Gone Series: Plague Part 16

The wire cut through Drake's still-standing torso just below his ribs. It stopped at the spine.

Brianna yanked, but the wire would not cut the spine. She yanked and yanked and the meat of Drake's body twisted sideways so she could see the insides, see the organs, the sliced raw flesh like steak, the pale intestine, and all of it clinical, like a drawing, like some hideous display.

And suddenly her frenzied yanking, legs pummeling the slippery marble for purchase, succeeded, and with a grinding, grisly sound the spine parted and Drake fell in two pieces to the floor.

Brianna was aware of screaming. Jamal, hand over his face but eyes staring in horror. Screaming and screaming like he would never stop.

Brianna wanted to scream, too. But not in horror. In sheer, vicious triumph. She wanted to dance and smear herself with the blood of her beaten enemy. She wanted to leap atop the body chunks and kick them in contempt.

Brianna threw back her head and howled at the broken rafters and the sky beyond. "Yaaaaah! Yaaaaah! The Breeze!"

Jamal stopped screaming. He was gibbering, making word-like sounds, like a crazy street person. He was crawling away across the floor.

Brianna laughed. "What's the matter, tough guy? Did you figure out you picked the wrong side?"

The tentacle was around her legs before she knew what had happened.

She looked down and stared, unable to believe what she was seeing. Drake's whip hand was coiled twice around her ankles, squeezing hard, crushing the bones together.

Brianna tried to kick but couldn't even budge.

Drake's head was four feet away from his upper torso, but now the cruel mouth was back, and grinning. The cold eyes were watching.

Alive!

The upper torso used its good hand to shove itself toward the head while the tentacle held her tight with a python's strength. The lower torso-stomach, hips, legs-was kicking and flailing, trying to move toward the upper torso.

Drake was putting himself back together.

Brianna fell on her b.u.t.t. She reached reflexively for her knife, but it was too far away.

Her sawed-off shotgun. She had re-holstered it. Her hand found it, yanked it free. She took aim at the tentacle that held her fast, aimed at the part just beyond her feet, pulled the trigger.

BLAM!.

The blast came from Jamal's gun. He had found it. She saw smoke curling from the muzzle.

Brianna fumbled with her shotgun, but her fingers wouldn't work right and her ears were ringing and somehow there was blood all over her chest.

Drake's head made a silent laugh.

Brianna lay helpless, watching as the legs, the lower third of the creature began to change. Not Drake's legs. A girl's chubby limbs.

Drake's head cried out without sound.

The tentacle was already sliding away.

Jamal walking as if in a dream, his smoking rifle held at his side.

Brianna could see Drake's lips form the words, "Kill her. Kill her."

But without lungs, no sound came out.

The body parts moved together. The arms of a girl fumbled for and found what was now Brittney's head and dragged it to its perch on her shoulders.

The legs kicked and scrabbled until the lower third melded back. Brianna watched it all, unable to move, unable to think clearly.

The last thing she saw was Jamal using Brianna's wire to wrap Brittney's hands tightly behind her. He tore a sleeve from his own shirt and made a gag of it and stuffed it in Brittney's mouth.

Then he stepped back to Brianna. She could barely hear his words through the ringing sound and could barely understand what she did hear.

"I could kill you," Jamal said. He pointed the automatic rifle down at her, the barrel an inch from her face. "Most likely Drake comes out on top. But if not, you remember that I coulda killed you." He shouldered the gun. "But I didn't."

It was only a few minutes before Edilio, accompanied by Ellen, both armed with automatic rifles of their own, came rushing in. Jamal and Brittney were long gone.

Edilio knelt beside Brianna. She saw worry and compa.s.sion in his dark eyes and in her delirium really liked him for that.

"Ellen, get Lana. Now!" Edilio ordered.

To Brianna, he said, "Is he gone?"

Brianna found it hard to get her voice to do what she wanted. But she managed after a few tries to say, "Have to ... get Sam. Sam. I ... I can't beat Drake."

Edilio looked grim. "Yeah, that's a good idea," he said as he examined the b.l.o.o.d.y wounds in her shoulder. "Unfortunately Taylor took off. And no one exactly knows how to find Sam."

"Jamal ... ," Brianna whispered. But before she could complete the thought, the marble floor seemed to open wide and drag her swirling down into darkness.

Lance came bursting in the door.

"Drake is out!" he yelled.

Turk-formerly Zil's number one guy, at least he thought so, and boss of what was left of Human Crew-said, "Yeah, whatever."

Human Crew had been a group formed to defend the rights of normals against freaks. At least that was the Human Crew line. Most people now saw Human Crew as a straight-up hate group.

Lance grabbed Turk's shoulder and practically yanked him up off the stinking couch where he lay. "Turk, listen, man, listen to me: don't you see what this means?"

Turk did not see what it meant, or at least not whatever Lance thought he should see. Turk mostly disliked Lance. They were friends, kind of, but only because they'd both been with Zil and riding high. And now they were reduced to doing the worst work Albert could find for them: digging slit trenches for kids to go in, and then covering them up when they were full.

Cesspool diggers. The c.r.a.p Crew, kids called them.

And they had to kiss Albert's b.u.t.t because otherwise they didn't eat. They'd been lucky they weren't exiled. Turk had talked the council out of sending them off to live in the wild. He'd begged, that was the truth of it. He'd convinced them that it was better to find a place for him and the others from Human Crew.

He'd put all the blame for the fire on anyone but themselves. Kept saying, "It's not our fault, guys, not me and Lance and all, we were forced by Zil and Hank. Hank was scary, man, you know that. You know he was a creep and he would have shot us or messed us up."

Turk had whined like a baby. And wept. And in the end convinced that smug wetback Edilio, and especially Albert, that they wouldn't make trouble anymore, ever again, lessons learned, their lives all turned around now.

The Human Crew became the c.r.a.p Crew. And harsher names as well. A laughingstock.

Turk hated Albert with a burning, undying pa.s.sion. Albert had everything and tossed the worst crumbs to Turk and Lance and the former Human Crew.

Lance wasn't going away. His handsome face was lit up with excitement. "Dude, don't you get it? If we hit Albert now, everyone will blame Drake."

That got Turk's attention. "We tried to pin the fire on Caine and no one believed us."

"This is different. Look, do you like living like this?" He looked wildly around the room, stabbing his hand finally toward the reeking stew pot they used as an inside toilet. "Eating the worst food, doing the worst job, and being in this dump?"

"Yeah, I love it," Turk said with savage sarcasm. "I just love being the biggest loser in town."

"Then listen to me." Lance rested his hands on Turk's shoulders. Turk shrugged them off. "Because I'm telling you: Drake can't be killed or stopped. So everyone's scared. Maybe we find a way to hook up with Drake, right? Or maybe we just wait until everyone's freaking out over him, and we make our move."

Turk didn't dismiss it out of hand. Maybe Lance was right. Everyone knew Albert had tons of gold and 'Bertos and all kinds of food-even cans of stuff from before, good food.

"I don't know, man," Turk said. "Human Crew is supposed to stand for something. I mean, we're the defenders of humans against freaks, right? We stand up for normal people. We don't just steal stuff. We're not, like, a gang."

Lance laughed derisively. "Man, sometimes you are clueless. You don't even see what's happening." He perched himself on the arm of the couch so he could look down at Turk. "It's not just about freaks. I mean, you're the guy who thinks of ideas and all, but you're missing it. You don't even notice that the whole council is either black or Mexican. See, that's what's happening: it's all these minorities hooked up with freaks."

The wheels in Turk's mind began to turn slowly. But they were picking up speed. "Jamal's with us and he's black."

"So? We use Jamal. He gets us into Albert's. You do what you gotta do. All I'm saying is, you and me, we're normal people. We're not black or queer or Mexican. And we're the ones digging toilets. How come?"

Turk knew the answer: because they had failed in their attempt to take over. But he'd never thought about this new angle.

"Astrid's a normal white person," Turk argued halfheartedly. "So's Sam."

"Sam's a freak, and I think he might even be a Jew," Lance said. His eyes were glittering. He was showing his teeth, grinning as he talked. It wasn't a good look for him. "And Astrid? She's not even on the council anymore."

Turk was buying it. He felt the new ideas settle into the dark places in his aggrieved mind. "Drake's white. So is Orc, you know, underneath it all. But they're kind of like freaks. Only ... only not really. Because they didn't like, turn into freaks, they had accidents or whatever that made them what they are now."

"Exactly," Lance said.

Yes, Turk thought. This could be good. This could be very good. Taking out Albert would cause more problems than burning a bunch of houses. Albert was the one who was really in charge. He had the money and the food. That made him even more important than Sam.

Lisa came in then with cabbages she'd picked from the fields, and a fat rat she'd bought. Turk's mouth watered: dinner was late.

"Let's eat," he said. "Then we think about what comes next."

Chapter Fourteen.

37 HOURS, 48 MINUTES.

EDILIO WAITED UNTIL the sun was up to go for Roscoe.

It was all very peaceful. Roscoe wasn't the kind of guy to make much trouble.

"We just have to put you somewhere safe," Edilio explained.

"So I don't give it to anyone else," Roscoe said.

"Yeah. While we figure out how to cure you."

"I want to say good-bye to Sinder," Roscoe said softly. He jerked his head indicating that she was in the house.

"Of course, man. But listen. Don't let her touch you, okay? Just in case."

Roscoe struggled a little then, not against Edilio but against himself. He fought to stop a quiver in his lip. Fought to keep the tears from filling his eyes.

Edilio took him to town hall. There was an unused office with a cot. Edilio had made sure there were books for Roscoe to read. And a covered pot for Roscoe to do his business. A jug of water was on the shelf next to the window. A cabbage and a cooked rabbit were there, too.

The rabbit was a delicacy.

Roscoe thanked Edilio for being decent.

Edilio closed the door. Then he turned the key in the deadbolt.

Quinn's fishermen had had a good day. The boats were reasonably full of fish, squid, octopi, and the weird things they called blue bats. Those they fed to the zekes-the worms in the fields-to buy safe pa.s.sage for the vegetable pickers.

The prize of the morning's work was a five-foot-long shark. Quinn's boat was actually cramped because of the thing. He was sitting on the tail as he rowed, which was awkward and would give him a backache later. But no one in the boat was complaining. A shark was a twofer: not only was it great eating, it was a compet.i.tor for the limited supply of fish.

"Here's what we ought to do," Cigar was saying as he pulled at his oar. "We ought to sell the teeth at the mall. I mean, did you see all those teeth? Kids would pay a 'Berto for, like, a necklace of teeth."

"Or they might, like, glue them onto a stick and make a gnarly weapon," Elise suggested.

"What do you think it weighs?" Ben wondered.

"Ah, not much," Quinn said.

That got a laugh. It had taken eight kids just to haul the fish over the side into Quinn's boat, and then they'd practically swamped the boat.

"Weighs more than Cigar," Ben said.

Cigar plucked at his ragged T-shirt and revealed a hard, almost concave, stomach. "Everything weighs more than me nowadays. When this all ends and we get out, I'm writing a diet book. The FAYZ diet. First, you eat all the junk food you can. Then you starve. Then you eat artichokes. Then you starve a little more. Then you eat someone's hamster. Then you go on the all-fish diet."

"You left out the part where you fry up some ants," Elise said.