Hunger_A Gone Novel

by Michael Grant

and a low administrative building, with the final “step” being

  the turbine structure itself.

  The first two steps had worked fine. She had accelerated

  to perhaps three hundred miles an hour, leaped, slammed off

  the roof of the minivan, landed on the admin building, kept

  almost all of her speed, taken six blistering steps to regain

  whatever speed she’d lost, and made the jump to the roof of

  the massive concrete hulk.

  And that’s when things had gone wrong.

  She was just short of landing on the flat part of the roof

  and instead hit the shoulder. It was more like belly-flopping

  than it was the sort of airplane-landing-on-runway situation

  she was looking for.

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  She’d seen the concrete rushing up at her. She’d motored

  her feet like crazy. She’d managed to avoid sliding off and

  falling all the way to the ground, but her desperate lunge had

  ended with an out-of-control impact that had come very close

  to killing her.

  And now, now, having reached this perch, she couldn’t

  actually see much of anything.

  “Sam is going to kill me,” Brianna muttered.

  Then, as she bent a knee, “Ow.”

  The roof was a few hundred feet long, one third as wide.

  She trotted—slowly—from one end to the other. She found

  the access door easily, a steel door set in a brick superstructure. This would lead down to the turbine room and from there to the control room.

  “Well, of course there would be a door,” Brianna muttered.

  “I guess I should pretend that was my plan right from the

  start.”

  She tried the doorknob. It was locked. It was very locked.

  “Okay, that sucks,” Brianna said.

  She was desperately thirsty. Even more desperately hungry.

  Thirst and hunger were often extreme after she had turned

  on the speed. She doubted she’d find any food up on this roof

  the size of a parking lot. Maybe water, though. There were

  massive air conditioners, each the size of a suburban home.

  Didn’t air conditioning always create condensation?

  She zipped at a moderate speed over to the closest AC

  unit, ow, ow, owing as she ran. Brianna let herself in. Found a

  light switch. Her heart leaped when she spotted the Dunkin’

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  Donuts box. In a flash she was there. But there was nothing

  inside but some tissue paper smeared with the crusty remains

  of pink icing and a half dozen brightly colored sprinkles.

  Brianna licked the paper. It had been so long since she’d

  tasted anything sweet. But the result was just a sharpening of

  the pain in her stomach.

  She found what she hoped was a water pipe, white plastic.

  She looked around for a tool and found a small steel box containing a few wrenches and a screwdriver. In seconds she had popped the pipe and was filling her stomach with ice cold

  water. Then she let the water pour over the burns on her skin

  and cried out at the agony of it.

  She next carried the screwdriver—it was large and heavy—

  to the steel door. She inserted it into the gap between the

  handle and the frame and pushed. There was no give. Not

  even a little.

  In frustration she stabbed at the door. The screwdriver

  made a spark and a scratch. Nothing more.

  “Great. I’m trapped on the roof,” she said.

  Brianna knew she needed medical attention. A visit with

  Lana would be great. Failing that, she needed bandages and

  antibiotics.

  But all of that was nothing compared to the hunger. Now

  that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, the hunger was

  attacking her with the ferocity of a lion. She had started the

  night hungry. But then she had run perhaps twenty-five miles.

  On a very empty stomach.

  It was a ridiculous situation to be in. No one knew she was

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  up here. She probably couldn’t yell loud enough to make herself heard over the noise of the plant. Even if she could, she probably wouldn’t want to because if Sam had failed, somehow, then the guy who heard her would be Caine.

  Then she spotted the pigeon.

  “Oh, my God,” Brianna whispered. “No.”

  Then, “Why not?”

  “Because, ewww.”

  “Look, it’s no different from a chicken.”

  She retrieved the donut box. She tore the paper into little

  strips. She found an ancient newspaper and tore it up as well.

  She found a wooden pallet and with a saw from the toolkit,

  and superhuman speed, she soon had a small pile of wood.

  It was unfortunate that none of the workmen had left

  matches behind. But steel struck with super speed against

  cement made sparks fly. It was tedious work, but she soon

  had a fire going. A cheerful little fire in the middle of the vast

  roof.

  And now there were two pigeons, dozing and cooing in

  their sleep. One was gray, the other kind of pink.

  “Pink,” she decided.

  The chances of a regular kid catching them was close to

  zero. But she was not a normal person. She was the Breeze.

  The pigeon never had time to flinch. She grabbed it, hand

  around its golf ball head. She swung it hard, snapping its

  neck.

  Two minutes in the fire burned off most of the feathers.

  Five minutes more and the bird burst open.

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  That was the end of her patience. She used the screwdriver

  to pry slivers of meat from the pigeon’s plump breast and pop

  them into her mouth.

  It had been weeks since she had tasted anything half as

  good.

  “The Breeze,” she said, squatting by her fire. “Scourge of

  pigeons.”

  She lay back, savoring her meal.

  In a minute she would get up and figure out how to escape

  this rooftop trap.

  But with food in her stomach the weariness of a day spent

  running at insane speeds over insane distances caught up

  with her.

  “I’m just going to rest my . . .”

  Duck sank, facedown, mouth full of dirt and rock.

  He was choking, gagging. No way to breathe.

  His head was pounding. Blood pounding in his ears. His

  chest heaved, sucking desperately on nothing.

  It was over.

  He was going to die.

  Wild with panic, he thrashed. His arms plowed through

  packed dirt with no more effort than if he had been swimming in water.

  He was no longer acting consciously, legs and arms kicking in a sort of death spasm as his brain winked out and his lungs screamed.

  “Duck! Duck! You down there?”

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  A voice from a million miles away.

  Duck tried to sit up, very quickly. He had managed to turn

  himself over. But his head slammed into dirt, and he took a

  shower of gravel in the face for his efforts. He tried to open

  his eyes, but dirt filled them. He spit dirt out of his mouth

  and found that he could breathe. His thrashing had made a

  space for him.

  “Duck! D
ude! Are you alive?”

  Duck wasn’t sure he knew the answer. He cautiously moved

  his arms and legs and found that he could, within limits.

  Sudden, overwhelming panic. He was buried alive!

  He tried to scream, but the sound was choked off and now

  he was falling again, falling through the earth.

  No. No. No.

  He had to stop. Had to stop the anger.

  It was the anger that had sent him plummeting toward the

  center of the earth.

  Think of something not angry, not fearful, he ordered

  himself.

  Something happy.

  Buried alive!

  Happy . . . happy . . . the swimming pool . . . the water . . .

  floating . . .

  Duck stopped sinking.

  That was good. Good! Happy. Floating. Happy, happy

  thoughts.

  Cookies. He liked cookies. Cookies were great.

  And . . . and . . . and Sarah Willetson that time she smiled

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  at him. That was nice. That had given him a nice, warm feeling, like maybe someday girls would like him.

  Also, how about watching TV, watching basketball on TV?

  That was a happy thought.

  He was definitely no longer sinking.

  No problem. Just be happy. Be happy to be buried alive.

  “Duck?” It was Hunter’s voice calling down to him. It

  sounded like Hunter was at the bottom of a well. Of course

  it was the other way around: Duck was at the bottom of the

  well.

  “Happy, happy,” Duck whispered.

  He was not buried alive, he was sitting down in the movie

  theater. He was in the seats with the railing right in front

  where he could rest his feet. And he had popcorn. Buttered,

  of course, extra salt. And a box of Cookie Dough Bites.

  Previews. He loved the previews. Previews and popcorn

  and oh, look, there was a Slushee in the seat’s cup holder.

  Blue, whatever flavor that was supposed to be. Blue Slushee.

  What was the movie? Iron Man.

  He loved Iron Man.

  And Slushees. Popcorn. Swimming pools. Girls.

  Something was scraping against his face, against his arms

  and legs and chest.

  Don’t think about that, it might make you unhappy and

  mad, and boy, those are not helpful emotions. They drag you

  down.

  Way down.

  Duck laughed at that.

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  “Duck. Dude.” Hunter’s voice. It sounded closer now,

  clearer. Was he watching Iron Man, too?

  No, Sarah Willetson was. Sarah was sitting beside him,

  sharing his popcorn and oh, excellent, she had a bag of peanut M&M’s. She was pouring some into his hand. Happy little football shapes in bright colors.

  The scraping had stopped.

  “Dude?”

  The voice was close now.

  Duck felt a breeze.

  He opened his eyes. There was still dirt in his eyes. He

  brushed it away. The first thing he saw was Hunter. Hunter’s

  head.

  The top of Hunter’s head.

  Slowly Hunter’s face turned up toward him with an expression of pure awe.

  “Dude, you’re flying,” Hunter said.

  Duck glanced around. He was no longer buried alive. He

  was out of the hole. He was across the street from the church,

  out of the hole, and floating about five feet in the air.

  “Whoa,” Duck said. “It works both ways.”

  “We should just get out. Take Sam’s deal. Walk away,” Diana

  was saying.

  “I’m in the root directory,” Jack was saying.

  Brittney knew she should be in pain. Her body was a

  wreck. She knew that. Her legs were broken. The control

  room door, blown from its hinges, had done that. She knew

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  she should be in agony. She wasn’t.

  She should be dead. At least one bullet had hit her.

  But she wasn’t dead. Not quite.

  So much blood, all around her. More than enough to kill

  her. Had to be.

  And yet . . .

  “No one’s leaving,” Caine said.

  It was like being in a dream. Things that she should feel,

  she didn’t. It was like the way sometimes, in a dream—cause

  and effect went backward, or sideways, things not making

  sense.

  “We have no food,” Diana said.

  “Maybe I could go for some,” Bug said.

  “Yeah, right. Like you’d come back here if you found any,”

  Drake sneered. “We’re not here to feed ourselves. We’re here

  to feed him.”

  “Do you capitalize it when you say ‘him,’ Drake?” Diana’s

  sarcasm was savage. “Is he your god now?”

  “He gave me this!” Drake said. Brittney heard a loud crack,

  the bullwhip sound of Drake’s arm.

  With infinite caution, Brittney tested her body. No, she

  could not move her legs. She could only rotate one hip, and

  that only a little.

  Her right arm was useless. Her left arm, though, worked.

  I should be dead, Brittney thought. I should be with Tanner in Heaven.

  I should be dead.

  Maybe you are.

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  No. Not before Caine, Brittney thought.

  She wondered if she had become a healer, like Lana. Everyone knew the story of how Lana had discovered her power.

  But Lana had been in terrible pain. And Brittney was not.

  Still, she focused her thoughts, imagined her useless right

  arm healing. She concentrated all her mind on that.

  “Trapped,” Diana said bitterly.

  “Not for long. We bust out of here and bring him what he

  needs,” Drake said.

  “Gaiaphage. That’s what Caine calls it when he’s ranting,”

  Diana said. “Shouldn’t you know your god’s name?”

  Brittney did not feel any change in her arm.

  A terrible suspicion came to her. There was an awful silence

  from within her own body. She listened. Strained to hear, to

  feel, the ever-present thump . . . thump . . .

  Her heart. It was not beating.

  “Gaiaphage?” Jack said, sounding interested. “A ‘phage’ is

  another word for a computer virus. A worm, actually.”

  Her heart wasn’t beating.

  She wasn’t alive.

  No, that was wrong, she told herself. Dead things don’t

  hear. Dead things cannot move their one good hand, squeezing the fingers ever so slightly so no one would notice.

  There could be only one explanation. Caine and Drake

  had killed her. But Jesus had not taken her up into Heaven

  to be reunited with her brother. Instead, He had granted her

  this power. To live, still, a while, though she was dead.

  To live long enough to accomplish His will.

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  “A phage is code. Software that sort of eats other software,”

  Jack said in his pedantic way.

  Brittney had no doubt what God had chosen her to do.

  Why He had kept her alive.

  She could still see, barely, though one eye was obscured.

  She could see across the floor to where Mike had left the pistol, just the way she had told him to.

  She would have to move with infi
nite patience. Millimeter

  by millimeter. Imperceptible movements of her hip and arm.

  The gun was underneath the table, far in a corner, seven,

  eight feet away.

  Satan walked the earth in this evil trinity of Caine, Drake,

  and Diana. And Brittney had been chosen to stop them.

  Watch me, Tanner, she prayed silently. I’m going to make

  you proud.

  Quinn and Albert were silent as they drove back to Perdido

  Beach.

  The truck was heavier by many pounds of gold.

  Lighter by two kids and a dog.

  Finally Quinn spoke. “We have to tell Sam.”

  “About the gold?” Albert asked.

  “Look, man, we lost the Healer.”

  Albert hung his head. “Yeah.”

  “Sam has to know that. Lana’s important.”

  “I know that,” Albert snapped. “I said that.”

  “She’s more important than some stupid gold.”

  For a long time Albert didn’t respond. Then, finally, “Look,

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  Quinn, I know what you think. Same as everyone else. You

  think I’m just all about me. You think I’m just into being

  greedy or whatever.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No. Well, maybe,” Albert admitted. “Okay, maybe I want

  to be important. Maybe I want to have a lot of stuff and be in

  charge and all that.”

  Quinn snorted. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “But that doesn’t make me wrong, Quinn.”

  Quinn didn’t have anything to say to that. He was sick at

  heart. He would be blamed for losing Lana Arwen Lazar. The

  Healer. The irreplaceable Healer. Sam would be disgusted

  with him. Astrid would give him one of her cold, disappointed looks.

  He should have stuck to fishing. He liked that. Fishing. It

  was peaceful. He could be alone and not be bothered. Now,

  even that was ruined with him having Albert’s guys working

  under him. Having to train them, supervise them.

  Sam was going to blow up. Or else just borrow Astrid’s

  cold, disappointed look.

  They bounced out onto the highway.

  “The streetlights are out,” Albert said.

  “It’s almost morning,” Quinn said. “Maybe they’re on a

  timer.”

  “No, man. They aren’t on a timer.”

  They reached the edge of Perdido Beach. It began to dawn

  on Quinn that something very big was very wrong. Maybe

  even something bigger and wronger than losing the Healer.

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  “Everything’s dark,” Quinn said.

  “Something’s happened,” Albert agreed.