Hunger

“Yes,” Mary agreed. “Yes, they do.”

“This all sucks.”

“Please stop saying ‘sucks.’ I don’t want to have three-year-olds repeating it all day.”

“Man, when my birthday comes, I’m stepping out,” Francis sulked.

“Fine. I’ll be sure not to schedule you after that. Now, pick a work list and do it. I don’t want to have to waste Sam’s time calling him over here to motivate you.”

Francis stomped back to the easel.

“Stepping out,” Mary said to John, and made a face. “How many people have hit the magic fifteen so far? Only two have poofed. People talk about it. But they don’t actually do it.”

The FAYZ had eliminated everyone over the age of fourteen. No one knew why. At least, Mary didn’t, although she had overheard Sam and Astrid whispering in a way that made her think they might know more than they admitted.

A fourteen-year-old who reached his fifteenth birthday would also disappear. Poof. If he let himself. If he decided to “step out.”

What happened during what kids called Stepping Out was now known to just about everyone. The way subjective time would slow to a crawl. The appearance of the person you loved and trusted most to beckon you across, to urge you to leave the FAYZ. And the way this person transformed into a monster if you resisted.

You had a choice: stay in the FAYZ, or . . . But no one knew just what the “or” was. Maybe it was escape back into the old world. Maybe it was a trip to some whole new place.

Maybe it was death.

Mary noticed John looking intensely at her. “What?” she said.

“You wouldn’t ever . . .”

Mary smiled and ruffled his curly red hair. “Never. I would never leave you. Missing Mom and Dad?”

John nodded. “I keep thinking about how many times I made them mad.”

“John . . .”

“I know. I know that doesn’t matter. But it’s like . . .” He couldn’t find the words, so he made the motion of a knife stabbing his heart.

Someone was tugging at Mary’s shirt from behind. She looked around and with a sinking heart saw a little boy named . . . named . . . she couldn’t remember his name. But the second little boy behind him she remembered was Sean. She knew why they were there. They had both recently had their fifth birthdays. The age limit for the day care was four. At age five you had to move out—hopefully to a house with some responsible older kids.

“Hi, kids. What’s up?” Mary asked as she brought her face down to their level.

“Um . . . ,” the first one said. And then he burst into tears.

She shouldn’t do it, she knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t stop herself from putting her arms around the little boy. And then Sean started crying as well, so the embrace was extended, and John was in there, too, and Mary heard herself saying of course, of course they could come back, just for today, just for a little while.

FOUR

106 HOURS, 8 MINUTES

COATES ACADEMY WAS quite a bit the worse for wear. Battles had damaged the façade of the main building. There was a hole in the whitewashed brick so big, you could see an entire second-story classroom, a cross-section of the floor beneath it, and a jagged gap that didn’t quite reach to the top of the first-story window below. Most of the glass in the windows was gone. The kids had made an effort to keep the elements out by duct-taping sheets of plastic over the holes, but the tape had loosened and now the plastic and the tape hung limp, stirring with the occasional breeze. The building looked as if it had been through a war. It had been.

The grounds were a mess. Grass that had always been trimmed to obsessive perfection in the old days now grew wild in some areas and had gone yellow as hay in others. And weeds pushed up through the circular gravel driveway where once parents’ minivans and SUVs and luxury sedans had lined up.

The plumbing was out in half the building, toilets overflowing and reeking. The smaller buildings, the art classroom, and the dormitories were in better shape, but Drake insisted on staying in the main building. He had occupied the office of the school shrink, a place where in the old days Drake had standing appointments for counseling and testing.

Do you still dream of hurting animals, Drake?

No, Doc, I dream of hurting you.

The office was an armory now. Drake’s guns, nine of them, ranging from hunting rifles with scopes to handguns, were laid out on a table. He kept them unloaded, all but two, the guns he carried on him. He’d hidden the ammunition for the other guns: there was no one Drake trusted. The ammunition, never enough of it, to Drake’s thinking, rested behind the ceiling tiles and in air-conditioning vents.

Drake sat watching a DVD on the plasma screen he’d stolen. The movie was Saw II. The sound effects were so great. Drake had the volume up high enough to rattle one of the few surviving panes of glass. So he didn’t at first hear Diana’s voice when she said, “He wants you.”

Drake turned, sensing her presence. He flicked his tentacle arm, the arm that gave him his nickname, Whip Hand, and turned off the set. “What do you want?” he demanded with a scowl.

“He wants you,” Diana repeated.

Drake loved the fear in her eyes. Tough-chick Diana: snarky, sarcastic, superior Diana. Scared Diana. Scared of him and what he could do to her.

“Who wants me?”

“Caine. He’s up.”

“He’s been up before,” Drake said.