Plague (Gone 4)

Lana healed the broken ribs, then checked out the girl with burned fingers. “Don’t do stupid things like this,” Lana snapped at the girl. “I don’t want to be wasting my time on stupidity. Next time I’ll let you suffer.”

But she healed the burn as well and did a quick touch-and-go with the coughing girl.

“Can I fill a jug before I head out?” Lana asked.

Dahra winced. She had an old water cooler in one corner with a clear glass five-gallon jug on top. But there was nowhere near five gallons in there.

“How about half a gallon?” Dahra said.

“Deal,” Lana said. “Albert needs to keep you better supplied. Me, too, while we’re at it. He’s supposed to send one of his people up with a gallon a day. It’s been two days. It’s not smart for a hypochondriac like Albert to grind my nerves.”

Then, with a nod to Dahra, Lana headed off again, back toward her lonely eyrie.

She took a shortcut that took her up the hill to Clifftop. It was a bare trail through the brush, a place where a hungry coyote might be. But Patrick would warn her long before she walked into a coyote. And in any case Lana carried an automatic pistol she had no compunction about using.

Suddenly Patrick growled and Lana had the automatic out and aimed with both hands in a split second.

“Step out where I can see you,” she said.

There was no coyote. Instead there was Hunter. Lurking. Looking ashamed to be here. He had been banished from town, although he was allowed to come see her anytime. Still he preferred to stay out of sight.

Lana liked Hunter. First because he often saved her some tasty morsel, a rabbit or a couple of plump frogs. And he brought stomachs and intestines for Patrick to eat.

Second because even though he was brain damaged he at least had the sense not to waste her time. If he was looking for her there was a reason.

“T’sup, Hunter?” she asked. She stuck the gun back in her waistband. “Whoa. I see: bad scratches there.”

“No,” he said. “It’s something else.”

He pulled on his T-shirt neck.

Lana didn’t breathe for a few seconds. “Yeah,” she said. “That is something else.”

Chapter Six

61 HOURS, 26 MINUTES

NO ONE KNEW quite how to deal with Hunter. He wasn’t supposed to come into town. So the council had to go to him.

They met on the highway.

No one had ever cleaned up the crashed and abandoned cars on the highway. They were all just where they’d been since the coming of the FAYZ.

The big FedEx truck was still on its side. Kids had long since broken into the back and rifled through the packages. The wrapping, torn paper, plastic packing peanuts, curls of tape, and packing slips had mostly drifted into a section of construction barrier on the side of the road.

Funny, Lana noticed: it looked almost cleaned up today. As if someone had come along with a leaf blower and scooted all the garbage off the road.

The town council was now Dekka, Howard, Albert, Ellen, and Edilio. Sam was entitled to attend but he usually didn’t. Astrid had made it clear she wanted no part of it anymore, but Lana had sent Brianna to tell her to be there. She wanted Astrid’s eyes on this.

So Astrid was there. Sort of. Lana had seen Astrid in a lot of different situations and moods, but this was a new Astrid: withdrawn, preoccupied. Like she was somewhere else entirely. She was biting her lip, twisting her fingers together, then catching herself and wiping her hands on her jeans.

Lana was sure she saw Astrid start guiltily when she noticed the trash blown against the barrier. But maybe she was just feeling touchy because of the story going around about Sam and Taylor.

Edilio was in charge. Which was fine with Lana. Almost everyone else had shown some weakness, some bit of crazy. Very much including herself, she acknowledged wryly.

Edilio seemed like the last sane, decent person left in the FAYZ. The undocumented kid from Honduras was the single most trusted person around. And yet, if the barrier ever came down, Edilio and his family—if they were still alive out there—would be kicked out of the country.

Of course, Lana thought, if the barrier ever came down, half the kids would be shipped off to juvie and the rest would be sent to mental institutions or rehab. So maybe getting kicked out wasn’t so bad.