The Shelburne FAYZ (a Gone spoof)

The Shelburne FAYZ

Asa woke to the sound of his little brother, Damian, throwing a hissy fit in the kitchen… again. He slipped into an old pair of jeans and pulled on a plain black tee. His footsteps were muffled by the soft, green carpet that ran down the dark oak staircase. He swung his backpack over his shoulder, carefully avoiding Damian. The bus was already pulling away from the curb, so Asa wheeled his bike out of the garage and peddled towards school.

* * *

The lock on the front door clicked as Quinn rotated the heavy brass key. Quinn lived in Shelburne, Vermont. Not many people knew that Shelburne even existed, but Quinn had lived there for as long as he could remember. He turned to see Asa on his bike. He retrieved his bike from behind the rosebush and caught up with him.
“Dude! What’s the rush?” He panted, trying to keep up.
“The bus is long gone and mom’s gonna kill me, dude!” Asa was panting himself as he skidded around the corner and flew up the sidewalk by the library.
Quinn shrugged and followed Asa across the train tracks to the school. They locked their bikes together and raced down the hallway, breathlessly reciting the pledge of allegiance that sounded over the intercom. Quinn had always been a faster runner than Asa. He barreled ahead and opened both of their lockers. They threw their helmets and bags in before scooting around the corner into their prime group just as the teacher got to them in the attendance list.
“Asa Jacksonburgh?” she she looked around and smiled when she saw Asa collapsed in a chair.
“Here,” Asa panted.
“Quinn Jocklepash?” all she had to do was shift her gaze to the right a bit.
“Here,” Quinn said calmly. Unlike Asa, the ride had not completely exhausted him.
“Alright! Go to your first class!” Mrs. Bennett called.
Slowly, Asa got up aProxy-ConneProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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followed Quinn down the hall to the music room. Entering the music room, the first thing that they noticed was that Mr. French was nowhere in sight. That was definitely not normal. They turned to go to the office, but found that the door had locked behind them.
“Just push the button,” Asa instructed. Quinn made the “duh” motion with his hand. He walked to the south wall and pushed the little red button. A ding-dong sound rang through the room, sort of like something you hear on an airplane before the flight attendant makes an announcement. They waited, and waited, and waited. Normally it dinged then the office would say, “Is everything okay?”. Not this time. Nothing.
“Crap,” Asa looked around, “We could try to slide through the window?”
Quinn and Asa were both fairly tall and skinny so it looked like they would make it.
“Alright,” Quinn agreed, “Let’s give it a try.”

* * *

“Where are all the teachers?” Quinn asked Asa. Of course it was pointless because Asa was just as puzzled as he was.
“No idea,” Asa replied, looking around. They had slid out of the music room window and slid through a window that was in the hallway of their team.
“And where are all the kids?” Quinn was surprised he had not noticed it before. All of the kids were gone also. Suddenly, Quinn remembered a book series that he had just finished; Gone, Hunger and Lies. He thought of the FAYZ.
“Dude. What if this is like the FAYZ? You know? From the books Gone, Hunger and Lies?” Quinn wasn’t sure why he was whispering. It just felt right.
“The FAYZ?” Asa laughed, “Like that would ever happen. That’s a totally made-up fantasy thing, dude. The author was just making stuff up.” Quinn knew Asa was trying to convince him, but he didn’t sound convinced himself.
“SLAM! SMASH! BANG! BOOM!” the crash rang out through the deserted hallway. Quinn and Asa took off around the corner to find a bunch of kids had tipped over and broken what they called the “School Store”. It wasn’t much of a store though.
“Yo! Man! You guys seen any adults hanging around?” Asa called out to the three boys.
“Nope,” one of the boys named Zeke answered, “It’s awesome!”
“You know what it makes me think of?” Quinn asked another one of the boys named Wyatt.
“The FAYZ from the books Gone, Hunger and Lies?” Wyatt guessed, turning to Quinn. Wyatt was a known geek. He read millions of books a week, so Quinn wasn’t surprised.
“I bet the teachers are just joshin us, dude. I mean, common! The FAYZ? Really!” the third boy named Zephyr supplied. He glanced at his friends for support.
“I guess the only way to find out is to check in other places,” Wyatt shrugged, “If the teachers are playing a trick on us, they’ll probably stop us from leaving the school.”
“Good idea, Wyatt,” Quinn nodded, “Let’s go!” He ran out the door with the small group of kids right on his tail. They were going to figure out if this was the FAYZ, or not.

NOTE!!!!!!!!!!
This story is based off of the books Gone, Hunger and Lies by Micheal Grant. If any part of this story is offending to Micheal Grant, it was not intended and I apologize.
~~Laura A. Connolly