“Hey, Malik,” Cruz said softly. And then, with nothing useful to say, she asked a stupid question. “How are you?”
Malik blinked. Stared with feverish intensity. And with his free hand he made the universal sign for writing.
“You want paper?”
Blink. And a choked moan that might be a yes.
The machine that breathed for him made a shushing sound. The digital readout over his head drew electric green lines, reducing his beating heart and his still-firing neurons to abstractions.
Cruz found a pad on the table and after a fruitless search ducked into the hallway to borrow a pen from a nurse. She placed the pen tenderly in Malik’s hand and held the pad as firmly as she could.
He was right-handed and writing with his left. The penmanship was never going to be good, and it was a barely legible scrawl.
Cruz frowned at the paper.
“It says ‘rock,’” Shade said. She had entered silently and now stood looking at Malik, her chest heaving. Tears ran down her cheeks.
“What?” Cruz asked, turning the pad to see more clearly. Then, with a slow realization, she saw that the single word was indeed . . . “rock.” It was as if Shade had read his mind.
“It’s the only way,” Shade said dully. “He figured it out, same time I did.” She managed a bleak smile. “Of course he figured it out. Of course.”
Shade moved closer to Malik. She laid her hand on the only exposed part of him and whispered, “I’m so sorry, Bunny. I’m so sorry.”
Cruz had never heard Shade use a term of endearment for Malik.
“Do you think you can swallow?” Shade asked him.
Blink.
A water bottle stood on the table, half drunk. Shade twisted the top off and pulled a baggie of gray powder from her pocket. She funneled the powder into the water and shook the bottle. The powder swirled.
Shade put the bottle to Malik’s mouth, pushing the main tube aside just enough. She spilled a gulp of the laced water into his mouth and watched as his throat convulsed in a gulp.
“You can’t go into a coma,” Shade said.
Blink.
“I can stop them, but it will mean you’ll be in pain.” Another gulp of the rock water.
Blink.
A nurse burst in. “What are you doing? He can’t drink!” She snatched the bottle away and set it back on the table. “There’ll be another nurse by in a few minutes. I have to go, I’m sorry, but the news says that . . . that thing . . . is headed right for my home. My son is at home!”
She left as quickly as she had come. And a minute later, that same nurse was standing beside Shade again.
“I’ve got this,” Cruz said. “I’ll give him the rest and I’ll stay with him.” She gripped Shade’s arm. “You’re not needed here.”
Shade nodded, numb with grief and roiled by self-loathing.
“Go, Shade. Go and do what you can. This is sidekick work; you’re the superhero.”
The Dark Watchers seemed sullen, or perhaps exhausted, and they watched Shade’s mind with only distant interest as she raced the van back to the port until she hit impassable traffic. She ran the rest of the way and found Dekka swinging her leg over her miraculously undamaged Kawasaki. Armo was waiting his turn.
“Where is it?” Shade buzzed, then slowed down to say, “Where. Is. It?”
Dekka shook her head. “Cops say it just disappeared. Crawled into a neighborhood, shriveled and . . . poof.”
“He. De-morphed!”
“Yeah, most likely.”
Shade de-morphed as well, resuming her normal shape.
“How’s your friend?” Dekka asked.
Shade was panting, unable to slow her breathing or the pounding of her heart. No. No way that monster just walked away. No way it still lived!
“Hey,” Dekka prodded. “Your friend.”
“He’ll live,” Shade said, the words feeling like a lie, a betrayal. He might live. But he would never again be Malik.
And she would never be free of guilt for what she had done.
Dekka knew that look. She had seen it on Sam’s face after bloody battles. And she knew that he had seen it on her face as well.
“You have to let it go,” Dekka said, knowing there was no way, no way at all, for the girl standing before her to do that.
“I’m going to kill it.” The words grated. Shade’s mouth twisted down and tears filled her eyes again. “I’m going to kill it!”
Dekka nodded wearily. “Well, maybe so.”
“You’re Dekka Talent,” Shade said, eyes blazing. “I know you. I know all about you. I need your help. I need you to help me, help me, help me kill that fucking thing!”
Dekka waited patiently while Shade Darby, the girl who held her emotions under iron control, stopped screaming.
“Listen to me,” Dekka said. “I know. I know exactly how you feel. Exactly. But honey, it’s not one battle, it’s a war.” She picked around in her saddlebags and came up with a piece of paper bag. “Damn, I don’t have anything to write with.”
Shade stared at her through burning eyes. Then she raked one fingernail down the inside of her arm, gouging the flesh. Blood seeped. She held her bloody arm out for Dekka.
And Dekka touched her arm and used the blood to write on the paper bag. “Email.”
Shade nodded dully.
“There will be more,” Dekka said. “It’s all going to hell now. There will be a lot more. When it comes, reach out to me.”
“Yeah,” Armo said. “Me too.” He swung his leg over the back of the bike and settled in behind Dekka.
Shade’s face, which she had managed to form into a stiff mask, now collapsed. Her jaw quivered. In a strangled voice she said, “How do you do this? How do you live with this?”
Dekka started her engine, leaned toward Shade, put a hand on her trembling shoulder, and said, “Welcome to the FAYZ, Shade Darby. Welcome to the FAYZ.”
She drove away, and Shade folded the blood-smeared paper.
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
Remarks by the President on Events in Los Angeles
The Oval Office
1:59 p.m. EDT
THE PRESIDENT:
Good evening. My fellow Americans, five years ago we were confronted with a great mystery in the area around Perdido Beach, California. The existence of the Perdido Beach Anomaly, the dome, and the effects on the unfortunate children trapped inside that dome were events far outside our understanding. These were disturbing events.
Yesterday we saw events that are more disturbing still.
I want to tell you what we know at this time. Fragments of the same meteorite that initiated the events at Perdido Beach are falling to Earth. Those fragments contain an alien virus, probably a deliberately engineered virus, which has the effect of causing extreme mutations in some of those who are exposed to it, or who consume it.
We all saw the video from Los Angeles. We mourn the terrible loss of life. At this time we have fifty-two confirmed deaths, including the crew of the Okeanos Explorer. Many of the fallen were first responders, police, federal agents, and emergency medical personnel. These brave men and women went into harm’s way to perform their duties, and paid the ultimate price. We honor their sacrifice.
This is a great and unprecedented challenge. But I want you to know that your government is responding. We are redoubling our ongoing efforts to understand this phenomenon. We have already appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to explore countermeasures. But we will need more to cope with this unprecedented threat to our way of life. In light of yesterday’s events, I am asking Congress for an immediate appropriation of thirty billion dollars to study the causes and begin to find solutions.
Let me be clear: that will not be the end of our efforts, but the beginning. At the start of World War Two, the US government launched the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. The threat we face now demands a si
milar level of commitment. Therefore I am, by executive order, establishing a crash military program to give us the knowledge and the tools to fight back against this threat.
And I call upon the world—not only our allies, our friends, but all nations, even those with which we have had differences—to work together.
We stand on the brink. The threat we face is serious. The challenges we face are daunting. But we have no choice but to face up to our problems, to come together not only as a people, but as the human race, to work together, to face the danger squarely, and not to give in to fear.
Thank you, and God bless America.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.
For Immediate Release
FBI Ten Most Wanted
Vincent Vu
Thomas Peaks
Shade Darby
Dekka Talent
Aristotle Adamo (aka “Armo”)
Justin DeVeere (aka “Knightmare”)
Malik Tenerife
Hugo Rojas (aka “Cruz”)
Drake Merwin
Francis Specter
CHAPTER 29
Aftermath
SHADE DARBY DID not immediately return to the hospital. Instead, she drove aimlessly along the cracked and decaying freeways of Southern California. The car she drove was stolen. The money she spent for gas was stolen.
The things she could not do formed a damning list that churned endlessly in her head.
She could not bring back the dead.
She could not go home.
She could not undo what she had done to herself, or to Cruz.
Or to Malik.
She pulled off to the side of the road in . . . she wasn’t sure where . . . and cried. The last time she had cried was four years earlier, and she had vowed then . . . well, she had vowed a revenge she had now failed to perform, an impossible revenge. In fact, she had screwed up everything. The proof was lying in a hospital gritting his teeth against pain Shade could hardly imagine. Didn’t want to imagine.
Her friend Cruz was staying with Malik, having to watch him, to listen to his cries. She was staying in morph, playing the part of nurse, and withstanding the insinuating attentions of the Dark Watchers for hour after hour.
Sorry, Cruz.
Sorry, Dad.
Sorry, Malik.
Sorry, Mom.
Such a terrible long list of people to apologize to. If she spent the rest of her life groveling and crying, she would never be able to find . . .
Find what, Shade Darby? Find what? Forgiveness. Redemption?
No. Only one goal was attainable now. Only one.
Revenge.
As her tears dried, the other part of Shade, the cool observer, the analyst, what Cruz called “the shark,” slowly reemerged.
What had happened had happened. What was done was done.
The world was changing. The old order was dead or dying. The center, to quote the poem, was not holding; it was coming apart. And rough beasts, their hour come round at last, were already slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.
Hero, villain, monster.
She, Shade Darby, had power. It didn’t matter anymore how it had happened, only that it was true. She had power, and the villains and monsters would have to be stopped. There was no other way forward for her, no escape from her fate.
“I’m a hero, whether I like it or not,” Shade said to no one but the steering wheel. “Just thought it would be less . . . terrible.”
She wiped away her tears. She punched the address of the hospital into the GPS—she still had no idea where she was—and, dry-eyed, went to face Malik and Cruz and the consequences of playing superhero.
Vincent Vu had been unable to stay home—it was quickly surrounded by the FBI. So he used two of his meat puppets to clear a home a few blocks away of its inhabitants.
Now he sat on a couch that was not his, watching a much nicer television than he owned. He was watching video of himself, replaying his battle with Napalm, going frame by frame to try to see the speed demon, and the one with snake hair, and the big white beast.
Like a football player, watching tapes after the game.
Abaddon was within him. The beautiful, powerful, devastating beast . . . was him, Vincent. Sooner or later, the voices in his head warned him, Abaddon must be released again.
Vincent figured the voices were right. But for now he was content to watch TV and eat the snack foods belonging to the three dead people lying at his feet.
Tom Peaks had barely survived by de-morphing at the last possible moment as his fire was extinguished and his strength faded under the brutal assault of Abaddon.
He felt the disappointment, even scorn, of the Dark Watchers, but once he was himself again, they were gone, replaced by his own demons.
He had always been a decent swimmer, even made it onto his high school team for a while. He swam underwater as much as he could, surfacing to grab a lungful of air as the battle raged behind him.
He made it to the far side of the channel and barely avoided Abaddon as the monster slunk by. But Abaddon had not seen him, or if he had he’d ignored the wet, naked man panting on the dock.
Peaks was less conspicuous than he would have been under normal circumstances—the area was full of panicky civilians—and a kind, if scandalized, woman offered him some of her husband’s clothing.
He took that gratefully and then beat the woman unconscious with a lamp and cleaned out her purse.
What should he do next? He wasn’t at all sure. But in the back of his mind, a list was taking shape. A kill list. General DiMarco topped that list, followed by Dekka Talent and Shade Darby.
Napalm still lived within him, and Napalm would be unleashed again when the time was right. Of that he had no doubt.
The keys he’d found in the woman’s purse belonged to the Toyota Corolla in her driveway. Peaks saw that the tank was three-quarters full. More than enough to get the hell out of the area, find a peaceful place to hide, and plot what he was sure would be his ultimate revenge.
The Royal Navy frigate Argyll raced south along the eastern coast of Islay. The very hungry caterpillar, now over two hundred feet long, having fed on dozens of sheep, two horses, the contents of various homes and markets and taverns, as well as nineteen humans, including his sister, had been spotted on the coast just north of the Ardmore distillery.
The entire crew lined the rail, watching with mute awe at the great beast contracting and releasing, contracting and releasing as it moved along the top of a cliff.
“Action stations” was called, and the crew rushed to their weapons.
Ten minutes later the Argyll opened up with everything it had. And the caterpillar—once a cranky, teething toddler named Sean—was blown apart.
Flaming fragments fell down the cliff and into the water.
In Islamabad, Pakistan, a creature who could turn men inside out was engaged by Pakistani military. Twenty-three Pakistani soldiers died, and the creature escaped.
Just outside Moscow at the Federal Biomedical Agency, three fragments of ASO-2, which had been recovered on Islay by a hastily detailed Russian FSB agent posing as a tourist, led to frowns of concern at the CIA, where analysts studied satellite imagery of the FSB’s Biomedical Agency campus aflame.
In Evanston, Illinois, Professor Martin Darby—cleared of complicity in his daughter’s actions—tracked the last two ASOs from a newly secure computer and passed along to General DiMarco the grim news that one rock would land in China and the other in northern Brazil.
In the bowels of the Ranch, work proceeded apace.
The FBI were at the door.
“We’re looking for Dekka Talent,” Special Agent Carlson said.
“Well, she’s not here.”
That exchange was repeated in various forms several times more before Agent Carlson—and the other agents behind him and out in the street—grudgingly walked away.
Once they were gone and their car
s had pulled away, Dekka emerged from the closet where she and Armo had hidden.
Dekka sighed. “I’m so sorry to bring this down on you. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Well, Dekka, maybe it’s time that I was your strong right arm instead of the other way around,” Sam Temple said.
Acknowledgments
Monster, like all my books, profits enormously from a crew of talented professionals. These include above all Katherine Tegen, my pal and publisher. On Katherine’s team are Mabel Hsu, Kelsey Horton, Kathryn Silsand, and Mark Rifkin. Credit for the gorgeous cover and equally lovely interior goes to Matthew Griffin, David E. Curtis, and Joel Tippie. Keeping the production train running on time are Oriana Siska and Kristen Eckhardt. And the reason anyone knows about the book is the hard work of Rosanne Romanello, Bess Braswell, and Audrey Diestelkamp. I would also like to thank my UK team, especially Stella Paskins and all her talented folks.
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About the Author
MICHAEL GRANT is the internationally bestselling author of science fiction and fantasy for teens. He is the author of the Gone, Front Lines, Messenger of Fear, and Bzrk series. He lives in California with his wife, Katherine Applegate, with whom he cowrote the wildly popular Animorphs series. You can follow him on Twitter @MichaelGrantBks.
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Books by Michael Grant
Gone
Hunger
Lies
Plague
Fear
Light
Monster
Messenger of Fear