Gone (Gone 1)

“I want you to be who you are.” She remained beside Little Pete but reached out to take Sam’s hand. “Sam, things are going to get worse. Right now everyone is kind of in a state of shock. They’re scared. But they haven’t even realized how scared they should be. Sooner or later the food supply runs out. Sooner or later the power plant fails. When we’re sitting in the dark, hungry, despairing, who’s going to be in charge? Caine? Orc? Drake?”

“Well,” he said dryly, “you make it all sound like a lot of fun.”

“Okay, I’ll stop nagging you,” Astrid said, sensing that she needed to back off. She was asking the impossible of this boy she barely knew. But she knew it was the right thing to do.

She believed in him. She knew he had a destiny.

She wondered why. It wasn’t logical, really. She didn’t believe in destiny. All her life Astrid had relied on her brain, on her grasp of facts. Now some part of her she barely knew existed, some buried, neglected part of her mind was urging her on—no good reasons, just an instinct that kept pushing her to push him.

But she was sure.

Sure.

Astrid turned her face toward Little Pete so that Sam wouldn’t see the frown of worry on her face, but she didn’t release his hand.

She was sure. Like she was answering two plus two. That sure.

She let go of his hand. She took a deep, shaky breath. And now she was not sure at all. Her frown deepened. “Let’s go get the groceries,” Astrid said.

He was elsewhere, preoccupied, so he didn’t notice the way Astrid stared at her own hands, f

ace screwed up in concentration. She wiped her palms on her shorts.

“Yeah,” he said. “Better go while we still can.”

TWENTY-ONE

129 HOURS, 34 MINUTES

“SHOW ME YOUR list,” Howard demanded. He was outside the front door of Ralph’s grocery, seated in a lawn chair, with his feet propped up on a second chair. He had a small combo TV/DVD playing Spider-Man 3. He barely looked up as they approached.

“I don’t have a list,” Astrid said.

Howard shrugged. “You need a list. No one goes in without a list.”

Sam said, “Okay, do you have a piece of paper and a pencil?”

“It just so happens I do, Sam,” Howard said. He fished a small spiral notebook from the pocket of an ill-fitting leather jacket and handed it to Astrid.

She wrote and handed it to Howard.

“You can have all the fresh stuff, like produce, that you want. It’s all going to go bad. Ice cream is mostly gone, but there might be some Popsicles.” He glanced at Little Pete. “You like the Popsicles, Pe-tard?”

“Get on with it,” Sam said.

“If you want canned stuff or, like, pasta or whatever, you have to get special permission from Caine or one of the sheriffs.”

“What are you talking about?” Astrid demanded.

“I’m talking about you can have lettuce and eggs and deli and milk because that’s all going to expire soon, but we’re saving up the stuff like canned soup or whatever that won’t spoil.”

Astrid admitted, “Okay, that makes sense, I guess.”

“Likewise paper products. Everyone gets one roll of toilet paper. So make it last.” He glanced at the list again. “Tampons? What size?”

“Shut up,” Sam said.

Howard laughed. “Go ahead on in. But I’ll check everything on the way out, and if it’s not okay, I’ll make you put it back.”