Gone (Gone 1)

“That is a lot of earrings,” she said.

Patrick looked into the hole with puzzlement.

“You know what this means, Patrick? All this gold here and all those picks and shovels outside? Hermit Jim is a gold miner.”

She ran outside to the lean-to where Hermit Jim had formerly parked his truck. Patrick bounded along, hoping for a game. Sometimes she tossed a broken axe handle for him to retrieve, but today Patrick was to be disappointed.

For the first time Lana carefully followed the tire tracks. They were fading, but still visible. A hundred feet from the house, they split. Some tracks, older ones, it seemed, headed one direction, southeast, probably toward Perdido Beach. Somewhat fresher tracks headed toward the base of the ridge to the north.

Perdido Beach she believed could be fifteen, maybe twenty miles or so away, a very long walk in the heat. But if the mine was at the base of the ridge, it didn’t look like even a tenth of that distance. Hermit Jim might be there. If he was, so was his truck. If he wasn’t, his truck might still be there, anyway.

Lana felt a profound aversion to the idea of venturing into the wild again. She’d come very, very close to dying the last time. And the coyotes might still be out there, waiting patiently. But the mile to the mine? She could do that.

She filled a plastic jug with water. She filled herself with water and made sure Patrick was hydrated, too. She stuffed her pockets with MREs—meals ready to eat—and packed more into a towel she twisted to form a pouch. She smeared herself with sunscreen from an emergency medical kit.

“Let’s go for a walk, Patrick.”

Edilio grinned as Astrid took her seat on the left side of the Boston Whaler. “Thank God. Now at least we got one smart person on this boat.”

Edilio and Quinn pushed the boat off the sand, back into the gently lapping surf. They climbed aboard, then trailed their legs over the side to clean off clinging sand.

Sam headed the boat out to sea, out toward the barrier. He hoped Drake was dead or at least badly injured. But he wasn’t sure and he wanted to get well away before the psychopath started shooting at them.

It occurred to Sam that never before in his life had he wished someone dead. Eight days had passed since the coming of the FAYZ. Eight days and he’d seen enough craziness to last him a lifetime. And now he was fantasizing about a kid being dead.

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; Once he pushed the throttle forward and was beyond the range of any bullet, he started to feel better. This was as close as Sam had come to surfing since the coming of the FAYZ. The waves were unimpressive short chop, but the Whaler landed on them with wonderful force that translated up through his legs, rattled his teeth, and brought a smile to his lips. Salt spray was flying, and for Sam it was hard to be grim when the spray was lashing his face.

“Thanks, Edilio. You too, Quinn,” Sam said. He was still furious at Quinn, but they were—literally—all in the same boat now.

“See how much you want to thank me when I hurl all over this boat,” Edilio said. He was looking a little green.

Sam reminded himself to keep a safe distance from the FAYZ barrier, but at the same time he wanted to keep it close. There was still the tantalizing possibility of a gap, a gate, an opening through which they could all sail and say good-bye to this madness.

Far to the north he could see the cliffs that marked the inlet occupied by the power plant. Beyond that, just a smudge in the haze, the outline of the nearest of half a dozen small private islands.

Astrid had dug out the life jackets and was strapping one onto Little Pete. Edilio accepted one too, but Quinn refused.

Astrid also found a small cooler packed with warm sodas, a loaf of bread, and the rest of the makings of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. “We won’t starve,” she said. “At least not right away.”

The barrier was just to their left, a terrible, imposing, blank wall. The waves lapped against it, an impatient sound. The water wanted to escape, too.

Sam was a fish in an aquarium and the FAYZ wall was the side of the tank. It was the same semitranslucent mystery it was on land.

He skimmed along until he was far enough out that Clifftop was no bigger than a LEGO perched above a narrow ribbon of sand. Perdido Beach was like an oil painting, dots and splashes of color that suggested a town without providing any detail.

“I’m going to try something,” he announced.

Sam killed the engine and let the boat wallow. The boat seemed to want to drift along the wall. There was a current, only slight, but definite. The current chased down the side of the wall heading away from land, following the long curve still farther out to sea.

“Do we have an anchor?” Sam asked.

The answer was a retching sound. Sam looked away as Edilio gave up his lunch.

“Never mind,” said Sam, “I’ll look.”

There was no anchor. But he noticed that Astrid was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She handed one to Sam.