Plague

But it didn’t feel that way. It felt like this place was deliberately far from anything else. He doubted it would even be noticeable from a satellite photo. Everything except the few cars were painted the same ochre color as the surrounding emptiness.

“Let’s check the building first.”

The door was unlocked. Sam opened it cautiously. Dirt and dust had filtered onto the polished linoleum floor. A main room, two hallways leading away, and two private offices behind glass partitions. There were half a dozen gray-painted metal desks in the main room and old-style rolling office chairs, some with mismatched cushions. The computers on the desks were blank. Lights off. Air-conditioning obviously off, too; the room was stifling.

Sam glanced at framed photos on a desk: someone’s family, two kids, a wife, and either a mother or a grandmother. He spotted a stress ball on another desk. There were official-looking binders and racks of ancient floppy disks.

Everything was dusty. Flowers in a tiny vase were just sticks. Papers had flowed from desks onto the floor.

It was eerie. But they had all seen plenty of eerie: abandoned cars, empty homes, empty businesses.

One thing they had not seen in a very long time: a jar of Nutella was open on one desk, lid nowhere to be seen, and a spoon standing inside.

The three of them leaped as one.

“There’s some left!” Jack cried with the kind of pure joy that should have signaled the discovery of something far more important.

Sam and Dekka both grinned. It was a large jar, and it was at least half full.

Jack lifted the spoon. The Nutella dripped languidly.

Jack closed his eyes and stuck the spoon in his mouth. Without a word he handed the spoon to Dekka.

It was like a religious ritual, like communion. The three of them taking spoonfuls, one after the other, each silent, each awed by the wonder of intense flavor, of sweetness after so much fish and cabbage.

“It’s been, like, how long?” Dekka asked. “It’s sweet.”

“Sweet and creamy and chocolaty,” Jack said dreamily.

“Why is it still creamy?” Sam asked.

Jack had the spoon. He froze. “Why is it still creamy?” he echoed.

“This jar had to have been opened months ago, back before FAYZ fall,” Sam said. “It would be all dried out. All crusty and stiff.”

“I’d still eat it,” Dekka said defiantly.

“This wasn’t opened months ago. This hasn’t been open for even a few days,” Sam said. He put the jar down. “There’s someone here.”

Jack had started reading some of the papers strewn carelessly about. “This was a research station.”

Dekka was tense, looking around for intruders, enemies. “Research on what? Weapons? Aliens?”

“‘Project Cassandra,’” Jack read. “That’s the header on most of the memos and stuff. I wish I could get into these computers.”

“Someone is here,” Sam said, sticking to the most important fact. “Someone who can unscrew a jar of Nutella and eat it with a spoon. Which makes it not a coyote. There’s a person here.”

“Someone from Perdido Beach?” Dekka wondered. “Maybe someone left town and found this place and never came back. It’s not like we would notice everyone who ever left.”

“Or someone from Coates.” Sam made a motion with his hand, indicating silently that he would go down the hallway to the left and Jack and Dekka should be ready to back him up.

It wasn’t a long hallway. Just four doors on each side. Milky light came through a reinforced glass window in the door at the far end of the hallway.

Sam opened doors, one at a time. The first two opened onto empty private offices. The next opened to a dingy room with a metal table and chairs, facing each other. A screen was on one wall. A clipboard was on the floor.

Sam picked it up. “‘Project Cassandra,’” he read aloud. “‘Subject 1-01. Test number GV-788.’”

He placed the clipboard on the table and went to the next room.

He opened this room and instantly knew someone was inside. Even before he saw anyone.

This room had a window of regular glass and sunshine poured in. There was a bed, a desk, a large blank TV mounted on one wall. Game players lay dusty beneath the screen.

Books were piled high on a side table.

And one book was in the hands of a boy who sat in a reclining chair with his feet up on the desk. He was maybe twelve. His black hair hung down his back almost to his waist. He would probably be tall when he stood up. Thin. Dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a black-and-white Hollywood Undead T-shirt.

“Hi,” Sam said. He frowned.

The boy barely reacted.

“Don’t I know you?” Sam pressed.

The boy looked at him with eyes narrowed to slits. He smiled a little. He seemed to want to go back to his book.

“Dude,” Sam said. “Aren’t you Toto?”

The boy’s eyebrows went up. His lip quivered. He said, “Is he real?”

He was speaking to a life-sized Styrofoam head of Spider-Man, complete with blue and red cowl, that rested on a shelf.

“I’m real,” Sam said. Then he yelled, “Dekka! Jack!”

“Why is he yelling?” Toto asked Spidey. “He could be a Decepticon.”

“I’m not a Decepticon,” Sam said, feeling a bit ridiculous.

“It’s the truth,” Toto told Spidey. “He’s not a Decepticon. But maybe he works for the Dementors, for Sauron, for the demon.”