Gone Series: Plague Part 4

Caine probably had a pretty good case of resentment, too. He'd been rejected by both birth parents: two for two.

And yet, Caine still had Diana, didn't he?

How was it fair? Caine was a liar, a manipulator, a murderer. And Caine was probably lying in satin sheets with Diana eating actual food and watching a DVD. Clean sheets, candy bars, and a beautiful, willing girl.

Caine who had never done a single good or decent thing was living in luxury.

Sam, who had tried and tried and done everything he could, was sitting in his house with a raging headache, smelling vomit with a pair of ibuprofen burning a hole in his stomach lining.

Alone.

Hunter brought his kills to the gas station any day he had some. Today, bright and early, with the sun just warming the hills behind him, he had walked down from his hillside camp carrying four birds and a badger and two racc.o.o.ns and a bag of squirrels. He forgot how many squirrels. The bag felt heavy, though.

It was a lot to carry. If you added it up it was probably about as heavy as carrying a kid. Not as heavy as a deer though-those he had to butcher and carry down in pieces.

No deer today. And he had not yet butchered Old Lion. That was a big job. He wanted to keep the skin in one piece, so he had to take his time.

He would wear the lion's skin over him when he had dried it out. It would be warm and remind him of Old Lion.

Hunter carried the squirrel bag slung over one shoulder. He roped the other animals together and draped the rope over his other shoulder. He had to be careful about that, though, because of the thing on his shoulder.

That kid named Roscoe was coming. He was pushing a wheelbarrow. He didn't look very happy. Every day Hunter came it was either Roscoe or this girl named Marcie. Marcie was nice. But Hunter knew she was scared of him. Probably because he couldn't talk well.

"Hey, Hunter," Roscoe said. "Dude, are you okay?"

"Yes."

"You're all clawed up, man. I mean, jeez, that has to hurt."

Hunter followed the direction of Roscoe's gaze. His shirt was ripped exposing his stomach. Two claw marks, deep, b.l.o.o.d.y, just beginning to scab a little, were plowed right across his stomach.

He touched the wound gingerly. But it didn't hurt. In fact he couldn't feel it at all.

"You're a tough dude, Hunter," Roscoe said. "Anyway, looks like you have a good haul today."

"I do, Roscoe," Hunter said. He spoke as carefully as he could. But still the words didn't sound like how he made words back before. He sounded as if his tongue was covered with glue.

Hunter carefully lifted the rope off his shoulder. He was careful not to sc.r.a.pe the thing on his shoulder. He set the animals in the wheelbarrow. Then he upended the squirrel bag and dumped the squirrels on top. They all looked the same. Gray and bushy-tailed. Each cooked inside a little. Enough. Sometimes he cooked their heads and sometimes their body. It wasn't that easy to aim the invisible stuff that radiated out of his hands.

He forgot what it was called. Astrid had some name for it. But it was a long word.

"You doing okay, Hunter?" Roscoe asked again.

"Yes. I have food. And my sleeping bag is dry after I cleaned it in a stream."

"You got fresh water to wash in, huh?" Roscoe asked. "I'm jealous. Feel this shirt." He invited Hunter to feel the stiff salt.w.a.ter-washed cotton.

"It feels okay," Hunter said warily.

Roscoe made a rude noise. "Yeah, right. Salt water. Feel your shirt." And Roscoe reached out to touch Hunter's shirt. He touched the shoulder of Hunter's shirt.

The wrong shoulder.

"Aaahh!" Roscoe cried in shock and pain. "What the-"

"I didn't mean to!" Hunter yelled.

"Something bit me!" He held out his finger for Hunter to examine. There were teeth marks. Blood.

Roscoe stared hard at him. And at his shoulder. "What's on your shoulder, man? What is that? What's under there? Is that some kind of animal?"

Hunter swallowed. No one had seen his shoulder. He didn't know what would happen if anyone did.

"Yes, Roscoe, it's an animal," Hunter said, seizing gratefully on the explanation.

"Well, it bit me!"

"Sorry," Hunter said.

Roscoe grabbed the wheelbarrow handles and hefted it. "I'm not doing this job anymore. Marcie can do it every day, I'm not dealing with this."

"Okay," Hunter said. "Bye."

Jennifer B set out sometime around dawn.

If she stayed in the house she was sure she would die. She'd slept for an unknown period of time-hours? days?-on the floor, with her blankets gathered around her.

The chills came in waves. She would be too hot and would kick off her blankets. Then the fever would start to spike again and she would feel cold, cold all the way down to her bones.

Jennifer H was dead. Jennifer L didn't answer when Jennifer B moaned to her to join her.

"Jen ... I'm going to ... hospital."

No answer.

"Are you alive?"

Jennifer L coughed, she wasn't dead, and she coughed normally, not the crazy spasms that had killed Jennifer H. But she didn't answer.

So Jennifer Boyles set off, on her own. She slid on her b.u.t.t down the stairs, blankets gathered around her. Shivering, teeth chattering.

She managed to stand long enough to reach the front door and open it. But she sat down again very unexpectedly on the porch. Hard on her b.u.t.t. She sat there shaking until the chills pa.s.sed.

She tripped walking down the porch stairs. The fall bruised her left knee badly. This destroyed the last of her will to stand up. But not the last of her will to live.

Jennifer began to crawl. Hands and knees. Down the sidewalk. Impeded by her blankets. Delayed by coughing fits. Pausing whenever the chills rattled her so hard she could only moan and hack and roll onto her side.

"Keep going," she muttered. "Gotta keep going."

It took her two hours to crawl as far as Brace Road.

She lay there, facedown. Coughing wracked her chest. But it was not yet the superhuman coughs that had killed Jennifer H.

Not yet.

Chapter Five.

62 HOURS, 18 MINUTES.

"LESLIE-ANN, TRY TO do a little better on cleaning my night pot, okay?" Albert told the cleaning girl. "I know it's not a fun job, but I like it clean."

Leslie-Ann nodded and kept her eyes down. She was a little afraid of him, Albert knew. But at least she didn't seem to hate him.

"There's not much water," Leslie-Ann mumbled.

"Use sand," Albert said patiently-he'd already told her this. "Use sand to scrub it clean."

She nodded and fled the room.

Not everyone liked Albert. Not everyone was happy that he had become the most important person around. Lots of people were jealous that Albert had a girl to clean his house and the porcelain basin where he did his business at night when he didn't want to go outside to the only actual outhouse in Perdido Beach. And that he could afford to send his clothes to be washed in the fresh water of the ironically named Lake Evian.

And there were definitely people who didn't like working for Albert, having to do what he said or go hungry.

Albert traveled with a bodyguard now. The bodyguard's name was Jamal. Jamal carried an automatic rifle over his shoulder. He had a ma.s.sive hunting knife in his belt. And a club that was an oak chair leg with spikes driven through it to make a sort of mace.

Unlike everyone else Albert carried no weapon himself. Jamal was weapon enough.

"Let's go, Jamal."

Albert led the way toward the beach. Jamal as usual kept a few paces back, head swiveling left and right, glowering, ready for trouble.

Albert bypa.s.sed the plaza-there were always kids there and they always wanted something from Albert: a job, a different job, credit, something.

It didn't work. Two littles, Harley and Janice, moved right in front of him as he walked briskly.

"Mr. Albert? Mr. Albert?" Harley said.

"Just Albert's fine," Albert said tersely.

"Me and Janice are thirsty."

"I'm sorry, but I don't have any water on me." He managed a tight smile and moved on. But now Janice was crying and Harley was pleading.

"We used to live with Mary and she gave us water. But now we have to live with Summer and BeeBee and they said we have to have money."

"Then I guess you'd better earn some money," Albert said. He tried to soften it, tried not to sound harsh, but he had a lot on his mind and it came out sounding mean. Now Harley started to cry, too.

"If you're thirsty, stop crying," Albert snapped. "What do you think tears are made of?"

Reaching the beach Albert scanned the work site. It looked like a salvage yard. A five-hundred-gallon oval propane tank lay abandoned on the sand. A scorched hole in one side.

A second, slightly smaller tank should have been resting on steel legs right at the water's edge. Instead it was tipped over. A copper pipe stuck out of the top. This pipe was crimped tightly over a slightly smaller pipe that bent back toward the ground. A third, still narrower pipe was duct-taped heavily in place and this pipe reached the wet sand.

In theory at least, this crude, jury-rigged contraption was a still. The principle was simple enough: boil salt water, let the steam rise into a pipe, then cool the steam. What dribbled out of the end would be drinkable water.

Easy in theory. Almost impossible to do practically. Especially now that some fool had knocked it over.

Albert's heart sank. Soon Harley and Janice wouldn't be the only ones begging for water. The gasoline supply was down to a few hundred gallons at the station. No gas: no water truck. No water truck: no water.

Even worse, the tiny Lake Evian in the hills was drying up. There had been no rain since the coming of the FAYZ. Kids knew there was a plan to relocate everyone to Lake Evian when the last of the gas was gone; what they didn't realize was that things were far worse than that.

The first tank, the burned one, had been an earlier effort to create a still. Albert had tried to get Sam to boil the water using his powers. Unfortunately Sam couldn't dial it down enough to heat without destroying.

This new effort would require a fire beneath the tank. Which would mean crews of kids to rip lumber from unused houses. Which might make the whole thing more trouble than it was worth.

The crew was lounging. Tossing pebbles at the surf, trying to get them to skip.

Albert marched over to them, his loafers filling with sand. "Hey," he snapped. "What happened here?"

The four kids-none older than eleven-looked guilty.

"It was like this when we got here. I think the wind knocked it over."

"There is no wind in the FAYZ, you ..." He stopped himself from saying, "moron." Albert had a certain reputation for being in control of himself. He was the closest thing they had to an adult.

"I hired you to dig a hole, not play around," Albert said.

"It's hard," one said. "It keeps filling up."

"I know it's hard. It won't get any easier. And if you want to eat, you work."

"We were just taking a break."

"Break's over. Get on those shovels."