More Than This by Patrick Ness Read Free Book Online Page B

he realizes his face is wet from more crying.
    “Hey,” he says, whispering it now.
    No one answers.
    Not a bird or a squirrel or the fox or her kits.
    No one answers from any quarter.
    He’s alone.
    He swallows against the pain in his throat and goes to see what he can find.

The stores along the High Street are all locked. The sun is brighter now, and Seth has to shield his eyes against the windows to see inside. Some – the doughnut shop, the Subway Sandwich, something called Topshop – seem to have been cleared out, just empty racks and barren shelves, packaging strewn across the floor, naked mannequins lined up against the wall.
    But they’re not all empty. The thrift store looks full, should he ever need a tea set and a bunch of moldy paperbacks, as does a place that seems to sell only wedding dresses, but he can’t really see that as a practical option for an outfit, even in hell.
    And then his heart quickens as he looks through the glass of the outdoor supply store next to it.
    “No way,” he says. “No
way.
”
    He can see backpacks inside and camping gear and who knows what else that might be insanely useful.
    Suspiciously
useful, he has a moment to think, but he pushes that thought away, too. There were outdoor stores all over the world. There just were, so why not here?
    The glass door is locked, and he looks around for something to break it with, finding some loose bricks in one of the tree stands. He picks one up, but even in this empty, empty place, the prohibition against what he’s about to do is so strong, all he does is toss the brick up and down in his hand a few times. He’s played baseball and basketball in gym class, the first boring him nearly to death, the second being almost kind of fun in a run-around-and-shout kind of way that other people took seriously enough that it meant he didn’t have to get too involved. But he knows he can at least
throw
something, even if not particularly skillfully or especially far.
    But still. A brick through a store door.
    He looks around again, and once again, he’s alone.
    “Here goes nothing,” he whispers.
    He rears back and throws it as hard as he can.
    The shattering sound is loud enough to end the world. Seth instinctively ducks down, ready to make excuses that it wasn’t him, that it was an accident –
    But of course there’s no one.
    “Idiot,” he says, smiling, embarrassed now. He stands again, the feeling of having
done
something, anything, making him actually swagger a little up to the now gaping door.
    Where a flock of screeching darkness comes hurtling out past his head at blindingly fast speed. He falls to the ground, protecting his head with his hands, shouting in wordless terror –
    And as quick as it came, it’s passed, the world silent again except for his racing breath.
    He looks up and sees the flock gathering itself into a panicked ball as it disappears over the roof of the shuttered-up bookstore.
    Bats.
    Bats.
    He laughs to himself before getting up, kicking away the broken glass that still stands in the door, and crouching his way inside.
    It’s a cave of treasures.
    He grabs a backpack off a display. Next to it, he finds a whole wall of flashlights, which excites him at first, but there are no batteries to be found anywhere. He takes a large one anyway, long and heavy enough to feel like a weapon even if it never produces light. He finds a bunch of dried-up food rations nearby, too; terrible-looking stuff, freeze-dried pot roast, soup with inflatable dried vegetables, that sort of thing, but it’s better than nothing, and he also finds a little stack of butane camp stoves to cook it all on, hoping they won’t blow up in his hands the first time he tries to use one.
    The store seems more tightly sealed than his house, and there’s less dust covering everything. A row of first-aid kits is practically clean, and he stuffs one in the backpack, then pauses. He takes another kit and opens it. It’s got the usual: bandages,