Gone (Gone 1)

As she walked Lana grew afraid in a new way. She had endured the panicky, choking fear of death. This was different. This new sensation turned her muscles to jelly, seemed to sap the heat from her blood and fill her arteries with ice water and her stomach with bile.

She was cold. Cold all the way through.

Her feet weighed a hundred pounds each, the muscles inadequate to lift them and shift them forward.

Every corner of her brain was yammering, “Run, run, run!” But she could not possibly run, could not physically do it. The only way was forward as she felt herself now drawn deeper and deeper by some will that was no part of her.

Patrick finally could take it no longer. He turned tail and ran, shouldering his way past the contemptuous wild dogs.

She wanted to call him. But no sound came from her nerveless lips.

Deeper and deeper. Colder and colder.

The flashlight weakened and as it dimmed Lana became aware that the walls of the cave were glowing a faint green.

It was near now.

It.

Whatever it was, it was near.

The lantern fell from her numb fingers.

Her eyes rolled up into her head and she fell to her knees, indifferent to, unaware even of the pain as her kneecaps landed on sharp rock.

On her knees, eyes blind, Lana waited.

A voice exploded inside of her head. Her back arched in spasm and she fell on her side. Every nerve ending, every cell in her body screamed in pain. Pain like she was being boiled alive.

How long it lasted, she would never know.

The exact words she heard—if they had been words at all—she would never recall.

She would awake later, having been dragged from the cave by two of the coyotes.

They dragged her out of the cave into the night.

And there they waited patiently for her to live or die.

TWENTY-EIGHT

123 HOURS, 52 MINUTES

SAM, EDILIO, QUINN, Astrid, and Little Pete followed the FAYZ wall out to sea. The curve of the barrier took them away from land, then back toward it.

There was no gap in the wall. There was no easy escape hatch.

The sun was setting as they traveled north of a handful of tiny private islands. One of those islands had a beautiful white yacht smashed into it. Sam considered detouring to take a closer look but decided against it. He was determined to survey the entire FAYZ wall. If he was to be trapped like a goldfish in a bowl, he wanted to see the whole bowl.

The FAYZ wall met the shore in the middle of Stefano Rey National Park, having inscribed a long semicircle on the face of the eerily placid sea.

The shoreline was impossible, a fortress of jagged rock and cliffs touched with the golden light of the setting sun.

“It’s beautiful,” Astrid said.

“I’d rather have ugly and a place to land,” Sam said.

The surf was still tame, but it would take very little for the rocks to tear a hole in the hull of the already crippled Boston Whaler.