Бентли Литтл - The Disappearance

“I know. Reyn told me.” There were others with her, so she was trying to sound calm, but he could hear the worry in her voice.

“He just escaped!”

“I know.”

“Don’t—” Gary had to stop and gulp air. He was hyperventilating and couldn’t finish his sentence without pausing to catch his breath. “Don’t go anywhere!” he said, and took another breath. “We’ll meet you there! Where are you, exactly?”

She was still trying to keep her voice calm in front of her classmates. “We’re in study room A on the sixth floor of the library, against the back wall.”

“I know where it is. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“I’ll stay right here.” There was a pause. “You be careful, too.”

“Always.”

They said good-bye, and he handed the phone back to Reyn. “We have to get over there.”

“I’m calling Stacy first.” He paused before pressing her speed-dial number. “Do I tell her to stay where she is or go to Joan?”

Gary thought quickly. “We should probably stay together. There’s safety in numbers.”

“It’d be harder to get all of us if we were spread out,” Reyn said.

“Not if there’s a group of them and they’re all spread out. We can defend ourselves better if we’re together.”

Reyn nodded, pressed the number. “Stacy!” he said as soon as she answered. “We just ran into a Homesteader. He said Father’s here and on his way. I need you to leave class and get over to the library as quick as you can. Joan’s there. We’re heading over, too. We…” He trailed off, then shook his head as he changed his mind. “No. Stay where you are.” He looked over at Gary. “You get Joan,” he said. “I’ll get Stacy. We’ll meet… ?”

“In the library. Study room A. Sixth floor.”

“In the library. Study room A. Sixth floor,” he repeated.

There was no time to waste. Gary waved to Reyn and took off running. Reyn started running after him, several steps behind, and before their paths diverged, he heard his friend say to Stacy, “That’s who we were looking for. He’s not answering his phone. We thought something might’ve happened to him.”

Then Reyn turned toward Stacy’s building, and Gary ran toward the library.

It was dark now, and the entire campus seemed little more than an amalgam of hiding places. He glanced suspiciously at every person he passed by, hyperaware that any one of them could be a fanatic cult member ready to attack. Ahead, in the gloom, the hulking mass of the library resembled nothing so much as the exterior of a haunted castle.

An icy shudder passed through him.

Father is coming , he thought.

Father is coming.

Joan put down her cell phone.

Tessa and Vy were arguing over something in the course textbook. Craig was on his laptop, looking up something entirely unrelated to the class.

She glanced slowly around. The study room was completely enclosed. There was only one door, and a wall of windows looked out into the library, so if anyone tried to approach through the stacks, she’d be able to see them immediately. This was probably one of the most secure places she could be on campus, but she felt vulnerable, at once trapped and exposed, and though she’d promised Gary she’d remain where she was, Joan wanted nothing more than to get out of this room and out of the library. First instincts weren’t always right, though, and she knew that it would be much smarter for her to—

The lights in the library began flashing, accompanied by the clanging of an alarm.

“Fire!” Tessa cried, snatching up her books.

All of the students in her study group hurriedly gathered their materials, preparing to make a run for the stairwells. They were on the sixth floor, and if there was a fire, they wanted to get outside as quickly as possible. Joan had the same gut reaction, but even as she grabbed her books and notebooks, she was thinking of the fire last night, in Gary’s dorm. The ringing alarm sounded exactly the same and the parallels were impossible to ignore. The fire in the library—if there really was a fire in the library and someone had not simply set off the alarm—must have been set by the same person.

Father is coming .

Tessa and Vy were already out of the room and running, and Craig was holding the door open for her. “Come on!” he yelled.

She followed him—and saw a Homesteader walking up the aisle between a long row of bookshelves.

The lights flashed off again, on, and the Homesteader was closer, much closer, moving fast, though he was still not running.

Panicked, she dashed to her left. Another Homesteader was coming up this aisle, heading toward her as though he’d known all along that this was exactly where she would be.

She ran in the direction of the north stairwell, acting on instinct rather than intellect, aware on some level that she was going into the most remote section of the library and that most of the other students on the floor had probably run to the south stairwell, which was adjacent to the elevators. The rhythmic flashing of the lights, accompanied by the constant ringing of the alarm bells, lent the space ahead a surreal aspect that only intensified her fear.

And then the alarm stopped, the sudden cessation of noise creating a silence so heavy it pressed against her ears.

Joan froze. She heard no voices, no footsteps. She’d lost Craig and had no idea where Tessa and Vy were. Downstairs by now, probably. Along with everyone else.

Was she the only one left on the sixth floor?

No. The Homesteaders were here.

She ran toward the stairwell door as quickly as she could, her heart pounding crazily. It was the terror she’d felt back at the Home multiplied by ten. Here in the outside world, Father might not have the absolute power that he’d had in his own fiefdom, but the Home was gone and he was angry, and there was no telling what he might do.

She reached the door and pushed it open. The stairwell smelled familiar, as though someone wearing a heavy floral perfume had just left the area. Immediately, her head began to feel strange. She recognized the feeling and tried to turn around and go back the way she’d come, but hands reached around from behind her and grabbed her arms, pressing them to her sides. Looking down, she saw that the hands were clawed, that the skin was blue, the long nails black, and then a bag was put over her head, a bag that was wet and smelled of old licorice.

And then she was out.

Joan awoke to see Father staring down at her.

It was night, and his features were illuminated by the soft, flickering glow of candlelight. His eyes were hard, his mouth set within the overgrown beard, and he was holding a Bible, though the way he was clutching it in his hands made it look as though he wanted to rip the book in half rather than read it. Joan was in a prone position, lying on something hard, and when she tried to lift herself up on her elbows, she found that she couldn’t. She was being held down, though she couldn’t tell if hands or straps were keeping her in place, and she realized at that moment that she could not feel anything below her neck. Her body was totally without sensation. Maybe nothing was holding her down, and with a feeling of rising panic she wondered if she was permanently paralyzed.

She tried not to let the fear show on her face, though she had no idea whether or not she was successful. “Where am I?” she demanded.

When Father didn’t answer, she said, “Gary’s coming for me.”

“He’s dead,” Father stated flatly. “All of your friends are dead. Ruth .”

Joan couldn’t keep the reaction off her face this time. The effect his words had on her was physical. It was as if he had punched her in the stomach. She could tell from the smug satisfaction in his voice that what he said was true, and she was filled with a sudden deep despair. At that moment, she wished she was dead herself. Her parents were gone… Gary… her friends, and all that was left to her was the one thing on earth she wanted most to avoid: Father. She wished he would kill her, but she knew that was not going to happen. Eventually, she would die, but he wanted to make her suffer first, wanted to make her pay.