PBNP was Perdido Beach Nuclear Power. The power plant was just ten miles from the school. No one in the town thought about it much anymore, but a long time ago, in the nineties, there had been an accident. A freak accident, they called it. A once-in-a-million-years coincidence. Nothing to worry about.
People said that’s why Perdido Beach was still a small town, why it hadn’t ever gotten really big like Santa Barbara down the coast. The nickname for Perdido Beach was Fallout Alley. Not very many people wanted to move to a place called Fallout Alley, even though all the radioactive fallout had been cleaned up.
The three of them, with Quinn a few steps ahead, walking fast on his long legs, headed down Sheridan Avenue and turned right on Alameda.
At the corner of Sheridan Avenue and Alameda Avenue was a car with the engine running. The car had smashed into a parked SUV, a Toyota. The Toyota’s alarm came and went, screeching one minute, then falling silent.
The air bags in the Toyota had deployed: limp, deflated white balloons drooped from the steering wheel and the dashboard.
No one was in the SUV. Steam came from beneath the crumpled hood.
Sam noticed something, but he didn’t want to say it out loud.
Astrid said it: “The doors are still locked. See the knobs? If anyone had been inside and gotten out, the doors would be unlocked.”
“Someone was driving and blinked out,” Quinn said. He wasn’t saying it like it was supposed to be funny. Funny was over.
Quinn’s house was just about two blocks down Alameda. Quinn was trying to maintain, trying to stay nonchalant. Trying to keep acting like cool Quinn. But all of a sudden, Quinn started running.
Sam and Astrid ran too, but Quinn was faster. His hat fell off his head. Sam bent and scooped it up.
By the time they caught up, Quinn had thrown open his front door and was inside. Sam and Astrid went as far as the kitchen and stopped.
“Mom. Dad. Mom. Hey!”
Quinn was upstairs, yelling. His voice got louder each time he yelled. Louder and faster, and the sob was clearer, harder for Sam and Astrid to pretend not to hear.
Quinn came pelting down the stairs, still yelling for his family, getting only silence in return.
He still had his shades on, so Sam couldn’t see his friend’s eyes. But tears were running down Quinn’s cheeks, and tears were in his ragged voice, and Sam could practically feel the lump in Quinn’s throat because the same lump was in his own throat. He didn’t know what to do to help.
Sam set Quinn’s fedora down on the counter.
Quinn stopped in the kitchen. He was breathing hard. “She’s not here, man. She’s not here. The phones are dead. Did she leave a note or anything? Do you see a note? Look for a note.”
Astrid flicked a light switch. “The power is still on.”
“What if they’re dead?” Quinn asked. “This can’t be happening. This is just some kind of nightmare or something. This…this isn’t even possible.” Quinn picked up the phone, punched the talk button, and listened. He punched the button again and put the phone to his ear again, then dialed, stabbing at buttons with his index finger and babbling the whole time.
Finally, he put the phone down and stared at it. Stared at the phone like he expected it to start ringing any second.
Sam was desperate to get to his own house. Desperate and afraid, wanting to know and dreading knowing. But he couldn’t rush Quinn. If he made his friend leave the house now, it would be like telling Quinn to give up, that his parents were gone.
“I had a fight with my dad last night,” Quinn said.
“Don’t start thinking that way,” Astrid said. “One thing we know: you didn’t cause this. None of us caused this.”
She put her hand on Quinn’s shoulder, and it was as if that was the signal for him to finally fall apart. He sobbed openly, pulled his shades off, and dropped them on the tile floor.
“It’s going to be okay,” Astrid said. She sounded like she was trying to convince Quinn, but also herself.
“Yeah,” Sam said, not believing it. “Of course it is. This is just some…” He couldn’t think of how to finish the sentence.
“Maybe it was God,” Quinn said, looking up, suddenly hopeful. His eyes were red and he stared with sudden, manic energy. “It was God.”
“Maybe,” Sam said.
“What else could it be, right? S-so—so—so—” Quinn caught himself, choked down the panicked stutter. “So it’ll be okay.” The thought of some explanation, any explanation, no matter how weak, seemed to help. “Duh, of course it will be okay. It’ll totally be okay.”
“Astrid’s house next,” Sam said. “She’s closest.”
“You know where I live?” Astrid asked.
This would not be a good time to admit that he had followed her home once, intending to try to talk to her, maybe ask her to go to a movie, but had lost his nerve. Sam shrugged. “I probably saw you sometime.”
It was a ten-minute walk to Astrid’s home, a two-story, kind-of-new house with a pool in the back. Astrid wasn’t rich, but her house was much nicer than Sam’s. It reminded Sam of the house he used to live in before his stepfather left. His stepfather hadn’t been rich, either, but he’d had a good job.
Sam felt weird being in Astrid’s home. Everything in it seemed nice and a little fancy. But everything was put away. There was nothing out that could be broken. The tables had little plastic cushions on the corners. The electrical sockets had childproof covers. In the kitchen the knives were in a glass-front cupboard with a childproof lock on the handle. There were kid-proof knobs on the stove.