Apocalypse 5 страница

“He left everyone else to starve? ” Nudge gasped.

Rizal nodded in disgust. “We found him curled on the floor. Ironically, he escaped drowning but died of thirst. Every can of soup and fruit had been sucked dry. ”

“And the others? ” Total asked quietly. “Do you know their fates? ”

“The girl, you mean? And the veterinarian? ”

My half sister, Ella. My mom.

Rizal flicked the dark hair out of his eyes absently, as if nothing at all was riding on his next words. “Same as all the rest, ” he said, shrugging. “The water came in. We swam. They drowned. ”

“Oh, ” I said in a flat voice, and gripped the rock floor for support as I felt my blood draining.

Deep down, I’d known that was the likeliest scenario, but I understood now why Iggy hadn’t wanted to stay on the island: Not really knowing was so much better than knowing.

Because you could never get that hope back.

“Don’t be afraid of Rizal, ” the kid called Jonny Diamond said. “He can be harsh, but he’s just trying to keep us safe. ”

Everyone was getting ready to go to the caves, but I’d remained rooted to the rock long after the feast, thinking about my family. I thought about how Ella’s face lit up when she looked at Iggy, and how she never even got to go to a school dance with him. About how, even though my mom was supersmart and at the top of her field, she was always trying to do mom things for me, like cooking great meals and getting me my own bed with fancy sheets and snuggling me, even when I resisted, because she knew I secretly craved that contact. I remembered how they’d both opened their home to me the very first day we’d met – never mind that I was a stranger, a mutant, and being shot at by stupid teenage boys.

Yet, though I managed to look out for the rest of my flock, I hadn’t kept my human family safe when it mattered. And now, though I could still hear Ella’s laugh and remember what my mom smelled like (antiseptic, vanilla shampoo, and cinnamon gum), I couldn’t quite picture their faces.

Anyway, I’d been meditating on that cheery subject for hours, so I must’ve looked pretty desolate by the time Jonny came in.

But scared? Of Rizal? Doubtful.

“Who says I’m afraid of anything? ” I asked, sitting up straighter.

Jonny chuckled and scooped up the pile of fish bones, tossing them back into the sea. “Well, you should be scared about the state of the world. If you’ve survived out there for this long, I figured you’d know that by now. ”

I eyed the belching volcano in the distance and the swirls of hardened lava just a few feet away. My expression softened.

“Yeah, this whole apocalypse thing is pretty surreal, huh? Did my mom... Did Dr. Martinez know what happened? What caused it? ”

Jonny grabbed the rope netting, then sat down next to me on the rock ledge. “I thought she said something about Russia’s betrayal... ” My eyebrows shot up at the mention of the very place Angel had gone to, but Jonny shook his head uncertainly. “That day was really crazy, though. Pierpont had all this high‑ tech equipment, but all it told us was that a few small objects had exploded on contact with the earth’s atmosphere. ”

Meteors. That’s what Dylan said, too. But they couldn’t have been small. They must have been huge, and more than just a few of them, judging by the mess we saw.

“We were all in the caves by then, though, so we couldn’t see what was happening outside. ”

“The sky caught fire, ” I said, remembering how there’d been a huge black hole ringed in flames.

“But here’s the thing: The hits were only reported in the Pacific. ”

“So? ”

“So the local tsunamis would’ve been caused by the impact, but what about the other reports we heard? ” Jonny seemed to catch himself. He focused on the net in his lap, knotting it expertly. “Sorry, you don’t want to get me started on all my theories... ”

“Hey, I asked, didn’t I? ” I took a length of rope and mimicked his hand movements. “I’m a big fan of conspiracy theories. ”

They line up with my real‑ world experience: that pretty much everyone I meet is out to get me.

Jonny’s eyes became animated. “Okay. So, the meteor fragments were in the Pacific, ” he repeated. “But that first day, we got news blips from all over the world about other sudden disasters – too many global events for coincidence. ” He gestured with his speargun on the rock as if marking spots on a map. “I’m talking rumors of nukes being deployed in Africa, several heads of state murdered, a lockdown in the US, a major epidemic in East Asia... There’s a lot we don’t know, but I’m positive it was all orchestrated by people with a lot of money and power. They wanted to destroy the world, and might not be too happy to find out a bunch of mutant kids survived. I’ve been telling Rizal we need to make more weapons. ” He stabbed the spear into the sand and looked up as if scanning for trouble from the sky. “We have to be prepared to fight. ”

I guessed his theories were more right than wrong. What else did he know? “Right before she died, my mom warned us about a biological weapon called the H8E virus, ” I told him. “Did you hear about any connection to the Apocalypticas? Or the Doomsday Group? Or H‑ men? Or the Remedy? ”

If anyone knows her genocidal terrorist flash cards by heart, it’s me. I certainly have enough experience with them at this point.

“The epidemic started right before the meteor, and together they must have wiped out most of the people in the world. We haven’t heard any updates since that very first day, before the tsunami hit and the caves flooded. Which reminds me – we should be heading out in just a few minutes. Let’s get you suited up. ” He stood up and started lugging over the ancient oxygen tank he’d brought in. “Since all the equipment stopped working, we’ve been totally cut off from the rest of the world. ” He shrugged. “Rizal says it’s better this way – that we have everything we need in the caves, and we shouldn’t go looking for trouble. ”

Sounds familiar.

“What do you think? ” I asked.

Jonny opened his mouth, but hesitated. “I think trouble’s rarely in hiding, ” he answered finally. “And if someone planned something on this scale? ” His eyes widened, magnified by his glasses. “Then none of us is safe. ”

“I don’t need that, ” I said, waving away the oxygen tank Jonny had set in front of me.

He continued sorting tubes. “There should be a bit left in the cylinder. The Aquatics don’t really need them, but we keep a couple of spares for emergencies. ”

“I can breathe underwater, ” I insisted. “Same as you. ”

Jonny sat back and looked at me. “For how long? ”

“Well, a long time, ” I said. “And at great depth. ” I nudged the cylinder with my foot. “So I don’t need that. Trust me. ”

Jonny frowned at my wings. “Those things are going to cause you serious drag. ”

“At least I don’t have freaking scales all over my back, ” I snapped.

Jonny grinned good‑ naturedly. “Don’t take it so personally. There’s always someone in the group who’s a little vulnerable. ” He touched the frames of his glasses and grinned. “How many Aquatics do you think need a prescription? ”

I pursed my lips, unmoved, and Jonny shrugged.

“Okay, so you don’t need it to breathe, fine. But can you do me a favor and bring it with you? That way the tanks will all be at the caves. Otherwise, I’ll have to leave it here. ”

Okay, that made sense. I could do him a favor. I lifted the backpack with its heavy, dinged‑ up tank. The straps weren’t going to fit over my oh‑ so‑ disgraceful, draggy wings, so I wore it backward, with the single tank in front of my chest.

Nudge, also carrying an oxygen tank in front, went in right before me. I plopped in last, splashing with my awkward tank, and as I swam after them toward the mouth of the tunnel that would take us to our sanctuary, I tried to work on a little thing called humility.

We swam. I kept my wings tightly folded against my back. I’m not a bad swimmer, but the Aquatics had obviously been designed for this: Though clumsy and awkward on land, in the water they became graceful, fluid, powerful swimmers.

The ocean, which only three months ago had been crystalline, a clear, clean aqua, was now a murky, opaque sludge with almost zero visibility. I followed Jonny mostly by the swirling eddies of ash particles, while trying to keep an eye on Nudge. The stupid oxygen tank made it hard to swim, weighing me down, and I considered just ditching it.

“Aiiieeeeee!!!! ”

The panicked scream was garbled and muffled, but unmistakable. My head whipped around but I saw nothing but churned‑ up sludge. More screams echoed through the water around me, and I glimpsed a couple of the Aquatics speeding past me with terrified expressions. What’s happening? Where is Nudge?

Was it a... party? The murky water seemed alive with streamers whipping and writhing in the currents. Could this be some sort of welcoming ceremony? Someone had been surprised and had screamed?

Oh, God, oh, God. My brain had no time to think except to register: These streamers are alive.

They were eels or water snakes, and they were freakishly large. Slick ropes of muscle fifteen feet long and as thick as my waist, they made looping S s through the water, disappearing and reappearing confusingly so that I lost all sense of direction.

But the most horrible part was their mouths. Their whole heads, really, were circular vacuums of death, with rows and rows of teeth spiraling inward toward a gaping hole. The kind of thing you don’t want to see on a movie screen, let alone near your leg.

Uh‑ huh. My leg.

There it was, slimy and quick, with its razor‑ sharp teeth moving closer and closer to my flesh. Once it attached, I felt a powerful leechy sucking sensation and then the first jolt of pain. I kicked at it, but my splashing just seemed to attract more of them, and I could only hold them off so much longer.

Desperate, I did the only thing I could think of: I slipped off the straps of the oxygen tank and quickly turned its valve. Immediately, pressurized bubbles burst out of it with the power of a fire hose, sending the eels wheeling away from me. I grinned victoriously but then blanched when I realized why the eels weren’t returning.

A flash of color in the olive‑ green water caught my eye. It was striped, like Jonny Diamond’s shirt. They’d found a new target: Jonny. I kicked with my legs, aiming my tank, but stopped in horror as I took in the scene:

One had suctioned onto him, and the snakelike body streamed out from his chest. For a second it just seemed like a small inconvenience, an odd extra limb, and Jonny tugged at the tail determinedly.

For a second.

And then Jonny’s expression changed.

His mouth opened in a silent scream, a flurry of bloody bubbles escaping from it, and the muscles in his neck tightened into cords of agony. His eyes bulged in disbelief as his legs flailed and his hands scratched and tugged at the creature desperately.

The sucking mouth was burrowing into him.

Aiming my tank, I opened the valve, but only a tiny stream of bubbles came out: I’d used up the last of the oxygen. My mouth pressed tight in shock, I saw Jonny’s head go limp, his whole body becoming boneless, like a rag doll’s. Instinctively I moved away from him. When I looked back a final time, more toothy mouths had latched on to Jonny’s body, burrowing into his chest, thighs, and stomach until he looked like some sort of mutant octopus. Two brilliant red ribbons of blood floated up out of his nostrils.

Something brushed against my arm, and I kicked wildly, a rush of adrenaline making my ears sing. But it was only Nudge, as stricken as I was.

I was freaking out, but I grabbed Nudge’s hand and swam hard in what I thought was the direction of the tunnels. All I wanted was to breathe real air, scream, and then cry. When a few inches of space opened above the water, we surfaced, gasping. Behind me, a bloom of crimson stained the turquoise sea.

The splashing had stopped.

In today’s world, heaven pretty much boiled down to actual beds, reliable shelter, and a consistent food source. The caves were something else altogether.

“Look how beautiful it is. ” Nudge’s voice was tired; her face was pale with shock and the effort of swimming through the death tunnel. I tried to quickly count heads, but I could only estimate that we’d lost about six of the Aquatics. More than half of the number that had started with us.

And the weird thing was, not a single person seemed bothered by Jonny’s gruesome death or the loss of several of their friends. No one had mentioned it, no one seemed surprised, and no one was crying. Which told me that it was a common occurrence. That they had known about the horrific eel/snake/leech things and had gone anyway. Had made us go in anyway.

Now we were here, in supposed safety. I kept Nudge close to me, not trusting these guys for a second.

The tunnel opened up to a large hall, and Nino Pierpont had gone all out with the decorations. There were pillars and balconies, and the walls were elaborately carved shells. The ceiling hundreds of feet above was a skylight of thick glass, so dull light shone down and speckled the puddles of water, making them shimmer.

In one part of the complex, a lake had formed in a low spot when the ocean had receded after the tsunami. The result was an Olympic‑ sized natural swimming pool that was cut off from the danger of open water. I watched other Aquatics splashing around, flicking their fins happily.

“Max, ” Nudge whispered. “Doesn’t it remind you of...? ”

I nodded. This mutant kid utopia reminded me exactly of the paradise we’d first believed our island to be, and that’s what made me nervous.

Because we all know how well that turned out.

I found Rizal at the communal table, surrounded by elaborate platters of fish, more fish, soup with fish in it, and then for dessert, like, fish. I slid into the seat across from him. He looked mildly annoyed, but he didn’t ask me to leave.

“Let’s talk about the huge, kid‑ eating eels of death, ” I said conversationally.

Rizal was distracted with his dinner and barely looked up. “Hmm? ”

“The giant eely‑ snake things that turned Jonny Diamond into Swiss cheese? ” I prompted.

“Oh, them. ” Rizal shoved a large spoonful of stew into his mouth. “Lampreys. ”

“Lampreys aren’t that big. So I’m assuming they’re weird, gigantic, mutant lampreys. At any rate, no one seems too bothered that those lampreys just reduced your number by six. ” I stared at him impatiently.

“It happens, ” he said, chewing. “We tend to lose someone every few days. ”

“Every few days? ” I repeated, gaping at him.

Rizal shrugged. “Generally, they only pick off the less advanced. ”

“There’s always someone in the group who’s a little vulnerable, ” Jonny had said. That was supposed to be me, and would’ve been, if I hadn’t had the oxygen tank he’d insisted I take.

“Have some sashimi, ” Rizal said, spearing some hunks with his knife and plopping them in front of me. “The eel is terrific. ”

My mind flashed back to that horrible image of Jonny – the moment he stopped struggling against the lamprey. Nauseated, I pushed away the plate and left the table.

I needed to think – which meant I needed to fly.

Unfurling my wings, which had been folded up all day, I pushed off and rose up toward the glass ceiling. My feathers twitched as I tried to imagine myself flying in circles around these walls, day after day. I was already feeling claustrophobic.

Cruising high above the chatter, I went over everything Jonny had said earlier that morning. I needed something to make it easier to cope, a moral to take away from this, and my thoughts drifted back to the flock.

Like Iggy, Jonny had needed a resolution. Like Gazzy, he had been building tools to fight, instead of hide. And like Angel, he had been sure there was more to be done.

I’m not saying I was wrong, before – I’d never say that – but maybe I could understand a little better why my flock had insisted on leaving.

If there was a reason so many people I cared about had died, if none of us was safe, could I really keep looking away? Didn’t I owe it to them to hunt down the truth?

“Rizal says we shouldn’t go looking for trouble, ” Jonny had said, and that was pretty much what I’d told the flock yesterday.

But if I lived by that rule, would I really be Maximum Ride?

“Nudge, wake up. ”

I didn’t know why I was whispering. There were rows and rows of beds built into the coral wall, but Nudge’s and mine were the only two that were occupied. I guessed the lampreys had pretty much decimated the Aquatics. What was Rizal thinking?

Total was lying on the floor – since Akila died, he’d been uncharacteristically quiet, spending time on his own, lying around a lot. I knew he was grieving, and I wished I could do more for him.

Looking at the empty beds, I could still feel some lingering sense of the kids who should’ve been here, the mutants and humans who had believed they were safe. I wondered if Ella had slept in any of these bunks.

“Come on, Nudgelet, let’s go, ” I said more loudly, and shook her shoulder.

“Go? ” Nudge mumbled, sinking deeper into the sponge mattress.

“Yeah, ” I said. “We should be gone before the Fish Sticks return from the morning hunt. ”

Nudge propped herself up on her elbows, alert now. “You wanna leave? Why? ”

“Uh... because we’re in mutant‑ eating‑ lamprey‑ infested waters? Did you see how everyone shrugged off Jonny’s death yesterday? Rizal is just another crazy leader in a long, long line of crazy leaders we’ve dealt with. Do you really need another reason? We can’t stay here. ”

Nudge blinked at me, her eyes round with alarm and already brimming. “What do you mean we can’t stay? ”

From the ground near the door, Total raised his furry eyebrows at me, but he didn’t say anything.

Nudge, on the other hand, was incredulous. “You wanted this! The flock split up, everyone left us because you wanted to come back to this island! ”

“I know. But that was before... ”

Before I knew my family was really dead.

Before I heard Jonny’s theories.

Before it seemed like someone could be held accountable.

“That was before we knew the vaccine was wiped out in the tsunami, ” I said. “Now there’s no reason for us to stay. I mean, don’t you want to know what happened? Don’t you want some answers? ”

“No! ” Nudge shook her head emphatically. “That’s why I didn’t leave with Angel. I know more than I ever wanted to know already, and most of it’s terrible. I’m tired, Max. Tired of flying around hoping for something better. The Aquatics have a good thing going here – rarities like, you know, food and actual beds. ” She waved her pillow. “These kids are survivors, just like us, and we’re lucky they made us welcome. ”

“These kids are not like us. These kids are sociopaths. ”

Nudge shrugged. “Maybe their culture is just uncomplicated. ”

“Staying here won’t help you forget about the past, ” I said gently.

“And leaving won’t help you change it, ” she bit back. “The world ended, Max, and I promise, nobody blames you for not being able to save it. You don’t have to go. ”

I held Nudge’s gaze for a long time, weighing her words. “I need to know the truth, ” I said quietly. “I didn’t before. But now I think... I think truth is better than relative safety. ”

Nudge nodded and hugged her pillow close, and I knew she wouldn’t change her mind.

“So – you’re going to stay here, ” I said, just to make sure.

Nudge nodded again.

I looked at Total. The Scottie dog stood up, puffed out his wiry chest, and seemed to grow a little taller. “I will miss you, of course, Max. But I will stay here with Nudge. I need... time to heal. Time to reflect. ”

“Of course you do, ” I said, picking him up. He snuggled his head into my shoulder, and I tried not to cry. Nothing about my life made sense – I was going on pure instinct, and it was like walking on a tightrope, with the safety net of my flock gone.

When Total looked up, his chocolate eyes were glistening.

“Here, ” Nudge said, taking an oversized sweatshirt from her bedding. “Rizal said temperatures are dropping – they can sense the extra oxygen in the water. ”

“It’s okay. I don’t need–”

Nudge rolled her eyes. “I know. You don’t need any help from anyone. I’m trying to give you a farewell gift. Just take it, okay? ”

“My Nudgelet. ” Her spiral curls were fuzzy from sleep, and I kissed the top of her head affectionately. “You take extra good care of yourself, hear? If I come back and find you dead, I personally will haul you out of the grave and kill you again. ”

My stern lecture earned a watery smile. “You take care, too, Max. ”

As I walked through the cavernous halls toward the tunnel entrance, it was the first time in a long time I’d been alone, and if I’m being honest, it scared the crap out of me.

But there was one other thing Jonny had said that stuck with me: “There’s always someone in the group who’s a little vulnerable. ” On my own, at least I’d be forced to be strong.

I left the caves at low tide, because the last thing I wanted to do was set foot in that water again.

I flew as long as I could through the tunnel, squeezing my body into the small space between the waves and the ceiling and flapping my wings in stunted little flicks. I was still forced underwater a few times, and I was on such high alert that I almost strangled a rogue piece of seaweed.

When I finally burst out of the tunnel, I was so happy to be free that I wanted to stay in the air forever – I didn’t care how polluted it was.

Let me tell you, that feeling got old real fast.

I started off heading north. Angel had promised answers in Russia, and my mom had mentioned it the day the sky caught fire. Like Jonny, I had to trust that there were no coincidences – in this strange new world, my gut was all I had to go on.

Unfortunately, my gut didn’t warn me of a tropical storm on the ol’ radar. I only saw it when I was almost upon it, because of how ash‑ filled the sky was, even at ten thousand feet. I immediately swerved west and tried to outfly it, but it was too big.

Storm‑ force wind, needlelike rain, ash, and debris blasted me from all sides, twisting me around and trying to take me down. I was in the middle of the ocean, so I couldn’t land; I couldn’t sleep; I couldn’t stop flying, even for an instant.

Out of the storm wasn’t much better. I flew north for several days, alone with my thoughts and shivering inside my sweatshirt. Rizal had been right – the temperature continued to drop. I was numb and alone, and hunger gnawed me inside out every minute, but two words sustained me: Find. Truth. The truth, bobbing just beyond the next wave. The truth, rising with each new hazy day. It became everything.

When I finally saw the uneven blob in the distance that suggested land, I was convinced I was hallucinating. But the strip got bigger, filling the horizon. I had no idea where in the vast Russian countryside Angel would be, but I was sure she’d jailbreak my brain and send a little message via the voice – the kid had no boundaries.

So far, nothing.

As I flew farther inland, a vast, circular valley stretched out below me, with a gray shelf of rock built up all around it. Hulking objects dotted the yellow land, and when I dove lower to get a better look, I thought I was seeing things in my exhaustion. At first my spirit soared at the realization that those dots were thousands of animals...

Until the smell hit me.

Every single creature lay dead. Lions, zebras, giraffes, all in varying stages of decomposition.

Uh, pretty sure there aren’t giraffes in Russia, rotting or not.

I saw someone wrapped head to toe in a burgundy fabric, huddling over one of the fresher corpses – some kind of deer. I stood watching nimble fingers snatch bones already picked clean and tuck them into hidden pockets.

Finally, I tucked my wings inside my sweatshirt and cleared my throat, and the figure turned.

The amber‑ colored eyes were all that was visible beneath the folds of fabric, and they widened at my approach.

“You are not burned! ” a woman’s voice exclaimed.

“No... ” I said uneasily.

Was that something she hoped to fix?

“Every person that comes to us from the city is burned. ” A man I hadn’t seen stood up from behind the bulk of a water buffalo. He was also in a full robe.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not from the city. Which city, by the way? ”

Which country and which continent, for that matter?

The two swaddled figures turned toward each other in silent communication.

“Do you know why all these animals died? ” I interrupted.

“Come, ” the woman said, walking away. “Come with us to our home and we will talk. ”

Exhausted, starving, and desperate for answers, I followed.

“There was a very bright flash of light, and then heat all around. ” Azizi was an animated storyteller, and his breath made the candle jump.

Once inside the mud‑ packed hut, my hosts had pulled their cloaks down around their shoulders, and I saw that Azizi and his sister, Nuru, had albinism. “We have to cover our skin, ” Nuru explained. “Or the sun cooks it. ”

They reminded me of Angel and Gazzy, and it wasn’t just their fair hair and skin. Nuru was measured and unreadable, while Azizi could be goofy, filling the spaces between his sister’s silences.

“A Jeep from one of the travel groups, its windows, pfft. ” Azizi made a fist and shot his fingers out to signify the explosion of glass.

The travel groups were safaris – I learned that I was in eastern Africa, in the Ngorongoro Crater. I’d gotten pretty turned around in that storm.

“And then the animals, they sink to their knees and lie down, one by one, ” Azizi went on. “They raise their voices and beg for Death to come to them! And Death, he comes. ”

Nuru was boiling the bones she’d collected earlier for their marrow, and she looked over to where we sat cross‑ legged on the mat.

“At first it was very good fortune, you can imagine. So much meat that we didn’t have to hunt. But now, as you see, the meat rots, and we are very hungry. ”

“After the animals, every person we see is a burned man, ” Azizi continued. “Until you. ”

I leaned closer. “And what did the burn victims say? ”

“One man saw a smoking tree rising into the sky, its branches full. Another said it was a pale woman standing tall with a basket on her head. My sister, she says it is God they saw in the sky. ”

I chewed my lip, thinking. Dead animals, burned men. Another seemingly huge disaster, but what did it have to do with a virus in Asia, or a betrayal in Russia?

“So none of these people were actually in the center? Was everyone else killed? You didn’t wonder what happened? ”

The siblings looked at each other – that silent understanding I’d seen earlier. Nuru’s voice was soft when she spoke. “Yes. We wondered. But we cannot go back to the city. ”

“Why not? ”

Azizi got quiet for the first time all evening. He shrugged the bright purple cloak aside, and when he unwrapped his arm, I saw that his left hand was gone at the wrist.

“In our country, albinos are said to be good fortune. Witch doctors like to lie to the people to line their pockets. So there have been attacks... ”

“Someone cut your hand off? ” I gasped.

“Bad fortune for me, ” Azizi said, somehow able to laugh about something so horrible.

“We came to the caldera because the Masai tribe thinks we are better luck alive than dead, ” Nuru said. “Many times, they bring us their cattle blood milk. ” She held out a cup to me.

I didn’t particularly love the idea of the vampire diet, but I wasn’t too picky these days. I also didn’t want to be rude, so I took a long swig.

“Mmm. ” The mixture was thick, closer to pudding than milk, and wonderfully warm as it went down my throat. It was salty, with a sharp, coppery tang, but it wasn’t half bad.

“Yes, it is nourishing. ” Nuru nodded as I tipped the clay cup back again. “This is the last of it now, so soon we will die. ”

I sputtered, choking on the dregs – I couldn’t believe I’d just gulped down the last of their stash! “I’ll help you find food, ” I promised, taking Nuru’s hand.

“There is nothing. ” Azizi shook his head sadly. “We have searched as far as our feet can carry us. There are only bones. ”

“I can search farther than you. And I can go into the city. ” I pulled the sweatshirt over my head and shrugged it off my shoulders, stretching my wings long.