The Academy: Book 1 (25 page)

Asa heard breathing behind him, and for one, terrible moment he thought that
Volkner was following him: in his mind’s eyes he could see Volkner ripping into his throat with his virulent mouth dripping with black poison. He chastised himself for running alone after the warnings he had received—
what had I been thinking?—
but then he turned to see Charlotte. She had been sitting behind him in the cafeteria, and he had been careful to only take a couple of glances at her, so that no one could misconstrue what he was doing as communicating. Now, he noticed how attractive she was, how flattering the tight white suit was against her frame. She was jogging behind him, her springy brown hair bouncing with her steps, he long legs gliding beneath her waist and hips.

Asa didn’t smile, or
do anything to acknowledge her presence, but just kept moving forward. There were several paths coming into view up ahead of him. He had completely forgotten that he had chastised himself for running alone, and his stomach did a flip as he thought of her behind him. He arched his back a little more, stood a little straighter, took his strides with a little more conviction, and picked up his pace. For a moment, he thought that he heard her falling behind, but he could still hear her breath a half minute later.

Asa was slightly ahead of her when he decided to take a right turn onto one of the paths that surrounded the main road. He had no idea where it led, and saw that it led forward half a mile, and then curved out of sight. When he made the decision to turn, he had resigned himself to the reality that she probably wouldn’t follow. She probably was out on her own run by herself, and it was just a coincidence that they ran into each other. Besides, she wouldn’t want any graduates to mistake what she was doing for communication.

Asa’s heart fluttered again, and he briefly shut his eyes with relief when he heard that she had followed him down the next path.
It’s silly to construe meaning from her actions
, he told himself.
She just probably doesn’t want to be alone. The jungles are dangerous around here. It doesn’t mean that she likes me.

Asa tried to tell himself that her turning meant nothing, but still, he was smiling as he ran. He was so happy, so distracted with the thought of Charlotte running behind him,
running with me,
that he didn’t think anything of it when he passed the first crow, pecking at the pebbled path. Or the second one. Or the third.

As the two of them went around the first bend in the road, Charlotte was only ten feet behind Asa. Despite him picking up his pace some, she had caught him, and by the sound of her breathing, she was still going strong. Asa wondered if she had jogged through the corridor leading from the girls’ dormitory out to the front foyer, and if the girls’ corridor was two miles, just like the boys’. If not, then she had been running for two miles less than Asa. He was getting tired, an ache was building up in his side, and the pain that he felt in his upper back was exhausting to him. He wished that he had walked through those corridors. He figured that he was already a mile away from the entrance to
Fishie Mountain, and if he turned around right away and jogged back, he would have traveled a total of four miles on the day.
At this altitude, I should probably just stop at three. My body isn’t used to it, and I’m already so tired.

But, his muscles weren’t running the show, and silly as it may seem, he was truly enjoying the sound of
her
footsteps behind him, and knowing that she chose to run with
him. In his mind, he was pretending that the act was some type of unspoken courtship.

There was a building sitting up ahead, on the right side of the road. Asa wanted to turn around—
what am I doing out here? I should be back in the warmth of the dormitory.
He hadn’t been able to see the structure from the top of the steps, and as he got closer, he saw that this was understandable. The building appeared to have been unused for years, and the fast growing nature that surrounded had taken its course. The structure was concrete, with white and green ropy mosses covering the outside. Two windows had once stood in the front of the buildings, but they were now both broken with jagged, gaping openings in the middle that led into the darkness inside.

Instincts told Asa not to go near the building, to turn back and return to his dormitory, but he found that he had actually picked up his pace and was moving faster towards the structure. His fear was pushing him onward, even though the thing in front of him was the source of his fear.

A crow was cawing in the distance, but Asa gave it no attention as he moved forward. Charlotte was still close behind. As he passed the building, a damp, cloying smell hit his nostrils. He briefly glanced into the moss-ridden darkness and felt himself shiver—
There could be anything living in there.

He decided that there probably were things living inside of the abandoned building. Why not? It offered shelter. It was the perfect den for some large, bearlike predator to cave up in, and raise their young inside.

Asa was twenty feet past the structure when he noticed that Charlotte was no longer behind him. He stopped, turned, and looked back. She was standing before the building, frozen, looking behind them. Asa cocked his head and moved toward her.

Doesn’t she know that it’s dangerous to stand in front of a building like that? She doesn’t know what’s lurking in there. There could be anything, even—

Asa’s thoughts were interrupted as he heard it—a rapid, thumping sound coming from down the road. Pebbles were tinkling against one another, far off. The beat was rhythmic, a quick succession of
one two, one two, one two, one two.

As Asa came up beside Charlotte, he resisted the urge to ask her what she thought it was. Her face had grown pale. They were both trying to slow their breathing down so that they could hear
better.

One two, one two, one two.

The beat pounded on towards them.

They were standing in a relatively straight portion of the pebbled road, and could see for a few hundred yards. Before them, the road was empty. Yet, they still heard that sound. It was growing louder.

When it came around the corner, Asa felt Charlotte tug at his arm, pulling him towards the moss-covered structure. The front door of the building had long fallen inward, broken at the hinges. The door had sat on the inside of the hinges, and there was a deadbolt on what used to be the outside of the door, instead of the inside.

What were they trying to lock in there?

Metal bars lay on the pebbled road in front of the building; they used to block the now broken windows, but had since been ripped from the concrete and discarded. Pale light shone in through the back of the wide, expansive first story of the building. Counters ran along the floor with glass beacons, and broken jars atop the surface. There were cages with strong metal bars along the walls, big enough to hold a man inside. They appeared to all be open.

The thought of going inside there terrified Asa. And yet, Charlotte was pulling him towards it, and he found that his feet were carrying him over the threshold.

Why did I not just stay in my dormitory?

The thing rushing towards them (
one two, one two, one two)
was even more terrifying than the mystery of what could be lurking within the abandoned building. It ran forward with long, muscle stretched strides. Its paws dug at the pebbles as it flew over the ground. Its tongue was hanging out of its panting mouth.

That’s not a normal mountain lion,
Asa thought.

It was the same animal that had sat next to
Volkner and Professor Kayce while Asa walked out of the foyer. It was the same predator that had glared at Asa from the auditorium stage in his
History of the Academy
class, and Asa had thought that it knew him.

The animal must belong to
Professor Kayce, Volkner’s assistant,
Asa decided. It wore the same leather harness it had on stage. The small, scoliosis suffered man seemed weak, but he commanded a massive, beast of a creature. It was moving towards Asa and Charlotte at an incredible rate as they slipped inside the moss covered building.

Their steps echoed across the
damp concrete. Charlotte spoke—“That thing is going to kill us,” Charlotte said.

Asa looked at her incredulously; she had put herself in great danger by speaking. Asa still did not feel comfortable
replying.

One two, one two, one two.
The cougar was moving closer.

Volkner
sent it.

Asa walked forward, and turned to make sure that she was following. Charlotte stood, staring at the approaching animal as if mesmerized by it.
“C’mon,” Asa said. Charlotte broke her stare and turned to follow Asa. There was a wooden door on the far side of the room. They both sprinted towards it; Asa felt as though his legs couldn’t move quickly enough.

One two, one two, one two.

As he moved, Asa took a weary glance down into the dark, windowless depth of the building. Hundreds and hundreds of cages yawned open like mouths. He stepped over shards of glass, and syringes that littered the floor as he made his way, following Charlotte, to the door.

What is this place?

Charlotte ran under the door jam, and Asa shut the door behind them, clicking home a metal latch near the top, and locking a deadbolt. He hoped that it would be enough to stop the thing following them. They were standing in a dripping stairwell, with metal steps leading up to another door at the top. They kept moving. They were halfway up the steps when the
one two, one two
was replaced with a smash, and the door pulsed towards them with the sound of cracking wood. It did not open on this attempt, though.

They climbed, panting and sweating, as quickly as possible up the remainder of the stairs.

There was another smash as they reached the top, and Asa let out a groan as he saw that the wooden door now had a visible crack running halfway down the center.

It might hold one more hit.
Maybe two, if we’re lucky.

Asa shut the door on the top, but found that it would be little more than a nuisance to the monster below: the knob rattled in its place, the deadbolt was lying uselessly on the tile floor, and there was no other latch. He slammed it shut anyways, and followed Charlotte, who was already dashing ahead of him.

The top floor had more windows than the bottom did, many of which had tree branches growing inside and scratching the ceiling. Most of the windows had yellowed, moth eaten curtains surrounding them. The openings offered light, something that Asa thought would be an advantage for them. Humans cannot win in a fight against a mountain lion in the dark, using brute strength and speed. They can, however, win in an environment where thinking is involved; they can win in an environment with resources. And the light made it so that the humans could take stock of what was around them.

Even with this being true, Asa didn’t find much hope in what he saw. Like the bottom floor of this facility, glass and syringes scattered the hard tile floor. These things seemed useless to Asa. Even if he could wrap a shard of glass in cloth to make a shank, he couldn’t possibly hope to deliver a fatal blow to the mountain lion before it killed him.

She’ll go for my neck first,
Asa thought with a cold certainty of the enormous cat.

He heard the animal plow into the door below for the third time. The wood cracked some more, but he didn’t hear the cougar coming up the stairs. The building shook with the blow, and Asa was in awe of the creature’s power.

It could rip us both apart in a matter of seconds.

Asa would have liked to thoroughly survey the room, but he didn’t have time. He named off objects in his head as his eyes saw them:
filing cabinet, sink, desk, lamp, chair, flowerpot, library, books, couch.

Asa’s eyes were dancing back and forth, his brain doing its best to find a solution to the predicament that they were in. Before he could make a decision, Charlotte had. She ran into what Asa’s mind called
library.

It was more like a study than a library, but it was the only enclosed are
a in the entire place. The study was the size of Asa’s bedroom at home, with books lining three walls. The forth wall had a heavy, decorative wooden door, and two windows, with thin, chain-links of metal lining the inside of the glass.

As Asa and Charlotte ran for it, they heard the next thud from downstairs as the mountain lion slammed into the door.

Not into,
Asa thought,
through.

The animal was racing up the stairs. The only thing separating it from ripping them apart was a thin door on hinges. Asa and Charlotte dashed into the library, and Charlotte slammed the door shut.

She tried the deadbolt and let out a scream: it wouldn't click shut. She tried it again, her fingers turning white with effort as they attempted to turn the metal lock. It wouldn't move. The building was old, and dilapidated. It sat in a changing climate of cold and humidity. The building had probably shifted some since the door had been installed, making it so that the deadbolt no longer fit into the hole.