When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [96]
I nodded at Oz. “I know she can. What about Adam and Eve?” I asked. “Who were they?”
“They were our dearest friends.” Peter volunteered more information with a sad little voice, and an even sadder look on his face. “Same age as me, you know. Born in the same year. Nineteen hundred and ninety-four.”
“Put to sleep,” Oz said. He made a line across his throat and let his tongue hang out to the side. “Best to forget them. Out of sight, out of mind. One sleeps, the others weep.”
“One sleeps, the others weep,” the kids repeated. “One sleeps, the others weep.”
I was getting a clearer and even more terrifying picture of the School. The younger children were much more open about it than Max had been. They weren’t as afraid to talk out of School.
“Jesus, Frannie,” Kit said, resting his hand on mine. “These poor kids. You have any idea where they’re taking us? Which direction we’re headed?”
I shook my head and blew out air. “Back into the mountains. West, I think. That’s about all I can tell.”
Meanwhile, the kids’ singsong played in my head. One sleeps, the others weep.
Or how about—they all sleep, nobody is left to weep.
Chapter 103
THE VAN STRUGGLED up a steep, nearly continuous grade for about half an hour. Then it jerked to a sudden stop. The engine shut down and I froze. We were here, wherever that was. Not the School—but where?
I could hear car doors slamming. Shoes and boots crunching gravel. The static of gruff male voices outside the van.
“Wherever we are, we’re less than an hour from your place,” Kit whispered. We both sat very still in the rear of the van. There was nothing either or us could do now. It was killing me.
“You guys all okay?” I asked the kids. I tried to sound confident and somewhat in control. I found I was having powerful maternal feelings since I’d been around them.
“We’re not anywhere near that shitty School again. I can feel we’re not there,” Oz said with equal parts of boyish conviction and enthusiasm.
“We’re someplace bad,” Ic said. “It feels real bad. I can always tell.”
“Feels icky, right Ic?” Oz cracked. He made a face at his blind friend.
The van’s door was unlocked and it swung open with a high-pitched whirrr. We blinked at the bright sunlight bursting in on us.
Men with guns were standing outside. They were staring in with faces like moonpies. The odds were hopelessly against us.
“You don’t have to point those guns,” I said.
“We come in peace,” Ic said.
One of the men issued an order. “Step out of the vehicle.” He sounded like a military person, and I wondered, what army? “This will be a lot easier if you follow instructions instead of trying to give them, ma’am. All of you—outside! Do it right now!”
“These are little kids. The guns scare them,” Kit said. “Do you have any kids, mister? Any of you out there have kids?”
“Step the hell out of the vehicle, Agent Brennan. We know who you are. And yeah, I have two kids. Now shut up.”
I looked around at the kids again. Their faces were screwed up pretty tight, but they didn’t show too much of their fear. Perhaps the terrifying atmosphere at the School had conditioned them to accept whatever might happen to them.
“Okay, we’re coming. Out of the van, boys and girl,” I said. But as I climbed from the van, the words died on the tip of my tongue. If there had been any doubt about it, I had just entered the Twilight Zone. I felt as if I couldn’t move another step.
I could see where we were. I didn’t understand, and I didn’t think I wanted to, but I knew exactly where I was now. Oh God, I know this place.
“Oh, Kit,” I muttered.
“What is it, Frannie?”
I shook my head back and forth in disbelief. I couldn’t speak. We were at Gillian’s place on the west side of Sugarloaf Mountain. We were at my friend’s house, with the big, shimmery blue pool I’d been swimming in just a couple of days ago. I could see the Continental Divide off to the west, and Four Mile Canyon to the north.
The