said. He was sobbing now. “You stupid Betrayer, I don’t care. I don’t even wanna win. I can’t, I can’t.”
Tears found Michael’s eyes. He saved me. He saved me.
“Bub,” Michael breathed, “thank y—”
Patrick said, “I hate you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
And that was when Patrick sat down on the ground and began to Freak.
As if from another world, Michael heard Holly running breathlessly toward them.
She reached the end of the aisle between the desks. Her hoodie was spattered with blood at the cuffs; a bruise had blossomed underneath her left eye. She stopped with an almost comical swiftness, her sneakers squeaking as she spotted what Michael had in his hands.
Her eyes glistened. “Oh my Lordy,” she whispered. “The lab’s really here.”
Michael tried to figure out what to say about the miracle in his hand.
But Patrick began to scream.
Michael watched Holly’s face transform as Patrick’s sound—so loud; how can such pain fit into such a small body?—echoed through the lobby.
“I just want it over!” Patrick screamed. “Why can’t it, why why why why?!”
Patrick punched himself again, both hands beating his thighs; a sound like the slapping of raw meat.
Michael moaned, “Patrick—”
“P-Patrick, you stop,” Holly said, hurrying past Michael. She leaned down and grabbed Patrick’s flailing wrists.
“Don’t touch! No! Don’t try a’ make me feel better!”
“It’s going to be fine—”
“That’s what he always says!” Patrick spat viciously, and in the strength of his agony, wormed his arms free. His little fists roared back downward with incredible speed to strike his legs, over, over.
Holly pushed him to the ground. She looked astonished, horrified. She had known about Freaking, Michael thought. But this wasn’t what she’d imagined.
“I hay-hay-haaate it! I’m not good enough to get to The End—I’m—I’m—I just need my mommy!—”
“We’re going to her,” said Holly hurriedly. “Aren’t we, Michael?”
Michael thought: I can’t lie.
“Help me with him,” she implored him, and he nodded distantly, kneeling, careful to keep the vial away from Patrick’s erratic movements, hating himself for even thinking about that. Patrick—accidentally?—kicked Michael in the stomach. Michael pinned Patrick down. His brother looked like he was being crucified.
“Dude, take the GD vaccine,” she said to Michael, picking Patrick up and pinning him against her chest, ignoring his fists and cries. “Inject it and get the rest of it and leave with us.”
From the vault, more shattering. Shrieking.
“What’s that noise?” Holly asked.
Michael began, “I don’t have—” anymore of the cure he planned to say, but Holly interrupted him:
“You need a syringe, right. There’s one in the Hummer— Patrick. Please. We’re going home now, honey, okay?” Carrying Patrick—dragging him—Holly started back toward the tunnel.
Take the vaccine, Michael thought, floating after her. Yes. That’s what he could do. He could just say, “Yeah—‘the rest of the cure.’ Which I’ve totally got.”
He could tell himself: the Centers for Disease Control still has the formula.
He could tell himself: there is more of the cure in Richmond.
He could tell himself: even if this is the last of the cure, I have to take it, because I’m the only one Bub has left.
He could pretend that the futures “the Game Master” promised him were real, instead of a series of evaporating illusions that led to a corner he could not lie his way out of.
He could take the cure.
But what then?
“His legs,” Holly said. “A little help, Michael.” She attempted lightness, to keep cool for Patrick, but there were tears of frustration in her eyes. “We have to hurry, we have to leave.”
“Michael . . . ?” said Holly.
Leave, he thought.
But he couldn’t answer. . . .
Because it is Halloween, and he stands frozen in the very center of a world tilting.
His plan was to silently get into the Volvo station wagon and go; to drive to Ron’s cabin a couple hours away. But an almost mystical shock stops him.
His neighbor’s scream pierces the quick of the night: “Get back! Get baaAAAA—!” His brother’s heart beats through the shirt on Michael’s back.
Mom’s bedroom light clicks on. A second light follows. . . .
Patrick’s bedroom, Michael thinks dimly. Mom wants to make sure he’s okay. And he can almost picture her flinging open Patrick’s door but keeping calmness on her face. She’s good that way. One thing about Mom: she makes you feel good now. She can make you feel so good this second, you don’t even realize that soon now will mutate. She can make you keep continuing, and you don’t realize that all your life is running out.
A police car screams down the street, a red-blue missile through the dark.
A jack-o’-lantern