On the glass doors, masks were hanging high and center, facing inward.
Volto masks.
My jaw unhinged. How did those get there?
I spoke, “Maybe we shouldn’t go that way...”
Suddenly the lights all around us went out. The space had been dim before but now every bit of artificial light was gone.
The only light source was what came in through the windows.
And the masks glowing an eerie green.
Nathan marched over, ripping off one of them, and heaving it at the door. It bounced off and slid across the floor.
He tried the door handle. He paused, and then shook the door again. “Locked.”
Panic webbed up inside of me. I tried to stay rational. This was what Volto did. Frighten us. Get us to do what he wanted. I didn’t want to let him. “We need to get to Luke,” I said. “He’s out there by himself.”
“Let’s go back and get the others,” Nathan said. “Let’s show them this.” He picked up another mask and stuffed it into his back pocket. “We need more than just us.”
We jogged to the other side of the hall, back to the doors we’d come in front through the courtyard. We pushed against them.
Locked.
I pushed and pulled at the door again in disbelief. “He’s locked us in?”
“We might just have to go the long way around instead of going through the courtyard.” Nathan pulled a phone from his back pocket. It was newer, without a case since it had been replaced. “I should call them.”
I felt for my phone in my bra, ready to do the same and call or make some other use out of it.
He and I backed away from the doors, examining the dark main hallway. I kept near him. Each end of the hallway seemed darker than where we were. Each side was without wide windows that allowed what little light from outside to shine in. I dreaded the thought of having to go around.
He reached for my hand while he was holding the phone with the other. He pushed the green button and held it to his ear. He squeezed my hand as he held on.
After a moment, he lowered the phone and looked at the screen. “What the hell?”
He showed me the screen, presenting a distorted picture and the sound coming from it was static. On a cell phone?
“He’s messing with them,” I said. “Turn it off.”
He pushed a button along the side to shut it down completely. I did the same with mine. “There’s got to be a way out,” he said. He looked at the doorway through the courtyard again and kicked at it with a heel. It didn’t budge. “We’ll have to go around.”
I looked down the hallway, where it led away from windows at all, and the darkness was thick and foreboding. “I’m not sure we should. I think that’s where he wants us to go.”
“We can’t stay here and wait for him to make a move,” Nathan said. “He’s just trying to rattle us. They’re on the other side. We need to get around. We’ll need to stick together.”
I had to agree with that, but with my heart pounding so hard, it was shaking my knees. I swallowed, pressing my hand into his tightly. “Let’s go.”
We faced off with the dark hallway, with me leaning into Nathan, practically holding myself up with his strong body. I kept squinting, as if expecting to see something through on the other side.
There were options to go around. We could go upstairs. We could take the hallway in front of the office. We could go into the office and call them from a landline.
All of these options were the same to me. It meant going where Volto possibly wanted us to go to. But he couldn't be everywhere at once.
Could he?
We tiptoed forward to the shortest hallway that would lead us to the cafeteria. Nathan was right. We needed to get to them. At first, everything was silent.
Then a wailing sounded. It was distant at first, but coming closer.
Nathan's hand strengthened in squeezing mine. “It's the police. Someone called them.”
Oh no. Not now!
Nathan nudged me forward. “I have to get you out of here. We need to hide in the school. Somewhere they'll ignore in case they search the building.”
“We can't just leave the others to handle this alone,” I said.
“You have to.” He turned to me. “You've got to stay away from the police and any investigation.”
I wasn't sure my ghost bird status was worth all this. What would they think of Mr. Blackbourne and the others making an exchange at this time of night?
We looked down the dark hallway, which led around to where the others were. Police lights lit up the sides of the hallway. They were close, possibly in the parking lot.
Nathan turned, and tugged me along, heading to the stairs. “Never go up the stairs. Sure. That's always it, isn't it?” he muttered.
Despite what he was saying, we climbed. I was breathless at the top, from fear and from going so fast, but he urged me on.
“Isn’t there a light on your keys?” I asked.
He brought them out, checking but his light wasn’t working. “Battery died at camp,” he said.
“We need to find someplace to hide,” he said. “At least until we can be sure they aren't coming for us.”
“There's a closet,” I said. I examined the extending hallways around us and then picked a direction. There were loads of classrooms, of course, but it was too easy to take a look inside of them. The little dusty closet had a few places to hide, if they checked inside it at all. “I think it's this way.”
With all the lights off now, including in these hallways, most everything was pitch black. We paused just inside the edge of a hall. Without any light, it was way too dark to see up here.
He motioned to the edge of the hall where lockers were lined up. He pressed a hand to it and kept his other hand with mine. “We'll follow these. They'll get us to the end of the
hallway.”
“Maybe we should use a phone,” I whispered. “For light.”
“We can't give him the advantage like that,” he said. He tugged me gently. “Come on. We've got to go.”
I clutched to him. I wasn't sure I could go through with this without him. He was much braver than I thought I ever could be.
He stepped forward, keeping his palm against the lockers. It was the only sound aside from our footsteps. A clunking noise erupted as he hit one of the locks, and he changed position to avoid hitting them again.
But he didn't stop. He kept a moderate walking pace, slow enough that we wouldn’t trip hard over anything left on the floor.
We were halfway through when he stopped. I paused beside him.
I didn't know what he was doing. It was too dark to see. Did he hear something?
Suddenly, I smelled it.
Jasmine. Lavender.
It was the same scent Volto often carried with him.
“He's here,” I whispered.
Before Nathan could respond, there was a zap, familiar to me and yet weaker.
A stun gun.
Nathan jolted forward, releasing my hand. The sensation stopped instantly. “Go!” he shouted.
I didn't want to. I couldn't leave him. But there was only one of Volto, and I needed to either hide or get to the others and stop whatever he was doing.
I glanced back only once, spotting the green glow of a mask. It propelled me forward, wild fear taking over me.
I ran. I needed to get to the others. For Nathan. I couldn’t take him on alone.
There was a stairwell ahead of me.
I used the lockers as my guide to get to the end of the dark hall.
A body collided with mine, taking me down. I struggled, crying out and kicking.
A bag went over my head, stifling my voice and blinding me completely.
Vanished
Nathan
Her footsteps stopped somewhere in the distance. She cried out, followed by the sound of dragging. Muffled movements. Silence.
The pain that had radiated out from his back had subsided, but his limbs were numb. The voltage had been set high. He breathed in sharply, crouching on the floor, palms against the tile. He resisted the urge to vomit, swallowing back bile to keep himself together. He’d been zapped hard before, but this was rough.