Dark Star

by R. T. Martin

“I know I don’t want to be her friend. She creeps me out,” Claire said, turning toward her classroom. “See you guys at lunch?”

  “You know it,” said Cooper.

  As Claire sat at her desk waiting for class to start, Cooper’s words kept playing over and over in her mind. Why had Val suggested to Mr. Petsky that the class go to the bluffs? She was new, so she didn’t know about their freaky history. But, like Cooper said, who really cares about science that much? The more she thought about it, the more it freaked Claire out. Why would Val want her to go to the bluffs late at night, and what was it about that girl that made Claire so uncomfortable? Just thinking about Val made Claire squirm in her seat. Claire was so deep in thought that when the bell rang, she actually jumped in her desk. It was probably just the bluffs. That’s what was putting her on edge. Even with Cooper and Emma going with her, the idea of heading up there was terrifying. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind and tried to focus on history class. She didn’t need to be forced to take an extra credit trip to some freaky museum late at night too.

  Chapter 4

  Saturday 10:30 p.m.

  “Try to have fun,” said Claire’s mom. “I promise it won’t be as bad as you think.”

  Claire got out of the car and closed the door behind her. It was bad enough that she had to waste her Saturday night doing work for science class, but to have to go to the creepiest place in Middleton on top of that was not something she would ever look forward to. “Any last chance of getting out of this?” Claire asked through the open window.

  Her mom smiled but shook her head. “I’ll pick you up when you get back. Love you.”

  “Love you too, Mom,” said Claire. She watched her mom drive away and very briefly thought to herself, I could just walk away, not get on the bus, and go see a movie with Emma and Cooper, but she knew her dad would be furious, and there was no way Emma would ditch the trip for a movie. She was way too responsible to do that. Cooper might though.

  “Claire! Claire!” Cooper lived close enough to walk to Middleton High. He ran down the sidewalk to her. “I’ve got a whole bag full of snacks!” As he came to a stop in front of her, he opened his backpack and started rifling through bags of chips, marshmallows, cookies, and candy.

  Claire couldn’t help but smile. “That’s great. I may be freaked out, but at least I’ll be well fed.” She started walking to the bus while Cooper zipped his bag back up.

  “Emma’s waiting for us on the bus,” he said. “She just texted me.”

  They joined the long line of students filing onto the bus. Mr. Petsky stood by the door, checking off names on a list as people got on. As Claire walked by, he said, “Glad you could make it.” To Cooper: “I was pleasantly surprised to hear you wanted to join us too. Always happy to have some last minute additions. Hop on.”

  Cooper slid into the seat next to Emma, and Claire sat right behind them. She took an open spot next to a blond girl that she had never talked to. The girl barely looked up from her phone as Claire took her seat.

  Almost immediately after sitting down, Cooper popped back up and faced Claire with his arms propped on the back of the seat. “This is going to be so cool! I’m hoping that we get to see a UFO. If there’s one place in town that we’d see one, it’d definitely be the bluffs. I’ll bet we see one for sure.”

  “I’ll bet we see a meteor shower, get back on this bus, and go home,” said Claire. “I just want to get it all over with so I can go home and not fail science.”

  “Come on,” said Cooper. “This is almost better than a movie. This is kind of a real adventure!”

  “I don’t want an adventure. I’d rather go to a movie.”

  Cooper rolled his eyes and sat back down.

  The last of the students in line got on the bus and Mr. Petsky climbed aboard, stood by the driver’s seat, and addressed the group. “I’m glad you’re all here tonight. As you know, the shower is supposed to begin at midnight, but we will arrive at the bluffs at about eleven so that we don’t miss a moment of it. I want all of you to pay attention during the shower. Make mental notes of how many meteors you see, how far across the sky they fly, how thick or thin their trails are, and most importantly, what it’s like to watch this incredible astronomical event. You’ll have to write a one-page report on this, due Monday, to receive the extra credit.”

  The teacher took a quick glance at the list of names before continuing. “Obviously, it’s rather late at night. There aren’t any buildings or street lights up in the bluffs, which is perfect for viewing an event like a meteor shower, but I want to warn you, it is going to be nearly pitch-black up there. Please keep any source of light turned off. That includes cell phones. We don’t want any light pollution getting in the way of our view. Keep in mind that it’s very easy to trip and fall or get lost, so I want you all to be very careful and stay close together. No one should go wandering off alone.” The girl next to Claire huddled near the window, still hunched over her screen, her phone vibrating as message after message appeared.

  “I also think I should mention,” Mr. Petsky continued, “that you won’t need your phones anyway. The bluffs are a dead zone. The signal from the cell towers in town doesn’t extend up there, so those of you with phones won’t get any service. If there is an emergency, tell me and I can radio the driver.” He held up a walkie-talkie.

  Claire glanced at the blond girl, who sighed at the news. Even as Mr. Petsky was speaking, her phone barely stopped buzzing. When Claire looked back at Mr. Petsky, Val was eerily standing behind him. Where did she come from? thought Claire. Mr. Petsky jumped a little when he saw her. “Oh, Val, I didn’t see you there. Glad you could join us. You can take the seat here next to me.” Before Val sat down, she scanned the students and found Claire, Cooper, and Emma. She looked right at them, the edge of her lips curling upward in a wide grin.

  Claire heard Cooper whisper to Emma, “What is she doing here? Little Miss Perfect doesn’t need extra credit.” Claire wondered the same thing. What could possibly motivate her to go on this trip? Val did say the trip was her idea, but this was probably just another way for her to suck up to Mr. Petsky, not that she needed to at this point. She was clearly his favorite student at Middleton. To Claire, the trip seemed like it was going to be a little bit worse with Val coming along—an extra piece of stress she didn’t want to deal with.

  “All right,” Mr. Petsky said. “Here we go!” The bus started up with a roar and began pulling out of the school parking lot.

  The girl next to Claire was slouched down in her seat. “Are you okay?” asked Claire.

  The girl straightened up a bit and gave Claire a half smile. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  Claire smiled at her. “What’s your name?”

  “Penny,” she replied.

  “I’m Claire. It’s nice to meet you.” The girl nodded but didn’t say anything. “I don’t want to be here, but I need the extra credit. You too?”

  “Yeah,” Penny said. “I’ll fail if I don’t go. My parents said I had to come. But none of my friends needed the extra credit, so they ditched me to go play laser tag instead.”

  “Ugh, I’m sorry.” Claire looked up at Emma and Cooper, thankful that she wasn’t alone on the trip. “My parents are making me go too. I hate the bluffs. It’s so creepy up there.”

  “What do you mean it’s creepy?” Penny asked.

  “Well,” Claire paused, looking at her shoes. “Haven’t you heard about the seniors that disappeared up there a while back?”

  “No, I just moved to Middleton a few years ago. What do you mean they disappeared?” Claire saw worry lines form along Penny’s forehead.

  “I don’t know exactly. They all went up to the bluffs but never came back,” Claire said, glancing over at Penny.

  Penny was ignoring her buzzing phone now. “Like, gone forever?”

  Claire nodded. “But, hey. It’s going to be all right. I’ll stick by you and make sure nothing happens. Hey, guys.” Claire tapped the seat i
n front of her. Cooper and Emma turned around. “This is Penny. It’s cool if she hangs out with us tonight, right?”

  Emma smiled and nodded. Cooper, very enthusiastically, said, “Absolutely! I’m Cooper, and this is Emma. Are you hungry?” He tossed a bag of pretzels over the seat to Penny. “You can keep those. I’ve got a whole bag full of stuff, so just let me know if you’re still hungry.”

  Penny smiled as she opened the package and grabbed a handful of pretzels. “Thank you.”

  “No problem,” said Cooper, sitting back down.

  “Don’t worry,” said Claire. “Just stick by us, and we’ll all be fine. We may even pass science class.”

  Claire and Penny talked while the bus drove, ascending the hills into the bluffs. The farther they got, the darker it became. The lights of Middleton faded as they rose up and away from town. The woods got thicker, and the stars became brighter.

  Halfway through the drive, Claire looked toward the front of the bus. In the giant rearview mirror right above the driver, she saw Mr. Petsky sifting through papers and, right next to him, Val looking right back at her.

  Chapter 5

  10:50 p.m.

  The bluffs were worse than Claire anticipated. It was almost impossible to see anything. With Mr. Petsky’s “no light pollution” rule, it was pitch black. When they stepped off the bus, Penny turned to Claire and asked, “Was this the same spot they disappeared from?” Penny looked around. “Those seniors you were talking about?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Claire lied. She didn’t really know, but she didn’t want to think that they were in the same spot where a big group of people up and vanished.

  Once everyone was off the bus, it turned around and drove back down to the bottom of the bluffs. Penny looked longingly after the disappearing taillights.

  “Whoa. Now this is dark!” said Cooper.

  “How are we going to be able to see without light?” Claire asked.

  “Don’t worry,” said Emma. “Our eyes will adjust in a few minutes.” That was Emma, prepared with an answer to everything. They stood around, letting the outlines of the bluffs come into view around them as their eyes got used to the darkness. Once they could see enough to not run into one another, Emma turned to Claire, Cooper, and Penny. “I’ve got a blanket in my bag that we can all sit on. Should we pick a spot?” They walked over to the clearing and Emma unrolled a large blanket onto the grass, smoothed it out, and invited the others to take a seat.

  “Whoa,” said Cooper. He had wandered away from them over toward the trees. “Check out these woods!” He and some other students were looking at the forest that lined the bluffs. The woods were very thick and gnarled—a tangled mess. It was even darker in there than it was in the clearing, and the clearing was too dark for Claire’s taste.

  “Everyone find a space and get settled,” Mr. Petsky shouted to the entire group. “Cooper, stay out of the woods. You won’t be able to see the shower in there, so there’s no reason to go in. Plus, you could get lost, and knowing you, you would get lost.” Mr. Petsky smiled to let Cooper know it was only a friendly joke, although there was little chance Cooper would actually be offended. He was fairly immune to criticism.

  “You got it,” said Cooper. He returned to the girls and started unloading snacks onto the blanket.

  They all looked up at the sky. In the deep dark of the bluffs, they could see far more stars than were visible in town, thousands of them spread all across the sky. Soon they’d start flying and streaking across it. Penny seemed nervous, looking through the dark like she expected to see something suddenly appear. Or disappear.

  “Are you guys having fun?” Val had snuck up on them again. “I like it up here.” She had an odd smile on her face.

  “It’s fine, I guess,” said Claire. No one else said anything.

  Val locked eyes with Penny. “You look scared.”

  “I’m not scared,” Penny replied, sitting up a little taller.

  Val smirked just like she had when Emma asked about her tattoo. “I think I may have something that will help.” She dropped her bag on the ground without breaking eye contact with Penny. When it hit the grass, the bag made a sound like it was filled with glass bottles. She opened it and pulled something out. “Here, take one of these. It’s a pin. You should wear it.”

  In Val’s hand was a pin in the shape of a star. It looked like it was made of black glass. In the center of the star was a glowing red light.

  Claire took it from Val and turned it over in her hand. It was just an average pin. It felt heavy and cold, but there wasn’t anything else truly strange about it. Still, Claire couldn’t put her finger on why, but she didn’t like it.

  Cooper snatched it away from her. “I’ve seen this before—this exact design! Where did you get this?”

  Val didn’t answer Cooper’s question. She just said, “Go ahead. Wear it.”

  Cooper handed the pin to Penny who also turned it over a few times in her hand.

  “I have enough for everybody,” said Val, pulling more of them out of her bag.

  “Uhh, no thanks,” said Cooper. Emma and Claire both agreed—they didn’t want one.

  Val frowned and seemed a little annoyed at their refusal. “Fine,” she said, as she turned and walked away toward where Mr. Petsky was setting up a lawn chair.

  “That girl is so weird,” said Cooper.

  “It was nice of her to give that pin to Penny, though,” said Emma. “Are you going to wear it?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” said Penny. “It can’t hurt to be more visible, right?”

  Penny pinned the star to her shirt, the faint red glow from the pin a steady red light. She sat quietly but seemed to be less nervous. She even laughed when Cooper stuck two pieces of licorice in his mouth and clapped his arms like a walrus. Then Penny suddenly stopped talking. Her eyes were fixed up at the sky and she sat perfectly still. Emma and Cooper were busy looking through the snacks, but Claire noticed the sudden change come over Penny. The red light of the pin was now pulsing, reflecting an eerie glow on Penny’s frozen expression.

  “Penny,” Claire said. “Are you okay?” Penny stayed silent, still looking up at the sky, motionless. “Penny?” Nothing.

  Claire looked over toward Mr. Petsky. He was distracted because he was having trouble unfolding his lawn chair. Only a few feet from him, Val was staring directly at Penny. She was grinning. She rolled up the sleeve of her left arm and looked down at it. Claire couldn’t see exactly what she was doing. Then she looked back at Penny.

  Penny’s eyes went wide. She stood up and calmly said, “I’ll be right back. I have to go do something.” Before Claire could respond, Penny turned and walked off alone into the dark woods.

  Claire looked back at Val. Her smile was much bigger.

  Chapter 6

  11:00 p.m.

  A single shooting star streaked brightly across the sky.

  “Whoa,” Cooper said. “Did you guys see that?”

  “That’s the first of many,” Mr. Petsky shouted to the group. He had gotten his chair set up and was relaxing in it, looking up.

  Claire couldn’t think about the meteor shower right now. It had been a couple of minutes and Penny still hadn’t returned from the woods. It made no sense. Penny had just gotten comfortable with them. Why would she just suddenly leave like that?

  “I’m worried about Penny,” said Claire.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” said Emma. “She probably just went to go to the bathroom.”

  “In the woods?” Claire said skeptically.

  “Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do,” Cooper chimed in, stuffing a cookie into his mouth.

  “She’s been gone a long time,” said Claire. “She might have gotten lost.”

  “Or she’s been abducted by aliens,” said Cooper, doing his best impression of a movie trailer announcer voice. Claire didn’t think his joke was funny. Neither did Emma.

  “I think we should go look for her,” Claire suggested.


  “Mr. Petsky told us not to go into the woods,” Cooper replied, reaching his hand into a bag of chips. “I’m sure she’ll come back in a minute or two.”

  “We could tell Mr. Petsky if you’re that worried about her,” said Emma.

  “Yeah,” said Claire. “Let’s do that. It’s freaking me out that she walked away from the group.”

  The three of them got up and walked over to where their teacher was seated in the lawn chair. Val was right next to him on the grass, pointing up toward the sky and saying something to the teacher that Mr. Petsky seemed to be fascinated by. Other students had gathered around as well to listen to Val.

  “That one at the end of the handle on the Big Dipper,” said Val, pointing, “is Alkaid. That, over there, is the Virgo constellation, and the brightest star, there, is Spica. And those are Regulus, Delta Leonis, Epsilon Leonis, and Zeta Leonis. They’re all part of the Leo constellation.”

  “I’m impressed, Val,” said Mr. Petsky. “You’ve really done your homework.”

  Val smiled. “I know all their names because I think it’s important to know them.” Val paused. “There’s one star we can’t see,” she said.

  “Actually,” Mr. Petsky replied, “there are millions of stars we can’t see. Many are too far away or don’t burn brightly enough for their light to reach Earth. The universe is a big place and we can only see a tiny fraction of it, even using telescopes and satellites. In fact, some of the stars we can see aren’t really there anymore. They burned out billions of years ago, but their light is only now reaching the Earth.”

  “I know that,” snapped Val. “Those aren’t what I’m talking about. There’s one that’s very close, closer than you think, but we can’t see it because it doesn’t provide any light.”

  “You mean a black dwarf?” he said.

  “Mr. Petsky?” Claire tried to get the teacher’s attention.

  “Hold on, Claire.” He started addressing the students gathered around. “A black dwarf is what a star becomes after it has burned out and collapsed. Of course, the other way a star can die is by exploding in a supernova.” He turned back toward Val. “There aren’t any black dwarves anywhere near our solar system, Val. Some scientists don’t think black dwarves exist at all. I’m sorry, but I think you’re mistaken.”