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understanding that the argument between his mother and
stepfather was no big thing. He’d thought his stepfather was
going to hit his mother.
So, by the time Sam, in a panic, had created the light that
would not die, he had already been School Bus Sam, and the
person who’d burned a grown man’s hand off.
Not some random teenager.
He hated this house and hated this room. Why had he
come here?
Because everyone knew he hated it, so they wouldn’t come
looking for him here. They’d search for him everywhere and
not find him.
The stuff he had in his room—the clothes, the books, the
old school notebooks, the pictures he had taken once with a
waterproof camera while he was surfing—none of it meant
anything to him. Some other kid’s stuff, not his. Not anymore.
He sat on the end of his bed, feeling like an intruder. A
strange feeling since this was the only place he’d stayed in the
last three months that he had any real claim to.
He gazed at the ball of light. “Turn off,” he said.
The ball did not respond.
Sam raised his palms, aimed them toward the light, and
thought the single word, Dark.
The light disappeared.
The room was plunged into darkness. So dark, he
couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. All over town,
kids were sitting in the dark, just like this. He supposed he
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could go around and create little light balls in every house
in town. Sam, the electrician.
He was no longer afraid of the dark. That realization surprised him. The dark almost felt cozy, now. Safe. No one could see him in the dark.
There was a list in his head, a list that kept scrolling and
scrolling. Words and phrases. One after another. Each representing a thing he should be doing.
Zekes. Caine and the power plant. Little Pete and his monsters. Food. Zil and Hunter. Lana and . . . whatever. Water.
Jack. Albert.
Those were the headlines. Buzzing around those great big
things were thousands of smaller things, like a nest of hornets. Kids fighting. Dogs and cats. Broken windows. Grass.
Gasoline that needed to be rationed. Trash piling up. Toilets
plugged. Teeth needing to be brushed. Kids drinking. Bedtimes. Mary throwing up. Cigarettes and pot.
Things to do. Decisions to make.
No one listening.
And what about Astrid?
And what about Quinn?
And what about kids talking more openly about stepping
off when the Big One-Five rolled around?
And around and around and around it whirled through
his head.
He sat in the dark on the end of his bed. He wanted to
cry. That’s what he wanted to do. But there wouldn’t be
anyone to come and pat him on the shoulder and tell him
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everything would be okay.
There was no one. And things wouldn’t be okay.
It was all coming apart.
He imagined himself facing a tribunal. Stone faces glaring
at him. Accusations. You let them starve, Sam. You let normals turn against freaks.
Tell us about the death of E.Z., Mr. Temple.
Tell us what you did to save the kids at the power plant.
Tell us how you failed to find a way out of the FAYZ.
Tell us why, when the FAYZ wall came down, we found
kids dead in the dark.
They were down to eating rats, Mr. Temple.
We have evidence of cannibalism.
Explain that to us, Mr. Temple.
Sam heard soft footsteps in the family room. Of course.
There was one person who would know where he was hiding.
The bedroom door opened with a squeak. A flashlight
found his face. He closed his eyes to block the light.
The flashlight snapped off. Without a word she came and
sat beside him.
For the longest time neither of them spoke. They sat side
by side. Her leg was against his.
“I’m feeling sorry for myself,” he said at last.
“Why?”
It took him a few beats to realize she was kidding. She
knew the list in his head as well as he did.
“Whatever vitally important thing you came here to tell
me?” he said. “Just don’t, okay? I’m sure it’s absolutely life or
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death. But just don’t.”
He could sense her hesitation. With sinking heart he realized he had guessed correctly. There was some new crisis.
Some new thing that absolutely demanded Sam Temple’s
attention, his decisiveness, his leadership.
He didn’t care.
Astrid remained silent. Silent for too long. But she seemed
to be rocking back and forth, just slightly. And he almost
thought he heard her whispering.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m praying.”
“What for?”
“A miracle. A clue. Food.”
Sam sighed. “What food?”
“A Quiznos. Turkey, bacon, and guacamole.”
“Yeah? If God gives you a Quiznos, can I have a bite?”
“No way. You have to pray for your own food.”
“Three hundred kids are praying for food. And yet, we
have no food. Three hundred kids praying for their parents.
Praying for this all to be over.”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “Sometimes it’s hard having faith.”
“If there’s a God, I wonder if he’s sitting in the dark on the
end of his bed wondering how he managed to screw everything up.”
“Maybe,” Astrid said with just a little bit of a laugh.
Sam was not in a laughing mood. “Yeah? Well to hell with
your God.”
He heard a sharp intake of breath. It gratified him. Good.
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Let her be shocked. Let her be so shocked, she went away and
left him to sit here alone in the dark.
Neither of them spoke for a long while. Then Astrid stood
up, breaking the slight physical contact between them.
“You don’t want to hear this,” Astrid said, “but they couldn’t
find you, so they found me. And now I’ve found you.”
“I really don’t care,” Sam warned.
But Astrid would not stop. “Bug has come over to our side.
He was on a mission for Caine. They have a freak who can
see dreams and Caine wanted Bug to get her, take her to some
mine in the hills. Some monster.”
“Yeah?” Sam said. Not like he cared. Like he was just being
polite.
“And Cookie showed up. He had to walk all the way back
to town. He walked through the night. He had a note from
Lana.”
Nothing. Sam had nothing to say to that.
Astrid sat quiet for a second then added, “Bug says they
call it the gaiaphage. Lana calls it the Darkness.”
Sam covered his face with his hands. “I don’t care, Astrid.
Handle it yourself. Pray to Jesus and maybe He’ll handle it.”
“You know, Sam, I’ve never thought you were perfect. I
know you have a temper. But I’ve never known you to be
&n
bsp; mean.”
“I’m mean?” He laughed bitterly.
“Mean. Yes, that was mean.”
Their voices were rising swiftly. “I’m mean? That’s the
worst you can throw at me?”
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“Mean and self-pitying. Does that make it better?”
“And what are you, Astrid?” he shouted. “A smug know-itall! You point your finger at me and say, ‘Hey, Sam, you make the decisions, and you take all the heat.’”
“Oh, it’s my fault? No way. I didn’t anoint you.”
“Yeah, you did, Astrid. You guilted me into it. You think
I don’t know what you’re all about? You used me to protect
Little Pete. You use me to get your way. You manipulate me
anytime you feel like it.”
“You really are a jerk, you know that?”
“No, I’m not a jerk, Astrid. You know what I am? I’m the
guy getting people killed,” Sam said quietly.
Then, “My head is exploding from it. I can’t get my brain
around it. I can’t do this. I can’t be that guy, Astrid, I’m a kid,
I should be studying algebra or whatever. I should be hanging
out. I should be watching TV.”
His voice rose, higher and louder till he was screaming.
“What do you want from me? I’m not Little Pete’s father. I’m
not everybody’s father. Do you ever stop to think what people
are asking me to do? You know what they want me to do? Do
you? They want me to kill my brother so the lights will come
back on. They want me to kill kids! Kill Drake. Kill Diana.
Get our own kids killed.
“That’s what they ask. Why not, Sam? Why aren’t you doing
what you have to do, Sam? Tell kids to get eaten alive by zekes,
Sam. Tell Edilio to dig some more holes in the square, Sam.”
He had gone from yelling to sobbing. “I’m fifteen years
old. I’m fifteen.”
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He sat down hard on the edge of the bed. “Oh, my God,
Astrid. It’s in my head, all these things. I can’t get rid of them.
It’s like some filthy animal inside my head and I will never,
ever, ever get rid of it. It makes me feel so bad. It’s disgusting.
I want to throw up. I want to die. I want someone to shoot me
in the head so I don’t have to think about everything.”
Astrid was beside him, and her arms were around him. He
was ashamed, but he couldn’t stop the tears. He was sobbing
like he had when he was a little kid, like when he had a nightmare. Out of control. Sobbing.
Gradually the spasms slowed. Then stopped. His breathing went from ragged to regular.
“I’m really glad the lights weren’t on,” Sam said. “Bad
enough you had to hear it.”
“I’m falling apart,” he said.
Astrid gave no answer, just held him close. And after what
felt like a very long time, Sam moved away from her, gently
putting distance between them again.
“Listen. You won’t ever tell anyone . . .”
“No. But, Sam . . .”
“Please don’t tell me it’s okay,” Sam said. “Don’t be nice to
me anymore. Don’t even tell me you love me. I’m about a millimeter from falling apart again.”
“Okay.”
Sam heaved a huge sigh. Then another. Then, “Okay. Okay.
Tell me what’s in Lana’s letter.”
THIRTY-THREE
07 HOURS, 58 MINUTES
H U N T E R W A S H U N G R I E R than he would have thought
possible. He’d been hungry for a long time, living on the
slimy, tasteless, awful stuff they handed out at Ralph’s. Three
cans of goo a day. That’s what kids called it. Only sometimes
the word wasn’t “goo” but something harsher.
But now he was far beyond that. Now the days of three
cans of goo seemed like the good old days.
After leaving Duck he’d been spotted and chased by Zil’s
friends. He’d barely escaped. And in order to get away, he’d
had to go the one direction they didn’t expect: out of town.
He had crossed the highway. Running, scared, feeling he
was being chased even when he wasn’t. Feeling like at any
minute Zil and his thug friends might catch him. And then . . .
and he didn’t want to think too hard about what came then.
It seemed so crazy. So impossible. Zil had never been like
his best friend or anything, but they had shared a house. They
had been buddies. Not close, but buddies. Guys who would
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chill and watch a game or check out girls or whatever. Zil and
him and Harry and . . .
And of course that was the problem: Harry.
He hadn’t meant to hurt Harry. It wasn’t really his fault.
Was it?
Was it?
Hunter had slunk across the highway and it was like it was
a border or something. Like he was crossing from one country into another. Perdido Beach on one side, something else on the other.
He thought at first about going to Coates. But Coates
wasn’t the answer to any question that Hunter could think
of. Coates meant Drake and Caine and that deceptive witch,
Diana. Mostly, Drake. Hunter had seen Drake at the Thanksgiving Battle. Back at the time Hunter had not even known he was developing powers. He was a bystander, mostly getting in
the way of the guys who were doing the real fighting. Standing there watching in sheer, wild-eyed terror as Sam fired massive jolts of energy from his hands and Caine picked up
things and people and threw them around.
And the coyotes. They were part of it, too.
But it was Drake who had haunted Hunter’s nightmares.
Whip Hand, he called himself, and that was accurate enough.
But it wasn’t the whip hand that terrified Hunter. It was the
sheer, insane violence in the boy. The madness.
No. Not Coates. He couldn’t go there.
He couldn’t go anywhere.
Hunter had spent the remainder of the night hiding in one
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of the abandoned homes that nestled up against the hills.
But he had not slept well. The fear and the hunger made
sleep impossible.
Well, Hunter told himself, if he was still this desperate in
two days, he had a solution. Not a good solution, maybe, but a
solution. In two days Hunter would turn fifteen. Fifteen was
the poof, the big step-off. Later to the FAYZ.
He had heard all about how to survive. How to stay in the
FAYZ, fight the temptation. But he’d also heard that lately
more and more kids were saying, forget it: I hit fifteen, I am
out of here.
They said at the moment of the poof you were tempted
with the one thing you wanted most. By the one person you
missed most. If you could reject that temptation, you stayed
in the FAYZ. If you gave in . . . well, that was the thing. No
one knew what happened if you went for it.
Hunter knew what would tempt him to accept. A cheeseburger. Or a slice of pizza. Not candy, it wasn’t about candy.
Not anymore. It was all about meaty goodness now.
If some demon came to him with a rack of Applebee’s ribs,
Hunter had no serious do
ubt that he would reach for it, whatever the consequence.
He would trade his life for an In-N-Out Double-Double.
The only hesitation in his mind was whether the demon
would actually let him eat it or would just zap him into nonexistence, still hungry.
Hunter hid in the house all night and well into the morning,
afraid to step outside. But no matter how hard he searched, he
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found nothing to eat. Nothing. The house had been cleaned
out completely. The cupboards were all open, the refrigerator
door wide open, all the telltale signs that Albert’s gatherers
had been through.
Nothing. To. Eat.
Hunter stood vacant, hopeless, in the living room. He
stared at the backyard and thought about the grass and weeds.
Weeds were plants, after all. Animals ate them. They would
at least fill his stomach.
Grass and weeds. Boiled. He could do that.
Then he saw the deer.
It was a doe. Hyper alert, with a face that managed to be
both cute and stupid. The doe blinked her big black eyes.
A deer. As big as a calf.
Hunter was moving toward the back door before he’d
thought through what he was doing or why.
He moved swiftly. He opened the back porch door. The
deer, startled, took off in a bounding run. Hunter raised his
hands and thought, Burn.
The deer did not fall over dead. Instead, it made a squealing sound Hunter had not known deer could make. The deer kept running, but one leg dragged.
Hunter aimed again and thought, Burn.
The deer stumbled. Its front legs kept motoring, but its
hind legs were immobilized. It fell on its face.
Hunter ran to it. He found the deer still alive. Struggling.
She looked at him with her big, soft eyes and for a moment
he hesitated.
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“I’m sorry,” he said.
He aimed his hands at her head. In seconds she had stopped
thrashing. The dark eyes turned opaque.
She smelled like a steak on the grill.
Hunter burst into tears. He sobbed wildly, out of control. It
was like what he’d done to Harry. Poor Harry. And now this
poor animal, who was just hungry herself.
He didn’t want to eat the deer. It was crazy. She’d been
alive, munching weeds just a minute earlier. Alive. Now dead.
And not just dead, but partly cooked.
He told himself he would not eat the deer. But even as he
was telling himself he wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t . . . he was
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