Gone

below. To the left the barrier blocked the view. It traveled far out over the ocean, as far as they could see. It was like a wall extending out from the hotel itself, an endless wall.
    The suite had a room with a king-size bed and a room with two queens, all very plush. There was a minibar fridge containing liquor, beer, soda, nuts, a Snickers, a Toblerone bar, and a few other snacks.
    “Boys’ room,” Quinn said, then flopped onto one of the two queens, facedown. Within seconds he was asleep.
    Sam and Astrid stood together for a while on the balcony, splitting the Toblerone. Neither of them said anything for a long time.
    “What do you think this is?” Sam asked finally. He didn’t need to explain what he meant by “this.”
    “Sometimes I think it’s a dream,” Astrid said. “It’s so strange that no one has shown up. I mean, the place should be crawling with soldiers and scientists and reporters. Suddenly a wall just appears out of nowhere, most of the people in town disappear, and yet there aren’t any network satellite trucks?”
    Sam had already reached a grim conclusion about that. He wondered if Astrid had, too.
    She had. “I don’t think it’s just a straight wall cutting us off from the south, you know? I think it may be a circle. It may go all the way around us. We may be cut off in every direction. In fact, since no one has come to rescue us, I think that’s pretty likely. Don’t you?”
    “Yeah. We’re in a trap. But, why? And why disappear everyone over the age of fourteen?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Sam let the silence linger, not wanting to ask the next question on his mind, not sure he wanted the answer. Finally, “What happens when kids turn fifteen?”
    Astrid turned her blue eyes on him, and he met her gaze. “When is your birthday, Sam?”
    “November twenty-second,” he said. “Just five days before Thanksgiving. Twelve days from now. No, just eleven days now, since it’s after midnight. You?”
    “Not till March.”
    “I like March better. Or July, or August. First time I ever wished I was younger.”
    So that she wouldn’t keep looking at him the way she waslooking at him and feeling sorry for him, he said, “You think they’re all still alive somewhere?”
    “Yes.”
    “You think that because you really think so, or because you just want them to be alive?”
    “Yes,” she said, and smiled. “Sam?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I was on the school bus that day. Remember?”
    “Vaguely,” he said, and laughed. “My fifteen minutes of fame.”
    “You were the bravest, coolest person I’d ever known. Everyone thought so. You were the hero of the whole school. And then, I don’t know. It was like you kind of just…faded.”
    He resented that a little. He hadn’t faded. Had he? “Well, most days the bus driver doesn’t have a heart attack,” Sam said.
    Astrid laughed. “You’re one of those people, I think. You go along in your life just sort of living. And then something goes wrong and there you are. You step up and do what you have to do. Like today, the fire.”
    “Yeah, well, to tell you the truth, I kind of prefer the other part. The part where I just live my life.”
    Astrid nodded like she understood, but then she said, “That’s not going to happen this time.”
    Sam hung his head and looked down at the lawn below. A lizard scampered across a stone walkway. Quick, slow, quick, then it disappeared. “Look, don’t expect too much from me, okay?”
    “Okay, Sam.” She said it, but not like she meant it. “Tomorrow we’re going to figure this all out.”
    “And find your brother.”
    “And find my brother.”
    She turned away. Sam stayed on the balcony. He couldn’t hear the surf. There was very little breeze. But he could smell flowers from the grounds below. And the salt smell of the Pacific hadn’t changed.
    He had told Astrid he was scared, and he was. But there were other feelings, too. The emptiness of the too-quiet night seeped into him. He was alone. Even with Astrid and Quinn, he was alone. He knew what they did not.
    The change was so big that he couldn’t get his mind to take it all in.
    It was all connected, he was sure of that. What he had done to his stepfather, what he had done in his room, what had happened with the little pigtailed flamethrower, the disappearance of everyone over the age of fourteen, and this impermeable, impossible barrier—all were pieces of the same puzzle.
    And his mother’s diary, that too.
    He was