Hunger (32 page)

06
HOURS
, 3
MINUTES

EDILIO DROVE THE
creepy little mutant, Bug, and the girl he’d brought along with him. He wasn’t happy about having to do this. Mostly he wanted to stay in town. Nightfall could bring trouble. And Sam…well, Sam wasn’t acting like Sam.

Sam had looked like a zombie listening to Quinn and Albert’s confession last night.

And then, this morning, Bug told his story. It was every kind of bad news rolled into one shamefaced confession after another, and Sam had just stared. Fortunately Astrid had stepped up.

Sam, Edilio, Brianna, Taylor, Quinn, Albert, Astrid—the seven of them in Astrid’s living room, listening as Bug alternately groveled and whined.

Then, Astrid read Lana’s letter.

“I knew she was having some problems,” Quinn said, sounding guilty. “I didn’t know about this, though. I mean…it’s like Lana used me and Albert so she could get back out to the desert.”

“That would be putting a convenient spin on your own sneakiness, Quinn,” Astrid had snapped.

“She brought up the gold to me,” Albert said thoughtfully, not at all intimidated by Astrid’s anger. “It was a good suggestion. So I jumped at it. But it came from her, originally. Maybe what we need to think about is whether Lana is working with this creature.”

“No,” Quinn said.

Everyone waited for him to explain. He shrugged and repeated, “No.” And then he added, “I don’t think so.”

“We need Lana,” Sam said, finally breaking his gloomy silence. “It almost doesn’t matter if she’s helping this thing. Friend or enemy, we need Lana.”

“Agreed,” Albert said, as though the conversation were one between him and Sam, like it was just the two of them
debating what to do. For a guy who had been caught breaking various rules, Albert didn’t seem too worried.

But then he wouldn’t, would he? Edilio reflected. He had food. Food was power now. Even Astrid wasn’t really going after Albert, although she obviously didn’t like him much.

“We need to know what this creature is,” Albert said.

Sam looked at Bug, who had been ordered to remain visible. “What’s this Orsay girl’s thing?”

Bug shrugged. “She sees people’s dreams, I think.”

“And Caine wants her to spy on the creature.” Almost despite himself Sam was becoming more engaged. Edilio had seen the wheels begin to turn again in his friend’s head. It was a huge relief. “If Caine wants it, maybe we want it, too,” Sam had said, and one by one the others nodded agreement. “Albert’s right: we need to know what we’re dealing with.”

Which was how Edilio had ended up playing chauffeur to Bug and this strange girl.

“What’d you say your name was?” Edilio asked, making eye contact with her in the rearview mirror.

“Orsay.”

She probably wasn’t bad looking, under normal circumstances. But right now she looked terrified. And gaunt. Her hair was all over the place. And although Edilio wasn’t one to complain, one or both of them back there smelled, and not just like Quinn and Albert’s fish.

“Where you from, Orsay?”

“I lived at the ranger camp. In the Stefano Rey.”

“Huh. That’s kind of cool.”

She didn’t look as if she agreed. Then she said, “You have a gun.”

Edilio glanced at the machine pistol on the seat beside him. Two full clips rattled with each bump. “Yeah.”

“If we see Drake, you have to shoot him.”

Edilio pretty much agreed. But he had to ask, anyway. “Why?”

“I’ve seen his dreams,” Orsay said. “I’ve seen inside him.”

They were off-road, heading vaguely toward the hills. They had found Hermit Jim’s shack—Edilio had a good sense of direction—but none of them had ever been to this mine shaft. All they had were the directions Caine had given Bug. The sun was setting behind the hills, turning them an ominous dark purple. Night would come too soon. No way Orsay could do whatever it was she was supposed to do in time for them to get back to town before full night fell.

“What exactly are you supposed to be doing?” Edilio asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re a freak, right? Bug wasn’t too clear.”

Bug looked up at the sound of his nickname. Then, as if in response, he faded from view.

“I can see dreams. I told you,” Orsay said, and looked out of the window.

“Yeah? You wouldn’t want to see my dreams. They’re kind of boring.”

“I know,” the girl said.

That got Edilio’s full attention. “Say what?”

“Long time back. You and Sam and Quinn and a girl named Astrid. And the other one. I saw you hiking through the woods.”

“You were there, huh?” Edilio said. He pursed his lips, not at all happy with the idea that some girl could see his dreams. He’d said his dreams were boring. Mostly they were. But sometimes, well, sometimes they weren’t something he wanted a stranger sitting in on. Especially a girl.

He squirmed in his seat.

“Don’t worry,” Orsay said with a trace of a smile. “I’m used to…you know. Whatever.”

“Uh-huh,” Edilio muttered.

The Jeep bounced and rattled as they went though a rocky patch. They had the top up and buttoned tight. It was dusty and Edilio didn’t trust Bug not to drop off and simply disappear.

Then, too, there were the coyotes. Edilio kept an eye out for them.

They were closing in on the hills. There was the fold formed by a spur, just like Caine had shown on the map he’d drawn for Bug.

There was a bad look about the place. The shadows seemed deeper than they should be for the middle of the day.

“I’m not crazy about this,” he said to no one.

“Do you have family?” Orsay asked.

The question surprised Edilio. People tended to avoid talking about family. No one knew what had happened to the families. “Sure.”

“When I’m scared I try to think about my dad,” Orsay said.

“Not me,” Bug said.

“Not your mom?” Edilio asked.

“No.”

“Because me, I think about my mom. In my mind, you know, she’s like beautiful. I mean, I don’t know if she was…is…in reality? Right? But in here,” Edilio tapped his head. “In here she’s beautiful.” He tapped his chest. “In here, too.”

They rounded the end of the rocky spur and there, in pitiless sunlight, a ghost town lay revealed.

Edilio put on the brakes.

“That look like what Caine told you?” he asked Bug.

Bug nodded.

“Okay.”

“Caine said go through the town. Past a building that’s still standing. Up a path. Mine shaft.”

“Uh-huh,” Edilio said. He knew what he was supposed to do. But he didn’t like it. Not at all. Less, now that he was here. He was not a superstitious person, at least he didn’t think so, but there was something very wrong about this ghost town.

He put the Jeep into gear and crept ahead, no more than ten miles an hour. The last thing he wanted to do was have to figure out how to change a tire.

“I don’t like this place,” Orsay said.

“Yeah. Let’s not go here for spring break,” Edilio said.

Through the town.

Past the ramshackle building.

The path was narrow, but the Jeep managed it at a crawl.

“Stop!” Orsay cried.

Edilio slammed on the brakes. They came to rest beside a high outcropping of rock. If this had been an old Western, Edilio thought, this is where the ambush would take place.

He lifted the gun. It was a reassuring weight in his hand. He checked to make sure it was cocked. Thumb on the safety. Finger resting on the trigger guard, just like he taught his recruits.

He listened but didn’t hear anything.

“Why did we stop?” Edilio asked Orsay.

“Close enough,” she whispered. “I…”

Edilio twisted in his seat. “What is it?”

What he saw shocked him. Orsay’s eyes were wide, glittering whites showing all around.

“What’s with her?” Bug asked in a quivering voice.

“Orsay. Are you okay?” Edilio asked.

Her only answer was a moaning sound so unearthly that at first Edilio didn’t realize it was coming from her. It seemed to generate from her chest, a sound too deep for this frail girl. It was something closer to an animal growl.

“Girl’s crazy,” Bug moaned.

Orsay began to tremble. The trembling escalated until she was shaking, in spasm, like a person being electrocuted. Her tongue protruded from her mouth, gagging her.

She was biting her tongue. Like she was trying to bite it off.

“Hey!” Edilio slammed the glove compartment open and yanked everything out with frantic fingers, screwdriver, flashlight, a thick digital tire gauge. He grabbed the tire gauge
and pushed his way into the backseat. He yelled, “Grab her, hold her!” to Bug, who instead shrank away.

Edilio grabbed her by the hair, there was nothing else he could hold with one hand, twisted his fist into her hair until he had a firm purchase, yanked her head forward, and shoved the tire gauge between her teeth.

Her jaws clamped hard, so hard, they cracked the plastic of the tire gauge. Blood flowed from her mouth, but her teeth no longer closed on her tongue.

“Hold that in her mouth!” Edilio yelled at Bug.

Bug just stared, paralyzed.

Edilio yelled a curse and said, “Do it or I swear I will shoot you!”

Bug snapped out of his trance and grabbed Orsay’s head with his hands.

Edilio threw the Jeep into reverse and began backing up as fast as he could go, down the path. The first he noticed of the coyotes was when he felt a bump and heard a canine yelp of pain.

One hand on the wheel, yelling in fear, Edilio smashed the Jeep into an embankment. He threw it into drive, advanced a few feet to get clear, threw it, gears grinding into reverse again as a huge, snarling face appeared beside him. Coyote teeth slavered and tore at the plastic.

Edilio snap-aimed and fired. The burst was short, maybe five rounds, but more than enough to dissolve the coyote’s head into red mist.

Down they bumped, down the path, smashing and jolting. Edilio could barely hold the wheel.

Then, suddenly, they were on flat terrain. He spun the wheel as two coyotes hurled themselves at the plastic sheath. The impact of their bodies was so great, it pushed the plastic in and slammed Edilio’s arm, knocking his hand off the wheel, stunning him.

But his foot was on the gas pedal and he floored it. The Jeep plowed straight toward a building. Edilio grabbed the wheel, slammed on the brakes, twisted hard, fish-tailed into a two-wheel turn, and roared away from the ghost town.

The coyote pack followed for a while, then fell away as it became clear that they would never catch the speeding car.

Bug still had Orsay in a headlock. But she was making more reasonable sounds, now, seeming to ask to be freed.

“Let her go,” Edilio ordered.

Bug released Orsay.

She wiped blood with the back of her hand. Edilio found a rag in the debris of the glove compartment and handed it back to her.

“It told me to chew my tongue off,” she gasped at last.

“What?” Edilio snapped. “What? Who?”

“Him. It. He told me to chew my tongue off and I couldn’t resist,” she cried. “He didn’t want me to be able to tell you.”

“Tell us what? What?” Edilio demanded, desperate and confused.

Orsay spit blood onto the floor of the Jeep. She wiped her mouth again with the rag.

“He’s hungry,” she said. “He needs to feed.”

“On us?” Bug cried.

Orsay stared at Bug. Then she actually laughed. “No. Not on us. Ow. My tongue.”

“On what? On what?”

Orsay ignored Bug and spoke to Edilio. “We don’t have much time,” she said. “Food is coming. People are bringing it to him. And when he feeds he grows strong, and that’s when he will use her.”

“Use who?” Edilio demanded, knowing the answer before he asked the question.

“I don’t know her name. The girl. The one with the healing touch. He can use her to give him legs and arms. To give him a body.

“He’s weak now,” she added. “But if he gets what he wants…becomes what he wants to become…then you will never stop him.”

“Hungry in the dark,” Little Pete said.

He was tucked into his bed, but his eyes were bright.

“I know, Petey. We’re all hungry. But it’s not really dark,” Astrid said wearily. “Go beddy boody. Nap time.”

It had been a very long night and morning. She wanted Pete to take a nap so she could catch some sleep as well. She could barely hold her head up. It was hot in the house with the power off and the air-conditioning dead. Hot and stuffy.

She had been badly shaken by Sam’s meltdown. She wanted to be sympathetic. She was sympathetic. But more, she was frightened. Sam was all that really stood between the relative decency of Perdido Beach and the violent psychopathy of
Caine and Drake and Diana.

Sam was all that protected Little Pete, and Astrid herself.

But he was breaking down. PTSD, she supposed, post-traumatic stress disorder. What soldiers get after they spend too much time in combat.

Everyone in the FAYZ probably had it to one extent or another. But no one else had been in the middle of every violent confrontation, every new horror, and also been saddled with all the endless, endless details. There had been no down-time for Sam. No break.

She remembered Quinn laughing about how Sam never danced. She loved him, but it was true that Sam was lousy at relaxing. Well, if she ever got the chance, she would have to help him find a way.

“He’s afraid,” Little Pete said.

“Who?”

“Nestor.”

Nestor was the nesting doll Sam had accidentally crushed. “I’m sorry Nestor got broken. Go to sleep, Petey.”

She bent over to kiss him on his forehead. Of course he gave no response. He didn’t hug her or ask her to read him a story, or say, “Hey, thanks for taking care of me, sis.”