Plague by Michael Grant

   It has been eight months since everyone over the age of 15 had disappeared.
   The book starts with five year old "Little Pete" Ellison (Astrid's autistic little brother) explaining his life in his own way, saying that he's living in two worlds, one on his right hand, the other at his left. At his right, are his parents, Astrid, his therapist, and others, saying things that were like "wild, parrot-colored spears shooting from their mouths". At his left, silent ghostly figures drifting past, and shades of gray. It was very dark and silent. There was also the Darkness, calling out to him to play a game. Games were the only thing that would make Pete give away his endless, impossible powers.
   Later, three Jennifers that live together in a house all get a flu. The oldest Jennifer is the first kid in the FAYZ who coughed so hard that there were pieces of her lungs coming out of her mouth. Supposedly, she also coughed so hard she broke her own neck. One of the other Jennifers had to tell someone about what was coming, so she crawled to the so-called-hospital and told Dahra Baidoo, a doctor, but thought Jennifer was hallucinating. Lana "The Healer" finds out that her powers are helpless to the flu.
   In the meantime, Hunter, the town hunter (also a freak that cook your insides, supposedly like microwaves, so the heat is invisible), is bothered by a small, beetle-like creature that is sticking out of his shoulder while he is hunting a lion. When the lion nearly kills him, the insect bites the lion's toe out and eats it, giving Hunter a chance  for him to kill it with his concealed heat waves. While he gives meat to a collector, Roscoe, to feed the town, the insect bites Roscoe and he is infected with the deadly bugs that would kill him very soon.
   In Perdido Beach, Albert runs the businesses and when the town is close to running out of water, he sends Sam, Dekka (a freak who can cancel gravity), Jack (a freak with super strength, also the boy who cut the electricity in Hunger), and Taylor (a freak who can teleport by thinking of a place, also who has an open crush on Sam) to go find a lake called Lake Tramonto and move the whole town there. On their way, they run into Hunter who is attempting (and failing) to commit suicide because the insects started growing out of his body and one of them ate his ear off. Sam had no choice but to kill Hunter himself. While Hunter and Dekka prayed together, Taylor took off from fear and the horrible sight of the bugs eating him alive, and Sam burned him finally, unfortunately to find that the bugs are immune to Sam's killer energy beams.
   When Edilio, Sam's right-handed man, finds out that Roscoe is infected, he locks him up in the town hall and keeps Roscoe there until the bugs eat him to death. After his death, the bugs (which are now the size of an SUV) eat their way through the building and was about to attack the town until Brianna (a freak with superhuman speed, her highest reaching 300 miles per hour) lured them away. She then followed them to another group of bugs being led by Drake/Brittany, mainly Drake. Brianna was about to be killed when all the bugs, including Drake, turned on her and was about to be either: whipped to death by Drake, or eaten by the bugs.
   Drake and his army of giant insects went to hunt down Sam, for slowly burning him in the last book. Finally, they finally found Sam and his crew, with a boy named Toto (a freak who can tell if you're lying) found in a military base because the base was studying freaks. When the crew eventually escapes, Drake sends half of the bug army to town and kill all the kids there.
   Edilio finally caught the flu and thinks that he is about to die. So he sends Quinn Gaither to fetch Caine from San Francisco de Sales Island and have him save the town from the bugs. When Quinn did find Caine, Caine mistakenly thought the town needed him to be ruled, like a king. Apparently, when he got there, he was nearly killed by the now city bus sized bugs, being saved by Brianna.
   You and I can both tell that I am on a roll here, and I am millimeters away from telling you the ending of the decade, so I'll just cut to the chase and tell you about my appreciation for this book. When the book ended, I literally screamed, dropped it, and did a standing ovation just for a BOOK. Yep, that's how much you need to read this series. Like all my other Gone post praises, Michael Grant has struck me yet again with the book's suspense, creativity, and character development.
   This book is so freaky and unbelievable that it makes no one surprised or amazed at anything anymore. I mean, insects that hatch out of your body? It's like you're giving birth to them, then they eat you alive, grow to the size of a city bus, and go crawling all over town eating innocent citizens. Yeah, it's that bad. Then there's the flu, but it's not your regular sickness where you lay in bed all day and wait until it's over. It is the kind where your temperature reaches over 100 degrees, and then you cough up your insides.
   I must say that besides the chaos, the FAYZ is my utopia. I would love to have supernatural powers and move in with my friends, not that I hate my family. Overall, l am disenchanted and relieved that I'm not stuck in the FAYZ.