Nightmare Academy

by Frank Peretti

  “Cool,” said Ramon.

  But Warren was looking past Alex. Everybody was. Alex looked over his shoulder.

  It was Elijah, just inside the door. There was no question he'd heard what Alex said. Now everyone was staring at him, and Alex and everyone's eyes said “Trouble.”

  Alex was in a spot. Everyone was watching him, and he had a throne to defend. He turned to face Elijah directly. “You heard what I said. How about it?”

  Elijah looked to his sister for any cues. She was visibly upset and shook her head faintly to warn him.

  Elijah stood there a moment, looking at the crowd and then at Alex, and then he couldn't help snickering. “So this is how it works now, huh? You win a fight and suddenly you're dictating opinions and looking for more fights so you can dictate more opinions.” He said to the crowd, “You see what's happened here?

  You throw truth out the window and the next thing you know, guys like him start pushing their way in. And if he's the king, what does that make the rest of you?”

  Alex started toward him. “I'm gonna shut that mouth of yours.”

  “Alex!” It was Warren.

  Alex looked back. In that window of time, Warren went quickly to Elijah's side.

  “I owe you one,” he told Elijah.

  The sight of them side by side said everything.

  Alex had to think about this one.

  “Hey, guys, come on,” said Madonna, “we're supposed to be having a party.”

  “What's wrong with a rumble?” said Ramon.

  “Alex, you're the king,” said Britney. “Don't spoil it. Let's just have fun.”

  The murmur rippling through the crowd was beginning to lean heavily toward peace and partying.

  Brett, his face still puffy, came alongside Alex. “Save it. You're the king. Enjoy it.”

  “. . . if he's the king, what does

  that make the rest of you?”

  Alex listened, his eyes never leaving Elijah and Warren. Finally, relaxing just a little, he said, “Okay” The whole crowd began breathing again. “We've got a party going on here.” He shifted his weight forward and pointed in their faces. “But your time's coming, so you be ready.”

  Elijah persuaded Warren, “You've got a nice face. I've got a nice face. Let's just, you know, leave 'em that way. Come on.”

  They left.

  Alex got back his old smirk and turned to collect the spoils of war.

  Elisha was gone. Cher, Britney, and Madonna just shrugged, knowing nothing.

  In his room, safe and with his face still nice, Elijah did some figuring, scratching figures on a sheet of paper. “Okay, base of right triangle . . . tangent of the angle . . .” Scratch, scratch, figure, figure. “Archtangent . . . hoo boy . . . no, try it again . . . okay, 47.17. Cool.” Then he consulted his time records taken during the day. “Okay, it was high noon here exactly 7.72 hours after it was high noon in Greenwich, England, which means the earth rotated for 7.72 hours. At 15 degrees per hour, that means the earth rotated 115.80 degrees. Greenwich, England, is at 0 degrees longitude, so that puts us at . . . 115 degrees, 50 minutes west of Greenwich. Fabulosity!”

  He'd borrowed a road atlas from the library. He flipped it open, hurriedly paged through it, and found the map he was looking for. One quick horizontal measurement, one quick vertical measurement, and he had his answer.

  The party was still in full swing in the Rec Center. Hopefully, Elisha would be alone in her room. He turned off the lights, grabbed his flashlight, and went to the window. A few lights were still on in dorm C, but Elisha's window was dark, meaning she was waiting for him to signal.

  He blinked out the hailing code: “E E S.”

  She was watching. She replied, “GLAD YOUR FACE IS STILL NICE.”

  “RT (Roger That). HAVE LOCATION. PLEASE COPY.”

  “READY.”

  “4 7 1 0, 1 1 5 5 0. NORTH CENTRAL IDAHO. ROAD TO WEST. TOWN TEN MILES MAYBE. WORTH A TRY.”

  “RT. WE MUST GET OUT OF HERE. SUGGEST TOMORROW NIGHT.”

  “RT.”

  “LY.”

  “LY.”

  Elijah clicked off his flashlight and relaxed on the floor below the window, his back against the wall. “Thank you, Lord.”

  After all this madness, with so many things denied and unknown, the universe God made was still there, still precise and predictable. Because it was, he knew he and his sister were still on planet Earth, in a real place he could see on a map. Working from that, he also had a pretty good idea of how to get somewhere else, and boy, was that comforting.

  Elisha threw back the covers and hopped into bed, glad and relieved, the numbers Elijah sent her discretely scribbled on her forearm where she couldn't lose them. Before she dozed off, she began formulating ways she could pack and carry food and water. It wasn't unusual for kids to carry extra food out of the cafeteria for late-night snacks, so she and her brother could stock up on provisions during lunch and dinner. Now, if the bears could just be elsewhere. . . .

  It would be a long time before she or her brother would sense such peace again, before they would ever rest easy again, or see their rooms, or lie alone in the quiet, in the dark.

  The next morning, Nate and Sarah stood in the middle of a plowed field at the end of a dirt road in central Illinois. A farmer on his tractor spotted them, which wasn't hard to do—they were the only standing feature in several acres. He steered toward them, they walked, and eventually they met in the wide, open, dusty middle.

  “Can I help you folks?” he asked, shutting down the tractor engine.

  Nate was carrying some information and a map in his hand. “We understand there used to be an academy around here. The Knight-Moore Academy?”

  The farmer started chuckling. “Yeah, there surely was.”

  “Could you tell us where it is?”

  He pointed straight down. “You're standing on it.”

  That was not good news.

  Sarah had to verify, “You mean, right here?”

  “The government tore it down two years ago and sold me the land cheap. I'm letting it lie fallow for now. Can't plant it 'til I get all the junk out of it. You shoulda seen the mess they left here. I keep plowing up bricks and concrete and pipes in the ground. Found some wires yesterday. 'Sgood thing I didn't get electro­cuted.”

  Nate dug lightly with his finger and unearthed a piece of charred wood. “Looks like they did some burning.”

  “They burned the whole thing. Burned it all down, then bulldozed the foundations, and left a big mess for me to clean up. But like I say, I got it cheap, and it's good ground once you work it.”

  Sarah looked at Nate. “They burned it.”

  “Had some complaints about the smoke,” said the farmer, “but that's the government. Long as they're the ones doing the polluting, what do they care?”

  Nate found a chunk of concrete.

  “Yeah,” said the farmer. “You find that stuff all over the place.” He looked all around as if trying to imagine it. “Hard to believe what used to be here. Buildings, sidewalks, everything. Can I get you folks some coffee or something?”

  Nate didn't have to ask Sarah. He could see it in her face. “Thanks. We have to be going. We're, uh, we're in a pretty big hurry”

  10

  FIRST STRIKE

  ELISHA SLEPT IN LATE. Breakfast was not vital today; sleep was. Her first class, art appreciation, taught by a male-hating, clipped-haired teacher named Ms. Fitzhugh, didn't start until ten. Elisha felt no need to hurry out of bed. The voices of excited girls in the hall and outside the window kept creeping into her consciousness, but she tried to pretend they were only a faraway part of her dream.

  Then Cher shook her awake. “Sally! Sally! Wake up! It's all coming down!”

  Elisha opened her eyes, irritated. Cher was prone to overstating things. “What's coming down?”

  “Mr. Easley got fired, and we're all going on strike!”

  That had to be an overstatement. “What are you tal
king about?”

  “Mr. Easley got fired!”

  “Who says?”

  “Mrs. Meeks! She told us this morning. She said there wasn't going to be any discussion group or volleyball because Mr. Easley got fired, and you know why?”

  “No, Cher,” Elisha said dully. “I don't.”

  “Because he stole pop out of the pop machine last night! Can you believe that?”

  Elisha sat up, brushing her hair aside, trying to make sense of this—as if anything ever made sense in this place. “I thought nobody owned anything so you couldn't steal anything.”

  “Well, somebody narc'd on him, and he got in trouble, and now he's fired, and Alex has called a strike!”

  “What does Mrs. Meeks think about that?”

  “She's all for it! She's joining the strike!”

  Elisha began to wake up and hopped out of bed. “I've got to find my, uh, you know, my friend, uh . . .”

  “Jerry.”

  “Yeah, Jerry.”

  “I think he's outside waiting for you.”

  She found Elijah in the field, standing still while girls and boys moved past him, heading for the big iron gate. He was in his uniform, and so was she, but there weren't many uniforms visible this morning. The kids gathering around the gate were wearing anything they jolly well chose to wear; they were making a point of it.

  “I guess I could loosen my tie,” Elijah quipped as they started walking.

  “So, are we going to have to take sides on this?”

  “Well, maybe we can just be there. If we want to know what's happening, it doesn't make sense to be anywhere else.”

  “That's what I think.”

  The kids, almost the whole student body of fifty, were gathering, sitting on the grass, sitting against the stone wall, babbling excitedly—and angrily. Mr. Stern and Mrs. Meeks were standing a short distance away watching everything without getting involved. Alex was striding back and forth, shouting orders, getting people seated, directing traffic. The guy enjoyed being a king, no doubt about that, and the kids responded to him. They also picked up his attitude.

  “Hey, look at the suits!” somebody yelled as Elijah and Elisha approached.

  Now I'm being stared at because I look nice, Elijah thought. Oh, well. Warren was in his uniform, and so are some of Warren's friends, so Elisha and I aren't the only ones.

  “We don't know what's going on,” Elisha explained.

  Alex, tall and mean, in jeans and a tee shirt with the sleeves torn off, was quick to explain. “We're going on strike until they bring Mr. Easley back. No class attendance, no nothing until we get what we want.” Then he struck a pose, folding his arms across his chest and eyeing them as he delivered the challenge: “You with us or against us?”

  “We wouldn't miss it,” Elijah replied.

  “Sit over there,” Alex told him, pointing to a spot to the left of the gate where half the kids were already seated. Elisha started out with her brother. Alex stopped her. “No, you sit right here.”

  She exchanged a glance of agreement with her brother and sat on the grass in the front row of the crowd, to the right of the gate.

  “And you remember!” Alex warned Elijah. “You and me, it ain't over. I'm watching you!”

  Elijah gave him a little salute and found a place to sit.

  “Okay, listen up!” said Alex, and the crowd hushed. “Mr.

  Stern and Mrs. Meeks have something to say”

  Alex stepped aside while Stern and Meeks stepped forward.

  Stern spoke first. “I've always told you that you are the masters of your own fate. If you do what you have to do and do it right, and don't mess up, I won't stand in your way.” He looked at Mrs. Meeks.

  “Mr. Easley was a real credit to this school,” she said, and got a rousing cheer. “He was visionary. He was kind. He was an example. Unfortunately, there are some on our faculty who don't appreciate his viewpoint on things or his teaching approach, and so . . . Well, I'll be honest. They informed on him solely to be rid of him, something I strongly resent.”

  That got a murmur going through the crowd, a rippling wave of anger and resentment.

  “Who narc'd on him?” Ramon demanded, and everyone chorused the question.

  “I don't want to get into any names, but I'm sure you all have an idea.”

  “Booker,” came the first voice, followed by others, passing the conclusion along. “Booker.” “Booker!” “That creep!” “Surprise, surprise!” “Booker—he's dead meat.” “Let's run him out.”

  “But who told Booker?” somebody asked.

  That question poisoned the chatter. The kids started looking at each other suspiciously.

  Mrs. Meeks raised a hand of caution. “I ask only one thing.

  Please—I appeal to your inner goodness, to all that's right and good within your hearts: Please do no harm. Unite, and we'll

  unite with you. Make your voices heard. But follow a path of peace.”

  “This is your world, your work,” said Stern. “It's not our place to say anything more than that; do what you feel is right, and we wish you the best.”

  With a look and a step back, they turned it back over to Alex, who led the crowd in applause. “Hey! Stern and Meeks! How 'bout it?”

  While the kids cheered and clapped, Meeks and Stern set out across the field toward the office without another word or a look back.

  “What do we do now?” somebody asked.

  Alex strode back and forth, thinking. “Sit tight.”

  “How about a list of demands?” Warren suggested.

  “Anybody got any paper?” Alex asked.

  Maria, the little Hispanic from the volleyball game, passed a pink-bound notepad forward. Alex took it and started his list.

  “We want Easley back.”

  “Right.” “Yeah.” “Right on.”

  “And I think we should always have free pop,” said Brett.

  That brought a cheer.

  “And get rid of Booker!” said Tonya, which brought an immense cheer.

  “Yeah,” said Alex. “Easley in, Booker out.”

  “And I want a telephone so I can call my folks!” said Cher. Elisha joined the cheer for that one.

  Then the chatter began to die down, one voice at a time. Eyes, one pair at a time, began to turn toward the far side of the field.

  A tight, short line of adults was coming their way from the campus, walking deliberately, shoulder to shoulder, almost marching.

  The crowd went silent, watching, waiting, worrying.

  On one end was Ms. Fitzhugh, the art teacher. Not a friendly type. Next to her was Mr. Bateman, the math teacher. He was smart, but kind of fumbly. Mr. Johnson, the facilities man, was stepping right along with them, looking grim. Next to him was Mrs. Wendell, the librarian who also taught yoga. On the other end was Mr. Chisholm, the U.S. history teacher. Very few of the kids had ever seen him, and some had no idea who he was.

  Right behind the line of adults, ten big guys, including Rory Tom, Jamal, and Clay, walked in another line, shoulder to shoulder, looking cool and tough. They were carrying chains in their hands.

  And out in front, like a general leading his troops, was Mr. Booker, as grim as ever.

  They approached, never breaking formation, until they stood before the kids like a line of riot police. Booker announced loudly, “Mr. Bingham would like to know what this is all about.”

  And out in front like a general

  leading his troops, was Mr. Booker,

  as grim as ever.

  There was a significant silence. Everyone was looking at Alex. Alex was looking at Booker, apparently groping for words.

  “Read him the demands,” said Brett.

  Alex gathered some courage and referred to the little pink notepad. “We have a list of demands! We want Mr. Easley back, we want Booker—” Alex had trouble reading that one, especially with Mr. Booker standing right there. He skipped that part. “We want unlimited pop from the machines, and—”r />
  Booker grabbed the notepad from Alex's hand and slapped his face with it. “You arrogant fool! Mr. Bingham isn't about to grant an audience to a mob of barbarians. Your little demonstration is over as of now!”

  The kids in the crowd were eyeing those big guys with the chains and starting to change their attitude. Some were already slinking away, trying to act invisible.

  Booker froze them in their tracks. “I did not dismiss you! Return to your places!”

  They slinked back.

  Alex asked Rory and his bunch, “So what are you going to do now, you traitors? These are your friends. They're your classmates. You just gonna beat 'em up with those chains? You gonna let this guy push us all around?”

  By now, Booker had started laughing—purposely—in Alex's face. “Don't be absurd! These gentlemen are not the barbarians here.” He addressed the crowd. “The Knight-Moore Academy, while encouraging freedom and progress of thought, has policies in place to maintain order and discipline. Mr. Easley and his Utopian visions are one thing; the will of those in authority is quite another. When I learned of Mr. Easley's indiscretion, I had no choice but to report him. His fate was well deserved.”

  A wave of anger and disgust swept through the crowd, but of course no one said a word.

  “Now it appears we have another indiscretion that must be dealt with, and harshly.” He paused long enough to sweep the crowd with his intimidating gaze. “The Rec Center—all the games, all the diversions, all the sports equipment—will be closed and padlocked. The cafeteria, and all the vending machines, will be closed and padlocked. No fun will be available, and no food, for the rest of the day.”

  That stung everyone. They moaned, they gasped, they exchanged looks of alarm and disbelief.

  “Ah. Apparently you forgot where all the fun and food come from. But if you wish, you can show us you remember. I will be in my classroom at three, as always. Any member of the student body who reports to my classroom clean, in uniform, and ready to comply with the academy's policies will be granted amnesty—and perhaps the evening meal. Carefully consider whether it is in your best interests to submit to those in power—” He shot a cutting side-glance at Alex. “—Or to follow the foamings of a would-be emperor with a futile cause. The choice is up to you.” He looked over his shoulder at the ten big student bruisers. “Gentlemen. Proceed.”