“Someone from Perdido Beach?” Dekka wondered. “Maybe someone left town and found this place and never came back. It’s not like we would notice everyone who ever left.”
“Or someone from Coates.” Sam made a motion with his hand, indicating silently that he would go down the hallway to the left and Jack and Dekka should be ready to back him up.
It wasn’t a long hallway. Just four doors on each side. Milky light came through a reinforced glass window in the door at the far end of the hallway.
Sam opened doors, one at a time. The first two opened onto empty private offices. The next opened to a dingy room with a metal table and chairs, facing each other. A screen was on one wall. A clipboard was on the floor.
Sam picked it up. “‘Project Cassandra,’” he read aloud. “‘Subject 1-01. Test number GV-788.’”
He placed the clipboard on the table and went to the next room.
He opened this room and instantly knew someone was inside. Even before he saw anyone.
This room had a window of regular glass and sunshine poured in. There was a bed, a desk, a large blank TV mounted on one wall. Game players lay dusty beneath the screen.
Books were piled high on a side table.
And one book was in the hands of a boy who sat in a reclining chair with his feet up on the desk. He was maybe twelve. His black hair hung down his back almost to his waist. He would probably be tall when he stood up. Thin. Dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a black-and-white Hollywood Undead T-shirt.
“Hi,” Sam said. He frowned.
The boy barely reacted.
“Don’t I know you?” Sam pressed.
The boy looked at him with eyes narrowed to slits. He smiled a little. He seemed to want to go back to his book.
“Dude,” Sam said. “Aren’t you Toto?”
The boy’s eyebrows went up. His lip quivered. He said, “Is he real?”
He was speaking to a life-sized Styrofoam head of Spider-Man, complete with blue and red cowl, that rested on a shelf.
“I’m real,” Sam said. Then he yelled, “Dekka! Jack!”
“Why is he yelling?” Toto asked Spidey. “He could be a Decepticon.”
“I’m not a Decepticon,” Sam said, feeling a bit ridiculous.
“It’s the truth,” Toto told Spidey. “He’s not a Decepticon. But maybe he works for the Dementors, for Sauron, for the demon.”
“What are you talking about, Toto?” Sam asked.
Jack and Dekka came rushing up. “Whoa,” Dekka said.
“He knows what I’m talking about,” Toto told Spider-Man. “He guesses, he’s testing. ‘What are you talking about, Toto?’ he says. Right. He knows. He knows the demon.”
“I don’t work for anyone,” Sam said.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire. Someone sent you.”
“Albert, but—”
“They always try to lie, but it never works, does it?” Toto said.
Sam turned to Dekka. “I think our boy here has been alone for a long time.”
“He means I’m crazy.” Toto addressed Dekka directly, not Spider-Man, though he glanced back at the Spidey head and seemed torn between Dekka and the web slinger. “The truth teller, truth teller Toto.”