Gone (Gone 1)

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.

In all, fifteen kids were there, including Sam Temple, Quinn, Astrid and Little Pete, Albert Hillsborough, and Mary Terrafino; Elwood Booker, the best ninth-grade athlete, and his girlfriend, Dahra Baidoo; Orc, whose real name was rumored to be Charles Merriman; Howard Bassem; and Cookie, whose real name was Tony Gilder.

From Coates Academy, in addition to Caine Soren, there was Drake Merwin, a smiling, playful, mean-eyed kid with shaggy, sandy-colored hair; Diana Ladris; and a lost-looking fifth grader with big glasses and a blond bed-head introduced by Caine as Computer Jack.

All of the Perdido Beach kids sat in pews, with Orc and his crew sprawling across the front pew. Computer Jack sat down as far to one side as he could. Drake Merwin stood smirking, arms across his chest, on Caine’s left, and Diana Ladris watched the crowd from Caine’s right.

It was again brought home to Sam that the Coates kids had rehearsed everything about this morning, from the staged motorcade—which must have taken hours of driving practice to master—to this presentation. They must have started planning and practicing right after the FAYZ came.

That was a troubling thought.

After all the introductions were done, Caine moved briskly to explain his plan.

“We need to work together,” he announced. “I think we should organize so that things aren’t destroyed, and problems can be handled. I think our goal should be to maintain. So that once the barrier comes down, and once the disappeared people come back, they will find that we’ve done a pretty darn good job of keeping things together.”

“The Captain is already maintaining,” Howard said.

“He’s obviously done an excellent job,” Caine allowed, walking down the steps and toward Orc as he spoke. “But it’s a burden. Why should Captain Orc have to do all the work? I think we need a system, and I think we need a plan. Captain Orc,” he addressed the thug directly, “I’m sure you don’t want to have to allocate food and care for the sick and keep the day care functioning, and read all the things you’d have to read, and write all the things you’d have to write, in order to establish a system here in Perdido Beach.”

Astrid whispered, “He’s guessed that Orc is nearly illiterate.”

Orc glanced at Howard, who seemed mesmerized by Caine. Orc shrugged. As Astrid said, the mention of reading and writing made him uncomfortable.

“Exactly,” Caine said as though Orc’s shrug signified agreement. He returned to center stage and addressed the entire group. “We seem to have a reliable source of electricity. But communication is down. My friend Computer Jack thinks we can get the cell phones up and running.” There was an excited murmur, and Caine raised his hands. “I don’t mean that we’ll be able to call anyone outside of…what was Howard’s brilliant term? The FAYZ? But we would at least be able to communicate among ourselves.”

Eyes swiveled to Computer Jack, who gulped and bobbed his head yes and pushed his glasses up and blushed.

“It will take time, but together we can do it,” Caine said. He emphasized his certainty by smacking his closed right fist into his left palm. “In addition to a sheriff to sort of make sure the rules are being followed, a job that I think Drake Merwin is qualified to do since his father is a Highway Patrol lieutenant, we’ll need a fire chief to handle emergencies, and I nominate Sam Temple. Based on what people said earlier about his brave action in that fire, I think he’s an obvious choice, don’t you?”

There were nodded heads and murmurs of agreement.

“He’s co-opting you,” Astrid whispered. “He knows you’re his competition.”

“You don’t trust him,” Sam whispered back. It was not a question.

“He’s a manipulator,” Astrid said. “Doesn’t mean he’s bad. He may be okay.”

Mary said, “Sam saved the hardware store and the day care. And he almost saved that little girl. Speaking of which, someone needs to bury her.”

“Exactly,” Caine said. “God willing, we won’t have to face that need again, but someone has to bury the dead. Just as someone needs to help people who get sick or hurt. And someone needs to take care of the little children.”

Dahra Baidoo spoke up and said, “Mary has totally been taking care of the prees—I mean, preschoolers,” she explained. “Her and her brother, John.”

“But we need help,” Mary said quickly. “We’re not getting any sleep. We’re out of diapers and food and”—she sighed—“everything. John and I know the kids now, and we can keep running things, but we need help. We need a lot of help.”

Caine seemed to mist up, almost as if he might shed a tear. He walked quickly to Mary, drew her to her feet, and put his arm around her. “What a noble person you are, Mary. You and your brother will be given the power to draft…. How many people will it take to care for the prees?”