Hunger

them would make them safe. She microwaved them till they were rubbery but fragrant.
    Orsay had smelled them cooking and had been driven nearly crazy by the smell. One of the boys had attackedAllison, beaten, her and stolen the mushrooms as Allison wept and cursed.
    Within a few minutes the boy was vomiting. Then he began raving, crying, shouting at things that weren’t there. He’d fallen silent after a while. No one had entered his room since to see if he was dead or alive.
    Some kids had gathered grass and weeds and boiled them. They had not gotten very sick, just a little. But they hadn’t really gotten full, either.
    Kids were thin. Their cheeks were hollow. They didn’t look like starvation victims yet, because the serious hunger was only a few days old. But soon, Orsay knew, bellies would bloat and hair would turn red and crisp, and deadly resigned lethargy would set in. She had done a report once on famine, never imagining it would be something she would experience.
    More and more kids made dark jokes about cannibalism.
    Orsay was less and less sure she wouldn’t go along.
    Unless, of course, she herself was the meal.
    She was lying in her bungalow, in the woods, out behind the school, watching an old download of a show that seemed to be from another planet. The download came with a commercial for Doritos. The characters ate food all the time. It was impossible to believe that world had ever been real.
    Suddenly, Orsay was aware of another person in the room. She didn’t see him or hear him. She smelled him.
    He smelled like…like fish. Her stomach rumbled and her mouth watered.
    “Who’s there?” she demanded, frightened.
    Bug appeared slowly. He emerged from the background of Mose’s shabby room.
    “What do you want?” Orsay demanded, not really afraid of Bug now that she knew it was him. The smell, the fat, luscious aroma of fish, had her slavering like a hungry dog.
    “I need you to do something,” Bug said.
    “Did Caine send you?”
    Bug hesitated. He glanced aside and for a few seconds faded into the background again. Then he reappeared. His face was twisted into a very un-Bug-like expression of determination. He glanced warily over his shoulder as if fearing that some second version of himself was lurking, listening. “They have fish.”
    “I can smell it,” Orsay whimpered.
    “I brought some for you,” Bug said.
    Orsay felt like she might faint. “Can I have it?”
    “First you have to promise you’ll do what I say.”
    Orsay knew Bug was a little creep. Who knew what he would want her to do? But she also knew she wasn’t going to resist. There was just about nothing she wouldn’t do for food. Fish would be much, much better than the other type of meat kids were considering.
    “What do I have to do?” Orsay asked.
    “We have to take a walk. Then you have to do your thing. There’s some, like, creature or whatever. They want you to watch its dreams. See what it wants.”
    “The fish,” Orsay whispered urgently. “Do you have it with you?”
    Bug drew a Ziploc bag out of the pocket of his hoodie. Inside was white, crumbly, smashed-up fish. Orsay lunged for it, tore the packet open with trembling fingers, and ate it like an animal, sticking her mouth into the bag.
    She didn’t stop until she had turned the bag inside out and licked the plastic clean. “Do you have any more?” she begged.
    “First, you do your thing. Then we go back to town and talk.”
    “We’re doing this for the Perdido Beach kids?” Orsay asked.
    Bug snorted. “We’re doing this for whoever gives us the best offer. Right now, Sam’s guys have some fish. So we’re with them. But if Drake gets hold of us, somehow, we’ve been on his side all along. Right?”
    “I’m too weak to walk a long way,” Orsay said.
    “We only have to get as far as the highway. A guy will be there with a car.”

THIRTY-FOUR
    06 HOURS , 3 MINUTES
    EDILIO DROVE THE creepy little mutant, Bug, and the girl he’d brought along with him. He wasn’t happy about having to do this. Mostly he wanted to stay in town. Nightfall could bring trouble. And Sam…well, Sam wasn’t acting like Sam.
    Sam had looked like a zombie listening to Quinn and Albert’s confession last night.
    And then, this morning, Bug told his story. It was every kind of bad news rolled into one shamefaced confession after another, and Sam had just stared. Fortunately Astrid had stepped up.
    Sam, Edilio, Brianna, Taylor, Quinn, Albert, Astrid—the