Crazy.
Impossible.
She was sure of one thing: There had been no word of warning from her grandfather. In a heartbeat he was gone and she was plunging down the ravine.
Lana was desperately thirsty. The closest place she knew where she could get a drink was the ranch. It was probably no more than a mile away. If she could somehow get up to the road…but even in daylight, even healthy, the climb would have been nearly impossible.
She raised her throbbing head a little and twisted till she saw the truck. It was just a few feet away, wheels up, silhouetted against the stars.
Something scuttled across her neck. Patrick sat up, focused on the faint sound.
“Don’t let anything get me, boy,” she begged.
Patrick woofed, the way he did when he wanted to play.
“I don’t have any food for you, boy,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”
Patrick settled back down, head on paws.
“I guess Mom will be happy,” Lana said. “I guess she’ll be really happy she made me come here.”
She would not have noticed the eyes glittering in the dark, except that Patrick was up all at once, bristling and growling like nothing she had ever heard before.
“What is it, boy?”
Green eyes, hovering, disembodied. Staring straight at her. The eyes blinked at a lazy speed, opened again.
Patrick was barking like crazy now, prancing back and forth.
The mountain lion roared. It was a hoarse, deep-throated, snarling sound.
Lana yelled, “Go away! Leave me alone!” Her voice was pathetic—weak, and aware of its own weakness.
Patrick ran back to Lana, then turned, finding his courage again, and faced the mountain lion.
In a flash, battle was joined, an explosion of snarling, canine and feline, deep, terrible sounds. In half a minute it was over and the mountain lion’s glittering eyes reappeared farther away. They blinked once, stared, then were gone.
Patrick came back slowly. He slouched heavily beside Lana.
“Good boy, good boy,” Lana cooed. “You scared off that old lion, didn’t you, boy? Oh, my good dog. Good boy.”
Patrick wagged his tail weakly.
“Did he hurt you, boy? Did he hurt you, my good boy?”
She ran her one usable hand over her dog. His ruff was wet, slick to the touch. It could only be blood. She probed, and Patrick whimpered in pain.
Then she felt the flow. There was a deep cut in Patrick’s neck. The blood was pumping out, surging with each heartbeat, draining the dog’s life away.
“No, no, no,” Lana cried. “You can’t die. You can’t die.”
If he died, she would be alone in the desert, unable to move. Alone.
The mountain lion would come back.
Then the vultures.
No. No. That wasn’t going to happen.
No.
The fear was too much to contain, it couldn’t be reasoned with, it couldn’t be resisted. Lana cried out in terror, “Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. I want my mom! Help me, someone help me! Mommy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I want to go home, I want to go home.”
She sobbed and babbled, and the pain of loneliness and fear felt even greater than the agony of her battered body. It choked the air from her lungs.
She was alone. Alone with pain. And soon the mountain lion’s teeth…
Patrick had to live. He had to live. He was all she had.
She cuddled her dog as close as she could without her own pain obliterating consciousness. She placed her palm over his wound, pressing as hard as she dared.
She would stop the blood.
She would hold him and stop his life from escaping.
She would hold life inside him and he wouldn’t die.
But blood still drained through her fingers.
She held on and focused all her will on staying awake to hold the wound, to keep her friend alive.
“Good boy,” she whispered through parched lips.
She fought to stay awake. But thirst and hunger, pain and fear, loneliness and horror were too much for her. After a long while Lana fell asleep.
And her hand slipped from the dog’s neck.
Sam, Quinn, and Astrid spent much of the night searching the hotel for Little Pete. Astrid figured out how to access the hotel’s security system and make a plastic passkey that worked on all doors.
They checked each room. They did not find Astrid’s brother, or anyone else.
They came to an exhausted halt in the last room. The barrier cut right through it. It was as if someone had put up a wall in the middle of the room.
“It cuts right through the TV,” Quinn said. He picked up a remote control and punched the red power button. Nothing.
Astrid said, “I’d love to know what it looks like on the other side of the barrier. Did someone’s half a TV just turn on over there?”
“If so, maybe they could tell me if the Lakers won,” Quinn said, but no one, including him, was in the mood to laugh.
“Your brother is probably safely on the other side, Astrid,” Sam said, then added, “with your mom, probably.”
“I don’t know that,” Astrid snapped. “I have to assume that he’s alone and helpless and that I’m the only one who can do anything to help him.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself tightly. Then, “I’m sorry. That sounded like I was mad at you.”
“No. You just sounded mad. Not at me,” Sam said. “We can’t do any more tonight. It’s almost midnight. I think we should go back to that big room we saw.”
Astrid could only nod, and Quinn looked about ready to crash. They found the suite. It had a huge balcony that overlooked the ocean far below. To the left the barrier blocked the view. It traveled far out over the ocean, as far as they could see. It was like a wall extending out from the hotel itself, an endless wall.
The suite had a room with a king-size bed and a room with two queens, all very plush. There was a minibar fridge containing liquor, beer, soda, nuts, a Snickers, a Toblerone bar, and a few other snacks.
“Boys’ room,” Quinn said, then flopped onto one of the two queens, facedown. Within seconds he was asleep.
Sam and Astrid stood together for a while on the balcony, splitting the Toblerone. Neither of them said anything for a long time.
“What do you think this is?” Sam asked finally. He didn’t need to explain what he meant by “this.”
“Sometimes I think it’s a dream,” Astrid said. “It’s so strange that no one has shown up. I mean, the place should be crawling with soldiers and scientists and reporters. Suddenly a wall just appears out of nowhere, most of the people in town disappear, and yet there aren’t any network satellite trucks?”
Sam had already reached a grim conclusion about that. He wondered if Astrid had, too.
She had. “I don’t think it’s just a straight wall cutting us off from the south, you know? I think it may be a circle. It may go all the way around us. We may be cut off in every direction. In fact, since no one has come to rescue us, I think that’s pretty likely. Don’t you?”
“Yeah. We’re in a trap. But, why? And why disappear everyone over the age of fourteen?”
“I don’t know.”
Sam let the silence linger, not wanting to ask the next question on his mind, not sure he wanted the answer. Finally, “What happens when kids turn fifteen?”
Astrid turned her blue eyes on him, and he met her gaze. “When is your birthday, Sam?”
“November twenty-second,” he said. “Just five days before Thanksgiving. Twelve days from now. No, just eleven days now, since it’s after midnight. You?”
“Not till March.”
“I like March better. Or July, or August. First time I ever wished I was younger.”
So that she wouldn’t keep looking at him the way she was looking at him and feeling sorry for him, he said, “You think they’re all still alive somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“You think that because you really think so, or because you just want them to be alive?”
“Yes,” she said, and smiled. “Sam?”
“Yeah.”
“I was on the school bus that day. Remember?”
“Vaguely,” he said, and laughed. “My fifteen minutes of fame.”
“You were the bravest, coolest person I’d ever known. Everyone thought so. You were the hero of the whole school. And then, I don’t know. It was like you kind of just…faded.”
He resented that a little. He hadn’t faded. Had he? “Well, most days the bus driver doesn’t have a heart attack,” Sam said.
Astrid laughed. “You’re one of those people, I think. You go along in your life just sort of living. And then something goes wrong and there you are. You step up and do what you have to do. Like today, the fire.”
“Yeah, well, to tell you the truth, I kind of prefer the other part. The part where I just live my life.”
Astrid nodded like she understood, but then she said, “That’s not going to happen this time.”
Sam hung his head and looked down at the lawn below. A lizard scampered across a stone walkway. Quick, slow, quick, then it disappeared. “Look, don’t expect too much from me, okay?”
“Okay, Sam.” She said it, but not like she meant it. “Tomorrow we’re going to figure this all out.”
“And find your brother.”
“And find my brother.”
She turned away. Sam stayed on the balcony. He couldn’t hear the surf. There was very little breeze. But he could smell flowers from the grounds below. And the salt smell of the Pacific hadn’t changed.
He had told Astrid he was scared, and he was. But there were other feelings, too. The emptiness of the too-quiet night seeped into him. He was alone. Even with Astrid and Quinn, he was alone. He knew what they did not.
The change was so big that he couldn’t get his mind to take it all in.
It was all connected, he was sure of that. What he had done to his stepfather, what he had done in his room, what had happened with the little pigtailed flamethrower, the disappearance of everyone over the age of fourteen, and this impermeable, impossible barrier—all were pieces of the same puzzle.
And his mother’s diary, that too.
He was scared, overwhelmed, lonely. But less lonely in one way than he had been these last months. The little firestarter proved that he was not the only one with power.
He was not the only freak.
He held up his hands and looked at his palms. Pink skin, calluses from waxing his surfboard, a life line, a fate line. Just a palm.
How? How did it happen?
What did it mean?
And if he was not the only freak, did that mean he was not responsible for this catastrophe?
He extended his hands, palms out, toward the barrier as if to touch it.
In a panic he could make light.
In a panic he could burn a man’s hand off.
But surely he could not have done this.
That brought him a sense of relief. No, he had not done this.
And yet someone or something had.
EIGHT
287 HOURS, 27 MINUTES
“SIT STILL, I’M trying to change your diaper,” Mary Terrafino said to the toddler.
“It’s not a diaper,” the little girl said. “Diapers are for babies. It’s my trainee pants.”
“Oh, sorry,” Mary said. “I didn’t know.”
She finished pulling the training pants up and smiled, but the little girl collapsed in tears.
“My mommy always puts my trainee pants on.”
“I know, sweetie,” Mary said. “But tonight I’m doing it, okay?”
Mary wanted to cry herself. She had never wanted to cry more. Night had fallen. She and her nine-year-old brother, John, had handed out the last of the cheddar-flavored Goldfish. They had handed out all the juice boxes. They were almost out of diapers. Barbara’s Day Care wasn’t set up for overnight care. They only had a limited supply of diapers on hand.
There were twenty-eight kids in the larger of the two rooms. Watching over them were Mary and John and a ten-year-old girl named Eloise, like in the books, who mostly kept an eye on her four-year-old brother. Eloise was one of the fairly responsible ones. A couple of other kids, overwhelmed, not knowing how to cope, had just dropped off siblings and made no attempt to stay and help.
Mary and John had prepared formula and filled bottles. They’d made “meals” of whatever was in the day care and whatever John managed to scrounge up. They had read picture books aloud. They had played the Raffi CDs over and over again.
Mary had said the words “Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right” a million times. She had hugged every kid again and again, so that it seemed like she was on a factory assembly line handing out hugs.
Still, the kids cried for their mothers. Still, they asked, “When is my mommy coming? Why isn’t she here? Where is she?” They demanded in petulant, scared voices, “I want my mom. I want to go home. Now.”
Mary was shaking with exhaustion.
She fell into the rocking chair and just stared at the room. Cribs. Mats on the floor. Tiny bodies curled this way and that. Most asleep. Except for the two-year-old girl who would not stop crying. And the baby who wandered in and out of wailing fits.
Her brother, John, was fighting sleep, his curls bouncing as he jerked his head up only to have it drift lower…lower. He was slumped in a chair across the room, rocking a makeshift bassinet that was really just a long plastic planter liberated from the hardware store. She caught his eye and said, “I am so proud of you, John.”
He smiled his sweet smile, and Mary almost fell apart. Her lip quivered. Tears welled in her eyes. There was a lump in her throat and a pain in her chest.
“I have to go pee,” a voice called.
Mary located the source. “Come on, Cassie, let’s go,” she said. The bathroom was just outside the main room. She led the way, then she waited, leaning against the wall. Afterward, she wiped the little girl’s bottom.
“My mommy always does that,” Cassie said.
“I know, sweetheart.”
“My mommy always calls me that.”
“Sweetheart? Oh. Would you like me to call you something else?”
“No. But I just want to know when my mommy is coming. I miss her. I always hug her and she kisses me.”
“I know. But until she comes back, can I give you a kiss?”
“No. Only my mommy.”
“Okay, sweetheart. Let’s go back to bed.”
Back in the main room Mary went to John. “Hey, brother.” She ruffled his red curls. “We’re running out of stuff. We’ll have a problem in the morning. I have to go see what I can round up. Can you hang in here for a while?”
“Yeah. I can wipe butts.”
Mary went out into the night onto the mostly quiet plaza. Some kids were sleeping on benches. Some huddled in little groups around flashlights. She spotted Howard walking along with a Mountain Dew in one hand and a baseball bat in the other.
“Have you seen Sam?” Mary asked.
“What do you want with Sam?”
“I can’t take care of all those littles with just John to help me.”
Howard shrugged. “Who asked you to?”
That was too much. Mary was tall and strong. Howard, though a boy, was smaller. Mary took two steps toward him, pushing her face right into his. “Listen, you little worm. If I don’t take care of those kids, they’ll die. Do you understand that? There are babies in there who need to be fed and need to be changed, and I seem to be the only one who realizes it. And there are probably more little kids still in their homes, all alone, not knowing what’s happening, not knowing how to feed themselves, scared to death.”
Howard took a step back, tentatively lifted the bat, then let it fall. “What am I supposed to do?” he whined.
“You? Nothing. Where’s Sam?”
“What do you mean, he took off?”
“I mean him and Quinn and Astrid took off.”
Mary blinked, feeling stupid and slow. “Who’s in charge?”
“You think just because Sam likes to play the big hero every couple years that makes him the guy in charge?”
Mary had been on the bus two years ago when the driver, Mr. Colombo, had had his heart attack. She’d had her head in a book, not paying attention, but she had looked up when she felt the bus swerve. By the time she had focused, Sam was guiding the bus onto the shoulder of the road.
In the two years that followed, Sam had been so quiet and so modest and so not involved in the social life of the school that Mary had sort of forgotten that moment of heroism. Most people had.
And yet she hadn’t even been surprised when it was Sam who had stepped up during the fire. And she had somehow assumed that if anyone was going to be in charge, it would be Sam. She found herself angry with him for not being here now: she needed help.
“Go get Orc,” Mary said.
“I don’t tell Orc what to do, bitch.”
“Excuse me?” she snapped. “What did you just call me?”
Howard gulped. “Didn’t mean nothing, Mary.”
“Where is Orc?”
“I think he’s sleeping.”
“Wake him up. I need some help. I can’t stay awake any longer. I need at least two kids who have experience babysitting. And then I need diapers and bottles and nipples and Cheerios and lots of milk.”
“Why am I going to do all that?”
Mary didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know, Howard,” she said. “Maybe because you’re really not a complete jerk? Maybe you’re really a decent human being?”
That earned her a skeptical look and a derisive snort.
“Look, kids will do what Orc says,” Mary said. “They’re scared of him. All I’m asking is for Orc to act like Orc.”
Howard thought this over. Mary could almost see the wheels spinning in his head.
“Forget it,” she said. “I’ll talk to Sam when he gets back.”
“Yeah, he’s the big hero, isn’t he?” Howard said, dripping sarcasm. “But hey, where is he? You see him around? I don’t see him around.”
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