Fear: A Gone Novel

deep breath. “Get outta here, Quinn.”
    Quinn said, “No. I don’t think I will.”
    “Hey. I’m letting you off the hook, fisherman, okay? I’m being a good guy. You can go tell everyone the last thing I said was, ‘Just get out of here, Quinn, and try to stay alive.’”
    “Quinn,” Sam said. “You’ve got nothing to prove, man.”
    They had found Quinn a pistol. A revolver. It had three bullets.
    “I’m in this,” Quinn said shakily.
    “You have a plan, Sammy boy?” Caine asked.
    “Yeah.” He extinguished the nearest Sammy sun, plunging them into darkness. The next one back was a hundred yards down the road. “Quinn, you start walking backward toward the last light. They won’t have any depth perception, no more than we do in this light. They’ll keep coming toward you. Caine, you drop left; I drop right; we hit them when they’re fifty feet out. Hopefully before Penny can find a target.”
    “Great plan,” Caine said a little sarcastically. But he melted into the darkness on the left-hand side of the road.
    “Quinn. My friend. What Caine said before. Save one bullet.” With that Sam plunged into the deep, enveloping darkness.
    He watched Quinn begin to walk backward. It would mean Quinn was in darkness until he neared the next Sammy sun back. If Drake had seen them at all, he probably hadn’t been able to tell how many there were. But he would eventually be able to see Quinn. At that point he would fixate, anxious to take whoever it was standing in his way.
    There might be an opportunity there. A few confused seconds where Caine and Sam could strike unexpectedly. If they were fast and lucky they could take out at least one of the three and reduce the odds.
    Who was that third person?
    Drake. Penny. And someone—or something—glowing like an old headlight.
    Whoever it is, he told himself, first go for Penny.
    Penny was the one to fear.
    “Dada,” Gaia said.
    Diana stared down at her bright, glowing child. She was already the size of a two-year-old. There were teeth in her mouth. There was hair—dark like her parents’—on her head. Her movements were already deliberate and controlled, no more wild lack of coordination. Diana wondered if she could already walk.
    “Did you say ‘Dada’?”
    Gaia was looking fixedly at the dark off to the right. Straight ahead a lone figure stood beneath the light of a Sammy sun. Beyond him at least two fires could be seen, one fairly close and dramatic.
    Gaia was in her head again, not straining to use her child mouth, but reaching straight into Diana’s memories. Pictures of Caine. And suddenly it was clear.
    “It’s an ambush!” Diana said.
    “Shut the—” Drake said, and was hurled bodily onto his back with such sudden force that he skidded clear out of sight.
    A beam of terrible green light shot from the other direction.
    Penny had reacted faster to Diana’s warning. She was already moving to hide behind Diana when the light split the night. Half of Penny’s hair frizzled and burned, leaving a terrible smell.
    A roar from the dark behind them and Drake was rushing forward, his terrible whip at the ready, searching for a target. Light sliced deep into his side. He spun and fell. But even as he fell the burn was healing.
    Diana saw Sam rush from the darkness. He yelled, “Diana, get down!” and fired at the spot where Drake had been a split second earlier.
    Suddenly, revealed by the flash of light from Sam’s palms: Caine.
    It had been four months since she had seen him. Just a little longer since together they had made Gaia.
    Their eyes met. Caine froze. He stared at Diana. A look of pain creased his brow.
    That moment’s hesitation was too long.
    Caine reeled back, slapping at his body with hands weirdly encrusted on their backs. Slapping and yelling, and then Sam was yelling, “It’s Penny, it’s just Penny, Caine!”
    Caine seemed to get control of himself, though barely, and for only a moment as he raised his hands and, with a wild sweep of both hands, flung Penny into the dark.
    It was a mistake. An invisible Penny was even more dangerous.
    Sam saw it and swept his killing beam around in a semicircle, searching for her. A flash of Penny, running. But when the beam pursued her, burning up the shrubbery, turning sand to bubbling glass, she wasn’t there.
    Penny was not there. Astrid was.
    Astrid in flames. Running, screaming toward Sam. Her skin was crisping. There was a smell of burned meat. Her blond hair was like a