“Where’s Lisa Carver’s computer?” she asked Ruskin.
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Is it here?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
Sandra said. “Let’s see if we can get into that sucker.”
Twenty-Seven
Nick’s situation was, not to put too fine a point on it, perilous.
He continued to scramble in place on the downward-moving escalator, keeping his head low as Arrivals straddled the moving stairway, inches over his head, on their way to the lower level of Garrett Mall. He couldn’t let himself ride to the bottom, and then make a break for it, because there were too many of those nutcase cars down there already, waiting to pick him off.
The one Arrival that turned itself into a ramp to facilitate the other cars determined to reach the lower level was severely crushed, but continued to serve its purpose. Nick had lost count how many cars had driven right over him, but it had to be at least a dozen, and they just kept coming. He was tempted to poke his head up above the parapet, as it were, and see if maybe the parade overhead was about to end, but didn’t dare take the chance.
If he’d ever been hoping that someone might help him, he was over it. Shoppers who’d fled to the lower level, thinking they were safe, had scattered once the Arrivals got down there. Nick wished he could get to the emergency button that would shut the escalator down, but figured it was either at the top, where it wasn’t safe, or the bottom, where it was even less safe. So he kept crawling in place.
He had no idea what had happened to Archie and Rory. Were they dead? Had they gotten away? He wanted to blame them for abandoning him, but the truth was, he was the one who’d abandoned them, heading for the escalator, figuring the lower level would be the safest place.
Good call.
In the moments when Nick was not moving — sometimes he’d allow the escalator to take him partway down before resuming his frantic, crab-like crawl — he realized he was trembling.
Nick was scared shitless.
Would he get out of this alive? Would he ever see his parents again? Would he ever see his dog, Wilbur? Wasn’t twelve too early to die? Was there anything fair about that? There were so many things he’d never done. He’d never flown in a plane. He’d never been to Walt Disney World. He’d never even kissed a girl. Rory, the way he talked, you’d think he’d lost his virginity when he was seven, but Nick knew Rory was full of it. He was always acting like he knew way more than he actually did. Give Rory a real live condom and he’d probably try to put it on his nose.
And yet, he liked Rory. He was an asshole, but he was okay. Archie was okay, too. Nick had felt bad for Archie, the only kid Nick knew who’d lost a parent. Nick couldn’t imagine what it’d be like, losing his mom or dad.
Except now, there was a very good chance his mother and father were going to lose him.
“Help!” Nick cried. “Somebody help me!”
Another Arrival whooshed over his head.
“Somebody please—”
“Nick!”
What the — who was that?
“Nick! Over here!”
Nick looked up the escalator to see whether a car was coming. One Arrival was crawling over the makeshift ramp. He had, he figured, three seconds. So he popped his head up and looked in the direction the voice had come from.
Archie!
He was only a few feet away, on the up escalator, staying in place by running down. Archie didn’t have to worry about ducking for cover because the Arrivals weren’t set up to come down that escalator.
Not yet, anyway.
“Archie!” he screamed.
“Get down!” Archie shouted.
Nick dropped as another whooshed over him, racing down the escalator’s housing like a kid going down a slide. Once the car passed, he peeked over the moving, rubber grip rail, still running to stay in place so he was roughly parallel to Archie.
Archie yelled: “When I—”
“What?”
“When I yell NOW! you stand up and grab my hand!”
“Now?”
Archie saw that another car was about to pass over his friend. “Not right now! But when I yell NOW stand up and stick out your arms and — DUCK!”
Nick ducked.
The instant the latest car had whipped past, Archie took a deep breath and screamed:
“NOW!”
Nick’s head bobbed up like a target in a whack-a-mole game. He extended his arms toward Archie. The trouble was, Archie was running in place in one direction, and Nick was trying to run in place in the other.
Attempts to lock arms failed. Their fingertips touched for a millisecond.
Another car was coming.
“DUCK!” Archie shouted again.
Nick’s head went down as the car passed over him.
“NOW!”
Nick shot upward. Archie had run several steps down, so that when Nick popped up, he’d be just in the right spot. He threw his body over the rubber railing, his feet coming off the escalator steps, arms outstretched.
Nick reached for his friend’s hands.
His right hand grabbed on to Archie’s left, but his other hand failed to make the connection. It didn’t matter. Archie grabbed on to that one hand with everything he had and pulled at the same time as Nick pushed himself off his escalator. He scrambled over the shiny metal median, now smudged with tire tracks, and tumbled into the other escalator on top of Archie.
Without a second to spare. Another Arrival zoomed past on its way to the lower level.
“Thank you!” Nick shouted, disentangling himself from Archie as they rode toward the upper level.
Archie surveyed what awaited them. The top of the escalator was clear, but only steps away, Arrivals were lined up to make the trip to the lower level. One could easily steer out of line to chase the boys.
“Where’s Rory?” Nick asked. “Did they get Rory?”
“He got away,” Archie said. “I’ve got an idea.”
“Yeah, but what—”
“Follow me!”
The second they reached the top of the escalator, Archie ran straight for the Arrival that was next in line to crawl over the crushed one.
“Archie, no!” Nick said.
But Archie had already jumped onto the hood. He ran up toward the windshield, onto the roof, down the rear window, leapt off the trunk and onto the hood of the next car.
“Come on!” Archie said, stopping briefly on the roof of the next Arrival to wave his friend on. Nick took half a second to summon the courage he needed before following Archie’s lead. He had a memory flash of a video he’d seen online of a chipmunk who’d avoided capture by a cat by jumping onto its back.
Archie kept running, car over car, his footsteps thudding on the metal surfaces. Nick had poured on the speed and was only one car behind him.
The Arrivals beneath their feet seemed to stir, not so much with menace, but with frustration. How were they supposed to run these kids down if they were running on top of them?
Archie could see the end coming. Four more cars to go.
The car at the tail end of the line suddenly backed up, creating a space between it and the car ahead.
“Whoa!” Archie said, standing on the roof of what was now the second car from the end. He raised a cautioning hand to Nick, who had reached the hood of the same vehicle.
“That one’s onto us,” Archie said. “Change of plan.” He looked quickly around in all directions. They were close to one end of the mall, near the Discount Bonanza anchor store, a Costco-style retailer that was big on selling bulk items at cheap prices, with lots of towering metal shelves, and a minimum of charm.