Nightmare Academy (44 page)

No paper. No pencil.

Okay, okay. Uh,
we
had 111 on the second line. Second of twelve,
that means 6 times 111 . . . Really?

He typed in 666.

ERROR. PLEASE ENTER RESET QUANTITY.

Ten seconds.

Elijah, you forgot the first decimal.
"Well, picky, picky, picky!”

He typed in 666.0.

No error message.

Five seconds.

He clicked on RESET.

PROGRAM RESET. CLICK OK TO RESTART.

Don't click OK!

The numbers stopped counting down—at 2 seconds. The sirens turned off. The strobes quit flashing.

The blade of the bulldozer tore into the front wall of the mansion, bending, ripping, breaking. Daylight streamed in through the widening gash, and the kids began to leap and cry and cheer.

Nate backed up, took another run, and pushed the metal sheeting and framework farther aside until he had a gap wide enough for escape. He left the machine right there to hold the gap open, leaped from the seat, and gestured to the kids inside. “Come on, let's go, let's go!”

Leaning back in his chair, numb and exhausted, Elijah could watch the big screen on the wall above him and see the kids streaming out through that gap. He could also see his mom and dad helping each one, hugging any who needed it, and hurrying them all away from the building.

A feeble prayer escaped his lips. “Oh, God, thank you for letting me think again!” Then he looked around the incredibly complex room and shook his head. “No truth, huh? Then how did they design and build all this stuff?”

Oh-oh.
He could see his mom and dad on the big screen, and he could tell they were asking about him. Elisha didn't seem to have a complete answer. She just kept pointing down, looking frantic.

“Oh, that's right. I'm the only kid still missing.” He looked toward the exit door. “Guess I shouldn't keep them worrying.”

Epilogue

D
AYS LATER,
Nate sat at his computer, drafting a final report for Mr. Morgan and, via Morgan, the president.

D
AYS “Most of the people arrested on that day were visitors—scholars, thinkers, academics—unfamiliar with the academy grounds and certainly not dressed for fleeing through thick forest. While not known widely by the public, these people have proven very influential in guiding the course of public education over the past fifteen to twenty years and would have had a keen interest in the experimental findings of the Knight-Moore project. Nevertheless, since none of them were directly responsible for anything that occurred at the academy, it is doubtful they can be prosecuted.

“The real perpetrators and creators of the project, known only by such dubious aliases as Bingham, Booker, Easley, Stern, and Meeks, are still at large. As I'm sure you are aware, the Knight-Moore project had the backing and protection of key people in Congress and in the Department of Education under the previous administration, and those same people can be expected to protect and hide Bingham and his friends until a more opportune time. I can only wish you God's providence in finding them.

“In the meantime, we have the children who almost perished, most of whom are safely home again, who can testify as to their experiences, as well as abundant material evidence from the academy's main control center and 'the Maze,' as my children call it. It will be an involved process, but possible, to reconstruct what the entire project was about, and to arm ourselves against letting such an agenda ever succeed.”

Nate paused to admire the mountains of Montana out his office window—and to thank God for the two kids he could see out by the barn, saddling up their horses.

“Elijah is thinking and formulating more clearly than ever, thrilled with every new fact, excited just to be able to learn and know things. Elisha is composing an account of her adventure, and her first several pages reflect a depth and intensity we have never seen before. Both of them have changed in a way Bingham and his cronies hadn't counted on: Having lived in a world without truth, each has come back all the more a lover of truth and a hater of lies.”

With a lump in his throat, he continued typing. “And therein lies our hope. We are a free people because we live according to what we
know
is right or wrong. If Truth is taken from us, then Right and Wrong are taken from us as well. If we don't know Right and Wrong, then we can't, we won't control ourselves, but will look to someone else to bring order through brute force and raw power. We will be controlled by a tyrant, and we will no longer be free—and don't count on that tyrant to be kind or merciful. He has no sense of Right and Wrong, either, and will do to us whatever he wants.

“The Knight-Moore project was an experiment to discover what would happen to people when there is no truth, to observe and record what people can do when pushed to the extreme with no ultimate moral foundation. It was an attempt by people hungry for power to find the most effective way to rob people of their freedom. The conclusion: Take away Truth, and a tyrant will rule.

“Small wonder, then, that Jesus said, 'You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' And where else can Truth, Real Truth, come from, than from God, Who is Truth by His very nature?”

Two loving arms wrapped around his shoulders. He looked up, and Sarah kissed him.

“How's it going?” she asked.

“Almost done. I'll fax it off to Morgan tonight.”

Sarah looked out the window. “So, they're finally back to their horseback ride.”

He smiled as they watched Elijah and Elisha climb into their saddles. “The ride they were going to take before all of this started that afternoon Morgan came.”

The kids started riding, out the paddock gate and up the dirt road toward the mountain trail. The sun was bringing out all the colors of the land in summer. Elijah was singing one of his goofy songs, his head thrown back, his face to the big sky. Elisha's hair was glowing on her shoulders as she gave him her tolerant sister look.

Sarah couldn't take her eyes away. “They look so free.”

Nate nodded, his arm around her. “They
are
free!”

With a kick to their sides, the horses broke into a gallop, spiriting their young riders into the wind and the wide-open country up a winding trail into the hills, and out of sight.

IT'S NOT JUST A STORY...
IT COULD ALREADY BE SPREADING.

Award winning author

Frank Peretti

has crafted a

mystery suspense

novel that will

captivate

tweens,
teens
and adults.

The background of an average
school in America has quickly
caught the attention of the
President in Washington. Now
it is time for the Veritas Project
to solve the hidden unspoken
mystery.

It's a spine-chilling thriller from
beginning to end, with a timely
message for today!