Gone (35 page)

"Circumference of 62.83 miles, with an area of 314.159 square miles" Astrid said.

"Point 159," Quinn echoed from his corner. "That's important"

"It's basically pi "Astrid said/You know, 3.14159265.... Okay, III stop."

Lana hadn't stopped being hungry. She took a scoop of the fruit cocktail. "Sam, you think the power plant caused it?"

Sam shrugged, and then he hesitated, surprised. Lana guessed that he felt no pain in his shoulder. "No one knows. All of a sudden every single person over the age of fourteen disappears and there's this barrier and people ... animals .. "

Lana slowly absorbed this new information. "You mean all the adults? They're gone?"

"Pool7'Quinn said."They ditched. They blinked out. They vacated. They took the off-ramp. They cut a hole. They emigrated. Adults and teenagers. Nothing left but kids."

"I've done all I can to strengthen the door," Edilio announced. "But all I have is nails. Someone can break it in eventually."

"Maybe they didn't all ditch," Lana said. "Maybe we did" Astrid said,"That's definitelyone of the possibilities, not that it makes any real difference. It's effectively the same thing."

So the blonde was definitely a brain. Lana wondered about her little brother He was awftilly quiet for a little kid.

"My grandfather disappeared while he was driving the truck" Lana said, recalling that terrible day. "The truck crashed. And I was dying. I mean* bones sticking out. Gangrene. Then, it was tike I could just heal. My dog. Myself. And I don't know why"

From beyond the wooden door came a sudden chorus of excited yelps.

"Pack Leader's here.* Lana said. She crossed to the sink and picked up Hermit Jim's kitchen knife. She turned to Sam, her expression fierce. "Til stab him in his heart if he comes in here."

Sam and Edilio both drew their knives. From outside the door, just inches away, came the strangled, snarling, high-pitched voice. "Human* Come out" "No" Lana yelled. "Human. Come out"

Lana said, "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin."

Astrid smiled. "Nice," she whispered.

"Human. Come out. Human teach Pack Leader. Human

"Lesson number one, you filthy, ugly, nasty, mangy animal: Never trust a human."

That resulted in a protracted silence.

"The Darkness" Pack Leader growled.

Lana felt fear contract her heart. "Go ahead. Go tell your master in the mine all about it." She started to sav that she wasn't afraid of the Darkness. But those words would have sounded false.

"What's this about a mine?" Sam asked.

"Nothing"

"Then why is that coyote out there talking about it? What's this darkness thing?"

Lana shook her head. "I don't know. They took me there. It's an old gold mine. That's all *

Sam said, "Look, you saved our lives. But we still want to know what's going on"

Lana twined her lingers together around the knite hilt to keep herself from shaking. "I don't know what's going on, Sam. There's something down in that mine. That's all I know. The coyotes listen to it, they're scared of it, and they do what it says"

"Did you see it?"

"I don'l know. I don't remember. I don't really want to remember."

There was a loud thump at the door and it rattled on its hinges.

"Edilio, let's find more nails" Sam said.

The dining hall of Coates Academy had always seemed like a strange, unfriendly place to Jack. In terms of design and decor, it was an attempt to be airy and colorful. The windows were tall, the ceiling lofty; the doors were high arches decorated with bright ornamental Spanish tiles.

The long, heavy, dark wood tables of Jack's first year at

Coates, tables that had accommodated sixty students each, had just this last year been replaced by two dozen smaller, less formal round tables decorated with papier-mache centerpieces made by students.

At the farthest end of the dining hall a mosaic had been created of individually painted construction paper squares. The theme was "Forward Together" The squares had been arranged to form a giant arrow pointing from the lloor to the ceiling.

But the more they tried to brighten the room, the less friendly it seemed to grow, as if the little touches of color and whimsy just accented the crushing size, age, and irreducible formality of the room.

Panda, his leg not broken but badly sprained, slumped into a chair and looked mournful
end
resentful. Diana stood to one side, not liking what she was about to witness, and not keeping that feeling a secret.

"Get up on the table, Andrew," Caine ordered, pointing to one of the large round tables in front of the arrow mosaic.

"What do you mean, get up on the table?" Andrew demanded.

Some kids poked their heads irto the dining balk Drake said, "Shoo." And they disappeared.

"Andrew, you can climb up on the table or I can levitate you up there," Caine said.

"Get up, moron," Drake snapped.

Andrew climbed onto a chair, then onto the table."! don't see what.. "

"Tie him up. Computer Jack? Start setting up"

Drake pulled rope from (he bag he'd retrieved from the can He tied one end around a table leg, measured out about six feet, cut the rope, then tied the end around Andrew's leg.

"Man, what is this?" Andrew said. "What are you doing?"

"It's an experiment, Andrew,"

Jack began setting up lights and tripods for cameras.

"This is bogus, man. This isn't right, Caine. It's not right"

"Andrew, you're lucky I'm giving you a chance to survive the big blink " Caine said. "Now stop sniveling."

Drake tied Andrew*s second le^ and then hopped onto the table to tie Andrew's hands firmly behind him.

"Dude, I need my hands free for the power"

Drake looked at Caine, who nodded. Drake untied Andrew's hands and glanced at the chandelier above. He tossed the rope end up over the chandelier, an ornate, heavy iron thing that Coates kids joked was the tenth Nazgul.

Drake cinched the rope up around Andrew's chest, pulled it up under his armpits, and hauled him up till his feet barely touched the table top.

"Make sure his hands can't aim in this direction" Caine said. "I don't want that shock wave thing of his knocking cameras over."

So Drake suspended each hand by the wrist, leaving Andrew looking like a boy who was trying to surrender.

Jack watched the LED viewfinder of one of the cameras. Andrew would still be able to move out of frame by swaying one way or the other. Jack didn't want to say anything, he felt sorry for Andrew, but if the video got messed up ..,

"Urn. He could still move left or right a little"

Drake then ran ropes from Andrew's neck, four of them leading to tables on four sides. Andrew could move no more than a foot in any direction.

"What's the time. Jack?" Caine asked.

Jack checked his PDA. "Ten minutes"

Jack busied himself with the cameras, four of them on tripods, three video, and one a motorized still camera. He had two lights on poles shining down on Andrew.

Andrew was lit up like he was some kind of movie star.

"I don't want to die" Andrew said.

"Me neither" Caine agreed. "That's why I really hope you can beat the poof"

"I would be, like, the first, huh?* Andrew said. He sniffed. Tears were starting to flow.

"First and only" Caine said.

"This isn't fair," Andrew said. Jack adjusted the lens to encompass Andrew's entire body.

"Five minutes," Jack said."I'm going to go ahead and start the video running."

"Do what you have to do, Jack, don't announce it," Caine said.

"Can't you help me out, Caine?" Andrew pleaded. "You're a four bar. Maybe you and me, if we both used our power at the same time, right?"

No one answered him.

"I'm scared, okay?" Andrew moaned, and now the tears were flowing freely. "I don'l know what's going to happen."

"Maybe you wake up outside the FAYZ," Panda said, speaking for the first time.

"Maybe you wake up in hell," Diana said. "Where you belong."

"I should pray" Andrew said.

"God forgive me for being a creep who starves people?" Diana suggested.

"One minute" Jack said softly. He was nervous about when to start the still camera. No one figured Andrew's birth certificate was exact to the minute—Benno's had been off by weeks. He could disappear early.

"|esus> forgive me for all the bad stuff I did and take me to my mom I miss her so bad and please let me live Pm just a kid so let me live okay? In Jesus' name, amen."

Jack switched on the still camera.

"Ion seconds"

The room erupted with a sonic explosion from Andrew's upraised hands. Waves of shattering sound began to crack the plaster ceiling.

Jack covered his ears and stared in fascination and horror.

"Time" Jack remembered to yell over the barrage of noise. Chunks of plaster were falling from the ceiling like hail. The bulbs in the chandelier all shattered, sending down a snowfall of glass dust.

"Plus ten" Jack yelled.

Andrew was still there, hands high, crying, sobbing, beginning to hope maybe, beginning to hope.

"Plus twenty" luck said.

"Keep it up, Andrew,"Caine yelled. He was on his feet now, eager, hoping it was true that the blink could be beaten.

The ceiling was cracking more deeply, and Jack wondered if it would fall.

The sonic blast ended.

Andrew stood, exhausted, but still there. Still standing.

"Oh, God," he said. "Oh thank—"

And he was gone.

The ropes fell, suddenly released.

No one said a word.

Jack pushed rewind on one of his high-speed video cameras. He backed it up ten seconds. Then he hit play and watched it on the tiny LCD screen, frame by frame.

"Well," Diana was saying, "so much for the theory that you don't ditch if you have powers"

"He stopped blasting," Caine said. "Then he blinked out"

"He stopped blasting and then ten seconds later, he ditched" Diana said. "Birth certificate records are never going to be a hundred percent, precisely accurate. Some nurse writes down the time, maybe it's five minutes one way or the other. Some are probably off by a half hour"

"Did you get anything, Jack?" Caine asked. He sounded disheartened.

Jack was advancing, frame by frame. He saw Andrew projecting sonic blasts. He saw him stop, worn out from the effort. He saw the nervous half smile, the moment when he opened his mouth, each syllable, and then ...

"We need to play this on a bigger monitor" Jack said.

They carried the cameras to the computer center and left the tripods and lights behind. There they found a twenty-six-inch monitor, crystal clear. Jack didn't waste time downloading, just hooked up the leads and started playing. Caine, Drake, and Diana crowded around over his shoulder, eager faces lit with blue light. Panda 'imped over to a chair and slumped down.

"Look" Jack explained." Right here, Watch what happens "

He advanced the tile frame by frame.

"What is that?" Diana asked.

"He's smiling. See?" Jack said. "And he's looking at something. And what's weird is that it's not possible because this frame is, like, a thirtieth of a second but he's got time to go from this expression ,. " He backed it up a frame. "To this expression. To this, see here where he's moved his head again. And right here, the ropes are slipping away, his hands are free. Move it ahead just three frames and he's completely gone."

"What does it mean. Jack?" Caine almost implored.

"Let me look at the other cameras," Jack stalled.

Of the two remaining video cameras only one had a shot of the actual moment. This one, loo, showed a blurry picture of Andrew moving in a sudden jerk from one posture to another. In this one too, the ropes were loose and his arms were extended.

"He's reaching out for a hug "Diana said.

The still camera was unlikely to yield anything useful, Jack knew, but he attached it and fast-forwarded to the right time signature. When the photo loaded up there was a collective gasp,

Andrew was clearly visible, smiling, happy, transformed, with arms outstretched. The thing he was reaching toward looked like a light flare, a reflection of something, except that it was an almost fluorescent green and all the lights had been white.

"Zoom in on that green blob," Caine said.

"It's a depth-of-field problem," Jack said. "Let me try to enhance it" !t took a few seconds for the image to focus into the green cloud. It took several laytrs of enhancement before they could see what looked like a hole ringed by needle-sharp teeth.

"What is that thing?" Drake wondered aloud,

"It looks like ... I don't know," Jack said. "But it doesn't look like something you'd be reaching out for."

"He was seeing something different" Diana said.

"It altered time somehow, accelerated Andrew's time" Jack said, thinking out loud."So for Andrew, it was al! lasting a lot longer than it was for us. For him it may have been ten seconds, or even ten minutes, although for us it was less than the blink of an eye. It was just sheer luck we caught any of it"

Caine surprised him then and actually patted him on the back. "Don't sell yourself short. Jack."

Diana said, "He didn't just pocf. He saw something. He reached out to it. That green thing, what looks like some kind of a monster to us, must have looked like something else to Andrew."

"What, though?"

"Whatever he wanted it to be" Diana said. "Whatever he wanted so badly at that moment that he reached for it. If I had to guess? I'd say Andrew saw his mommy"

Drake spoke for the first time in a while. "So this big blink thing isn't just some thing that happens"

"No, there is deception involved" Caine said. "A trick. A lie."

"A seduction" Diana said. "Like one of those carnivorous plants that attracts the bug with perfume and bright colors and then .. " She closed her hand around an imaginary bug.

Caine seemed mesmerized by tie frozen image. In a dreamy voice he said, "Is it possible to say no? That's the question. Can we say no to the bright flower? Can we say no,,, and survive?"