Gone Series Complete Collection (36 page)

“I’m on it,” Edilio said.

The wounded boy woke with a start.

He stared at the dead coyotes. He reached for his neck. He stared at the blood on his hand.

“You’ll live,” Lana said. “And I’ll fix the rest of it. Just let me keep my hand on it.”

He seemed dubious. He glanced at Astrid.

“She saved our lives,” Astrid said. “And she just closed up a wound that was gushing blood a minute ago.”

Sam allowed her to place her hand against his neck.

“Who are you?” he asked in a croak of a voice.

“Lana. Lana Arwen Lazar,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. But don’t be too grateful: your life may not stay saved.”

He nodded. He listened to the frenzy outside, and flinched when one of the coyotes threw himself against the door.

“Is that a gold bar Edilio is using as a hammer?” Edilio had broken down the bed and was hammering one of the rails over the door.

Lana laughed sardonically. “Yeah. We have a lot of gold. Patrick and me, we’re rich.”

She moved her hand down his neck to his shoulder. “It works better if you take off your shirt,” she said.

He winced in pain. “I don’t think I can.”

Lana slid her hand under his shirt, feeling the gruesome mess of secondary wounds. “It’ll feel better in a few minutes.”

“How do you do that?” he asked.

“There are a lot of weird things going on.”

The boy nodded. “Yeah. We noticed. Thanks for saving my life.”

“You’re welcome, but like I said, it may be temporary. They’re not really trying to get in yet. When Pack Leader gets here, that could change. They’re strong, you know, and smart.”

“You’re bleeding yourself,” he said.

“I’ll fix that,” she said, almost indifferent. “I’ve gotten kind of used to being cut up one way or another.”

She pressed her blood-covered hand against her leg.

“Who is this Pack Leader?” Sam asked.

“He’s the head coyote. I tricked him into letting me come here. I hoped I’d be able to get away. Or at least have something to eat besides roadkill. Coyotes are smart, but they’re still just smart dogs, basically. Are you guys hungry? I am.”

Sam nodded. Then he climbed stiffly to his feet, moving like an old man.

“As soon as I’m done with my leg, I’ll do yours,” Lana said. “We have a pretty good supply of food and plenty of water, at least for a while. The question is whether Pack Leader will be able to find a way in here.”

Astrid said, “You’re talking about this coyote like he’s a person.”

Lana laughed. “Not a person you’d want to hang out with.”

“Is he . . . is he just a coyote?” Astrid asked.

Lana stared at the girl. Now she could see the intelligence beneath the pretty-girl looks. “What do you know about that?” Lana asked cautiously.

“I know some animals are changing. We’ve seen a seagull with talons. And we saw, well, a snake with what looked like little stub wings.”

Lana nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen those. Up close. They scare the coyotes half to death, I can tell you that. They can’t quite fly, but the rattlers use the wings to get just a little more range than they used to have. They actually saved my butt once. And I saw them kill a coyote just a few hours ago. Pack Leader said—”

“‘Said’?” Edilio echoed.

“I’ll tell you all about it, but let’s eat first. I’ve had nothing to eat. Although I was offered some raw squirrel. Canned pudding, that’s what I want. I’ve been dreaming about it.”

She hauled out a can and feverishly worked the can opener. She didn’t wait for a dish or spoon, but thrust her hand in and scooped some into her mouth. Then she stood transfixed, overwhelmed by the wonderful sweetness of it.

She was crying when she said, “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten how to be polite. I’ll get you guys your own can.”

Sam hobbled over and scooped some pudding of his own, following her lead. “I’m way past polite myself,” he said, although she could see he was a little appalled by her wolfish behavior. She decided then that she liked him.

“Listen, Sam, and everyone, you need to know something so it won’t freak you out: Pack Leader can speak. I mean, human words. Like Smart-Girl Barbie there was saying, he’s some kind of mutant or whatever. I know you think I’m probably crazy.”

She had Hermit Jim’s tin cup now and used it to scoop up another helping of wonderful, wonderful pudding. Blondie—Astrid—was opening a can of fruit cocktail.

“What do you know about the FAYZ?” Astrid asked.

Lana stopped eating and stared at her. “The what?”

Astrid shrugged and looked embarrassed. “That’s what people are calling it. The Fallout Alley Youth Zone. FAYZ.”

“What does that mean?”

“Have you seen the barrier?”

She nodded. “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen the barrier. I touched the barrier, which, by the way, is not a good idea.”

Sam said, “As far as we can tell, it goes clear around in a big circle. Or maybe a sphere. We think the center is the power plant. It seems like a ten-mile radius from there, you know, twenty miles across.”

“Circumference of 62.83 miles, with an area of 314.159 square miles,” Astrid said.

“Point 159,” Quinn echoed from his corner. “That’s important.”

“It’s basically pi,” Astrid said. “You know, 3.14159265. . . . Okay, I’ll stop.”

Lana hadn’t stopped being hungry. She took a scoop of the fruit cocktail. “Sam, you think the power plant caused it?”

Sam shrugged, and then he hesitated, surprised. Lana guessed that he felt no pain in his shoulder. “No one knows. All of a sudden every single person over the age of fourteen disappears and there’s this barrier and people . . . animals . . .”

Lana slowly absorbed this new information. “You mean all the adults? They’re gone?”

“Poof,” Quinn said. “They ditched. They blinked out. They vacated. They took the off-ramp. They cut a hole. They emigrated. Adults and teenagers. Nothing left but kids.”

“I’ve done all I can to strengthen the door,” Edilio announced. “But all I have is nails. Someone can break it in eventually.”

“Maybe they didn’t all ditch,” Lana said. “Maybe we did.”

Astrid said, “That’s definitely one of the possibilities, not that it makes any real difference. It’s effectively the same thing.”

So the blonde was definitely a brain. Lana wondered about her little brother. He was awfully quiet for a little kid.

“My grandfather disappeared while he was driving the truck,” Lana said, recalling that terrible day. “The truck crashed. And I was dying. I mean, bones sticking out. Gangrene. Then, it was like I could just heal. My dog. Myself. And I don’t know why.”

From beyond the wooden door came a sudden chorus of excited yelps.

“Pack Leader’s here,” Lana said. She crossed to the sink and picked up Hermit Jim’s kitchen knife. She turned to Sam, her expression fierce. “I’ll stab him in his heart if he comes in here.”

Sam and Edilio both drew their knives.

From outside the door, just inches away, came the strangled, snarling, high-pitched voice. “Human. Come out.”

“No,” Lana yelled.

“Human. Come out.”

Lana said, “Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin.”

Astrid smiled. “Nice,” she whispered.

“Human. Come out. Human teach Pack Leader. Human say.”

“Lesson number one, you filthy, ugly, nasty, mangy animal: Never trust a human.”

That resulted in a protracted silence.

“The Darkness,” Pack Leader growled.

Lana felt fear contract her heart. “Go ahead. Go tell your master in the mine all about it.” She started to say that she wasn’t afraid of the Darkness. But those words would have sounded false.

“What’s this about a mine?” Sam asked.

“Nothing.”

“Then why is that coyote out there talking about it? What’s this darkness thing?”

Lana shook her head. “I don’t know. They took me there. It’s an old gold mine. That’s all.”

Sam said, “Look, you saved our lives. But we still want to know what’s going on.”

Lana twined her fingers together around the knife hilt to keep herself from shaking. “I don’t know what’s going on, Sam. There’s something down in that mine. That’s all I know. The coyotes listen to it, they’re scared of it, and they do what it says.”

“Did you see it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I don’t really want to remember.”

There was a loud thump at the door and it rattled on its hinges.

“Edilio, let’s find more nails,” Sam said.

The dining hall of Coates Academy had always seemed like a strange, unfriendly place to Jack. In terms of design and decor, it was an attempt to be airy and colorful. The windows were tall, the ceiling lofty; the doors were high arches decorated with bright ornamental Spanish tiles.

The long, heavy, dark wood tables of Jack’s first year at Coates, tables that had accommodated sixty students each, had just this last year been replaced by two dozen smaller, less formal round tables decorated with papier-mâché centerpieces made by students.

At the farthest end of the dining hall a mosaic had been created of individually painted construction paper squares. The theme was “Forward Together.” The squares had been arranged to form a giant arrow pointing from the floor to the ceiling.

But the more they tried to brighten the room, the less friendly it seemed to grow, as if the little touches of color and whimsy just accented the crushing size, age, and irreducible formality of the room.

Panda, his leg not broken but badly sprained, slumped into a chair and looked mournful and resentful. Diana stood to one side, not liking what she was about to witness, and not keeping that feeling a secret.

“Get up on the table, Andrew,” Caine ordered, pointing to one of the large round tables in front of the arrow mosaic.

“What do you mean, get up on the table?” Andrew demanded.

Some kids poked their heads into the dining hall. Drake said, “Shoo.” And they disappeared.

“Andrew, you can climb up on the table or I can levitate you up there,” Caine said.

“Get up, moron,” Drake snapped.

Andrew climbed onto a chair, then onto the table. “I don’t see what . . .”

“Tie him up. Computer Jack? Start setting up.”

Drake pulled rope from the bag he’d retrieved from the car. He tied one end around a table leg, measured out about six feet, cut the rope, then tied the end around Andrew’s leg.

“Man, what is this?” Andrew said. “What are you doing?”

“It’s an experiment, Andrew.”

Jack began setting up lights and tripods for cameras.

“This is bogus, man. This isn’t right, Caine. It’s not right.”

“Andrew, you’re lucky I’m giving you a chance to survive the big blink,” Caine said. “Now stop sniveling.”

Drake tied Andrew’s second leg and then hopped onto the table to tie Andrew’s hands firmly behind him.

“Dude, I need my hands free for the power.”

Drake looked at Caine, who nodded. Drake untied Andrew’s hands and glanced at the chandelier above. He tossed the rope end up over the chandelier, an ornate, heavy iron thing that Coates kids joked was the tenth Nazgul.

Drake cinched the rope up around Andrew’s chest, pulled it up under his armpits, and hauled him up till his feet barely touched the table top.

“Make sure his hands can’t aim in this direction,” Caine said. “I don’t want that shock wave thing of his knocking cameras over.”

So Drake suspended each hand by the wrist, leaving Andrew looking like a boy who was trying to surrender.

Jack watched the LED viewfinder of one of the cameras. Andrew would still be able to move out of frame by swaying one way or the other. Jack didn’t want to say anything, he felt sorry for Andrew, but if the video got messed up . . .

“Um. He could still move left or right a little.”

Drake then ran ropes from Andrew’s neck, four of them leading to tables on four sides. Andrew could move no more than a foot in any direction.

“What’s the time, Jack?” Caine asked.

Jack checked his PDA. “Ten minutes.”

Jack busied himself with the cameras, four of them on tripods, three video, and one a motorized still camera. He had two lights on poles shining down on Andrew.

Andrew was lit up like he was some kind of movie star.

“I don’t want to die,” Andrew said.

“Me neither,” Caine agreed. “That’s why I really hope you can beat the poof.”

“I would be, like, the first, huh?” Andrew said. He sniffed. Tears were starting to flow.

“First and only,” Caine said.

“This isn’t fair,” Andrew said. Jack adjusted the lens to encompass Andrew’s entire body.

“Five minutes,” Jack said. “I’m going to go ahead and start the video running.”

“Do what you have to do, Jack, don’t announce it,” Caine said.

“Can’t you help me out, Caine?” Andrew pleaded. “You’re a four bar. Maybe you and me, if we both used our power at the same time, right?”

No one answered him.

“I’m scared, okay?” Andrew moaned, and now the tears were flowing freely. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Maybe you wake up outside the FAYZ,” Panda said, speaking for the first time.

“Maybe you wake up in hell,” Diana said. “Where you belong.”

“I should pray,” Andrew said.

“God forgive me for being a creep who starves people?” Diana suggested.

“One minute,” Jack said softly. He was nervous about when to start the still camera. No one figured Andrew’s birth certificate was exact to the minute—Benno’s had been off by weeks. He could disappear early.

“Jesus, forgive me for all the bad stuff I did and take me to my mom I miss her so bad and please let me live I’m just a kid so let me live okay? In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Jack switched on the still camera.

“Ten seconds.”

The room erupted with a sonic explosion from Andrew’s upraised hands. Waves of shattering sound began to crack the plaster ceiling.

Jack covered his ears and stared in fascination and horror.

“Time,” Jack remembered to yell over the barrage of noise. Chunks of plaster were falling from the ceiling like hail. The bulbs in the chandelier all shattered, sending down a snowfall of glass dust.

“Plus ten,” Jack yelled.