Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

and wasn’t moving at all. He moved over and tried the left-hand bar, with the same lack of success.

“I told you, the doors are locked,” Jess said.

Mike didn’t answer her, just took a step back and slammed a shoulder into the door. There was a solid thump as he hit, but nothing gave. “What the fuck?” Mike muttered, then backed up farther and took a running start. This time the thump was louder and accompanied by a grunt of pain as the two-hundred-pound man slammed into the metal door with absolutely zero effect.

“Is this the only door you tried?” Mike asked Jessica.

“Honestly? I didn’t try this one. I tried two others, but I didn’t come this way. I went left out of the library, toward the old English wing. This is where all the science classes were. So I never got back to this door.”

“And the two you tried were locked this tight?” Mike asked.

“I didn’t try to go all SWAT team on them, but I couldn’t get any of them to move at all.” She looked from Billy to Mike and back again. “Are we trapped in here?” Her voice shook, and tears threatened again.

Mike wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “No. We’re not trapped here. We’ll get back to the library and figure out where to go next.”

The walkie-talkie on Billy’s belt crackled to life. “I’m picking up some thermal activity in the girl’s locker room, kids. You want to go check that out or come back here?”

Mike looked down at Jess’s face, growing more frantic the longer they were in the school, and then at Billy. He squared his shoulders and held out his hand for the walkie. “Here’s the plan. Jess is gonna come back to you. You two pack up everything non-essential and be ready to roll at a moment’s notice. Then start from the library and work your way around the building until you find an open door or a big enough window to climb out of. If the window won’t open, get persuasive. I’ve got a hatchet in my backpack that should convince any window that needs a good talking-to. Billy and I will go check out the gym, trying to find an exit while we do.”

Jess looked up at him. “I don’t want you—”

“As long as we’re here, we might as well see what’s going on. If there’s something we can debunk, or something that we can lay to rest, we should do it. Either way, we’ll keep checking every door as we go along, and we’ll meet you back in the library in one hour.”

“One hour,” Jessica stressed to him. “It’s five-thirty now, so if you’re not in that library by six-thirty, I’m going to come looking for you, and you won’t like it when I find you.”

“I always like it when you find me, sweetheart,” Mike said, leaning down to kiss her on the forehead. “I’ll see you in an hour.”

The trio walked together back to a three-way intersection in the hallway, then Jess turned off to return to the library, while Mike and Billy stood watching her fade into the darkened hallway, her flashlight cutting through the gloom.

“You okay with her going back to the library on her own?” Billy asked.

“She’s a trained investigator. She’ll be fine,” Mike replied.

“You think we’ll be fine going to the gym where a couple dozen kids died suddenly? Especially since something’s locked us in here?”

“I don’t know, Bill. I sure hope so. The longer I’m in here, the worse this idea feels.”

“Yeah, but we’re in here now, might as well do the work.”

“‘Specially since the doors are all locked, right?” Mike turned and started down the hall toward the gym.

Jess walked alone back to the library, her boots echoing off the deserted hallways. Her flashlight beam cut through the gloom like a blue-white razor, carving out a path back to the relative light and safety of the library. She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding when she walked through the double doors and saw Sam loading equipment into wheeled cases and packing foam-lined boxes onto her wheeled equipment carts.

“What can I do to help?” Jess asked.

“You hang out by the monitors and call me if there are any crazy readings.”

“I can help, you know. It’s not like I’m having a nervous breakdown just being in the library,” Jessica protested, taking a seat in front of the pair of 27” LCD monitors Sam had left operational.

“I know, but there’s no way in hell I’m letting you pack my gear. Half my crap would be in the wrong box, and the other crap would be crammed into weird nooks and crannies. Every time one of you goobers ‘helps’ me pack, it takes a month for me to find all my adaptors. So you just sit your cute ass over there and don’t touch the tech stuff.”

“You been checking out my ass again, Chima?” Jess asked with a grin.

“Every chance I get, straight girl. Just because you aren’t on the menu, doesn’t mean I can’t stare at the dessert tray, does it?” Both women laughed, and Sam went back to work packing their equipment in relaxed silence.

Jessica felt better with the guys gone, if she was being completely honest with herself. She and Mike were good together, but when he pulled shit like this, it was hard to remember that she loved him. And Billy was just Billy, awkward Billy, more comfortable with his cameras than with people. She and Sam made a good team. Too bad the network gurus wouldn’t let them team up on camera without some manufactured lesbian love angle.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jessica saw something that made her sit up straight in her chair. “Sam!” she hissed, unsure why she felt a sudden urge to keep her voice down.

Sam’s head whipped around at the urgency in her friend’s voice. “What is it?” she asked, coming around the end of the big half-circle desk