DEDICATION
TO NINA, SAM, AND EMMA
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks to the people who helped me with this project: Rosemary Brosnan, Lello Coppola, Melanie Weil Goldman, Andrew Eliopulos, Alan Kors, David Lubar, Kelly Eckel Mahoney, Ellen Graff Roberts, Liza Voges, Nina Wallace, and Allen Winningham.
EPIGRAPH
You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. People bewailed their own fate or that of their relatives, and there were some who prayed for death in their terror of dying. Many besought the aid of the gods, but still more imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.
—seventeen-year-old Pliny the Younger, eyewitness to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Introduction
Chapter 1: Stuck in the Past
Chapter 2: A Crazy Idea
Chapter 3: One for All and All for One
Chapter 4: The End of the Flashback Four
Chapter 5: It’s All Downhill from Here
Chapter 6: Hold on Tight
Chapter 7: Back to the Present
Chapter 8: Tools of the Trade
Chapter 9: A New Old City
Chapter 10: Shut Your Mouth!
Chapter 11: Let’s Put on a Show
Chapter 12: Some Die Sooner than Others
Chapter 13: The Element of Surprise
Chapter 14: Meanwhile, Back in Boston . . .
Chapter 15: Next Victim
Chapter 16: What Am I Supposed to Do Now?
Chapter 17: Working Girls
Chapter 18: The Main Event
Chapter 19: Run for Your Life
Epilogue
Facts & Fictions
About the Author
Books by Dan Gutman
Back Ads
Copyright
About the Publisher
INTRODUCTION
EVERY STORY SHOULD START WITH A BANG. THIS one starts off with just about the biggest bang ever.
The date: August 24, 79. That’s not 1979. It’s not 1879 either. It’s the year 79. In other words, our story takes place seventy-nine years after they started counting years. It was a long time ago.
The place: the city of Pompeii, on what is now the west coast of Italy.
Picture this: It was nine o’clock on Tuesday, like any other Tuesday morning during the Roman Empire. Merchants were working in their shops, and farmers in their fields. Children were playing. Pompeii was a bustling town with twenty thousand people. Everybody was going about their business, living their lives. It was a hot day, like most summer days in Pompeii.
Few people noticed anything different at first, but the birds had stopped singing. Dogs became agitated, and they started to howl. The cattle were moaning. Animals have some kind of a sixth sense. They know when something terrible is about to happen.
Ordinarily, I don’t like to describe the weather in books. You know how some authors try to set the “mood” and go on for page after page talking about what the sky looks like, or the shape of the clouds?
My attitude is, who cares? Weather is boring. It bogs down the story.
But in this case, I’m going to make an exception. In this story, the sky and the clouds matter.
The waters around the Bay of Naples near Pompeii had suddenly become choppy. There was a chill in the air, and an eerie silence.
Ten miles northwest of Pompeii is a large humpbacked mountain—Mount Vesuvius. It’s a little over four thousand feet high, with green forests on its slopes. Oh, and it’s also a volcano. That’s important.
People had felt a few minor tremors around Vesuvius over the previous four days. But the mountain hadn’t erupted for hundreds of years, so nobody was overly concerned.
Just after nine o’clock in the morning, a thin line of steam rose out the top of Vesuvius. A small amount of ash spit out and sprayed like a fine mist on the eastern slope of the mountain. People in Pompeii and the neighboring towns barely noticed.
But around noon, the ground started to vibrate in Pompeii. Some tiles were shaken off roofs. They shattered as they hit the ground.
And then, suddenly, Vesuvius blew its top! The peak of the mountain exploded like the cork out of a bottle. Molten rock and pumice blasted out of Vesuvius, mixed with ash and gas—a million and a half tons of debris per second. It was like an atomic bomb, but bigger. People who were hundreds of miles away could hear it. There was a giant crater where the top of Mount Vesuvius had been.
In Pompeii, the people stopped what they were doing and stared at Vesuvius in the distance. The smart ones gathered up their belongings and made a run for it. They headed for the Bay of Naples to board boats and get out of there.
The boiling rock shot high in the sky. Within a half hour, a dense mushroom-shaped cloud had risen ten miles above Vesuvius. It would eventually reach a height of twenty miles. And the wind was blowing that cloud toward Pompeii.
Then the debris began to spread out, mix with cold air in the atmosphere, and solidify. The sky turned dark. By three o’clock, the sun was blocked out. It looked like nighttime in the middle of the afternoon. The mushroom cloud collapsed, and all that stuff that had blasted out of the mountain started falling from the sky.
Rocks rained down like hot, black snow. Some were as small as golf balls. Others were as large as watermelons. They hit the ground like missiles, slamming into houses and killing people instantly. Families dashed for shelter or helped the wounded and dying. Bricks, tiles, stones, and junk were flying everywhere. People climbed trees. Animals ran around crazily. The ground was shaking. Buildings were crushed. People were screaming. Hot ash was falling like snow, and in an hour there were five or six inches on the ground, covering Pompeii. It looked like the end of the world.
More people tried to flee the city at this point. Thousands escaped. The rest figured it would all blow over, and life would return to normal. Big mistake.
It wasn’t a constant bombardment of debris that spewed out of Mount Vesuvius. It came in surges. There was another one at five thirty. Sparks flew, and lightning flashed in the sky. Buildings shook, collapsed, and caught on fire.
