Hunger

please his true master.
    “We have to bring it to him. We have to feed him,” Caine said.
    “Feed him what?”
    Caine sighed and looked at Jack. “The food that brings the light to his darkness. The same thing that brings light to Perdido Beach. The uranium.”
    Jack shook his head slowly, understanding but not wanting to understand. “Caine, how do we do that? How do we take uranium from the core? How do we move it for miles across the desert? It’s heavy. It’s dangerous. It’s radioactive.”
    “Caine, this is crazy,” Diana pleaded. “Drag radioactive uranium across the desert? How does this help you? How does this help any of us? What is the point?”
    Caine hesitated. He frowned. She was right. Why should he serve the Darkness? Let the creature feed itself. Caine had problems of his own, his own needs, his own—
    A roar so loud, it seemed to vibrate the walls, filled the room. It knocked Caine to his knees. He clapped his hands over his ears, trying to block it out, but it went on and on, as he cringed and covered himself and fought the sudden desire to void his bowels.
    It stopped. The silence rang.
    Slowly Caine opened his eyes. Diana looked at him like he had gone crazy. Drake stared incredulous, on the edge of laughing. Jack merely looked worried.
    They hadn’t heard it. That inhuman, irresistible roar had been for Caine alone.
    Punishment. The gaiaphage would be obeyed.
    “What is going on with you?” Diana asked.
    Drake narrowed his eyes and smirked openly. “It’s the Darkness. Caine is no longer running things. There’s a new boss.”
    Diana gave voice to Caine’s own thoughts.
    “Poor Caine,” she said. “You poor, screwed-up boy.”

    For Lana each step seemed too loud, like she was walking on a giant bass drum. Her legs were stiff, knees welded solid. Her feet felt each pebble as though she were barefoot.
    Her heart pounded so hard, it seemed the whole world must be able to hear it.
    No, no, it was just her imagination. There was no soundbut the soft cornflake crunch of sneakers on gravel. Her heart beat for her ears only. She was no louder than a mouse.
    But she was convinced it could hear her. Like an owl listening and watching for prey in the night, it watched and it waited, and all her stealth was like a brass band to it, him, the thing, the Darkness.
    The moon was out. Or what passed for the moon. The stars shone. Or something very like stars. Silvery light illuminated tips of brush, the seams of a boulder, and cast deep shadows everywhere else.
    Lana picked her way along, holding herself tight. The gun was in her right hand, hanging by her side, brushing against her thigh. A flashlight—off for now—stuck up from her pocket.
    You think you own me. You think you control me. No one owns me. No one controls me.
    Two points of light winked in the shadows ahead.
    Lana froze.
    The twin lights stared at her. They did not move.
    Lana raised the gun and took aim. She aimed at the space directly between the two points of light.
    The explosion lit up the night for a split second.
    In that flash she saw the coyote.
    Then it was gone and her ears were ringing.
    From back down the trail she heard a wooden door creaking, slamming. Cookie’s voice. “Lana! Lana!”
    “I’m okay, Cookie. Get back inside. Lock the door! Do it!” she yelled.
    She heard the door slam.
    “I know you’re out there, Pack Leader,” Lana said. “I’m not so helpless this time.”
    Lana started moving again. The explosion, the bullet—which almost certainly had missed its target—had settled her down. She knew now that the mutant coyote leader was there, watching. She was sure the Darkness also knew.
    Good. Fine. Better. No more sneaking. She could march to the mine and take the key from the corpse. And then march back to the building where Cookie waited with Patrick.
    The gun felt good in her hand.
    “Come on, Pack Leader,” she purred. “Not scared of a bullet, are you?”
    But her bravado faded as she drew near the mine entrance. The moonlight painted the crossbeam above the entrance with faintest silver. Below it a black mouth waiting greedily to swallow her up.
    Come to me.
    Imagination. There was no voice.
    I have need of you.
    Lana clicked the flashlight on and aimed the beam at the mouth of the cave. She might as well have pointed it at the night sky. The beam illuminated nothing.
    Flashlight in her left hand. Pistol heavy in her right. The smell of cordite from the shot she’d fired. The