Gone

his prize. Lana decided to let him have it. It was dead now, anyway, and she supposed Patrick was entitled to his own version of crazy.
    “Take it outside and you can keep it,” she said. She headed for the door but knelt first to straighten the rug. Then she noticed the hatch in the floor.
    Lana pulled the rug back farther, folding it up over the La-Z-Boy.
    She hesitated, not sure if she wanted to see what was under those floorboards. Maybe Hermit Jim was Serial Killer Jim.
    But it wasn’t like she had anything else to do. She shoved the recliner aside and rolled up the rug. There was a recessedsteel ring. She pulled it up.
    Lying in the space below were neatly stacked metal bricks, each maybe six or eight inches long, half as wide, and a third as thick.
    There was no question in Lana’s mind what they were.
    “Gold, Patrick. Gold.”
    The gold bars were heavy, twenty pounds or more, but she lifted enough out to be able to see the extent of the pile. Her best estimate was that there were fourteen in all, each at least twenty pounds.
    Lana had no idea what gold was worth, but she knew what a pair of gold hoop earrings cost.
    “That is a lot of earrings,” she said.
    Patrick looked into the hole with puzzlement.
    “You know what this means, Patrick? All this gold here and all those picks and shovels outside? Hermit Jim is a gold miner.”
    She ran outside to the lean-to where Hermit Jim had formerly parked his truck. Patrick bounded along, hoping for a game. Sometimes she tossed a broken axe handle for him to retrieve, but today Patrick was to be disappointed.
    For the first time Lana carefully followed the tire tracks. They were fading, but still visible. A hundred feet from the house, they split. Some tracks, older ones, it seemed, headed one direction, southeast, probably toward Perdido Beach. Somewhat fresher tracks headed toward the base of the ridge to the north.
    Perdido Beach she believed could be fifteen, maybe twentymiles or so away, a very long walk in the heat. But if the mine was at the base of the ridge, it didn’t look like even a tenth of that distance. Hermit Jim might be there. If he was, so was his truck. If he wasn’t, his truck might still be there, anyway.
    Lana felt a profound aversion to the idea of venturing into the wild again. She’d come very, very close to dying the last time. And the coyotes might still be out there, waiting patiently. But the mile to the mine? She could do that.
    She filled a plastic jug with water. She filled herself with water and made sure Patrick was hydrated, too. She stuffed her pockets with MREs—meals ready to eat—and packed more into a towel she twisted to form a pouch. She smeared herself with sunscreen from an emergency medical kit.
    “Let’s go for a walk, Patrick.”

    Edilio grinned as Astrid took her seat on the left side of the Boston Whaler. “Thank God. Now at least we got one smart person on this boat.”
    Edilio and Quinn pushed the boat off the sand, back into the gently lapping surf. They climbed aboard, then trailed their legs over the side to clean off clinging sand.
    Sam headed the boat out to sea, out toward the barrier. He hoped Drake was dead or at least badly injured. But he wasn’t sure and he wanted to get well away before the psychopath started shooting at them.
    It occurred to Sam that never before in his life had he wished someone dead. Eight days had passed since the coming of the FAYZ. Eight days and he’d seen enough craziness tolast him a lifetime. And now he was fantasizing about a kid being dead.
    Once he pushed the throttle forward and was beyond the range of any bullet, he started to feel better. This was as close as Sam had come to surfing since the coming of the FAYZ. The waves were unimpressive short chop, but the Whaler landed on them with wonderful force that translated up through his legs, rattled his teeth, and brought a smile to his lips. Salt spray was flying, and for Sam it was hard to be grim when the spray was lashing his face.
    “Thanks, Edilio. You too, Quinn,” Sam said. He was still furious at Quinn, but they were—literally—all in the same boat now.
    “See how much you want to thank me when I hurl all over this boat,” Edilio said. He was looking a little green.
    Sam reminded himself to keep a safe distance from the FAYZ barrier, but at the same time he wanted to keep it close. There was still the tantalizing possibility of a gap, a gate, an opening through which they could all sail and