Tracey Ward - Backs Against the Wall

He leads us out a door that takes us up a flight of stairs to a blackened hallway. No lights at all in here. Ryan and Trent must know the layout, though, because when Ryan takes my hand, he leads me quickly through the dark without banging us into anything. I’m starting to wonder how much time these two have spent in this place.

Finally we burst out a side door into the cold night. The sky is dark, cloudy. The wind coming off the water is frigid and I worry about Ryan in just the shorts they put him in as he runs us down the worn, gray boards of the pier to the end of the building.

“Let’s see if Marlow is true to his word,” he says as we reach the end.

When we look down, we all stare silently.

There in the water tied to the pier is a small sailboat. Mast, sails and all.

“Captain Hook boned us!” I exclaim.

“What?” Ryan asks.

“It’s the Jolly friggin’ Roger.”

“It’s a daysailer,” Trent says sadly, looking it over.

“How do you know that?”

“I read.”

“What? Back issues of Yacht Club Weekly while you’re on the toilet?”

He grins at me. “I like sailing adventures. Pirates. Buccaneers. I got your Jolly Roger joke. Peter Pan. It was funny.”

I sigh. “I’m still mad at you.”

“For what?”

“For knowing everything,” Ryan says, glaring down at our boat.

It’s just over ten feet long and can’t be more than five feet wide. The three of us in this boat is going to be interesting. The fact that I doubt any of us know how to sail a sailboat is going to be a tragedy.

“Can you sail one, Trent?” Ryan asks hopefully.

He chuckles. “No.”

“Yeah, me either.”

“Well, whatever,” I say, throwing my hands in the air. “Marlow’s a dick, but it is a boat so let’s at least see if we can figure it out. How hard can it be? You hoist the sails, they catch the wind, and we cruise across the water. There’s a rudder, I think. We steer with that? We’ll figure it out once we’re out on open water.”

“Sounds solid and not at all suicidal. Let’s do it.”

Once we untie the boat, or cast off or whatever it is, Trent gets to work figuring out the riggings and sails while I apply the white paste to Ryan’s shoulder. He’s changed back into his own pants and shoes, tossing the shorts into the water as we drift.

“How worried should I be?” I ask as I smear a huge glob on the worst of his wounds. This stuff smells like it stings.

“Not very,” he replies tightly. “I saw the Risen when they took the hood off. Its fingers were nothing but dry bone. That’s why it was able to dig into my skin so deep.”

“Did they do that to it on purpose?”

“I don’t think so. They keep them locked up in cages or cells in the building until they need them for a fight. That’s days or weeks of the Risen wandering around an empty room looking for a way out. They claw at the walls and if those walls are brick or cement, the skin will give out first.”

“I got it,” Trent says triumphantly.

He yanks a cord and I watch in amazement as a brilliant white sail raises sharply. It whips in the wind, fluttering bright against the dark sky until Trent pulls another cord, tying it off quickly while he grabs the rudder. There’s a snap above us as the sheet takes hold of the wind and then we’re off, jerking back toward the docks and the aquarium.

Trent curses, adjusts the rudder and another line. Soon we’re changing course, heading out into the Sound and dipping south. We’ll have to pass by the docks just outside the stadiums, but I’m sure Trent will swing us wide. Though our bright white sail makes us a little hard to miss, even in the dark.

I pat Ryan on the back twice, letting him know I’m done and he puts his shirt back on.

“Trent, you looked at the map. What is this island really? What was it before?” I ask. Now that all of the other threats (Marlow, his men, the Risen in the Arena) are fading small behind us, I’m focusing on the biggest, newest one. The unknown.

“It used to be called Vashon Island, thus the group’s name. People lived there. It was mostly residential with small farming. There are no bridges to it which is probably why the Vashons chose it. It was always isolated with good farm land. Easily self-sufficient in the right hands.”

“Crenshaw’s kind of people would be the right hands, I guess.”

“Why did you ask me what it really is? What did Crenshaw say it was? Narnia?”

I grin, happy I get the reference. “Elysium.”

Trent nods, the wind whipping his hair across his eyes. He squints against it and leans casually on the rudder. He looks every bit the sailor then. I think I should tell him that, that it might make him happy to know he’s living his dream, but then I sees several flashes of light behind him and my heart begins to race.

“Hey, guys,” I whisper. “I think I saw something.”

Ryan turns to see what I’m looking at. Trent keeps his eyes forward.

“What was it?” Ryan asks, his voice also hushed.

“There was light on the bank. Right there.”

I point to the shore a little bit south of the stadiums.

“What kind of light? Like a fire?”

“More like a signal.” I look at Trent, catching his eye. “Organized. Like they knew what they were doing.”

Not like they were desperate, grasping at straws in a last ditch attempt not to die on a roof surrounded by Risen.

“It’s probably the Colonies,” he tells me calmly. “They run constant patrols around the perimeter of the stadiums. Someone may have been signaling the all clear.”

“Or they could have been telling someone there’s a boat cruising through the Sound.”

He shrugs. “And?”

“And they could come after us,” I snap, my voice rising.

“Gasoline is gone. They’ll have to row or sail like we are. They won’t catch up to us. You worry too much.”

“Is that a joke?”

He smiles, but I don’t know if that means yes, that’s a joke or that he’s happy he pushed my buttons. Either way, he’s annoying me.

“We’ll be alright, Joss,” Ryan tells me. “If they come after us, we’ll go ashore and hide.”

“We’ll lose Marlow’s boat.”

Ryan snorts. “I’m planning on burning it when we’re done with it anyway.”

“Why do you hate Pretty in Pink ?” Ryan asks me out of nowhere, his quiet voice breaking the silence we’ve been sailing in.

I grin, my eyes staying lazily fixed on the rippling surface of the water in the moonlight. It’s hypnotic, like fire.

“Because the girl is an idiot.”

“We’re all idiots when it comes to love,” Trent says philosophically.

I glance back at him, surprised. He smiles at me with is creepy, real boy smile on his Pinocchio face.

“Why was she an idiot?” Ryan asks, ignoring Trent.

“Because she chose the wrong guy to love. It makes me angry.”

“We don’t choose who we love, love chooses us,” Trent tells me.

I turn fully around to face him. “What is with you?”

“Nothing. Are we not discussing this?”

“Discussing what?”

“Love.”

“No,” I reply quickly, not sure why I feel embarrassed by the word.

“We’re talking about the movie,” Ryan tells Trent pointedly.

“That’s what I was talking about,” Trent insists.

“No,” I tell him, shaking my head. “You were talking about real life and I’m beginning to wonder just what kind of nautical adventures you’re reading? Are they the type with half naked women falling over the arm of a shirtless pirate kind of ‘adventure’?”

“You mean lady porn?”