by Dan Jolley
That was when things got strange.
The office seemed to fill with heat. It blazed through Gabe’s body, as if the scorching rays of a hot summer sun were suddenly focused on him through a giant magnifying glass. Gabe faltered, grabbing the desk to steady himself.
Lily said, “Gabe! Are you okay?”
But he didn’t answer her, because as he watched, astonished, the narrow ribbon binding the book evaporated into a shower of tiny red droplets that diffused in the air and disappeared. Gabe tried to drop the book, but he couldn’t. It felt as if the book was somehow gripping him. The gold dust on the cover shook loose and rose in the air, revealing a cover of brilliant emerald green. The shimmering motes swirled into four streams, curving and waving like sea serpents.
Eyes wide and voice filled with wonder, Kaz let out a long, drawn-out “Whooaaa. . . .”
“Guys!” Lily’s eyes had gone wide, too, but not with wonder. She started edging toward the door. “Guys, I don’t like this! Guys!”
Gabe could hardly process this amazing and impossible thing happening right in front of him. He glanced over and saw Brett watching the swirling gold dust with a broad, toothy grin on his face.
Gabe managed to say “Brett?” before the golden tendrils—again, like serpents—coiled and struck. In a heartbeat, the tendrils flashed out, one for each of them, and flowed into all their bodies. They didn’t just breathe in the dust. It saturated their skin and sank through it, absorbing into them. And then—
—Gabe found himself somewhere else. Lying on a stone slab looking up at a ceiling where four stone arches met in a cross, staring through something red. Red as blood. It was blood! Some kind of membrane made of blood enveloped him like a cocoon, and Gabe clawed at it, tore and shoved and ripped until he pulled free and sat up.
As soon as he did, the stone walls around him cracked, crumbled, and fell . . . up. As if gravity had reversed itself, the stones shot straight up into the sky, revealing a cityscape around him that Gabe could barely comprehend. After a moment it hit him: the city was San Francisco.
But not the San Francisco he knew. All the buildings rose into twisted, gnarled shapes, like massive, towering trees that had long ago died of a terrible blight. Movement caught his eye, and he squinted, then wished he hadn’t. Gargoyles perched on ledges, actual living, breathing gargoyles, and one by one they turned their heads and glared down at him like vultures zeroing in on a dying animal.
A warm, sickly wet wind blew across him, followed by a roar that made the ground beneath him tremble. Gabe watched as the gargoyles took flight, circling those ghastly towers. High above the towers, framed against a sky swirling with amber and gold, something else flew. Something enormous, held aloft on many-masted wings. No—more than one! Another and another, airborne behemoths, each one a twisted fun house–mirror version of a dragon.
The roar sounded out again, and Gabe twisted his head to try to find the source. He couldn’t see what had produced that awful, earsplitting bellow, but he did see a shadow, vast and monstrous, moving through the darkened streets, coming closer and closer.
3
Brett groaned and, after a couple of tries, managed to sit up. His head felt like an elephant had run over it. Actually, it was more like the elephant was standing on his skull at this very second. Scratch that: a whole family of elephants were balancing on his brain, like it was a prop in some messed-up circus trick.
Yeah. That pretty much nailed the sensation.
When his vision finally cleared, there were no elephants in sight, but wherever he was definitely did not look like his bedroom. Weird. For a second Brett thought he might be dreaming, but then his mental cobwebs parted and everything came rushing back: Dr. Conway’s office, and the Tablet, and . . .
My friends! Brett sprang to his feet. “Guys? Guys!”
A groan from behind him made him spin around. Kaz and Lily were both sitting on the floor, looking as out of it as Brett felt, while Gabe propped himself up on his elbows.
“What just happened?” Lily asked, rubbing her eyes.
Brett helped his sister to her feet, feeling a flicker of guilt as Gabe and Kaz got up on their own. “Looks like we all passed out.”
“Yeah,” Gabe said, “but why?”
Yeah, why, Brett?
He could see the wheels turning in Kaz’s head. Counting off on his fingers, Kaz said, “Well, there could be a gas leak in here. But I don’t think we would’ve gotten up from that. Or there could’ve been a minor earthquake and it knocked us down, and we all hit our heads on the floor. . . . Nah, that sounds dumber the more I talk about it. Oh! We could’ve picked up some kind of fungal infection down in the tunnels! Are any of you hallucinating?”
“You’re hallucinating if you think any of those things make sense,” Lily said.
It took effort for Brett to look just as confused as they were. But he had become very good at keeping secrets. Just as he’d become so good at pretending to be as happy and carefree as everyone expected him to be. Sometimes if felt like he was two different people, living two entirely separate lives.
Gabe put a hand on the back of a chair to steady himself, and Brett jumped over to take his friend’s arm.“You okay, man? You don’t look so good.” He tried to sound casual, but he could feel guilt warm his ears. I will never forgive myself if any part of this hurts one of my friends.
Brett had plenty of experience not forgiving himself.
“Nah, I’m fine.” Gabe gently pulled his arm out of Brett’s grasp. “I’m just confused is all. Look at that.” He pointed at the Tablet, now lying on the edge of Dr. Conway’s desk. “Am I crazy? Or wasn’t that book gold? Y’know, before?”
Lily said, “Hey, you’re right. Bizarre.”
“It’s a tablet,” Brett said, more to himself than to anyone else. It’d seemed odd to him, too, but that was what his Friend called it. And now he understood why: the artifact’s gold cover was gone, and beneath it was a solid block of glimmering green stone. The material was really strange. It sort of shone, but it was dark at the same time, like it was filled with both shadow and light.
So far he’d done everything his Friend had asked him to, weird as it all seemed. He’d taken the Golden Gates map, and found the special room in the tunnels, and gotten everyone to perform the ritual. He’d even cut Gabe’s finger, and made sure Gabe’s blood got onto the Tablet. But he hadn’t known what to expect.
Brett rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the thing. Had its gold cover disappeared as soon as Gabe’s blood touched it? He was about to ask the others what they remembered, from the time when Gabe touched the Tablet to all of them waking up on the floor, when suddenly they had a much bigger problem to deal with.
Dr. Steven Conway stood in the doorway, glaring at them with such intensity and anger that Brett was a little surprised none of them turned to stone. Or dropped dead. Or maybe burst into flames. If he’s back already, that means we were out cold for a couple of hours. . . . Dr. Conway’s silver-blond hair and sharp blue-gray eyes kind of creeped Brett out, and he always looked serious, but the look on his face now was at a whole new level.
Without thinking, Brett took a step sideways, blocking Dr. Conway’s view of the Tablet.
The man’s death-laser stare settled on Gabe. “After everything we talked about last night. It’s not bad enough that you’re skipping school. You’re in here? Going through my things? Again?” Dr. Conway hadn’t raised his voice, but somehow that only made him sound angrier. “Gabe, how can you be so irresponsible? I tried to tell you how dangerous some of these things are. I’ve been keeping you out of here for your own protection!”
Gabe took a deep breath. “My protection?” he said with a blaze of anger Brett had never seen before. “Right. Not like you aren’t a total control freak about absolutely everything. None of this junk is dangerous. How could it be?”
Brett had the feeling these words had been simmering inside Gabe for a long while. Still, hadn’t the Tablet just k
nocked them all unconscious? The ancient book was clearly a whole lot more than “junk.” He had a bump on the back of his head to prove it. Or could Gabe have somehow completely forgotten what happened before they passed out?
“I mean, you expect me to believe that a bunch of moldy papers are going to hurt me?” Gabe continued. “Admit that you just like ordering me around. You’re making it all up!”
Dr. Conway took in a sharp, hissing breath. “Making it up?”
“You heard me. It’s all hocus-pocus. Mumbo jumbo. Total gibberish.”
Uncle Steve turned a superalarming shade of red.
It really seemed like Gabe had totally forgotten about the Tablet. Weird. Then again, everything about this was weird.
Brett wondered uneasily what Gabe would think if he knew everything Brett did about all this “hocus-pocus.” Brett wasn’t even sure what he himself thought. He wanted so much to believe everything his Friend had told him, no matter how fantastical it all sounded. Forget fantastic, most of it sounded downright impossible. But crazy as the whole thing was, so far everything his Friend had said turned out to be true.
Brett took Dr. Conway’s distraction as an opportunity to reach behind himself and pick up the Tablet. Heat flowed up through his hands and arms, filling his body like a charging battery and almost making him drop it. Was this thing really so powerful? Was that why his Friend wanted it so badly? The Tablet looked like it should have weighed about fifty pounds, but Brett could heft it with one hand. He slid the artifact into his backpack, careful not to attract Dr. Conway’s attention.
But it seemed like Dr. Conway’s whole world had narrowed down and become Gabe-shaped. “How can you think that I’m lying to you?” Dr. Conway’s voice started to rise. Slowly, but really scarily, like floodwaters. “I wanted to explain to you last night. I thought maybe you were grown-up enough to hear it, but then you stormed off like a child.”
“Right, I’m the child, but you’re the one who believes in fairy tales?” Sarcasm dripped off Gabe’s words. “How can you tell me you believe in this”—Gabe waved one hand at the moving boxes stacked on the office floor—“garbage? You act like it’s so important, but the truth is, you’re a professor of stupid, imaginary stories cavemen told each other around campfires. Stuff to explain why the sky is blue and why snow falls when it gets cold! It’s all make-believe!”
Brett had never seen Gabe this angry, or heard him just flat-out call Dr. Conway’s work a bunch of crap. He exchanged glances with Lily and Kaz, and a silent bit of communication passed between the three of them: Let’s get out while we still can. Brett began to edge away from the desk, following his sister and Kaz out of the office and into the hallway.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dr. Conway yelled, shaking his head. “The fact that you don’t understand how these artifacts can be dangerous is exactly why I don’t want you around them! And as long as you’re living under my roof, eating my food, you’ll follow the rules I set for you!”
Gabe folded his arms across his chest and stuck out his chin. “You’re not my father. We’re not even related. Why pretend you care anything about me?”
Dr. Conway’s shoulders slumped. He squeezed his eyes shut.
Brett stared at Gabe from the doorway. Overprotective or not, technically related or not, Dr. Conway was Gabe’s family. And Brett knew how valuable family really was. Before he could stop himself, he said, “Dude!”
That got Dr. Conway’s attention, much to Brett’s dismay. He speared Brett with that awful, furious stare and jabbed a finger at him, but even then he still spoke to Gabe. “It’s them! They’re doing this to you! Ever since you met them, you’ve been out of control! Thank God we’re moving. You’re going to be on a short leash in Philadelphia, young man.”
Brett had just enough time to see tears well up in Gabe’s green eyes before Lily grabbed Brett’s shoulder and hauled him to the front door and out of the house.
They waited on the sidewalk for what felt like hours. Inside the house, Gabe and Dr. Conway kept arguing, and every so often they’d get loud enough for Brett to make out a word, all the way from the street. “Juvenile” was one, along with “irresponsible,” “grounded,” and “straight home from school.”
Kaz shuffled his feet. “Uh . . . guys? Are we going to talk about what happened in there?”
“It’s still happening.” Lily frowned up at the door of the row house. “Can’t you hear them?”
“Not what I meant.” Kaz felt the back of his head and winced. “Okay, yeah, I’ve definitely got a bump on my skull from when I passed out. I mean, we did pass out, right? It had something to do with the . . . What’d you call it? Tablet?” He looked from Lily to Brett and back. “You do remember that, right? It wasn’t just me who passed out, was it?” His eyes widened in alarm, and his hands flew to his cheeks. “Oh God, was it just me? Did you guys draw on my face while I was unconscious?”
The front door burst open, and Brett whispered “Quiet!” as Gabe came rushing down the steps, furiously wiping at his face with the back of his sleeve.
Gabe’s expression was dark, but it lightened a shade when he saw his friends waiting for him. “Come on,” he said when he reached them. “Let’s get out of here.”
Brett looked at Kaz and Lily, but neither of them seemed to know what to do, and Brett sure didn’t. So they took off up the sidewalk after Gabe, ignoring how red and puffy their friend’s eyes were. A couple of times Brett looked back at the house, but he didn’t really expect Uncle Steve to try to follow.
Just as well, since Brett had one more item to check off on his list. One more thing to do for his Friend, and then his side of the bargain would be complete.
“So, uh,” Kaz started. “Are we going to school?”
Brett jumped at the opening. “No way! Are you nuts?” He checked his phone. “It’s only ten thirty! We’ve got the whole day to ourselves!”
Lily shrugged. “Well, we’ve already been marked absent, that’s for sure.”
Brett nodded. “Right! Let’s do something fun!”
Sounding more like a depressed old man than a twelve-year-old boy, Gabe said, “Fun. Ha. I bet I’ll be locked in my room till I’m eighteen.”
Brett nudged him with an elbow and plastered a big, friendly smile on his face. He needed his friend on board; his work for his other Friend wasn’t done. “All the more reason to take the day off! I mean, you’re leaving next week. This is our last shot at a big adventure! The field trip to end all field trips!”
Kaz snorted. “The tunnels and the ritual weren’t enough? We still have to tell the police about that skeleton, remember.”
Brett frowned at Kaz. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll jump all over a random skeleton from a hundred years ago.”
Kaz sputtered, couldn’t seem to come up with a good reply, and ended up sticking out his tongue at Brett.
The four of them stopped near a bench at the edge of a small park. Gabe looked back toward his house a couple of times, drew a breath to speak, stopped himself, and finally said, “What’d you have in mind?”
Lily smiled at Brett. “If we were older we’d get busted for contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”
Brett dug into his backpack. He tried not to make it obvious that the Tablet was in there, or that he was taking pains not to let his hand brush it. He wasn’t quite ready to feel that hot, charging-battery sensation again. “Ah-ha!” His hand closed around what he was going for, and he pulled it out triumphantly: the Golden Gates map, rolled back up and tied with the ribbon again.
Gabe groaned and covered his face with his hands.
Kaz’s mouth fell open. “You were supposed to put that back in Dr. Conway’s office!”
“Guess I forgot,” Brett said, trying to sound mischievous. That’s right, I’m just a bratty kid. No other motivations at work. Nothing to see here, move along. He unrolled the map on the bench and tapped a large, intricate glyph a short distance offshore. “If there’s one
place in this whole city that’s definitely haunted, that’s got to be it! We have to check it out before Gabe goes!”
Gabe groaned again. Brett wasn’t sure exactly what the groan meant—it could have been either My uncle’s going to have me arrested or Oh God, not more stupid haunted crap—so he really poured it on. “Come on, Gabe. I know you said you don’t believe in any of your uncle’s occult stuff, but this map helped us find that cool chamber, didn’t it? There’s gotta be something awesome to see out there, paranormal or not.”
“I’m pretty sure it was ghost-free back when we went there on our second-grade school trip,” Kaz said.
“Yeah, but that was before Gabe got here. Before we got the whole gang together.” He wrapped his arms around Kaz’s and Gabe’s shoulders.
“Alcatraz?” Lily asked as she squinted at the map. She couldn’t have sounded more skeptical. “I dunno. Doesn’t it cost money to take a tour there?”
Brett struggled to keep his good cheer up as he unslung his arms from around his friends’ shoulders and pulled out his wallet. His Friend had told him this would be necessary, so he’d looked up the prices online and brought along his New Bike Fund. He pulled out a medium-sized stack of bills. “Don’t worry, Lil. It’s Gabe’s last hurrah. I’ve got it covered.”
Gabe was already shaking his head. “No way, man! I can’t let you spend that much on me!”
Brett put a hand on his shoulder. “Like I said. You’re leaving. And yeah, I know we’ll Skype and stuff, but this is your big send-off. Don’t worry about the money. I got it for my birthday.”
Lily’s eyebrows almost disappeared into her hair. Brett could tell what she was thinking: they had the same birthday, and she sure as heck hadn’t gotten a stack of cash! But he gave her the best “Just be quiet and roll with this” look he could muster, and to his relief she went along with it. Frowning but cooperative.
Gabe sealed the deal when he said, “Well, I have always wanted to see Alcatraz.”