Gone by Michael Grant Read Free Book Online Page A

streetlights, but it was far darker than normal. It was still early evening, barely dinnertime. Houses should have been lit up. Instead, the only lights were those on timers or those left on throughout the day. In one house, blue TV light flickered. When Sam peeked in the window he saw two kids eating chips and staring at the static*
    All the little background noises, all the little sounds you barely registered—phones ringing, car engines, voices—were gone. They could hear each footstep they made. Each breath they took. When a dog erupted in frenzied barking, they all jumped.
    "Who's going to feed that dog?"Quinn wondered.
    No one had an answer for that. There would be dogs and cats ail over town. And there were almost certainly babies in empty homes right now, too. It was all too much. Too much to think about.
    Sam peered toward the hills, squnted to shut out the lights of town. Sometimes, if they had the stadium lights of the athletic field turned on, you could see a distant twinkle of light from Coates Academy. But not tonight, lust darkness from that direction.
    A part of Sam denied that his mother was gone. A part of him wanted to believe she was up there, at work, like any other night.
    "The stars are still there," Astrid said. Then she said, "Wait. No. The stars are up, but not the ores just above the horizon. I think Venus should be almost setting. It's not there"
    The three of them stopped and stared out over the ocean. Standing still, all they heard was the odd, placid, metronomic regularity of the lapping waves.
    "This sounds bizarre, but the horizon looks higher than it should be," Astrid said.
    "Did anyone watch the sun go down?" Sam asked.
    No one had.
    "Let's keep moving" Sam said. "We should have brought bikes or skateboards"
    "Why not a car?" Quinn asked. "You know how to drive?" Sam asked. "Pve seen it done."
    Tve seen heart surgery performed on TV, too" Astrid said. "That doesn't mean Pm going to try it"
    Quinn said, "You watch heart surgery on TV? That explains a lot, Astrid "
    The road wound away from the shore and up to Gifftop. The resort's understated neon sign, nestled roadside between carefully trimmed hedges, was lit The grand front entrance was lit up like it was Christmas—the resort had strung strands of twinkling white lightsearly.
    A car sat empty, one door open, trunk popped up, suitcases on a bellman's trolley nearby.
    When they approached, the automatic doors of the hotel swung wide.
    The lobby was open and airy, with a polished blond wood counter that curved for about thirty feet, a bright tile floor, gleaming brass accents leading toward a more shadowy bar At the bank of elevators, one stood open, waiting.
    "I don't see anyone," Quinn said in a subdued whisper.
    "No," Sam agreed. There was a TV in the bar with nothing on. No one at the front desk or the concierge desk, no one in the lobby, no one in the bar. Their footsteps echoed on the tile.
    "The tennis court is this way" Astrid said, and led them away. "That's where my mom and Little Fete would have been."
    The tennis courts were lit up. No sound of balls being whacked by rackets. No sound at all. They all saw it at the same time.
    Cutting straight across the farthest tennis court, slicing through well-tended landscaping, cutting through the swimming pool, was a barrier.
    A walk
    It shimmered ever so slightly.
    It did not look opaque, but whatever light came through, it was milky, indistinct, and no brighter than their surroundings. The wall was slightly reflective, like looking into a frosted-glass window. It made no sound. It did not vibrate. It seemed almost to swallow sound.
    It could be just a membrane, San" thought, fust a millimeter thick. Something he could poke with a finger and pop likea balloon. It might even be nothing more than an illusion. But his instinct, his fear, the feeling in the pit of his stomach, told him he was looking at a wall. No illusion, no curtain, but a wall.
    The barrier went up and up, but faded