Hunger (Gone 2)

Leaving the glow behind, and feeling carefully ahead, cautious about his bruised forehead, he crept on through pitch blackness.

SIX

96 HOURS, 22 MINUTES

“LOOK, ALBERT, DON’T tell me we have a problem and I can’t do anything about it,” Sam said, practically snarling. He marched along at a quick walk from the town hall to the church next door. Albert and Astrid were with him, struggling to keep up.

The sun was setting out over the ocean. The dying light laid down a long red exclamation point on the water. A boat was out there, one of the small motorboats. Sam sighed. Some kid who’d probably end up falling in.

Sam stopped suddenly, causing Albert and Astrid to bump into each other. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound mad. Although I am mad, but not at you, Albert. It’s just I have to go in there and lay down the law, and I’m sorry, but killer worms aren’t making it any easier.”

“Then hold off for a few days,” Al

bert said calmly.

“Hold off? Albert, you were the one who was saying weeks ago, months ago, we had to make everyone get to work.”

“I never said we should make them work,” Albert countered. “I said we should figure out a way to pay them to work.”

Sam was not in the mood. Not in the mood at all. Losing a kid was a tragedy to everyone, but to him it was a personal failure. He’d been handed the job of being in charge, which meant everything that went wrong was on him. E.Z. had been under his care and protection. And now E.Z. was a pile of ash.

Sam sucked in a gulp of air. He shot a baleful look at the cemetery in the square. Three more graves in just the last three months since Sam had been officially elected mayor. E.Z. wouldn’t get a grave, just a marker. At the rate things were going, they’d run out of room in the square.

The front door of the church stood open. Always open. That was because it, and much of the church roof, had been damaged in the big Thanksgiving Battle. The wide wooden doors had been blown off. The sides of the opening were shaky, held up by a slab of stone across the top that made the wreckage look like a lopsided Stonehenge monolith.

Caine had come close to collapsing the entire church, but it was built strong, so three quarters of it still stood. Some of the rubble had been cleared, but not much, and even that had only been pushed into the side street. Like so many ambitious undertakings that had fallen apart as kids quit working and could not be convinced to come back.

Sam walked straight to the front of the church and mounted the three low steps to what he thought of as the stage, although Astrid had patiently explained that it was called a chancel. The great cross had not been replaced in its rightful spot, but stood leaning in a corner. A close examination would reveal bloodstains where it had once crushed Cookie’s shoulder.

Not until he turned around did Sam notice how little of the church was filled. There should have been close to 250 kids, leaving aside the day care and the people on guard in various locations. There were closer to eighty present, half of those so young, Sam knew they’d been dumped there by big brothers or sisters looking for a bit of free babysitting.

Astrid and Albert took seats in the first pew. Little Pete was at the day care. Now that Mother Mary had more help at the day care, Astrid could occasionally leave Pete there, although never for very long. As long as Pete stayed lost in his video game, anyone could care for him. But if Pete got upset…

Mother Mary Terrafino herself was two rows back, too humble to insert herself in the leadership area of the church. Sam was struck by how good Mary looked. Weight loss. Probably from overwork. Or maybe she didn’t enjoy living on the kinds of canned food that, in the old pre-FAYZ days, people had donated to food drives. But she was quite thin, which was not an adjective normally applied to Mary. Model thin.

Lana Arwen Lazar slumped in a back row. She looked tired and a little resentful. Lana often looked resentful. But at least she had come, which was more than could be said for most kids.

Sam gritted his teeth, angry that so many had skipped this town meeting. Just what exactly did they have to do that was more important?

“First off,” he said, “I want to say I’m sorry about E.Z. He was a good kid. He didn’t deserve…” For a moment he almost lost it as a surge of emotion welled up from nowhere. “I’m sorry he died.”

Someone sobbed loudly.

“Look, I’m going to get right to it: we have three hundred and thirty-two…I’m sorry, three hundred and thirty-one mouths to feed,” Sam said. He placed his hands on his hips and planted his feet wide apart. “We were already pretty bad off for food supplies. But after the attack by the Coates kids…well, it’s not pretty bad off, anymore, it’s desperate.”

He let that sink in. But how much were six-and eight-year-olds really grasping? Even the older kids looked more glazed than alarmed.

“Three hundred and thirty-one kids,” Sam reiterated, “And food for maybe a week. That’s not a long time. It’s not a lot of food. And as you all know, the food we have is awful.”

That got a response from the audience. The younger kids produced a chorus of gagging and retching sounds.

“All right,” Sam snapped. “Knock it off. The point is, things are really desperate.”

“How about the food in everyone’s house?” someone yelled.

The light of the setting sun streamed through the damaged façade of the church and stabbed Sam in the eyes. He had to take two steps to the left to escape it. “Hunter? Is that you?”

Hunter Lefkowitz was a year younger than Sam, longhaired like just about everyone except the few who had taken the initiative of cutting his or her own hair. He was not someone who had ever been popular in school before the FAYZ. But then, Sam reflected, the things that had made kids popular in the old days didn’t mean much anymore.