James Axler – The Mars Arena

The shuffling of the beast in the hallway sounded loud, letting her know it had to have been huge.

“Dean,” she said, trying to talk normally.

His head swiveled in her direction, and he made an effort to focus. “Krysty?”

She wanted to tell him to run, that there was nothing he could do for his dead friend. Instead, she said, “Your father is coming for you. Look for him.”

Before she could try again, the woman snapped, “Come, there is still much to do.”

And Krysty’s mind was overwhelmed by the darkness.

DEAN CAWDOR WAS on an adventure. It wasn’t a grand adventure like the ones they talked about or read from books in his literature class. There was no Roland here, no Beowulf, no Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn. But it was an adventure anyway. “Dean!” Calgary Ventnor whispered. “Come on!” The boy moved carefully, picking his way through the brush till he reached Calgary.

“Did you see anybody?” Calgary demanded, cutting his eyes in all directions.

“No,” Dean replied.

The Nicholas Brody School hunkered on the gentle swell of land coming up from acres of vegetable gardens. Beyond the cultivated lands, the forest began again.

The school had its beginnings in an old stone farmhouse. Rooms and additions had been constructed with concrete blocks, then matted over with adobe bricks. Rifle slits were cut in along the walls, with thick steel shutters that could be pulled closed and bolted down inside.

“It’s two-fifteen,” Calgary said. “If we don’t hurry, we’re going to miss seeing it.”

Dean laid a hand on the other boy’s shoulder and held him back. “If we hurry too much, we’re going to get caught. And then where will we be?”

Calgary made a face. He had fair hair, a squat, heavy build, some of the whitest skin Dean had ever seen aside from Jak Lauren’s, and big ears that stuck out at right angles to his round head. He sucked at his teeth, a habit Dean had noticed in the other boy whenever he got nervous.

“Kicked out, that’s for sure,” Calgary said.

Dean figured that was about the size of it. But he couldn’t resist the adventure that lay before them. He said her name just to build his courage Phaedra Lemon.

“You keep talking like that, and the headmaster’s night sec crew are going to catch us for certain.”

“Is,” Dean said automatically.

“What?”

“Is,” Dean repeated. “The night sec crew is going to catch us.”

Calgary’s eyes widened. “You really think so?” He started to stand up. The brush was no more than waist high, and he would have been revealed at once.

At that moment the guard they’d been timing came around that side on the catwalk behind the wooden palisades built to withstand cannon fire, as well as the elements.

Dean tackled Calgary and dumped him to the ground, sliding a hand over his mouth. “Shh. And be still or I’m going to bop you one! I mean it!”

Calgary stopped struggling and stared hard at Dean.

Dean let him go once the guard had moved on.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Calgary asked angrily.

“You were going to give us away.”

“You’re the one who said we were going to get caught!”

Dean gave up. One thing he’d learned about Calgary Ventnor in the past few months was that the boy never admitted when he was wrong.

When it came to test grading and Calgary fell just a few points shy of a C, the boy would just naturally start arguing with the instructors. Dean had been amazed to see him in action. On the surface Calgary looked just like what he was a preacher’s kid getting a little bit bigger view of the world before going back to Leadville to take over his father’s flock when the time came.

The thing that attracted Dean to Calgary was the fact the boy was good in his books. Something that escaped Dean in one of the classes, especially math, where the teachers put out word problems that sounded like something Doc would have rambled on about, Calgary just understood easily. Calgary refused to study, but he’d help Dean when asked.