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

“Right. But then…” Sam clicked her mouse a few more times, and the screen exploded in red and yellow. “Then it gets super-hot in there, across the whole room, and I lose the guys in the flare because it’s so hot in there I can’t distinguish forms.”

“Okay, that makes sense, I guess,” Jess said.

“Then it calms down and goes back to normal, except for a few things holding residual heat, like metal or something. But I still can’t find the guys.”

“What do you mean, you can’t find them?” Jessica asked.

“There aren’t any bodies on the readout warm enough to be people. Everything is cooling at the same rate, like the room is getting colder and they aren’t making their own heat.”

“And people only stop making body heat…” Jess didn’t finish her sentence.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed.

“So they went into the locker room, it got hot enough so that our sensors were useless, and now there are no sources of body heat left in the room.”

“Right.”

“So they either got out of there and just aren’t answering their radios, they got out of there and their radios are jacked up, or…”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “And I put new batteries in all the radios and checked them today, plus charged everyone’s cell phones. There’s no good reason they shouldn’t be able to contact us.”

“And I’d rather concentrate on getting out of here than spend time thinking about the bad reasons. So let’s go look for that open window.”

“Sounds good to me.” Sam picked up her backpack and slung it over her shoulders. “What about our gear?”

“Leave it. Somebody or something out there is going to a lot of effort to get us out of here, and they can have all the equipment if it means getting home safe,” Jess replied.

“Okay, but I’m taking my hard drives.” Sam disconnected her USB drives, tossed them in her bag, and settled it across her shoulders once more. “Let’s go.”

Jessica picked up a Mossberg shotgun they kept loaded with rock salt shells for dispersing evil energies, levered a shell into the chamber, and flicked on the flashlight slung under the barrel. They walked out of the library and turned left, instinctively heading in the opposite direction from the gym and the locker rooms. The women walked the halls of the school for long minutes, rattling locked doors and looking for a path to the outdoors. Every door they tried was locked. Even the doors leading into classrooms wouldn’t budge.

They made a circle, turning left at every dead end and eventually ending up back at the library entrance. “Now what?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. Go back in here and barricade ourselves in?” Jessica said.

“Worth a shot.” Sam turned and pulled the handle, but the door didn’t open. The free-swinging double doors were locked solid. “What the fuck?” Sam said, pulling harder.

“What’s going on?” Jess asked.

“It’s locked,” Sam said, pulling the door harder.

“You sure it’s not just sticking?”

Sam stepped back and ran at the door, kicking it with all the force her hundred-sixty pounds could muster. The door rattled in its hinges but didn’t open. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s not just sticking.”

“Well, fuck, what now?”

“We can’t get out, and we can’t get back into the library,” Sam said. “That leaves one place we can go.” She raised an eyebrow at Jessica.

“Oh hell no! I am not setting foot in that fucking gym.”

“I don’t think we have much of a choice.”

“Sammy-girl, you don’t know what that was like for me.”

“I can imagine…”

“I don’t think you can.” Jessica shook her head. “I was supposed to be on that stage. I watched my best friends get blown to bits, knowing that I was supposed to die right beside them. And now you want me to go back there?”

“I don’t, but something sure does. Because it’s not going to let us out of this building until we go to the gym.”

“I hate it when you’re right,” Jess said.

“Everybody does. You Anglo-heteros can’t handle the fact that the Latino-Asian lesbian is the smart one.”

“That’s not it,” Jess protested. “We just hate the fact that she’s the pretty one, too.” They both laughed, then looked around almost guiltily. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Let’s do it,” Sam agreed, then turned and started down the hall. Jessica took a long breath, then squared her shoulders and followed.

It took just a few minutes to get from the library to the gym with Jessica navigating by memory. Her flashlight cut a narrow beam through the enveloping darkness, with Sam’s portable LED lantern providing a larger, more diffuse pool of light immediately around the two women. Jess got to the gym doors, then stopped.

“You okay?” Sam asked.

“Not really, but I’ll get there enough to fake it,” Jess said. She took another deep breath and yanked hard on the door, almost flying back into Sam when it opened with no resistance.

“Of course the one door in the place that doesn’t stick,” Jess muttered under her breath. She and Samantha stepped into the gym, the smell of twenty-year-old dust lying heavy in their nostrils. Sam held her lantern high, but the soft light petered out after a few feet.

“You’re gonna have to be our eyes, chica,” Sam said. “My light is like pissing in the ocean here.”

“I got this,” Jess replied. She pressed a button on the back of her flashlight and the beam doubled in intensity, slicing through the darkened gym with ease. “The manufacturer calls this ‘hyper mode.’ It triples the output for a fifteen-minute burst, but it’s a bitch on the battery.”

“Well, slide that thing along those windows up there and let’s find an open one. Or at least one that’s not bulletproof and big enough for me to get my big ass out through.” Sam indicated the windows at the top of the bleachers. Jess aimed her light up along the top row all along the visitor’s side with no luck. Those windows were too high and locked up tight anyway. The bleachers went higher on the home side, in