Hunger (23 page)

17
HOURS
, 54
MINUTES

DUCK HAD ARGUED
with himself all the way home. Hunter’s problem was not his problem, he told himself. Okay, maybe he was a freak now, too, like Hunter, but so what? He had some stupid, useless power—why did that mean he had to buy a piece of Hunter’s grief?

Hunter was a jerk. And all the people Duck liked were normals. Mostly. He liked Sam, of course, in a sort of distant way. But, man, how was he suddenly supposed to be choosing sides in a fight he didn’t even know was happening?

However, he didn’t like the idea of just leaving Hunter hiding out hungry in the rubble outside the church. That seemed kind of harsh.

By the time he had reached the relative safety of his home, Duck had talked himself out of doing anything one way or the other. And then he talked himself into the opposite position. And back again.

He found himself looking in the kitchen cupboards. Just to
see. Just to see if it was even possible to help Hunter out.

There wasn’t much to see in the kitchen. Two cans of veggies. A jar of hot dog relish, but not even the sweet kind. A half-empty bag of flour and some oil. He’d learned how to cook a sort of nasty-tasting tortilla with the flour and a little water and oil. It was the current popular favorite in the FAYZ, something even the most kitchen-impaired could kind of figure out.

He didn’t want to even think about what they’d all be eating in a week. From what Duck had heard, there was food in the fields, but no one wanted to pick it if there were zekes. He shuddered at the thought.

But he supposed he could spare the hot dog relish. Not exactly something good for you, but Hunter had sounded pretty desperate. And nowadays everyone was eating things that would have made them gag before.

Duck had a sudden vision of actual hot dogs. The real thing, steaming hot, nestled in a tender white bun.

Duck’s aunt was from Chicago. She had taught him about genuine Chicago hot dogs with, what was it? Seven toppings? He wondered if he could remember them all.

Mustard. Relish. Onions. Tomatoes.

His mouth was watering at the thought. But then his mouth would have watered at the idea of a real hot dog topped with Brussels sprouts.

He made up his mind. It wasn’t about freaks versus normals. It was about whether he could just leave Hunter out there cowering all through the night.

No. He’d bring him the relish and then, if Hunter needed a place to hide, he’d let him stay in the basement here at the house.

Duck slipped the relish into the pocket of his jacket and headed with great reluctance back into the night.

It took only a few minutes to reach the church.

“Hunter. Yo, Hunter,” he called in a hoarse whisper.

Nothing.

Great. Perfect. He was being punked after all.

He turned and started to walk away. But around the corner came a group of seven, maybe eight kids. It took him only a second to spot the baseball bats.

Zil was in the lead.

“There’s one!” Zil shouted, and before Duck could even react the seven boys were rushing him.

“What’s up?” Duck asked.

The boys surrounded him. There was no denying their menacing attitude, but Duck was determined not to give them an excuse to start swinging.

“What’s up?” Zil mocked. “The Human Drill wants to know what’s up.” He gave Duck a shove. “One of your kind killed my best friend, that’s what’s up.”

“We’re sick of it,” another boy chimed in.

Various voices muttered agreement.

“Guys, I didn’t hurt anyone,” Duck said. “I’m just…”

He didn’t know what he was just. The hostile eyes around him narrowed.

“Just what, freak?” Zil demanded.

“Walking, man. Anything wrong with that?”

“We’re looking for Hunter,” Hank said.

“We’re going to kick his butt.”

“Yeah. Maybe rearrange his nose,” Antoine said. “Like maybe it would look better sticking out the side of his face.”

They laughed.

“Hunter?” Duck said, working to sound innocent.

“Yeah. Mr. Microwave. Killer chud.”

Duck shrugged. “I haven’t seen him, man.”

“What’s that in your pocket there?” Zil demanded. “He’s got something in his pocket.”

“What? Oh, it’s nothing. It’s—”

The baseball bat swung with unerring accuracy. Duck felt the blow on his hip where the relish hung in his jacket pocket. The soggy sound of wet glass shattering.

“Hey!” Duck yelled.

He started to push his way through them, but his feet wouldn’t move. He looked down, uncomprehending, and saw that he had sunk up to his ankles in the sidewalk.

“Okay, stop making me mad,” he cried desperately.

“Stop making me mad,” Zil repeated in a taunting, singsong voice.

“Hey, man, he’s sinking!” one of them yelled.

Duck was up to mid-calf. Trapped. He met Zil’s contemptuous gaze and pleaded, “Come on, man, why are you picking on me?”

“Because you’re a subhuman moof,” Zil said, adding, “duh.”

“You want Hunter, right?” Duck asked. “He’s in there, man, behind all this stuff.”

“Is that so?” Zil said. He nodded to his gang, and all together they climbed into the rubble in search of their true prey. Someone, Duck didn’t see who, smashed the stained glass fragment with his bat.

Duck took a deep breath. “Happy thoughts, happy thoughts,” he whispered. He had stopped sinking, but he was still trapped. He squirmed his foot this way and that. Finally he pulled one foot free—minus the shoe. The other foot came out easier, and he managed to keep the shoe.

Duck took off at a run.

“Hey, get back here!”

“He lied, man, Hunter’s not here!”

“Get him!”

Duck ran all-out, yelling, “Happy thoughts, happy thoughts, ah hah hah hah!” desperate to keep anger at bay, forcing his mouth into a grin.

He made it across the street. He was well out in front of the mob, but not far enough ahead that he would be able to get inside his house and lock the door before they caught him.

“Help! Someone help me!” he cried.

His next step landed hard.

The step after that broke the curb.

The third step plowed down through the sidewalk and he fell hard.

His chin hit concrete and crunched through it like a rock through glass.

He was falling into the earth again. Only this time he was facedown.

Zil and the others immediately surrounded him. A blow landed on his back. Another on his behind. Neither blow hurt. It was like they were hitting him with straws rather than bats. Then they could no longer reach him because he had fallen all the way through the cement and was sinking through the dirt.

“Scratch one chud,” Duck heard Zil crow.

Then, “What happened, man?”

“All the lights went out,” someone said, sounding scared.

There was a frightened curse, and the sound of running footsteps.

Duck Zhang, facedown in dirt, kept sinking.

Mary was lying in bed, in the dark, running her hands over her belly, feeling the fat there. Thinking, just a few more weeks of dieting, maybe. And then she’d be there. Wherever “there” was.

The water bottle beside her bed was empty. Mary climbed wearily from her bed. She opened the bathroom door and flipped on the light. For a moment she saw someone she did not recognize, someone with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes.

Then sudden, total darkness.

In the basement of town hall, in the gloomy space kids called the hospital, Dahra Baidoo held Josh’s hand.

He wouldn’t stop crying.

They’d brought him from the battle at the power plant. One of Edilio’s soldiers had dropped him off.

“I want my mom, I want my mom.” Josh was rocking back and forth, deaf to any words Dahra had, lost and ashamed.

“I want my mom,” he cried.

“I just want my mom.”

“I’ll put on a DVD,” Dahra said. She had no other solution. She’d seen kids like this before, too many to keep track of. Sometimes it was all just too much for some kids. They broke, like a stick bent too far. Snapped.

Dahra wondered how long it would be before she was one of them.

How long until she was holding herself and rocking and weeping for her mother?

Suddenly, the lights went out.

“I want my mom,” Josh wept in the dark.

At the day care John Terrafino lay zoned out, one eye half open, watching a muted TV while he fed a bottle to a cranky ten-month-old. The bottle wasn’t filled with milk or formula. It was filled with water mixed with oatmeal juice and a small amount of puréed fish.

None of the baby care books had recommended this. The baby was sick. Getting weaker every day. John doubted the baby, whose name was also John, would live very long.

“It’s okay,” he whispered.

The TV blinked off.

Astrid had gotten Little Pete to bed, finally. She was exhausted and worried. Her eye hurt where the baseball bat had caught her. She had a gruesome bruise in yellow and black. Ice had helped, but not much.

She needed to sleep; it was one in the morning, but it wasn’t going to happen. Not yet. Not until she knew Sam was okay. She wished she could have gone to the power plant with him. Not that she would have been much help, but she would at least have known.

Strange how, in just three short months, Sam had come to feel like a necessary part of her life. More than that, even. A necessary part of
her
. An arm, a leg. A heart.

She heard a noise from the street. Running. She tensed, expecting to hear the pounding of feet on her porch. But no one approached.

Was it Hunter coming back? Or was Zil still running around looking for trouble? There wasn’t anything she could do about it. She had no powers, or none that mattered, anyway. All she could do was threaten and cajole.

By the time she reached the window, the street was empty and quiet.

She hoped Hunter was hiding somewhere. They’d have to figure out what to do about that situation and it would be very tricky. Explosive, maybe. But it wasn’t going to be solved tonight.

What was happening with Sam? Had he managed to stop Caine?

Was he hurt?

Was he dead?

God forbid, she prayed.

No. He wasn’t dead. She would feel it if he was.

She wiped away a tear, and sighed. No way she could sleep. Not happening. So she sat herself down in front of the computer. Her hands were shaking as she touched the keyboard. She needed to do something useful. Something. Anything to keep from thinking about Sam.

At the bottom of the screen were the usual icons for Safari and Firefox. Web browsers that, when opened, would just remind her that she was not connected to the internet.

Astrid opened the mutation file. There were all the bizarre pictures. The cat that had melded with a book. The snakes with tiny wings. The seagulls with raptor talons. The zeke.

She opened a Word document and began to type.

She paused and thought about that for a moment. That wasn’t quite right. Some kids had developed powers that seemed to be essentially useless. The truth was, Sam wished more mutants had developed what he called “serious” powers. And there was Lana, whose gift was definitely not a weapon.

But was this evolution? Evolution was a series of hits and misses over the course of millions of years, not a sudden explosion of radical changes. Evolution built on existing DNA. What was happening in the FAYZ was a radical departure from the billion years’ worth of code in animal DNA. There might be genes for speed, but there was no gene for teleportation, or for suspension of gravity, or for telekinesis.

There was no DNA for firing light from the palms of your hands.

The screen went blank. The room was dark.

Astrid stood up and went to the window. She pulled back the curtains and looked out at total darkness. Not a light on in the street.

She let herself out onto the porch.

Darkness. Everywhere. Not a single light from the surrounding houses.

Someone a few doors down yelled in outrage, “Hey!”

Caine had reached the power plant. Sam had failed.

Astrid stifled a sob. If Sam was hurt…If…

Astrid felt fear like icy fingers reaching through her nightgown. She stumbled into the kitchen. She opened the junk drawer and found, after some searching, a flashlight. The light from it was faint and failed in seconds.

But in the few seconds of light she found a candle.

She tried to light it from the stove. But the gas ran unlit because it required electricity to fire.

Matches. A lighter. Surely there were some matches somewhere.

But there was no way to find them without light. She had a candle and no way to light it.

Astrid felt her way to the stairs and climbed to Little Pete’s room. The Game Boy was beside his bed, where he always left it. If he woke up and found it missing, he would go nuts. He would…there was no telling what he would do.

She carried the Game Boy down the stairs and used the light from the LED to search the junk drawer. No matches, but there was a yellow Bic lighter.

She struck a flame and lit the candle.

She had avoided thinking about Sam for the last few moments, intent on her search. But there was no escaping the fact that Sam had rushed off to stop Caine. And he had not succeeded. The only question now was: Had he survived?

A line from an old poem bubbled up from Astrid’s near-photographic memory. “The center cannot hold,” she whispered to the eerily lit kitchen. The verse played in her head.