Plague

And then, a very different feeling when he had fought. He had used his enormous strength and he had saved Sam’s life and Dekka’s and Toto’s. Him! Of all people: Computer Jack.

  He was a hero.

  He still didn’t look like one—he was no taller or more muscular than before, he had not turned into some muscle-bound wrestler type. He was still doughy, nearsighted Jack. But the strength no longer seemed completely irrelevant to him.

  He could be Computer Jack. But he could be more, too.

  And yet, what Sam wanted him to do was to kill Little Pete? Could that possibly be right?

  He had run toward town or what he thought was toward town. From the top of a hill he had sighted the sparkly water in the distance and figured that town had to be, oh, around there somewhere.

  But he finally realized he had become hopelessly lost. He was deep in forest now, and he figured it might be the hills where Hunter lived, but it might just as easily be the Stefano Rey.

  Then he heard a cry. A human voice. A girl, he thought, screaming.

  Jack froze. He was breathing hard. He strained to hear. But there was no second cry. Not that he heard, anyway.

  What was he supposed to do? Sam had told him what to do. He had to warn Edilio. And he had to . . . He could barely even form the thought in his head of what he was supposed to do.

  But he couldn’t just ignore a scream, could he?

  “Go find out,” Jack whispered to himself. “Whoever she is maybe she needs help. And maybe she knows where we are.”

  He did not say but thought: And maybe I won’t have to go to town after all.

  Jack ran toward the sound, across a deep ravine choked with bushes and up the other side. He found himself on a narrow road cut between tall trees.

  “Coates!” he said.

  He did not hear another scream, but he did hear sounds like a fistfight.

  Suddenly the hero role was seeming less and less attractive.

  He moved on at a wary trot. Through the iron gate of the school. And there, a scene out of a horror movie. A stone-fleshed monster buried by a swarm of impossibly huge insects.

  Looking down at the scene from a window, Astrid.

  And then, his tentacle arm just reaching its full length, Drake.

  Yes, Jack decided, the hero thing had some real downsides.

  Drake emerged to a world that could hardly be more wonderful.

  Orc was going down beneath a crush of bugs.

  Astrid was looking down in terror.

  And for some reason Drake could not fathom: Computer Jack was standing there, gaping at it all.

  Drake grinned up at Astrid. “Don’t go anywhere, beautiful, I’ll be up in a minute to play. I just have to go say hi to my old friend Jack.”

  “Jack!” Astrid shouted. “Help Orc!”

  Two of the creatures turned eerie blue eyes on Jack.

  “What shall we do with you, Computer Jack?” Drake asked.

  “I’m not looking for trouble,” Jack said.

  Drake made a tsk-tsk sound and shook his head. “I kind of think trouble is all around you, Jack. Trouble, trouble everywhere.” Then he had a thought. He peered closely at Jack. “Where’s Sam? Did he send you off on your own? Like a big boy?”

  All the while Drake was moving closer, waiting, waiting until he could reach Jack with his whip hand. Jack backed slowly away.

  Orc bellowed in pain. The creatures in Drake’s army were banging into one another like cars in a demolition derby, all striving to get at the boy-monster.

  “You were all bold and dangerous up at the lake, Jack,” Drake taunted. Another few feet and he would be within range.

  “I just . . .” Then Jack gasped at something he’d seen behind Drake’s back.

  Drake turned to see and in that split second Jack leaped. Drake whipped around, quick as a snake, but all that did was bring his face into direct contact with a blow of staggering power.

  When he picked himself up, Drake saw he’d flown a good twenty feet through the air.

  He stood up and rubbed his chin. “That was pretty good, Jack. Wow. That would have killed me. You know, if I could be killed.”

  Jack tried to dodge past him, rushing for the door, no doubt rushing to rescue the damsel in distress.

  Drake laughed and swung his whip arm. He wrapped around Jack’s leg and should have tripped him, but he hadn’t counted on Jack’s strength. Instead of tripping Jack, it was Drake who went flying face-first into the ground.

  He released, rolled, and stood up in one swift, fluid move, but it was humiliating.

  Drake’s whip hand snapped, hit Jack’s back, and drew a gasp of pain. But Jack didn’t stop; he plowed straight on into the melee of bugs. He grabbed the nearest leg and yanked it hard.

  The leg came away. It didn’t stop the creature or even seem to affect it, but it gave Jack a weapon.

  “Better save Orc fast, there, Jack,” Drake taunted. “He looks like he’s going down.”

  Orc’s roaring voice was hoarse and fading. The clash of carapace against carapace was louder and more frenzied.

  They would kill Orc soon. And then Drake’s army would deal with Jack. All he had to do now was keep Jack distracted.

  Jack broke the leg into two pieces, one thick and stubby, the other pointed.

  Drake snapped his whip and drew blood through Jack’s shirt.

  “Come on, Jack, you know you can’t win,” Drake said. “You can’t kill me. And you can’t stop my army. Only way out is for you to join me.”

  “No,” Jack said.

  “My side is the only side now, Jack. There’s a whole other bug army eating its way through Perdido Beach right now. Who do you think you’re even fighting for? Whatever the red-eyes don’t finish, we will when we get there.”

  “You don’t know what’s going on in Perdido Beach,” Jack said.

  “The Darkness tells me,” Drake lied. “He gave me power over them. We’re cleaning everyone out, Jack. By the end of the day all of them will be dead and gone. Join me and he may let you live.”

  He snapped his whip with lightning speed and caught Jack unprepared. His whip curled around Jack’s throat. Jack hauled on the whip but all that did was to yank Drake straight into Jack. Face-to-face Drake laughed and coiled ever tighter around Jack’s throat and squeezed, squeezed, seeing Jack’s pale face redden.

  Jack punched him in the chest so hard his fist went all the way through. But Drake’s grip never loosened and Jack’s eyes bulged and Drake laughed and Orc’s voice was no longer heard over the sound of mouthparts gnashing.

  “Sam, Sam, you swore you wouldn’t let them!”

  The boat touched the dock and Quinn sent his rowers racing, all shouting Lana’s name.

  “I have a plan, Dekka,” Sam said.

  Her body was no longer like anything human. Beneath her clothing it pulsated. The creatures were tearing through in places, mouthparts flashing, mandibles questing. One burst all the way out. It froze for a second, staring at Sam with eyes the color of jade.

  He grabbed for it, caught it, and dropped it. But Quinn was quicker. He threw a fishing net over the creature, stepped on the edges of the net, and held it pinned in the bottom of the boat.

  “Now!” Dekka begged. “Now, Sam! Now! Oh, God, now!”

  A second bug could be clearly seen moving beneath the skin of her thigh, nothing but a thin membrane of flesh covering it.

  “I have a plan, Dekka, I have a plan, hang on, hang on,” Sam begged.

  “Noooo!” It was a pitiful wail of despair.

  Sam shot a hopeless glance at the shore. Nothing. No Lana. The crew had all disappeared.

  Quinn had grabbed an oar and was smashing it down on the trapped bug like a pile driver, again and again, smashing away, and yet the creature lived.

  Suddenly a rush of wind and Brianna stood at the end of the dock, vibrating, covered with gore. “About time you showed up . . .” She fell silent as she realized what was happening to Dekka. “What the—”
br />   “Breeze: Lana. Now! NOW!” Sam cried but the second “now” was said to the air.

  “I got to . . . I got to see her again . . . ,” Dekka chattered.

  “Don’t give up on me, Dekka. Don’t give up on me.”

  But Dekka’s eyes were rolling wildly, her entire body was in spasm.

  “Quinn. What I’m going to do . . . Just hold her down. Hold her down no matter what.”

  Quinn smashed the bug one last time and if it wasn’t dead it was at least not going anywhere. He dropped to his knees and held Dekka’s shoulders.

  “What are you doing?” Quinn asked.

  “Surgery,” Sam said dully.

  He held up his right hand. The green light, as focused as a laser, sliced through Dekka’s clothing and skin.

  Brianna found Lana retreating with Sanjit toward the eastern edge of town.

  “Lana!”

  “You’re alive!” Lana said. “The kids?”

  “A lot dead,” Brianna gasped. “A lot more hurt, but the bugs are done for.”

  “I’m coming,” Lana said and started to trot back toward the plaza.

  “Yeah. Wrong way and too slow,” Brianna said. “Give me your hand. You can heal yourself later.”

  Brianna took off, dragging Lana, who instantly tripped. She dragged the Healer the rest of the way down the street, then down the length of the beach.

  Dragging her, Brianna couldn’t do anything like full speed, but she could move faster than any human runner.

  The Healer’s legs were scraped raw by the time Brianna yanked her to her feet at the end of the dock.

  “Got her!” Brianna announced. Then, “What are you doing?”

  Sam’s face was a mask of horror. He had sliced Dekka open from neck to pelvis. Dekka’s organs—a slaughterhouse mess—crawled with a dozen bugs, all swarming out of her.

  Quinn snatched at the bugs and tossed them from the boat into the water. He was elbow-deep in blood.

  “Lana, keep her alive,” Sam said.

  Lana jumped down into the boat, which rocked madly back and forth.

  Dekka was beyond speech, past even crying out.

  Lana laid her hands on Dekka’s contorted face.

  Brianna followed her into the boat, landed lightly, and pushed both Quinn and Sam aside. “I got this,” she said.

  One by one she snatched the emerging creatures—some of which raced to attack Sam, others of which just ran like panicked cockroaches around the bottom of the boat—turned them on their backs, and blew them clear through the bottom of the boat with shotgun blasts.

  Quinn tossed a rope over the dock cleat and pulled the sinking boat in. Sam and Quinn shoved and hoisted Dekka onto the dock where she lay split open like a burst orange.

  Lana held Dekka’s head on her lap.

  Sam, Quinn, and some strange-looking guy Brianna thought looked vaguely familiar stood watching, a circle of horrified fascination.

  The boat sank. The blasted bodies of the insects floated.

  Dekka’s mouth was moving but no sound came out. Her eyes were like marbles, rolling, searching without seeing.

  “She’s trying to say something,” Quinn said.

  “She should shut up and let me keep her alive,” Lana snapped. The Healer shot a malignant look at Brianna. “You owe me a pair of shoes.”

  Again Dekka tried to speak.

  “It’s you, Breeze,” Sam said. “She wants you.”

  Brianna frowned, not sure Sam was right. But she knelt beside Dekka and put her ear close.

  Brianna listened, closed her eyes for a moment, then stood up without saying anything.

  “What did she say?” Quinn asked.

  “Just thanks,” Brianna said. “She just said thanks.”

  She turned and took off but not so quickly that she missed the strange new boy saying, “That’s not the truth.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  3 MINUTES

  ASTRID WATCHED, HELPLESS.

  She could no longer see Orc. He might already be dead down there.

  Jack seemed unable to free himself from Drake’s choking grasp. And Drake knew it. He looked up at Astrid and winked.

  She had reached the decision not to harm Little Pete, to let him live even if it meant others would die.

  The right and moral decision.

  But in a minute or less Jack would asphyxiate. And Drake would catch her. She had no illusions about what that psychopath intended.

  Drake and his army would kill and go on killing. And what could stop them? Who could stop them?

  She found she could hardly breathe.

  Her whole body seemed to buzz with some strange energy. Was it fear? Was this what panic felt like?

  Jack’s face was turning dark. His struggles were less focused. His fingers clawed impotently. His eyes bulged like they might pop out of his head.

  Drake was going to kill her. But not quickly.

  And he would go on to kill many, many more, for as long as the FAYZ existed.

  Enough. It had to end. All of it had to end.

  Astrid stepped to Little Pete. She gathered him in her arms. She moved to the window and stood there, hesitating, with his limp, sweating body in her arms.

  Drake saw her. The color drained from his face.

  His tentacle lessened its grip on Jack’s throat.

  “No!” Drake cried. He unwound his python arm and began to run toward her, yelling, “No! No!”

  “Sorry,” Astrid whispered. “I’m so very sorry, Petey.”

  Drake was at the door to the room. “No!” he cried again as she heaved her brother toward the sea of insects.

  “Get him!” Drake cried.

  He pushed past Astrid to the window as Little Pete fell.

  “Don’t hurt—,” Drake shouted. His words were cut off by a weak but well-aimed punch from Astrid.

  Little Pete almost hit the ground. He stopped inches from impact.

  His eyes opened wide. He stared into a dozen eerie blue eyes.

  “Don’t hurt him!” Drake cried. “The Darkness needs him!”

  But it was too late. The bugs surged toward Little Pete. Their tongues snapped. Their mouthparts gnashed.

  There was no explosion.

  No flash of light.

  The bugs simply disappeared.

  There. Then gone.

  Little Pete sank to the ground. He coughed once, with incredible violence. And then he, too, simply disappeared.

  Astrid and Drake stood side by side, both staring down in horror.

  Astrid closed her eyes. Was it over? Was it all finally over?

  “I’ll kill you,” Drake said, but his voice was faint.

  Astrid opened her eyes and saw his face already changing, melting from the hard-edged shark features to a softer, rounder countenance.

  Jack came pounding up the stairs.

  Lying on his back with one leg gone, Orc groaned in pain.

  “Where is he?” Brittney asked. “Where is Nemesis?”

  Astrid barely heard her.

  She had done it. She had killed him. She had sacrificed Little Pete.

  “Let’s get out of here before Drake comes back,” Jack said. He took Astrid’s arm. But she would not go with him. Not yet.

  “You killed him,” Brittney said. She spoke more in wonder than in accusation.

  Astrid heaved a shuddering sigh. Tears ran down her face. She had no words.

  Brittney was becoming angry. “He’ll get you for this, Astrid. His rage will find you. Sooner or later.”

  “Drake or the gaiaphage?” Jack asked.

  Brittney bared her braces in a feral grin. “We are the arm of the Darkness. He will send us to take you. Both of you.”

  “Let’s go, Astrid,” Jack said, without taking his eyes off Brittney. Astrid felt the strength of his grip on her arm. She yielded.

  She was almost blinded by her tears, her mind a confusion of emotions: self-loathing, disgust, anger.

  And worst of all: reli
ef.

  He was gone. Little Pete was dead. And now it would end at last. The FAYZ wall would be gone. The madness would be over.

  Relief. And the sickening realization that she was glad she had done it.

  Jack led her down the stairs. He lifted a terribly injured, mangled Orc effortlessly. Orc was moaning in pain and crying that they should leave him to die.

  “No one is dying,” Jack said harshly. “We’ve had enough of that.”

  Astrid walked obediently behind Jack as he carried Orc down the hill toward town.

  And she wondered as she walked, how it could be that the FAYZ was ended and yet Jack was still so strong.

  Dahra Baidoo emerged from the so-called hospital for the first time in what felt like days.

  Virtue held her up, although he was shaking so badly he could barely walk himself.

  Both of them were covered in gore. The hospital was a slaughterhouse. The single bug that had made it inside had simply massacred kids too sick to stand, let alone run.

  Virtue told himself that most of those kids were too sick to survive anyway. But that knowledge would never wipe the horror from his memory.

  He had been wedged into a corner behind a cot, cowering and praying, and begging to be spared. He had thrown things at the bug, but bedpans and bottles were nothing to the monster.

  And then, in an instant, the creature was gone.

  Its bloody mandibles had been scraping the wall, trying to dislodge Virtue. Inches and milliseconds from gruesome death.

  And then . . . nothing.

  Gone.

  Virtue had heard nothing but the sound of his own sobbing.

  And then the sounds of others crying.

  And an insistent, mad howl of despair.

  Dahra was screaming as he drew her gently from beneath a body.

  “It’s gone,” he’d said.

  She couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop howling. And Virtue was suddenly back in that refugee camp in the Congo, remembering things he’d witnessed when he was still too young to understand.

  A terrible fury boiled up inside him. An uncontrollable rage against everyone and everything that made the world a hell of fear and pain and loss.

  He wanted to smash things. He wanted to bellow like a wild animal.

  But Dahra had ceased howling, and now just stared up at him, needing someone, someone to finally take care of her.