Fear (Gone #5)(61)

Where was he?

The top third of the dome was brightening. But that only made it easier to see the tendrils of stain, like a circle of teeth, slowly advancing.

Where was Albert?

Quinn led his boats into the marina.

Last time, maybe, he thought. It made his heart want to break.

He had awakened very early in his camp up the coast—his biological clock ran on fisherman time—and seen that the stain would eat the sun.

They had fished for what they could get in the early hours. But the heart was gone from them. The strike was over whether they wanted it or not: their world was dying, and they had bigger problems than the injustice done, or the loyalty they owed, to Cigar.

Albert and three girls were coming down the dock toward him. The three girls each had a backpack. Albert carried the big ledger book he used to keep track of his businesses.

“Why aren’t you fishing?” Albert asked.

Quinn wasn’t buying that act. “Where are you going, Albert?”

Albert said nothing. How rare, Quinn thought: Albert speechless.

“Not really your concern, Quinn,” Albert said finally.

“You’re running out.”

Albert sighed. To his three companions he said, “Go ahead and get in the boat. The Boston Whaler. Yes, that one.” Turning back to Quinn he said, “It’s been good doing business with you. If you want, you can come with us. We have room for one more. You’re a good guy.”

“And my crews?”

“Limited resources, Quinn.”

Quinn laughed a little. “You’re a piece of work, aren’t you, Albert?”

Albert didn’t seem bothered. “I’m a businessman. It’s about making a profit and surviving. It so happens that I’ve kept everyone alive for months. So I guess I’m sorry if you don’t like me, Quinn, but what’s coming next isn’t about business. What’s coming next is craziness. We’re going back to the days of starvation. But in the dark this time. Craziness. Madness.”

His eyes glinted when he said that last word. Quinn saw the fear there. Madness. Yes, that would terrify the eternally rational businessman.

“All that happens if I stay,” Albert continued, “is that someone decides to kill me. I’ve already come too close to being dead once.”

“Albert, you’re a leader. You’re an organizer. We’re going to need that.”

Albert waved an impatient hand and glanced over to see that the Boston Whaler was ready. “Caine’s a leader. Sam’s a leader. Me?” Albert considered it for a second and shook the idea off. “No. I’m important, but I’m not a leader. Tell you what, though, Quinn: in my absence you speak for me. If that helps, good for you.”

Albert climbed down into the Boston Whaler. Pug started the engine and Leslie-Ann cast off the ropes. Some of the last gasoline in Perdido Beach sent the boat chugging out of the marina.

“Hey, Quinn!” Albert shouted back. “Don’t come to the island without showing a white flag. I don’t want to blow you up!”

Quinn wondered how he would ever reach the island. And how Albert would be able to see a white flag if he did. Unless something changed no one would be seeing anything. It would be a world of universal blindness.

That thought made him think of Cigar. Cigar and his creepy little BB eyes. He had to locate Cigar. Whatever happened, he was still crew.

He heard a surge of sound from the plaza, voices yelling, and one shrill voice screeching. He knew that screech.

He started toward town, then stopped and waited as his fishermen gathered around him. “Guys, I … I, um, don’t know what’s happening. We may never fish together again. And, you know… But I’m thinking it’s better if we stick together anyway.”

As an inspirational rallying speech, it was pretty lame. And yet, it worked. He walked toward the sounds of fear and anger with all his people behind him.

Lana kept her hoodie pulled close around her face. She did not want to be recognized by anyone in the crowd. She had come down to town only to see whether Caine would arrange an armed escort for her. She’d found a scene out of some deranged horror novel.

In eerie shadows the crowd of some two hundred kids, armed with spiked baseball bats, crowbars, table legs, chains, knives, and axes, dressed in mismatched rags and remnants of costume, stood facing a prancing, fist-shaking, wild-eyed, barefoot lunatic and a handsome boy with a crown stapled to his scalp and his hands trapped in a block of concrete.

Now they were taking up a chant. “Let him go. Let him go.”

They were chanting for Caine. They were scared to death and now, finally, they really wanted a king. They really wanted anyone who would save them.

“Let him go! Let him go!”

And a second chant: “We want the king! We want the king!”

Sudden screams from those closest to the steps. Lana could see kids falling back, clawing at their faces, crying out.

Penny had attacked!

“Kill the witch!” a voice bellowed.

A club went flying through the air. It missed Penny. A chunk of concrete, a knife, all missed.

Penny raised her hands over her head and screamed obscenities. A chunk of something hit her arm and drew blood.

The kids who’d been struck by her visions panicked and ran from her, but other kids were shoving forward. It was a melee, a tangle of arms and legs and weapons, shouts, orders; and suddenly from the far side came a wedge of disciplined kids moving forward with arms linked, pushing between the steps and the crowd.