Hunger

to shoot anyone who comes down this road.”
    “I can pop in and out before they can shoot me,” Taylor said. She wasn’t quite eager.
    “Sam, I can plow past that gate and take a little tour insidethe facility and be back in thirty seconds,” Brianna argued. “They most likely won’t even see me.”
    “If you’re going so fast, they don’t see you, how you going to see them?” Edilio asked.
    She pointed at her face. “Fast eyes, Dillio, very fast eyes.”
    Sam and Edilio both grinned. But it didn’t last long.
    “Okay, listen to me, Breeze,” Sam said. “Do not go anywhere but to the gate. That’s not a suggestion, that’s me telling you.”
    “I can do it all in no time,” Brianna argued.
    “Breeze, I need you to hear me on this: do not go into that plant.”
    Brianna pouted. “You’re the boss, boss.”
    “Okay,” Sam said. “Take off—” He stopped, realizing he was talking to air.
    “Long gone,” Edilio commented. “Girl doesn’t hang around.”
    “I can help, too,” Taylor said, a little resentful.
    “You’ll get your chance,” Sam said.
    Dekka was climbing out of the SUV. “Did you send Breeze?”
    “Yeah. She should be back any second now,” Edilio said.
    “I’m ready to do this,” Dekka said. “Driving with Orc in the back? Boy is farting something terrible.”
    “Cabbage,” Taylor said.
    “Any second now. You know Brianna,” Edilio said.
    The four of them waited. Sam kept his eyes on the road. Not that he would see her when she got back.
    “Taking a while,” Taylor said. “I mean, for her.”
    No one spoke after that. Not as two minutes passed. Then three minutes. Five interminable minutes.
    “Oh, my God,” Dekka whispered. “Brianna.” She closed her eyes and seemed to be praying.
    “She’d be back by now,” Sam said heavily. “If she was coming.”
    He felt sick to his stomach. Sick down to his bones.

    Lana felt the dread growing on her. She was prepared. She knew it was coming.
    “What is this place?” Cookie asked, feeling something, too, no doubt, but only the ghosts, not the living, seething evil that was now so close.
    “It used to be a mining town,” Lana said. “Gold miners, back in, like, the 1800s or whatever.”
    “Like cowboys?”
    “I guess so.”
    They walked through the ghost town, the shabby, tumble-down wreck of a place that had no doubt once been someone’s dream of a future metropolis. The mines had mostly played out back in the late 1800s.
    It was still possible to make out where the main street had been. And Lana supposed if you really thought about it, you’d be able to figure out which of the piles of sticks was the hotel, the saloon, the hardware store, or whatever. Here and there a tenuous wall or rickety chimney still stood outlined in silver. But roofs had mostly collapsed long ago, storefronts had pancaked. Maybe it was an earthquake or something that hadtumbled the weakened structures. Maybe it was just time.
    Only one building seemed more or less intact, the roughhewn warehouse where Hermit Jim had hidden his gas-fired gold smelter and his pickup truck.
    “That’s where we’re going,” Lana said, nodding in the direction of the structure.
    Lana’s gaze was drawn beyond the building to the trail that led up the side of the hill. She knew she would have to walk up that trail, up that hill to the mine shaft, and dig the keys from the mummified miner’s pocket.
    Not her favorite idea. Being even this close to the thing in the mine shaft laid shadows on her soul. She could feel it up there, the Darkness, and she had the terrible feeling that it could sense her closeness as well.
    Did the Darkness know she was coming?
    Did it know why?
    Did she know? For sure?
    “I know why I’m here,” Lana said. “I know.”
    “Of course,” Cookie said. He seemed to think she was rebuking him.
    Patrick was quiet, cowed. He remembered, too.
    They were in the warehouse. Lana checked the propane gas tank. There was a gauge that showed it half full. That should be enough.
    She knelt and checked the support for the tank. It rested on a sort of steel frame, rusted, but not, thankfully, bolted down to the ground or anything. The cradle rested on dirt. Good.
    “What we have to do, Cookie, is get this tank into thattruck. In a little while I’m going to get the keys. We’ll back the truck up to the tank. But first, let’s see how it all works, huh?”
    “You got it, Healer.”
    She pressed her leg against the bottom edge