She sobbed and babbled, and the pain of loneliness and fear felt even greater than the agony of her battered body. It choked the air from her lungs.
She was alone. Alone with pain. And soon the mountain lion’s teeth…
Patrick had to live. He had to live. He was all she had.
She cuddled her dog as close as she could without her own pain obliterating consciousness. She placed her palm over his wound, pressing as hard as she dared.
She would stop the blood.
She would hold him and stop his life from escaping.
She would hold life inside him and he wouldn’t die.
But blood still drained through her fingers.
She held on and focused all her will on staying awake to hold the wound, to keep her friend alive.
“Good boy,” she whispered through parched lips.
She fought to stay awake. But thirst and hunger, pain and fear, loneliness and horror were too much for her. After a long while Lana fell asleep.
And her hand slipped from the dog’s neck.
Sam, Quinn, and Astrid spent much of the night searching the hotel for Little Pete. Astrid figured out how to access the hotel’s security system and make a plastic passkey that worked on all doors.
They checked each room. They did not find Astrid’s brother, or anyone else.
They came to an exhausted halt in the last room. The barrier cut right through it. It was as if someone had put up a wall in the middle of the room.
“It cuts right through the TV,” Quinn said. He picked up a remote control and punched the red power button. Nothing.
Astrid said, “I’d love to know what it looks like on the other side of the barrier. Did someone’s half a TV just turn on over there?”
“If so, maybe they could tell me if the Lakers won,” Quinn said, but no one, including him, was in the mood to laugh.
“Your brother is probably safely on the other side, Astrid,” Sam said, then added, “with your mom, probably.”
“I don’t know that,” Astrid snapped. “I have to assume that he’s alone and helpless and that I’m the only one who can do anything to help him.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself tightly. Then, “I’m sorry. That sounded like I was mad at you.”
“No. You just sounded mad. Not at me,” Sam said. “We can’t do any more tonight. It’s almost midnight. I think we should go back to that big room we saw.”
Astrid could only nod, and Quinn looked about ready to crash. They found the suite. It had a huge balcony that overlooked the ocean far below. To the left the barrier blocked the view. It traveled far out over the ocean, as far as they could see. It was like a wall extending out from the hotel itself, an endless wall.
The suite had a room with a king-size bed and a room with two queens, all very plush. There was a minibar fridge containing liquor, beer, soda, nuts, a Snickers, a Toblerone bar, and a few other snacks.
“Boys’ room,” Quinn said, then flopped onto one of the two queens, facedown. Within seconds he was asleep.
Sam and Astrid stood together for a while on the balcony, splitting the Toblerone. Neither of them said anything for a long time.
“What do you think this is?” Sam asked finally. He didn’t need to explain what he meant by “this.”
“Sometimes I think it’s a dream,” Astrid said. “It’s so strange that no one has shown up. I mean, the place should be crawling with soldiers and scientists and reporters. Suddenly a wall just appears out of nowhere, most of the people in town disappear, and yet there aren’t any network satellite trucks?”
Sam had already reached a grim conclusion about that. He wondered if Astrid had, too.
She had. “I don’t think it’s just a straight wall cutting us off from the south, you know? I think it may be a circle. It may go all the way around us. We may be cut off in every direction. In fact, since no one has come to rescue us, I think that’s pretty likely. Don’t you?”
“Yeah. We’re in a trap. But, why? And why disappear everyone over the age of fourteen?”
“I don’t know.”
Sam let the silence linger, not wanting to ask the next question on his mind, not sure he wanted the answer. Finally, “What happens when kids turn fifteen?”
Astrid turned her blue eyes on him, and he met her gaze. “When is your birthday, Sam?”
“November twenty-second,” he said. “Just five days before Thanksgiving. Twelve days from now. No, just eleven days now, since it’s after midnight. You?”
“Not till March.”
“I like March better. Or July, or August. First time I ever wished I was younger.”
So that she wouldn’t keep looking at him the way she was looking at him and feeling sorry for him, he said, “You think they’re all still alive somewhere?”
“Yes.”
“You think that because you really think so, or because you just want them to be alive?”
“Yes,” she said, and smiled. “Sam?”
“Yeah.”
“I was on the school bus that day. Remember?”
“Vaguely,” he said, and laughed. “My fifteen minutes of fame.”
“You were the bravest, coolest person I’d ever known. Everyone thought so. You were the hero of the whole school. And then, I don’t know. It was like you kind of just…faded.”
He resented that a little. He hadn’t faded. Had he? “Well, most days the bus driver doesn’t have a heart attack,” Sam said.