Hunger_A Gone Novel

by Michael Grant

  “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.”

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  “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.”

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  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.

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  “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.”

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  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

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  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.

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  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

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  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.

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  “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

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  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

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