I glance at her worried, grief-strained face and quickly look away. I have an urge to hug her, but I need to show her that I'm not letting my emotions take over. I swallow a golf ball-size lump in my throat and take Wisty's hand. "Let's get out of here."

There are no people on the outskirts of this eerie town. Just broken windows in warehouses. Streets strewn with rubble. The only new construction appears to be enormous video billboards and loudspeaker towers.

As we make our way to the town center, I imagine what it might have once been like here. Quaint. I see a redbrick high school, jungle gyms, a park with a gazebo, an overturned tricycle. A pang of sadness grips me. It reminds me of our old town-church steeples, neighborhood grocery stores, and actual trees.

Now I'm even more homesick. For Mom, Dad, home-even school. A little.

"I wonder where everybody is," Wisty whispers.

"I don't," I answer, maybe a little too quickly. "I mean… I don't really want to know."

And then I hear this: "You don't?… don't?… don't?… don't?… Why, Whit?"

I whirl my head around. Wisty stares at me.

There was definitely a voice. And it wasn't Wisty's. Or mine.

It was Celia's voice.

Maybe this is a ghost town. Literally.

Chapter 10

Whit

I'm off like a missile to find her. It's as if I don't even have a choice. As if this is my fate.

"Celia!" I run through barren streets, past empty shops, a police station with no police, a boarded-up middle school, a movie theater… I don't see her, or anyone else actually. Everything seems so unreal here. Is it real? Am I dreaming up all of this desolation?

"Celia!"

"Whit, wait!" I hear Wisty's voice coming from behind. The slapping of her sneakers against pavement. She's trying to keep up.