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Virtual Reality

Chapter Fifteen

Pain brought Becky Marple fully awake to her surroundings. In her futile attempt to dig her way into Bobby's grave with her bare hands, she looked down to see that she had broken a nail on a tile of the floor of Armstrong High.

Rick Kaiser squatted before her with a look of concern on his ruggedly handsome face. "Are you okay?" he said.

It was an incredibly silly question. Bobby had managed to elude her. She was still living flesh and blood and alive. How could anything be okay?

On hands and knees, she sat back and looked around the classroom for Mort and Marla. They were missing, which meant she was alone with Rick Kaiser. Rick looked scared. His hair had been mussed. Mort hollered from somewhere in the distance, acting his usual, crazy self. It meant they had experienced something as traumatic as her own dream, which spelled danger.

She rose unsteadily to her feet. "Where's Mr. Mangrove?"

Rick shook his head. "Gone. I don't know. Things are crazy around here. We're locked inside the school. The computer won't talk. Mort's gone off the deep end." Rick shrugged nervously. "I think we should find a place to hide until daylight."

A place to hide? Cramped in some dark space with a strange boy? She feared that if she dare trust him, even for a moment, he'd turn in to Mr. Peters, or the boy at the campground, and the horror would begin all over again.

"Becky?"

She slid along the wall, trying to put a safe distance between them. If only he'd stay put and quit inching forward so threateningly.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said.

But it was impossible to think straight, and she had never been much good at talking. It would be best to go find her own dark corner and hide until daylight. For once in her life, and in her dreams, she could do without Mr. Peters and his spawn tormenting her.

"Becky!"

Becky ran out the door and down the long corridors as fast as her feet would carry her.

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