Gone Series: Plague Part 52

Instinctively he kicked his way to the surface. The sand washed away and he could force one eye open. He was no more than a dozen yards from sh.o.r.e, in water not even five feet deep.

Then all the water and sand that had floated up to meet them came pouring down.

He looked around frantically for Dekka and Toto. He splashed his way toward the beach through a blinding downpour that lasted a full minute.

Toto was just down the beach, lying on his back and moaning in pain. Sam knelt by him.

"Are you hurt?"

"My legs," Toto said, and started to cry. "I want to go home."

"Listen to me, Toto, your legs are broken, but we can fix them."

Toto looked at him wonderingly, wiped sand from his face, and said, "You are telling the truth."

"I'll get Lana. Soon as I can. You just stay put."

He stood up and yelled, "Dekka! Dekka!"

She did not call back to him, but he saw her swimming toward sh.o.r.e. He ran out and helped her to get to dry ground.

"I'm so sorry, Sam," she gasped.

"I'm okay. So's Toto. Just broke his legs is all." He glanced left and right and spotted the container smashed into a low bluff. Oblong crates and their deadly contents had spilled.

"I don't know where we are," Sam said. "I think we're south of the power plant." He looked around, frantic. His plan had always been reckless and hopeless, but he'd hoped, somehow, to come down near the power plant. There might be a car still in usable condition at the plant. But here? He wasn't even sure where here was.

And the container was wrecked. Many of the missiles would be, too.

"Sam!" A voice was calling to him from the direction of the sea. A boat. He saw four people in it, and oars splashing and pulling hard toward them.

"Quinn!"

The boat ran in and beached. Quinn jumped out. "Where did you come from?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Sam said. "Quinn: tell me quick. What's happening in town?"

Quinn appeared overwhelmed by the question.

Sam grabbed him. "Whatever it is, tell me. Dekka may not have another half hour. Quick!"

"Edilio's sick. Lots of people sick. It's bad, kids dropping all over the place. Edilio sent me to bring Caine back. To fight the bugs."

Sam breathed a shaky sigh of relief. "Thank G.o.d he did, Quinn. I probably can't beat the bugs, maybe he can."

"But ... ," Quinn began, but Sam interrupted.

Plan Two might be dead. But Sam had one last trick up his sleeve, one last wild effort-not to save the town, but maybe to save his friend.

"Dekka, she's infested. They're hatching out of her. I promised to ... to make it easier for her. You understand?"

Quinn nodded solemnly.

"But I have an idea. How fast can you get us to town?"

"Fifteen minutes," Quinn said.

They rowed like they were rowing for their lives. And in some ways they were, Sam knew. If the bugs emerged from Dekka while they were in this small boat, none of them would survive.

Toto groaned, lying on the bottom of the boat in two inches of fish-smelling water. Dekka lay against Sam in the stern. His arms were around her. He whispered in her ear not to give up.

He could feel them through her clothes. He was careful to avoid the emergent mouths, but he could not avoid feeling the surging horror of insect bodies moving within Dekka's body.

"Sam, you promised me," Dekka moaned.

"I will, Dekka. I promise I will. But not yet, not yet." To Quinn he said, "As soon as we reach the dock, go for Lana."

"Lana can't help," Quinn grunted, never slackening his pace. "She can't kill them."

"She doesn't have to," Sam said.

"I'll take the kid, Orc," Drake said. "Where's Astrid?"

Orc stared at Drake. So many emotions in his tired, drink-addled brain.

Drake was the cause of all his problems. If he hadn't escaped ...

But hadn't he himself just stormed up here to take it all out on Astrid? And yet, Drake's s.a.d.i.s.tic, c.o.c.ky grin made something like steam rise up inside of him.

"Whaddyou wan' with the kid?" Orc slurred.

"Drunk much?" Drake taunted. "Friend of mine wants the 'tard. So, where's the sister?"

"Leave her alone."

Drake laughed. "Rock boy, I'm not leaving anyone alone. I have an army outside. I'll do whatever I want with Astrid the Genius."

"She didn't hurt you."

"Don't play the hero, Orc, it doesn't work for you. You're a filthy, drunken degenerate. Have you smelled yourself? What do you think you are, her knight in shining armor? You think she'll give you a big, wet kiss on your gravel face?" He peered closer at Orc as if looking inside him. "Nah, Orc, the only way you ever get Astrid is the same way I get her. And that's what you were thinking, isn't it?"

"Shut up."

Drake laughed delightedly. "Oh, you sad, sick disaster. I can see it in your bloodshot eyes. Well, I'll tell you what: you can have whatever's left over after I-"

Orc swung hard, with surprising speed. The rock fist caught Drake a little high, nailing the side of his head but only a glancing blow.

Still, a glancing blow from Orc was like a sledgehammer.

Drake stumbled sideways, slammed into the wall, but kept his feet.

Orc went after Drake, swung again, and this time missed completely. His fist punched a hole in the wall where Drake's head had been.

Drake was behind him, dancing away. "You big, stupid idiot, I can't be killed. Didn't you know that? Bring it, Orc. Come on you lumbering, stinking pile of c.r.a.p."

Drake lashed him then. It didn't hurt Orc much. But he felt it.

Orc lurched toward him, but Drake was quick and nimble. He danced away, slashed at Orc again, and this time wrapped his tentacle around Orc's neck.

It wasn't easy to choke Orc, but it wasn't impossible. Drake was behind him, pulling as hard as he could, tightening his whip hand like a python, inch by inch, trying to squeeze the pebble skin.

Orc dug his fingers into the whip hand and pulled at it, tried to tear it free. But it wasn't working because somehow Orc's grip was weakening. He tried to breathe but couldn't.

Suddenly the whip hand released him.

The whip hand was withdrawing, shriveling. Orc twisted to face Drake as bright metal bands crossed his teeth. Drake's zero-percent-body-fat body became pudgy thighs and face.

"What?" Orc asked, blinking hard. Then he understood. He'd never watched Brittney emerge before but he knew it happened, had heard it happen as one voice gave way to the other.

"Hi, Orc," Brittney said.

"Brittney."

She looked around her, confused. Then her eyes fell on Little Pete.

"So, he is Nemesis."

"He's Little Pete," Orc said.

"We have to take him," Brittney said. "It's the only way. The Lord wills it."

"No," a voice said.

"Astrid!" Orc said. "I was ... looking for you."

Astrid barely looked at him. "I ran away. But I'm back."

"Astrid, G.o.d has said He needs Little Pete," Brittney said complacently. "It's the only way."

"I know you think you talk to G.o.d-"

"No, Astrid, He talked to me. I saw Him. I touched Him. He's a dark G.o.d, a G.o.d of deep places."

"If He's a G.o.d, why does He need Little Pete? I thought G.o.d didn't need anything."

Brittney got a crafty look. "Jesus needed John the Baptist to announce His coming. He needed Judas to betray Him, and Pilate and the Pharisees to crucify Him so that He might redeem us. And the Father needed the Son to pay the price of sin."

Astrid felt weary. There was a time in her life when Astrid would have welcomed an opportunity for a theological discussion. It wasn't as if Sam had sat around with her, debating. He was completely indifferent to religion.

But this was not the time. The sad creature that was Brittney was just a tool of the malevolent creature she had confused with G.o.d.

In any case, why was Astrid defending Little Pete? She'd been ready to see him die if it meant an end to the suffering.

"G.o.d doesn't ask for human sacrifices," Astrid said.

"Doesn't He?" Brittney smirked. "What am I, Astrid? What are any of us? And what was Jesus? A sacrifice to appease a vengeful G.o.d, Astrid."

Astrid had nothing to say. She knew all the right answers. But the will was gone. Did she herself even believe in G.o.d anymore? Why argue over a phantom? They were two fools arguing over lies.

But Astrid still had her pride. And she could not remain silent and let Brittney have the final word.

"Brittney, do you really want to kill a little boy? No matter what your so-called G.o.d tells you, isn't it wrong? When your beliefs tell you to murder, doesn't a voice inside you tell you it is wrong?"

Brittney frowned. "G.o.d's will ..."

"Even if it is, Brittney, even if that mutant monster in a cave really is G.o.d, and even if you've understood Him perfectly, and you're doing His will, and He wants you to kill, to deliver a little boy to Him so that He can kill, isn't it wrong? Isn't it just plain wrong?"

"G.o.d decides right and wrong."

"No," Astrid said. And now, despite everything, despite her own exhaustion, despite her fear, despite her self-loathing and contempt, she realized she was going to say something she had never accepted before. "Brittney, it was wrong to murder even before Moses brought down the commandments. Right and wrong doesn't come from G.o.d. It's inside us. And we know it. And even if G.o.d appears right in front of us, and tells us to our faces to murder, it's still wrong."

It was that simple in the end, Astrid realized. That simple. She didn't need the voice of G.o.d to tell her not to kill Little Pete. Just her own voice.

"Anyway, Brittney," Astrid said. "If you want to get to Petey, you have to go through me."

She smiled then for what felt like the first time in a long time.

Brittney, too, smiled, but sadly. "I won't, Astrid. But Drake will. You know he will. The bugs are all around this building, waiting. And when Drake comes, he will take Little Pete and kill you."

The two girls had almost forgotten the swaying, bleary-eyed Orc.

He moved now with surprising speed. He grabbed Brittney by the neck and waist and threw her from the window.

"I don't like her," he said.

Astrid ran to the window and saw Brittney lying flat on the ground.

The bugs turned their blue eyes upward.

Indifferent to Brittney-who was already picking herself up, unharmed-they surged toward the ruined front door of Coates Academy.

"About time." Orc laughed. "Let's get this over with."

"Orc, don't let them kill you," Astrid said, putting her hand on his arm.

"You was always nice to me, Astrid. Sorry I ..." Then he shrugged. "Don't matter now. Better get out if you can. Most likely this won't take long."

He ran into the hallway. Astrid last saw him as he laughed at the bugs below him, vaulted the landing rail, and dropped down into the swarm.