Nightmare Academy

by Frank Peretti

  Elijah closed his eyes and tried to block out the girl's endless ramblings. He was listening to those finger taps, the only thing that made sense.

  It was code. Springfield code: OR60CLOCK . . . PROJECTOR60CLOCK . . . PROJE . . .

  Then again, maybe it wasn't code. Maybe it was just silly rhythms that he was making into code in his poor, tired mind.

  But the letters kept repeating, like an endless loop, the same number of seconds every time.

  Same number of seconds. Same length of time. Repeating pattern. A rhythm, a beat, a pulse.

  Whoa, hold on, hold on.

  He knew this pulse, this beat. For the past eternity of chaos, he'd been living in it. It was everywhere. The rushing, rushing, rushing of the wind, the throbbing, throbbing, throbbing of the ground, the swaying, swaying, swaying of the trees, the rhythm of the rooms, the halls, the colors. It all kept time to this beat, like a big clock ticking, like a machine running, around and around, over and over. He could feel it like the beating of his own heart, like it was a part of him.

  “They're at the gate!” shouted Easley, switching one of the monitor screens to a shot of the big iron gate.

  Everyone in the room gasped, leaned forward, watched in awe.

  Almost every kid on the campus was there, an angry mob of nearly fifty, armed with axes, picks, rakes, shovels, banging, prying, bashing, digging away at the gate.

  But the letters kept repeating,

  like an endless loop, the same

  number of seconds every time.

  Bingham was impressed. “Nearly all of them, and so early in the morning!” He turned to the audience. “You see? After four years of research, we can now choose our raw materials, create the right circumstances, and in less than two weeks produce a dictator and his followers!”

  The audience applauded. It was apparently a great moment.

  Bingham mused to himself, “This 'Alexander' could have done very well as a global dictator.” He laughed. “And I think he knows it, too. Why else would he choose such a name?”

  “How long do we keep them there?” asked a technician.

  “Stand by for closing procedure,” Bingham answered. He turned to the thin guy in black. “Begin shutdown and evacua­tion.” The man hurried from the room. Red lights began to flash overhead. Bingham turned to the audience. “We are reaching the end of the experiment. Please prepare to evacuate at any moment.”

  The audience began to stir around in the dark, shuffling papers, opening and closing briefcases, grabbing coats.

  Elisha was watching her image. Her entire message wasn't getting through, only the little part about the projector, repeating over and over. The computer must have hit a glitch or something. Her plan wasn't working. “Mr. Bingham!”

  He was quite occupied. Teachers and technicians were starting to scramble everywhere. Some of the equipment was closing down, the red and amber lights blinking out, the whirring of the processors going silent. At the far end of the room, a door slid open and the audience, faces still in the dark, began heading for it.

  Her plan wasn't working.

  “Mr. Bingham! When are you going to let my brother out of there?”

  Bingham watched the screen, then said over his shoulder, “When I know what I want to know, of course.”

  “You mean, when you can know, and he can't!”

  Bingham actually smiled at her. “Brilliant!”

  Elijah was counting seconds. One, two, three . . . up to six. Every time, six seconds. The loop, the pulse, the wave, was six seconds. When he closed his eyes and listened to the room, he could even hear the sound of the air recycle every six seconds. The girl, still talking, seemed to take a little breath every six seconds. Wow. In all this mess, he could know something, a sweet six seconds.

  So what about the code those fingers kept tapping out? Maybe he could know that, too. CKPROJECTOR60CLO . . . JECTOR60CLOCK . . . PROJECTOR 6 OCLOCK.

  Six o'clock. Did she mean, behind him? Projector behind him? He opened his eyes and looked toward the ceiling, then over the back of the couch.

  He didn't see anything. Not yet.

  Teachers and techs were wheeling large cases of equipment and data on hand trucks, moving it all out that open door at the end of the room. It was all going like clockwork, well rehearsed. The audience remained in the shadows by the door, watching the final seconds of the great experiment on the big screens.

  “All right,” said Bingham, “let them in.”

  The tech threw a switch, and with a loud creak and groan, the iron gate broke open. Alexander and his mob were jubilant, waving their tools in the air. “Let's go!” Alexander yelled, and the whole mob moved forward, through the gate and up the walk.

  “Any stragglers?” Bingham asked.

  Mrs. Meeks looked up from her console. “Warren's friends are hanging back. Warren is still in his room, not wanting to be seen. We still have Tom Cruise and his two friends hiding near the Dumpsters and a few kids hiding in the buildings.”

  “Let's contain them.”

  Meeks held down a talk switch and spoke into her headset.

  “Begin containment.”

  “Demolition? Report.”

  The third tech down the row reported, “Dozers in position, charges armed.”

  Bingham smiled—again. “I've grown to love this part!”

  Overhead, there was a faint pounding. An image appeared on one of the big screens: the front door of the mansion. Alexander and the mob had reached it and were trying to break it in.

  “Let them work at it a while. Let them have a feeling of accom­plishment.” He thought that last line was funny, and laughed.

  “Mr. Bingham!” Easley shouted, pointing to the other screen.

  Every eye in the place went to that screen. There were audible gasps.

  Even Elisha gasped and her heart went sick.

  Her brother Elijah had become a madman. He was singing, jumping, dancing around the room, hiding behind the chair where the phony Elisha sat, then jumping up, then hiding again, circling, ranting, and raving.

  Bingham hurried closer to the screen. “More sound, please.”

  Easley reached for a knob on his console and turned up the volume.

  Elijah was singing, “I've got a brain, and you've got a brain, and it's so much pain! I've got a brain, and you've got a brain, and it's so much poop!” Then he laughed and started ranting, “Gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gook! Gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee gobbledee geek!" Then he rolled on the floor, kicking his feet in the air, then spun in sideways circles, pedaling against the floor with his feet.

  Elijah was singing, “I've got

  a brain, and you've got a brain,

  and it's so much pain! I've got a

  brain, and you've got a brain,

  and it's so much poop!”

  Now Bingham roared with laughter, so much it made him wheeze.

  Easley reached up and shook his hand. “Congratulations.”

  Booker came over and did the same. “Congratulations.”

  “Very good, very good!” said Bingham. “So these people can be broken after all! Make sure we get a full record of the data.”

  “My brother . . . ,” said Elisha, her spirit collapsing in sorrow.

  “My sweet brother . . .”

  “All right,” said Bingham. “Open the door and let's be done with it.” A tech threw another switch, and the front door of the mansion caved in. “Be sure they all go inside.”

  The screens combined into one big composite and switched to an interior shot of . . . what in the world was it?

  To Elisha, it looked like Alexander and his mob were pouring into a huge warehouse, a vast empty shell, and from the looks on their faces, they were as stunned and perplexed as she was. She strained to understand what she was seeing: bare, white walls, expansive concrete floor, high windows—yes, but no rooms, no stairs, no furniture, nothing!

  The mansion on the hill, that huge, forebod
ing structure that had all the kids in awe; that mysterious citadel where power resided; that symbol of ultimate authority and rulership, was a fake.

  An empty shell.

  A big nothing.

  “Everyone's inside,” reported the tech.

  “Seal them in,” said Bingham.

  The tech threw a switch, and on the screen, the front and side doors of the empty shell suddenly disappeared as huge panels slammed into place. The kids started screaming.

  Bingham looked at Elisha and told his crew, “Throw her in with the others.”

  15

  VERITAS

  FARMER WASN'T SMILING, but his arrogance showed clearly enough. He wasn't about to say anything.

  “You have an amazing sense of loyalty, Mr. Farmer,” said Morgan, turning away. “I wish you were working for us instead of them.”

  The hotel clerk was sitting on the wooden bench on the back porch, handcuffed to a bench leg, a federal marshal on either side of him. He didn't look nearly as arrogant or confident as Farmer did, and Nate noticed.

  “So what's going to happen to Mr. Farmer?” Nate asked.

  Morgan whistled at the thought of it. “Pretty serious charges. There are laws protecting schoolchildren from invasive psychological questioning or conditioning, and I would say Mr. Farmer has conspired with his friends to violate every one of them—not to mention his role in kidnapping the children, plus the murder of Alvin Rogers and the attempted murders of you and Sarah.”

  “Which doesn't look good for anyone who helped him.”

  Morgan looked at the hotel clerk as he answered. “No, especially if anything happens to those children. Even if someone were hired simply as a stooge, as a decoy, if harm came to even one of the children, that person could face the same charges as an accessory.”

  The little clerk was clearly shaken by that, looking at Morgan, then at Farmer, then at Morgan.

  “However, if such a person were to help us save the children from any harm, that would certainly change the picture for the better.”

  The little man was shaking, but remained silent.

  Mr. Bingham threw some papers into his briefcase and fastened it shut. “Leave Mr. Springfield in the Maze while the computer finishes the program. An apt closure, don't you think?”

  On his way to join the others going out the door, he stopped by Elisha's little TV stage. “So I imagine you've learned what it is you came to learn, but of course, like yourself, that knowledge is only temporary. After today, the Knight-Moore Academy will cease to exist, even as a memory, and your investigation will be moot. But make no mistake: What we've learned here will definitely live on—in schools, in films, on television, in recordings, in textbooks—and my friends and I will simply wait. After all, when the world does fall into chaos, such as we've demonstrated here, someone will have to take charge, won't they?”

  “It'll be all about power,” said Elisha.

  “And we will have it,” said Bingham with a wink. “Good-bye.”

  Bingham crossed the room and disappeared through the door.

  The thin technician with the ponytail came over to Elisha, said, “I'm very sorry,” and threw a lever.

  With a neck-wrenching spin, the whole platform where Elisha was sitting rotated until she was facing the wall behind her. A panel in the wall opened, the platform pitched forward, and Elisha tumbled into a tight, elevator-sized cavity.

  It was an elevator. It lurched upward, rotated, came to a stomach-turning halt, opened, pitched forward, and threw her out.

  There were shouts and squeals of alarm. “It's Sally!” “Where did she come from?” “Is that the way out of here?”

  She looked up from the floor and saw Britney, Melinda, Ramon, Tom Cruise, and so many others gathering around her, their faces longing for answers. “What's happening, Sally?” “Where are we?” “What's going to happen?”

  The elevator was gone, of course, hidden behind a panel that closed immediately. She got to her feet, looking at all the frightened faces looking back at her, all the kids of different sizes, shapes, colors, and backgrounds, clothing askew, hands and faces dirty from the big struggle with the gate and the front door.

  “There were guards. Security

  people, 1 guess. They rounded up

  everybody. We're all here.”

  Warren stepped forward, still blotchy with white paint, and extended his hand. “Glad you're okay, Sally.”

  She appreciated his handshake. “So they got you, too.”

  Warren nodded, exchanging a glance with Tom Cruise and the other kids who weren't here by choice. “There were guards. Security people, I guess. They rounded up everybody. We're all here.”

  Nearby was Brett, standing in the middle of the vast room, exploring the white, featureless walls with frightened eyes, looking helpless. Rory and his big gang of toughs were clustered together, looking scared—they wouldn't be slugging and bullying their way out of this problem.

  At the far end of the room, standing alone and looking very small in this huge, empty shell of a house, was “Alexander.” Elisha took a good, long look at him, for the picture spoke volumes. So this was Alexander, the great leader, and this was his mighty revolution! He had made it to the top, to the pinnacle of power. He'd taken the mansion.

  And the mansion was empty.

  “My name isn't Sally,” she said. “It's Elisha Springfield. Jerry's real name is Elijah, and he's my brother. And I guess you've figured it out: This whole thing was one big lie, and Harold Carlson hasn't conquered anything.”

  Harold “Alexander” Carlson just stood there, speechless, crestfallen, staring at the walls while his followers stared at him. He had no orders to give, no new visions for the future.

  BOOM! An explosion, close enough to shake the floor!

  They ran to the windows and could see a ball of fire and billowing smoke where dorm A once stood. At the very edge of the campus, a huge yellow bulldozer was rumbling and squeaking onto the field.

  “OOOH!” The sound of a faraway explosion totally rattled the little man. He jumped from the bench, jerked back by the handcuff around his wrist. “Okay! Okay! Nobody hired me to take a rap for murder. I was just supposed to sit there in the hotel in case anybody came in asking questions. I didn't know—”

  “Be quiet!” Farmer yelled. They were his first words since being arrested.

  “I didn't know they were going to kill the kids, I swear!”

  Nate, Sarah, and Morgan closed in on the frightened man.

  “Keep going,” said Nate, and it was far more threat than request.

  “They never killed the kids before. All the other times, all the other years, they were signing up kids who volunteered. They had the kids for two weeks and then the kids went home and everything was okay, no problem, nobody asking questions, nothing.” He took a breath, his eyes searching the ground. “I should have suspected something when they started signing up runaways, kids who were already missing.”

  Nate took hold of both his shoulders and locked eyes with him. “What are you saying?”

  “It's the fifth year, the last experiment. I don't know what they're doing up there, but this time they have to erase everything—not just the campus. I mean the kids, everything"

  “How do we get there?”

  “The road's gone. They took that out yesterday. There's a tunnel . . .”

  It was all Nate could do to keep from crushing the answer out of the man. “WHERE?”

  The man rattled the handcuff. “I'll take you there, just let me loose!”

  Elijah was getting toward the end of his strength, singing crazily jumping suddenly, trying to be unpredictable, but his theory was proving out.

  Whenever he paused to rest, the warm, welcoming environment of the family room of a big log house surrounded him like a fluffy comforter, steady stable, and unchanging. The girl in the chair kept right on smiling and babbling, her fingers still tapping away the same little coded message.

  Whenever he
acted crazy, doing new, unpredictable behaviors, the environment got sketchy, the textures foggy, the sensory illusions of smell, touch, and sound dull.

  Most of all, the whole world froze for a minuscule moment every six seconds, like clockwork.

  So Elijah realized he could still know things, and what he knew right now was that the computer running this mad ride was reloading and processing information on a six-second cycle, a fact he could detect only because he'd been in this place for so long he could hear it and feel it.

  As long as everything happened predictably like one step following another, an exhale following an inhale, a scratch following an itch, the computer could handle it.

  But if he gave the computer new information it wasn't expecting—silly songs with the last word changed or not rhyming when it should, or goofy antics that weren't predictable—then the computer had to process all that new information, which took time, and this horrible, crazy world would actually blink, just for an instant, every six seconds.

  It was that blink he was watching for as he made a blithering fool of himself, and after several crazy, exhausting cycles, he knew when to expect it, like dancing to the rhythm of music. His dear sister was right; behind the couch where he'd been lying, where usually he saw only a wall of huge logs, the round shape of a lens would flash into view, quick like the click of a shutter, every six seconds.

  The projector, at six o'clock.

  “Okay” he said to himself and anyone listening, “one more time.”

  He jumped to one side of the girl's chair, then back, then back where he started, and then—jumped in place, whooping out a stupid song he hoped the computer hadn't heard before—"Back up the batter and Whoof! In the flutter and wowie, look at us bang on the roof!"—it all had to be new information!

  The wall blinked after six seconds. He saw the lens. He hopped, went to his knees and clucked, stood up again, spun in a circle—