Nightmare Academy

by Frank Peretti

  “It isn't wrong,” Melinda said flatly. “Come on, Cher.”

  “Cher?” Elisha questioned.

  “I got tired of Marcy,” said Elisha's roommate as Melinda pulled her back inside.

  “Had enough?”

  Elijah wanted to show mercy to the big guy with pimples and the missing tooth, but from a safe distance. Standing several feet away, he stretched out his hand as a token of friendship.

  The big guy was still on the floor, half doubled over from having his wind knocked out. He and his buddies were able to throw a few good punches before—

  He looked around. Where were his buddies?

  “They're gone,” said Elijah. “They're okay—at least, they were walking.”

  The big guy's back pain and abdominal discomfort gradually gave way to embarrassment and wonder. He remembered grabbing Elijah with every intention of putting his head through the plaster, but whatever happened between that moment and the moment his own body slammed into the floor was a stomach-turning blur.

  “What's your name?” Elijah asked.

  “Rory.”

  “I'm calling myself Jerry This here is Warren.”

  Elijah was still offering his hand. Rory took it, and Elijah helped him to his feet.

  “You're good,” Rory said, rubbing his bruised shoulder.

  “You're pretty good yourself,” said Elijah.

  The big raid was over. Brett and his whole gang had done enough damage and received plenty, and now they were gone. Alex and the men of dorm B were picking themselves up, gathering up their scattered belongings, and counting what items weren't there anymore. Some of them were cheering, apparently winners in the brawl, but overall, the mood was sour.

  Elijah spoke as a friend to Rory as he eyed his still-rowdy still-angry dorm mates. “You'd better get out of here.”

  Rory hurried out the far door.

  As soon as the door closed behind the last invader, Warren let out a whoop. “Wooo! Did we whip their butts or what?”

  Elijah wasn't cheering. “Warren, take a look around. We don't want to make this a habit.”

  The next day, Elijah skipped lunch, choosing to spend some time sitting alone on the grass behind the library, scribbling away on a class assignment. Not far from him, a lonely fence post cast a short, noonday shadow on a dry, bare patch of ground. Every few minutes, with an eye on his watch, he took a small twig and poked it in the ground, marking the very tip of the post's shadow. After a half-hour, a single file of twigs traced a gradual arc across the ground as the shadow moved sideways and also grew shorter. Elijah started checking the time every minute, then every thirty seconds as he watched the shadow As the shadow passed through its shortest length—high noon—he checked the time repeatedly and wrote it down. “7:42 and 15 seconds . . . 7:42 and 30 seconds . . .” He kept marking the time until the shadow began to lengthen again, then went back to the twig that marked the shortest shadow and from that, he determined the time the shadow had passed that point. “7:43 and 12 seconds, Greenwich Mean Time. All right!”

  Then, back to the unreal world. At 1:30—or thereabouts—Mr. Easley kept wearing that smile as he addressed a group of scowling, bruised, scratched, and torn students. The dress code was still casual, but today some of the kids weren't wearing a complete uniform because they no longer had one. There were bumps on some of the heads, scratches and bruises on some of the faces, a puffy eye here, a split lip there. Apart from a small number of neutrals who found it best to sit somewhere in the middle, the whole group was clearly divided: the A and B dorms on Easley's left and the C and D dorms on his right—and sitting prominently on each side, eyeing each other like two roosters in the same chicken yard, were Alex and Brett.

  Oh, you could feel the tension.

  “We're actually getting better and better,” said Easley. “Did you know that? As we keep evolving from generation to generation, our capacity for good, our ability to solve our own problems, just keeps improving, and we need to be a part of that. We need to pitch in for peace.”

  No one applauded, but Elijah did raise a hand. “Why? What's wrong with war?”

  Alex suddenly came to life. “Yeah. What's wrong with war? I'd like to have a little war right now!” He shot a dirty look at Brett.

  “Anytime you're ready,” said Brett, returning fire.

  The two sides exploded in shots and countershots. “And I want my stuff back, right now!” “It's mine now!” “Just wait 'til tonight!” “You don't scare me!”

  It took Easley several minutes and overworking that smile to get things quiet again. “Listen. War is exactly what we're trying to avoid, and Jerry, I don't appreciate your even bringing up the subject.”

  “I didn't bring it up. It's here, right in our faces, and I think you should deal with it.”

  “We all have our own beliefs—”

  By this time, Elijah was running out of patience and getting visibly, red-facedly angry. “I want you to tell us that fighting and stealing are wrong. Can you do that?”

  Easley looked across the group. “What does the group think?”

  “Bring it on,” said Alex, hitting his palm with his fist.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Brett.

  More hollering, more threats, more dirty looks. If there hadn't been at least a few kids wanting peace, and if Easley hadn't taken a position between them, the whole discussion time might have ended in a riot right there. “Easy, now! Take it easy!” he said.

  “Looks like the majority thinks fighting and stealing are okay” said Elijah.

  “Except for one thing,” said Easley, addressing all of them. “Respect.”

  Alex thought that was funny. "Respect?"

  Both sides moaned with disgust and mockery as they eyed each other.

  “Respect,” Easley repeated. “Listen, our world is full of different cultures, different views of right and wrong, and we're seeing an example of that right here. But we don't have to believe the same things, we don't have to agree with anyone else's idea of right and wrong as long as we simply respect each other. If respect is there, then we have enough good within ourselves to rise above our differences.”

  Elisha piped up, “Mr. Easley, in some cultures, they love their neighbor. In some cultures, they eat their neighbor. Which do you respect?”

  “I respect them both.”

  “Both/and,” Elijah muttered in disgust.

  “You can't have it both ways,” Elisha said, actually scolding him. “If you respect my neighbor's right to invade my room and take my things, then you sure don't respect my right to peace and safety!”

  “Either/or,” said Elijah.

  Easley came back, “Every person has a right—”

  “No!” said Elisha. “No one has the right to do something that's wrong!”

  Easley leaned toward her. “And I suppose you're going to tell us what's right and wrong?”

  Some of the group murmured, “Yeah, who do you think you are?” “Yeah, who gave you the right?”

  “I don't decide what's right and what's wrong,” Elisha answered. “God decides.”

  The moans and hoots from the group were so loud they echoed back from the buildings across the field.

  Elisha pressed on, completing her thought for the whole group. “Remember the Ten Commandments? Well, there are two more we didn't get to recite in Booker's class: Don't lie, and don't want something that belongs to someone else. I think those two commandments right there would solve a lot of the problems around here.”

  Now Easley leaned back, smiling, obviously glad Elisha had said such a thing. “Ah. God. Religion. Holier-than-thou. Thou shalt not. Is that how it works? Just impose your religion on everyone so they can't think for themselves?”

  “It isn't like that. God gave us—”

  “Set yourself up as the one who makes all the rules, and tell everybody they have to see things your way because, after all, you have God in your camp. Now you have all the rights: the right to criticize and persecute and
condemn, and why not lead a few more Crusades and Inquisitions while you're at it?”

  Easley leaned toward her.

  “And 1 suppose you're going to tell

  us what's right and wrong?”

  “He twisted everything we said,” Elisha lamented as she and Elijah walked across the field together.

  “He's good with speeches, have you noticed? When things start getting too illogical for him to argue, he starts working on everyone's feelings so nobody's thinking anymore.”

  “And now we're the intolerant bigots and know-it-alls.”

  “And nobody's really thought everything through. Very handy.”

  “And very dangerous. Elijah, I'm all for investigating, but we're losing what friends we may have had, and I don't know what's going to keep these kids from doing . . . something worse.”

  A voice called from behind them, “Hey! Jerry!”

  Oh-oh. It was Rory, the big guy from last night. Oh, please, Lord, don't let him be looking for a fight. Elijah tried to keep his face from showing what he was thinking.

  Rory didn't stop to talk, but just passed by as he handed Elijah a note. “Somebody wants to talk to you.” He kept going without looking back.

  “Well, I'm glad somebody does,” Elisha complained.

  Elijah read the note. “It's from Mr. Booker.”

  The note, in Booker's handwriting, included a rough map showing Elijah where to find the plain, unmarked door in back of the office building. Elijah reported to that door immediately and gave it a gentle knock.

  “Come in,” came Booker's voice from inside.

  Elijah opened the door and stepped into a small tool room. There were garden tools—shovels, rakes, hoes, picks, axes—hanging on the walls, a wheelbarrow, some sacks of fertilizer, and a small workbench with some hammers, screwdrivers, and a vise. Mr. Booker was standing there, an elbow on the workbench, looking at him. He seemed entirely out of place in here. Elijah remained by the door and left it ajar.

  “Come in, Jerry, and close the door.”

  “Why am I here, Mr. Booker?”

  Booker smiled understandingly. “No need for concern, Jerry. This meeting is off the record and totally nonthreatening, I assure you.”

  Elijah found a rake and let the handle drop through the gap in the door, preventing it from closing. Then he remained where he was. “Go ahead.”

  With a resigned smile, Booker began. “So you've gotten to know Rory”

  “Not the way I'd like to.”

  Elijah remained by the door

  and left it ajar.

  “Well, it was Rory who recommended you. He was very impressed with your martial arts skills last night.”

  “Recommended me for what?”

  Booker tried to look relaxed, propping one foot on the fertilizer sacks. “You're a bright fellow, a clear thinker, not flighty. A good student, too. Very resourceful, and even courageous. I've been giving it some thought, and I've decided to offer you a very special privilege.

  “As you've observed, things are getting out of hand: the raids, the violence, the looting, and I'm sure plenty of other things we have yet to discover. Jerry, I'm sure you understand, when any society is threatened with disorder, firm measures must be taken. The evil has to be contained.”

  “I thought you didn't believe in evil.”

  He chuckled. “It's just a convenient term I'm using for, shall we say, disruptive, undesirable behavior? When people can't be trusted to control their behavior, then someone else has to do the controlling. That's what police departments are for; security guards; metal detectors. Well, I am in need of policemen. I need to know what the kids are thinking, what trouble might be brewing so it can be dealt with. I may even need some brute force to contain disruptions.”

  “So you want me to be a cop?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And a . . . an informant?”

  Booker weighed Elijah's choice of words and finally agreed with a nod. “But I have no illusions. Loyalty comes at a price, like anything else.” He reached into his blazer pocket, pulled out his wallet, and produced two twenty-dollar bills, laying them on the workbench. “Would it be worth, perhaps, forty dollars—forty real dollars—per day, plus a pipeline to all the KMs you might need? I can also see to it that other privileges make themselves available.”

  “And who would I be working for? You?”

  “For me, and indirectly, the academy You won't be alone, of course. I've already hired some others among the student body, Rory being one of them.”

  “To be what? Hired thugs?”

  He laughed. “Well, you make it sound so sinister. But think of the advantages, the main one being order on the campus. No more terrible disruptions, no more lootings, no more injuries.” He looked at Elijah a moment, and then raised an eyebrow as he said in a softer voice, “And the advantage for you personally.”

  “Which is?”

  “You would be connected with someone in power. I can make things happen. I can change the game to your advantage.” He leaned closer to Elijah, exhilarated with his own sales pitch. “You've seen me and the others pass through that gate every evening. My boy, inside that gate is where the power is.”

  Elijah paraphrased one of Booker's pet slogans. “It's all about power, and you have it.”

  “Exactly.”

  Elijah ran his teeth over his lower lip and then said, “You're really scary, you know that?”

  Booker seemed flattered. “Fear works.”

  “Especially if you have spies and head-breakers working for you.”

  “A good general must have an army.”

  “The same goes for an emperor, or a dictator, or a führer. That's the scary part. What you're after is control, am I right? You're trying to contain evil.”

  “Admittedly”

  “But if you don't believe in truth, or right and wrong, then who's going to contain you?” He put his hand on the doorknob.

  "Eighty dollars a day!” Booker dug out two more twenties.

  Elijah shook his head in wonder. “Mr. 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. But thanks for your consideration.”

  He went out the door, politely closing it after him.

  Elijah and Elisha showed up for Mr. Booker's afternoon class several minutes early—not that they were eager to get there; they just didn't want to risk being late. They'd already had one face-to-face with him, and now, after that little meeting in the tool room, there couldn't be much goodwill left between them.

  BAM! The door burst open right at the top of the hour and Booker entered the room. All eyes went forward. The sudden hush announced him as loudly as any trumpet fanfare.

  “Pass your homework to the front!”

  One-page assignments were passed forward, desk to desk, to the front. Elisha received the pages from her row, stacking them neatly in front of her. How some of these kids found the time to write anything was a bit of a mystery. One look at the stack told her some didn't.

  “Give them here,” Booker ordered, and all the front-row students handed them over. Booker took them in hand without looking at them. His eyes were doing a slow sweep of the class, ray-gunning every kid one at a time.

  Elijah could see most of the class from where he sat, and knew what Mr. Booker was noticing. Oh, boy, he thought, here it comes.

  After a long, chilling moment, Booker crossed his arms and announced in a very dark tone, “You can be certain that you have made a very grave mistake.”

  Heads pivoted about. Guilt was everywhere.

  “Tonya! Where is your white blouse?”

  Tonya was wearing a ragged denim shirt under her burgundy blazer. “Stolen, sir.”

  “Samuel? Your white shirt and your tie?”

  “Stolen.”

  “Stolen, sir,” Booker barked.

  “Sir,” Samuel replied.

  “Marvin! You aren't even wearin
g your shoes!”

  “Uh . . . can't find 'em, sir.”

  Booker scanned the room one more time. Out of some twenty-plus students, only six or seven had a complete uniform. The rest were wearing whatever pieces they had left, horribly mismatched with street clothes. By God's grace, Marcy—oh, her name was Cher now—and Elisha had avoided the first raid, so they still looked sharp. Elijah and Warren had complete uniforms, but only because they'd decked Rory and his two buddies before they could loot their rooms. Brett's wardrobe was apparently unscathed.

  “Where is Alex?” Booker asked.

  For a moment, there was no answer.

  Then Brett spoke up. “Sir, I heard Alex say he was going to get some sleep.” Then he added, “He, uh, he said he needed sleep more than he needed your class.”

  Booker raised an eyebrow, leaning back against his desk, sufficiently theatrically offended. “Rory. Tom. Jamal. Clay. Bring Alex here, place him in his desk, and make sure he stays there. Oh! And make sure he brings all his KMs with him.”

  Four big guys rose from their desks. Elijah knew Rory, Tom, and Jamal—they'd met under last night's unfortunate circumstances. They were big, tough, and ugly. Clay, the fourth guy, looked even worse. None of them were wearing a complete uniform, but Booker didn't seem to notice. Elijah could guess: Each had had his own little meeting with Booker in the tool room, and now Booker was “changing the game to their advantage.” They left the room with gleeful, hungry looks on their faces.

  Brett was looking a little gleeful himself. The first three guys were from his dorm, weren't they? But what about Clay? He was supposed to be one of Alex's buddies. Forty bucks a day must have looked pretty sweet.

  Booker went on with business. “Tonya, you will be fined five KMs, as of right now.”

  She was devastated. “But—”

  “NOW!”

  She dug in her pocket and produced five coins. “It's not my fault. . . .”

  “I heard an excuse. Two more. Samuel! Five KMs for the missing shirt, five for the missing tie! And Marvin! Five for each missing shoe!”