Plague (Gone 4)

Orc woke to a headache and shivers.

He was facedown. On the sand. The surf was lapping at his legs, covering his feet, gently surging to wash over his calves.

His head was a single giant ball of pain.

There was sand in his mouth. Sand in the cracks between the pebbles that formed his skin.

He could see the bottles. Just a few inches from his head, empty. Not even a tiny little drop left.

He was still drunk, he had not slept long enough to sober up. But he was no longer blacked-out, brain-dead drunk.

He was naked. That surprised him a little. But he had vague memories of ripping his stained, filthy clothes off and rampaging like a wild animal through the water. Bellowing.

There was no one to see him anyway. No one around. No one was going to hang around when Orc went crazy.

Scared of me, Orc thought. Surprise, surprise. Orc the monster, all covered in his own crap and staggering and lurching through waist-high water trying to get clean, scared people.

He decided to go look for another bottle, quick, before it all came rushing back into his head but it was too late because it was all coming back now.

He got to his knees. He might be a filthy, disgusting drunk, but he was still strong.

He’d have to walk naked through the dark streets. What did it matter? He wasn’t a boy, he was a monster. A naked Orc was just a curiosity for people to laugh at. One more thing for people to find disgusting.

He tried to stand up but somehow ended up rolling onto his back. He vomited. It dribbled over the side of his face, over the last patch of human skin.

There were stars in the sky. They kind of swam around and sometimes doubled and blurred.

Here he was: Charles Merriman.

He hated himself. Hated himself so much. He had what he deserved: cold sand and colder water and pain.

Why couldn’t he just die? He deserved to die. He needed to die. If there was some kind of God up there looking down at him, then God was wanting to throw up.

Of course God probably liked doing stuff like this. Charles Merriman was probably, like, his favorite person to beat on. Yeah, it was, like, I’m going to give this kid a violent drunk for a daddy, and a dumb dishrag for a mother, and I’m going to make it hard for him to even learn to read, and then, just when he’s starting to finally get some respect, I’ll turn him into a monster.

No one ever treated Charles Merriman like he might be a kid. Like he might not be totally worthless. Except Howard, and that was just so Howard could use him.

The only other person who had been nice to him was Astrid. Not like she liked him, but she didn’t think he was scum. Like he wasn’t just some nothing.

He had saved her life once. But even before that she’d been nice to him. One person. Ever.

With a supreme effort, Orc got to his feet.

In the end Sam decided to camp for the night by the train. They had crates to burn and a reassuring fire roared high into the night sky.

They made a camp out of lawn furniture. They ate Nutella and drank Pepsi, nowhere near tired of the sweetness.

They stared into the flames and up at the sparks.

“If we bring kids here, they’re going to find out about the missiles,” Dekka said.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. He made a keep it down gesture and added a significant glanc

e at Toto, who was dozing fitfully on a wicker chaise lounge.

“We can’t get all this to town. They have to come here.”

“Yep,” Sam said.