Gone

  Edilio said, “So you shot back. You did your thing at her.” Sam could see only the outline of his face in the darkness. “That’s what’s been dogging you. You think you hurt her.”

  “I don’t know how to control it. I don’t ask for it to come. I don’t know how to make it go away. I’m just glad I didn’t hurt Little Pete. I was choking.”

  Quinn and Edilio turned their attention to the little boy now. Little Pete rubbed sleep from his eyes and stared past them, indifferent to them, maybe not even aware that they existed. Maybe wondering why he was standing in the damp night air outside a nuclear power plant. Maybe not wondering anything.

  “He’s one, too,” Quinn accused. “A freak.”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Astrid said.

  “That’s not exactly reassuring,” Quinn snapped. “What’s his trick? He shoot missiles out of his butt or something?”

  Astrid smoothed her brother’s hair down with her hand and let her fingers trace the side of his face. “Window seat,” she whispered. Then, to the others, “‘Window seat’ is a trigger phrase. It helps him find a calm place. It’s the window seat in my room.”

  “Window seat,” Little Pete said unexpectedly.

  “He talks,” Edilio said.

  “He can,” Astrid said. “But he doesn’t much.”

  “He talks. Great. What else does he do?” Quinn demanded pointedly.

  “He seems able to do a lot of things. Mostly we’re good, the two of us. Mostly he doesn’t really notice me. But once, I was doing his therapy, working with this picture book we work on sometimes. I show him a picture and try to get him to say the word and, I don’t know, I guess I was in a bad mood that day. I guess I was too rough taking his hand and putting his finger on the picture like you’re supposed to do. He got mad. And then, I wasn’t there anymore. One second I was in his room, and then all of a sudden I was in my room.”

  There was a dead silence as the four of them stared at Little Pete.

  “Then maybe he can zap us out of the FAYZ and back to our folks,” Quinn said finally.

  Silence fell again. The five of them stood in the middle of the road, the humming, bright-lit power plant behind them, a dark road descending ahead.

  “I keep waiting for you to laugh, Sam,” Quinn said to Sam. “You know: say ‘gotcha.’ Tell me it’s all some trick. Tell me you’re just goofing on me.”

  “We’re in a new world,” Astrid said. “Look, I’ve known about Petey for a while. I tried to believe it was some kind of miracle. Like you, Quinn, I wanted to believe it was God doing it.”

  “What is doing it?” Edilio asked. “I mean, you’re saying this stuff was happening before the FAYZ.”

  “Look, I’m supposedly smart, but that doesn’t mean I understand any of this,” Astrid admitted. “All I know is that under the laws of biology and physics, none of this is possible. The human body has no organ that generates light. And what Petey did, the ability to move things from one place to another? Scientists have figured out how to do it with a couple of atoms. Not entire human beings. It would take more energy than the entire power plant produces, which means that, basically, the laws of physics would have to be rewritten.”

  “How do you rewrite the laws of physics?” Sam wondered.

  Astrid threw up her hands. “I can just about, barely, follow AP physics. To understand this, you’d have to be Einstein or Heisenberg or Feynman, on that level. I just know that impossible things don’t happen. So either this isn’t happening, or somehow the rules have been changed.”

  “Like someone hacked the universe,” Quinn said.

  “Exactly,” Astrid said, surprised that Quinn had gotten it. “Like someone hacked the universe and rewrote the software.”

  “Nothing but kids left, there’s some big wall, and my best friend is magic boy all of a sudden,” Quinn said. “I figured, okay, at least whatever else, I still have my brah, I still have my best friend.”

  Sam said, “I’m still your friend, Quinn.”

  Quinn sighed. “Yeah. Well, it isn’t exactly the same, is it?”

  “There are probably others,” Astrid said. “Others like Sam and Petey. And the little girl who died.”

  “We have to keep this quiet,” Edilio said. “We can’t be telling anyone. People don’t like people they think are better than they are. If regular kids find out about this, it’s going to be trouble.”

  “Maybe not,” Astrid said hopefully.

  “You’re smart, Astrid, but if you think people are going to be happy about this, you don’t know people,” Edilio said.

  “Well, I won’t be the one blabbing about it,” Quinn said.

  Astrid said, “Okay, I think probably Edilio’s right. At least for now. And especially we can’t let anyone find out about Petey.”

  “I’m not saying anything,” Edilio confirmed.

  “You guys know. That’s enough,” Sam said.

  They started walking together toward the distant town. They walked in silence. At first, bunched together. Then Quinn moved out in front. And Edilio drifted to one side. Astrid was with Little Pete.

  Sam let himself fall behind. He wanted quiet. He wanted privacy. Part of him would have liked to drift farther and farther back until he was left behind, forgotten by the others.

  But he was tied to these four people now. They knew what he was. They knew his secret. And they had not turned against him.

  The sound of Quinn singing “Three Little Birds” came drifting back. Sam quickened his pace to catch up with his friends.

  FOURTEEN

  255 HOURS, 42 MINUTES

  SAM, ASTRID, QUINN, and Edilio flopped on the grass of the plaza, exhausted. Little Pete remained standing, playing his game, oblivious, as though an all-night, ten-mile walk were just a stroll. The rising sun silhouetted the mountains behind them and lit the too-calm ocean.

  The grass was wet with dew that soaked straight through Sam’s shirt. He thought, I’ll never be able to sleep here. And then he was asleep.

  He woke up with sun in his eyes. He blinked and sat up. The dew had burned off, and now the grass was crisping in the heat. There were a lot of kids around. But he didn’t see his friends. Maybe they had gone looking for food. He was hungry himself.

  When he stood up he noticed that the crowd was moving, all in one direction, toward the church.

  He joined the movement. A girl he knew walked by. He asked what was going on.

  She shrugged. “I’m just following everyone else.”

  Sam kept moving till the crowd began to congeal. Then he hopped up on the back of a park bench, balancing precariously but able to see over everyone’s head.

  Four cars were making their way down Alameda Avenue. They drove at a stately pace, like a parade. Adding to that impression, the third car in line was a convertible with the top down. All four cars were dark, powerful, and expensive vehicles. The last car in line was a black SUV. They drove with their lights on.

  “Is it someone coming to rescue us?” a fifth grader called up to Sam.

  “I don’t see any police cars, so I doubt it. You might want to hang back, man.”

  “Is it the aliens?”

  “I think if it was aliens, we’d be seeing spaceships, not BMWs.”

  The procession or parade or convoy or whatever it was drove up alongside the curb at the top of the plaza, just across the street from the town hall, and stopped.

  Kids climbed out of each car. They wore black slacks and white shirts. Girls wore pleated black skirts and matching knee-high socks. Both boys and girls had on blazers in a subdued shade of red, with a large crest sewn over the heart. Boys and girls alike wore striped ties of red, black, and gold.

  The crest featured ornate letters “C” and “A” in gold thread over a background that showed a golden eagle and a mountain lion. Beneath the crest was the Latin motto of Coates Academy: Ad augusta, per angusta. To high places by narrow roads.

  “They’re all Coates kids.” I
t was Astrid. She and Little Pete stood with Edilio. Sam jumped down to be beside them.

  “A well-rehearsed display,” Astrid said, as though reading Sam’s mind.

  As the Coates kids climbed out of the cars, the crowd actually drew back a step. There had always been a rivalry between the kids in town, who thought of themselves as normal kids, and the Coates kids, who tended to be wealthy and, although the Academy tried to disguise the fact, strange.

  Coates was the place your rich parents sent you when other schools found you “difficult.”

  The Coates kids lined up, not quite a drill team in their order and precision, but like they had practiced it.

  “Quasi-military,” Astrid said in a low, discreet voice.

  Then one boy, wearing a bright yellow V-necked sweater instead of his blazer, stood up in the convertible. He grinned sheepishly and climbed nimbly from the backseat onto the trunk. He gave a little self-deprecating wave, as if to say he couldn’t believe what he was doing.

  He was handsome, even Sam noticed that. He had dark hair and dark eyes, not much different from Sam himself. But this boy’s face seemed to glow with an inner light. He radiated confidence, but without arrogance or condescension. In fact, he managed to seem genuinely humble even while standing alone, looking out over everyone else.

  “Hi, everyone,” he said. “I’m Caine Soren. You probably figured out that I…we…are from Coates Academy. Either that or we all just have the same bad taste in clothing.”

  There was a bit of a laugh from the crowd.

  “A self-deprecating joke to loosen us up,” Astrid said, continuing her whispered commentary.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Sam noticed Mallet. The boy was turning away, crouching down, acting like he was trying to hide. Mallet was a Coates kid. What was it he’d said? That he didn’t get along with the kids at Coates? Something like that.

  “I know there’s a tradition of rivalry between the kids of Coates Academy and the kids of Perdido Beach,” Caine said. “Well, that was the old days. It looks to me like we’re all in this together. We all have the same problems now. And we should work together to deal with our problems, don’t you think?”

  Heads were nodding in response.

  His voice was clear and just a little higher, maybe, than Sam’s, but strong and determined. He had a way of looking at the crowd before him that made it seem he was meeting every person’s eye, seeing every person as an individual.

  “Do you know what happened?” a voice asked.

  Caine shook his head. “No. I don’t think we probably know any more than you. Everyone fifteen and over disappeared. And there’s the wall, the barrier.”

  “We call it the FAYZ,” Howard said loudly.

  “The phase?” Caine appeared interested.

  “F-A-Y-Z. Fallout Alley Youth Zone.”

  Caine considered that for a moment, then laughed. “That’s excellent. Did you come up with that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s vital to keep a sense of humor when the world seems to have suddenly become a very strange place. What’s your name?”

  “Howard. I’m the Captain’s number-one guy. Captain Orc.”

  An uneasy ripple moved through the crowd. Caine read it instantly. “I hope you and Captain Orc will join me and anyone else who wants to sit down and talk about our plans for the future. Because we do have a plan for the future.” He emphasized this last sentence with a chopping motion, like he was cutting away the past.

  “I want my mom,” a little boy cried out suddenly.

  Every voice fell silent. The boy had said what they were all feeling.

  Caine hopped down from the car and went to the boy. He knelt down and took the boy’s hands in his own. He asked the boy’s name, and reintroduced himself. “We all want our parents back,” he said gently, but loudly enough to be overheard clearly by those nearest. “We all want that. And I believe that will happen. I believe we will see all our moms and dads, and older brothers and sisters, and even our teachers again. I believe that. Do you believe it, too?”

  “Yes.” The little boy sobbed.

  Caine wrapped him in a hug and said, “Be strong. Be your mommy’s strong little boy.”

  “He’s good,” Astrid said. “He’s beyond good.”

  Then Caine stood up. People had formed a circle around him, close but respectful. “We all have to be strong. We all have to get through this. If we work together to choose good leaders and do the right thing, we will make it.”

  The entire crowd of kids seemed to stand a little taller. There were determined looks on faces that had been weary and frightened.

  Sam was mesmerized by the performance. In just a few minutes’ time, Caine had infused hope into a very frightened, dispirited bunch of kids.

  Astrid seemed mesmerized too, though Sam thought he detected the cool glint of skepticism in her eyes.

  Sam was skeptical himself. He distrusted rehearsed displays. He distrusted charm. But it was hard not to think that Caine was at least trying to reach out to the Perdido Beach kids. It was hard not to believe in him, at least a little. And if Caine really did have a plan, wouldn’t that be a good thing? No one else seemed to have a clue.

  Caine raised his voice again. “If it’s okay with everyone here, I would like to borrow your church. I would like to sit down with your leaders, in the presence of our Lord, and discuss my plan, and any changes you want to make. Are there maybe, oh, a dozen people who could speak for you?”

  “Me,” Orc said, shouldering his way forward. He still carried his aluminum baseball bat. And he had acquired a policeman’s helmet, one of the black plastic helmets the Perdido Beach cops used when they patrolled on bicycles.

  Caine fixed the thug with a penetrating stare. “You must be Captain Orc.”

  “Yeah. That’s me.”

  Caine stuck out his hand. “I’m honored to meet you, Captain.”

  Orc’s mouth dropped open. He hesitated. Sam thought it was probably the first time in Orc’s turbulent life that anyone had said they were honored to meet him. And probably the first time anyone had offered to shake his hand. Orc was clearly confused. He glanced at Howard.

  Howard was looking from Orc to Caine, sizing up the situation. “He’s paying you props, Captain,” Howard said.

  Orc grunted, shifted the bat from right hand to left, and stuck out his thick paw. Caine grabbed it with both his hands and solemnly looked Orc in the eye as they shook hands.

  “Smooth,” Astrid said under her breath.

  Still holding Orc’s hand in his, Caine challenged, “Now, who else speaks for Perdido Beach?”

  Bouncing Bette said, “Sam Temple here went into a burning building to rescue a little girl. He can speak for me, anyway.”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “Yeah, Sam is a hero for real,” a voice said.

  “He could have died,” another voice seconded.

  “Yeah, Sam’s the guy.”

  Caine’s smile came and disappeared so quickly, Sam wasn’t sure it had happened. For that millisecond it was a look of triumph. Caine walked straight up to Sam, open and forthright, hand extended.

  “There are probably better people than me,” Sam said, backing away.

  But Caine grabbed his elbow and maneuvered him into a handshake. “Sam, is it? It sounds like you truly are a hero. Are you related to our school nurse, Connie Temple?”

  “She’s my mother.”

  “I’m not surprised that she would have a brave son,” Caine said with deep feeling. “She’s a very good woman. I see you’re humble as well as brave, Sam, but I…I’m asking for your help. I need your help.”

  With the mention of his mother, everything fell into place. Caine. “C.” What were the odds that “C” was some other kid from Coates?

  Sooner or later, C or one of the others will do something serious. Someone will get hurt. Just like S with T.

  “Okay,” Sam said. “If that’s what people want.”

/>   A few other names were mentioned, and Sam halfheartedly, but loyally, named Quinn.

  Caine’s eyes flickered from Sam to Quinn, and for just a millisecond there flashed a cynical, knowing look. But it was gone in a heartbeat, replaced by Caine’s practiced expression of humility and resolve.

  “Then let’s go in together,” Caine said. He turned and marched purposefully up the church steps. The rest of the chosen fell in behind him.

  One of the Coates kids, a dark-eyed, very beautiful girl, waylaid Sam and held out her hand. Sam took it.

  “I’m Diana,” she said, not letting his hand go. “Diana Ladris.”

  “Sam Temple.”

  Her midnight eyes met his and he wanted to look away, feeling awkward, but somehow could not.

  “Ah,” she said, as if someone had told her something fascinating. Then she let him go and smirked. “Well, well. I guess we’d better go in. We don’t want to leave Fearless Leader without followers.”

  It was a Catholic church, built a hundred years earlier by the rich man who had owned the cannery that now lay rusting and abandoned, a tin-plated eyesore by the marina.

  With soaring arches, half a dozen statues of saints, and wonderful well-worn wooden pews, the church was much grander than the small town of Perdido Beach probably deserved. Of the six tall, peaked windows, three retained their original stained-glass representations of Jesus in various parables. The other three had been lost over time to vandals or weather or earthquakes and had been replaced with cheaper, abstract-patterned stained glass.

  When Astrid entered the church she dipped to one knee and made the sign of the cross while looking up at the intimidatingly large crucifix above the altar.

  “Is this where you go to church?” Sam asked in a whisper.

  “Yes. You?”

  He shook his head. It was Sam’s first time inside. His mother was a nonobservant Jew, no one spoke about what his father was, and Sam himself had only a vague interest in religion. The church made him feel small and definitely out of place.

  Caine had moved confidently toward the altar. The altar itself was not very grand, just a pale marble rectangle up three maroon-carpeted steps. Caine did not go to the old-fashioned raised pulpit, but stood on the second of the three steps.