Nightmare Academy Read online

  She could see the lights from the mansion off her left shoulder, but still no gap in that stubborn stone wall. She kept climbing the hill, breaking and snapping through dry branches, stumbling on loose rocks, groping as if blind, guarding her face and eyes with her forearm.

  Then, up ahead, she could see the branches of trees in the amber glow from one of the mansion's yard lights, as if a clearing—such as a road—was allowing light from the mansion to penetrate the forest. All right! It might be the road her brother almost reached before—

  Oh, no. What was that?

  Closer than she could believe, she heard a low, close-to-the-ground snuffing, then a snorting. Some bushes rustled. Some twigs snapped.

  Oh, great. Remember, girl, what do you do, what do you do? Uh, yell, make some noise, scare it away.

  Elijah said it didn't work.

  The critter growled. She could hear the bushes rustling closer, the pounding of its big feet on the ground.

  She couldn't see where it was, but she could hear it, enough to run in the opposite direction, crashing through limbs and brush, stumbling over fallen logs and rocks. A log tripped her; she went down, got to her feet, ran. All dark ahead of her, she couldn't see—

  Oof! She found the wall in the dark, her outstretched arms taking the impact. That thing was still out there, huffing and snorting, looking for her. She groped along the wall, trying to find any way that she could climb it.

  AWW! She dropped, as through a trapdoor, quicker than she could realize what was happening, slipping, sliding, dropping down a bizarre rabbit hole, her eyes useless in the total dark. She was just beginning to think this felt like a waterslide without the water when—

  Bump!—she landed on a smooth floor, tumbling, sliding, squeaking to a stop.

  It was quiet, and totally dark. She'd escaped the bear, but where was she? It sounded like a room; she could hear the echoes of the walls in the air. But also, she could discern a steady, mechanical hum as if she were inside the belly of a huge machine.

  The party in the Rec Center was over. Some kids had managed to return with flashlights, but the games were all dead. There was no more music. Besides the fear and anxiety, boredom was setting in.

  “Where's Alexander?” Ramon asked.

  “He went to take care of some business,” Brett answered, trying to hold things together in the boss's absence.

  “Well, he'd better get some business done here or we're all—”

  He clammed up when two big guys leaned into his space. “Hey, cool it, guys, I'm just talking.”

  “Well, stop talking,” said one.

  Two flashlights came through the door, carried by two muggers who looked like they were the ones who'd been mugged. Alexander was limping with a sore back, and Rory was holding a cloth to his bleeding mouth.

  Brett started to ask, “How'd it—Never mind.”

  “She ran toward the mansion,” said Alexander. “Thinks she can get away . . .”

  “Where's Clay?”

  “We carried him to his room. He'll be okay. He fell through the window.”

  Ramon was only the first to start asking questions. “So what do we do now?”

  Kids were coming out of the dark, gathering like moths around a lamp. They were bored, scared, disillusioned, hungry, and restless. “When do we get the lights back on?” “They're after us, aren't they?” “We're all in trouble now.” “How are we going to cook anything?” “There's no hot water.” “What are you going to do, Alexander?”

  “They're just trying to scare us!” Alexander answered. “They're trying to break us down, make us give up.” He yelled so they could all hear, “But we're not going to give up! We've won the first round, and tomorrow morning we're going to win the second!”

  Brett asked for all of them, “What's the second?”

  Alexander could see lights on up on the hill. “They think as long as they can hide behind that wall they can play around with us and put us off. Down here, we're just their puppets. But up there, up in that mansion, that's where the strings are. That's where the power is.” They all looked at him, caught up in his spell, awed by his visions. “Come on. I know what to do.”

  Kids were coming out of the dark,

  gathering like moths around a lamp.

  Nate and Sarah were driving through Coeur d'Alene, returning from a tedious visit to the local branch of the U.S. Forest Service, their last stop of the day. They'd spent the day going over maps, making phone calls, grappling with bureaucrats and checking any discrete sources that would come to mind, but no one anywhere—not the forest service, or the sheriff's office, or the power or phone companies, or the local gas station attendants or restaurateurs—had ever heard or seen anything about a summer academy for high school kids or runaways. Now it was late at night, they were tired, and beyond frustrated.

  “Let's call Morgan,” said Nate. “It may be more fruitful to help him track down Margaret Jones.”

  Sarah picked up his cell phone. “Oh-oh. We missed a call.”

  She pressed the button to play back the message, listened, and her face went pale. “PULL OVER!”

  On the west edge of Coeur d'Alene, Mr. Morgan stepped out of his big black car and looked toward the car parked just ahead of his. The driver, head down to hide his face, pointed toward the classic old house across the street and then drove away.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Morgan, watching the car shrink in the distance.

  He opened the passenger door of his car, and a matronly woman got out. Together, they walked across the street and up the steps onto the broad front porch. Some lights were still on. Apparently the occupant was enjoying a late TV show and not expecting callers. That was fortunate.

  Morgan rang the doorbell.

  The sound of the television cut off. A moment later, the door opened a crack and a redheaded woman looked out.

  “Very sorry, ma'am, please pardon the intrusion,” said Morgan.

  “And who are you?” she asked, wary and bothered.

  “My name is Morgan.” He showed her some ID. “This is Emily Perkins, a forensic consultant assisting me.” He then referred to some papers in his hand: color copies of KnightMoore brochures and a photograph of Kathy Simons holding a trout. “Kathy Simons? Or should I address you as Suzanne Doming? Or perhaps Margaret Jones?”

  “My name is Morgan” He showed her

  some ID, “This is Emily Perkins, a

  forensic consultant assisting me.”

  She looked at his evidence and said nothing, but her face said everything.

  “I work with a team of private investigators, and since our investigation thus far seems to be leading to you, I thought it might be in your interest to make sure our information is correct. May we have a chat?”

  She sighed and let them in.

  Nate and Sarah were forcing themselves to remain calm, to think, to work with the information they'd just received from Elisha's frantic, tortuous phone call. They could hear the struggle, the cursings and yellings in the background, the sounds of kicking, tripping, crashing, falling, the sound of the receiver being dropped, followed by a horrible crashing of glass. It sounded like the end of their daughter, and now, all they had was a hodgepodge of numbers staring at them from Sarah's notepad.

  Nate listened to the error message from his cell phone. “It's not a phone number, not even international. Did we miss any of the numbers?”

  Sarah shook her head. “It's all she gave us. She finished her message. She said she loved us at the end, right before we heard the crash. It has to be enough.”

  They stared at the numbers.

  “Forty-seven,” Nate mused.

  “Four hundred, seventy-one . . .” Sarah tried. “Four thousand, seven hundred and ten.”

  “Forty-seven and ten.” He froze. He tapped on the numbers with his pen. “That's it. THAT'S IT!”

  Sarah was already catching on. “Forty-seven and ten . . .”

  Nate grabbed his pen and divided the d
igits into groups. “Forty-seven and ten. One hundred fifteen and fifty”

  “Latitude and longitude!”

  Nate was already scrambling for the forest service map. “47 degrees, 10 minutes north latitude, 115 degrees, 50 minutes west longitude! Oh, kids, I love ya! I love ya!”

  He located the coordinates on the map. “Closest town is Stony Bend, a good distance southeast of here. Call Morgan, tell him where we're going.”

  He tossed Sarah the map and hit the gas pedal.

  Minutes passed, enough for Elisha to conclude nothing further was going to happen unless she made it happen. With the floor the only thing known, she lay belly-down and began inching along, reaching out in front and to the sides, probing and exploring.

  BANG! A loud noise and a sudden flood of light nearly scared her to death. A wall panel had opened, vanishing into the ceiling in the blink of an eye. Squinting in the light, Elisha could see she was in a small, square room. At one end was the bottom of the slide that brought her here; at the other end, with the panel raised, was a long, narrow hallway, washed with an amber glow from hundreds of tiny ceiling lights.

  Squinting, trying to get accustomed to the light, she could vaguely see someone walking up that hallway, coming toward her. It was a man. No, it was a young man. He was wearing a burgundy blazer. He kind of walked like her brother.

  It was her brother!

  She got to her feet, wanting to run to him, but she was wary of walls that could disappear, lights that could blind, trapdoors that could open. She just wasn't sure about this place. “Elijah? Elijah, are you all right?”

  He put a finger to his lips. “Sh. Come on.” He beckoned to her.

  She ventured into the hall. It looked solid enough. She could touch the walls. The floor was solid beneath her. She quickened her pace. Elijah was smiling at her, encouraging her. He looked pretty tired, but okay.

  “Where are we?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “Come on,” he answered.

  “Where are we?"

  she asked in a hushed voice.

  He turned and disappeared into a side passage. She hurried to catch up, rounded the corner, and saw him go through a door. She broke into a run, got to the door, and hurried through—

  BANG! The door slammed shut behind her—a short little scream escaped her throat—and she was blind again, in total darkness, feeling like she'd walked right into a trap . . . but . . . how could her brother . . . ? “Elijah! Talk to me. What's going on?”

  A voice from somewhere said, “Okay, here she is.”

  “Hello?” she called.

  “Hang on, Elisha,” said the voice. She didn't recognize it. “Just stand there a minute.”

  She heard the rumble of another wall moving on rollers. A vertical slit of dim, rose-colored light appeared, then widened, expanding from right to left like a curtain drawing back. She saw red, blinking lights far away in the dark, then red digital readouts, huge cabinets and equipment racks, more glowing lights, TV monitors, patch cables, knobs, switches. The wall kept moving, the vision broadened before her, and she was awestruck; stretching into the semidarkness were two rows of control consoles with a dozen technicians wearing headsets, sitting at computer screens, TV monitors, and daunting control boards with thousands of knobs, dials, faders, toggles, readouts. On the far wall, huge video screens were flickering from one view of the academy campus to another.

  I'm either in a really big TV studio or a spaceship, she thought.

  A man dressed in black approached her. He was thin, a brainy sort, with his hair tied in a long ponytail down his back. “Hello. Let me show you to a chair.”

  He guided her to a corner of the room, to a comfortable stuffed chair on a small platform, surrounded by a curved, green wall, and pleasantly lit. It looked like a small set for a TV talk show, but with only one chair. She looked the chair over carefully, then sat in it.

  “Comfortable?” he asked her.

  “Yes,” she answered, still too blown away to say anything else. Then her first question finally came to her. “What happened to my brother?”

  Another voice from amid all that blinking, glowing equipment answered, “Your brother is here with us.”

  That voice she recognized, and now she could see his face bathed in orange light, the blinking lights and red digital readouts reflected in his reading glasses. “Mr. Bingham.”

  “Welcome, Miss Elisha Springfield. Please make yourself comfortable.”

  His wasn't the only familiar face. Just behind him, looking very pleased, even victorious, was Mr. Booker, none the worse for wear, his formal, imposing air gone, his hair combed differently, like . . . like an actor out of costume. Next to him, perfectly comfortable in Booker's presence and apparently still employed, was Mr. Easley, now in long pants and shirt, no longer the “phys-ed” guy. Mrs. Meeks—or whoever she really was—was occupied at a control station, wearing a headset, minus her bookwormish glasses and hair-in-a-bun. Mr. Stern, wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard, came and stood with Booker, Easley, and Bingham, smilingly sharing the sight of a ragged, scratched-up, nearly exhausted girl in old jeans and an army-surplus khaki jacket.

  “We'll get to you in a moment,” said Bingham. “I'm sure you're wondering—”

  “They're in the tool room,” reported a technician, tweaking dials and looking up at the big video screens.

  Elisha watched in amazement. The four big screens provided multiple, wide-angle views of the tool room, and she could see Alexander, Brett, Ramon, and Rory gathering up the rakes, shovels, axes, hammers, and anything else they could lay their hands on, passing them outside to the other toughs.

  “Yes,” said Bingham, addressing Booker, “thanks to your little recruitment meetings, they all know about that tool room.” He looked at the large, digital clock on the wall. “Nearly three in the morning. They might pause to get some sleep, but in any event, I predict they'll approach us at first light.”

  Booker chuckled as he shook his head. “So predictable.”

  Booker chuckled as he shook

  his head. “So predictable.”

  Bingham wasn't one to smile, but he did appear pleased. “Be glad. A different selection of kids might have killed you.”

  Booker laughed. “Oh, I was scared for a moment.”

  “We all were!” said Ms. Fitzhugh, entering with a fresh cup of tea.

  There was laughter—from a small audience. Elisha looked to her right, and along the back wall, facing the big screens, was a sizable group of faceless people sitting in the dark.

  Bingham spoke to them, apparently in the middle of a lecture. “We interviewed and handpicked every child. This year we were looking for a particular, modern personality, the media-oriented, amusement-dependent, consumer type; a child who hears with his eyes, thinks with his feelings, and has been made to believe there are no absolutes, and therefore no right or wrong. Children from dysfunctional families were preferred; runaways provided an ideal subject pool.” He looked toward the big screens as a technician cued a recording.

  Elisha's mouth dropped open. There, while one big screen continued to show the raiding of the tool room, another big screen replayed footage of the red-headed woman, Margaret Jones, talking with Ramon, then Britney, then Alice/Marcy/Cher/ Mariah/Joan, then Harold “Alex” Carlson and Alvin Rogers over a bowl of soup in a youth shelter, asking them questions about right and wrong and showing them a brochure.

  “Using what we've learned in the previous years, we've been able to isolate and encourage a personality type that doesn't think but only follows, and believes any lie as long as there is pleasure attached to it.”

  On the screen, Alexander was sitting on the picnic table, announcing the headband requirement. Kids all around him grabbed, ripped, or cut anything they could find to wrap around their heads.

  “Oh, and please note this result.”

  Elisha saw herself and some others in a muddy, dark picture, their faces blinking in and out of the dark as unste
ady flashlight beams flashed around the room. The camera zoomed in on Joan's face as she said, “I was afraid,” and ran out of the building.

  “One of our finest moments,” said Bingham. “Take away truth, and people will lie. Scoff at virtue, and betrayal becomes a matter of course.”

  “Then these techniques really work!” said a man in the audience.

  “Absolutely,” said Bingham. “If you'll pardon the expression.” The audience laughed. “But it takes time, the right personalities, the right circumstances.”

  “So what about this young lady?” someone asked.

  “Take away truth, and people will lie.

  Scoff at virtue, and betrayal

  becomes a matter of course.”

  “Mmm,” said Bingham with a testy side-glance at Elisha. “This young lady and her brother.” He nodded to the technician.

  Elisha was stunned. Now she was watching Margaret Jones talk to her and Elijah at that same table in the same youth shelter. For all she knew, even the soup was the same.

  “We chose these two because they do have a strong religious background and they do believe in absolutes. Our goal, of course, was to compare their reactions to the same situations, and see if their particular system of truth could be broken.” With another sideways glance at Elisha, Bingham quipped, “And as we anticipated, it hasn't been easy.”

  Bingham nodded to the technician, and another video began to play on the big screen: Elijah and Elisha reciting the Ten Commandments in Booker's class; the two of them debating Mr. Easley; Elijah telling Booker, “. . . it's like you and I are from different planets or something. For you, it's all power and money. For me, it's God. It's Truth. I could never work for you . . ."; and Elisha surrounded by the kids in the Rec Center, telling Alex, “Jerry would have to bow to you. He'd have to say you're right, and he won't do that. And neither will I,” and handing the scarf back to Cher.