‘Oh, crap,’ said Peter.
I stared at the note. It had two sentences printed on it in big block letters, like the person who wrote it was trying to disguise their handwriting.
THIS IS NOT A JOKE.
MEET ME AT PHOENIX AIRPOART
7 P.M. SUNDAY
‘It’s another message from your secret admirer, isn’t it?’ said Peter.
Jordan snatched the note out of my hand. Peter leant in close to read over her shoulder.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘There goes my weekend.’
Chapter 8
SATURDAY, MAY 9
96 DAYS
The three of us met up out the front of the Phoenix Mall at lunchtime the next day. The mall wasn’t exactly huge, although I guess it was okay for a town with only two thousand people. It was all on one level, with a food court at one end and a big supermarket at the other. And, of course, the whole building was completely spotless and new. You’d think I would’ve stopped noticing that stuff by now, but it still stuck out at me everywhere I went.
‘Ninety dollars,’ Jordan muttered, pointing to a rack of clothes as we walked in. ‘What moron pays ninety dollars for a T-shirt?’
‘Y-yeah,’ Peter agreed. He looked sideways at her and zipped up his jumper a bit.
I stopped off at the newsagent on our way past to pick up the new issue of Hyper. Something normal from the outside world. But the magazine selection turned out to be pretty pathetic – only a dozen or so to pick from, plus a few copies of the Phoenix Herald – and I came out empty-handed.
The food court was a big round area that bulged out of the end of the building, with curved plate glass walls that made you feel like you were stuck inside a giant fish tank. The whole place was packed out with kids like any mall on a Saturday. It seemed like half of Phoenix High was employed here, busy serving pizza and sandwiches and burgers to the other half.
We grabbed some food and took our lunch to a quiet corner in the park, where we could figure out what to do about the note in my bag.
As we walked outside, I saw a truck rumbling along the wide road that ran between the mall and the medical centre. It took a second to realise why the sight felt so weird to me. It was the first motor vehicle I’d seen in five days. The truck pulled to a stop outside the mall and two guys in white uniforms jumped out and started unloading big wooden crates from the back.
‘Supply truck,’ Peter explained when he saw me staring at it. He pointed along the road that the truck had just driven down. A few blocks away, it stretched into the bush and out of sight. ‘That’s the main road out of town, the only one that’s actually big enough for a car to drive on. Trucks come in every day with supplies – you know, food and medicine and whatever.’
We kept walking until we found a quiet spot out on the grass, under an enormous tree.
‘I looked in the town directory,’ I said as we sat down. ‘There’s no-one called Tabitha anywhere in Phoenix.’
‘Could be an alias,’ said Peter through a mouthful of chips. Then, like he was agreeing with his own idea, he added, ‘Yeah, it’d make sense to use an alias if they’re trying to keep it all under wraps.’
‘I thought you didn’t believe any of this was true,’ said Jordan.
‘I don’t,’ said Peter. ‘But if I was trying to blow up the world or whatever, I’d definitely be using a fake name. Anyway, speaking of all this being made up, I asked my dad last night about the work he did for Calvin.’
‘What?’ said Jordan, almost dropping her sandwich. ‘Peter, what if he –’
‘Calm down,’ said Peter. ‘I didn’t tell him about the recording. I just said I’d seen Calvin in town yesterday and wondered, you know, what he was like to work with.’
‘Smooth,’ said Jordan.
‘What did he say?’ I asked.
‘He said he hardly ever deals with Calvin directly anymore, now that the security force is all set up. And even when he had actual meetings with Calvin, all he did was write up press releases and stuff for the local paper.’
‘So?’ said Jordan.
‘So even if there was something going on, my dad would have nothing to do with it.’
‘Okay, good,’ I said, before Jordan had time to argue. Not that any of what he’d said actually proved anything. But Peter’s dad was an issue for another day.
Jordan seemed to agree. She took another bite of her sandwich and then said, ‘So, we’re going tomorrow, right?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, pulling the note out of my pocket and looking at it again. ‘Well, I want to anyway. Whoever this person is, they seem to have answers. And for some reason they want to give them to us.’
‘They say they’ve got answers,’ Peter corrected.
‘Okay, whatever, but how will we know unless we go to meet them?’ I said. ‘If it turns out that this is all just a load of crap, then we forget about it and move on with our lives.’
‘And if it’s not?’ said Peter, though from the tone of his voice he clearly didn’t think this was a possibility.
‘Dunno,’ I shrugged. ‘I guess we figure that out when we get there.’
‘Right,’ said Jordan. She turned to Peter and said, ‘So, are you coming or what?’
‘Yeah, all right,’ he said, emptying the rest of his chips into his mouth. Then his eyes went wide. ‘Whoa, hang on. It’s Larson!’
Jordan and I both spun around. ‘Where?’
‘No, I mean your stalker guy, the one who’s sending you all these messages and stuff. Five bucks says it’s Mr Larson.’
‘What?’ said Jordan, raising an eyebrow. ‘Why?’
‘Think about it,’ said Peter. ‘Yesterday morning, when we were listening to the recording, who just happened to be eavesdropping on our conversation?’
‘So what?’ said Jordan. ‘He didn’t hear anything.’
‘Yeah, he did,’ Peter replied. ‘He heard me saying the recording wasn’t real. And then, right after we came out of his class, we found a note saying that it is all real and trying to sort out a meeting.’
‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘Mr Larson could have slipped the note into my bag while we were watching the movie.’
‘What about the USBs?’ asked Jordan. ‘Luke and I both went straight home after school on Wednesday. There’s no way Mr Larson could have made it around to both of our houses before we got back. One of us would’ve caught him.’
Peter thought about this for a minute, obviously not wanting to give up on his theory that easily.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘All right, but who says he did it in the afternoon? What if he went and dropped them off in the morning before school started?’
‘But that was before I even met him,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘It was my first day here.’
‘Yeah, and he already knew who you were, remember?’ said Peter. ‘The first time you saw him, he already knew your name.’
‘Of course he did,’ said Jordan. ‘They’d all get told when someone new arrives. That doesn’t mean anything.’ She scrunched up her sandwich wrapper and stuck it inside her paper cup. ‘Anyway, if you’re still convinced that this is some big joke, why are you so worried about figuring out who’s behind it?’
‘Because whatever else is going on here, someone’s sending us this stuff. And I reckon it’s him.’
‘But why would Mr Larson be doing it?’ I asked. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’
Peter shrugged. ‘Since when can you expect sense from an English teacher?’ He stood up, balled up his rubbish, and chucked it up into the tree. ‘Guess we’ll find out tomorrow though, won’t we?’
SUNDAY, MAY 10
95 DAYS
Jordan and Peter rode over to my place on Sunday afternoon. We’d figured my mum would be the least likely to ask questions about where we were going and, as it turned out, she was back in the office anyway. She’s never been all that clear on the concept of ‘weekends’.
We rode out toward Phoenix Airport, backtracking along the p
ath that Mum and I had taken into town on the night we arrived. It was only 5.30 p.m, but Jordan wanted us to get there early so we could get the jump on whoever was coming to meet us.
‘Here’s what I don’t get,’ said Peter as we rode along the winding dirt path. ‘If you’re planning a top-secret conspiracy meeting, why choose the airport? It’s not the most private location, is it?’
‘What if it’s a set-up?’ I said. ‘A trap or something. What if Mr Larson or whoever just wants to lure us away from the town?’
‘To do what?’ said Peter. ‘Lock us up in the departure lounge and force us to read Shakespeare?’
‘That’s why we’re going early,’ said Jordan, flicking her braids out of her face. ‘So we can have a look around first and try to figure out what’s going on.’
‘We need to be careful riding in,’ I said. ‘If we get there and there’s a bunch of security guys –’ ‘Mate, it’s an airport,’ Peter interrupted, looking over his shoulder at me. ‘What are they gonna do? It’s not like we’re sneaking onto private property.’
I just shrugged at him and kept riding. He was probably right. But the closer we got to the airport, the edgier I got. If this was just some twisted joke, then whoever was behind it was clearly messed up in the head. Definitely not the kind of person I wanted to be running into on an airstrip in the middle of the bush.
And if there really was some evil psycho cover-up going on, then we were riding straight into the middle of it. And there was no way that was going to end well.
‘Almost there,’ said Peter, as we came up on the last bend in the path. ‘What do you guys want to do? Just ride straight in or – whoa.’
Peter skidded to a stop at the edge of the clearing, and Jordan and I pulled up behind him.
‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘doesn’t look like we’re going to have any trouble getting around airport security.’
I looked out across the clearing. The airstrip was completely empty. All the aircraft had been flown out. The luggage carts and the refuelling equipment that’d been scattered around the runway when we arrived were gone too.
There was no sign of movement anywhere. All the lights were off inside the little grey terminal building, and even from this distance I could see that everything had been bolted shut.
‘Maybe they’re just closed for the night,’ Jordan said, but I could tell from the look on her face that she didn’t believe that any more than I did.
No-one was coming back here in the morning.
Phoenix Airport had been completely abandoned.
Chapter 9
SUNDAY, MAY 10
95 DAYS
‘You were right,’ I said to Peter as we wheeled our bikes out into the clearing. ‘Me and my mum… you said we were the last ones coming.’
‘This isn’t exactly what I meant,’ said Peter, looking uneasy.
‘The man in the recording said it too,’ said Jordan. ‘He called you the final arrivals, right?’
‘Coincidence,’ said Peter under his breath.
The sun was starting to disappear behind the trees now, casting long, dark shadows of us and our bikes out over the tarmac. We walked across to the terminal building, and I leant up against one of the tinted windows at the front, trying to get a look inside.
‘See anything?’ asked Peter.
‘Nope, too dark.’
Jordan walked across to the bolted front entrance. She grabbed onto the doors and shook them as hard as she could with both hands. No good. She shrugged. ‘Worth a shot.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Peter, digging in his pocket and pulling out a paperclip. ‘I got it.’
He untwisted the paperclip and crouched down in front of the door, poking the little metal stick around inside the lock. He kept glancing up at Jordan out of the corner of his eye, like he wanted to make sure she was watching. But after about twenty seconds, Jordan left him to it and started walking along the length of the building, looking for another way in.
‘Careful,’ I called out as she headed around the corner.
‘Yeah,’ she nodded, smiling back at me before disappearing out of sight.
‘Crap!’ said Peter, still stooped over the front entrance. ‘The end just snapped off inside.’
‘Do we really want to break in here?’ I asked.
‘What if someone catches us?’
‘Relax, mate,’ said Peter, his eyes still fixed on the keyhole. ‘We’ll make sure we leave everything just the way we –’
SMASH!
I leapt to my feet and Peter whirled around.
Jordan was standing next to what was left of one of the windows, clutching a big stick with both hands.
‘What?’ she said, like what she’d just done was as normal as opening a door. She bashed the stick against the window frame a few more times, clearing the shards of glass from around the edges.
‘Come on,’ she said, tossing the stick aside. ‘Let’s have a look.’
Peter muttered something about almost having the door unlocked, and followed Jordan through the broken window. I clambered in after them, slicing my knee on a bit of glass that was still sticking up out of the frame.
The room was pitch black, and I could only just make out the shapes of Jordan and Peter moving in front of me. I fumbled around on the wall for a light switch, but couldn’t find one.
‘Guys,’ I whispered. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’
But the words were drowned out by a loud clunking sound. I jumped about a metre into the air as the lights suddenly flashed on all around us. Peter swore loudly. Jordan’s head whooshed around, looking for the culprit.
But there was no-one else there.
‘Lights must be running on a sensor,’ said Peter, straightening up and squinting against the sudden brightness.
Breathing heavily, I stared out across the white room, wondering why it was taking my eyes so long to adjust. A second later, I figured out what the problem was.
There was nothing to see. The whole building had been emptied out.
Furniture, rubbish bins, vending machines – everything was gone. All that was left was a couple of marble counters concreted to the floor and the now-empty rack on the wall that had been lined with bike helmets the day we arrived.
We were silent.
I circled one of the counters, heart pounding, half-expecting to find someone lying in wait behind it.
Don’t be stupid, I told myself. This place was locked from the outside.
On the far side of the counter was a door marked STAFF ONLY.
I glanced back at the others. Try it?
Jordan nodded.
I turned the handle and the door opened with a click. The lights switched on as I stepped inside. Nothing in there either. Just an empty wall cabinet and couple of coffee stains on the carpet.
I walked back out into the main room, shaking my head. ‘I don’t get it,’ I said in a low voice. ‘Why go to all the trouble of building this place if you’re just going to pack up and leave it all behind?’
‘Doesn’t make any sense,’ Peter admitted.
‘Definitely doesn’t look like they’re expecting anyone else to be coming in, does it?’
‘Or out,’ said Jordan darkly.
Peter shrugged. ‘Plenty of other ways to get in and out.’ He walked over and looked out the window. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Quarter to seven,’ I said, checking the useless mobile phone I still carried with me out of habit.
‘What do you reckon?’ Peter asked, turning to Jordan. ‘Head back out and look for our stalker?’
‘Yeah, let’s go,’ she said.
I followed behind, keen to get out of there. The lights clunked off again as we left. Good. The last thing we needed right now was for someone to come and bust us for breaking and entering.
The sun had disappeared almost completely by the time we got back outside, and the bushland around us was just a blur of black. I scanned the trees, but I couldn’t see any sign
of –
‘Look,’ Jordan whispered, grabbing my arm. ‘Over there!’
A narrow beam of light was glinting across the tarmac at the far end of the airstrip.
‘A torch,’ said Peter. ‘That would’ve been a smart idea.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, suddenly realising how stupid we’d been not to bring any of our own.
I squinted in the direction of the torchlight, but it was impossible to tell who was out there. Whoever it was, they had to have seen us breaking into the terminal building. But they weren’t coming any closer. They were just standing there, shining the torch around. Waiting.
‘That’ll be them,’ I said, kind of embarrassed at how shaky my voice was all of a sudden.
‘Come on,’ said Jordan, striding out across the tarmac as though she did this sort of thing all the time.
Peter and I trailed along behind her. The end of the airstrip was further away than it looked, and the closer I got to the person with the torch, the more I realised that Peter wasn’t the only one who’d been hoping that none of this was real.
As we closed in on our mystery informant, the beam of torchlight suddenly swept across the airstrip and landed right on top of us.
‘Hey,’ said Jordan irritably. ‘Get that out of my face!’
But the torch kept shining straight at us until we got to the end of the airstrip. We stopped about five metres away from him, and he flashed the light at each of us in turn. Then he swung it around, lighting up his own face like he was about to tell us a ghost story.
I rubbed my eyes, still half-blind from the torch.
It was Crazy Bill.
Chapter 10
SUNDAY, MAY 10
95 DAYS
‘You?’ said Peter, like there’d been a mistake.
Crazy Bill grinned, his disfigured face scrunching up like a piece of paper. He bent over and put his torch down on the ground between us so that we could see each other properly. With a grunt, he straightened up again and stared at Jordan and me.
I tried not to breathe in too deeply. It was painfully obvious that Bill still hadn’t washed since the last time we’d seen him.
Arrival Page 5
