Gone Series: Plague Part 18

"Because you're a murderous creepy animal who obeys the Darkness," Sam said. He was too tired and sleepy to be diplomatic.

"The Darkness is dead," Jack said.

"No," Pack Leader said.

"No," Sam agreed with a significant look at Jack. This was the first outside confirmation that the gaiaphage still lived. If you could call it living.

A new bug mouth erupted from Pack Leader's flank. The canine looked at it, snapped at it, and bit it. Black liquid gushed from the insect head.

"Is this his doing?" Sam asked. "Are these things creatures of the Darkness?"

"Pack Leader not know."

Sam nodded. "How do we kill it? The Darkness, I mean? How do we kill the gaiaphage?"

"Pack Leader not know."

Sam sighed. "Yeah, well that makes two of us."

Sam could see the creatures writhing within Pack Leader's skin. Like he was a baggie full of worms.

"Ready?"

"I am Pack Leader," the coyote said. He tilted back his head and howled at the sky.

Sam aimed both his palms at the beast just as his hide split open.

The killing light burned and burned. Pack Leader was dead instantly. His fur stank as it burned. His flesh crisped like bacon.

The creatures, the insects, whatever they were, crawled out of the flames and popping fat. Unfazed. Unharmed. Bright-lit and yet seemingly invulnerable.

Sam had used his power to burn through concrete and solid rock and steel. It was impossible that he couldn't kill these things. It was like they had some magical power to shrug off his deadly light. Like they had developed an immunity to him.

"Jack," Sam said. "Get a rock. A big one."

Jack was frozen until Dekka smacked him on the back of the head. Then he leaped to a rock the size of a Smart Car. It was half-buried in the ground. Jack grunted with the effort, but the rock tore free of the dirt with a little gravity-canceling help from Dekka.

Jack lifted the rock high over his head. He smashed it down with all his strength on two of the squirming, escaping bugs.

The rock hit so hard it shook the ground, literally making Sam bounce.

"Now push it back off," Sam ordered.

Jack did. The rock rolled easily from Jack's shove.

Beneath it were two very crushed bugs. Their carapaces were dully reflective, like smoky mirrors. They had short, crushed wings held tight against their bodies. Their wicked, curved mandibles had not been broken. Their slas.h.i.+ng mouthparts still glittered like tiny knives.

"Like c.o.c.kroaches," Sam said. "Hard to kill. Not impossible."

"Yeah. Roaches. A couple more over there," Dekka said, and pointed. As she pointed she suspended gravity and the two bugs lifted into the air. They motored helplessly on their legs.

"Your turn, Jack," Sam said.

Dekka let gravity flow, the boulder rose and fell and scored two more dead bugs.

Others, though, were skittering down the hill.

Sam, Dekka, and Jack pelted after them, high on the discovery that the nasty creatures could in fact be killed.

Half a dozen of the monsters raced over rock and through scrub gra.s.s.

Jack s.n.a.t.c.hed up a smaller boulder and threw it one-handed. It hit one of the bugs and missed the others.

"Dekka!"

"Yeah," she said, and raised her hands. Dirt and litter and gravel floated into the air ahead. Another one of the insects floated with it. Jack grabbed a rock but it wouldn't come free, it was an outcropping of something too big even for Jack's strength.

He scrabbled and found a head-sized rock. He threw it hard and missed the floating bug.

"The others are getting away!" Sam yelled.

"What's that noise?" Dekka cried, and made a shus.h.i.+ng gesture.

The three of them froze and listened. A sound like a mountain stream rus.h.i.+ng over stones.

No, a beating of wings.

"Greenies!"

The flying snakes came in a cloud, rus.h.i.+ng up from their lair below like swarming bats emerging from a cave at sundown.

Like tiny dragons, most just a few inches long, some as much as a foot long. They had leathery wings and whipped their tails back and forth to sustain a very shaky aerodynamic ability.

Sam yelled a curse and fired. Too late to catch them by surprise. A mistake that might prove fatal.

Bright beams of light sliced through the attacking cloud. Greenies burned and fell flaming.

Not enough. Not nearly enough and the greenies were not backing off.

Dekka canceled gravity beneath the leading edge of the swarm, but it only had the effect of disorienting some of the snakes, who responded by flying upside down or in wild circles.

They began to squirt greenish-black fluid.

Sam remembered Hunter telling him about being hit by some secretion from a greenie.

"Don't let them hit you!" Sam yelled. "Run!"

Running uphill would be too slow on the steep slope. They ran at right angles to the swarm, ran all-out, panic speed, tripping and jumping back up, oblivious to bruises and sc.r.a.pes.

The swarm was slow to react, but react they did, and wheeled after them.

Sam hit the road, staggered, caught himself, and spun around. The swarm was still emerging from its lair in the rock face above. Sam aimed hastily and fired.

Brush on the hillside instantly caught fire. Rocks heated and cracked. He played his light on the cave itself, lighting it up, making it a bright, blazing green mouth.

The swarm was lost now, unsure. It swirled in the air, dropping green-black droplets like an evil rain, but not over Sam and the others, not yet.

Confident he had burned out the cave, Sam swept his light upward into the swarm itself.

A mistake. Attacking their lair confused the greenies, but a direct attack on the swarm gave them a target.

Sam aimed again at the rock wall, hoping to distract them. Too late: the swarm was coming.

"Run! Run!"

Dekka ran backward, canceling gravity behind her. A cloud of gravel and dirt rose into the swarm. This slowed them.

Dekka turned and ran full speed after Sam and Jack.

The swarm seemed to be losing interest in following them. But a few of the more persistent greenies were still after them as they ran.

Dekka fell hard. Sam could see she was winded. He ran back to her but the greenies were faster than he was.

Dekka rolled over and looked up just as one of the greenies fired its fluid. The dark drop hit her bare shoulder. A second drop hit her jeans. Other drops fell around her.

Sam fired. The hovering greenies flamed.

Dekka jumped to her feet. "It got me, it got me!"

"Get your jeans off," Sam ordered.

She complied. Jack grabbed the garment and carefully inspected the fabric. "It didn't get through."

"My shoulder," Dekka moaned. "Oh, my G.o.d, it got me. It got me. Oh, G.o.d."

"Hold out your arm, Dekka," Sam ordered. "This is going to hurt."

"Do it," Dekka agreed. "Do it, do it!"

Sam formed a narrow beam of light. Carefully, carefully he moved it closer and closer to the dark splotch on Dekka's shoulder.

Dekka gritted her teeth.

The beam of light burned and she cried out in pain but then yelled, "Don't stop, don't stop!"

But Sam did stop. He quickly grabbed Dekka as she came close to fainting. "Let me see the arm," he said.

There was a burned scoop mark in Dekka's skin. Maybe half an inch deep. Twice as wide. The flesh was cauterized, so there was no blood.

"Got it," Sam said.

"You don't know that," Dekka said through gritted teeth.

"I got it. It didn't get anywhere else. I burned it off."

Dekka grabbed the neck of Sam's s.h.i.+rt. "Don't let it happen, Sam."

"It's not going to, Dekka."

"Listen to me: don't let it happen. You understand? You see it happen, you take care of me. Like Hunter."

"Dekka ..."

"Swear to me, Sam. Swear it to me by G.o.d or by your own soul or whatever you believe, swear to me, Sam."

Sam gently pried her fingers loose.

"I won't let it happen, Dekka. I swear it."

"Stay inside unless absolutely necessary," Edilio shouted into the megaphone. Using up precious batteries. Albert had not wanted to give up the batteries. But he really didn't care what Albert wanted or didn't want.

He walked down San Pablo, shouting through the megaphone. "We have flu going around and it's dangerous. Stay inside unless absolutely necessary! Work is canceled today. Mall is closed."

Flu. Yeah. A flu that makes you cough up your insides.

It was unreal, Edilio thought as he walked halfway down the street and repeated the loudspeaker warning.

Epidemic. The so-called hospital was full. All through the morning, feverish, coughing kids had dragged themselves to the hospital. The disease was spreading like fire and Lana was useless.

No way to know how many it would kill.

Maybe everyone who got it.

Maybe everyone, period.

"Quarantine," Dahra had said, pounding her fist into her palm. "You have to shut everything down."

"Kids have almost no food or water in their homes," Edilio had protested.

"You think I don't know that?" Dahra had cried in a shrill voice tinged with panic. "If we don't stop this epidemic, no one will be thirsty, they'll be dead. Like Pookie. Like that Jennifer girl."

Kids poked their heads out of windows or stepped out onto the darkening streets. Which was kind of the opposite of what he was going for.

"I already had the flu," kids would yell.

"Yeah, well, no one is immune," Edilio would shout back.

"How am I supposed to eat?"