Hunger

Sam rose to his feet but went no closer to the edge of the cabbage field. The worms did not move beyond the first row of turned soil. There might as well have been a wall, the worms all on one side.

E.Z. came staggering wildly toward Sam, walking as if he were being electrocuted, jerking, flailing like some crazy puppet with half its strings cut.

Three, four feet away, a long arm-stretch away, Sam saw the worm erupt from the skin of E.Z.’s throat.

And then another from his jaw, just in front of his ear.

E.Z., no longer screaming, sagged to the ground, just sat there limp, cross-legged.

“Help me,” E.Z. whispered. “Sam . . .”

E.Z.’s eyes were on Sam. Pleading. Fading. Then just staring, blank.

The only sounds now came from the worms. Their hundreds of mouths seemed to make a single sound, one big mouth chewing wetly.

A worm spilled from E.Z.’s mouth.

Sam raised his hands, palms out.

“Sam, no!” Albert yelled. Then, in a quieter voice, “He’s already dead. He’s already dead.”

“Albert’s right, man. Don’t do it, don’t burn them, they’re staying in the field, don’t give them a reason to come after us,” Edilio hissed. His strong hands still dug into Sam’s shoulders, like he was holding Sam back, though Sam wasn’t trying to escape any longer.

“And don’t touch him,” Edilio sobbed. “Perdóneme, God forgive me, don’t touch him.”

The black worms swarmed over and through E.Z.’s body. Like ants swarming a dead beetle.

It felt like a very long time before the worms slithered away and tunneled back into the earth.

What they left behind was no longer recognizable as a human being.

“There’s a rope here,” Albert said, stepping down at last from the Jeep. He tried to tie a lasso, but his hands were shaking too badly. He handed the rope to Edilio, who formed a loop and after six misses finally snagged what was left of E.Z.’s right foot. Together they dragged the remains from the field.

A single tardy worm crawled from the mess and headed back toward the cabbages. Sam snatched up a rock the size of a softball and smashed it down on the worm’s back. The worm stopped moving.

“I’ll come back with a shovel,” Edilio said. “We can’t take E.Z. home, man, he’s got two little brothers. They don’t need to be seeing this. We’ll bury him here.

“If these things spread . . . ,” Edilio began.

“If they spread to the other fields, we all starve,” Albert said.

Sam fought a powerful urge to throw up. E.Z. was mostly bones now, picked not quite clean. Sam had seen terrible things since the FAYZ began, but nothing this gruesome.

He wiped his hands on his jeans, wanting to hit back, wishing it made sense to blast the field, burn as much of it as he could reach, keep burning it until the worms shriveled and crisped.

But that was food out there.

Sam knelt beside the mess in the dirt. “You were a good kid, E.Z. Sorry. I . . . sorry.” There was music, tinny, but recognizable, still coming from E.Z.’s iPod.

Sam lifted the shiny thing and tapped the pause icon.

Then he stood up and kicked the dead worm out of the way. He held his hands out as though he were a minister about to bless the body.

Albert and Edilio knew better. They both backed away.

Brilliant light shot from Sam’s palms.

The body burned, crisped, turned black. Bones made loud snapping noises as they cracked from the heat. After a while Sam stopped. What was left behind was ash, a heap of gray and black ashes that could have been the residue of a backyard barbecue.

“There was nothing you could have done, Sam,” Edilio said, knowing that look on his friend’s face, knowing that gray, haggard look of guilt. “It’s the FAYZ, man. It’s just the FAYZ.”

TWO

106 HOURS, 16 MINUTES

THE ROOF WAS on crooked. The blistering bright sun stabbed a ray straight down into Caine’s eye through the gap between crumbled wall and sagging roof.

Caine lay on his back, sweating into a pillow that had no case. A dank sheet wrapped around his bare legs, twisted to cover half his naked torso. He was awake again, or at least he thought he was, believed he was.

Hoped he was.

It wasn’t his bed. It belonged to an old man named Mose, the groundskeeper for Coates Academy.

Of course Mose was gone. Gone with all the other adults. And all the older kids. Everyone . . . almost everyone . . . over the age of fourteen. Gone.

Gone where?

No one knew.

Just gone. Beyond the barrier. Out of the giant fishbowl called the FAYZ. Maybe dead. Maybe not. But definitely gone.

Diana opened the door with a kick. She was carrying a tray and balanced on the tray was a bottle of water and a can of Goya brand garbanzo beans.

“Are you decent?” Diana asked.

He didn’t answer. He didn’t understand the question.

“Are you covered?” she asked, putting some irritation into her tone. She set the tray on the side table.

Caine didn’t bother to answer. He sat up. His head swam as he did. He reached for the water.

“Why is the roof messed up like that? What if it rains?” He was surprised by the sound of his own voice. He was hoarse. His voice had none of its usual persuasive smoothness.

Diana was pitiless. “What are you, stupid now as well as crazy?”

A phantom memory passed through him, leaving him feeling uneasy. “Did I do something?”