The Burst [A YA Apocalyptic EMP Survival Novel] (Barren Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  And our teachers waited at a pair of metal double doors.

  Elevator doors.

  “Okay, class,” Mrs. Taney said. “Hurry. Group One boards the elevator." She leaned over and whispered something to Mr. Ellis. He frowned back. She tapped her foot, waiting for the box to come up.

  There was a sign above the elevator doors that read CAPACITY: 10.

  Ten.

  I would come to hate that number.

  “This looks like fun,” David said, pushing forward.

  No. It didn’t. I backed into someone.

  “Come on, Laney,” Alana said, oblivious to my inner screaming. She flicked her gaze to David. You don't want to miss being in an elevator with him, do you?

  The elevator dinged.

  The thought of getting in there, packed in close with him, was both terrifying and exhilarating. Mrs. Taney glowered as David stood there, jumping up and down like an excited little kid. I laughed. So did everyone else. At least he was calming my nerves.

  Mr. Ellis pushed the button to open the door. "In," he said, breaking his character as the fun basketball coach again. "Now. No screwing around." He stood aside to let people in. Eric and two girls from the Science Club got on—and one of them was Christina, who had a thing about hating almost everyone. Tony got on next to his girlfriend, Mina. David hesitated, then followed, leaving room for four more.

  “Now, or we’re going to hand out detentions,” Mrs. Taney said, waving us forward. She faced the line by the bathroom. “All of you. That can wait until we’re at the bottom!”

  Wow, Mrs. Taney had gone from bad to evil in a heartbeat.

  Pressure built. Alana gave me a gentle shove forward.

  I hate tight spaces, okay? But I would not blurt that out in front of everyone.

  A Goth girl followed and stood against the side of the elevator. Jerome followed her, hands stuffed in the pockets of his huge jeans. They dragged and almost got caught in the crack between the elevator and the floor. It was getting packed in there.

  Room for two more.

  “Now,” Mr. Ellis demanded.

  He was so sharp that my legs propelled me forward.

  People stood just a foot from each other. The elevator was a literal cage, fitting for a mine, and even smaller than a hospice room. Beside the cage was a ladder that led down to the depths. This was an open pit.

  I stepped over the threshold, holding my breath. The elevator dipped a bit, and I almost scrambled back off. Alana followed. She’d be my moral support, and I was glad for her. I’d need her more than I knew in the coming days.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Alana! Laney!” David shouted, grinning. “Ready to have fun?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  David's hands trembled. He crammed them into his jeans pocket as the elevator shook a bit.

  He was nervous? What the hell? Maybe we were more of a trio than I thought.

  “Okay,” Mrs. Taney said as the elevator doors closed. "There will be a guide at the bottom to take the ten of you through the tour."

  “You’re not coming with us?” I asked.

  Neither teacher answered. Mr. Ellis made a strange face and looked away. Mrs. Taney turned to yell at the people still by the bathroom as the elevator dinged and we dropped.

  There was that number again. Ten.

  The doors closed all the way with a click.

  I gulped.

  "The ride shouldn’t take long,” Alana said to everyone, but I knew she meant that for me.

  “If it’s so great, why aren’t the teachers coming down with us?” I asked.

  “Not enough room?” Tony asked. “They must want to get everyone else down first.”

  I couldn't run out. It would take a lot of time to go to the bottom unless this was one of those super fast elevators Dad said they put in skyscrapers.

  Minutes and minutes and minutes, maybe.

  Alana grabbed my arm. "Just close your eyes," she whispered. "You should have said something, Laney. Don’t suffer in silence. You don’t have to do that. There’s always a way to deal with things."

  Was there, though? Alana was smart, but she also thought that being women in whatever future STEM program we chose would be a simple deal. My high school experience had taught me that some guys, including our computer lab teacher and Programming Club leader, didn’t care for women sharing the math and computer realm with them. "I didn't know it would be like this."

  And I didn’t close my eyes.

  Stone rose around us. The rock had stripes like you'd expect in a desert. It was almost pretty in the dim light. The elevator descended with a hum. We were sinking.

  I held my breath.

  Ten seconds. Numbers made sense.

  Exhaled.

  Again. The stone became less colorful and turned to a sad, deep gray.

  Twenty-one seconds.

  I breathed out.

  "You're doing well," David said.

  We faced each other as people around us muttered and went silent. Maybe we weren't the only ones nervous about heading hundreds of feet underground. It made me feel a little better.

  Twenty-four seconds. I had to just keep breathing. The air cooled. One of the Science Club girls pulled out her phone and tried to snap a picture, but she looked at it, confused.

  "I charged my phone this morning," she said. "It's dead."

  "That's weird," Christina said. "Mine died, too."

  I thought about Josh fighting with his phone and about the sky lighting again. Thinking about that got my mind off this, at least. Well, for a second. The sight of the rock rising around us brought me right back.

  My chest constricted.

  Fifty seconds. My heart raced and my lungs screamed for oxygen.

  David reached out. And he wrapped his hand around mine.

  Even though he was shaking, his hand felt warm and strong. I knew he was doing this to make me feel better, because he was that kind of guy with the girls, but it didn't stop heat from flooding my features and adding an extra layer to the breathlessness.

  At last, after several more counts, the elevator's humming slowed. It clicked to a stop in front of more metal doors, shifted again, and settled like it decided it would stay put.

  And the metal doors opened.

  Brightness greeted us. A large, carved stone hallway bigger than the elevator stretched out. Huge lights hung down, connected by gigantic wires. We were way underground, all right.

  Christina stepped out. “Okay. Why are our phones all dead? Was it that light we saw?”

  “Maybe there’s so much magnetic stuff going on here that they don’t work?” Jerome asked with a shrug. “Or Mrs. Taney developed laser vision.”

  "Here we are," David said, letting go of my hand. Alana looked at me in wonderment. She'd seen it happen. I stood there as he peeled himself from the cage of the elevator.

  And just like that, I no longer existed.

  Ugh. I should have known. David just wanted to cover his own fear.

  "Tell me about that later," Alana said, as we left the cage.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  We stepped into the hallway, to where a woman in a white lab coat stood at the end. There were wooden doors lining the hallway and past the woman there was another room constructed out of plywood. Computers hummed inside and huge wires snaked across the ceiling. This felt like some mad scientist's underground lair. But the place wasn’t bad if you could forget you were underground. The elevator had been the worst. This was open and lit, at least. I could breathe down here.

  "Where are your teachers?" she asked, studying us.

  One of the Science Club girls spoke. She was a petite blonde who had also complained about not being able to get into the Programming Club, like me. I should have remembered her name, because I overheard her in the office, telling the principal that Mr. Connors had told her to go join the cheerleading squad instead. “They’re still at the top, yelling at everyone to get down.”

  Bethany. That wa
s it.

  The scientist frowned. “That’s strange, but you look like a trustworthy group. The elevator takes forever to go up and down, so let me take you on a mini tour while we’re waiting. Come on right this way.” She waved us forward into a bigger chamber. At least she was friendly and didn’t slap a ruler against her open palm. "They’ve both been on this trip so many times that it doesn’t matter.”

  There was another low humming sound ahead. Behind us, the elevator doors banged shut as it rose again.

  "I am Dr. Shetlin," the woman said. "I have been working with the Huge Collider for about four years now, ever since we cut the tape on this facility. This used to be an old iron mine, but got abandoned in the eighties when the workers depleted all the ore. Questions?"

  Tony raised his hand. "Why is this so far underground?"

  "Well," Dr. Shetlin said. "The Huge Collider studies particles even smaller than atoms. These particles rain down from space all the time, so to avoid contaminating our results, we need all this rock between the Collider and the surface to block out those cosmic rays."

  Tony nodded. Dr. Shetlin waved us along past the plywood computer room and into another large, open area.

  "What are cosmic rays?" one of the Science Club girls asked.

  "Cosmic rays," she said, bounding forward into the large chamber, "are high-energy particles that fly through space at almost the speed of light. They can be dangerous in high numbers. Our atmosphere protects us, or otherwise we'd all be walking around with extra limbs and eyes. I’ve had no tour groups like that, so it looks like we have had no supernovas going off nearby in the recent past."

  Some people laughed. We were approaching a huge glass window in the stone. I had been focusing on her speech rather than being farther underground than anyone should be. "The Huge Collider is busy gathering clues about what dark matter could be. The collider itself is right under us. If you step forward, you can see the four-mile-long tube where we smash particles together."

  We all crowded forward. A round tunnel curved away on the other side of the window. It looked like one of those lava tube caves. Something that looked like a huge metal tube ran through the bottom. There was a metal walkway next to it and a guy in a white plastic suit and hood who held a clipboard. He waved to us and we waved back.

  "That's Dr. Marson," Dr. Shetlin explained. "He's doing routine checkups on the tube. He wears that suit to prevent contamination. Safety first. Now, this way.”

  We followed Dr. Shetlin as she gave us a mini-tour of the facility, which was full of small rooms, metal shelving, and catwalks meant to keep the tunnel floors even. At last, we reached a door that read RESTRICTED ACCESS, and Dr. Shetlin turned to us. "It's time to head back and wait for the rest of the group."

  "How long have we been down here?" I asked David.

  "Maybe fifteen minutes," David said. "After my phone puked, it got hard to tell."

  "Your phone puked?" Alana asked.

  "What did it eat?" the Goth girl asked as Bethany snickered.

  "Some Taco Bell?"

  "Maybe it was that burst of light," I said. Ugh. How was I supposed to stay in contact with Dad now? I’d left my phone on the bus. "It drained all the phones. I'm sure we'll hear about it on the news." The people still up in the Visitor Center had probably heard something by now.

  We all walked back through the tunnel in silence. At last, after my feet ached, Dr. Shetlin led us back to the main chamber while my mind spun. And most of all, David. He still hung with Alana and I even though he had gone silent in the last few minutes. He pulled out his phone again and tried to turn it on, all to no avail.

  He faced me. "Something's going on, Laney. I charged this phone this morning.”

  I didn't like the way he said that. After a glare from Christina, who had a crush on David since junior high, we got back to the main chamber, the one with the enormous window and the plywood computer room. I expected to see the other tour group here, along with Mrs. Taney, to make sure everyone was paying attention.

  There was no one.

  The elevator hadn't even come back down. The lights still shone and the fans still hummed, but otherwise, the place was dead.

  "That's odd," Dr. Shetlin said. "The other group should be down here by now." Her bun blew around in the fans' breeze as she pulled out her phone and dialed a number.

  Hers was still working. I could hear it ringing from here.

  She held it to her ear, and it rang, and rang, and rang until a worried look came over her face. "I'm not getting through to the desk," she said, marching over to the elevator. "I'll see what's up. In fact, the rest of you can ride up with me, or your teachers probably won’t ever bring any groups back. The elevator can handle one extra. We'll get this straightened out."

  She pressed the button on the elevator pad and the humming started again. It was just now coming down. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.

  Something made zero sense.

  At last, after several minutes, the humming stopped, the elevator clicked, and the metal doors came open.

  Christina screamed.

  Lying in the elevator, sprawled out on the floor, was Mr. Ellis.

  He was the only one inside. And he was dying.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I knew imminent death when I saw it. The shallow, irregular breathing gave it away.

  Mr. Ellis was laying face-down, one leg cocked up in agony. His eyes were red. The skin on his cheeks shone as if it were leaking. Blood flowed from his nose. He groaned and looked up at us before his head fell again and made a horrible, hollow thud on the elevator floor.

  People gasped.

  I froze as silence fell over us.

  Blood streaked out of his nose. His skin was red. Swollen, as if someone had dunked him into a vat of boiling water, took him out again, and threw him in the elevator to die a slow, brutal death.

  "M..." Mr. Ellis said. His voice gurgled as if water—or worse—were filling his lungs. “Poison. Sky. I couldn’t save them.” He took a breath and the same rattling sound followed.

  I forced air into my own lungs, as if I’d drown next. Around me, people went still, too afraid to move.

  No. Not again.

  The world expanded and then closed with each heartbeat.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Christina asked.

  Mr. Ellis would die soon. And we couldn’t do anything to save him. The thoughts passed like bullets, barely missing my head.

  “Something major,” Jerome said. He broke the trance and stepped forward, reaching for Mr. Ellis and his heaving, pained back.

  “Stay back.” Dr. Shetlin rushed in front of Jerome, jarred out of her shock. All the blood drained from her face. She held up both hands at him as she got between us and Mr. Ellis. "Back. Go stand by the tunnel doors. We don't know what's wrong with this man."

  I would listen. I grabbed Alana’s arm, sorry that she had to see this, and pulled her to the far wall. Other people did the same, following our lead.

  “What the hell?” Alana asked.

  "Back!" Dr. Shetlin ordered again, her voice an axe. “Stay there!”

  No one spoke. A heavy silence fell. David grabbed my free hand again, but I barely felt it. Christina stood against the wall with tears in her eyes.

  Mr. Ellis seethed as Dr. Shetlin leaned over him. Despite his pain, his words hung low with emotion and regret. "Lethal dose. I couldn't get them down fast enough. They're all dying."

  The quiet rushed back in.

  They’re all dying.

  It couldn’t be. That made no sense. Nothing could have done that. But Mr. Ellis sounded as if he were boiling from the inside out.

  But that light—

  Skin cancer made no sense, either, but that happened anyway.

  I stopped in the tunnel's mouth as Dr. Shetlin leaned over him and dialed a number on her phone. She held it up to her ear. “Come on! Nine one one. Go through!”

  "Ohmigod," Alana whispered. "Ohmigod. What's happen
ing? Did he get burned?"

  "I don't know," I said over the helpless groan that echoed from the elevator. I wished Mr. Ellis would pass quickly. He’d stop suffering.

  “Go through!” Dr. Shetlin shouted at her phone. While her phone was working, she couldn’t reach anybody.

  A sinking feeling filled my gut, and I looked at my fellow students.

  "Come on. Let’s get away from this," David said, motioning to the tunnel and releasing my hand. Christina sobbed into her shirt, pulling the smiling monkey out of proportion. Tony's eyes were wide. Shocked. Mina leaned on him and they hurried after David, past the big Collider window, trying to get away from the new reality.

  But I stayed.

  I wanted to run, but I couldn't. Alana and I remained against the wall together.

  “Something happened out there,” I said, looking right at her. It was my way of pulling my thoughts together.

  Alana quivered. “Was it that light? Did a nuclear bomb go off?” She grabbed my arms. “Was there a nuclear war?”

  Her pupils widened.

  Dr. Shetlin swore in a very unprofessional manner and threw the phone to the floor. “Everything is down up there.” She breathed, trying to get her composure, and looked at the elevator.

  Mr. Ellis was no longer groaning.

  Dr. Shetlin ran into the metal cage and kneeled beside our Astronomy teacher.

  "Stay with me," she said to Mr. Ellis, choking up. She placed one hand on Mr. Ellis's back as he struggled to breathe. "Stay with me. We'll get you help."

  He motioned Dr. Shetlin closer and then whispered into her ear.

  The scientist stiffened with whatever he told her.

  "Laney, come on," Alana begged, tightening her grasp on my arms. “I can’t watch this.”

  “Laney. Alana,” David ordered, motioning us into the tunnel. “I don’t think there’s anything the two of you can do. We have to figure out what happened up there.”

  “Is he right? Did they all die?” Mina asked.

  “Shh. I don’t know,” Tony said.

  Something had happened, and that light had everything to do with it.

  David knew it. Mr. Ellis knew it.

  It had to do with that new star in the sky, the one that had only lasted seconds.