gone

Nature hasn't gone anywhere. It is all around us, all the planets, galaxies and so on. We are nothing in comparison.

I didn't set out to be famous; if I'd wanted that, I would have gone on 'Big Brother.'

I wanted to be the most famous. And it wasn't until I hung out with Justin Bieber that the whole thing got demystified. The mystique of it was gone.

Every company that made computers when we started the Mac, they're all gone.

In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.

In the late '70s, maybe just before I started, there was still an attitude that if you did film you didn't do TV and vice versa, but that's gone now.

I have laid aside business, and gone a'fishing.

Listen, Sam, and everyone, you need to know something so it won__ freak you out: Pack Leader can speak. I mean, human words. Like Smart-Girl Barbie there was saying, he__ some kind of mutant or whatever. I know you think I__ probably crazy.__he had Hermit Jim__ tin cup now and used it to scoop up another helping of wonderful, wonderful pudding. Blondie__strid__as opening a can of fruit cocktail.__hat do you know about the FAYZ?_ Astrid asked.Lana stopped eating and stared at her. __he what?__strid shrugged and looked embarrassed. __hat__ what people are calling it. The Fallout Alley Youth Zone. FAYZ.___hat does that mean?___ave you seen the barrier?__he nodded. __h, yeah. I__e seen the barrier. I touched the barrier, which, by the way, is not a good idea.__am said, __s far as we can tell, it goes clear around in a big circle. Or maybe a sphere. We think the center is the power plant. It seems like a ten-mile radius from there, you know, twenty miles across.___ircumference of 62.83 miles, with an area of 314.159 square miles,_ Astrid said.__oint 159,_ Quinn echoed from his corner. __hat__ important.___t__ basically pi,_ Astrid said. __ou know, 3.14159265_. Okay, I__l stop.__ana hadn__ stopped being hungry. She took a scoop of the fruit cocktail. __am, you think the power plant caused it?__am shrugged, and then he hesitated, surprised. Lana guessed that he felt no pain in his shoulder. __o one knows. All of a sudden every single person over the age of fourteen disappears and there__ this barrier and people_animals__ana slowly absorbed this new information. __ou mean all the adults? They__e gone?___oof,_ Quinn said. __hey ditched. They blinked out. They vacated. They took the off-ramp. They cut a hole. They emigrated. Adults and teenagers. Nothing left but kids._____e done all I can to strengthen the door,_ Edilio announced. __ut all I have is nails. Someone can break it in eventually.___aybe they didn__ all ditch,_ Lana said. __aybe we did.__strid said, __hat__ definitely one of the possibilities, not that it makes any real difference. It__ effectively the same thing.

Isn't it weird? The way you remember things when it's gone.

You're staring," Lana said."Yes. I am. I'm a teenage boy. Beautiful girls in wet underwear have a tendency to cause staring in teenage boys.

There's just something obvious about emptiness, even when you try to convince yourself otherwise.

In the cool dark basement, she whispers, "It's not Ralph, is it?"Cabel's quiet for a moment, as if he's thinking, "You mean like Forever Ralph? Uh, no.""You've read Forever?" Janie is incredulous. "There wasn't much else to chose from on the hospital library cart, and Deenie was always checked out," Cable says sarcastically. "Did you like it?"Cabel laughs softly, "Um...well, it wasn't the wisest thing to read for a fourteen-year-old guy with fresh skin grafts in the general area down there, if you know what I mean.

No," Lana said, "I'm not going to heal your scratch.""Good," Sanjit said."Good? Why good?""Because when you hold my hand, I don't want it to be work for you.

I see my father. I see him gone away. My world is a little bit colder.

He just can't let her goit's not the sound of her laughor the softness of her skinthat he misses the mostit's the way she loved himlike no one ever hasthe way she held himwhen he was hurting herthe way she felt his painlike it was her ownand he just wasn't readyto let all of that goyet this morninghe opened his eyesand she was gone

Guilt was a fascinating thing: it seemed not to weaken over time. If anything it grew stronger as the circumstances faded from memory, as the fear and the necessity became abstract. And only her own actions stood out with crystal clarity.

Hunter woke suddenly. A noise.It was a noise unlike anything he__ ever heard before. Close! Very close.Like it was on him. Like it was . . .Just in one ear.He twisted his head. It was full night. Black as black in the woods far from the starlight.He couldn__ see anything.But with his hands he could feel. The thing on his shoulder.His ear . . . gone!A terrible fear wrung a cry of horror from Hunter.He couldn__ feel it, his ear, or his shoulder, couldn__ feel with anything but his fingers and he felt, reached beneath his shirt, felt the flesh of his belly pulse and heave.Like something inside him.No, no, no, it wasn__ fair. It wasn__ fair!He was Hunter. The hunter. He was doing his best.He cried. Tears rolled down his cheeks.Who would bring meat for all the kids?It wasn__ fair.The sound of munching, crunching started again. Just in one ear.Hunter had only one weapon: the heat-causing power in his hands. He had used it many, many times to take the life of prey.He had fed the kids with that power. And in a moment of fear and rage he had accidentally taken the life of his friend, Harry.Maybe he could kill the thing that was eating his ear.But it was too late for that to help.Could he kill himself?He saw Old Lion__ head, eyes closed, hanging where he__ hung him for skinning. If Old Lion could die, so could Hunter.Maybe they would meet again, up in the sky.Hunter pressed both palms against his head.

Obviously the raven with the unquenchable itch was at it again, playing tricks on the world and its creatures. Once by air, he thought, and now by water.