They moved a distance to the left and repeated the whole sequence. Then to a third location and did it again.
“Okay, message sent,” Sam said when they were done. “Let’s see if they got it. Howard?”
Howard waved Orc over. The boy-monster lumbered wearily toward the field.
“First go into an area we blasted,” Sam instructed him.
Orc did. If his stone feet were bothered by the scorching heat of the singed soil, he showed no sign of it.
“Okay,” Sam said. “Now farther. Past the burned part. Try to pick a melon.”
“Someone ought to beer me,” Orc grumbled.
“I don’t have any with me,” Sam said.
“Figures,” Orc said. He plodded into fresh, unburned dirt. He leaned down to grab a melon and came back up with two worms writhing around his hand.
Orc flung the worms away and moved with some speed back onto safer ground.
Sam felt deflated. He had failed. Even at this.
In the process he’d used the promise of beer to turn an alcoholic kid into human bait.
“Not maybe my proudest day,” he said to himself.
The crowd, disappointed, shot sidelong looks of worry at Sam. He ignored them all and climbed into the Jeep beside Edilio.
“You want my job, Edilio? he asked.
“Not a chance, man. Not a chance.”
Nothing stuck to the FAYZ wall. Lana had discovered that fact. She had put on gloves and tried to tape a target to the barrier. The tape didn’t stick. Neither did rubber cement.
No one was going to be mounting posters of their favorite bands on the barrier.
She tried spray paint. It was fun to try. Fun to imagine that the barrier could be covered in graffiti. But spray paint sizzled a bit as if it had been sprayed onto a hot frying pan. Then it evaporated and disappeared, leaving no trace.
It was frustrating. Lana needed a target. And the notion of shooting at the wall appealed to her.
In the end she had dragged a chaise lounge from the pool area over to the tennis courts, where the barrier was most easily accessible. She leaned the chair up against the barrier—you could at least lean things against it—and taped a target to the chair.
It was not a bull’s-eye. It was a copy of a photo she’d found. A picture of a coyote.
Then she took the pistol out of her backpack. It was heavy. She had no idea what caliber it was. She’d found it in one of the houses she’d previously occupied. Along with two boxes of ammunition.
She had figured out how to load it. She’d gotten pretty fast at that. The clip held twelve bullets. There was one extra clip. It was easy to slide the old clip out and pop the new one in. She’d managed to pinch her finger pretty badly the first time she tried, but she was the Healer, and that had certain advantages.
But she needed to be able to do more than hold it and load it.
She raised the gun in one hand. But it was too heavy to hold very steady with just her hand. So she gripped it with both hands. Better.
She took aim at the coyote picture.
She squeezed the trigger.
The gun kicked in her hand.
The explosion was so much louder than it was on TV or in movies. It sounded like the whole world had blown up.
She walked forward, feeling a little shaky, to check the target. Nothing. She had missed. The FAYZ wall behind the target was unscathed, of course.
Lana took aim more carefully. She’d watched Edilio training his people. She knew the basics. She centered the front target in the middle of the rear target, made sure the top edge of front and back targets were level. Then she lowered the gun until the sights rested just beneath the coyote’s head.
She fired.
When she walked forward this time she found a hole in the target. Not precisely where she had aimed. But not too far off, either.
The hole in that paper filled her with pleasure.
“Looks like you have a boo-boo, Pack Leader.”
Lana fired two clips’ worth of ammunition at the target. She hit only half the time, but that was better than hitting not at all.
When she was done she could barely hear for the ringing in her ears. Her hands were sore and bruised. She could easily heal the bruising. But she kind of liked the feeling and what it represented.
Lana carefully reloaded both clips, slid one back into the gun, and put the gun in her backpack.
Come to me. I have need of you.
She slung the pack over her shoulder. The sun was going down, casting pale orange shadows against the gray of the FAYZ wall.
Tomorrow. She would be there soon.
SIXTEEN
22 HOURS, 41 MINUTES
SHE DIDN’T WANT to cut off her hair. She liked her hair long. But Diana took Caine’s threat seriously. She had to deliver Jack.
So she stood before the mirror and lifted the electric clippers she’d found in the bedroom closet of the former headmaster. There was no point in subtlety, no need to fool with scissors and mirror for hours.
The clippers made a strangely pleasing buzz. They changed pitch each time she pushed the blade into a tuft of hair.
In less than fifteen minutes her dark hair was in the sink and spilling out onto the floor. Her head was covered in a half-inch-long black burr that made her look like Natalie Portman in V for Vendetta.
She scooped the hair into a trash can and rinsed the sink.
Next she began removing the last traces of makeup from her eyes. There was nothing much she could do about the sculpted eyebrows. However, there was plenty she could do about clothing. Laid out on her bed was a black World of Warcraft T-shirt two sizes too big, a gray hoodie, a pair of baggy boy’s jeans, and a pair of boy’s sneakers. She kept her own underthings. There was such a thing as getting too deep into the part, after all.