“No wonder,” Edilio muttered.
“Stay inside unless absolutely necessary,” Edilio shouted, and not for the first or last time wished he was still just Sam’s faithful sidekick.
Chapter Sixteen
33 HOURS, 40 MINUTES
BLAZING SUNLIGHT, DIRECTLY overhead, woke Orc.
It took him quite a while to sort out where he was. There were desks. The kind they had in school. He was on the floor, a cold linoleum-tile floor, and the desks were tossed and piled around him. Like someone had tossed them all around in a rage.
Someone had.
There was a chalkboard. Something was written on it, but Orc’s eyes wouldn’t focus well enough to read it.
The really confusing thing was the hole in the ceiling and part of the wall that allowed sunlight to pour so directly on his face, on his blinking eyes. The wall had been partly torn down, and without support a part of the ceiling had collapsed.
He felt something in his right hand. A hunk of wallboard.
He had done it. He had attacked the desks and the windows and the walls.
The memories were flashes of desaturated color and wild, jerky motion. He saw, as if standing outside himself, a drunken rock-bodied monster storming and rampaging and finally beating at the walls with great stone fists.
Orc groaned. His head was pounding like someone was using a sledgehammer on it. He was thirsty. His stomach felt as if it had been filled with coals.
Other memories were coming back. Drake. He had let that psycho creep get loose.
Howard would . . . well, actually, Howard wouldn’t say much. Howard knew better than to ever really attack Orc.
But what about Sam? And Astrid?
Sudden fear. Astrid. Drake would go after her. Drake hated Astrid.
He should do something. Go and . . . and find Drake. Or guard Astrid. Or something. Astrid had always been good to him. She’d always treated him nice, like he wasn’t a monster. Even back in school.
Suddenly Orc recognized the room. It was the room they used for after-school detention. Astrid would sometimes come tutor him there.
Truth was, he had always liked it better in detention than at home.
Orc squeezed his eyes shut. He needed a bottle. Too many things coming into his head. Too many pictures and feelings.
He noticed an awful smell and knew right away what had caused it. When he had passed out his muscles had all gone slack. He’d wet himself and worse.
He was lying in a puddle of urine and feces.
With a sob he rolled over onto hands and knees. The fatguy sweatpants he wore were stained and reeking.
Now he would have to walk down to the beach to clean off. He’d have to walk down there like this, like this depraved, disgusting, drunken, stinking monster.
Which was what he was. What he’d always been.
And then, one more memory. A sick little boy. A stop sign.
God, no. God . . . no.
Orc stumbled from the room, sick and weeping and hating himself so much more than anyone else could ever hate him.
Drake became conscious and was likewise confused about where he was and why.