Hunger_A Gone Novel Read online

  HUN

  GER

  A G O N E N o v e l

  MICHAEL GRANT

  For Katherine, Jake, and Julia

  Contents

  Maps ix

  One

  SAM TEMPLE WAS on his board. And there

  were

  waves.

  1

  Two

  THE ROOF WAS on crooked. The blistering bright

  sun

  stabbed…

  12

  Three

  LANA ARWEN LAZAR was on her fourth home

  since

  coming…

  27

  Four

  COATES ACADEMY WAS quite a bit the worse

  for

  wear.

  39

  Five

  “BULLETS ARE FAST. That’s why they work,”

  Computer Jack said…

  54

  Six

  “LOOK, ALBERT, DON’T tell me we have a

  problem

  and…

  69

  Seven

  “PULL OVER HERE, Panda,” Drake said.

  80

  Eight

  ORSAY PETTIJOHN STOOD transfixed. Two kids,

  the first human beings…

  91

  Nine

  IT WAS MORNING. The buses were in the square.

  Edilio…

  104

  Ten

  “SHE WAS IN my dreams, in my head. I saw…

  122

  Eleven

  “MOTHER MARY WANTS to draft two more kids,”

  Astrid

  told…

  138

  Twelve

  THE ARGUMENT WITH Astrid about Albert’s club

  had not been…

  153

  Thirteen

  SAM KNOCKED AT the front door. He didn’t

  usually

  do…

  167

  Fourteen

  “SHE’S BEEN LIKE this ever since.” Bug—the visible

  Bug—waved

  his…

  181

  Fifteen

  SAM TOOK THE list from Astrid. He scanned the first…

  192

  Sixteen

  SHE DIDN’T WANT to cut off her hair. She liked…

  202

  Seventeen

  DIANA FOLLOWED JACK from the McClub. It was

  a

  relief…

  220

  Eighteen

  PATRICK FIGURED IT was all a party. His master was…

  235

  Nineteen

  THEY DROVE THE SUV through the hole in the fence,…

  251

  Twenty

  BRIANNA HAD NOT found Sam on the road to the…

  265

  Twenty-One

  JACK STRAINED AGAINST the door.

  278

  Twenty-Two

  JACK WOKE TO pain.

  285

  Twenty-Three

  “THEY’LL HAVE SOMEONE on the gate,” Sam said

  “It’s

  just…

  302

  Twenty-Four

  SAM WISHED CAINE would come out after him.

  That

  would…

  314

  Twenty-Five

  DUCK HAD ARGUED with himself all the way

  home.

  Hunter’s…

  324

  Twenty-Six

  “WHAT IS IT you want, Caine?” Sam’s voice,

  calling

  from…

  336

  Twenty-Seven

  BRIANNA WOKE.

  348

  Twenty-Eight

  THE PICKUP TRUCK’S battery was dead. It had

  been

  sitting…

  363

  Twenty-Nine

  “WE CAN WAIT him out,” Edilio said to Sam. “Just…

  373

  Thirty

  CAINE HAD FALLEN asleep, exhausted, on the

  plant manager’s couch.

  384

  Thirty-One

  COME TO ME. I have need of you.

  399

  Thirty-Two

  BUG WAS LEERY now. Sam’s people knew about

  him.

  They…

  411

  Thirty-Three

  HUNTER WAS HUNGRIER than he would have

  thought possible. He’d…

  428

  Thirty-Four

  EDILIO DROVE THE creepy little mutant, Bug, and

  the

  girl…

  436

  Thirty-Five

  TWENTY-ONE HOURS WITH no food. Not a bite.

  448

  Thirty-Six

  DRAKE CREPT TO the hole in the exterior wall. The…

  464

  Thirty-Seven

  THE JEEP BLEW through the gate. Edilio drove

  straight

  to…

  479

  Thirty-Eight

  EDILIO’S HANDS WERE gripping the wheel so

  tightly, his fingers…

  498

  Thirty-Nine

  DUCK ZHANG WAS having a fine time if you set…

  508

  Forty

  THE SUN WAS sinking into the sea. Shadows

  were

  lengthening…

  520

  Forty-One

  DUCK WAS SO high up, he could see smoke rising…

  535

  Forty-Two

  DRAKE WAS FIRST up the trail. He was limping, one…

  545

  Forty-Three

  DRAKE’S WHIP HAND spun Diana like a top.

  552

  Forty-Four

  THE MINE SHAFT was collapsed.

  564

  Forty-Five

  KIND OF LIKE the first time, Duck thought.

  575

  Forty-Six

  CAINE STOOD IN darkness.

  577

  Forty-Seven

  IT WAS LATE the next day before Edilio could bring…

  582

  Three Days Later

  584

  About the Author

  Praise

  Credits

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Maps

  T H E

  FAY Z

  GE

  TROTTER’S RID

  a

  old cannery

  a

  r

  Alameda

  m

  p

  l

  A — hardware and day care

  B — burned apartment building

  C — church

  D — town hall

  E — Quinn’s square

  F — Astrid’s house

  G — Sam’s house

  H — McDonald’s

  I — Bully Row

  J — firehouse

  K — school

  P E R D I D O

  B E AC H CALIFORNIA

  r

  g

  s

  FAYZ wall

  v

  h

  b

  Avenue

  b

  f

  c

  b

  ONE

  106 HOURS, 29 MINUTES

  S A M T E M P L E W A S on his board. And there were waves.

  Honest-to-God swooping, crashing, churning, salt-smelling,

  white-foam waves.

  And there he was about two hundred feet out, the perfect

  place to catch a wave, lying facedown, hands and feet in the

  water, almost numb from cold, while at the same time his

  wet-suit-encased, sunbaked back was steaming.

&n
bsp; Quinn was there, too, lolling beside him, waiting for a

  good ride, waiting for the wave that would pick them up and

  hurl them toward the beach.

  Sam woke suddenly, choking on dust.

  He blinked and looked around at the dry landscape.

  Instinctively he glanced toward the southwest, toward the

  ocean. Couldn’t see it from here. And there hadn’t been a

  wave in a long time.

  Sam believed he’d sell his soul to ride just one more real

  wave.

  He backhanded the sweat from his brow. The sun was like

  2 M I C H A E L

  G R A N T

  a blowtorch, way too hot for this early in the day. He’d had

  too little sleep. Too much stuff to deal with. Stuff. Always

  stuff.

  The heat, the sound of the engine, and the rhythmic jerking of the Jeep as it labored down the dusty road conspired to force his eyelids closed again. He squeezed them shut, hard,

  then opened them wide, willing himself to stay awake.

  The dream stayed with him. The memory taunted him. He

  could stand it all so much better, he told himself, the constant

  fear, the even more constant load of trivia and responsibility, if there were still waves. But there had been no waves for three months. No waves at all, nothing but ripples.

  Three months after the coming of the FAYZ, Sam had still

  not learned to drive a car. Learning to drive would have been

  one more thing, one more hassle, one more pain in the butt.

  So Edilio Escobar drove the Jeep, and Sam rode shotgun. In

  the backseat Albert Hillsborough sat stiff and quiet. Beside

  him was a kid named E.Z., singing along to his iPod.

  Sam pushed his fingers through his hair, which was way

  too long. He hadn’t had a haircut in more than three months.

  His hand came back dirty, clotted with dust. Fortunately the

  electricity was still on in Perdido Beach, which meant light,

  and perhaps better still, hot water. If he couldn’t go for a cold

  surf, he could at least look forward to a long, hot shower after

  they all got back.

  A shower. Maybe a few minutes with Astrid, just the two

  of them. A meal. Well, not a meal, no. A can of something

  slimy was not a meal. His hurried breakfast had been a can

  of collard greens.

  H U N G E R 3

  It was amazing what you could gag down when you got

  hungry enough. And Sam, like everyone else in the FAYZ,

  was hungry.

  He closed his eyes, not sleepy now, just wanting to see

  Astrid’s face clearly.

  It was the one compensation. He’d lost his mother, his

  favorite pastime, his privacy, his freedom, and the entire

  world he’d known . . . but he’d gained Astrid.

  Before the FAYZ he’d always thought of her as unapproachable. Now, as a couple, they seemed inevitable. But he wondered whether he’d have ever done more than gaze wistfully from afar if the FAYZ hadn’t happened.

  Edilio applied a little brake. The road ahead was torn up.

  Someone had gouged the dirt road, drawn rough angled lines

  across it.

  Edilio pointed to a tractor set up to pull a plow. The tractor

  was overturned in the middle of a field. On the day the FAYZ

  came the farmer had disappeared, along with the rest of the

  adults, but the tractor had kept right on going, tearing up the

  road, running straight into the next field, stopping only when

  an irrigation ditch had tipped it over.

  Edilio took the Jeep over the furrows at a crawl, then

  picked up speed again.

  There wasn’t much to the left or right of the road, just bare

  dirt, fallow fields, and patches of colorless grass broken up by

  the occasional lonely stand of trees. But up ahead was green,

  lots of it.

  Sam turned in his seat to get Albert’s attention. “So what is

  that up there, again?”

  4 M I C H A E L

  G R A N T

  “Cabbage,” Albert said. Albert was an eighth grader,

  narrow-shouldered, self-contained; dressed in pressed khaki

  pants, a pale blue polo shirt, and brown loafers—what a much

  older person would call “business casual.” He was a kid no

  one had paid much attention to before, just one of a handful

  of African-American students at the Perdido Beach School.

  But no one ignored Albert anymore: he had reopened and

  run the town’s McDonald’s. At least he had until the burgers

  and the fries and the chicken nuggets ran out.

  Even the ketchup. That was gone now, too.

  The mere memory of hamburgers made Sam’s stomach

  growl. “Cabbage?” he repeated.

  Albert nodded toward Edilio. “That’s what Edilio says.

  He’s the one who found it yesterday.”

  “Cabbage?” Sam asked Edilio.

  “It makes you fart,” Edilio said with a wink. “But we can’t

  be too choosy.”

  “I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if we had coleslaw,” Sam said.

  “Tell you the truth, I could happily eat a cabbage right now.”

  “You know what I had for breakfast?” Edilio asked. “A can

  of succotash.”

  “What exactly is succotash?” Sam asked.

  “Lima beans and corn. Mixed together.” Edilio braked at

  the edge of the field. “Not exactly fried eggs and sausage.”

  “Is that the official Honduran breakfast?” Sam asked.

  Edilio snorted. “Man, the official Honduran breakfast

  when you’re poor is a corn tortilla, some leftover beans, and

  on a good day a banana. On a bad day it’s just the tortilla.” He

  H U N G E R 5

  killed the engine and set the emergency brake. “This isn’t my

  first time being hungry.”

  Sam stood up in the Jeep and stretched before jumping

  to the ground. He was a naturally athletic kid but in no way

  physically intimidating. He had brown hair with glints of

  gold, blue eyes, and a tan that reached all the way down to his

  bones. Maybe he was a little taller than average, maybe in a

  little better shape, but no one would pick him for a future in

  the NFL.

  Sam Temple was one of the two oldest people in the FAYZ.

  He was fifteen.

  “Hey. That looks like lettuce,” E.Z. said, wrapping his ear-

  buds carefully around his iPod.

  “If only,” Sam said gloomily. “So far we have avocados,

  that’s fine, and cantaloupes, which is excellent news. But we

  are finding way too much broccoli and artichokes. Lots of

  artichokes. Now cabbage.”

  “We may get the oranges back eventually,” Edilio said.

  “The trees looked okay. It was just the fruit was ripe and

  didn’t get picked, so they rotted.”

  “Astrid says things are ripening at weird times,” Sam said.

  “Not normal.”

  “As Quinn likes to say, ‘We’re a long way from normal,’ ”

  Edilio said.

  “Who’s going to pick all these?” Sam wondered aloud. It

  was what Astrid would have called a rhetorical question.

  Albert started to say something, then stopped himself

  when E.Z. said, “Hey, I’ll go grab one of these cabbages right

  6 M I C H A E L

  G R A N T

  now. I’m starving.” He unwound the earbuds a
nd stuck them

  back in.

  The cabbages were a foot or so apart within their

  rows, and each row was two feet from the next. The soil

  in between was crumbled and dry. The cabbages looked

  more like thick-leafed houseplants than like something you

  might actually eat.

  It didn’t look much different from a dozen other fields Sam

  had seen during this farm tour.

  No, Sam corrected himself, there is something different.

  He couldn’t quite figure out what it was, but there was something different here. Sam frowned and tried to work through the feeling he was having, tried to decide why he felt something was . . . off.

  It was quieter, maybe.

  Sam took a swig from a water bottle. He heard Albert

  counting under his breath, shading his eyes with his hand

  and multiplying. “Totally just a ballpark guess, figuring each

  cabbage weighs maybe a pound and a half, right? I’m thinking we have ourselves maybe thirty thousand pounds of cabbage.”

  “I don’t even want to think about how many farts this all

  translates to,” E.Z. yelled over his shoulder as he marched

  purposefully into the field.

  E.Z. was a sixth grader but seemed older. He was tall for

  his age, a little chubby. Thin, dishwater-blond hair hung

  down to his shoulders. He was wearing a Hard Rock Cafe

  T-shirt from Cancún. E.Z. was a good name for him: he was

  H U N G E R 7

  easy to get along with, would banter easily, laugh easily, and

  usually find whatever fun there was to be found. He stopped

  about two dozen rows into the field and said, “This looks like

  the cabbage for me.”

  “How can you tell?” Edilio called back.

  E.Z. pulled one earbud out and Edilio repeated the question.

  “I’m tired of walking. This must be the right cabbage. How

  do I pick it?”

  Edilio shrugged. “Man, I think you may need a knife.”

  “Nah.” E.Z. replaced the earbud, bent over, and yanked at

  the plant. He got a handful of leaves for his effort.

  “You see what I’m saying,” Edilio commented.

  “Where are the birds?” Sam asked, finally figuring out

  what was bothering him.

  “What birds?” Edilio said. Then he nodded. “You’re right,

  man, there’ve been seagulls all over the other fields. Especially in the morning.”

  Perdido Beach had quite a population of seagulls. In the

  old days they had lived off bits of bait left by fishermen and

  food scraps dropped near trash cans. There were no more

  food scraps in the FAYZ. Not anymore. So the enterprising

  gulls had gone into the fields to compete with crows and

  pigeons. One of the reasons so much of the food they’d found

  was spoiled.

  “They must not like cabbage,” Albert commented. He

  sighed. “I don’t honestly know anyone who does.”

  E.Z. squatted down before the cabbage, rubbed his hands

  8 M I C H A E L