, maybe a little embarrassed, but not
much. “He has a taste for the stuff. Me, I can’t stand it. But as
Orc’s manager I’ll need to be taken care of, too.”
Sam gritted his teeth. But the truth was it might be a solution to the problem. They had quite a bit of beer still at Ralph’s grocery.
78 M I C H A E L
G R A N T
“If Orc wants to try it, fine with me,” Sam said. “Work
something out with Albert.”
It was not fine with Astrid. “Sam, Orc has become an alcoholic. You want to give him beer?”
“A can of beer for a day’s work,” Sam said. “Orc can’t get
very drunk on—”
“No way,” Howard said. “Orc needs a case a day. Four six-
packs. After all, it’s hot work out there in the field picking
cabbage.”
Sam shot a glance at Astrid. Her face was set. But Sam
had the responsibility for feeding 331 kids. Orc was probably
invulnerable to the zekes. And he was so strong, he could
yank up thirty thousand pounds of cabbage in a week’s work.
“Talk to Albert after the meeting,” Sam said to Howard.
Astrid fumed but sat down. Howard did a jaunty little
finger-pointing thing at Sam, signifying agreement.
Sam sighed. The meeting wasn’t going the way he’d
planned. They never did. He understood that kids were kids,
so he was used to the inevitable disruptions and general silliness of the younger ones. But that even so many of the older kids, kids in seventh, eighth grade, hadn’t bothered to show
up was depressing.
To make things worse, all this talk of food was making
him hungry. Lunch had been grim. The hunger was almost
always present now. It made him feel hollow. It occupied his
brain, when he needed to be thinking of other things.
“Look, people, I’m announcing a new rule. It’s going to
seem harsh. But it’s necessary.”
H U N G E R
79
The word “harsh” got almost everyone’s attention.
“We can’t have people sitting around all day playing Wii
and watching DVDs. We need people to start working in the
fields. So, here’s the thing: everyone age seven or older has
to put in three days per week picking fruit or veggies. Then
Albert’s going to work with the whole question of freezing
stuff that can be frozen, or otherwise preserving stuff.”
There was dead silence. And blank stares.
“What I’m saying is, tomorrow we’ll have two school buses
ready to go. They hold about fifty kids each and we need to
have them mostly full because we’re going to pick some melons and it’s a lot of work.”
More blank stares.
“Okay, let me make this simple: get your brothers and
sisters and friends and anyone over age seven and be in the
square tomorrow morning at eight o’clock.”
“But how about—?”
“Just be there,” Sam said with less firmness than he’d
intended. His frustration was draining away now, replaced
by weariness and depression.
“Just be there,” someone mimicked in a singsong voice.
Sam closed his eyes, and for a moment he almost seemed
to be asleep. Then he opened them again and managed a
bleak smile. “Please. Be there,” he said quietly.
/> He walked down the three steps and out of the church,
knowing in his heart that few would answer his call.
SEVEN
88 HOURS, 54 MINUTES
“ P U L L O V E R H E R E , Panda,” Drake said.
“Why?” Panda was behind the wheel of the SUV. He was
getting more and more confident as a driver, but being Panda,
he still wouldn’t go more than thirty miles an hour.
“Because that’s what I said to do, that’s why,” Drake said
irritably.
Bug knew why they were stopping. And Bug knew why it
bothered Drake. They couldn’t risk driving down the highway to the power plant. In the three months Caine had spent hallucinating and yelling crazy stuff, the Coates side had
grown steadily weaker while the Perdido Beach side cruised
right along. Drake had pulled off his raid at Ralph’s, but he
didn’t dare do anything more.
Bug knew. He’d been in and out of Perdido Beach many
times. They might be running low on food in town but they
still had more than Coates. It was frustrating for Bug because
he should have been able to steal more of that food, but his
chameleon powers didn’t work that well on things he was
H U N G E R
81
carrying. The best he could do was slip a package of dried
soup or a rare PowerBar inside his shirt. Not that there were
PowerBars to be found nowadays. Or dried soup.
“Okay, Bug, we hike from here,” Drake said. He swung his
door open and stepped out onto the road. Bug slid across the
seat and stood beside Drake.
Bug’s real name was Tyler. His fellow Coates kids assumed
he had earned his nickname from his willingness to accept
crazy dares—specifically, eating insects. Kids would dare
him and he’d say, “What do I get if I do it?” Mostly, in the old
days, he’d gotten kids to give him money or candy.
He didn’t mind most bugs. He kind of liked the way they
would squirm before he would bite down on them, ending
their little insect lives.
But Bug had been called that before ever coming to Coates,
before he’d gotten a reputation as the kid who would try anything. The nickname Bug had stuck to him after he was caught recording parent-teacher conferences at his old school. He’d
posted the conversations on Facebook, embarrassing any kid
with a psychological issue, a learning disability, a bedwetting
problem—about half his class.
Bug hadn’t just been sent to Coates as punishment; he’d
been sent for his own safety.
Bug edged nervously away as Drake unlimbered his tentacle, stretched it out, and rewrapped it around himself.
Bug didn’t like Drake. No one did. But if he was going to get
caught out in the open sneaking toward the power plant, he
figured Drake would do all the fighting while he himself just
disappeared. At night he was completely invisible.
82 M I C H A E L
G R A N T
They left Panda behind with firm instructions to stay
where he was until they got back. Which was on a back road
that went from tarmac to gravel, back and forth, as though
the guys who’d built it couldn’t make up their minds.
“We have a good two miles to cover to get to the main
road,” Drake said. “So keep up.”
“I’m hungry,” Bug complained.
“Everybody’s hungry,” Drake snapped. “Shut up about it.”
They plunged off the road into some kind of farmland. It
was tough walking because the field was plowed into furrows,
so it was hard not to trip. Something was growing there, but
Bug had no idea what, just that it was some kind of plant. He
wondered if he could eat it: he was that hungry.
Maybe there would be some food at the plant. Maybe he
could find something while he was scoping the place out.
They walked in silence. Drake was not one for small talk,
and neither was Bug.
The highway’s lights were visible from far off. It was impossible, even now, to see those bright lights and not think of busy gas stations, bright Wendy’s and Burger Kings, bustling
stores, cars, and trucks. Just south of Perdido Beach had been
a long strip of such restaurants, plus a Super Target where
they sold groceries, and a See’s candy store where . . .
Bug couldn’t stand it that it was all there, just outside the
FAYZ wall. If there was an outside anymore.
See’s candy. Bug would have just about cut off his ear to
have five minutes inside that store. He liked the ones with
nuts in them, especially. Oh, and the ones with raspberry
cream. And the kind of brown sugar ones. The ones with
H U N G E R
83
caramel, those were good, too.
All out of reach now. His mouth watered. His stomach
ached.
It was so quiet in the FAYZ, Bug thought. Quiet and empty.
And, if Caine succeeded in his plan, it would soon be dark as
well.
Only some portions of the highway were lit up. The part
that went through town, and here, at the turn-off to the
power plant. Bug and Drake stayed well away from the pool
of light.
Bug looked left, toward town. No sign of movement coming down the road. Nothing to the right, either. Across the highway and a little distance down the access road Bug knew
there was a guardhouse. But that shouldn’t be any problem.
“You have to stay off the road and go cross-country,” Drake
told him.
“What? Why? No one can see me.”
“There might be infrared security cameras at the plant,
moron, that’s why. We don’t know if you’re invisible to infrared cameras.”
Bug acknowledged that could be a problem. But the prospect of covering another couple of miles going uphill and down, through tall grass and across unseen ditches, wasn’t
very exciting. He would probably get lost. Then he would
never get back in time for breakfast.
“Okay,” he said, having no intention of obeying.
Suddenly Drake’s creepy tentacle wrapped around him.
Drake squeezed hard enough that Bug had to struggle to
breathe.
84 M I C H A E L
G R A N T
“This is important, Bug. Don’t screw it up.” Drake’s eyes
were cold. “If you do? I’ll whip the skin off you.”
Bug nodded. Drake released him.
Bug shuddered as the tentacle slithered away. It was like a
snake. Just like a snake. And Bug hated snakes.
It was easy for Bug to turn the camouflage on. He just
thought about disappearing and passed his hands down his
front like he was smoothing his shirt. He saw Drake’s confused stare, his mean eyes not quite able to focus on Bug’s true location. He knew he was all but invisible. He raised a
middle finger to Drake.
“Later,” Bug said, and crossed the highway.
Bug hiked cross-country until he was well away from
Drake. The moon was up but it was only a sliver and touched
only the occasional rock, the odd stalk of weed. He walked
straight into a low-hanging tree branch and fell on his butt,
mouth bleeding and bruised.
After that he cut back to the road. The road curved high
abo
ve the glittering ocean, affording a pretty, if disquieting view. Something about the ocean always felt ominous to Bug.
Bug figured if he was visible on infrared, well, too bad. He
could always switch sides like Computer Jack had done. Of
course then he’d be in trouble if Drake ever got hold of him.
He took Drake’s threats seriously. Very seriously.
Bug had been beaten many times. His father had been
quick with a slap or, when he was good and drunk, a punch.
But his father had some limits on his behavior: he was always
worried that Bug’s mother would be able to take custody away
H U N G E R
85
from him. Not that his father loved him so much—it was that
he hated Bug’s mother and wouldn’t do anything that would
allow her to win.
At the worst of times, when his father had been out
drinking with his girlfriend and they’d had a fight, Bug had
learned to hide. His favorite place was in the attic because
it was stuffed with boxes, and behind the boxes there was a
spot where Bug could crawl under the eaves and lie flat on the
insulation between cross-beams. His father had never found
him there.
It seemed like forever before Bug began to catch sight of
the brightly lit power plant. A glimpse through a crease in the
hill, a glow coming from beyond a bend in the road. It felt like
another forever before he came upon the second guardhouse,
the one that squatted across the road with a chain-link and
barbed-wire fence extending out in both directions.
Caine had speculated that the fence, which only one Coates
kid had ever seen, might be electrified. Bug wasn’t going to
take any chances. He walked along the fence, uphill, into the
rough, away from the guardhouse for a hundred yards. He
found a stick and began to scoop out the dirt below the fence.
It wouldn’t take much, he wasn’t very big.
Bug felt very exposed. As long as he was digging with the
stick, he was visible: sticks did not have the power of camouflage. The moon that before had seemed to cast no light at all now felt like a searchlight focused right on him. And
the power plant itself was like some vast, terrifying beast
crouched beside the water, blazingly bright in the blackness.
Bug crawled under the fence on his back. Dirt found its
86 M I C H A E L
Hunger_A Gone Novel Page 8
