by Morgan Rice
“What a coward,” Chloe muttered.
“He’s already done a lot,” Kevin insisted, holding up the device Phil had made.
Luna glanced back toward the door. “We’d better get out of here.”
Kevin nodded. The door wouldn’t hold more than another few seconds at most. The three of them ran for the exit, and Kevin looked back as they reached it to see the door give way behind them. He could see dozens of people there now, moving with the synchronized horror that suggested the aliens were controlling them. He stopped looking back at them and hurried for the truck.
Chloe and Luna were already inside, the engine running. Behind Kevin, the controlled people were closing in, so he didn’t even bother running round to the truck’s cab, just leapt up onto its bed. Chloe seemed to get the message, because she gunned the engine, the tires screeching as the truck accelerated. From his spot in the truck’s bed, Kevin could see the crowd of people running after them, arms reaching out as if they might be able to grab him.
One actually got close as they slowed to pass through the gate, and Kevin kicked out, feeling his foot connect painfully with the controlled person’s face. They stumbled back, and in that moment the truck accelerated again, so that in just seconds they were gone.
***
Kevin sat in the bed of the truck, cradling the device Phil had given them. If this worked, it would give them everything they needed to defeat the aliens. It would stop all of this. Just the thought of that was enough to make hope rise a little inside him, and there hadn’t been much of that since the day the doctors had told him he was dying. He put it away in a bag, hoping to keep it safe.
He still didn’t understand as much about his illness as he wanted to. He kind of got the feeling that even the doctors hadn’t entirely understood it, just labeled it in with a bunch of other similar rare conditions so that it fit somewhere. He still didn’t know if he had a genuine condition that happened to have changed his brain in the right ways to understand the alien signals, or if whatever it was in him that understood those signals just happened to look like the leukodystrophy he’d been diagnosed with.
Kevin was still wondering about that when Chloe pulled over to let him get into the cab of the truck. She might have been doing it just to be nice, or it might have been because the thought of being inside the truck with just Luna wasn’t something she wanted to contemplate.
“So, we’re driving to LA now?” Chloe asked.
Kevin looked over to Luna, then nodded. “I guess we are. If we can make it to the tar pits, maybe we can do this.”
“There’s no maybe about this,” Chloe said. “Didn’t you hear the message? The aliens think that you’re humanity’s best hope.”
She sounded as if she believed it absolutely; as if it was a kind of article of faith that Kevin would succeed. That seemed to bother Luna as much as it did Kevin.
“Just because the aliens sent us a message, that doesn’t mean they know anything about the future,” she said. “Kevin’s not invincible. We have to look out for him.”
“This is going to work, though,” Chloe insisted. “I can feel it.”
She pushed the truck forward again, and Kevin was grateful for that, because a part of him felt as though the controlled people might still be following. There had been something about the way that construction worker had looked at him, with that burst of recognition, that said that the aliens hadn’t forgotten about him; they knew who he was, and if they could get to him, then they would.
They started to make their way through the San Francisco streets, weaving around the abandoned cars and the debris left by the sudden departure of so many people. They were making their way down toward the freeway, since that would probably be the quickest route to LA.
As they started to make their way out of the city, the roads began to get more clogged up with cars, turning from occasional islands in the asphalt river to whole dams of them, blocking the road completely where they’d had collisions or where enough people had just abandoned them at once.
“Try going around,” Kevin said as they saw another line of cars ahead, this one featuring enough twisted metal to suggest that at least a dozen cars had crashed together.
“I’ll go left here and see if the next road along is any clearer,” Chloe said, turning the wheel to take them off down one side street, then another.
Eventually, they came out on the far side of the line of vehicles, but there was still a clump further ahead.
“Up onto the sidewalk?” Luna suggested, pointing at the gap between the last of the cars and the building adjacent to the road. To Kevin, that gap looked far too small to fit a whole pickup truck through.
Chloe nodded, though, and turned the truck to aim it at the gap. Kevin felt the bump as they mounted the sidewalk, then heard the scrape of metal against metal as the truck pushed its way through the gap.
“I feel like we’re a toothpaste tube being squeezed,” Luna said.
“Doesn’t that make us the toothpaste?” Kevin pointed out, not wanting to think about what it might be like if they ended up being squeezed too much. He grabbed the bag with the device, wanting to keep it safe.
They succeeded in shoving the car nearest to them back a few inches, leaving just enough room for the truck to get through. It pushed and shoved its way down the street, although by now it might almost have been quicker to run than to sit there, waiting for Chloe to find the next space that it would fit into.
“This is taking forever,” Chloe said, slamming her hands into the steering wheel.
“At least we’re still moving,” Luna said, obviously trying for some of her old optimism.
Almost on cue, the truck’s engine gave a cough, then a splutter, then a warning light came on.
“You had to say something, didn’t you?” Chloe muttered, as the truck rolled to a halt.
“What is it?” Kevin asked. “What happened?”
Chloe shrugged. “I think we’re out of gas. Look.”
Sure enough, the needle on the gas gauge was pointing to zero.
“You didn’t say anything before,” Luna pointed out. “We could have stopped at a gas station.”
“The dial’s been there pretty much since we got in the truck,” Chloe replied. “I figured it was probably broken. Besides, it’s not like I drive all the time, you know.”
Luna got out of the truck without a word. Kevin put a hand on Chloe’s shoulder.
“It was good getting us this far,” he said. Chloe looked as though she could use the encouragement right then.
She looked over, smiling at him. “At least you like me.”
“I think Luna will too. Just give her time.”
Chloe shook her head. “She hates me. It’s obvious. And I don’t care. People always hate the crazy girl.”
“Why do you keep calling yourself that?” Kevin asked.
“Because I am. I mean, that’s not the term they used, but it’s what they meant.”
“Who?” Kevin asked.
“My parents made me go to see all kinds of therapists before I ran away. Put me on all kinds of pills. Even they didn’t believe me when I told them… stuff.”
Kevin had the feeling that one word held more than Chloe wanted to talk about right then.
“I had to go see a therapist,” Kevin said. “She told me that I was imagining getting messages from aliens and everything to do with them.”
Chloe smiled at that, then gestured to the destruction around them. “You must have a really good imagination.”
“Come on,” Kevin said. “We should probably work out what we’re going to do next.”
They got out of the truck, and Luna was waiting for them.
“Okay,” she said. “I guess we’re going to have to steal another car.”
“Chloe, could you do that?” Kevin asked.
Chloe shrugged. “I guess so, if we find something old enough it’s easy. It’s just…” She gestured to the crowded streets around them. “Is t
here any point?”
Kevin had to admit that it had been hard work getting the truck through as far as they had. The abandoned cars meant that there was no clear route to get out of the city, and even once they did, the three of them had seen that it only got worse on parts of the freeway. Coming in, it had been manageable, but there had been thousands of people trying to flee when the initial wave of vapor overtook them.
“We can’t walk to LA,” Luna said. “Well, I guess we could, but not quickly enough.”
“And probably not without running into trouble on the way,” Kevin guessed. “We need something to be able to get away from the controlled people. A car, or a bike, or—”
“Or a boat,” Chloe suggested, pointing down toward the ocean.
Kevin could just make out the harbor in the distance, stretched out along San Francisco Bay. There would be boats there. Even from where he was standing, Kevin could make out the sails of some of the yachts.
“Those are some pretty big sails,” Kevin said. He’d never been sailing; wouldn’t know where to start with it. “Could the three of us even control something like that?”
“If we picked the right boat,” Chloe said. “It looks like there’s a lot down there to choose from.”
“People have sailed around the world alone,” Luna said, looking thoughtful. “I guess we could make it to LA, climbing the rigging and things.”
Kevin knew how much Luna liked to clamber over and around things where they lived. To be fair, so had he. It was the kind of trouble that had always counted as fun to them. Even so, the way she’d said it didn’t exactly fill Kevin with confidence that she knew what she was doing.
“Come on, Kevin,” Luna said. “A sailing boat won’t need gas, and it isn’t like we have much choice. Unless you want to steal three bicycles and try to bike all the way to LA?”
Kevin knew he would never be able to manage that. Even so, he had to admit that he was worried about the boat idea.
“Boats can capsize and sink and things,” Kevin said. “They can drift out of control, and I don’t want to end up in China, or Australia or somewhere.”
“I know how to get us where we’re going,” Chloe said. She sounded pretty confident. “I can sail.”
Maybe something about that confidence made Luna react, because she spoke up next.
“There aren’t many places you can learn to sail and hotwire a car,” she said.
“Hotwiring was after I left,” Chloe answered. “Sailing was before, at camp. I know how to do it.” She was looking at Kevin now, not Luna. “I’m good at sailing. And in a car, we could still crash, and we’d be more likely to run into those things.”
“Chloe has a point,” Kevin said, trying to persuade Luna. “I mean, can the people they control swim? Can they sail?”
“I guess not,” Luna said. “And I guess at least we can drift down the coast a bit even if we don’t want to sail all the way.”
“And you get to climb the rigging,” Kevin said.
“And I get to climb the rigging,” Luna replied with a smile.
Chloe shrugged. “I guess we’ve decided then. We’re going to sail.”
They were going to sail. Somehow, Kevin had the feeling that it wasn’t going to be as easy as Chloe made it sound.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Walking down to the harbor felt a lot more terrifying than driving through the city had been, even when none of them really knew how to drive. Kevin realized that there had been something comforting about the truck’s ability to just accelerate out of danger, or to bash into things without suffering any harm, even if Chloe had maybe been a little too quick to test that out.
Now, it was just the three of them making their way past the scatterings of abandoned cars and the empty storefronts that would once have been filled with people. It made Kevin feel exposed, vulnerable. If the controlled people spotted them now, there was no way the three of them would be able to outrun them.
He carried the DNA device in its bag, the weight of it both comforting by his side and something to be protected.
“We can’t be too far now,” Luna said, clambering up onto the top of what looked like a huge pile-up at one of the intersections so she could look out ahead of them. “Looks like just a few more streets.”
“Do you want to get down from there before they spot you?” Chloe called up to her.
“Do you want to keep your voice down?” Luna shot back.
Kevin looked around. “I don’t think there’s anyone here to see us,” he said. “But we should probably keep going, just in case.”
“Getting eager to do some sailing?” Luna suggested.
Kevin was still less eager than either of them, although it helped knowing that Chloe at least knew a thing or two about making boats do what they were supposed to. It meant that the whole idea of sailing to LA went from being completely suicidal to merely pretty unlikely, and compared to some of the things they’d done recently, unlikely wasn’t that big a deal.
They set off, trying to keep their heads down between the cars. Luna and Chloe were both pretty good at it—Luna because of the years the two of them had spent sneaking into spaces they weren’t supposed to be in, and Chloe because… well, because of whatever her life had been like since she’d run away. Kevin couldn’t imagine what that would be like. He almost thought that he wouldn’t be able to imagine what it might be like never seeing his home again, or his mom, but unless the three of them managed to do something to change things, that was exactly what was going to happen.
“There,” Chloe said, sounding excited. “Look, there’s the gate.”
Chloe was right. Ahead, there was a high fence with a gate set into it, the harbor lying just beyond it. It would only take them a couple more minutes to get there, and from there, they would be able to find the boat they needed.
She sounded so enthusiastic at the prospect of getting to do this, and Kevin couldn’t work out if it was the fact that they would be sailing, the fact that they would be getting out of there, or the possibility of getting to LA that had her like that. Kevin guessed it didn’t matter. It was definitely better to see her like this than when she was upset, or angry, or scared about what would happen next.
“Come on,” Luna said. “We still need to get in there.”
They hurried down to the fence. From close to it, Kevin could see how tall it was; even if they’d been grown-ups, it would have been far taller than them. As it was, the chain links seemed to tower over them, topped with barbed wire in a way that made it clear that people were meant to stay on whichever side of it they’d started.
Luna smiled. “They always stick barbed wire on things.”
“You’re enjoying this,” Kevin said.
Luna shrugged. “It’s just fun finding ways into places.”
She started to make her way along the fence, stopping when she found a spot where there was loose dirt, and Kevin could see that the fence wasn’t securely fastened down.
“I think animals have gotten in here,” Luna said. She pulled at the fence, managing to pull it up enough to create a gap. It wasn’t a very big gap. In fact, Kevin wasn’t sure if anyone could manage to fit through it.
Even so, Luna did it, sliding her backpack underneath the fence and then following it so smoothly that she could have been a snake. Chloe followed, and it seemed as though she was determined to fit through any gap that could take Luna, crawling through without a problem.
Then it was Kevin’s turn. He got down on his stomach, pushing Phil’s device through first in its bag, feeling the softness of the dirt as he pushed himself forward. He felt the fence on his back, and now the sharp ends of the chain links were digging into him; digging in so much, in fact, that he couldn’t move.
“Come on, Kevin,” Luna said.
“I think… I think I’m stuck,” he replied. He tried not to panic, but the problem with trying not to panic was that it just reminded Kevin that there was something to panic about. He squirmed in place,
caught there, unable to move forward, not wanting to back up.
“Hold on,” Luna said. She moved over to the fence, grabbing hold of it. “Come on, Chloe, help.”
Chloe did, and together, the two girls pulled up on the fence. Kevin felt it lifting, not by much, but at least by enough for him to push his way through into the space beyond. He lay there, panting with the effort.
“We need to find a boat,” Luna said.
Kevin nodded and managed to get up. “Do we know what kind of boat will work best?”
He looked over to Chloe as he said it; she was the expert when it came to sailing, after all.
She spread her hands. “We don’t want anything too big,” she said, “because then we won’t be able to sail it, but if it’s too small, it will capsize if we hit a big wave and there won’t be enough room for all three of us.”
“So no oil tankers and no rowboats,” Luna said. “Got it. One Goldilocks boat coming up.”
Chloe made a face at that, but didn’t say anything as they headed out into the harbor, trying to find the perfect ship to carry them.
“I guess we might not have that much choice after all,” Kevin said, looking out over the boats in the harbor.
Once, they had probably been a pristine collection of some of the finest boats around. There would have been yachts and speedboats, fishing boats and tour boats. Now, there was mostly wreckage. From where he stood, Kevin could see tears in the sails, as if someone had gone down them with a knife and broken masts. There were some boats that had tilted over in ways that suggested only the presence of their neighbors was keeping them afloat, and others that looked as though they’d been looted down to the last scrap of useful material. Kevin couldn’t tell if people had done this trying to get away, or if the aliens had done it to stop them, or both.
“They’ve destroyed it,” Chloe said, looking downcast. “They’ve destroyed everything.”
“There has to be something left,” Luna said. “We’ll find it.”
“Why? Why does there have to be anything left?” Chloe shook her head.
