This Town Is a Nightmare Page 5

  “I said NO AMBULANCE!” Galen shouted.

  “Jeez, fine,” the man said, pocketing his phone. He grumbled about ingrates as he disappeared around the corner.

  “Then what do we do?” Beacon said. “We can’t just leave you here like this.”

  “Says who?” Everleigh muttered.

  “Just drag me into a gutter and go,” Galen said.

  “What?” Beacon and Arthur said, at the same time as Everleigh said, “Sounds good!”

  “No,” Beacon said firmly. “We’re not doing that. You saved our lives. We can’t leave you like this.”

  “Back pocket,” Galen said.

  “What’s in there?” Beacon asked.

  Galen closed his eyes and swallowed hard. He was about to say something. Beacon leaned forward, his breath held so he wouldn’t miss a word. But it never came.

  Galen had passed out.

  “Wake up!” Beacon shook his arm. “Come on, dude, we need to know where to take you!”

  But the boy didn’t even grimace. He was out like a light.

  “Let’s just get out of here.” Everleigh glanced around frantically at the people walking by and casting worried looks at them. “We’ve spent way too long here. The cops could arrive any minute, and what if Victor or those guards find us?”

  But Beacon ignored her. It was one thing to leave the guards who’d tried to kill him to die in an alley, but if he abandoned the person who’d just saved his life, he didn’t know if he’d ever forgive himself.

  He dug inside Galen’s back pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Arthur said.

  “He said to go in his back pocket,” Beacon said. He pulled out the knife, then a beat-up leather wallet. That had to be what he’d wanted them to find. “He probably wanted us to find his address.”

  “I don’t think he has one,” Everleigh said. “Isn’t that the whole premise of being homeless?”

  Beacon flipped open the wallet, and his eyes popped wide.

  “Wow,” Arthur said, peering over. “Is that real?”

  Beacon pulled out a bill from the stack of crisp green twenties.

  “Did he rob a bank?” Everleigh said. “Why does he have so much money? Never mind. We can get food now!”

  She reached over and tried to snatch the bill, but Beacon held it out of reach.

  “We are not taking his money,” Beacon said. Just then his belly grumbled loudly.

  “You sure about that?” Everleigh said.

  Beacon stuffed the bill back inside with the others. He leafed through the wallet. He found a picture of a young brunette with a smattering of freckles on her cheeks, and a crumpled receipt for a Domino’s pizza delivery, but there was no ID inside.

  They’d reached a dead end.

  He didn’t get it. Why tell them to go in his pocket if there was nothing there to help them?

  “Let’s just call 911 and leave,” Arthur said.

  “What about his dog?” Beacon said.

  “It’ll go to a shelter,” Everleigh said.

  “Where it’ll probably be killed,” Beacon said.

  Beacon pulled out the Domino’s receipt again, thinking. And then it hit him. If he’d ordered pizza, he must have had it delivered somewhere. He inspected the receipt closer.

  “243 Forest Park,” he said, reading the delivery address on the receipt. He looked up. “This has to be where he lives!”

  6

  “For the record, I think this is a terrible idea,” Everleigh said. Beacon and Arthur each had one of Galen’s arms propped across their shoulders as they strained to drag his limp body down the street. Meanwhile, Boots trotted next to them, licking Galen’s face and jumping in anxious circles. “We don’t even know who this guy is.”

  “He’s the person who just saved us,” Beacon said, grunting with effort.

  A couple rounded the corner and momentarily froze at the sight of them. Then the girl clung to her boyfriend’s arm and urged him to walk faster. They both cast anxious glances over their shoulders as they passed. Beacon wanted to tell them that they weren’t the ones they needed to worry about, that there were far scarier things roaming the streets tonight, but the couple disappeared around a corner.

  “Arthur, hurry up!” Beacon said.

  “I’m trying. He’s heavy. Ow!” Arthur tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, nearly dropping Galen in the process.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Everleigh shouldered Arthur out of the way and took his spot supporting Galen. Arthur removed his glasses with shaky fingers and swiped his forearm across his forehead.

  “You okay, dude?” Beacon said.

  “I just got chased by a giant squid, so I’ve been better.” Arthur put his glasses back on. “Everleigh makes a good point. Why are we trusting a Sov?”

  “Shhh!” Beacon looked around wildly, as if a Sov might be lurking in the shadows.

  “Relax, we can say their name,” Everleigh said. “Are we getting close yet?”

  “I—I think we’re here,” Arthur said, looking up.

  They stood in front of a huge, crumbling brick building near a subway station. All the windows were boarded up, and there was caution tape around the premises. The painted lettering on the front of the building was too sun-faded to read, but it was clear that whatever this place had once been, it had been abandoned a long time ago.

  Everleigh squinted at the building. “Are you sure this is it? Maybe that lady we asked gave us the wrong directions.”

  Arthur shook his head. “This is it. 243 Forest Park.”

  “What are we supposed to do now?” Everleigh said. “We can’t go in there. Who knows what’s inside?”

  “Well we can’t just leave him out here, either. Help me set him down.” Beacon and Everleigh lowered Galen to the ground. Then Beacon walked up the crumbling front steps and tested the door handle.

  Locked.

  He stepped back and looked up at all the boarded windows.

  “Gimme a boost,” he said to Arthur, running into the tall grass under one of the boarded-up windows.

  Arthur cupped his fingers together, and Beacon stepped up onto his palms. He clambered onto the ledge, then pushed and pulled at the boards over the window. But none of them budged. They tried the next window, then the next, but they were all secure.

  “Well, we tried,” Everleigh said, a bit too enthusiastically. “I guess this is where the buck stops. See ya, Galen!”

  She started to walk down the sidewalk, but sighed and spun back around when no one followed her. Beacon looked up at the building like the place was a complicated math equation. A gust of wind whistled through the old building, sending a vortex of leaves skittering into the gutters.

  That’s when he realized it was too quiet.

  “Hey, where’s the dog?” Beacon said.

  He looked around, but it was nowhere in sight.

  Everleigh sighed. “It went in there.”

  She gestured toward a narrow alley to the right of the building. The dog was standing alertly in the shadows, next to a pile of trash.

  “What’s it doing in there?” Beacon said.

  “Maybe it knows where the entrance is?” Arthur said. “Maybe it’s waiting to go inside?”

  Beacon stepped cautiously into the alley.

  “Oh good, another alley,” Everleigh muttered. “I’d been hoping there’d be more tonight.”

  But she followed her brother. This alley was even grubbier than the last. There was a yellow-stained refrigerator pushed up against the old brick, a broken shopping cart, a baby doll that was missing its eyeballs . . .

  Boots yipped and spun in circles as they approached.

  “This place is creepy,” Everleigh said. “Let’s get out of here. There’s obviously no entrance.”

  “This has to be it,
” Beacon said. “The dog’s going nuts.”

  “Well, unless there’s a secret entrance or something, this is a dead end,” Everleigh said.

  Beacon frowned. What Everleigh had said got him thinking.

  He pressed his hands along the brick.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Everleigh said.

  None of the bricks moved.

  “Satisfied?” Everleigh said.

  The dog was still going nuts. The entrance had to be here.

  He opened the refrigerator, then gagged. A loaf of bread had turned into some kind of science experiment in the old in-unit freezer.

  “That is nasty!” Arthur said.

  Beacon held his breath and reached inside.

  “Don’t touch it!” Everleigh shrieked. “What the heck are you doing?”

  Beacon was wondering the same thing when his arm grazed the mold and he felt puke rise in his throat. But then he felt it: a lever on the back wall of the refrigerator. He pulled, and the wall swung forward. Behind it was a small door in the brick wall.

  He turned the handle, and the door swung open into darkness. Boots nudged his way past them and trotted off into the shadows.

  “Oh my God,” Everleigh said, peering over Beacon’s shoulder. “There really is a secret entrance.”

  “What is this place?” Arthur said.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out.” Everleigh crossed her arms. “There could be Sov in there. We could be walking into a massacre.”

  She wasn’t totally wrong.

  Beacon bit the inside of his lip and stared into the shadowy passage. Bringing Galen home had seemed like the best move, but now he wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t sure of anything. What Victor had said in the alley had really struck a nerve. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was floundering from one day to the next, just trying to survive.

  “Get Galen,” Beacon finally said. “If there are other Sov inside, they won’t hurt us if we have him.”

  Everleigh thought about it for a second, then uncrossed her arms.

  “Cold,” she said. “I love it. Come on, Arthur.”

  They disappeared and returned a moment later with Galen. They’d given up on carrying him upright, and dragged him across the pavement.

  Beacon gingerly stepped through the door, then held it open as Everleigh and Arthur squeezed through with Galen. The passage was tight, and there was a lot of grunting and whisper-shouting as they struggled to fit Galen’s dead weight through the small door. When they finally got inside, they dropped Galen onto the floor. Moonlight filtered in through the gaps in the boarded-up windows. They took in their surroundings as they caught their breath.

  There was broken glass everywhere. It stuck up in jagged shards from what appeared to be tanks that once stretched around the room, all the way to the ceiling. The concrete walls were covered in vulgar graffiti and rot.

  “This place is creeping me out,” Everleigh said. “We got him inside. Now can we go?”

  Boots appeared from the shadows, his nails clicking loudly on the concrete. He stood panting in a doorway, as if waiting for them to follow him.

  “Aren’t you even a little bit curious what he’s hiding in here?” Beacon asked. “We’ve already come this far.”

  Everleigh sighed, but she hefted Galen up from under his shoulders.

  “Well, are you going to get his feet, or do I have to do all the work?”

  Beacon grabbed Galen’s legs and lifted, and they trailed after Boots through a hallway littered with garbage, broken chairs, and rusted filing cabinets regurgitating soggy papers. The hall opened up into a large, empty room. Boots clicked his way around the walls, but Everleigh trudged backward through the center. She stumbled suddenly, then screamed and dropped Galen’s shoulders. Her arms pinwheeled wildly. Beacon dropped Galen’s legs and snagged the front of Everleigh’s shirt, yanking her forward so hard, she stumbled into Beacon.

  “What the heck was that?” Everleigh shouted, spinning around.

  Beacon cautiously stepped forward.

  Just steps ahead of them was a giant drop-off. It stretched to fill almost the entire room.

  Arthur peered over the precipice.

  “I think I know what this place is,” he said. “An abandoned marine aquarium. That’s what all those tanks were for. And this must have been a pool for the dolphins or whatever.”

  Beacon couldn’t help thinking that if his sister hadn’t almost just died falling into this thing, it would have been a neat place to skateboard.

  Boots barked up ahead.

  Everleigh blew out a slow breath, then dragged Galen away from the pool by his ankles. Beacon hefted Galen’s shoulders this time, and they kept walking, around the pool, through a doorway, up a narrow metal stairwell, stopping to take a breath every few seconds. Finally, the dog stopped in front of a door at the top of the stairs.

  “Thank God,” Arthur said. “I couldn’t walk a minute longer.”

  “You couldn’t?” Everleigh said, dropping Galen’s feet onto the stairs. “You weren’t even doing any of the work.”

  Beacon laid Galen down as gently as he could manage on a set of stairs, then stepped forward and gripped the doorknob. He twisted, at the same time as he shoved his hip against the door. He’d expected it be jammed, and stumbled over his own feet when the door fell open easily. He sprawled onto his knees.

  “I remember my first door,” Everleigh said as she stepped around him.

  Beacon’s retort died on his lips as he pushed himself up and took in the room. Computers strung with twinkling Christmas lights lined the room. Unlike the rest of the building, which looked like a demilitarized zone, this place had been cleaned up. There was an old sofa with a blanket neatly folded over an arm, a mini fridge in the corner with canned goods and a few kitchen utensils stacked on top of it, and a dog bed on the floor, which Boots was already curled up on. It actually looked . . . cozy.

  “So we found his lair,” Everleigh said.

  “Look at all this gear,” Beacon said. “How’s he getting power in this place?”

  “He’s got it rigged up to a generator,” Arthur said, checking out his setup.

  “Help me get him inside,” Beacon said to his sister.

  Everleigh hefted Galen’s shoulders, and they dragged him the final stretch into the room. They dumped him onto the couch. He landed with his neck crooked at an awkward angle and his arm flopped over the side. He didn’t roll over or adjust himself or . . . anything. It was creepy.

  “What do you think is wrong with him?” Everleigh said.

  “Maybe it was the transformation,” Beacon said. “Maybe it took a lot out of him, and now his body needs to recover.”

  Arthur nodded thoughtfully.

  “Well, at least we have somewhere to stay tonight,” Beacon said.

  “What?” Everleigh said. “We are not staying here.”

  “Why not?” Beacon asked.

  “This isn’t our place, for starters,” Everleigh said.

  “Technically, it’s not his, either,” Arthur said. “Besides, I don’t think he minds.” He lifted Galen’s hand and dropped it; it flopped back onto the couch like it weighed about a thousand pounds.

  “We don’t know if this place is safe,” Everleigh said. “What if this guy has roommates? What if other Sov are on their way home right now?”

  “Does it look like anyone else lives here?” Beacon said. “There’s just the one couch. Besides, we don’t have any other options at the moment. We can’t go back to that apartment—that place is Sov City. And we don’t have money for a hotel. That means our only other option is a homeless shelter, and the Sov are probably watching places like that since they know we’re on our own.”

  That was on top of the fact that shelters would make them prime targets
for social workers and other Good Samaritans who might see kids on their own and decide to call the authorities.

  “We’ll stay here tonight,” Beacon said. “Then tomorrow, we can figure out another plan.”

  “Fine,” Everleigh said, as if the word had about ten syllables. “Now can we discuss the bigger issue here?”

  Beacon raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to continue.

  “If that wasn’t really Dad,” she said, “then where is Dad?”

  Beacon’s stomach went suddenly cold, as if an ice cube had melted inside him. He’d been so busy running for his life and trying to save Galen that the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Now it seemed wild, terrible, inexcusable that it hadn’t been the first thing he thought about.

  “He’s still there—inside the UFO,” Arthur said.

  “If he’s even alive,” Everleigh said.

  “Don’t say that!” Beacon said.

  “I’m just being a realist,” Everleigh said. “Look at what they did to us when we were trying to escape. They clobbered our pod. They tried to kill us. Why wouldn’t they do the same to Dad?”

  Beacon shook his head. “No. They wouldn’t do that. He’s alive.”

  “You don’t know that,” Everleigh said. “Just because you want it to be true doesn’t make it true.”

  “We have to find out,” Arthur said. “We need to contact someone in Driftwood Harbor.”

  Beacon wanted to race to the nearest phone right now, but he forced himself to be reasonable. The streets would be teeming with the Sov and their guards right now. Besides, it was four o’clock in the morning.

  “We’ll go to a library first thing tomorrow,” Beacon said. “Use a pay phone, like you suggested. The Sov know we’re in New York now, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  When no one argued, Beacon dropped onto the floor. They all settled into spots around the tiny room. It was the most uncomfortable sleeping quarters they’d had yet, but exhaustion had caught up with him, and within minutes, Beacon drifted off to a dreamless sleep.

  7

  Beacon woke with a start. For a minute, he didn’t know where he was. Then he saw Arthur typing in front of a computer monitor strung with Christmas lights, and everything came flooding back. Jumpstarting his dad. The squid fight in the alley. The abandoned marine aquarium. He could hardly believe all of it had really happened.