D. MacHale: SYLO

The surfer dude with the notebook was gone.

It was the night of the death.

The first death.

And it was only the beginning.

Ineeded a midnight ride.

Gotta get out.

I sent the text to my best friend, Quinn Carr. He would know what it meant. It was a custom that Quinn and I had started shortly after we first met in middle school. Whenever one of us couldn’t sleep, we’d sneak out of our houses and meet up with our bikes near the town pier at the end of Main Street. From there we’d saddle up, turn on our headlights, and race each other along the frontage road that circled Pemberwick Island, our home. We usually went after midnight, which meant there was little or no traffic to deal with, especially since we always took a remote route that traveled along the beach and away from civilization. It was ten miles of frantic insanity since most of the time it was too dark to see beyond the throw of our headlights and neither of us would bow to safety and slow down. A major crash might change that thinking, but neither of us had ever been thrown. So far.

Quinn came up with the idea. He said the rides would release endorphins into our systems that would shoot electrical impulses to the brain that helped reduce stress and create a feeling of well-being. Quinn was always coming up with things like that. I think he spent too much time watching Discovery Channel and reading Wikipedia. All I knew was that the rides were a perfect outlet for blowing off steam and working out problems…and that night I was definitely having a problem.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Marty. How could somebody that young and in such great shape just…die? I lay in bed, only hours after the game, trying to keep my mind from replaying his final moments over and over, but it was no use. Sleep would not come.

I threw on my sweats, grabbed my helmet, and left my bedroom the only way possible at that hour of the night—through my window. My parents wouldn’t have been too happy if they knew I was flying around the island in the middle of the night, so I quietly made my way across the roof over the porch and shinnied down a column to the ground. I kept my bike in the garage (which was separate from our house) so there was little chance of my parents hearing. I’d done it enough times that I had it down to a quiet science. Less than five minutes after I had sent the text to Quinn I was in the saddle and pedaling toward town.

It was long past midnight and Arbortown had shut down for the night. The restaurants closed by ten and the shops long before that. It was a tourist beach town, not an after-hours hangout. I rode straight to the town pier, where the ferryboat that made the five-mile run between Pemberwick Island and Portland, Maine, was tied up. It was a huge old thing that carried not only people, but trucks and cars as well. During the busy summer months, it was incredible to see the number of people and vehicles that would flood off that vessel. It was like watching one of those circus clown cars. I have no idea how it could handle so much weight and not sink. I’m sure Quinn knew. He’d have read it on Wikipedia.

At that hour the ferry and the pier were quiet. The ferry boat wouldn’t be fired up again until five in the morning, when it would start making round trips to the mainland. I coasted to a stop at the head of the pier and pulled out my phone to see if Quinn had texted back, when…

“What took you so long?” came a familiar voice.

I spun around to see Quinn lying on a bench.

“No way!” I exclaimed. “I only texted you like ten minutes ago.”

Quinn sat up, stretched, and rubbed his face.

“I’ve been here since midnight,” he replied with a yawn.

“But…” I thought a moment, then said, “You knew I’d want to ride.”

“It’s amazing how insightful I can be.”

“Did you hear what happened?”

“Seriously?” Quinn exclaimed sarcastically. “We live on an island, Tucker. News like that travels at the speed of heat. Besides, I was there.”

“At the game? You hate football.”

“True, but I wasn’t going to miss you playing in your first varsity game. Not that there was much playing involved. But you did have some all-pro bench-sitting action going on.”

“Give me a break. Most of those guys are three years older than me.”

Quinn laughed. “I know. I think it’s cool that you’re even on the team. Crazy, but cool.”

Quinn and I couldn’t have been more different from each other and maybe that was why we got along so well. He was tall and thin like a lanky scarecrow with a wild mop of curly blond hair that rarely saw a brush. He wore heavy-framed glasses that sat on his big nose, making him look like he was wearing one of those Halloween glasses-and-nose combos, but it worked for him. It didn’t hurt that he was incredibly smart—and enjoyed the fact that he stood out in a crowd. I, on the other hand, was more of the “blending in” type. I stood a good head shorter than Quinn and kept my brown hair cut short. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly brainy, though I weighed in with a solid B-minus average in school. Not bad, in my book. Unfortunately my parents had a different book. I was tired of hearing: “Tucker Pierce, you are not living up to your potential.” How did they know what my potential was? How could anybody know? It was a constant argument that often led to a midnight ride.

Quinn jammed his helmet down over his bushy hair and pulled down goggles over his glasses. He looked like a dork and couldn’t have cared less.

“What do you think happened to Marty?” I asked.

Quinn shrugged. “We’ll know more tomorrow.”

“Why’s that?”

“My parents are doing the autopsy as we speak.”

The quiet night suddenly got quieter. I’d forgotten that Quinn’s mom and dad were doctors at Arbortown Medical.

“Oh, right,” I said softly. “Thanks for that image.”

“Hey, you asked. Let’s ride.”

I did my best to shake the gruesome reality as we mounted up, flicked on our headlights, and pedaled out of town. Quinn and I rarely spoke during these ten-mile rides because the whole point was to push ourselves physically and mentally. It took serious concentration to keep from hitting a pothole or a patch of sand that would lead to a painful case of road rash, especially at the speed we were going, at night, with only a small light focused on the pavement ahead. The winding road was full of dips and turns, which meant we had to stay focused or end up with broken bones.

The route took us along the perimeter of Pemberwick Island. We traveled counterclockwise, which meant the ocean was to our right. The four-lane road never got much closer than a hundred yards from the beach. At times there would be thick forest between us and the water; other times we’d pass sandy bluffs covered in sea grass that gave us a clear view of the water. We occasionally passed a darkened house, but most of the route was through undeveloped terrain that hadn’t changed in, well, ever.

There was no moon out, which normally meant a dark trip, but it was one of those nights that was so incredibly clear you could see most every star in the sky. Downtown Portland was well over five miles away across the water so there were no lights to prevent the sky from lighting up with millions of tiny sparkles. It was so bright that I considered turning off my headlight but figured I still needed to see obstacles in the road so I directed the beam to hit just ahead of my front tire.

It didn’t take long before I was breathing hard and sweating, which was exactly what I needed. I could feel the tension drift away. I don’t know if it was about releasing endorphins or about forcing myself to focus on something as simple as working out, but the ride was doing the job. Quinn was a genius, not only because he knew this would help but because he knew that I needed it.