Hunger_A Gone Novel

by Michael Grant

  fighting Pete, and Pete was fighting back. Like it was trying

  to come to life.”

  “Yes,” Astrid whispered.

  Edilio was the only other person who knew Little Pete’s

  history. It had been Edilio who had retrieved the videotape

  from the power plant that showed the moment of the nuclear

  meltdown when a panicked, uncomprehending Little Pete,

  there with his father, had reacted by creating the FAYZ.

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  Edilio asked the question that was on Sam’s mind. “Something was fighting Little Pete?” Edilio asked, “Man, who or what has the power to take on Little Pete?”

  “We don’t talk about this with anyone else,” Sam said

  firmly. “Someone asks you about it, you just say it must have

  been some kind of . . .”

  “Some kind of what?” Edilio asked.

  “Optical illusion,” Astrid supplied.

  “Yeah, that’ll work,” Edilio said sarcastically. Then he

  shrugged. “Kids got other things to worry about. Hungry

  people don’t waste much time on questions.”

  If others learned of Little Pete’s guilt . . . and his power . . .

  he would never be safe. Caine would do anything it took to

  capture if not kill the strange little boy.

  “Edilio, put everyone on one bus. Take a couple of your

  guys and start driving down residential streets. Go door to

  door. Round up as many kids as you can. Pack the bus, then

  take them to pick some melons or whatever.”

  Edilio looked dubious but said, “Okay, Mr. Mayor.”

  “Astrid. You come with me.” Sam stalked off with Astrid

  and Little Pete trailing.

  “Hey, don’t start getting all high and mighty with me,”

  Astrid yelled at his back.

  “I’d just appreciate it if you’d let me know when some

  new weirdness breaks out. That’s all.” Sam kept moving, but

  Astrid grabbed his arm. He stopped, glancing around guiltily

  to make sure no one was in eavesdropping distance.

  “What was I supposed to tell you?” Astrid demanded in

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  a terse whisper. “Little Pete’s hallucinating? He’s floating off

  the ground? What were you going to do about it?”

  He held up his hands in a placating gesture. But his voice

  was no less angry. “I’m just trying to keep up, you know? It’s

  like I’m playing a game where the rules keep changing. So

  today’s rules are, hey, killer worms and hallucinating five-

  year-olds. I can’t do anything about it, but it’s nice to get a

  heads up.”

  Astrid started to say something, but stopped herself. She

  took a couple of calming breaths. Then, in a more measured

  tone, she said, “Sam, I figured you had enough on your shoulders. I’m worried about you.”

  He dropped his hands to his sides. His voice dropped as

  well. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not,” Astrid said. “You don’t sleep. You never

  have a minute to yourself. You act like everything that goes

  wrong is your fault. You’re worried.”

  “Yeah, I’m worried,” he said. “Last night we had a kid who

  killed and ate a cat. The whole time he’s telling me about it

  he’s weeping. He’s sobbing. He used to have a cat himself. He

  likes cats. But he was so hungry, he grabbed it and . . .”

  Sam had to stop. He bit his lip and tried to shake off the

  despair that swept over him. “Astrid, we’re losing. We’re

  losing. Everyone is . . .” He looked at her and felt tears

  threaten. “How long before we have kids doing worse than

  killing cats?”

  When Astrid didn’t answer, Sam said, “Yeah, so I’m worried. You look around the plaza here. Two weeks from now?

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  Two weeks from now it’s Darfur, or whatever, if we don’t figure something out. Three weeks from now? I don’t want to think about it.”

  He started toward his office but plowed into two kids

  absorbed in yelling at each other. They were brothers, Alton

  and Dalton. It was clear they’d been fighting for a while.

  Under normal circumstances it might not have been a big

  deal—fights were breaking out all the time—but both boys

  had submachine guns hanging from their shoulders. Sam

  lived in fear of one of Edilio’s soldiers doing something stupid with the guns they carried. Ten-, eleven-, twelve-year-old kids with guns weren’t exactly the U.S. Army.

  “What now?” Sam snapped at them.

  Dalton stabbed an accusing finger at his brother. “He stole

  my Junior Mints.”

  The mere mention of Junior Mints made Sam’s stomach

  rumble.

  “You had . . .” He had to stop himself from focusing on

  the candy. Candy! How had Dalton managed to hoard actual

  candy? “Deal with it,” Sam said and kept moving. Then he

  stopped. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you two supposed to be out

  at the power plant?”

  Alton answered. “No, our shift was last night. We came

  back this morning in the van. And I did not steal his stupid

  Junior Mints. I didn’t even know he had Junior Mints.”

  “Then who stole them?” his brother demanded hotly. “I ate

  two each shift. One at the beginning, one at the end. I ate one

  when I got there last night and I counted them all. I had seven

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  left. And then this morning when I went to have another one,

  the box was empty.”

  Sam said, “Did it ever occur to you it might be one of the

  other kids standing guard?”

  “No,” Dalton said. “Heather B and Mike J were at the

  guardhouse. And Josh was asleep the whole time.”

  “What do you mean Josh was asleep?” Sam said.

  The brothers exchanged nearly identical guilty looks. Dalton shrugged. “Sometimes Josh sleeps. It’s no big deal—he’ll wake up if anything happens.”

  “Doesn’t Josh watch the security cameras?”

  “He says he can’t see anything. Nothing ever happens. It’s

  just like pictures of the road and the hills and the parking lot

  and all.”

  “We stayed up. Mostly,” Alton said.

  “Mostly. How much is ‘mostly’?” Sam got no answer. “Get

  going. Go ahead. And stop fighting. You weren’t supposed

  to be hoarding food, anyway, Dalton. Serves you right.” He

  wanted badly to ask where the kid had found candy, and ask

  if there was more, but that would have been the wrong message. Bad example.

  Still, Sam thought, what if there was still candy? Somewhere? Somewhere in the FAYZ?

  Edilio’s bus began to pull away. Ellen was onboard and

  Sam figured Edilio would stop off and grab a couple of his

  soldiers to help with the drafting of workers for the fields.

  Sam could imagine the scenes that would be played out

  house by house. The whining. The complaining. The running

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  3

  away. Followed by a lazy, mostly wasted effort to pick fruit by

  kids who didn’t want to work in the hot sun for hours.

  He thought briefly of E.Z. Of the worms. Albert was taking Orc to the cabbage field this mornin
g, to test Howard’s suggestion that he would be invulnerable. Hopefully, that

  would work.

  For a brief moment he worried that the worms might have

  spread. But even if they had, surely not to the melon field. It

  was a mile from the cabbages.

  A mile was a long distance to cover if you were a worm.

  “Beer me,” Orc bellowed.

  Albert handed Howard a red and blue can of beer. A Budweiser. That’s what Albert had the most of, and Orc didn’t seem to have any particular brand loyalty.

  Howard popped the tab and extended it out of the driver’s

  side window, reaching back. Orc snatched it as they drove

  down the pitted dirt road.

  Orc sat in the bed of the pickup truck. He was too big to

  fit in anything smaller, too big to fit inside the truck’s cab.

  Howard was driving. Albert was in the front seat, squeezed

  in beside a large polystyrene cooler. The cooler had the logo

  of the University of California, Santa Barbara. It was full of

  beer.

  “You know, we should have hung out more, back in the old

  days,” Howard said to Albert.

  “You didn’t know I existed, back in the old days,” Albert

  said.

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  “What? Come on, man. There’s, like, a dozen brothers in

  the whole school and I didn’t notice one?”

  “We’re the same shade, Howard. That doesn’t make us

  friends,” Albert said coolly.

  Howard laughed. “Yeah, you were always a grind. Reading

  too much. Thinking too much. Not having much fun. Good

  little family boy, make your momma proud. Now look at you:

  you’re a big man in the FAYZ.”

  Albert ignored that. He wasn’t interested in reminiscing.

  Not with Howard, for sure, not really with anyone. The old

  world was dead and gone. Albert was all about the future.

  As if reading his mind, Howard said, “You’re always planning, aren’t you? You know it’s true. You are all business.”

  “I’m just like everyone else: trying to figure out how to

  make it,” Albert said.

  Howard didn’t respond directly. “The way I see it? It’s Sam,

  top dog. No question. Astrid and Edilio? They’re only something because they’re in Sam’s crew. But you, man, you are your own thing.”

  “What thing is that?” Albert asked, keeping his tone neutral.

  “You got two dozen kids working under you, man. You’re

  in charge of the food. Between you and me? I know you have

  a food stash somewhere.”

  Albert did not so much as blink. “If I have a secret food

  stash, why am I so hungry?”

  Howard laughed. “Because you are a smart little uptight

  dude, that’s why. I’m smart, too. In my own way.”

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  5

  Albert said nothing. He knew where the conversation was

  going. He wasn’t going to help Howard lay it out.

  “Both of us are smart. Both of us are brothers in a very

  white town. You with the food. Me with Orc.” He jerked a

  thumb back toward the monster. “Time may come you need

  some muscle to go along with all that planning and ambition

  of yours.”

  Albert turned to face Howard, wanting to send the signal

  clearly, unambiguously. “Howard?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I am loyal to Sam.”

  Howard threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, man, I’m

  just messing with you. We are all of us loyal to Sam. Sam,

  Sam the laser-shooting surfer man.”

  They had reached the deadly cabbage field. Howard pulled

  over and turned off the engine.

  “Beer me,” Orc yelled.

  Albert dug in the cooler, hand plunged into ice water.

  He handed the can to Howard. “Last one till he does some

  work.”

  Howard handed it back to Orc.

  Orc yelled, “Open it, moron, you know I can’t pop the tab.”

  Howard took the beer back and popped the tab. It made a

  sound just like a soda, but the smell was sour. “Sorry, Orc,”

  Howard said.

  Orc took the beer in a fist the size of a bowling ball and

  drained it down his throat.

  Orc’s fingers were too big to handle anything delicate. Each

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  finger was the size of a kosher salami. Each joint was made

  of what looked, and felt, a lot like wet gravel. Gray stones that

  fitted loosely together

  His entire body, except for a last few square inches of his

  sullen mouth and the left side of his face, and a little bit of his

  cheek and neck, were covered—or made of—the same slimy

  gray gravel. He had always been a big kid, but now he was a

  foot taller and several feet wider.

  The tiny human portion of him seemed like the creepier

  part. Like someone had cut the flesh off a living person and

  glued it onto a stone statue.

  “Another,” Orc growled.

  “No,” Albert answered firmly. “First we see if you can

  really do this.”

  Orc rolled himself over the side of the truck and stood up.

  Albert felt the entire truck rock back and forth. Orc came

  around to the door and stuck his hideous face in the window,

  forcing Albert to shrink back and to clutch the cooler.

  “I can take the beer,” Orc said. “You can’t stop me.”

  “Yes, you can take it,” Albert agreed. “But you made a

  promise to Sam.”

  Orc digested that. He was slow and stupid, but not so stupid he didn’t understand the implied threat. Orc did not want to tangle with Sam.

  “All right. I’ll see about them worms.” Orc belched and

  lurched toward the field. He was wearing what he usually wore, a pair of very rough-sewn canvas shorts. Albert assumed Howard had made them for his friend. There was

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  no such thing as pants or shirts in Orc’s size.

  Howard held his breath as Orc stomped into the field. So,

  for that matter, did Albert. Every hideous detail of the memory of E.Z.’s death was permanently imprinted on Albert’s brain.

  The attack was immediate.

  The worms seethed from the dirt, slithered with impossible speed toward Orc’s stone feet and threw themselves against his unnatural flesh.

  Orc stopped. He gaped down at the creatures.

  He turned with creaky slowness back toward Albert and

  Howard and said, “Kinda tickles.”

  “Pick a cabbage,” Howard called out encouragingly.

  Orc bent down and dug his stone fingers into the dirt

  and scooped up a cabbage. He looked at it for a minute, then

  tossed it toward the truck.

  Albert opened the door of the truck and bent cautiously

  down toward the cabbage. He refused to step down. Not yet.

  Not until they were sure.

  “Howard, I need a stick or something,” Albert said.

  “What for?”

  “I want to poke that cabbage, make sure there’s no worm

  in it.”

  In the field the worms continued their assault on the creature whose rock flesh broke their teeth. Orc scooped up three more cabbages. Then he came stomping back.

  The worms did not follow. At the edge of the field they

  slithered of
f Orc and retreated into the ground.

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  “Beer me,” Orc demanded.

  Albert did.

  He wondered how Sam was doing with lining up kids to

  work in the field. “Not very well, I’d guess,” he muttered to

  himself.

  The answer to the problem of food was so simple, really:

  farms needed farmers. Then the farmers needed motivation.

  They needed to get paid. Like anyone. People didn’t do things

  just because it was right: people did things for money, for

  profit. But Sam and Astrid were too foolish to see it.

  No, not foolish, Albert told himself. Sam was the main

  reason they weren’t all under Caine’s control. Sam was great.

  And Astrid was probably the smartest person in the FAYZ.

  But Albert was smart, too, about some things. And he

  had gone to the trouble of educating himself, sitting in the

  dusty, dark town library reading books that made his eyelids

  droop.

  “My boy’s going to need another beer pretty soon,” Howard said, yawning behind his hand.

  “Your boy gets a beer for every one hundred cabbages he

  picks,” Albert said.

  Howard gave him a dirty look. “Man, you act like you paid

  for those cans with your own money.”

  “Nope,” Albert said. “They are community property. For

  now. But the rate is still one per hundred.”

  For the next two hours Orc picked cabbages. And drank

  beer. Howard played some game on a handheld. Albert

  thought.

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  Howard was right about that: Albert had thought a lot

  since the day he walked into the abandoned McDonald’s and

  began grilling hamburgers. He had a lot of standing in the

  community because of that. And the Thanksgiving feast he’d

  organized, and pulled off without a hitch, had made him a

  minor hero. He wasn’t Sam, of course; there was only one

  Sam. He wasn’t even Edilio or Brianna or anything like the

  big heroes of that terrible battle between Caine’s people and

  the Perdido Beach kids.

  But at that moment Albert wasn’t thinking about any of

  that. He was thinking about toilet paper and batteries.

  Then Orc screamed.

  Howard sat up. He jumped from the car.

  Albert froze.

  Orc was shrieking, slapping at his face, at the still-human

  part of his face.

  Howard ran toward him.

  “Howard, no!” Albert yelled.