Gone Series Complete Collection (2 page)

Sam looked left, down toward room 211, the room where Astrid’s math wonks met. The next door down, 213, a kid stuck out his head. He had a half-scared, half-giddy expression, like someone buckling into a roller coaster.

The other direction, down at 207, kids were laughing too loud. Freaky loud. Fifth graders. Across the hall, room 208, three sixth graders suddenly burst out into the hallway and stopped dead. They stared at Sam, like he might yell at them.

Perdido Beach School was a small-town school, with everyone from kindergarten to ninth grade all in one building, elementary and middle school together. High school was an hour’s drive away in San Luis.

Sam walked toward Astrid’s classroom. She and Quinn were right behind him.

The classroom was empty. Desk chairs, the teacher’s chair, all empty. Math books lay open on three of the desks. Notebooks, too. The computers, a row of six aged Macs, all showed flickering blank screens.

On the chalkboard you could quite clearly see “Polyn.”

“She was writing the word ‘polynomial,’” Astrid said in a church-voice whisper.

“Yeah, I was going to guess that,” Sam said dryly.

“I had a polynomial once,” Quinn said. “My doctor removed it.”

Astrid ignored the weak attempt at humor. “She disappeared in the middle of writing the ‘o.’ I was looking right at her.”

Sam made a slight motion, pointing. A piece of chalk lay on the floor, right where it would have fallen if someone were writing the word “polynomial”—whatever that meant—and had disappeared before rounding off the “o.”

“This is not normal,” Quinn said. Quinn was taller than Sam, stronger than Sam, at least as good a surfer. But Quinn, with his half-crazy half-smile and tendency to dress in what could only be called a costume—today it was baggy shorts, Army-surplus desert boots, a pink golf shirt, and a gray fedora he’d found in his grandfather’s attic—put out a weird-guy vibe that alienated some and scared others. Quinn was his own clique, which was maybe why he and Sam clicked.

Sam Temple kept a lower profile. He stuck to jeans and understated T-shirts, nothing that drew attention to himself. He had spent most of his life in Perdido Beach, attending this school, and everybody knew who he was, but few people were quite sure what he was. He was a surfer who didn’t hang out with surfers. He was bright, but not a brain. He was good-looking, but not so that girls thought of him as a hottie.

The one thing most kids knew about Sam Temple was that he was School Bus Sam. He’d earned the nickname when he was in seventh grade. The class had been on the way to a field trip when the bus driver had suffered a heart attack. They’d been driving down Highway 1. Sam had pulled the man out of his seat, steered the bus onto the shoulder of the road, brought it safely to a stop, and calmly dialed 911 on the driver’s cell phone.

If he had hesitated for even a second, the bus would have plunged off a cliff and into the ocean.

His picture had been in the paper.

“The other two kids, plus the teacher, are gone. All except Astrid,” Sam said. “That’s definitely not normal.” He tried not to trip over her name when he said it but failed. She had that effect on him.

“Yeah. Kind of quiet in here, brah,” Quinn said. “Okay, I’m ready to wake up now.” For once, Quinn was not kidding.

Someone screamed.

The three of them stumbled into the hall, which was now full of kids. A sixth grader named Becka was the one screaming. She was holding her cell phone. “There’s no answer. There’s no answer,” she cried. “There’s nothing.”

For two seconds everyone froze. Then a rustle and a clatter, followed by the sound of dozens of fingers punching dozens of keypads.

“It’s not doing anything.”

“My mom would be home, she would answer. It’s not even ringing.”

“Oh, my God: there’s no internet, either. I have a signal, but there’s nothing.”

“I have three bars.”

“Me too, but it’s not there.”

Someone started wailing, a creepy, flesh-crawly sound. Everybody talked at once, the chatter escalating to yelling.

“Try 911,” a scared voice demanded.

“Who do you think I called, numbnuts?”

“There’s no 911?”

“There’s nothing. I’ve gone through half my speed dials, and there’s not anything.”

The hall was as full of kids as it would have been during a class change. But people weren’t rushing to their next class, or playing around, or spinning the locks on their lockers. There was no direction. People just stood there, like a herd of cattle waiting to stampede.

The alarm bell rang, as loud as an explosion. People flinched, like they’d never heard it before.

“What do we do?” more than one voice asked.

“There must be someone in the office,” a voice cried out. “The bell went off.”

“It’s on a timer, moron.” This from Howard. Howard was a little worm, but he was Orc’s number-one toady, and Orc was a glowering thug of an eighth grader, a mountain of fat and muscle who scared even ninth graders. No one called Howard out. Any insult to Howard was an attack on Orc.

“They have a TV in the teachers’ lounge,” Astrid said.

Sam and Astrid, with Quinn racing after them, pelted toward the lounge. They flew down the stairs, down to the bottom floor, where there were fewer classrooms, fewer kids. Sam’s hand on the door of the teachers’ lounge, they froze.

“We’re not supposed to go in there,” Astrid said.

“You care?” Quinn said.

Sam pushed the door open. The teachers had a refrigerator. It was open. A carton of Dannon blueberry yogurt was on the floor, gooey contents spilled onto the ratty carpet. The TV was on, with no picture, just static.

Sam searched for the remote. Where was the remote?

Quinn found it. He started running through the channels. Nothing and nothing and nothing.

“Cable’s out,” Sam said, aware it was kind of a stupid thing to say.

Astrid reached behind the set and unscrewed the coaxial cable. The screen flickered and the quality of the static changed a little, but as Quinn ran the channels there was still nothing and nothing and nothing.

“You can always get channel nine,” Quinn said. “Even without cable.”

Astrid said, “Teachers, some of the kids, cable, broadcast, cell phones, all gone at the same time?” She frowned, trying to work it out. Sam and Quinn waited, like she might have an answer. Like she might say, “Oh, sure, now I understand.” She was Astrid the Genius, after all. But all she said was, “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Sam lifted the receiver on the wall phone, a landline. “No dial tone. Is there a radio in here?”

There wasn’t. The door slammed open and in rushed two kids, fifth-grade boys, their faces wild, excited. “We own the school!” one yelled, and the other gave an answering hoot.

“We’re going to bust open the candy machine,” the first one announced.

“That’s maybe not a good idea,” Sam said.

“You can’t tell us what to do.” Belligerent, but not sure of himself, not sure he was right.

“You’re right, little dude. But look, how about we all try and keep it together till we figure out what’s going on?” Sam said.

“You keep it together,” the kid yelled. The other one hooted again, and off they went.

“I guess it would be wrong to ask them to bring me a Twix,” Sam muttered.

“Fifteen,” Astrid said.

“No, man, they were, like, ten,” Quinn said.

“Not them. The kids in my class. Jink and Michael. They were both math whizzes, better than me, but they had LDs—learning disabilities, dyslexia—that kept them back. They were both a little older. I was the only fourteen-year-old.”

“I think maybe Josh was fifteen, in our class,” Sam said.

“So?”

“So he was fifteen, Quinn. He just . . . just disappeared. Blink and he was gone.”

“No way,” Quinn said, shaking his head. “Every adult and older kid in the whole school just disappears? That makes no sense.”

“It’s not just the school,” Astrid said.

“What?” Quinn snapped at her.

“The phones and the TV?” Astrid said.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Quinn said. He was shaking his head, half smiling, like he’d been told a bad joke.

“My mom,” Sam said.

“Man, stop this,” Quinn said. “All right? It’s not funny.”

For the first time Sam felt the edge of panic, like a tingling at the base of his spine. His heart was thumping in his chest, laboring as if he’d been running.

Sam swallowed hard. He sucked at the air, unable to take more than shallow breaths. He looked at his friend’s face. He’d never seen Quinn so scared. Quinn’s eyes were behind shades, but his mouth quivered, and a pink stain was creeping up his neck. Astrid was still calm, though, frowning, concentrating, trying to make sense of it all.

“We have to check it out,” Sam said.

Quinn let loose a sort of sobbing breath. He was already moving, turning away. Sam grabbed his shoulder.

“Get off me, brah,” Quinn snapped. “I have to go home. I have to see.”

“We all have to go see,” Sam said. “But let’s go together.”

Quinn started to pull away, but Sam tightened his grip. “Quinn. Together. Come on, man, it’s like a wipeout, you know? You get launched, what do you do?”

“You try not to get worked up,” Quinn muttered.

“That’s right. You keep your head straight through the spin cycle. Right? Then swim toward daylight.”

“Surfing metaphor?” Astrid asked.

Quinn stopped resisting. He let go of a shuddering breath. “Okay, yeah. You’re right. Together. But my house first. This is messed up. This is so messed up.”

“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 than he did. That seemed impossible.

From the hallway they heard a rising cacophony of voices. Loud, scared, some babbling, as if it 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. “We’ll 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.

TWO

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 flashed 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 the 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 appliqués of cartoon characters. It was next to the Ace hardware store and across the plaza from 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 over.”

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

The stoplight changed from red to green. There were no cars waiting to go. The sound of car 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 something. 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 though 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. Steam 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. See the knobs? If anyone had been inside and gotten out, the doors would be unlocked.”

“Someone was driving and blinked out,” Quinn said. He wasn’t saying it like it was supposed to be funny. Funny was over.