Ash and Darkness (Translucent #3) (5 page)

Chapter 5

Except my high
school was a ghost town.

A lump formed in my throat as I wheeled my bike through the deserted campus, passing one abandoned wing after another—hallways empty as far as the eye could see, posters faded and peeling, trash bins tipped over and spilling refuse into the halls. The junk looked like it had been picked through by animals.

How was this possible?

I tried a classroom door. Locked.

An accordion gate made of black steel barricaded the locker corridor. Since we had an open campus, anyone could wander in, so the janitor must have shut it.

They didn’t do that during school days.

I threaded my fingers through the hot bars and scanned the rows of lockers, feeling like they were the bars of a cage.

But more like I was locked
out
.

I was missing something big here.

A sticky swallow moved down my throat, reminding me I still hadn’t quenched my thirst. I stooped at the nearest drinking fountain and slapped the metal button.

Not even a trickle.

I stared down at the metal bowl crusted with grime and algae, forming cracks like a parched lakebed. Bone dry.

Without warning, a dizzying wave of vertigo swept over me.

Staring down at that cracked grime at the bottom of the drinking fountain, everything felt off all of a sudden.
Way
off. Like none of this was real. And for an instant, I felt such a bottomless sense of doom I wanted to die.

I bent over the dirt-scuffed concrete, clutching my stomach as dark spots dotted my vision and trying not to puke.

Puke
what?

I hadn’t eaten anything all day.

Feeling miserable, I tried to make sense of the bizarre signal my body was sending me. The water I’d drunk this morning . . . somehow, I still felt full from it . . . like it was just sitting in my stomach.

Gradually, the feeling passed and I straightened up, badly shaken.

It had been like this all day. Ever since that white space . . . ever since dark matter had swallowed me and spit me out again, nothing had felt right.
I
hadn’t felt right.

Had it screwed with me? With my body? The thought made my flesh creep.

But some of it could be dehydration.
I hadn’t really quenched my thirst, and I’d been biking all day, exerting myself. At least enough to coat the inside of my mouth with salty mucous.

Maybe I’d feel better when I got food and water. I
hoped.

Because this sucked.

Just one more classroom to check on campus and then I’d go home.

I didn’t have the time, but the angle of the sun made me guess it was two o’clock. Which would make me late for Mrs. Holbrooke’s English class.

By now the class would have been bitching about how hot it was and begging for her to open the door.

Instead, I found the door shut. Shut and locked.

I pounded the steel with my fist.

No one answered.

Chewing my lip, I rolled by bike back to the edge of campus and gave a final look up and down the street. No one.

The city was empty. The school was empty.

I couldn’t deny it any longer.

Whatever this was, whatever was going on . . . it was big.

I grabbed an
apple from the fruit basket and two bottles of Gatorade from the pantry—the water bottles were suspect—and sat cross-legged on the couch to eat. Sure enough, I hadn’t encountered anyone on the ride home either.

What. The. Hell?

I twisted off the first Gatorade cap—a safe Lemon-Lime—and took a long swig. My face contorted into a grimace. The stuff tasted like cough syrup mixed with gasoline, and way too sour. But my thirst overcame even that. I tilted it back and didn’t stop chugging until I’d drained half the 32 oz bottle. When the liquid pooled in my stomach, a twinge of panic shot through my abdomen, followed by feverish hot flashes.

I set the bottle aside, head swimming.

Seriously? Why couldn’t I quench my thirst like a normal person?

I bit into the apple, which was mealy and brown on the inside.

Either the city had been evacuated or everyone had spontaneously upped and moved to LA. But why would they evacuate the city?

I was still thirsty.

I forced down another quarter of the Gatorade bottle. Lips puckered from the tart aftertaste, I took another bite of the apple and chewed slowly, fighting the urge to gag.

An outbreak.

What if dark matter had broken containment while I was gone? A chill slid down my spine. Would they turn off the power grid too? Hmm, that wouldn’t explain why my car wouldn’t turn on, unless . . . Didn’t the military have a weapon that could knock out electronics? Maybe they’d used it on dark matter.

The theories ping-ponged in my brain, ratcheting up my anxiety.

And another question.

How long had I really been gone?

No way all this could have happened in a few hours, or even a few days.

Where were my parents?

At this point, I just wanted to see a human face.

I was still thirsty.

Reluctantly, I brought the Gatorade back to my lips, which stung from the artificial sweetness, and took another sip, forcing myself to swallow. It didn’t help. If anything, I was getting
more
thirsty, like my body was being sucked dry from the inside out. The liquid sat in my belly like dead weight.

I nibbled on the apple again, feeling queasy. I chewed it carefully. There was something funny about the way the pulp mashed between my teeth. Not crisp and light like you’d expect, but squishy and slimy, like apple-flavored cardboard. I swallowed the bite, and it oozed down my throat like a slug.

The last straw. My stomach fought back.

I leapt up and ran to the bathroom, collapsing over the toilet. My abs clenched painfully, and a choking sound gurgled up my throat. Sour liquid splashed against porcelain. I heaved again and again until everything was gone, then clung gasping to the toilet seat. Through tears, I stared at the murky slop foaming in the bowl—the apple, the Gatorade, the Luna bar . . . the water I’d drunk this morning.

All of it.

My body hadn’t absorbed a single drop.

It didn’t feel
right.

My breath came in aching gasps as I turned the half-eaten apple over in my hand, running my thumb along the jagged edges of my bites, the skin rubbery and wilted.

It wasn’t me, it was the apple.

The apple didn’t feel right.

I pushed down on a bruise, mushing it further. I lifted my thumb, and where I’d touched the fruit, my finger had collected a gray, waxy smear. I stared at it, about to be sick all over again. What exactly had I eaten?

A hollow throb radiated out from my stomach, again parched and empty. I’d washed out my mouth, but a silty taste lingered from chewing the pulp. My stomach recoiled at the memory.

It wasn’t food.

It wasn’t a real apple.

I could tell, holding it now. There was something missing. Like it was a fake apple pretending to be a real apple. It looked like an apple, it felt like an apple, it even tasted like an apple—
sort of
. It had everything right except—I couldn’t put my finger on it—it was just missing some essential quality of
apple
-ness
.

It wasn’t an apple.

I dropped it in the trash and raised the Gatorade bottle to my nose to take a whiff. It wasn’t real either. No wonder it hadn’t quenched my thirst.

Nothing in my kitchen would.

I peered around, my pulse ringing panic in my ears—the tap water, the bottled water, the fruit basket, everything in the pantry . . . all fake, all pretending.

All stuff I couldn’t ingest.

Zero calories.

I’d been trying to drink fluids all day. My stomach had rejected all of it. But . . . but if I couldn’t eat, if I couldn’t drink . . . I would starve to death.

Was
anything
real?

A sudden paranoid thought took hold.

I dropped the bottle and stumbled out into the street, taking frantic gulps of the muggy air. The afternoon sun sank into a brown haze, casting long, spectral-like shadows through the dust and tinting everything a dingy shade of red-orange.

The air hung perfectly still, lifeless. A scan of the front yard only confirmed my suspicion—no chirping birds, no dancing butterflies, no buzzing bees happily pollinating flowers. The bees were crawling in the dirt; they didn’t know how to be bees.

It was fake. All of it—every insect, every leaf on every tree, every speck of dust, every molecule.
Fake, fake, fake
.

I knew right then, with a horrible sinking feeling in my gut.

This wasn’t Earth.

Chapter 6

I needed food
and water. Bad.

Before I could process anything.

Maybe only the food left out had gotten tainted.

The refrigerator door banged open against the wall, revealing its dark, stuffy interior. A sour smell blasted over me. I ignored it and lunged inside, fumbling through Tupperware containers, salad dressings, ketchup. No power, no light. It was all lukewarm. How long had this stuff been sitting here?

I yanked out the drawers, and my fingers seized an unopened pack of turkey lunch meat, which I tore open. I raised a slice to my nose, the meat slimy between my fingers. Smelled fine.

I took a bite.

Putrid preservative-infused meat juice swilled around my mouth, reminiscent of soot. 

Nope, nope, nope
.

I flung myself to the sink and spit it out. More of my body fluids wasted. When I straightened up, the kitchen spun in dizzying circles. For a moment I teetered on the edge of fainting.

Back to the fridge.

A gallon of whole milk! I lugged it out and tilted it over a tall glass, hands trembling. A chunky white goop dumped into the glass and slopped on the counter. I stared at it, devastated.

The milk went in the trash.

I swallowed a mouthful of dry, sticky mucous and licked my chapped lips.

Water . . . where could I find water?

The ice cube trays. I yanked open the freezer door and slid out both trays. The little pools of water rocked back in forth. I dipped my tongue in one of them and swished it around my mouth. Somehow, it managed to taste both wet
and
dry.

Not
water.

My empty stomach cramped and tightened in on itself, telling me it would eat itself soon. This called for desperate action.

Outside, the late afternoon sun slashed my eyes, burned my cheeks. I hauled my bike up and rolled it to the driveway, just as another wave of fatigue slammed my body. I fell against the handlebars, panting like a dog. Finally, I willed my leg over the frame and stood up on the pedals, and sluggishly, the bike carried me into the street.

Two blocks to the corner 7-Eleven. The bicycle coasted on the downhill, and a warm breeze lifted my hair across my back. I searched the neighbors’ houses for signs of life.

By now, if this was real, people would be returning from work and starting dinner. Lights would be coming on in the windows. Kids would be playing hide and seek in their yards, yelling and laughing.

Instead, the houses were empty, the windows dark. No one was playing.

No one home.

What if I never saw another human again?

I couldn’t process that, couldn’t even wrap my mind around it. My entire life wandering alone on a deserted planet. It still hadn’t sunk in. It was too big, too abstract, and the whole thing just made me feel numb.

Then an icy realization cut through it all.

Emory.

My heart plunged.

I couldn’t confess anymore.

Not if he was gone. I could never tell him the truth, never make up for what I’d done, never atone for my sins. For the rest of my life it would eat away at me, and I’d go straight to hell. Without Emory, there could be no salvation, no redemption, no forgiveness.

I had lost my one chance.

Stop it!
I was overreacting. Of course I’d see him again. I’d see Megan again, and my parents, and my teachers . . . I’d see them all again. This was all temporary. It
had
to be. Just like being stuck in that white no man’s land was temporary.

I’d wake up in the morning and everything would be back to normal. I was sure of it.

Still, the ache in my chest didn’t fully go away.

I unsaddled in the 7-Eleven parking lot and stumbled to the door, relieved to find it wide open.

No one at the register.

But the sight from the doorway made me pause. Pastries spilled across the main aisle from an overturned rack, most of them shredded and ripped apart, grease-stained tissues lying in crumpled heaps.

The curved glass around the taquitos and hot dogs had been bashed inward, the food inside ravaged. The jagged edge of the glass was smeared with something black, which had hardened and flaked off—my eyes narrowed—
dried blood
.

I shuddered and moved inside, carefully stepping over a torn carton of Oreos.

Something else had gotten here first.

A tangy, smoky odor hung thick in the store. Food going bad? My nose wrinkled instinctively. I drifted down the first aisle, trailing my finger along packages of beef jerky. Something that wouldn’t make me puke . . .

A box of crackers, a package of string cheese, and a giant bottle of water. I plucked items at random, every so often wiping dust off on my shorts.

A strange thought tugged at my mind. The food in my fridge had gone bad too, like it had been sitting in my fridge not for days, but for
weeks.
Food didn’t go bad right away. And Salamander the snake. How long had he been dead? Then there was the thin layer of dust coating everything in sight.

Whatever this place was, it had been deserted for ages.

I was balancing an armload of food by the time I rounded the final aisle—

My gaze dropped to what lay on the ground, and a shriek escaped my throat. With a crash, all my food ended up on the floor.

Sprawled across the aisle was a dead seagull, its feathers matted and limp. A putrid gray goo leaked from its open beak, still embedded in an egg salad sandwich.

I caught one whiff and ran.

Outside, I clutched my chest and took deep breaths, trying to calm down.
So gross
.

Okay. Don’t eat the egg salad sandwiches.

Once my disgust subsided, I steeled myself for another go, plugged my nose, and darted back inside, salvaging what I could of my loot—water, cheese, and crackers. I tore into them in the parking lot.

The water tasted like blood, the crackers tasted like cockroaches, the cheese tasted like worms.

I spit it all out and broke into a fit of shivering.

“What the
hell?
” I murmured, clutching my temples and watching my spit bubble on the gum-stained asphalt. Nothing in this city was edible.

The sun dipped below the horizon. A shrinking blood-orange sliver glowed between the silhouettes of palm trees and red tile roofs, catching me in the eye again. I squinted back at it, surprised at how low it was. I hadn’t noticed the shadows creeping across the parking lot. Mid-October, I supposed . . . days getting shorter and all that. Now only the treetops and the mountains glowed pink, and even those were dimming by the minute.

The sliver of sun shrank to a tiny pinprick of light, and then winked out. As I watched, biting my lip nervously, dusk fell over the deserted streets and dark storefronts, the derelict vehicles, the abandoned alleyways.

Soon it would be night.

Night
.

That made me uneasy.

I didn’t want to be out at night.

Light. I needed
light.

Forget food and water. Those could wait. People could go days without food and water. It would suck, but I’d survive.

But facing fourteen hours of pitch black in this Godforsaken city without power,
that
I did not want.

I pawed through my parents’ drawers, keeping one eye on the windows, the trees sinking deeper into the blue gloom. Twilight. Going by feel, my palm at last closed around the hilt of a flashlight—
gotcha
.

I yanked it out and clicked the button, aiming it at my face. The bulb stayed dark.

“Come on, you stupid piece . . .” I clicked frantically. Nothing.

Nothing?
Not even an itsy-bitsy glimmer?

Fuck you, dead batteries.

Easy enough to fix.

I hauled ass to my dad’s battery stash, bottom drawer of his nightstand. Like he wanted them near him when he slept or something.
Ohhh, Dad.

Prying open the flashlight’s battery compartment, I whacked out the two AA’s and replaced them with brand new ones, then tried again.
Click . . . click . . . click . . .

Nothing.

Wrong move, flashlight
. Fuming, I tried to break it in half, then gave up and flung it at the wall. A thump, and little plastic pieces skittered everywhere. I wanted to scream.

The windows gave off a dim glow, barely enough to see by. I was losing light fast.

Candles . . . I needed candles. Matches.

I sprinted up the hallway, pounded through the foyer, and swiped the candles off the dining room table, then yanked open the drawer with the matches. Too hard. The drawer clattered on the floor, sending tiny black objects skittering into the shadows. I couldn’t see what they were. I dropped to all fours and felt my way through the mess—a sewing kit, a bar of soap, a box of drill bits.

This was hopeless.

There were matches above the fireplace.

The fireplace . . . A
fire
. I could light a whole fire! Using the last of the light, I bounded into the living room and slapped the mantel until I found the box of strike-anywhere matches. They clattered around inside. Plenty left.

Down on my knees, I piled firewood and crumpled newspaper from nearby stacks onto the grill and carefully extracted a match. I lined up the tip with the striking surface, guiding my movements by touch. I struck the match.

No spark.

I struck it again. Nothing.

I tossed the dud into the fireplace and plucked out another one, striking it across the surface.

Again, nothing happened. Another dud.

The third match sparked, but never caught. I threw it away, having scraped off all the stuff on the head.

I tried a fourth match . . . and a fifth . . . and a sixth.

Only a few left. I paused, breathing heavily from the effort. This wasn’t rocket science. Why couldn’t I light a freaking match?

The eighth one glowed with a weird blue light for a moment, then fizzled out. The twelfth one snapped in half.

I shook the matchbox. Only two left.

Fingers shaking now, I lined up the second-to-last match, took a deep breath, and dragged it across the striking surface. Nothing. I did it again. Not even a spark.

I swallowed my unease and pulled out the last match. And struck it.

It was a dud.

I let it fall from my fingers, defeated. Outside the last of twilight extinguished without a sound, leaving only night, only blackness. It poured in from all directions, carrying only the tiniest hint of starlight.

The reason was obvious.

Whatever these matches were made of, whatever this whole place was made of . . . it didn’t burn. It didn’t work.

This world was dead.

I lay in
my bed wide awake, covers drawn up to my eyes, gaping out at the shadows lurking in the corners. My stomach had coiled into a tight knot of nerves, sinking its claws into me like an irritable jaguar every time I shifted.

But that was nothing to the thirst . . . the sickening, maddening, terrifying thirst that was drying out my very soul and turning me into an empty husk. My tongue made endless circles around the inside of my mouth, the skin hard and scabbed like a lizard’s.

I tried to distract myself.

So fire was impossible here.

It made sense, in a sick sort of way.

The food couldn’t be metabolized because it had zero calories. And wood and food . . . it was all the same stuff, all some form of biomatter—hydrocarbons or carbohydrates or whatever. I remembered that from chemistry.

The food here didn’t have energy, the wood didn’t have energy, the batteries didn’t have energy, the power grid didn’t have energy. Nothing here had any energy.

A tiny creak pricked my ears from the hallway. 

My body went rigid, and the breath froze in my throat. I listened, every nerve balanced on a pin.

Quiet. So quiet.

Nothing out there.

My heart thumped against the pillow, drowning out any hope of hearing it again.

Hearing
what?

The city was empty, a ghost town.

Just the house settling for the night.

At last I let out my breath. The tension in my limbs relaxed. Though not fully. Never fully.

Hydrocarbons . . . made of hydrogen and carbon atoms. I strained to recall how it worked. Their bonds had energy, which got released when they burned. It was a chemical property of the molecules themselves, it was a property of
physics
. If those matches didn’t burn, then those matches couldn’t be made of hydrogen and carbon—

Another creak split the silence. Closer.
Outside my door
.

Instantly, adrenaline flooded my system, the hairs rose on the back of my neck. My heart began pounding.

Salamander?

Ever so slowly, I swiveled my neck so I could peek at the door to the hallway. What if the knob began to turn? What if someone tried to come in? I didn’t have any weapons, I’d be cornered in here like a rat—

A rat. It was probably just a rat.

Not that a rat in the walls made me feel great, but it sure beat invisible Ashley part two. Yeah, just a rat . . . just a furry little innocent rat.

Could I eat a rat?

I rolled over, disgusted with myself.

But when the sheets stopped swishing and the bed stopped rocking, the eerie silence loomed over me again. Usually, the night was alive with sounds—the whoosh of distant traffic, the whistle of wind, the hum of the furnace. Tonight, there was only silence. Only loneliness.

And it got to me.

Stop being a scaredy-cat, Leona.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to shut everything out.

I just had to make it to morning, then everything would reset. Everything would be real again—cars honking, my parents bustling in the kitchen, my alarm blaring. My mom would wake me up with a steaming cup of hot chocolate mixed with coffee like she did when she wanted to be nice to me.