When Stars Go Out

by Grey, Ransom;

  Chapter 23

  “Hey, Reed, wait up!”

  Reed paused on his trek up the North Stairs from the shuttles the next day. Like any Saturday, he had been obliged to put in a half-day at the factory. Everyone had been let off a few minutes earlier than usual, however, thanks to the carnival and the concert scheduled for later that afternoon. He turned back to see who called him and, with mixed sensations, saw that it was Lucy trotting up the stairs after him. He swallowed and stopped to wait for her. As soon as she caught up with him, he spoke. “Look, Lucy, if it’s about last night, I just want to get one thing straightened out.”

  “Oh.” She looked at him. “I wasn’t going to bring up last night but, if you want to, go ahead.”

  “I think I will.” He took a deep breath. “So I know you and Allie don’t get along, but there’s no point in hiding that I’m dating her. I was going to tell all of you eventually, but I just never got around to it. And it’s not like we’re gonna run off and get married next week, but we’re both happy with where things are going. I could tell last night you thought… well, I didn’t know what you thought, but I didn’t know if you’d ever speak to me again.”

  “Oh, no, Reed!” Lucy shook her head. “I’m not mad at you. Not at all! Just… concerned. I admit I was a little surprised that you would fall for a girl like Allie, but I’m not sure you know what you’re getting into. She’s not quite what she looks like.” She pursed her lips. “Okay, take that back, maybe she’s exactly what she looks like, just not to you.” She started up the stairs again.

  Reed followed her, frowning. “What do you mean? I know her. We’ve been going out for three weeks now. I think I’ve got a pretty good idea of what things are like.”

  Lucy turned and looked him straight in the eye. “Reed, I understand what you’re saying. But I know how girls think, especially this type, and trust me: things aren’t the way you think they are. Things are a lot more open and laid back for guys, and they assume everybody else is that way, too. But it’s a lot more complicated with girls. Trust me, Reed, there is a lot going on under the surface that you have no idea about. She’s in this for more than you know, and she will try to get it.”

  “From me? Why?”

  “Err… talk to one of the guys about that. I’m just warning you from a girl’s perspective.”

  “Warning? You make it sound like I’m being hunted or something.”

  “You are, Reed.” Her serious tone startled him. “Things get around in girls’ circles that guys never know about. Believe me, there are more girls than I can count who would love to get their hooks into you. Allie’s not the only one, but she’s definitely the closest.”

  “What?” Reed could feel his face getting hot. “Nobody’s got any hooks in me! That’s… weird! Look, I’m just dating a girl, and maybe that goes somewhere and maybe it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, too bad. If it does, who’s to say that would be so awful? You make her sound like a scheming…”

  Lucy sighed heavily. “Reed, you’re a smart guy. But women have defied men’s understanding for thousands of years. If you don’t understand what I mean by ‘complicated,’ that’s okay. Just believe me when I say it is. But you don’t think it would be bad if anything comes from this? Oh, Reed!” She shook her head and looked away for a moment. “I don’t want to poison your mind, but you have to understand. She’s a bad girl. There are things about her you don’t need to know and I wish I didn’t. You might not even realize what’s going on until it’s too late, but she will work every skill in her power to get what she wants from you. It will not be good. Please believe me, Reed!”

  He stared at the concrete, unsure if he should be angry, scornful, or frightened. If she’d meant confuse him, she’d done a good job. Her words poured into and overflowed his brain like too much water in a sink. Her main point, however, sank in.

  When he finally spoke, he kept his eyes averted. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m not going to be with her this afternoon. She’s going to hang with her girlfriends at the street fair.”

  “Oh, good.” She sounded relieved. “I mean, that’ll give you some time. You need to talk to one of the guys—Nathan or Alec or ’Lijah or somebody. They’re all going to be around this afternoon, and I’m sure they can talk you through it much better than I can. Elijah’s especially good to talk to.” She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and met his eyes. “Will you promise me you’ll talk to one of them? For your own sake?”

  He looked down. “I’ll try.”

  “Good.” She smiled and relaxed. “I’ll see you later.”

  She turned toward her dorm, leaving him to ruminate on her words.

  He went up to his room but found it and the entire hall empty. Most of the boys had gone down to where the road in front of the Dorms had been blocked off and the carnival had already started. He changed out of his work clothes and retraced his steps. His mind was on overload trying to process everything Lucy had said. He wasn’t sure whether to accept it from someone with inside information or to reject it as coming from a jealous girl with a grudge. After all, the two of them didn’t get along. He felt that he should even be angry at Lucy for some of the things she had said about his girl, except they matched something he had felt deep in his gut all along. He needed to sort out his thoughts, find some way to make sense of it all.

  Preoccupied, he pushed out the door into the sunlight and ran directly into someone going past on the sidewalk.

  “Whoa! Sorry, bro. My fault,” he apologized, not even looking up. “I didn’t see you there.”

  The other boy eyed him strangely. “Reed?”

  Reed’s head jerked up. “Elijah! I didn’t expect you to… I mean, you don’t… that is… Did Lucy send you over here?”

  “Lucy? No. I haven’t seen her all day. Should I have?”

  “Well, no.” Reed rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just that she was insistent about you. I mean, insistent that I talk to you, and you just happened to show up.”

  “Ah.” The word carried complete understanding. “And you don’t want to talk about it, but you kinda… have to?”

  “Exactly!” exclaimed Reed in relief. “It’s personal but, by myself, I can’t even… Ugh! This is frustrating.”

  “Well,” Elijah said slowly, “I was just going to walk around, maybe skim the street fair thingy. You’re welcome to come along, and we can talk as we go. It might help you straighten things out.”

  It was exactly what Reed had been wishing for. He accepted the invitation.

  They turned up the deserted sidewalk at a slow pace, side by side. Starting out was awkward for Reed. He opened and shut his mouth several times without saying anything. It was harder than he had thought it would be. He hated opening up, especially on something this personal.

  “It’s okay, Reed. Don’t tell me anything you don’t want to, but don’t hold back what you need to get out either.”

  That helped. How did Elijah always know just what to say? Reed tried again. Once he got started, it became easier, and before long, he found himself unloading the whole story of the night before, Lucy’s reaction that day, and his own confusion.

  Elijah listened attentively, hands in his pockets, his eyes wandering over everything they passed. He said nothing but allowed Reed to go on until he ran out of steam.

  “…and that’s when she said I should talk to you,” Reed finished. “I didn’t think I would ’cause I couldn’t even sort it out myself, but then you just happened to come along and… you know.”

  “I see,” Elijah mused. “Wow, I’d be confused, too. She laid on a lot all at once. But what is it that’s bothering you the most?”

  Reed watched the shadows play across the sidewalk thoughtfully. “I want to know what she meant when she said Allie wants a lot more from me than I think.” He looked up. “I’m already doing all the good boyfriend stuff. What else could she want?”

  Elijah was silent for a moment. “Is that what’s really botherin
g you?”

  Reed dropped his eyes and pulled at his ear. “Well…”

  “Get it off your chest, Reed.”

  “Okay, fine. I admit I was a little bothered when Lucy said flat-out that it would be bad if anything came of this relationship. I mean, how would she know? That’s something for me to decide! Why can’t people just mind their own business and let me live my own life?”

  The only sounds were the rustling of leaves and a few faint echoes from the carnival in the distance.

  “Feel better?”

  Reed let out a deep breath. “Yeah.”

  “I see where you’re coming from, Reed. It’s a valid point.” Elijah slid his hands into his back pockets. “There are some things a guy has to decide for himself. But let’s go back to your first question: what else does she want from you?” Elijah kept his eyes on the sidewalk in front of him. “I really hate to go into this, but you need to know some of Allie’s history. Lucy was right; she’s a bad girl. You’re not the first boy she’s gotten in with. She started out as a little-known, pretty flirt, but she’s been climbing the social ladder steadily over the last few months. How? She works her charms on guys like you. Each time, she sets her sights on a boy a little higher in the social strata than she is. She’s pretty and smart; the guy falls for it. She pulls him down to her level and then uses him as a footstool to take her next step up. Sometimes, she only goes far enough to get what she wants. But it’s no secret that others… well, you know, went all the way.”

  Reed said nothing. Elijah continued. “You are her next and perhaps final step. What does she want from you? Think about it, Reed. You know as well as anybody you’re in the top crust here. Everybody knows you; you’re Reagan’s roommate. That practically makes you a deity to most of the girls.”

  A half-smile flitted across Reed’s face as Elijah continued. “And, on top of that, you’re a very attractive guy. Any girl would love to get her hands on you. I think that’s what Lucy is so worried about. This girl wants to use you, Reed, for your position, status, looks, the whole deal. It’s more than just ‘all the good boyfriend stuff’, more even than just getting to the top of her ladder. She wants… well, you know. She’s planning to have her cake and eat it, too.”

  Reed tugged at his ear again. He was not fond of being referred to as cake to be eaten, and this wasn’t the kind of conversation he’d been expecting. “Okay, so maybe she doesn’t have a stellar record, but that doesn’t mean other people can tell me what relationships I should and shouldn’t have.”

  “True.” Elijah took his hands out of his pockets. “But, Reed, we’re both guys. I know what this is like. When a girl shows interest in us, it’s flattering. Somebody noticed us! It makes for a great feeling, but it can go to our heads. We have to get past the emotional high or else we can’t look at anything straight. Allie likes you. Great. But would pursuing this relationship really be best for you?”

  “Hold it!” Reed threw up his hands. “Everybody’s acting like I signed a contract in blood or something. It’s not that way! If we want, we can call it off and this can all just be for fun. It’s the thing to do!”

  “You mean so you can have somebody to go to concerts with?”

  “Well, yeah, pretty much.”

  “I understand that. I mean, everybody wants that kind of companionship and intimacy. But you’re getting out onto thin ice with this one. You can go along and play the game now, but you’ll find out it’s not going to give you what you really want. It might be fun for a while, but what it is and what it leads to is so… unsatisfying.”

  As they talked, they had passed through the Dorms and come to the front of the Hill. They stopped beneath a young maple overlooking the road. Below them, the carnival had been set up on the cement street and was already in full swing. From where they stood, they had a clear view of the spinning rides, rows of brightly colored booths, and enormous crowds that lay in a gleaming panorama beneath the afternoon sun.

  Elijah’s gaze wandered over it all. Then he sighed.

  “Unsatisfying,” he murmured more to himself than to Reed, “but what else can you expect in a place as fake as this?”

  Reed blinked. “What?”

  “Artificial, fake, phony. Just look at it.” Elijah swept his arm to encompass both the scene before them and the entire Hill. “The whole GRO set-up is so unrealistic. It’s a plastic bubble detached from the rest of the world. It’s almost like putting one of those desktop aquariums at the edge of the water at the beach. It doesn’t make any sense. We’re not made for this. We’re supposed to be challenged, learning, and growing to make the world a better place, but we’re stuck in this playground instead. It’s not good.”

  “Hey,” Reed turned up his palms, “we’re kids! We don’t have to worry about being grown up yet. Besides, what’s wrong with aquariums? I mean, the water’s warm, you don’t have to worry about getting eaten, and hey, there’s lots of other cute fish.”

  Elijah chuckled. “Yeah, whatever. I meant that this place was designed just to keep us locked away from reality. It’s intentionally built to keep us small, to stunt us. There’s a purpose behind it all, Reed. Like Wilson told you before, it’s all about ideas.” He stopped and sighed. “And there’s something else about aquariums: they break easily.”

  Neither said anything more for a moment, and they watched the carnival scene in silence. Reed broke into a grin. “What the heck are we talking about? I mean seriously, how did we get onto aquariums?”

  Elijah laughed softly. “I guess we kinda got off track. But it all ties together somehow; life’s just a big, tangled knot sometimes.”

  “You can say that again. Well, anyway, I’ve said all I wanted to. I really just needed to talk it out. Thanks for listening.”

  “Anytime,” replied Elijah. “And don’t worry; I’ll keep it with me.”

  Reed felt a rush of gratitude. “Thanks,” he said.

  They had hung back from the crowd as they talked but, as the conversation ended, they moved down the slope to join the teeming mass of young people on the road. The laughing, chattering flood engulfed them. The teens were enjoying themselves to the fullest. It was one giant party, with music blaring somewhere in the background and spinning lights on both sides of the thoroughfare. The smell of kettle corn and corn dogs flavored the air. Someone brushed past with a massive cone of blue and purple cotton candy. Reed noticed that many of the kids carried posters, cards, and CDs of the Hordes of Hell with them. Autographs, he thought. Sweet, so they really are here!

  The crowd was thick, jostling and pushing, but he managed to stick close to Elijah. He liked the feeling of being one of so many people, of fitting in and matching up. He grinned; living in a bubble wasn’t bad all the time.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

  The sound was faint but clear, even above the din of the crowd. Reed paused. What’s that? he wondered. It sounded like fireworks.

  Pop! Pop! There it was again. It stopped. It must be fireworks, he decided, but in the middle of the day?

  No one else around him seemed to notice the noise. The crowd went on with its carefree, noisy business uninterrupted. Reed turned to Elijah. “What the heck was that?”

  Before Elijah could answer, a scream sliced through the air. It was piercing, bloodcurdling. It stabbed through the party atmosphere like a knife through fabric and shot chills down Reed’s spine. Though he’d never heard anything like it before, the sound was unmistakable. It was the cry of a girl in terror—absolute, unmitigated terror.

  The laughter and talk in the crowd died instantly, and everyone grew very still. An uneasy hush fell across the whole carnival; even the music stopped.

  The scream came again, shrill and paralyzing. Others joined it, not only girls’ shrieks but boys’ hoarse cries. They grew louder, wilder, and sharper.

  The crowd began to shift uneasily, droning like wary bees. Reed struggled to hear over the rumble, trying to understand what the cries meant. He could not make it out. The poppin
g sound began once more; it seemed to be coming closer. The screams doubled, tripled, spread in every direction.

  Suddenly, a few teens burst through the mass of people at the carnival’s center, fighting their way toward the Dorms as fast as they could. One of them was a boy Reed knew. Reed grabbed his elbow as he rushed past. “Jordan! What’s going on?”

  The boy’s eyes were frantic as he turned on Reed, struggling wildly to free his arm. “It’s—it’s a gunner!” he shouted hoarsely, breaking away. “He’s shooting!”

  Chapter 24

  The effect was instantaneous. His words leaped from mouth to mouth and swept through the mass of teens in half a second. Like a bomb, panic exploded in the crowd. Shrieks and screams split the air. Everyone began frantically pushing, trampling, trying to run, but no one knew which way to go. Hysteria broke loose like a wild animal as teens crashed through dividers, beat down booths and counters, even knocked each other down in a frenzy to escape. There was an ear-splitting groan, and one of the towering rides swayed and crashed to the street, overturned by the stampede. The chaos choked the very air, but the unrelenting gunshots cut through it all, drawing steadily nearer.

  Panicked, Reed whirled around. Elijah was not by his side anymore. Reed caught sight of his friend off to the right near the edge of the crowd. Alec was there, too. But, before Reed could move in their direction, the two boys turned and plunged into the heart of the frantic mass. At the same instant, Gabe flashed past him in the same direction.

  The shots, pounding in a ceaseless, deadly rhythm, were closing in on him. Not twenty yards away, teens began dropping. Those nearby fought wildly to scatter, but the surrounding crowd was a wall, too thick for them to go far. It was a slaughter.

  Without warning, a girl not five feet from Reed spun and dropped to the road, her long brown hair falling around her into a growing, red pool on the cement. Reed stared, horrified. There was no more time; he had to get out now or he… he would be next. It was surreal to even think it. I have to get out of here. Without a second’s hesitation, he turned and dove into the crowd.