Your Worst Nightmare (12 page)

“Okay, it's going to be okay,” Kristi said, her mind racing. “We'll find a way to get you out.” Then she turned to Olivia. “Liv, can you tell me what's around that bend? I have no idea where we are.”

“You mean go
by myself
?” Olivia asked, shaking her head vehemently. “No. No
way
.”

Kristi tried to control her temper. “Listen, Tim can't
even walk,” she said. “Just go
look
around the bend.”

“No,
you
go,” Olivia shot back.

“Fine!” Kristi exploded. “I will! Bobby, just hang on, I'll be right back.”

“Kristi?” he called, uncertain.

She ran as fast as she could toward the bend in the wall, where a faint light was streaming over the rocks. What she saw as she turned the corner seemed too good to be true. Kristi stood there, blinking in shock, with her hand pressed over her heart.

It was the entrance to the Ravensburg Caverns.

And just beyond that, the parking lot at the motel.

And even—Kristi could hardly believe it—two school buses, with their engines idling.

“Thank you,” she whispered to no one in particular. “
Thank you.”

Then she ran back to her friends.

“Guys! Guys! It's—you won't even believe—we're on the other side of the entrance. I could see our buses in the parking lot. We made it, guys, we really did!” Kristi cried, overjoyed. “Everything's going to be okay!”

“Are you positive?” Olivia asked as she scrambled up and threw her arms around Kristi, their fight
immediately forgotten. “Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Kristi exclaimed. “We're, like, fifty feet from the buses! Tim, can you stand? Because I think—I think if you lean on Liv and me—”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Tim said. “I'll crawl out of here if I have to.”

Kristi was suddenly aware of a heavy silence.

“Bobby?” she called. “Are you still up there?”

“I'm here.”

“Okay, listen to me,” Kristi said, making her voice sound as calm and optimistic as she could. “All you have to do is jump. Then we'll leave this terrible place and never look back. That's all you have to do.”

“But . . . is it far?”

“No! Not that far,” Kristi said. “Look down—see us over here? It's seriously not far at all.”

She waited for a moment, but Bobby didn't respond. Finally he said, “I can't see you. I can't see anything down there. It's completely black.”

“Then . . . you'll just have to take my word for it. On my count, okay?” Kristi continued. “One . . . two . . . three!”

Nothing.

“Bobby?”

“I'm, um, I'm still up here.”

“Dude,” Tim spoke up. “Just, like, throw yourself over the edge. Seriously. Don't be a baby about it. You're making it so much worse than it needs to be.”

“Shut
up
, Tim,” Kristi muttered. Then, louder: “Bobby, let's try again. No counting this time. When I say ‘jump,' go for it. Okay?”

“Okay. I'll try.”

“Jump!”

Nothing.

Kristi took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. “Trust me, Bobby. You can do this. I
know
you can do this.”

“I can't,” Bobby moaned. “I can't do it.”

It sounded like he was crying.

Suddenly everything made sense to Kristi: Bobby's panic over Nick's pretend fall; the way Bobby had stood as far back from the pit as he could; how hard he had tried to convince them to go back through the tunnels. She thought about Olivia wondering why Bobby was acting so obnoxious during the trip, and suddenly Kristi realized that Bobby wasn't excited about the caves. He
was terrified of the drops in them. And he'd been trying to hide it all along.

“This is it, huh?” Kristi asked gently. “This is what you're afraid of. Heights.”

“All my life,” he replied.

“I know, Bobby,” she said. “I know what you're feeling up there. We all do. But you have to believe me that the only way out is to face it—your fear—to look straight at it and take that leap anyway. And I promise you, Bobby—I swear to you—that you won't fall that far; that you'll end up down here with us, safe and sound, and we'll all go out to the buses together.

“And you know what else?” Kristi continued. “Your fear of heights—this is the worst it will ever be, Bobby. Because once you jump, once you feel that terror washing over your whole entire body and you do it anyway, you'll know”—Kristi's voice caught in her throat—“you'll know that you can do
anything
.”

“I don't know how to do it,” Bobby replied. “I don't know how to jump. I'm standing right here, at the edge, and I keep telling myself ‘Jump, dummy!
Jump, idiot!
' and I can't. It's like my feet are glued to the ground.”

“You're not an idiot. You're just scared,” Kristi said urgently. “But listen, Bobby. Do you trust me?”

“Yeah. Definitely.”

“Then make this jump. Do it for you, do it for me, do it for all of us. The buses are outside. They're ready to go. Don't you want to go home? I really want to go home, Bobby. Please. Just jump.”

“Okay, Kristi,” Bobby said, and he suddenly sounded stronger and more certain. “Okay. I can do this. I'm gonna do this.”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “You can!”

“Right now,” Bobby said. “One. Two. Three.”

Nothing.

Suddenly Kristi turned to Olivia. “Did you hear that?” she asked in a strangled whisper.

“Bobby?” asked Olivia.

Kristi shook her head. “No. Listen.”

At first both girls heard only Bobby's quiet sniffles. Then, as if carried on a far-off wind, came a low wail that was soon joined by several other voices. Children's voices.

Kristi looked at Olivia with wide eyes. “That's it,” she said. “That's the sound we heard last night.”

“Oh, Kris. I think . . . I think you were right,” Olivia said. “It
is
the kids. The lost ones . . . the ones who disappeared so long ago.”

The ones who were never found,
Kristi thought, but she couldn't bear to say it.
The ones who were too afraid to face their fears.

Kristi stared up at the ledge, but she couldn't see Bobby's face anymore. “Bobby,” she ordered. “Jump. Right now. Do it.”

“I feel funny.” Bobby's voice sounded hollow and far away. “I don't feel—something's not—I can't—I can't see my hands—”

“You can't see
what
?” Kristi yelled.

There was no answer.

“Bobby!” Kristi cried. “Are you there?”

“Don't . . . leave. Don't . . . leave me here.” His voice floated down to her. “Don't . . .”

The moaning grew into a cacophony of howls that made Kristi want to cover her ears and cry.
“Bobby!”
she yelled. “Please jump! You have to jump right now or I don't know what will happen to you! Please, Bobby,
jump
!

“Bobby? Are you still there?

“Bobby?”

Beads of sweat dotted Kristi's forehead; she gritted her teeth with determination. “I'm not going to leave you, Bobby,” she promised. But even as she spoke the words, doubt swelled in her heart. How could she possibly find him?

“Bobby!” Kristi screamed. “I'm coming! Just hang on!”

Still there was no answer.

Would there ever be again?

 

“I'm so, so, so, so sorry!”

Gabby Carter had just jumped out of her seat to hand her meal tray to the flight attendant, and she figured she would hand in her neighbor's tray as well. But leaning over made her tray table bounce into the air. Which had caused her drink to bounce into the air as well. Cranberry juice rained down the tray, dripping onto the floor and Gabby's armrest and the cover of the magazine that the woman in the seat next to her had been reading before she fell asleep.

“Sheesh. I just wanted to help without waking you up,” Gabby said miserably.

“Well, you didn't,” snapped the woman, who was all
tucked in for the flight. She had taken off her shoes and replaced them with woolen booties. She also had a sleep mask pushed up onto her head and a neck pillow resting on her collar. In other words, she didn't seem to care how crazy she looked. “I'm perfectly capable of turning in my meal tray by myself. And anyway, I wasn't sleeping.”

“You were
too
sleeping!” Gabby protested. “I heard you sno—breathing deeply.”

The woman glared at her. “I was resting my eyes. And I
needed
the rest, sitting next to you. Look at you. We practically just took off, and your seat already looks like a bird's nest. I can't believe they gave me a seat next to a child.”

“We'll have everything back to normal in no time,” said the flight attendant. He was a youngish man, and he looked as if nothing ever bothered him.

“Let's just clean up a little here,” he said, “and we'll all be as good as new.” From somewhere in his cart, he pulled out a damp towel and deftly began to mop up the spill. He glanced at Gabby. “Why don't you sit down and fasten your seat belt again?”

Gabby sat down.
An hour into the flight,
she thought,
and already I'm causing trouble
.

“And you, ma'am—would you like something else to read?” the flight attendant asked the woman next to Gabby.

“No!” she snapped. “Just take this away.” She handed him the juice-stained magazine. Then she pulled a book of Sudoku and a pencil out of her purse and bent over the page with angry concentration.

“Is this your first flight?” the attendant asked Gabby.

Gabby sighed. “No. My sixth. And I've spilled something on every trip.”

“Sometimes it's hard to sit still,” the flight attendant said. “Anyway, I'm Toby.” He gestured down at his name badge. “As I guess you already know.”

“I'm Gabrielle,” said Gabby. “Gabby for short.”

“And where are you headed, Gabby? Besides Iowa, I mean.”

“I'm going to visit my best friend, Sydney,” Gabby told him more cheerfully. “She lives in a town called Trouble Slope. Have you heard of it?”

“I don't think so. Is it close to Des Moines?”

“It's, like, a two-hour drive,” said Gabby. “My aunt lives in Des Moines, so she's going to pick me up at the airport and drive me to Trouble Slope. It's a pretty small
town. But it does have a college,” she added. “That's where Sydney's parents work. They're both professors, and Trouble Slope was the only college they found that could hire both of them at the same time.”

She sighed. “So that's why they moved out of San Francisco a year ago.”

To Gabby, it had felt like the longest year of her life. She had other friends, of course, but she and Sydney had been
best
friends since kindergarten. It hadn't been hard to stay in touch since Sydney had moved. The girls had texted or video-chatted pretty much every day. But texting and video-chatting were just not the same as having Sydney actually live in San Francisco.

“What's Sydney like?” Toby asked sympathetically.

“Sydney is—Sydney is
calm
,” Gabby told him. “That's one of the best things about her. She never seems to worry or get flustered. She never leaves anything till the last minute. She's never late. She's the total opposite of me.”

“Sounds as if you make a good team,” Toby said. “She's calm, and you're—uh—energetic.”

“Exactly! Sydney usually
likes
it when I do something crazy. Because she never would have thought of it.”

“Well, I hope you have a—”

A voice suddenly broke in—the voice of the cranky woman next to Gabby, of course. “Don't you have anything to do besides stand here?” she asked Toby.