Hunger_A Gone Novel

by Michael Grant

  The alarm filled his brain. How many minutes? How many

  seconds? The control rods rose with majestic inevitability.

  How long until it was too late?

  One more failure, Sam thought dully.

  “Don’t you want to know what I want, Sam?” Drake cried.

  “Me,” Sam said dully. “You want me.”

  “That’s the idea, Sam. And you’re going to stand there and

  take it. Because if you don’t . . .”

  Astrid was with Little Pete, doing one of the long-neglected

  exercises. This one involved separating balls by color. There

  was a blue box, and a yellow box; blue balls, yellow balls. Any

  normal five-year-old could do it. But Little Pete was not any

  normal five-year-old.

  “Can you put the ball where it belongs?” Astrid asked.

  Little Pete stared at the ball. Then his eyes wandered.

  Astrid took his hand and placed it on a yellow ball. Too

  hard. She was hurting him.

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  “Can you put this where it belongs?” Her voice was shrill,

  impatient.

  They were on the floor in Little Pete’s room, sitting in a

  corner on the carpet. Little Pete was gone in his head, not

  there, indifferent.

  Sometimes she hated him.

  “Try again, Petey,” Astrid said. She stopped herself from

  twisting her fingers together. She was sending signals of being

  tense. Not helpful.

  She should be running exercises like this every day. Several times a day. But she didn’t. She was only doing it now because she couldn’t stand waiting. She needed something to

  take her mind off Sam.

  “Sorry,” she said to Little Pete, who was as indifferent to

  her apology as to everything else.

  Someone knocked at the bedroom door, and she jumped.

  The door swung in; it wasn’t closed.

  “It’s me, John.”

  Astrid climbed to her feet, relieved it was just John. Disappointed it was just John.

  “John, what is it?” They wouldn’t send John with bad news.

  Would they?

  “I can’t find Mary.”

  A flood of relief, instantly replaced by more worry. “She’s

  not at the day care?”

  He shook his head. His red curls went everywhere, a counterpoint to his serious expression. “She was supposed to come in hours ago. She’s almost never late. I couldn’t leave to look

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  for her because we’re shorthanded and we have so many kids

  sick. I came as soon as I could. I looked in her room. I didn’t

  find her there.”

  Astrid glanced at Little Pete. He had stalled with his hand

  on a yellow ball, and seemingly no interest in doing anything

  with it.

  “Let me look,” Astrid said.

  They entered Mary’s room. It was as neat and organized as

  ever. But the bed was unmade.

  “She always makes her bed,” Astrid said.

  “Yeah,” John agreed.

  “What’s that sound?” There was a steady hum. Coming

  from the bathroom. The fan. Astrid tried to open the bathroom door, but it was blocked. She leaned into it and pushed it open enough to see inside.

  Mary was on the floor, unconscious. She was wearing a

  robe that exposed her calves.

  “Oh, my God,” Astrid cried. “Mary!”

  “Help me push,” Astrid said. Together they forced the

  door open enough to let them slip inside. Astrid immediately

  noticed the smell of vomit.

  “She must be sick,” John said.

  The toilet water was slightly discolored. There was a thin

  trail of vomit running from Mary’s mouth.

  “She’s breathing,” Astrid said quickly. “She’s alive.”

  “I didn’t even know she was sick.”

  Then Astrid saw the little zipper bag, a little Clinique

  cosmetics bag lying with its contents half spilled onto the

  bathroom tile.

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  3

  She picked it up. She dumped the contents out on the floor.

  A mostly empty bottle of ipecac. And several different types

  of laxatives.

  “John, close your eyes for a minute.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m going to open Mary’s robe.” She pulled the

  knot on the robe’s tie and, feeling vaguely squeamish, opened

  the robe.

  Mary was wearing only panties. Pink. Strange, Astrid

  thought, that she even noticed. Because the thing most noticeable about Mary was her ribs. They could be easily counted.

  Her stomach was hollow.

  “Oh, poor Mary.” Astrid breathed, and closed the robe

  again.

  John opened his eyes. They were wet with tears. “What’s

  wrong with her?”

  Astrid leaned over to reach Mary’s face. She gently pushed

  her lips back to see her teeth. She tugged at a lock of Mary’s

  hair. Strands came loose.

  “She’s starving,” Astrid said.

  “She’s getting as much food as the rest of us,” John protested.

  “She’s not eating. Or when she does eat, she vomits it back

  up. That’s what the ipecac is for.”

  “Why would she do that?” John wailed.

  “It’s a sickness, John. Anorexia. Bulimia. Both, I guess.”

  “We have to get her some food.”

  “Yes.” Astrid didn’t explain that just getting Mary food

  might not be enough. She’d read about eating disorders.

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  Sometimes, if kids didn’t get treatment, they died.

  “Nestor, Nestor, Nestor, Nestor.” It was Little Pete, chanting at the top of his lungs. “Nestor, Nestor, Nestor, Nestor.”

  A wave of hopelessness swept through her. Astrid closed

  her eyes, not wanting to let it get the better of her. She did

  not need this. Did not need Mary passed out, maybe near

  death. She already had the autistic brother, and the depressed

  boyfriend in the middle of some battle. “God forgive me for

  that,” she chastised herself. “Come on, John, we have to get

  Mary to Dahra.”

  “Dahra just has a medical book. She’s not an expert.”

  “I know. Look, I don’t know how to take care of someone

  with anorexia. At least Dahra’s been reading about medicine.”

  “We have to get her some of that deer meat,” John said.

  “We have to feed her.”

  “What deer meat?”

  “Zil has a deer,” John said. “He’s going to share it this evening. At dinnertime.”

  Despite everything, Astrid’s stomach rumbled. The idea of

  meat was more compelling than anything else. But even hunger couldn’t quiet the warning bells in her head. “Zil? Zil’s got a deer?”

  “Everyone is talking about it,” John said. “Turk is telling

  everyone that Zil caught Hunter. Hunter had this deer and

  was keeping it all for himself. Anyone who wants some meat

  just has to come and help them punish Hunter.”

  “At least,” he added, “any normal. No freaks allowed.”

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  Astrid stared at him. John showed no sign of really understanding what he had just said.

  “Is Mary going to be okay?” John asked. “I mean, if we get

  her to eat some deer m
eat? Will she be okay?”

  “Ahhhhh!” Sam yelled as Drake struck again.

  Again and again.

  Sam on his knees now. Crying.

  Crying like a baby. His shrieks of pain melding with the

  harsh lunatic blare of the siren.

  If only there was some way to record this, Drake thought.

  If only he could tape this moment so he could watch it again

  and again.

  The great Sam Temple, bleeding and cringing and screaming out in pain as Drake brought his whip hand down again and again.

  “Does it hurt, Sam?” Drake gloated. “It kind of hurt when

  you burned my arm off. Do you think it hurts like that?”

  Again. Slash!

  And the reward of a terrible groan.

  “They said I wet myself while they were cutting off the

  stump,” Drake said. “Have you done that, yet, Sam? Have you

  peed yourself, Sam?”

  Sam was on his side now, arms over his face, covering

  himself. The last blow hadn’t even brought a scream. Just a

  shudder. Just a spasm.

  “Time to mess up that face of yours,” Drake snarled, and

  drew back to bring all his force to bear.

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  Down came the whip hand.

  There was a blur. Drake wasn’t even sure he had seen anything.

  And then it was his own voice crying out in shock and

  horror. It didn’t even hurt at first, didn’t hurt, just . . .

  Eighteen inches of his tentacle arm lay quivering, jerking

  spasmodically on the floor like a dying snake.

  Blood sprayed from the severed end. He drew it back to

  stare at the stump.

  The wire had appeared from nowhere. Wrapped around

  one of the catwalk ladders at one end. And at the other end,

  Brianna, holding the wire tight.

  “Hey, Drake,” Brianna said. “I heard about your idea for

  cutting me up with wire. Clever.”

  Drake’s mouth gaped open, but no sound came.

  The suddenness of it left him dazed, unable to respond.

  Frozen.

  The severed end still jerked and writhed. Like it had a life

  of its own.

  “The remote!” Sam cried out.

  Drake spread his fingers.

  The remote fell.

  “Breeze!” Sam shouted.

  Drake spun away and ran.

  Brianna’s body moved faster than humanly possible.

  Her brain moved at normal speed. So it took her several

  split seconds to see the remote falling, to realize that if Sam

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  was yelling about it in his condition, it was very, very important.

  Another split second to guess that the glowing blue was

  not a swimming pool.

  The remote fell.

  Brianna dove.

  Her hand gripped the remote just nine inches above the

  surface of the water.

  If she plunged into that water . . .

  She tucked her feet, spun around in midair, and hit the rising control rods as hard as she could.

  It wasn’t elegant. She cleared the lip of the pool and skidded across the floor.

  But she had the remote. She stared at it.

  Now what?

  “Sam? Sam?”

  Sam said nothing. She leapt to him, rolled him over, and

  only then saw to her horror the mess that Drake had made

  of him.

  “Sam?” It came out as a sob.

  “Red button,” Sam managed to gasp.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  53 MINUTES

  E D I L I O ’ S H A N D S W E R E gripping the wheel so tightly, his

  fingers were white. Dekka noticed.

  He was gritting his teeth and then forcing himself to

  unclench in an unsuccessful effort to relax. Dekka noticed

  that, too.

  She didn’t say anything about it. Dekka was not a talkative girl. Dekka’s world was inside her, not locked up but kept private. Her hopes were her own. Her emotions were her

  business, no one else’s. Her fears . . . Well, nothing good ever

  came of showing fear.

  The kids in Perdido Beach, like the kids at Coates before

  that, tended to read Dekka’s self-contained attitude as hostile.

  She wasn’t hostile. But at Coates, that dumping ground for

  problem children, being just a little scary was a good thing.

  At Coates, Dekka had belonged to no clique. She’d had no

  friends. She didn’t make trouble, kept her grades up, followed

  most of the rules, kept her nose out of other people’s business.

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  But she noticed what went on around her. She had known

  longer than most that some of the kids at Coates were

  changing in ways that could not logically be possible. She

  had known that Caine had gained some strange new power.

  She’d seen Drake Merwin for the dangerously sick creature

  he was. And Diana, of course, beautiful, seductive, knowing

  Diana.

  Dekka had felt the attraction of the girl. Diana had played

  her, teased her, mocked her, and left Dekka feeling more vulnerable than she had in a long time. But Diana had told no one Dekka’s secret. In the environment of Coates, that fact

  would have come back to Dekka very quickly.

  Diana knew how to keep secrets. For her own purposes.

  In those early days at Coates, Dekka had barely noticed

  Brianna. That attraction had come later, after Caine and

  Drake had made their move and imprisoned all the budding

  freaks at Coates.

  Dekka had been stuck beside Brianna, the two of them

  weighed down by the cement blocks encasing their hands. Side

  by side they’d eaten from a trough. Like animals. That’s when

  Dekka had started to admire Brianna’s unbroken spirit.

  You could knock Brianna down. But she didn’t stay down.

  Dekka loved that.

  Of course, nothing would ever come of it. Brianna was

  probably totally straight. And with lousy taste in guys, in

  Dekka’s opinion.

  “Not far,” Edilio said. “The ghost town’s just ahead. Be

  ready.”

  “Ready for what?” Dekka grumbled. “No one’s explained

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  any of this to me. All Sam said is, I’m supposed to crush some

  cave.”

  Edilio had his machine gun on his lap. He clicked the

  safety to the off position. He had a pistol wedged under his

  leg. He pulled this out, clicked the safety to off, and handed

  it to Dekka.

  “You’re starting to worry me just a little bit, Edilio.”

  “Coyotes,” Edilio said. “And worse, maybe.”

  “What’s the ‘worse’?”

  They slowed as they drove down the main street of what

  Dekka realized must have once been a town. All fallen down

  now. Sticks and dust and faded smears of cracked, ancient

  paint.

  “Don’t you feel it?” Edilio asked.

  And she did. Had for several minutes already, without

  knowing what it was, what to call it.

  “How close do you have to be to do your thing?” Edilio

  asked.

  When Dekka tried to answer, she found her mouth was

  too dry, her throat too tight. She swallowed dust and tried

  again. “Close.”

  The Jeep r
eached the bottom of the trail. Edilio pulled the

  car around so that it was facing away. He left the keys in the

  ignition. “I don’t want to have to fumble for the keys,” he said.

  “Hopefully the coyotes haven’t learned to steal cars.”

  Dekka found she was strangely reluctant to get out of the

  Jeep. She saw sympathy and understanding in Edilio’s eyes.

  “Yeah,” he said.

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  “I don’t even know what I’m scared of,” Dekka said.

  “Whatever it is,” Edilio said, “let’s go kill it.”

  They started up the trail. They soon came upon the fly-

  covered corpse of a coyote.

  “We got one at least,” Edilio said.

  They stepped carefully past the dead animal. Edilio kept

  his machine gun at the ready, sweeping the barrel slowly, side

  to side. The pistol was heavy in Dekka’s hand. She searched

  each rock, each crevice, waiting, tense, clenching muscles she

  didn’t know she had.

  Slowly they climbed.

  And there, at last, the entrance to the mine.

  “Can you do it from here?” Edilio whispered.

  “No,” Dekka said. “Closer.”

  Dragging feet through the dirt and gravel. Like they were

  walking through molasses. Every molecule of air seemed to

  drag at them. Slow-mo. Edilio’s finger flexing spasmodically

  on the trigger. Dekka’s heart thudding.

  Closer.

  Close enough.

  Dekka stopped. Edilio, with exquisite slowness, turned to

  point his gun at the two coyotes that had appeared almost by

  magic just above the mine shaft.

  Dekka tucked her pistol into the back of her belt. She had

  some vague, distant memory of someone telling her, “Better

  if it goes off to shoot a hole in your butt than in your . . .”

  A million years ago. A million miles away. Another planet.

  Another life.

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  Dekka raised her hands, spread them wide and . . .

  Movement from within the cave.

  Slow, steady. A hint of pale flesh in the shadow.

  Lana moved like a sleepwalker. She came to a stop just

  within the cave, under the overhang.

  She looked right at Dekka.

  “Don’t,” Lana said in a voice not her own.

  When Sam came to some time later, Brianna was kneeling

  beside him, a first-aid kit open on the floor. She was spraying

  cold liquid bandage onto his worst whip marks.

  “Drake,” Sam managed to gasp.

  “I’ll take care of him later,” Brianna said. “You first.”