Fear (A Gone Novel)

Sixteen

22 HOURS, 5 MINUTES

"SO. WHAT IS it?" Sam asked.

The "it" in question had been carried to a picnic table not far from the Pit. A plastic tarp had been spread out over and under it—after all, kids still used these tables sometimes. The picnic area was inconveniently far from town but still had a nice view of the lake. "It's a coyote, mostly," Astrid said. "With a human face. And back legs."

He glanced at her to see if she was really as calm as she seemed. No. She was not calm, but Astrid could do that, seem totally in control when she was freaking out inside.

She'd managed to seem calm when she came back from her quick trip with Edilio. She'd been calm when she said, "The sun may come out tomorrow. But it may not. And unless something changes that will be the last sunrise."

And he had put on a pretty good show of looking calm himself. He'd given Edilio orders to come up with a list of places where he could hang a Sammy sun. They'd had a very calm discussion of other ways to prepare: start food rationing, test the effect of Sammy suns on growing plants—after all, maybe his own personal light could trigger photosynthesis. Move to more use of nets for fishing; maybe a hovering Sammy sun would bring fish to the surface.

Plans they all knew were bull.

Plans that were about nothing but prolonging the agony.

Plans that would fall apart as soon as the kids in Perdido Beach realized the only light they were likely to see was up here at the lake.

Sam was going through the motions. Pretending. Putting on a brave face to delay the inevitable total social meltdown.

In the back of his mind the gears spun like mad. Solution. Solution. Solution. What was it?

Astrid had laid out a large chef's knife, a meat cleaver—borrowed from a seven-year-old who carried it for protection—and an X-Acto knife with a less-than-perfect blade.

"It's beyond creepy," Sam said.

"You don't have to be here, Sam," she said.

"No, I love watching autopsies of disgusting mutant monsters," Sam said. He felt like throwing up and she hadn't even started.

Solution. Solution. Solution.

Astrid was wearing pink Playtex gloves. She rolled the creature onto its back. "You can see the line where the human face stops and the fur starts. There's no human hair, just coyote. And look at the legs. There's no blurring. It's a clean line. But the bones inside? Those are coyote bones. It's articulated like a coyote leg covered with human skin and probably muscle, too." Sam had run out of useful things to say or energy to say them. He was fighting the surge of bile into his throat, hoping not to puke. A sudden gust of wind bringing the smell of the Pit did not help. Plus the creature itself smelled. Like wet dog and urine and sticky-sweet decay.

And throughout it all: solution. Where was the solution? Where was the answer?

Astrid took the cleaver and slammed it into the creature's exposed belly. It made a six-inch cut. There was no bleeding; dead things didn't bleed.

Sam braced himself to burn anything that suddenly emerged, Alien-like, from the cut. But nothing popped or squirmed out. He had terrible memories of what he'd had to do with Dekka. He'd burned her open to get the bugs out of her. It had been the most gruesome thing he'd ever done. And now as Astrid used the big knife to saw away and widen the cut, it was all coming back.

Astrid turned away from the smell to compose herself. She pulled out a rag and tied it over her mouth and nose. Like that would help. She looked like a very pretty bandit.