The Strike Trilogy (17 page)

Vincent stumbled, falling over the root of a tree. When he clambered up, he saw Strike walking toward him. The hero’s body was covered with white electricity.

“No, Tobin,” Vincent said, holding his palms out. “It doesn’t end like this. Listen to me, Tobin—you need to know why I’m here. There’s a reason why I’ve been—”

A lightning bolt scorched down from the sky, striking the weapon in Tobin’s hand. The electricity around the boy grew wilder. Wind began to swirl around the courtyard.

“No,” Vincent said. He closed his eyes. “No.”

Tobin swung the weapon forward, and a lightning bolt screamed out from it, striking into Vincent. The white electricity streamed into the monster, circulating in one long, scorching loop. The power was so strong that Tobin could barely hold onto the weapon, even with both hands.

Overcome with the lightning, Vincent let out a mighty scream. As he threw his fists outward, he created an explosion that sent Tobin flying across the courtyard. With his bo-staff no longer lit with electricity, the boy got to his feet and looked to Vincent.

The monster was stumbling with the white energy running over him, slithering like bright, flashing snakes. As Vincent barked and growled, the ground was trembling underneath him, and the building’s walls began to shake. A thunderclap boomed, and the windows around the courtyard shattered. Tobin had to cover himself from the broken glass that blasted into the area.

Vincent dropped to his knees, pounding the ground with his fists. A sphere of white electricity was surrounding him, flashing from his eyes and mouth. Soon his entire body was enveloped by the light, and when he opened his mouth to scream, no sound came out.

Then, with a sudden crack of thunder and a blinding white flash, all was quiet.

Tobin blinked his eyes. He looked across the courtyard.

Vincent was gone; there was nothing where he stood but a burnt spot, flashing with white electricity on the ground.

Tobin stepped forward, but suddenly another thunderclap boomed. Rain poured from the clouds, and a black lightning bolt seared down, striking directly in front of Tobin. “Whoa!” he shouted, jumping back.

The ground shook. The walls of the courtyard erupted in purple flames. Tobin pushed forward, with the strange combination of intense heat and rain all around him. The noise of the storm was immense.

“Orion!” he yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth. “Orion, where are you? Orion! Orion!”

The walls of the school began to crumble, and the trees crashed down. Tobin looked up and saw that a raging roof of black fire was now covering them, stretching from one side of the courtyard to the other, trapping him and Orion inside. The thunderstorm raged.

Pushing past a tree, Tobin finally saw Orion, lying on the muddy ground.

“Orion! C’mon, we’ve gotta get out of here! Let’s go! C’mon!”

“No!” the old man shouted. He was holding his right leg, which was bent awkwardly. “I can’t go with you, Tobin—you need to get out of here, now, before the—”

A wall of fire erupted in between them, and Tobin could barely see Orion through the flames.

“No, I’m not leaving you! Let’s go, Orion! C’mon!”

“I can’t, Tobin! It’s my leg, I won’t be able—”

“I’ll help you! I won’t go without you!”

“Do not argue with me, Tobin! You and the others are what’s important now! Get them to safety and—”

Another black lightning bolt shot down, striking into a tree. It burst into flames, crashing down in front of Tobin and blocking Orion from his view.

“No!” the boy yelled. “No! Orion! Orion!”

But the fire was too much. As the courtyard began to fill with black, heavy smoke, Tobin coughed and looked for a way out. Finally, he saw that one of the only spots not covered in flames was the door back into the school.

Tobin headed for the door, but then stopped. He thought.

He walked back to the fallen tree. He reached down, grabbed the underside of its burning trunk, and lifted it with all his might. The fire burned through his gloves and ate away at his skin, but he did not feel the pain; his body and mind knew that there was no other choice but this one.

Holding the tree up with one hand, Tobin held out the other.

“C’mon!”

With Orion leaning against him, Tobin made his way out of the courtyard and into the hallway of the school. But the building was shaking around them, falling in massive chunks of brick, and they had to move very carefully. As they neared the lobby, Tobin looked back to the courtyard.

A wall of purple fire exploded out from it, erupting into the gymnasium. The fire quickly ate through the gym and then charged down the hall, swallowing up the walls and lockers along its way. The fire was after the boy and the old man, as if it knew they were its prey.

When he finally reached the lobby, Tobin saw that the school’s exit was blocked by fire. He looked back to where they had come from, but saw that the wall of flames was rolling closer.

Tobin only had a few seconds. He needed to find another way out.

He looked up. It had been there every morning since the first day of his freshman year, but he had never given it any thought until now: the lobby’s skylight, with its intricate, colorful glass etched with his school letters.

Orion murmured, shifting against Tobin. The old man was barely conscious. Tobin had to make a decision.

He closed his eyes and remembered.

Tobin was standing on a tree stump outside of the Museum of the Heroes. He had been training there for four days now and had grown to hate it. He hated the obstacle rooms, he hated the robots, he hated the lessons, and he especially hated this lesson: high above him, hanging from a tree branch, there was a golden ring.

Standing on his tippy-toes, Tobin stretched out and reached for the ring. He concentrated and closed his eyes, until finally lightning sparked from his boots and pushed him upward.

But, the lightning quickly fizzled, sputtering out in pathetic little pops. Tobin slammed his fists against his legs.

“Dammit! Just tell me how to do this!”

Orion walked to him.

“No,” the old man said. “There will come a time when I am not here with you. At that time, you will be alone, and you will have no choice but to take what you have learned and use it. No more handholding, no more being watched over. No more relying on others to lead your life. Become your own person.”

Tobin opened his eyes. He looked up at the skylight. His eyes flickered. He could feel it. Lightning. Electricity. It started in his hands and ran down to his feet.

Suddenly, Tobin shot up into the air! With a burst of electricity trailing behind him, leaving a blue streak from his boots to the floor, he and Orion soared up toward the skylight. Only one phrase could sum up the boy’s feelings, so he belted it out:

“Woooo-hooooooooooooooooo!”

Breaking through the glass with a
CRASH
!, Tobin and Orion escaped into the open air. The wall of fire burst out after them, nipping at Tobin’s ankles, but it quickly gave up on them and rushed downward, spreading its flames over the roof of the school.

When Tobin was so high up that the buildings of Bridgton began to look like children’s toys, his momentum stopped, and he started to fall. Popping bursts of electricity in his feet to slow his descent, he made his way across Middle Street and towards the Bridgton Public Library. When he landed on the roof, he let go of Orion and looked back to the school.

Bridgton High was overcome with purple fire; its walls were unseen under the flames, and its roof soon crashed in on itself.

Turning around, Tobin handed his bo-staff to Orion. “Well, I guess there’s no school tomorrow.”

Orion leaned on the staff, putting all of his weight on his uninjured leg. As much pain as he was in, he was still overcome with relief.

“You shouldn’t have come back for me, Tobin. That wasn’t very smart.”

Tobin thought it over. “Well, sometimes you have to make the right decision. Even when it seems really, really dumb.”

Orion laughed. “Not exactly what I said, but close enough.”

Hearing a siren below them, Tobin and Orion walked to the edge of the library and looked down.

The walls of the Dark Nebula were thinning; its purple-and-black, swirling surface was breaking away in chunks, and the cloud was dissipating like fog on a hot summer afternoon. An ambulance from the other side was finally able to push through the barrier, and a team of medical workers immediately jumped out of its doors. They were stunned by the destruction.

All around Middle Street, groups of people began to notice the ambulance and emerge from their hiding places. Among them were a dozen high school students, led by Jennifer and Chad.

“Hey, over here!” a medical worker yelled. “More help is on the way—come on everyone! What the hell has been going on in here?!”

Chad approached the EMT. “I don’t know, it happened so fast. We were in the school when all the sudden—”

“Hey!” the ambulance driver shouted, pointing to the roof of the library. “Look!”

Jennifer and Chad looked up. Strike was leaning over the edge of the roof, but when he realized he had been spotted, he quickly darted out of sight.

“Did you see that?” the EMT asked, spinning to the others. “What the hell was that?”

Jennifer and Chad looked at each other. They smiled.

“I have no idea,” Jennifer said.

Leaning over the library roof, Orion looked down at the street.

“Hey, aren’t those your friends down there, Tobin? Tobin…?”

Orion turned around. Suddenly, Tobin was kneeling on the rooftop, with his arms across his stomach. His eyes were filled with fear.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

Orion rushed to the boy, helping him lie down.

“What is it, Tobin? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know…I don’t know.” Tobin gulped for air, a wheeze coming from his throat. “I can’t breathe, everything’s fading away, everything’s going away.”

Tobin tried to focus on Orion, but the old man’s face went blurry. All Tobin could see was a white light over the old man’s shoulder, seeping through the Dark Nebula. Cracks were revealing streaks of the sky behind it.

Tobin looked at Orion. The old man was a haze of red and grey.

“Am I gonna die?” the boy asked. “Am I dying?”

“It’s okay,” Orion said. “Close your eyes. Everything’s gonna be—”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

W
indshield wipers.

Swoosh-swoosh, back and forth, like someone sweeping with a rubber broom.

Rain pattering against glass.

Something soft and smelling of rubber.

An engine hissing.

Tobin opened his eyes. He was leaning against an airbag. Sitting up, he rubbed the back of his neck, which was aching terribly. Along with the windshield wipers, he could hear music—an oldie, from the station that he liked. The words were mixing in with the rhythm of the windshield wipers.

With his vision unsteady, Tobin looked out the window. It wasn’t a strong storm, but the rain was small and fast, tick-ticking against his car and the pavement and the surrounding trees. He suddenly felt an overwhelming relief, like he could lift his shoulders again and breathe normally for the first time in days.

As Tobin tried to get his bearings, red-and-blue lights flashed across his face from outside the car. He looked out the driver’s side window to see a police officer standing in the rain. He was a portly guy, like Porky Pig in a rain slicker. He was holding a flashlight and motioning for Tobin to unroll the window.

“Hey, are you all right in there?”

“Yeah,” Tobin said. “I think so.”

“Then come on out if you’re not hurt. We gotta get you off the side of the road.”

Tobin stepped out of his car, holding his head. He
was
home, right? How did he get here?

“You’re lucky I was driving by and saw your car,” the policeman said. “You musta been going pretty fast—you can’t be doing that in weather like this, you know. Where the hell were you trying to go right now, anyway?”

Tobin looked to the front of his car: it was smashed into a telephone pole. Its hood was scrunched up, and a wisp of smoke was rising into the wet air.

Confused, Tobin walked with the policeman to the police car.

“I was actually on my way over to Middle Street,” the policeman said, “to help clean up the aftermath of the damn Apocalypse. I heard they finally got through that cloud, thank god. I still can’t believe you were out here driving around—you must be the only person on Earth who isn’t at home underneath their bed, waiting for the end of the world.”

“The what?” Tobin asked. “What did you say? They finally got through what?”

“The, uh, death cloud? Ya know, the one that fell from the sky around Middle Street? It finally started breaking away about an hour ago. People can get in and out of it now.” The policeman shook his head. “I swear, you kids and the news. You really need to put down the cell phones and start paying attention to the world.”

Tobin leaned against the hood of the police car.

“You sure you’re all right?” the policeman asked. “You look like you’re on another world or something.”

“I’m fine,” Tobin replied. “But this
is
Earth, right?”

The policeman laughed. “Yeah, Earth. The United States of America. Bridgton, Massachusetts. Come and sit down, for crying out loud. You musta hit your head pretty hard. Where do you live?”

Tobin looked down the street. “Uh, right there,” he said, pointing. He was surprised to see his house was only a few dozen feet away.

“You crashed right in front of your house? That’s pretty weird.”

“Yeah.”

The front door of Tobin’s house opened, and Tobin’s mother stepped out. She saw her son standing in the rain with the police car.

“Tobin?” she said. It was him. It was really him. “Tobin!” she cried, running toward him.

Tobin walked to her. Of all the things that came to mind, he only needed to say one.

“Mom.”

She reached him and they embraced.

“Tobin, what happened to you? Where have you been? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom,” he said, his eyes closed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

She let go of him and held his face in her hands.

“Where did you go?” she asked. “I was so worried, Tobin, I thought I was never going to—Bill and I, we didn’t know what to do, we looked and we called…where did you go, Tobin? Where have you been?”

Tobin rubbed his neck, scrunching his forehead. “I don’t know, Mom, I feel...I think—I don’t know, I think something—”

“Hey ma’am?” the policeman said. He was inspecting the front of Tobin’s car. “You should call somebody to tow this thing outta here. And your insurance, too. This thing is pretty dinged up.”

Tobin’s mother grabbed Tobin by his shoulders.   “Stay here,” she said. “And don’t you ever think about moving. Ever again.”

As Tobin’s mother and the policeman looked over the accident, Tobin leaned against the police car and tried to sort out his memories. Putting his hand into his jacket pocket, he found something.

It was a note. He unfolded the piece of paper and read it:

SORRY ABOUT THE CAR, KID. ORION TOLD ME TO THINK OF AN ALIBI FOR YOUR INJURIES, SO THIS IS IT. PRETTY GOOD, HUH? AND ALL IT COST YOU WAS ONE CAR! YOU CAN THANK ME LATER. YOUR BUD, KEPLAR.

Tobin smirked. He sat against the police car and laughed—a loud, sudden laugh.

His mother and the policeman turned to him.

“Uh, honey? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. I’m absolutely fine.”

Tobin looked to the sky.

The rain was finally stopping.