Gone Series: Plague Part 38

She had no answer. She glanced around as if seeing the sick and the dead, the wrecked church, and the sad graveyard for the first time. "No," she said.

"Then go, Breeze. Go."

Chapter Thirty.

3 HOURS, 50 MINUTES.

SAM HAD RUN the boat all the way up the lake and all the way back. They had found two small campgrounds in all, but had not explored them carefully. Maybe a dozen big campers, a few ragged tents in various states of collapse. No doubt some camp food, soda, beer, coffee, all the things people brought camping.

And gas in some of those tanks. Lovely, lovely gasoline.

He was already imagining the steps they'd have to take. They would drive the campers to the marina area and form them up in a rough circle or maybe two concentric circles. They would have to dig some serious septic tanks well away from the lake so there wasn't any seepage into drinking water.

They would need to ration the gas carefully, carefully, saving it for moving produce from the fields and fish from the ocean. They would still need Quinn's steady supply of blue bats to pacify the zekes. Besides, they would need to be cautious about overfis.h.i.+ng the lake.

No more stupid mistakes. This time they would have to get it right.

That was a job for Albert, Sam had to concede. No doubt Albert would get richer still, but he was the only one with the organizational skills for the job.

Yes, it would work. They would build it and organize it and this time they would get it right.

For his part he had to find a way to destroy the flying greenies. But surely with Jack's strength and Dekka's powers and maybe Brianna-who could probably run through a cloud of greenies without getting hit-they could seal up that cave and crush or burn whatever survived.

They were heading back toward the marina now, chugging along slowly, taking their time. It was getting late in the day and Sam was trying to decide whether they should try to start one of the vehicles parked at the marina and drive back tonight, or plan a little more carefully and go in the morning.

The last thing anyone needed was three hundred or so kids tearing off in mad search for sweets. Half would end up lost in the desert or the hills and end up being coyote food.

The news needed to be handled the right way. Edilio and the rest of the council would have to plan a little.

To Dekka he said, "I think maybe we should load as much water as we can carry in an SUV and drive back tonight."

"I guess you've noticed there's no road that goes straight back."

"According to the map the road that follows the lake curves up around, hits the barrier. Right? But there has to then be a road that goes down through the Stefano Rey and hits the highway, right?"

Dekka shrugged. Her mind was elsewhere.

He couldn't blame her. But he had convinced himself she was worrying for nothing.

He indulged himself with a moment of fantasy. They would be heroes, showing up in town with water, even if it wasn't that much water. That would be one very welcome sight, an SUV full of water bottles. Maybe a few jars of Nutella, too, if they drove east to the train before cutting south.

Then, a meeting with the council. They could start trucking water right away. That would keep everybody calm until a plan was worked out.

"We'll go in ..." His words died as his gaze traveled to the marina. "Dekka. Jack. Look."

They looked.

Creatures, like giant silvery c.o.c.kroaches, c.o.c.kroaches the size of minivans, cl.u.s.tered on the sh.o.r.e. Maybe a dozen.

It had to be an illusion. A trick. They were impossible. Like a nightmare out of some ancient science fiction movie.

Sam reached for the binoculars he'd found in a locked case on board. He raised them, focused.

"It's Hunter's bugs," he said. He couldn't keep the awe out of his voice. "But they're huge."

He traversed his binoculars and then saw a human standing atop one of the creatures. He could not see the face well enough to identify it. But there was no mistaking the long, jauntily waving tentacle.

Drake. No longer locked in his bas.e.m.e.nt prison.

Sam's Garden of Eden had its own snake.

Howard's first impulse had been to go to the so-called hospital and find Lana. But what profit would be in it for Howard?

Orc was off somewhere, freaking out, hammered, faced, blasted. He'd come back when he ran out of alcohol, but for now, Orc was gone, and Drake's escape was a sort of black eye for Howard.

In the back of his calculating mind, Howard wondered if Orc was just determined to pull a Mary and off himself. He was nowhere near the deadly fifteenth birthday, but Orc might one of these days pick a fight that would get him killed.

Or he might just drink himself to death. And then what? What did Howard have if he didn't have Orc?

On a level still deeper was a genuine sadness that Orc would abandon him. They were friends, after all. Amigos. They'd been through everything together. Orc wasn't just Howard's main a.s.set, he was Howard's only friend.

He cared for Orc. Genuinely cared for him. Obviously Orc didn't care much about him.

Howard took his time making the decision. Took his time and a fully clothed shower, too. But finally he made his decision and sauntered away from the cloud, soggy but moderately clean, unnoticed by frolicking kids.

It wasn't far to Albert's place. He found the door open, and quickly located Albert. The young mogul's eyes were closed. He definitely looked dead. Very definitely dead.

He advanced cautiously, as though Albert might suddenly rise up and start yelling at him for intruding. He pressed two fingers against Albert's neck. He didn't feel a pulse.

But he did feel warmth. The body should be colder.

He squatted in front of Albert and with his finger pushed up one eyelid. The dark iris contracted.

"Yaaah!" Howard said, and fell backward. "Are you alive, man?"

No answer. Nothing.

Howard was frustrated because he'd hoped-if Albert was still alive-to negotiate a deal. After all, if Howard saved Albert's life then it stood to reason that he owed Howard a little somethin' somethin'.

Howard hesitated. He could do nothing and sooner or later Albert would be a hundred percent, stone-cold dead. Or he could try to find Lana. And maybe there would be some reward. Albert was tight with his money, but surely if Howard saved his actual life ...

"Okay, I don't know if you can hear this or not, Donald Trump, but if I save your b.u.t.t, you owe me." He frowned and decided he'd better add, "And oh, by the way, this is Howard talking. So it'll be Howard you owe."

Howard arrived at the so-called hospital to see a very disturbing sight: Edilio, s.h.i.+vering and muttering on the stone steps, ignored. He was just one of dozens of sick kids with various degrees of illness. Coughing, hacking, s.h.i.+vering.

The last thing Howard wanted to do was get any closer.

"Hey!" Howard yelled up the steps.

No one answered. He winced, turned away, turned back, doing a little dance of indecision. Without even knowing what his reward might be, it was hard for Howard to decide to risk his life. A man needed to know what he was getting paid, after all.

Kkkrrraaalff!

A kid at the top of the steps suddenly coughed with a force Howard had never seen or heard or imagined. The cough blew the boy backward. He landed hard, head smacking granite with the sound of a melon dropped on a floor.

The boy rolled over, got to his knees, then coughed a spray of blood all over a girl nearby.

"No way," Howard said. "No way."

The new kid, Sanjit, Helicopter Boy, appeared at the top of the steps. He rushed down to the coughing kid and grabbed his shoulders from behind.

He spotted Howard standing there. "Give me a hand, I need to get him off these steps."

"I'm not touching that little dude," Howard said.

Sanjit shot him an angry look. But then softened, like he understood.

Sanjit tried to walk the boy back up the stairs, but then the kid started coughing again with such violence that he threw Sanjit off and went flailing back again.

This time he rolled down the stairs to stop at Howard's feet. He lay there, s.h.i.+vering and moaning. A fountain of blood flowed at once from his ears and nose and mouth.

Sanjit came down and stood over him. "Get out of the way," Sanjit said to Howard. "I have to drag him across the street."

"Is he dead?"

"No, he's in perfect shape," Sanjit snapped. He grabbed both of the boy's wrists and started to haul him toward the plaza.

"You see Edilio there?" Howard demanded.

"Yes, I saw Edilio there," Sanjit said.

"Shouldn't you ..." Howard motioned vaguely.

"Yeah, I should call for a stretcher and get him straight to the intensive care unit," Sanjit said with contained fury. "I'll get him on an oxygen machine and pump him full of antibiotics. Or maybe I'll just see if he lives or dies because that's really all I can do. All right?"

Howard took a step back in the face of the slender boy's anger.

"Didn't mean to ... ," he said, and followed at a safe distance as Sanjit dragged the body off the curb and onto the blacktop.

Sanjit stopped halfway across and stared at the sky.

"What's that? Is that a cloud?"

"Oh, that? Yeah, it's raining. More weirdness," Howard said.

"What? It's raining? Like, water?"

"Yeah, water. It was a shock to me, too," Howard said. "This being the FAYZ you'd expect it to be raining fire or dog t.u.r.ds or something."

"Choooooo!" Sanjit yelled at the top of his lungs. "Chooooo!"

A few seconds later, his chubby African brother came running down the stairs, looking alarmed.

"Water!" Sanjit said.

"Where?" Virtue demanded.

Sanjit pointed with his chin. "Get a bucket. Get every bucket you can find!"

Virtue gaped, then ran.

Sanjit resumed dragging the corpse.

"Listen, dude," Howard said. "I need Lana. You know who I mean? The Healer."

"You have a boo-boo?" Sanjit snarked. "She's kind of busy trying to save a couple of creeps Edilio shot."

"Where?"

"Astrid's house. I don't know where it is. How about you either help me or get lost?"

"I'll choose B."

Astrid's house. Okay. That would be ... pretty much right directly under the cloud.

Well, well, Howard thought as the truth dawned on him.

"Little Pete," he said. "So that's out there, then. Well, buckle up, Howard, buckle up."

Quinn and his crew were pulling toward sh.o.r.e, far later than usual. They'd had a tough day of it. After a miserable night in camp, they'd had trouble getting one of the boats floating again. They had unknowingly run it ash.o.r.e and sc.r.a.ped a hidden rock. A gash had been gouged in the bottom, which meant hours of finding a way to patch it.

Fortunately it was one of the wooden hulls, not one of the metal or fibergla.s.s ones; those would have been impossible to patch without going back to town for equipment.

Still, they'd had to use just their Swiss Army knives to whittle some driftwood into fairly flat, fairly smooth planks. Then they'd found they had no screws, so they had to remove bolts from other boats, drill through the repair patch and the hull, and use the bolts to attach the patch. They had sc.r.a.ped and then melted some paint to use as a sealant.