Nightmare Academy

268 Pages·2010·1.91 MB·English

by  Peretti Frank

To Barbara Jean, my love, as we continue
our wondrous journey together.
NIGHTMARE ACADEMY
Text copyright © 2002 Frank Peretti.
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission
of the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts in reviews.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Tommy Nelson®, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations used in this book are from the King James Version of the
Bible (KJV).
“Imagine” lyrics by John Lennon, copyright 1971 EMI Blackwood Music/ Lenono Music.
Designed by Brecca Beauchamp Theele.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Peretti, Frank E.
Nightmare Academy / Frank Peretti.
p. cm. — (The Veritas Project ; v. 2)
Summary: Elijah and his sister Elisha go undercover to investigate a mysterious school that is sheltering
runaway teenagers for a sinister purpose.
ISBN 0-8499-7617-0
[1. Schools—Fiction. 2. Runaways—Fiction. 3. Christian life—Fiction. 4. Mystery and detective stories.] I.
Title. II. Series.
PZ7.P4254 Ni 2002
[Fic]—dc21
2002070060
Printed in the United States of America
02 03 04 05 06 PHX 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents
Chapter 1: The Kid in the Padded Room
Chapter 2: On the Darkside
Chapter 3: Truth and Soup
Chapter 4: Waking Up in Nightmare
Chapter 5: "What's Yours Is Mine"
Chapter 6: Rules and Power
Chapter 7: Dorm Raids
Chapter 8: Crusades and Inquisitions
Chapter 9: The Student King
Chapter 10: First Strike
Chapter 11: The Mansion and the Monster
Chapter 12: Both/And, Either/Or
Chapter 13: Something True, Someone Blue
Chapter 14: The Mind Maze
Chapter 15: Veritas
Epilogue
1
THE KTD
IN THE
PADDED ROOM
HIS MIND TOLD HIM, insisted, that he was running, putting one tattered,
bleeding foot in front of the other—even though the ground did not move under
his feet, turned when he did not, or inclined steeply upward though he saw no
slope before him. He closed his eyes, but he could still see. He screamed, but he
heard nothing. The pathway became a precipice and he tumbled headlong,
falling through space.
He was under water. He tried to swim; suddenly his groping arms were pulling
him forward through hot, dry sand. The sky above was red like a sunset, the
earth below an eye-buzzing purple—then green, then gray, then red as the sky
turned green.
Where he was, or why, or when, or who, or how, he could not know, could
never know.
There were no days, no hours, no moments, no way of knowing, no chance for
knowing how long he'd been here.
Been where?
No place, at no particular time.
He was once a fifteen-year-old boy, cocky and wayward. He once had a
brother, a sister, a father and mother. He had a name, a house, a school, and a
life—and he thought he knew something. Maybe he thought he knew it all.
But that boy, and that time, and that life had become . . . nothing. Non-things.
There was no fifteen-year-old boy here. No knowledge, no thought, no reason.
There was nothing here but terror, endlessly repeating cycles of it, layer upon
layer of it—with more, more, more to come, in swirling, kaleidoscoping sounds,
images, and sensations, pulsing, pounding, surging, throbbing like a swollen
thumb.
The only reality.
He stopped, fell against a gnarled old tree. . . .