Blackout

by Robison Wells

Page 8

 

  Lance and Ian were two people who made Mount Pleasant a little less pleasant. They were only a couple of years older than Aubrey and Jack, and probably would have been in jail if it wasn’t a small town with a lenient police force. No big crimes, just a lot of public drunkenness and loitering. A ton of ogling and harassment, if that was illegal. Aubrey didn’t know, and the police didn’t seem to care.

  “I don’t think we should go this way,” Aubrey said. The boys weren’t out there to help straggling kids. They were there for . . . she didn’t know. The one thing Aubrey knew was that she was somehow like Nate Butler, and he’d been killed.

  “I think you’re right. ”

  They backed out of the field, crawling on their hands and knees through the harvest-ready crops until they felt they were far enough away. Aubrey stood, feeling weaker than ever. Normally she would only stay invisible for a few minutes—fifteen at the most. Tonight, she’d spied for at least twenty-five, and then she’d hidden from the soldiers on and off for another hour as they swept the area for runaways.

  But there was nothing she could do about it now. Her only other option was to sit down on a rock and wait for someone to find her.

  “What if we just turn ourselves in?” Jack asked. “You told me the soldiers said this was for our own safety. ”

  “No,” she answered firmly.

  He nodded, and Aubrey wondered what he was thinking. They used to be so close. She used to be able to read him like a book. That was less than a year ago, but it felt like a decade.

  They crossed two more long fields, her dress snagging on barbed wire when she climbed both fences. Each time it made her want to cry—the dress had been gorgeous, the prettiest thing she’d ever owned. Stolen.

  “Do you hear that?” Jack asked, stopping and grabbing her arm.

  Aubrey listened, straining to hear anything besides the cold canyon wind. “What?”

  “Voices,” he said, and then carefully climbed up the short embankment to the road. He ducked, and pointed.

  Aubrey was right behind him, and saw the shapes in the distance—three cars across this road. None had their lights on; instead, half a dozen flashlights moved violently around the makeshift roadblock.

  “They’re arguing,” Jack said, but Aubrey still couldn’t hear it.

  Was she losing her hearing along with her sight?

  “About what?”

  He shrugged, and then motioned for her to cross the road to the next field. “Can’t tell. ”

  “Why would they do this?” she asked.

  “You think they’re looking for us?”

  “Who else?”

  “Terrorists,” he said, like the answer was obvious. “Whoever hit Lake Powell. ” He scrambled down the other side of road. This wasn’t a cultivated field—just rocky undeveloped land. She expected him to offer her a hand, but he didn’t.

  “But what about Nate?” Aubrey asked as she carefully followed after him.

  “You know more about Nate than I do,” Jack said.

  “Hardly anything, really. ”

  “I’m just saying—”

  She stopped, suddenly letting out her fear, disguised as anger. “I don’t understand anything about what he did. ”

  “I don’t care,” Jack answered. “All I’m saying is you knew him better than me. ”

  “Well, I didn’t know . . . whatever he was. Whatever he did back there. ”

  “I don’t care,” Jack said again. He started walking, forcing her to follow if she wanted to talk. “I have no idea what happened with him. I’m just saying that the military has their hands full right now. They’d only stop the dance if people were in danger. ”

  “What danger?” She wasn’t trying to be belligerent, but part of her wanted—needed—to justify Nate’s actions. If she was anything like him, then he couldn’t be dangerous, could he? Could she?

  “Terrorists hit Lake Powell. Maybe they’re coming here next. ” He turned and kept walking away from the road.

  “To do what?” Aubrey asked, exasperated. “Blow up a turkey farm?”

  “They could target Wasatch Academy,” he answered. “The dorms. Or Walmart. ”

  “Walmart?”

  “They hit malls last week. ”

  Aubrey pulled the oversized coat closer around her. She’d gotten the dress just before the mall disasters on the West Coast. She wasn’t sure of the final count, but the attacks were staggered—three one day, five the next, six more the day after. Nothing in Utah, of course. It was too small to care about. Well, that was what she’d thought until tonight.

  But what about Nate? Did that have anything to do with the attacks?

  “Where are we headed?” she asked Jack. She’d just realized the roadblocks were forcing them away from Jack’s house.

  He shrugged without turning back. “Into town. To the school. It seems like the most logical meeting place. ”

  “So we just turn ourselves in?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “You and I know Mount Pleasant inside and out. We can sneak up close, see what’s going on. ”

  She thought about that for a minute. They might know every alley and broken fence, but they weren’t the US Army. They didn’t have night vision binoculars and who knew what else. And she couldn’t turn invisible with Jack.

  “No,” she said, and stopped.

  He turned around, annoyed. “What?”

  “Let’s go to my house. Check the news. Find out what’s happened. ”

  “Why?”

  Aubrey started to cry. It was fake at first—something Nicole had taught her to help her get her way—but once the tears came they didn’t stop. “My date just turned into a monster, and then they killed him. It’s the middle of the night and you want us to spy on the people who did it. I want to go home. ”

  Jack hesitated.

  “Come on, Jack,” she sobbed. “Let’s go home. ”

  SEVEN

  “SLOW DOWN,” ALEC SAID, SITTING up straighter in the passenger seat. His head was throbbing, and he’d been trying to sleep, but Laura drove too fast. They were asking to get pulled over.

  The escape had gone perfectly to plan—better than he could have hoped. Only a few vehicles had tailed them as they flew out of the Glen Canyon Dam parking lot—Dan had shaken the canyon walls and must have damaged the bridge over the Colorado River—and the Bronco had quickly lost their pursuers in the maze of dirt roads to the west. They exchanged the stolen Bronco for a pickup, and then headed north through the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument, one of the most godforsaken stretches of wilderness in the country.

  Laura drove—she’d had plenty of time that day to rest while the other two prepared for the attack, and both Alec and Dan were worn out and hurting. Dan could usually just sleep off his problems, but Alec’s always resulted in a migraine. Laura, so far as they’d seen, didn’t have any significant side effects. But her mutations were simple—strength, toughness, endurance. She was their tank, their human escape plan.

  Human. Alec smiled tiredly. He was better than human now.

  He turned on the radio again, the noise sending electric bolts of pain through his forehead.