Gone Series: Plague Part 25

If the barrier ever came down, what would he do? Wait until he was old enough and move to Alaska or Maine and become a professional fisherman? He laughed. That was not a career path that would ever have occurred to him in the old days.

But now he just could not even pretend to care about college or being a lawyer or a businessman or whatever it was his folks thought he should be.

He had crossed a line. He knew it and it made him a little sad. None of them would ever be normal children again. Especially those who had found ways to be happy in the FAYZ.

A light. Down in the direction of the islands. It would never have been noticed back in the days when Perdido Beach itself was lit up.

Quinn had heard the story about Caine and Diana occupying one of the islands. It was weird to think that the light might be coming from Caine's bedroom. And that Caine might be gazing out at the dark night.

Life would never be totally peaceful as long as that guy was alive.

Quinn turned his gaze south. The Sammy suns in people's homes weren't bright enough to light up the town. But the red glow of the setting sun painted the bare outline of Clifftop, snug up against the nearest arc of the barrier.

Lana. Quinn had liked her. Had even thought maybe she liked him. But something had changed in Lana. She was, in some sense, too large and powerful a person for Quinn.

Like Sam, who had once been Quinn's closest friend. They were both part of some different cla.s.s of person.

Sam, a hero. A leader.

Lana? She was grand and tragic. Like someone out of a play or a book.

And Quinn was a fisherman.

Unlike them, though, he was happy. He turned back to look at his crews, his fishermen. They were cleaning their nets, tending to their reels, cutting gra.s.s to make beds, complaining, joking, telling stories everyone had already heard, laughing.

Quinn missed his parents. He missed Sam and Lana. But this was his family now.

Roscoe had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. He awoke to find persistent itching on his stomach. He scratched it through his T-shirt.

He went back to sleep. But dreams kept him from sleeping soundly. That and the itching.

He woke again and felt the itchy spot. There was a lump there. Like a swelling. And when he held still and pressed his fingers against the spot he could feel something moving under the skin.

The small room was suddenly very cold. Roscoe shivered.

He went to the window hoping for light. There was a moon but the light was faint. Roscoe pulled his shirt over his head. He looked down at the spot on his stomach.

It was moving. The flesh itself. He could feel it under his fingertips. Like something poking back at him. But he couldn't feel it from the inside, couldn't feel it in his stomach. And he realized that his entire body was numb. He could feel with his fingertips but not the skin of his stomach- The skin split!

"Ahhhh!"

He was touching it as it split, and he shrieked in terror and something pushed its way out through a bloodless hole.

"Oh, G.o.d, oh, G.o.d, oh, no no no no!"

Roscoe screamed and leaped for the door. His hand clawed at the k.n.o.b as he babbled and wept and the door was locked, locked, oh, G.o.d, no, they had locked him in.

He banged at the door, but it was the middle of the night. Who would hear him in the empty town hall?

"Hey! Hey! Is anyone there? Help me. Help me. Please, please, someone help me!"

He banged and the thing in his belly stuck out half an inch. He was scared to look at it. But he did and he screamed again because it was a mouth now, a gnashing insect mouth full of parts like no normal mouth. Hooked, wicked mandibles clicked. It was inside him, chewing its way out.

Hatching from him.

"Help me, help me, don't leave me here like this!"

But who would hear him? Sinder? No. Not anymore. That was over. All over. And he was alone and friendless. No one even to hear as he screamed and begged.

The window. He grabbed the pillow from his bed and pushed it against the gla.s.s and then punched it hard. The pane shattered. He took off his shoe and smashed at the starred gla.s.s until most of it fell tinkling to the street below.

Then he screamed for help. Screamed into the Perdido Beach night air.

No answer.

"Help me! Please, please, oh, G.o.d, please help me! You can't just leave me locked up!"

But still, no answer.

Fear took hold of him, deep crazy-making fear.

No. No. No no no no, this couldn't be happening. He hadn't done anything to hurt anyone, he hadn't done anything awful. Why? Why was this happening to him?

Roscoe fell to his knees and begged G.o.d. G.o.d, please, no, no, no, I didn't do anything wrong. I wasn't brave or strong but I wasn't bad, either. Not like this, please, G.o.d, no no no, not like this.

Roscoe felt an itching in the middle of his back.

He sat down and cried.

Chapter Twenty.

25 HOURS, 37 MINUTES.

DIANA FED PENNY a little late. But Penny didn't complain. She was off in some dream that had her smiling to herself, smiling at her own illusions.

The bathroom reeked of human waste. Penny was sitting on the tile floor, legs twisted in front of her, just sitting on a plastic exercise mat.

"Hey, you want to take a shower?" Diana asked.

Penny didn't respond, just giggled at something Diana couldn't see.

Diana bent down and tapped her shoulder. She had to do it several times before Penny's faraway eyes focused on Diana.

Penny laughed. "Oh, that's the real you, isn't it?"

"As real as I get," Diana answered.

"You come to feed the zoo animal?"

"Here's your food. But I thought you might want to take a shower or bath. I could help you."

"Is it because I smell like a sewer? Is that it?"

"Yes," Diana said bluntly. Without waiting for an answer, she went to the tub, a huge oval affair, all pink marble.

How long the water would last, Diana didn't know. But for right now there was water and it was even hot. There was an a.s.sortment of Bulgari bath beads, salts, and shampoos. She popped a couple of the bath cubes into the water.

Penny wasn't wearing much, just a dirty yellow tank top and a pair of stained pink shorts. She had two pairs of socks on over her broken ankles.

"How's the pain?" Diana asked.

"Painful. Feels kind of like someone broke my legs and my ankles and my feet. I'll show you what it feels like."

Suddenly a pack of rabid, vicious dogs were there in the room. Their eyes were red, their breath steamed, they snapped at Diana, ready to launch themselves and rip her apart.

Then they were gone.

"Like that," Penny said, taking malicious pleasure from the way Diana had leaped back, batting wildly at the illusion.

Diana calmed herself. Getting upset would just give Penny more of a sense of power.

"Sorry," Diana said for lack of anything else to say. "Eat something while the tub fills."

"You don't have to stay here. I can haul myself up into the tub." She scooped some of the spaghetti and meat sauce into her mouth with her hand.

"You could drown."

"Yeah, that would be terrible, wouldn't it?"

Diana didn't answer. There was nothing but pain in Penny's future. There was no way to fix her legs, not without Lana, and nothing to treat the pain but Tylenol and Motrin. It was like trying to put out a forest fire with a squirt gun.

"It's good you have your power," Diana said.

"Yeah. It's great. Really great. It's like having my own kind of sucky movie theater. You want to know what I was seeing when you came in?"

Diana was pretty sure she did not.

"I was creating monsters with needle teeth. Like vampires, I guess, but more like wolves, like rabid bats, like every scary thing you see pictures of living down at the bottom of the ocean. And you know what they were doing?"

"Let me help get your shorts off."

Diana knelt and worked Penny's shorts down her thighs. Carefully, as gently as she could. But still Penny made a rising, shuddering cry of pain.

"They were ripping you apart, Diana," Penny gasped through gritted teeth. "They were all over you, Diana, doing every horrible thing I could think of."

"Lift your arms."

Diana pulled the shirt, none too gently, over Penny's head.

"Watching you scream in my head helps keep me from screaming," Penny said.

"Whatever works," Diana said.

She put her arm under Penny's, bent low, and lifted her. The girl wasn't heavy. Food had not cured Penny's runway-model thinness.

"Oh, oh, ohhhhhh," Penny sobbed as Diana lifted her.

Diana rested Penny on the edge of the tub, reached awkwardly to turn off the water.

"Caine could do this easier," Penny said. "But he won't, will he? He doesn't want to come in here and see his handiwork. Not the mighty Caine."

Diana maneuvered to bear most of Penny's weight and lower her bottom first into the hot water. Her twisted pipe-cleaner legs dragged, then followed their owner into the tub.

Penny screamed.

"Sorry," Diana said.

"Oh, G.o.d, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!"

Diana stood back. Penny was sweating, even paler than before. But she stopped screaming. She lay back against the tub, up to her chest in water and bubbles.

"There's a sprayer. I'll wash your hair." Diana turned on the nozzle, tested the water temperature, and played it over Penny's lank hair.

She worked in shampoo until it foamed.

"Just like the hair salon," Penny said.

"Yeah. Probably where I'll end up working someday," Diana said.

"Nah, not you, you're too smart," Penny said. She had closed her eyes. Diana rinsed shampoo down Penny's face and neck. "Beautiful and smart and you have Caine all to yourself now, don't you?"

Diana sighed. "I'm a loser, Penny. Same as you."

Caine burst in. He looked startled. "I heard screaming."