Fear (9 page)

“What the…,” Sam muttered. “You see anything like this, Howard?”

Howard shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t notice it. Anyway, I don’t walk by the barrier that much.”

“No,” Sam agreed. “You just go back and forth to your still at Coates.”

Howard felt a sudden chill.

“Of course I know about your still,” Sam said. “You know it’s on the other side of the line. It’s Caine’s territory. He catches you over there, you won’t like it, unless you’re sharing your profits with him.”

Howard winced and decided to say nothing.

Sam stood looking at the stain. “It’s growing. I just saw it grow. Just now.”

“I saw it, too,” Sinder said. She looked to Sam for reassurance. Weird, Howard realized: he, too, was looking to Sam for reassurance. As much as he and Sam had been enemies at times, and still were, more or less, he wanted Sam to have some quick answer to this stain thing.

The troubled look on Sam’s face was not reassuring.

“What is it?” Howard asked again.

Sam shook his head slowly. His tanned face looked suddenly so much older than his barely fifteen years. Howard had a vision of Sam as an old man, hair gray and thin, face creased with deep worry lines. It was a face marked by all the pain and worry Sam had endured.

Howard had the sudden, ridiculous urge to offer Sam a drink. He looked like he could use it.

ASTRID STOOD
GAZING
down at the lake from the heights to the west. The barrier went straight into the lake, of course, cutting it roughly in half. The lake’s shoreline bulged out so that she could no longer keep following the barrier without going out of her way. Anyway, soon it would be too dark to see the stain. Time to turn toward the human habitations.

The sun was down and a small, far-off bonfire was burning in a circle of tents and trailers. Astrid couldn’t see the kids around the fire, but she could see shapes occasionally crossing in front of the flames.

Now that she was here she could no longer even pretend to suppress her emotions. She was going to see Sam. Others, too, and she would no doubt have to endure stares and greetings and probably insults.

All that she could handle. But she was going to see Sam. That was the thing. Sam.

Sam, Sam, Sam.

“Stop it,” she told herself.

A crisis was coming. She had a duty to help her friends understand it.

“Weak,” she muttered.

The suspicion had been growing in her head that she was just coming up with an excuse to see Sam. At the same time she suspected that she was looking for an excuse to back off and avoid her duty to help.

It occurred to Astrid that in days gone by she might have prayed for guidance. It brought a wistful smile to her lips. What had happened to that Astrid? Where had she gone to? Astrid hadn’t prayed since…

“‘Put aside childish things,’” she quoted mentally. A Bible quote, which was ironic, she supposed. She shifted her pack and slipped her shotgun off her sore right shoulder onto her left. She started toward the fire.

On the way she worked out a simple method for measuring the spread of the dark stain on the barrier. If someone had a functioning digital camera it would be easy enough. She ran the math in her head. Maybe five sample locations. Calculate the progression day by day and she would have pretty good data.

Numbers still gave her pleasure. That was the great thing about numbers: it required no faith to believe that two plus two equaled four. And math never, ever condemned you for your thoughts and desires.

“Who’s there?” a voice cried from the shadows.

“Take it easy,” Astrid said.

“Who is it or I shoot,” the voice said.

“It’s Astrid.”

“No way.”

A boy, probably no older than ten, stepped out from behind a bush. He had a rifle leveled, with his finger near but not directly on the trigger.

“Is that you, Tim?” Astrid asked.

“Whoa. It is you,” the boy said. “I thought you were dead.”

“You know what Mark Twain said? ‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’”

“Yep. That’s you, all right.” Tim shouldered his weapon. “I guess you’re okay to go on in. I’m not supposed to let anyone pass unless I know them. But I know you.”

“Thanks. Good to see you well. Last time I saw you, you had the flu.”

“Flu’s all gone now. Hope it doesn’t ever come back.”

Astrid walked on, and now the trail was clearer and easier to follow, even as evening crept closer.

She passed a few tents. An old-fashioned Airstream trailer. Then she reached the circle of tents and trailers that ringed the bonfire. She heard kids laughing.

She approached nervously. The first to see her was a little girl, who nudged the older girl beside her. Astrid instantly recognized Diana.

Diana looked at her without showing the least surprise and said, “Well, hello, Astrid. Where have you been?”

Conversation and laughter died, and thirty or more faces, each lit orange and gold, turned to look.

“I’ve been … away,” Astrid said.

Diana stood up and Astrid realized with a shock that she was pregnant.

Diana saw the look on Astrid’s face, smirked, and said, “Yes, all kinds of interesting things have happened while you were away.”

“I need to see Sam,” Astrid said.

That drew a laugh from Diana. “No doubt,” Diana said. “I’ll take you.”

Diana led the way to the houseboat. She still moved with unself-conscious grace despite the bulge. Astrid wished she moved like that.

“By the way, you didn’t happen to see a kid, a girl, on your way here, did you? Her name is Bonnie. About seven, I think.”

“No. Is someone missing?”

Edilio was sitting in a folding chair on the top deck, keeping watch over the scattered tents, trailers, Winnebagos, and boats. He had an automatic rifle on his lap.

“Hi, Edilio,” Astrid said.

Edilio jumped up and clambered down to the dock. He swung his rifle out of the way and threw his arms around Astrid. “Thank God. It’s about time.”

Astrid felt tears forming. “Missed you,” she admitted.

“I guess you’re here to see Sam.”

“Yes.”

Edilio nodded to Diana, dismissing her. He drew Astrid up onto the boat and then into the empty cabin. “There’s a little problem with that,” Edilio said in a whisper.

“He doesn’t want to see me?”

“He’s, um… He’s out.”

Astrid laughed. “I assume from your conspiratorial look you mean he’s up to something dangerous?”

Edilio grinned and shrugged. “He’s still Sam. He should be back by morning. Come on; let’s get you something to eat and drink. You can sleep here tonight.”

The pickup truck crept down the road. Crept for many reasons: First, it saved gas. Second, they were driving with the lights out because headlights would be visible a long way off.

Third, the road from the lake down to the highway was narrow and only sketchily paved.

And fourth: Sam had never really learned to drive.

Sam was behind the wheel. Dekka was beside him. Computer Jack was in the cramped space behind the front seat, wedged in and not happy.

“No offense, Sam, but you’re going off the road. Off the road! Sam! You’re going off the road!”

“No, I’m not; shut up,” Sam snapped as he guided the huge truck back onto the road, narrowly avoiding overturning in the ditch.

“This is how I’m going to die,” Jack said. “Crammed in like this in a ditch.”

“Oh, please,” Sam said. “You’re strong enough to tear your way out even if we did crash.”

“Do me a favor and rescue me, too,” Dekka said.

“We’re fine. I have this down now,” Sam said.

“Coyotes will totally eat us,” Jack said. “Tear our guts open and…” He fell silent.

Sam glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Jack mouth the word “sorry.”

Dekka sighed. “I hate when you guys do that. Stop treating me like I’m going to fall apart. Not helpful.”

Saving Dekka’s life from the infestation of bugs had meant cutting her open. Lana had been there to heal her, but Dekka had not come through unscathed. She put on a good act, but Dekka was no longer the fearless, indestructible girl she had once seemed to be.

That and Brianna’s obvious rejection of her had left her withdrawn, defeated. Hopeless.

“I hope Brianna’s okay,” Jack said. “She shouldn’t be running around in the dark.”

“As long as she sticks to the road and takes it slow she’ll be all right,” Sam said, hoping to forestall any further conversation about Brianna. Jack was extremely intelligent in areas having to do with technology. But he could be completely, steadfastly clueless when it came to humans.

Sure enough, he stepped right in it.

“Brianna’s been weird lately,” Jack said. “Ever since we came up to the lake. She’s like, all…”

Sam refused to ask him to continue.

Dekka shot a sidelong look at Sam and said, “She’s like all what, Jack?”

“Like all… I don’t know. Like she wants to … you know…”

“No, I don’t know,” Dekka growled. “So if you’ve got something to say, spit it out.”

“I don’t know. Like, be friendly with me. Like, she made out with me the other day.”

“Poor you,” Dekka said in a voice that would have frozen a more sensitive person into a block of ice.

Jack spread his hands. “I was busy. She could see I was busy.”

At that point Sam decided it might be a good idea to weave off the road and knock into a fence post.

“Sam! Sam, Sam, Sam!” Jack yelled. He jerked in fear, which, because of his ridiculous strength, pushed the seat so hard Sam was smacked into the wheel.

“Ow!” Sam stepped on the brake. “Okay, that’s enough. Do either of you two want to drive? No? Then shut up. Jeez, my head is bleeding.”

The truck moved again and soon the wheels went from gravel to the smooth pavement of the highway. Sam drove a quarter mile down the highway, spotted a landmark, and parked on the shoulder of the road.

“Cut across here. Right?” Sam asked.

Dekka peered out, nodded. “Yeah, this looks right.”

They climbed out and stretched. It was still half a mile to the shore. Half a mile across a zeke field.

The zekes hadn’t bothered anyone since the humans and the worms had worked out the arrangement of tossing blue bats and other inedible—to humans—animals into the fields to feed the worms. But just in case, Dekka had some baggies of fish entrails and bits and pieces of raccoon and deer tendons and the like in a pack. She emptied one of these out at her feet and instantly the zekes seethed up out of the ground and swarmed over the food. But left the three of them unharmed.

“The stuff we get used to,” Jack said, and shook his head.

Sam said, “Listen, guys, you’ll hear about it soon enough: there’s something hinky going on with the barrier.”

“Kinky?”

“No, hinky. Weird.” Sam told them what he had seen.

“Maybe it’s Sinder’s powers causing it,” Jack suggested.

Sam nodded. “Possible. So tomorrow we’re going to have to explore a bit, see if the same thing is going on anywhere else.”

They had crossed the fields and now had to make it through a strip of weeds and sea grasses that ran along the top of the bluff.

It had been a while since Sam had seen the ocean. Not since they’d gone to the lake. It was black, painted with only the faintest glimmers of starlight. The moon was not out yet. The sound of the ocean had long been muted: there were no real waves in the FAYZ. But even the soft
shush … shush … shush
of water lapping on gritty sand touched something in Sam’s heart.

They had miscalculated their location by a few hundred yards and had to walk north along the sand in order to find the crushed container. The steel box—a shipping container with
MAERSK
written down the side—had fallen from a great height when Dekka lost control of it hundreds of feet in the air.

The contents—long, heavily constructed crates—had spilled out onto the sand. One of the crates had popped open. Sam decided to use a bit of battery power and flicked on a flashlight. Tail fins were clearly visible.

He flicked the light off. Paused.

Something not right.

“No one move,” Sam said. He played the light around on the sand. “Someone smoothed the sand.”

“Say what?” Jack asked.

“Look how flat and neat the sand is here. It’s like when they drag the beaches at night and in the morning all the footprints and everything are gone.”

“You’re right,” Dekka said. “Someone’s been here and then covered their tracks.”

No one spoke for a few minutes as each thought through the implications.

“Caine could easily lift these things and move them,” Sam said.