Gone (Gone 1)

“Where to now, man?” Edilio asked him.

Sam stood gazing out at empty desert, so dark still that it swallowed all the light of the burning cabin. He wanted to cry. He hadn’t known he had that much anger inside. It made him sick. His mother had done her best, she wasn’t to blame. He wanted to throw up.

Astrid saw that Sam was in no condition to talk, so she said, “We’ll head back to Perdido Beach. We’ll go back, and we’ll make things right.”

“And Caine will just step aside,” Quinn said. “No problem, la di da.”

Astrid flared. “I’m not saying it will be easy. It will be a test for us.”

Edilio shook his head. “Isn’t going to be a test. It’s going to be a war.”

“Sun will be up soon. We’ll be able to see something,” Drake said.

“See what?” Panda whined. “There’s nothing but desert out there.”

“Caine says he’s probably staying close to the barrier, to find his way back.”

Panda sounded nervous when he said, “Caine thinks Sam is coming back?”

Panda was still sulking about his sprained ankle and almost useless, so Drake had grabbed two other Coates kids. The first was a fat Chinese-American kid called Chunk. Chunk was a low-level bully, not someone Drake would normally have hung out with. Plus, he would not shut up but chattered away, mostly bragging about what bands he’d seen in concert and what movie stars he’d met. Chunk’s father was a talent agent in Hollywood.

If there still was a Hollywood.

The other kid was a girl, skinny little black girl named Louise, one of the drivers. With Panda semiuseless, Drake needed a driver.

After the Andrew poof, Caine and Diana, along with the creepy little nerd, Jack, had gone to deal with Frederico and try to get things back under control at Coates. Caine had sent Drake off with orders to see if he could find Sam.

Drake didn’t like having to follow this order. He was sleepy and, as he pointed out to Caine, there was a lot of emptiness out there, let alone at night, so how was he supposed to find Sam, even if he was still following the barrier?

“There’s a road goes up Piggyback Mountain,” Caine said. “Remember? The field trip? You can see for miles.”

So despite it still being dark, and despite the fact that Louise was a much crazier driver than cautious Panda, and despite Panda’s whining and Chunk’s babble, they had driven up Piggyback Mountain and after a time found the lookout.

They had been there for a while, listening to coyote howls from down in the valley, Drake threatening to punch Chunk if he didn’t shut up about how he had met Christina Aguilera one time.

Drake was steaming, unhappy to be up here in the middle of nowhere, with no food or sodas or anything, just a bottle of water and these idiots.

“So what happened with Andrew?” Louise asked during one of Chunk’s rare silences.

“He ditched, man. He cut a hole,” Panda said.

“I still got more than a year, I’m only thirteen,” Louise said, like anyone cared. “Someone will come rescue us in a year, right?”

“Sooner would be better,” Drake drawled, “what with me having a month.”

“I got till June,” Chunk said. “You know what that makes me? I’m a Cancer.”

“Got that right,” Drake muttered.

“Sign of the crab,” Chunk added.

“I have to go,” Drake said. He climbed down out of the SUV they were in and walked to the edge of the lookout, up to the railing. He started peeing over the side and that’s when he saw it. It looked like a match being carried through the night. Impossible to tell distances.

“Chunk! Get the binoculars.”

Chunk came hustling up a few seconds later. Drake had watched as the tiny, flickering light went racing in zigzags far below.

Chunk said, “This is like being up in the Hollywood Hills, you know? Up on Mulholland Drive, which is where all these famous actors and stuff live. One time I went to this guy’s house, he was, like, a director that my dad reps, right? And—”