Gone (2 page)

"Astrid?" Sam asked, not sure of her, not sure at all if she wanted to go with him and Quinn. It felt presumptuous to ask her, and wrong not to ask.

She looked at Sam, looked like she was hoping to find something in his face. Sam suddenly realized that Astrid the

Genius didn't know what to do, or where to go, any better lhan he did. That seemed impossible.

From the hallway they heard a rising cacophony of voices. Loud, scared, some babbling, as if il would be okay as long as they didn't stop talking. Some voices were just wild.

It wasn't a good sound. It was frightening all by itself, that sound.

"Come with us, Astrid, okay?" Sam said. "Well be safer together,"

Astrid flinched at the word "safer" But she nodded. This school was dangerous now. Scared people did scary things sometimes, even kids. Sam knew that from personal experience. Fear could be dangerous. Fear could get people hurt. And there was nothing but fear running crazy through the school-Life in Perdido Beach had changed. Something big and terrible had happened.

Sam hoped he was not the cause

298 HOURS, 38 MINUTES

KIDS POURED OUT of the school, alone or in small groups. Some of the girls walked in threes, hugging each other, tears streaming down their faces. Some boys walked hunched over, cringing as if the sky might fall on them, not hugging anyone. A lot of them were crying, too.

Sam Hashed on news videos he'd seen of school shootings. It had that kind of feel to it. Kids were bewildered, scared, hysterical, or hiding hysteria beneath laughter and bold displays of rowdiness.

Brothers and sisters were together. Friends were together. Some of the really little kids, the kindergarteners, the first graders, were wandering on tht grounds, not really going anywhere. They weren't old enough to know their way home.

Preschoolers in Perdido Beach mostly went to Barbara's Day Care, a downtown building decorated with faded appliques of cartoon characters. It was next to the Ace hardware store and across the plaza fiom the McDonald's.

Sam wondered if they were okay, the littles down at Barbara's. Probably. Not his responsibility. But he had to say something.

"What about all these little kids?" Sam said, "They'll wander into the street and get run ovei"

Quinn stopped and stared. Not at the little kids, but down the street. "You see any cars moving?"

The stoplight changed from rec to green. There were no cars waiting to go. The sound of C&T alarms was louder now, maybe three or four different alarms. Maybe more.

"First we see about our parents,'' Astrid said. "It's not like there aren't any adults anywhere." She didn't seem sure of that, so she amended it. "I mean, it's unlikely there are no adults."

"Yeah " Sam agreed. "There must be adults. Right?"

"My mom will most likely either be home or playing tennis" Astrid said. "Unless she has an appointment or some-thing. My mom or dad will have my little brother My dad's at work. He works at PBNP."

PBNP was Perdido Beach Nuclear Power. The power plant was just ten miles from the school. No one in the town thought about it much anymore, but a long time ago, in the nineties, there had been an accident. A freak accident, they called it. A once-in-a-million-years coincidence. Nothing to worry about.

People said that's why Perdido Beach was still a small town, why it hadn't ever gotten really big like Santa Barbara down the coast. The nickname for Perdido Beach was Fallout

Alley. Not very many people wanted to move to a place called Fallout Alley, even (hough all the radioactive fallout had been cleaned up.

The three of them, with Quinn a few steps ahead, walking fast on his long legs, headed down Sheridan Avenue and turned right on Alameda.

At the corner of Sheridan Avenue and Alameda Avenue was a car with the engine running. The car had smashed into a parked SUV. a Toyota. The Toyota's alarm came and went, screeching one minute, then falling silent.

The air bags in the Toyota had deployed: limp, deflated white balloons drooped from the steering wheel and the dashboard.

No one was in the SUV. Stetm came from beneath the crumpled hood.

Sam noticed something, but he didn't want to say it out loud.

Astrid said it: "The doors are still locked. Seethe knobs? If anyone had been inside and gotten out, the doors would be unlocked"

"Someone was driving and blinked out" Quinn said, lie wasn't saying it like it was supposed to be funny. Funny was over.

Quinn's house was just about two blocks down Alameda. Quinn was trying to maintain, trying to stay nonchalant. Trying to keep acting like cool Quinn. But all of a sudden, Quinn started running.

Sam and Astrid ran too, but Quinn was faster. His hat fell off his head. Sam bent and scooped it up.

By the time they caught up, Quinn had thrown open his front door and was inside. Sam and Astrid went as far as the kitchen and stopped,

"Mom. Dad. Mom. Hey!"

Quinn was upstairs, yelling. His voice got louder each time he yelled. Louder and faster, and the sob was clearer, harder lor Sam and Astrid to pretend not to hear.

Quinn came pelting down the stairs, still yelling for his family, getting only silence in return.

He still had his shades on, so San couldn't see his friend's eyes. But tears were running down Quinn's cheeks, and tears were in his ragged voice, and Sam could practically feel the lump in Quinn's throat because the same lump was in his own throat. He didn't know what to do to help,

Sam set Quinn's fedora down on the counter.

Quinn stopped in the kitchen. He was breathing hard, "She's not here, man. She's not htre. The phones are dead. Did she leave a note or anything? Do you see a note? Look for a note "

Astrid flicked a light switch. "The power is still on" "What if they're dead?" Quinn asked, "This can't be happening. This is just some kind of nightmare or something. This . . . this isn't even possible." Quinn picked up the phone, punched the talk button, snd listened. He punched the button again and put the phcne to his ear again, then dialed, stabbing at buttons with his index finger and babbling the whole time.

Finally, he put the phone down and stared at it. Stared at the phone like he expected it to start ringing any second.

Sam was desperate to get to his own house. Desperate and afraid, wanting to know and dreading knowing. But he couldn't rush Quinn, If he made his friend leave the house now, it would be like telling Quinn to give up. that his parents were gone.

"I had a tight with my dad last night," Quinn said.

"Don't start thinking that way" Astrid said. "One thing we know:
you
didn't cause this. None of us caused this"

She put her hand on Quinn's shoulder, and it was as if that was the signal for him to finally fall apart. He sobbed openly, pulled his shades off, and dropped them on the tile floor.

"It's going to be okay," Astrid said. She sounded like she was trying to convince Quinn, but also herself.

"Yeah," Sam said, not believing it, "Of course it is. This is just some..." He couldn't think of how to finish the sentence,

"Maybe it was God," Quinn said, looking up, suddenly hopeful. His eyes were red and he stared with sudden, manic energy. "It was God."

"Maybe"Sam said.

"What else could it be, right? S-so—so—so—" Quinn caught himself, choked down the panicked stutter. "So it'll be okay." The thought of some explanation, any explanation, no matter how weak, seemed to help. "Duh, of course it will be okay. It'll totally be okay."

"Astrid's house next," Sam said. "She's closest."

"You know where I live?" Astrid asked.

This would not be a good lime to admit that he had followed her home once, intending to try to talk to her, maybe ask her to go to a movie, but had lost his nerve. Sam shrugged. "I probably saw you sometime "

It was a ten-minute walk to Astrid's home, a two-story, kind-of-new house with a pool in the back. Astrid wasn't rich, but her house was much nicer than Sam's. It reminded Sam of the house he used to live in before his stepfather left. His stepfather hadn't been rich, either, but he'd had a good job.

Sam felt weird being in Astrid s home. Everything in it seemed nice and a little limey. But everything was put away. There was nothing out that could be broken. The tables had little plastic cushions on the corners. The electrical sockets had childproof covers. In the kitchen the knives were in a glass-front cupboard with a childproof lock on the handle. There were kid-proof knobs on the stove.

Astrid noticed him noticing, "Ys not for me" she said snippily, "It's for Little Pete."

"I know. He's ..." He didn't know the right word.

"He's autistic" Astrid said, very breezy, like it was no big thing. "Well, no one here" she announced. Her tone said she'd expected it, and it was fine,

"Where's your brother?" Sam asked.

Astrid yelled then, something he hadn't known she could do. "I don't know, all right? I don't know where he is" She covered her mouth with one hand.

"Call to him," Quinn suggested in a strange, carefully enunciated, formal voice. He was embarrassed by his freak-Out But at the same time, he wasn't quite done freaking out.

"Call to him? He won't answer" Astrid said through gritted teeth, "He's autistic. Severely. He doesn't ... he doesn't relate. He won't answer, all right? I can yell his name all day."

"It's okay, Astrid. We're going to make sure," Sam said. "If he's here, we'll find him,"

Astrid nodded and fought back tears.

They searched the house inch by inch. Under the beds. In the closets.

They went across the street to the home of a lady who sometimes took care of Little Fete. There was no one home there, eil her. They searched every room. Sam felt like a burglar.

"He must be with my mom, or maybe my dad took him to the plant with him. He does that when there's no one else to babysit" Sam heard desperation n her voice.

Maybe half an hour had passed since the sudden disappearance. Quinn was still weird. Astrid seemed about to fall apart. It wasn't even lunchtime but already Sam was wondering about night. The days were short, it was November I0, almost Thanksgiving. Short days long nights.

"Let's keep moving," Sam said. "Don't worry about Little Pete. Well find him."

"Is that meant to be a pro forma reassurance or a specific commitment?" Astrid asked.

"Sorry?"

"No, I'm sorry, f meant, you'll help me find Petey?" Astrid asked.

"Sure" Sam wanted to add tha; he would help her anywhere, anytime, forever, but that was just his own fear talking, making him want to babble. Instead, he started toward his own house, knowing now beyond doubt what he would find, but needing to check, anyway, and to check something else. too. Needing to see if he was crazy-Needing to see if it was still there. This was all crazy. But for Sam, the crazy had started long before.

For the hundredth time Lana craned her head to look back and check on her dog.

"He's fine. Stop fretting" Grandpa Luke said.

"He could jump out."

"He's dumb, all right, Bui I don't think he'll jump out" "He's not dumb. He's a very smart dog" Lana Arwen Lazar was in the front seat of her grandfather's battered, once-red pickup truck, Patrick, her yellow Labrador, was in the back, ears streaming in the breeze, tongue hanging out.

Patrick was named for Patrick Star, the not-very-bright character on
SpongeBob.
She wanted him up front with her. Grandpa Luke had refused.

Her grandfather turned on the radio. Country music. He was old, Grandpa Luke. Lots of kids had kind of young grandparents. In fact, Lana's other grandparents, her Las Vegas grandparents, were much younger. But Grandpa Luke was old in that wrinkled-up-leather kind of way. His face and hands were dark brown, partly from the sun, partly because he was Chumash Indian. He wore a sweat-stained straw cowboy hat and dark sunglasses.

"What am I supposed to do the rest of the day?" Lana asked.

Grandpa Luke swerved to avoid a pothole. "Do whatever you want"

"You don't have a TV or a DVD or internet or anything" Grandpa Luke's so-called ran:h was so isolated, and the old man himself was so cheap, his one piece of technology was an ancient radio that only seemed to pick up a religious station.

"You brought some books, didn't you? Or you can muck out the Stable, Or climb up the hill" He pointed with his chin toward the hills."Nice views up there"

"I saw a coyote up the hill"

"Coyote's harmless. Mostly, Old brother coyote's too smart to go messing with humans" He pronounced coyote"kie-oat"

"I've been stuck here a week, Lana said. "Isn't that long enough? How long am I supposed to stay here? I want to go home."

The old man didn't even glance at her. "Your dad caught you sneaking vodka out of the house for some punk"

"Tony is not a punk," Lana shot back.

Grandpa Luke turned the radio off and switched to his lecturing voice. "A boy who uses a girl that way, gets her in the middle of his mess, that's a punk"

"If I didn't get it for him, he would have tried to use a fake ID and maybe have gotten in trouble"

"No maybe about it. Fifteen-year-old boy drinking booze> he's going to find trouble. I started drinking when I was your age, fourteen. Thirty years of my lie I wasted on the bottle. Sober now for thirty-one years, sl\ months, five days, thank God above and your grandmother rest her soul" He turned the radio back on.

"Plus, the nearest liquor store's ;en miles away in Perdido Beach"

Grandpa Luke laughed. "Yeah. That helps, too." At least he had a sense of humor.

The truck was bouncing crazily along the edge of a dry gulch that went down a hundred teet, down to more sand and sagebrush, stunted pine trees, dogwoods, and dry grasses. A few times a year. Grandpa Luke had told her, it rained, and then the water would go rushing down the gulch, sometimes in a sudden torrent.

It was hard to imagine that as she gazed blankly down the long slope.

Then, without warning, the truck veered Off the road. Lana stared at the empty seat where her grandfather had been a split second earlier. He was gone.