Lies

was walking toward them or away. But Caine knew the silhouette instantly.
    The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. No one else looked like that.
    No one.
    “No,” he whispered.
    “Do we keep going?” Penny asked.
    Caine ignored her. He turned to Diana. “Am I…am I crazy?”
    Diana said nothing. Her horrified expression gave Caine his answer.
    “He’s moving away,” Caine whispered.
    Smoke swirled and the apparition was gone.
    “Optical illusion,” Caine said.
    “So we keep going straight?”
    Caine shook his head. “No. Change of plans. We’ll cut through town. Head for the beach, then make our way back.”
    Diana pointed a shaking finger at the burning street beyond. “Go through the fire? Or go down streets that are going to be filled with Sam’s people?”
    “I have another way,” Caine said. He crossed quickly to a fence around the backyard of the closest house. “We’ll make our own street.”
    He raised a hand and the fence bulged inward. With a rending, tearing sound the fence gave way.
    “Backyard to backyard,” he said. “Let’s move.”

    “We did it, Leader! We did it!” Hank said. He had to shout to be heard over the roar of the flames.
    Antoine lay on the ground, crying loudly. He had pulled off his shirt to see the wound in his side. He lay there, fat and jiggly, as he cried about the pain.
    “Man up,” Hank said harshly.
    “Are you crazy?” Antoine cried. “I have a hole in me! I have a hole in me! Oh, God. It hurts so bad!”
    Perdido Beach was burning. At least a big part of it was. Zilclimbed atop a Winnebago in the beach parking lot. He could see much of the town from there.
    Sherman was ablaze. It looked like a volcano had erupted in the middle of town. And now the flames were advancing toward the center of town along Alameda.
    His doing, all of this. His creation. And now they would all know that he was serious. Now they would all know that you didn’t mess with Zil Sperry.
    “Take me to Lana,” Antoine moaned. “You guys have to take me to Lana!”
    The sun wasn’t up yet, so it wasn’t possible to see the smoke plume, but Zil sensed that it was huge. There was not a star to be seen in the sky.
    “Think we got Sam?” Lance asked.
    No one answered.
    “Should we go back and get more gas?” Turk asked. He, like everyone else, was ignoring Antoine.
    Zil couldn’t answer. A part of him wanted to burn it all down. Every last house. Every vacant, useless store. Burn it all down and dance up here atop the Winnebago while it burned.
    The plan was to create chaos. And to help the freak Caine to escape.
    “Leader, we need to know what to do,” Turk urged.
    “Help me,” Antoine moaned. “We gotta stick together, don’t we? Don’t we?”
    Hank said, “Antoine, shut up or I’ll shut you up.”
    “He burned a hole in me. Look at it! Look at it!”
    Hank glanced up at Zil. Zil turned away. He didn’t have an answer to the problem of Antoine.
    The truth was, Zil hated seeing wounds of any kind. He’d always been squeamish about blood. And the one quick glance he’d stolen at Antoine’s injury had made him sick to his stomach.
    Which probably didn’t help Antoine much.
    Hank said, “Come on, Antoine. Come with me.”
    “What? What are you…I’ll be good, it’s just that it hurts, man, it hurts so much.”
    “Dude, come on,” Hank said. “I’ll get you to Lana. Come on.”
    Hank bent low and propped Antoine up as he struggled onto his feet. Antoine shrieked in pain.
    Zil climbed down the ladder that was bolted to the back of the Winnebago.
    “What do you think, Lance?” Handsome Lance. Tall, cool, smart Lance. If only, Zil thought for not the first time, all Human Crew could look like Lance. Lance reflected well on Zil. Whereas fat, drunken Antoine, Turk with his dragging foot, and Hank with his nasty ferret’s face made it seem that he was surrounded by losers.
    Lance looked thoughtful. “Kids are spread all over the place. All confused. What do we do if they decide we were responsible for burning the town and decide to come after us?”
    Turk laughed derisively. “Like the Leader hasn’t thought of that? We tell people it was Sam.”
    Zil was surprised by the suggestion. He’d given it nothought, but obviously Turk had.
    “Not Sam,” Zil corrected, thinking on the fly. “We blame Caine. Kids won’t believe it was Sam. We say it was Caine and everyone will believe us.”
    “Kids saw us throwing Molotov cocktails,” Lance