Read Online Ariel by Steven R. Boyett - Free Book Online Page A

them together. "Nothing," he said. "No spark."
    "Holy shit!" yelled his friend on the passenger's side. "Did you see that?"
    "What?" the driver and I asked simultaneously.
    He pointed. "From out of the trees by the road there. It was  .  .  . huge. Some kind of animal. Like a lion, but bigger. Lots bigger."
    "Bear, maybe?"
    I made a rude noise. "Our school might be out in the boonies, but it's not that far out." The guy who'd seen the animal got out from the car. "Where'd it go?" I asked.
    "It just shot out from between the trees and ran around the corner, that way." He pointed west. I looked at the intersection where he was pointing. The red light was out. Below it were unmoving cars.
    Grace came up beside me. "It looks like everything's stopped at once," she said.
     
    * * *
     
    Grace and I tried to call home for rides. The phones weren't working. Not even a dial tone.
    Nobody else could give us a ride home either. Their cars wouldn't work. Even watches had stopped.
    "Come on," I said to Grace. "Let's go home."
    "How?"
    "Your legs still work, don't they?"
    "It's at least a three-hour walk!"
    I grabbed her arm. "Grace. Something's happened. I don't know what could have caused it, but nothing that uses electricity is working."
    "Let go of my arm."
    I took my hand away. "Sorry."
    She rubbed her arm and looked around—taking the opportunity to back a step away from me. "Everything feels  .  .  . different. I don't like this. It's too quiet."
    I nodded. "No cars. No power hum. No planes in the sky."
    She bit her lower lip, looking at the cars stopped beneath the dark traffic light. "It's like a scene from a movie I saw once. There was this flying saucer and a robot—"
    "The Day the Earth Stood Still . The robot's name was Gort."
    "Oh." She blinked. "The robot's name was Gort." She tried to smile and her lips quivered.
    "Come on, let's go. It'll be dark soon and I don't want to spend most of my time on the road at night." I looked toward the trees where the huge animal had been seen.
    "My debate stuff. I don't want to leave my debate stuff here. It'll get stolen."
    I didn't argue. I found a janitor and explained to him that we were leaving and wanted to stow our things—could he possibly open our debate class? He could.
    That accomplished, we hit the road.
    We were silent most of the way, each wrapped in our own thoughts and one question underlying them all: what had happened?
    It was completely dark before we were three-fourths of the way home. My feet were aching by the time we got there. Hers couldn't have felt any better. I walked her to her house, which was some five miles from mine. I guessed it was a little after eight o'clock when we arrived. We'd seen no people on the road, only a few useless cars stopped in the act of turning or abandoned in the street.
    Her house was empty. No lights, which I'd been expecting, but no candles burning either. No telltale flickering through the windows of neighboring houses. The front door was unlocked and we entered cautiously.
    "Mom?" she called out. Her voice wasn't very loud. "Dad?"
    Nothing.
    "Dad's probably still at work," she told me, "but Mom should be here."
    "Maybe she went shopping." The nearest shopping center was Cutler Ridge—fifteen miles away.
    "Maybe." She was silent a minute. "Pete, can we go outside? I don't like it in here. I can't see my hand in front of my face."
    "Sure." We went outside. The neighborhood was eerily quiet, the only sound the chirp of crickets and croak of frogs.
    Grace sat down on the concrete front porch. She hugged her knees and looked at the ground. "What do I do?"
    I sat wearily beside her. "You could stay here, but you don't know when your parents might be back. I'd offer to stay with you but I can't. My mother's at work in Miami—or was, at any rate—and my brother might even be home by now. It's still almost two hours' walk from here."
    "I'll go with you."
    "What about your parents?"
    She shut her eyes. "I don't want to be alone