D. MacHale - SYLO

It took us another hour to make land and find a dock to tie up to. Part of me wanted to continue up the coast until we reached Casco Bay and the city of Portland, but none of us wanted to be on the water, and vulnerable, anymore. Having dry land under our feet would be a good thing.

We motored a short way north until we came upon a rickety old private dock with a float. I brought the boat around and Kent jumped off to tie us up.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Tori.

“I’m good,” she said.

She wasn’t. She was white. I didn’t think she had lost a dangerous amount of blood, but until she saw a doctor and got patched, we had to worry about her.

We had landed in a wooded section of the coast. It wasn’t the middle of nowhere, but there weren’t a whole lot of houses around either.

“We gotta find transportation into Portland,” I said. “Olivia, wait here with Tori. Kent and I will go looking.”

I figured that Kent wouldn’t want to do anything but sit on the dock and vegetate, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. He jumped from the boat, ran off the dock, fell to his knees, and leaned over until both his hands were on the ground. He then started to laugh. He couldn’t control himself. He laughed until tears ran down his cheeks.

I exchanged nervous looks with Olivia and Tori.

Tori shrugged. She didn’t know what his deal was any more than I did.

“Dude,” I called out. “You all right?”

He turned to us and sat on the ground.

“I never thought I’d set foot on land again,” he said through gasping breaths. “We could have died like a couple of dozen times back there but—here we are. How awesome is that?”

I couldn’t help but smile. I looked at Olivia and Tori, who were suddenly beaming. I took a deliberate step off the dock onto the dirt and gravel to plant my foot firmly on the mainland. It felt good.

I laughed too. That’s how relieved I was. It wasn’t until I felt solid ground under my feet that I truly believed we had made it. We had escaped. It was a great moment. One I hadn’t expected. There was no way to know what the future would bring, but it was good to be able to stop and take a few seconds to appreciate what we had done.

“All right,” I finally said, trying to control the giddiness. “We’re awesome. Yay us. Let’s keep going and end this for good.”

I walked to Kent and held out my hand. He took it and I helped him to his feet.

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s end this for good.”

Kent and I climbed up a steep hill from the dock to find that we were at the end of a desolate but paved road.

“We’ll walk until we find a house,” I said.

A few hundred yards in from the coast, we came upon a big old rambling white house that had probably stood there for a hundred years. It was the kind of place that usually belonged to wealthy boating people. They probably owned all the land right up to the shore and the dock where we were tied up.

I hurried up the driveway and rang the doorbell. Nobody answered so I knocked. Hard. If somebody was inside, they would have heard.

“They’re probably at work,” Kent said. “Or maybe they’re weekend people.”

“Or maybe they’re hiding in the basement because, oh, I don’t know, there was just a huge battle raging off shore.”

“Or that,” Kent said soberly.

I left the porch and rounded the house to the detached garage.

“We’re trespassing,” Kent said nervously.

“Do you really care?” I asked.

“I care about getting shot by somebody who doesn’t appreciate people snooping around their house.”

“I am way beyond worrying about that,” I said and continued on to the garage. Looking in through the window, I saw two cars parked inside, an old Saab and a Subaru Outback.

“Maybe they really are hiding in the basement,” Kent observed.

“Then they’ll come out when they hear their car starting,” I said and lifted the garage door.

“What are you thinking, Rook? You want to steal a car?”

I threw the garage door up the rest of the way then looked straight at Kent. “I’m thinking about borrowing one of these cars, and I hope there are people inside who are watching and that they call the police and the police will show up and arrest us so we’ll get a ride into town and Tori to a hospital, which would save us the trouble of getting there on our own. And when they give us our one phone call from jail, I’ll call the New York Times and tell them what’s been happening on Pemberwick Island. What are you thinking?”

Kent rolled that over in his head, then said, “Yeah, that’s pretty much where I was going.”

I looked into the Outback and, sure enough, the keys were in the ignition. Gotta love the country. Nobody expects a car thief to mosey by.

“You’ve got a license,” I said. “You’re driving.”

“Seriously?” Kent exclaimed. “After that big speech, you’re worried about getting in trouble for driving without a license?”

“No,” I replied patiently. “I’m worried about wrapping us around a tree because I have zero experience driving on the highway. But if you want to take that risk—”

“Enough, enough, I get it,” he said, throwing his hands up.

Kent got behind the wheel and started up the car. As he backed out of the garage, I kept my eyes on the house to see if anybody was watching, but there was no sign of life. It was looking as though we would have to make our way into Portland on our own.

I hopped in and Kent drove us back to the shore. Olivia had already helped Tori up from the dock and they were sitting in the grass waiting for us. I guided Tori into the back seat and slipped in next to her. Olivia sat in the front with Kent.

“Whose car is this?” she asked.

“Friend of Tucker’s,” was Kent’s curt reply.

Nobody questioned further. Kent hit the gas and we were on our way.

Portland, Maine, is more like a big town than a booming metropolis. It was built around fishing, turned to manufacturing, but then eventually became one of those cities that you don’t really know why it exists other than to take care of itself. The population was only around sixty thousand, but that still made it the biggest city in Maine. Mom and Dad and I would take a trip there every once in a while so we could remind ourselves what it was like to be part of the outside world. Mom liked Portland because it was culturally diverse and had a great art scene. Dad liked the architecture of the Old Port and its cobblestone streets. He always pointed out that the streets, technically speaking, were made with paving stones, not cobblestones. Me? I liked the Italian sandwiches at Amado’s. We always found something in Portland to keep us happy.

On this trip the only thing that would make me happy was a hospital for Tori and a reporter who would help us get our story out to the world.

Kent drove us along winding wooded roads following signs for I-95. There was probably a faster way into the city using local streets, but none of us had much driving experience or knowledge of the area so we figured the most obvious route was the best, even if it took a little longer.

Tori put her head down on my lap and closed her eyes. I didn’t mind. I watched her, wondering which of us had it worse. Years before, her mother had abandoned their family and that morning her father had been killed by SYLO. Was that worse than finding out your parents were liars, playing a part in a conspiracy that was responsible for the deaths of dozens of people—including your best friend? In my mind it was a toss-up.

Though we did have one thing in common: neither of us had parents to take care of us anymore. We would have to look out for each other. I brushed Tori’s hair back from her forehead. She didn’t open her eyes, but she smiled. I wished we could get to the hospital faster.