Gone

  “I guess Clifftop is more likely,” Astrid said. “I hate to ask, but will you guys go with me?”

  “Now?” Quinn asked, incredulous. “At night?”

  Sam shrugged. “Better than sitting here, Quinn. Maybe they have TV there.”

  Quinn sighed. “I hear the food’s great at Clifftop. Top-notch service.” He stuck a hand out, and Sam hauled him to his feet.

  They passed through the huddled crowd. Kids would call out to Sam to ask him what was going on, ask him what they should do. And he would say things like, “Hang in. It’s going to be okay. Just enjoy the vacation, man. Enjoy your candy bars while you can. Your parents will be back soon and take it all away.”

  And kids would nod or laugh or even say “Thanks,” as if he had given them something.

  He heard his name being repeated. Heard snatches of conversation. “I was on the bus that time.” Or, “Dude, he ran right into that building.” Or, “See, he said it would be okay.”

  The knot in his stomach was growing more painful. It would be a relief to walk out into the night. He wanted to get away from all those frightened faces looking to him, expecting something from him.

  They walked close to Orc’s intersection encampment. The lame fire was sputtering, melting the tarmac beneath the embers. A six-pack of Coors beer rested in an ice-filled cooler. One of Orc’s friends, a big baby-faced lump called Cookie, was looking green and woozy.

  “Hey. Where do you guys think you’re going?” Howard demanded as they approached.

  “For a walk,” Sam said.

  “Two dumb surfers and a genius?”

  “That’s right. We’re going to teach Astrid how to surf. You have a problem with that?”

  Howard laughed and looked Sam up and down. “You think you’re the man, don’t you, Sam? School Bus Sam. Big deal. You don’t impress me.”

  “That’s a shame, because I live my entire life in hopes of impressing you, Howard,” Sam said.

  Howard’s face grew shrewd. “You need to bring us back something.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t want Orc’s feelings to be hurt,” Howard said. “I think whatever you’re going to get, you should bring him back some.”

  Orc was sprawled in a looted chair, legs spread, paying only slight attention. His never-very-focused eyes were wandering. But he grunted, “Yeah.” The moment he spoke, several of his crew discovered an interest in Sam’s group. One, a tall, skinny kid nicknamed Panda because of his dark-ringed eyes, tapped his metal bat on the blacktop, menacing.

  “So you’re a big hero or something, huh?” Panda said.

  “You’re wearing that line out,” Sam said.

  “No, no, not Sammy, he doesn’t think he’s better than the rest of us,” Howard sneered. He did a rough parody of Sam at the fire. “You get a hose, you get the kids, do this, do that, I’m in charge here, I’m…Sam Sam the Surfer Man.”

  “We’re going to go now,” Sam said.

  “Ah ah ah,” Howard said, and pointed upward with a flourish to the stoplight. “Wait till it turns green.”

  For a tense few seconds Sam considered whether he should have this fight now, or avoid it. Then the light changed and Howard laughed and waved them past.

  SIX

  290 HOURS, 07 MINUTES

  NO ONE SPOKE for several blocks.

  The streets grew emptier and darker as they joined the beach road.

  “The surf sounds strange,” Quinn observed.

  “Flat,” Sam agreed. He felt like eyes were following him, even though he was out of sight of the plaza.

  “Fo-flat, brah,” Quinn said. “Glassy. But there’s a low-pressure front just out there. Supposed to be a long period swell. Instead it sounds like a lake.”

  “Weatherman isn’t always right,” Sam said. He listened carefully. Quinn was better at reading the conditions. Something sounded like it might be strange in the rhythm, but Sam wasn’t sure.

  Lights twinkled here and there, from houses off to the left, from streetlights, but it was far darker than normal. It was still early evening, barely dinnertime. Houses should have been lit up. Instead, the only lights were those on timers or those left on throughout the day. In one house, blue TV light flickered. When Sam peeked in the window he saw two kids eating chips and staring at the static.

  All the little background noises, all the little sounds you barely registered—phones ringing, car engines, voices—were gone. They could hear each footstep they made. Each breath they took. When a dog erupted in frenzied barking, they all jumped.

  “Who’s going to feed that dog?” Quinn wondered.

  No one had an answer for that. There would be dogs and cats all over town. And there were almost certainly babies in empty homes right now, too. It was all too much. Too much to think about.

  Sam peered toward the hills, squinted to shut out the lights of town. Sometimes, if they had the stadium lights of the athletic field turned on, you could see a distant twinkle of light from Coates Academy. But not tonight. Just darkness from that direction.

  A part of Sam denied that his mother was gone. A part of him wanted to believe she was up there, at work, like any other night.

  “The stars are still there,” Astrid said. Then she said, “Wait. No. The stars are up, but not the ones just above the horizon. I think Venus should be almost setting. It’s not there.”

  The three of them stopped and stared out over the ocean. Standing still, all they heard was the odd, placid, metronomic regularity of the lapping waves.

  “This sounds bizarre, but the horizon looks higher than it should be,” Astrid said.

  “Did anyone watch the sun go down?” Sam asked.

  No one had.

  “Let’s keep moving,” Sam said. “We should have brought bikes or skateboards.”

  “Why not a car?” Quinn asked.

  “You know how to drive?” Sam asked.

  “I’ve seen it done.”

  “I’ve seen heart surgery performed on TV, too,” Astrid said. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to try it.”

  Quinn said, “You watch heart surgery on TV? That explains a lot, Astrid.”

  The road wound away from the shore and up to Clifftop. The resort’s understated neon sign, nestled roadside between carefully trimmed hedges, was lit. The grand front entrance was lit up like it was Christmas—the resort had strung strands of twinkling white lights early.

  A car sat empty, one door open, trunk popped up, suitcases on a bellman’s trolley nearby.

  When they approached, the automatic doors of the hotel swung wide.

  The lobby was open and airy, with a polished blond wood counter that curved for about thirty feet, a bright tile floor, gleaming brass accents leading toward a more shadowy bar. At the bank of elevators, one stood open, waiting.

  “I don’t see anyone,” Quinn said in a subdued whisper.

  “No,” Sam agreed. There was a TV in the bar with nothing on. No one at the front desk or the concierge desk, no one in the lobby, no one in the bar. Their footsteps echoed on the tile.

  “The tennis court is this way,” Astrid said, and led them away. “That’s where my mom and Little Pete would have been.”

  The tennis courts were lit up. No sound of balls being whacked by rackets. No sound at all.

  They all saw it at the same time.

  Cutting straight across the farthest tennis court, slicing through well-tended landscaping, cutting through the swimming pool, was a barrier.

  A wall.

  It shimmered ever so slightly.

  It did not look opaque, but whatever light came through, it was milky, indistinct, and no brighter than their surroundings. The wall was slightly reflective, like looking into a frosted-glass window. It made no sound. It did not vibrate. It seemed almost to swallow sound.

  It could be just a membrane, Sam thought. Just a millimeter thick. Something he could poke with a finger and pop like a balloon. It might even be nothing more than
an illusion. But his instinct, his fear, the feeling in the pit of his stomach, told him he was looking at a wall. No illusion, no curtain, but a wall.

  The barrier went up and up, but faded against the background of the night sky. It extended as far as they could see to the left and right. No stars shone through it, but eventually, farther up, the stars reappeared.

  “What is it?” Quinn asked. There was awe in his tone.

  Astrid just shook her head.

  “What is it?” Quinn repeated more urgently.

  They approached the barrier with slow steps, ready to run away, but needing to get closer.

  They entered the chain-link enclosure and crossed the tennis court. The barrier cut right through the net. The net started from a vertical pole and ended in the shimmering blankness of the barrier.

  Sam pulled on the net. It stayed firmly in place. No matter how much he yanked, no more net came through the barrier.

  “Careful,” Astrid whispered.

  Quinn dropped back, letting Sam take the lead. “She’s right, brah, careful.”

  Sam was just a few feet away from the barrier, hand outstretched. He hesitated. He spotted a green tennis ball on the ground and picked it up.

  He tossed it toward the barrier.

  It bounced back.

  He caught the ball on the bounce and looked at it. No marks. No sign it had done anything but bounce.

  He took the last three steps and, this time, without hesitating, pressed his fingertips against the barrier.

  “Aaah.” He yanked his hand away and looked at it.

  “What?” Quinn yelled.

  “It burned. Oh, man. That hurt.” Sam shook his hand to throw off the pain.

  “Let me look at it,” Astrid said.

  Sam extended his hand. “It feels okay now.”

  “I don’t see any burn mark,” Astrid said, turning his hand with hers.

  “No,” Sam agreed. “But, trust me, you don’t want to touch that thing.”

  Even now, even with all that was happening, he registered her touch like a very different sort of electric shock. Her hand was cold. He liked that.

  Quinn picked up a chair that sat on one of the sidelines. It was a substantial wrought-iron chair. Quinn lifted it high, held it in front of him, and slammed the legs into the barrier.

  The barrier did not yield.

  Quinn hit it again, even harder, hard enough that the recoil spun him back.

  The barrier did not yield.

  Suddenly Quinn was screaming, cursing, slamming the chair wildly again and again against the barrier.

  Sam couldn’t step close enough to stop him without getting hit. He placed a restraining hand on Astrid’s arm. “Let him get it out.”

  Again and again Quinn hurled the chair against the barrier. It left no mark.

  Finally Quinn dropped the chair, sat down on the tarmac, put his head in his hands, and howled.

  The lights were burning bright inside the McDonald’s when Albert Hillsborough walked in. A smoke alarm was blaring. A separate beep, beep, beep called urgently for attention between the louder, angrier bleats of the alarm.

  Kids had gone behind the counter and taken the cookies and Danish pastries from the display case. A box of Happy Meal toys, tie-ins to a movie Albert hadn’t seen yet, was open, the toys scattered. There were no fries in the bin but plenty were on the floor.

  Feeling self-conscious, Albert walked around to the kitchen door and tried to open it. It was locked. He went back and hopped the counter.

  It felt illegal somehow, being on the far side of the counter.

  A basket of burned, black fries sat resting in the hot oil. Albert found a towel, grabbed the basket handle, and lifted it out of the oil. He hooked it in place so that the oil drained properly. The fries had been cooking since that morning.

  “I guess those are about done,” Albert said to himself.

  The fry timer continued to beep. It took him a second, but he found the right button and pushed it. That killed one noise.

  Three tiny, black cookies were on the grill. Hamburgers that, like the fries, were about ten hours past done.

  Albert found a spatula, scooped up the burgers, and tossed them into the trash. The burgers had long since stopped smoking, but no one had been around to reset the smoke alarm. It took Albert a few minutes to figure out how to climb up without landing on the searing hot grill so he could push the reset.

  The silence was a physical relief.

  “That’s better.” Albert climbed down. He wondered if he should turn off the fryers and the grill. That would be the safest thing to do. Turn everything off and go outside. Out into the dark of the plaza, where kids were gathering, scared, looking for a rescue that was very late in coming. But he didn’t really know anyone out there.

  Albert was fourteen, the youngest of six kids. The smallest, too. His three brothers and two sisters ranged in age from fifteen to twenty-seven. Albert had already checked his home: none of them were there. His mother’s wheelchair was empty. The couch where she would normally be lying and watching TV and eating and complaining about the pain in her back was abandoned. Her blanket was there, nothing else.

  It was weird to be alone, even for a while. Weird not to have some bossy sibling telling him what to do. He couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t being bossed around.

  Now Albert walked the McDonald’s kitchen more alone than he could ever have imagined being.

  He found the walk-in freezer. He yanked on the big chrome handle and the steel door opened with a gasp and a breath of cold steam.

  Inside were metal racks and box upon box of clearly labeled hamburgers, big plastic bags of chicken nuggets, chicken strips, fries. A smaller number of boxes of sausage patties. But mostly, lots of burgers.

  He moved on to the walk-in refrigerator, not so cold and pristine, more interesting. There were plastic-covered trays of sliced tomato, bags of shredded lettuce, big plastic tubs of Big Mac sauce and mayonnaise and ketchup, blocks and blocks of sliced yellow cheese.

  He found a tiny break room festooned with posters about safety and the Heimlich maneuver, all in both English and Spanish. The dry goods were stacked against the walls of the break room: giant boxes of paper cups and boxes of waxed-paper wraps. Dull metal cylinders loaded with Coca-Cola syrup.

  In the back, near the rear door, were tall, wheeled racks of buns and muffins.

  Everything had a place. Everything was organized. Everything was clean, albeit with a sheen of grease.

  At some point, and he hadn’t really noticed the exact moment, Albert had stopped just seeing it all as interesting, and started seeing it as inventory. He was mentally translating the separate ingredients into Big Macs, chicken sandwiches, Egg McMuffins.

  Albert’s sister, Rowena, had taught him to cook. With their mom incapacitated, the kids had always had to fend for themselves. Rowena had been the unofficial cook until Albert hit his twelfth birthday, and then part of the kitchen duties had devolved to him.

  He could make red beans and rice, his mother’s favorite dish. He could make hot dogs. He could make French toast and bacon. He had never admitted it to Rowena, but Albert enjoyed cooking. It was a lot better than just doing the cleanup, which, unfortunately, he still had to do even though he was now responsible for the evening meal on Fridays and Sundays.

  The manager had a tiny office. The door was ajar. Inside was a cramped desk, a locked safe, a phone, a computer, and a wall shelf straining under the weight of several thick operator’s manuals.

  He heard sound: voices, and someone banging into a straw dispenser, then apologizing. Two seventh graders were leaning on the counter, staring up at the overhead menu like they were waiting to order.

  Albert hesitated, but not for long. He could do it, he told himself, almost surprised by the thought.

  “Welcome to McDonald’s,” Albert said. “May I help you?”

  “Are you open?”

  “What would you like?”

 
The kids shrugged. “Two number-one combos?”

  Albert stared at the computer console. It was a maze of color-coded buttons. That would have to wait.

  “What kind of drink? I mean beverage?”

  “Orange soda?”

  “Coming right up,” Albert said. He found burger patties in a refrigerator drawer below the grill. They made a satisfying sound as he slapped them onto the grill.

  He spotted a paper hat resting on a shelf. He put it on.

  While the burger patties sizzled, he opened the thick manual and searched the index for French fries.

  SEVEN

  289 HOURS, 45 MINUTES

  LANA LAY IN the dark, staring up at the stars.

  She couldn’t see the vultures anymore, but they weren’t far off. Several had tried to land nearby, and Patrick had scared them off. But she knew they were still out there.

  She was scared. Scared of dying. Scared of never seeing her mom and dad again. Her mom and dad, who probably didn’t even know she was missing. They called Grandpa Luke every night and talked to her, told her they loved her…and refused to let her come home.

  “We want you to have a break from the city, sweetheart,” her mother would say. “We want you to have some time to think and clear your head.”

  Lana burned with fury at her parents. Especially her mother. If she let it, the anger could burn so hot, it almost blanked out her pain.

  But not quite. Not really. Not for long. The pain was her whole world now. Pain and fear.

  She wondered what she looked like right now. She had never been pretty, really—her eyes, she felt, were too small, her dark hair too lank to do more with than let hang there. But now, with her face a mass of bruises, cuts, and caked-on blood, she probably looked like something from a horror movie.

  Where was Grandpa Luke? She only half remembered the seconds before the crash, and the crash itself was just a blur, fractured images of space twirling around her as her body was bludgeoned.

  It was confusing. Made no sense. Her grandfather had simply disappeared from the truck: one minute there, and the next not there. She had no memory of the truck door opening or closing, and why would the old man have jumped out?