“One just jumped out at me,” Keira said. “The first dart hit him in the chest but didn’t do anything. Got him with another in the leg. That knocked him out. Hold on.”
“What are you doing?” Mr. Trouble asked.
“I said hold on!”
“Fiona, what about the one you saw? Where is he now?”
“He was headed down the line of trees on the left side of the plane. I…I don’t see him now.”
Mr. Trouble pushed Eric on the back and grabbed Maggie’s arm. “Come on.”
He started running toward the sedan.
“I have them on the monitors now!” Uncle Colin announced. “I count…” He went silent for a second then muttered, “Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Eighteen.”
Mr. Trouble nearly stumbled. “Eighteen?”
“No. No, not eighteen. Nineteen.”
“Four just sprinted out of the woods in front of me,” Fiona said. “They’re headed toward the barn!”
That was where the sedan was. By Eric’s count, there were at least seven surrogates headed their way.
“Well, how about that?” Keira said.
“A little busy for riddles right now,” Mr. Trouble told her.
“What? Oh, sorry,” she said. “The surrogates are wearing padding under their clothes.”
“What kind of padding?”
“This guy’s got chest protectors on both the front and back. You know? The kind catchers in baseball wear? My first dart hit it but didn’t go all the way through.”
Eric, Maggie, and Mr. Trouble stopped as they reached the car.
“Fiona, did you get that?” Mr. Trouble asked.
“Yeah,” Fiona answered. “Concentrate on arms and legs, right?”
“Right.” Mr. Trouble pulled open the rear door of the sedan and motioned for Eric and Maggie to get in.
As they climbed inside, he opened the driver’s door. But before he could enter, two surrogates came around the end of the barn.
“You’re not going anywhere,” one of them said.
Mr. Trouble raised his dart gun and fired off a shot. The surrogate in the lead paused mid-step then fell to the ground. Mr. Trouble fired again, but the other surrogate moved quickly to his left and the dart sailed harmlessly through the air.
Mr. Trouble stepped around the open door to get a better angle, but the surrogate retreated to the end of the building and disappeared around the side.
“Give us the boy,” the surrogate called out from his hiding place.
Mr. Trouble lowered his gun and took several steps toward the end of the barn. “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
“That’s too bad,” the surrogate said. “It would be so much easier for you if you did.”
Mr. Trouble crept over to the barn and snuck along the wall until he reached the corner. He brought up his gun, flashed a quick smile back at Eric and Maggie, then stepped out so he could see around the corner.
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” Mr. Trouble yelled as he ran behind the barn out of sight.
Quiet descended over the car.
After nearly a minute, Eric held his hand to his radio and said, “Mr. Trouble, are you there?”
There was no response.
He glanced at Maggie then said, “Fiona? Keira?” Nothing. “Uncle Colin? Uncle Carl? Anyone?”
But the only thing that answered him was dead air.
He turned to Maggie again. “Do you believe me now that something strange is going on? That it’s not just bad luck I’ve been having?”
“Yes,” she said. “I believe you.”
“Well…well, good,” he said, surprised by her response.
“In fact, I think maybe we should find someplace to hide,” she suggested.
“But Mr. Trouble wanted us to wait here.”
“This is the first place they’ll look for us.”
She had a point.
“We could go back to the plane,” he said.
“No. They’d expect that, too.”
“Then where?”
“In the barn. I’m sure there are plenty of places to hide there.”
He looked out the window at the barn. While it didn’t look as rundown as the house, it didn’t appear to be particularly sturdy, either.
“But the surrogates,” he said.
“See there?” She pointed out the window. “That board is loose. We can sneak through there and they’ll never see us.”
“I…I don’t know. Maybe they’re inside, too.”
“They’ll be coming for us here any second. Now come on.” She opened the door and got out. “Eric, trust me.”
It was the same thing he’d been asking her to do since the Trouble family had arrived. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
27
The inside of the barn was almost pitch-black.
Eric took two awkward steps forward and then remembered the goggles on his head. He pulled them down over his eyes. Suddenly the interior appeared out of the darkness, all tinted night-vision green.
Along each side of the building were broken-down stalls where animals had once lived. The area in the center was empty and had probably been where the old owners had stored equipment. In the rafters, sticking out about a third of the way across the length of the barn, was a loft. There were still some boxes or something up there. They were rectangular in shape but the shadows were too deep to make out exactly what they were, even with the goggles.
“This way,” Maggie whispered.
Eric followed her down the middle of the building.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“I told you,” she said. “Finding a good place to hide. There’s something that looks like it should work over there.” She pointed toward the end of the stalls on the right.
Eric couldn’t make out what she had seen, but if it were someplace the Makers and their surrogates wouldn’t find them, then great.
As they neared it, he could see it was a hole in the floor surrounded on three sides by a waist-high metal railing to keep people from falling in. On the open fourth side was a set of steps leading down.
A barn with a basement.
“Come on,” she said as she started down.
“Maybe we could just hide in one of these stalls up here,” he suggested.
She looked back at him. “I thought you said you weren’t scared.”
“What? I’m not. I was just thinking that…maybe…”
“Then come on.” She turned, walked down the stairs, then passed through an open doorway bottom.
