Nightmare Academy

243 Pages·2002·1.81 MB·English

by  Frank E Peretti

Frank Peretti
NASHVILLE DALLAS MEXICO CITY RIO DE JANEIRO BEIJING
O 2002 Frank Peretti All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, with the
exception of brief excerpts in reviews. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by
Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson,
Inc. Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational,
business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail
[email protected]. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture
quotations used in this book are from the King James Version of the Bible (tgv).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Peretti, Frank E. Nightmare
Academy / Frank Peretti. p. cm. - (The Veritas Project ; v 2) Summary: Elijah
and his sister Elisha go undercover to investigate a mysterious school that is
sheltering runaway teenagers for a sinister purpose. ISBN 0-8499-7617-0 ISBN
1-4003-0340-0 (Trade Paper) ISBN 978-1-59554-446-9 (repackage) [ 1.
Schools-Fiction. 2. Runaways-Fiction. 3. Christian life-Fiction. 4. Mystery and
detective stories.] I. Title. II. Series. PZ7.P4254 Ni 2002 [Fic]-dc21 2002070060
Printed in the United States of America 08 09 10 11 12 QW 54321
To Barbara jean, my love, as we continue our wondrous journey together.
Chapter 1: The Kid in the Padded
Room
is mind told him, insisted, that he was running, putting one tattered,
bleeding foot in front of the other-even though the ground did not move under
his feet, turned when he did not, or inclined steeply upward though he saw no
slope before him. He closed his eyes, but he could still see. He screamed, but he
heard nothing. The pathway became a precipice and he tumbled headlong,
falling through space. He was under water. He tried to swim; suddenly his
groping arms were pulling him forward through hot, dry sand. The sky above
was red like a sunset, the earth below an eye-buzzing purple-then green, then
gray, then red as the sky turned green.
Where he was, or why, or when, or who, or how, he could not know,
could never know.
There were no days, no hours, no moments, no way of knowing, no
chance for knowing how long he'd been here.
Been where?
No place, at no particular time.
He was once a fifteen-year-old boy, cocky and wayward. He once had
a brother, a sister, a father and mother. He had a name, a house, a school, and a
life-and he thought he knew something. Maybe he thought he knew it all.
But that boy, and that time, and that life had become ... nothing. Non-
things.
There was no fifteen-year-old boy here. No knowledge, no thought, no
reason. There was nothing here but terror, endlessly repeating cycles of it, layer
upon layer of it-with more, more, more to come, in swirling, kaleidoscoping
sounds, images, and sensations, pulsing, pounding, surging, throbbing like a
swollen thumb.
The only reality.
He stopped, fell against a gnarled old tree....
The tree toppled unnaturally, crumpling like a wad of paper, without
sound. He fell....
And hit the ground. Cold ground. Grass. Stones. They didn't move,
didn't change. The earth was motionless under his body, the dew of the night
cold and soaking through.
The tree he thought he would lean on, that had fallen ... was a metal
door, now slowly closing behind him, creaking on its hinges.
Without a thought, he was on his feet, running away. He could see
nothing in the dark, was not aware of the branches and limbs striking against
him, was not aware of the aching in his chest, the pounding of his heart, the
gasping for air.
He just ran.
Nelson Farmer was tall, with a long horse face and a worried look that just
stayed there, even when he wasn't worried. Right now he was worried, making
his face sag to new depths of sourness.
"Harborview," said the taxi driver, pulling up in front of an immense
hospital in Seattle.
Harborview Hospital, part of the Seattle skyline for generations, was
known as the place to send the really tough cases. Victims of accidents could be
helped in any good hospital; victims of horrible accidents were sent here, as
were the burn victims, abuse victims, disaster victims, and ...
Farmer didn't have a label for the victim he was hoping to find here.
He might have a name, but at this point he couldn't be sure. He would know in
the next few minutes.
Dr. Cal Madison, white-haired, balding, and soft-spoken, met him in
Observation and Evaluation. "Thank you for coming, Mr...." He looked once
again at Farmer's business card. "Farmer. My! From the D.C. office! You've
come a long way"
"Not really," said Farmer. "I was out on the West Coast on business
anyway. I just made a little side trip."
Madison moved through the front office and into a narrow hallway.
Farmer followed.
"I expected the Bureau would just send a local person," Madison
commented.
"This could be a special case," Farmer replied. "The local office may
not have the records on this one yet."
"Hmm." Madison had to think about that one. "Anyway, I'm not sure
what information you have at this point...."
"He was found on the highway, somewhere in Idaho?"
"North Central Idaho, I think. A very mountainous region, not much
civilization to speak of."
They entered a darkened room with one large window The window, of
two-way glass, opened on another room. That room was roughly ten feet square,
softly lit, and the walls and floor were covered with thick, quilted padding.
Against the far wall was a very simple, low-built cot, also heavily padded; in the
center of the room, curled up on the floor like a cowering animal, was a boy. He
was clothed in hospital pajamas and lay motionless except for a trembling,
involuntary curling and uncurling of his fingers. His eyes stared at the floor,
unwavering, unblinking.
Dr. Madison explained, "We judge him to be about fifteen years old.
We've had to dress him because he can't dress himself. He wasn't carrying any
ID, so we have no idea who he is."
"And I suppose he can't tell you?"
"You need to see this," Madison said, slipping out the door. He closed
the door behind him, leaving Farmer in the darkened room. A moment later the
door to the padded room opened, and Madison stepped inside. He knelt beside
the boy and asked him, "How are you doing?"
"I don't know," the boy replied in a low monotone.
"Do you need anything?"
"I don't know."
Madison looked toward the two-way glass as he asked the boy, "Can
you tell me your name?"
"I don't know."
Farmer could hear everything through a small intercom speaker beside
the window. As Madison asked the boy a few more questions and the boy replied
"I don't know" to every one, Farmer pulled a file folder from his briefcase and
opened it. The first page included a photograph of a young man.
The very same young man.
Farmer held the photograph at eye level, letting his gaze shift from it
to the face he saw through the glass. There was no doubt.
He closed the folder, put it back in his briefcase, and snapped the
briefcase shut.
When Madison returned, Farmer shook his head, looking impressed.
"Very disturbing."
"It's as if his whole mind has been erased," said Madison, still
marveling. "All knowledge, all logic ... gone."
Farmer nodded thoughtfully. "I'm glad you called. I'll arrange to have
him transferred immediately"
Madison appeared puzzled. "Excuse me?"
"The best way for us to identify this young man and return him to his
parents-if there are any-is to put him under protective custody so we can make a
positive identification."
"I'm not familiar with this procedure."
"We don't use it very often, only in special cases such as this one. It'll
take me a little while to arrange for a car and for a suitable room-"
"No, no, wait. I'm sorry. That's impossible."
Farmer tilted his head, raised an eyebrow. "Come again?"
Madison's face was etched with disbelief and a little indignity. "This
young man is a patient in this hospital, and we can't release him."
Farmer's spine stiffened visibly. "Dr. Madison, the Bureau for Missing
Children has its procedures, and I'm afraid-"
"No. Absolutely not. He's in no condition to be moved anywhere. He's
malnourished and underweight, he can't clothe himself, he can't feed himself, he
can't-"
"Need I remind you with whom you're dealing?"
Farmer's words struck Madison wrong, very wrong. "Perhaps I should
confirm that information one more time."
Farmer glared at him a moment, then produced his card again.
Dr. Madison read it again: Nelson Farmer, Field Investigator, Bureau
for Missing Children, Washington, D.C.
Farmer followed his card with an official, laminated photo ID from the
office in Washington. "Would you like to see my driver's license? I also have a
firearm permit if you'd like to see that."
Dr. Madison handed back the photo ID and shook his head. "It won't
change anything, anyway"
Now Farmer raised his voice. "I beg your pardon?"
Dr. Madison replied in his same businesslike tone, "When this boy's
parents say to release him, then I'll release him. Until then, he's under my care,
he's my responsibility, and he stays here."
"We don't even know who the parents are."
"Well, that's your job, isn't it, to reunite missing and runaway children
with their families? Now, we've provided the boy's likeness, his fingerprints, and
everything we know about him. You're the one with the nationwide computer
database. I think it's time you got to work."
Farmer grabbed up his briefcase. "This is not going to go well for
you."
"I'll see you-and your threats-to the door, Mr. Farmer."
A week later, Dr. Cal Madison attended a medical conference within comfortable
driving distance from Washington, D.C., where he arranged to have dinner with
an old friend.
Now they were sitting in a secluded booth-a table Madison had asked
for specifically-enjoying a fine meal and formal surroundings. Dr. Madison
spoke in secretive tones, carefully pausing whenever a waitress walked by.
"I had my secretary go to BMC's Web site, and within an hour she had
a positive identification of our patient." He handed the documents across the
dinner table to his guest. "Alvin Rogers, age fifteen, Thousand Oaks, California.
He and a friend, Harold Carlson, ran away a month ago. The Carlson boy is still
missing."
"So now you're wondering why this Farmer character needed custody
of your patient in order to identify him?"
"Exactly. It wasn't necessary. I called the BMC, and he works for them,
all right, but the people I talked to weren't aware of any such policy. Farmer said
he came by because he was already on the West Coast anyway, but according to
the people at the central office right here in Washington, he left rather urgently,
with only one destination, and that was Seattle."