by Morgan Rice
“We should at least look,” Luna said.
It didn’t look hopeful, though. All the boats nearest the docks were in ruins, their sails reduced to tatters, their hulls with holes punched in them. Worse, Kevin could see figures further away on the docks, and something about the way they moved suggested that they weren’t fellow survivors of the aliens’ invasion. They were busy wrecking a small speedboat, hitting at it with hammers or just with their fists, wrecking it so systematically that Kevin guessed there had to be a plan to it.
Kevin, Luna, and Chloe moved in the opposite direction, hoping that somewhere in all the boats of the harbor, the people the aliens controlled would have missed one. The destruction seemed total. It seemed as though they were determined that no one should get out of the city that way, or maybe it was just that any good boats had already been—
“There!” Chloe said, probably louder than she should have, pointing out over the water to a boat moored at least twenty feet from any of the others. Maybe that was what had saved it, because the yacht stood pristine and shining, its sails apparently intact.
As soon as Chloe called out, the controlled people looked over. They stared at Kevin and the others as if trying to work out what they were doing there, who they were, and what they should be doing. To Kevin, they looked almost like they were waiting for instructions.
“Um…” Kevin began.
The controlled people broke into a run toward them.
“Swim!” Luna yelled. “If they’ve left that boat alone, then maybe they can’t!”
She dove into the water. Chloe dove after her and came up already swimming for the boat.
By now, the controlled people had covered half the distance to them. Not knowing what else to do, Kevin strapped the bag holding the device to his bag, took a breath, and leapt into the water after the girls, hoping the device would prove to be waterproof.
In spite of the San Francisco sun, the water was cold enough to knock Kevin’s breath away. He floated for a moment, feeling himself rising to the surface, and started to swim. It was harder swimming in all his clothes than it would have been down at the beach, but he managed to keep moving at least.
He glanced back. The controlled people were at the docks now. One stepped forward off them, and immediately sank without trace. The others stopped there, as if realizing they couldn’t go any further. Even though they were still, Kevin didn’t want to waste any time. He swam as fast as he could toward the boat, and managed to pull himself up a ladder set into the side.
Luna and Chloe were already on the deck waiting for him when he got there.
“Please tell me that this boat is the right size,” Kevin said, lying down on the deck and looking up at them. “I don’t think we’re going to get the chance to swap it.”
“This boat is perfect,” Chloe said. She looked back at the group of controlled people on the shore, then made a rude gesture. “You should have learned to swim!”
“Maybe don’t give them the idea?” Kevin suggested.
“We’re safe,” Chloe said. She glanced around at the boat. “Come on, we should explore!”
Kevin looked over at Luna, who shrugged. “We need to know what’s on the boat we’re commandeering.”
“Commandeering?” Kevin said.
“It sounds better than ‘stealing,’” Luna replied. “Besides, if we’re trying to save the world, I think we should get to commandeer things. I commandeer this boat in the name of getting to LA.”
She laughed, and she sounded kind of relaxed for the first time since they’d left the bunker. Chloe seemed even happier, hurrying down into the boat. She came up less than a minute later carrying towels, one of which she threw to Kevin. The one to Luna was more thrown at than thrown to, but at least there was one for her as they started to dry off.
“Is the device okay?” Luna asked.
Kevin took it out, wiping it with a towel and checking it out. When he turned it on, the screen glowed red. He guessed that counted as it working.
“I think it’s okay,” he said.
“Then you need to come and look down here,” Chloe said. “It’s so cool.”
They went down below deck, and Kevin had to admit that the boat was pretty cool. It wasn’t just that it was more than big enough for the three of them, with a big kitchen and living area, sleeping quarters down below, even a bathroom and shower toward the back. It wasn’t just that there was a big TV in the living area, and it seemed to have power from some kind of backup battery.
No, the best part was that someone had obviously been preparing for a journey, or maybe a party, when they’d abandoned their boat. One look in some of the cupboards and the small refrigerator/freezer revealed chips, drinks, and pizza, stacked there and waiting. After the MREs in the bunker, Kevin was quick to grab a bag of chips and start eating. The others didn’t hesitate either.
“Sailing to LA in this is going to be great,” Luna said.
“It’s the kind of boat I always dreamed about at camp,” Chloe said. “The kind of thing I could just sail off in.”
“It is pretty good,” Kevin admitted.
That was when Kevin heard a bark from behind a hatch. He went over to it, looking for a way to open it.
“There could be anything behind there,” Chloe pointed out. “Like a hungry Rottweiler or something.”
Kevin opened the door anyway. The dog that came out wasn’t some angry, dangerous-looking breed, although it was quite large, and very hairy, with white and gray fur that made it look a bit like a moving carpet. A collar declared that his name was Bobby. Somewhere under all the fur, eyes watched Kevin as though trying to work out what he was doing there.
“That’s an Old English sheepdog,” Luna said.
“Hey, boy,” Kevin said, reaching out to ruffle the dog’s hair.
It lunged forward, and for a moment, Kevin thought that maybe he’d misjudged it. Then a big pink tongue lapped across his face, and two huge paws knocked the chips from his hands. The dog quickly started to eat them.
“I guess you must be pretty hungry,” Kevin said, and the dog barked in response.
“I’ll find him some dog food,” Luna said.
“Then I guess we should go up on deck and work out how to sail this?” Kevin suggested to Chloe. “We need to get out of here before the controlled people work out a way to get to us.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Chloe said. She actually sounded excited by the prospect, and hurried up onto the deck.
Kevin left the device behind as he went up, stowing the bag with it in one of the cupboards.
“I think we might be in luck,” Chloe said when he got up on deck. “This looks as though it was set up for one person to be able to sail. Three of us should manage it easily.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Kevin said, as he looked back toward the shore. More of the people under the aliens’ control stood at the edge of the docks now, many more. Worse, more were arriving with every moment, staring out at the water as if they knew exactly where he was. “I think we need to get out of here before they work out a way across.”
“We just need to get the sails up and raise the anchor,” Chloe said.
“Aye, aye,” Kevin replied, with what he hoped was the right kind of salute.
Chloe laughed. “Come on, I don’t like the way they’re staring at us.”
She led the way to a winch for the anchor, which was a lot of work but came up smoothly. There were more winches for the sails, with ropes to tie and untie to make sure everything was safe. Chloe really did seem to know what she was doing, picking out the right ropes and expertly tying them in place.
“This is a lot of ropes,” Kevin said.
“They’re not really ropes,” she said. “You’re supposed to call them lines on the water. Unless they’re stays and things. They taught me that at camp.”
“Just so long as you know all the ones to get us out of here before they… I don’t know, form a human bridge or something,
” Kevin said.
Chloe shuddered and hurried up. “Thanks for that image.”
Kevin watched the sails billow as the wind caught them. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the boat began to move. He felt it rock as it picked up speed, and gradually they began to move out of the harbor.
“We’re actually sailing,” Kevin said.
“You’re surprised?”
Kevin shrugged. “I just never thought it was something I’d do.”
Then again, the last few weeks of his life had involved everything from being diagnosed with a fatal condition to deciphering alien messages to trekking through the Colombian rainforest. Next to that, sailing out of San Francisco on a commandeered sailing boat was nothing.
Luna came up on deck, Bobby the sheepdog wandering along happily beside her. Kevin felt at ease too, for probably the first time since all this had started.
“We’re actually going to LA,” Luna said.
Kevin nodded. “We’re going to LA.”
Once they got there, things would probably be difficult, and complicated, and dangerous again. There would be all kinds of questions about how they would get ancient viruses and deliver them into the alien spaceship. For now, though, there was just the boat, and the wind, and an open sea where it seemed that the controlled people couldn’t follow. Kevin stood there taking in the excitement of it all and feeling the wind in his face.
Behind them, he could see the controlled people still waiting on the harbor’s edge. Somehow, he knew that this voyage was only a brief break. Wherever they went, no matter how much time they spent on the water, the controlled would be waiting for them.
CHAPTER NINE
They hugged the coast as they sailed south, keeping it in sight so they wouldn’t get lost. Kevin was grateful for that. The yacht seemed to have plenty of navigation gear aboard, but Kevin didn’t know how to work it, and he suspected that even Chloe only understood vague parts of it.
She was smiling when Kevin looked her way, standing at the ship’s wheel and looking confident while she steered.
“You know she looks at you whenever she thinks you aren’t looking?” Luna said.
“You just don’t like her much,” Kevin pointed out.
Luna shrugged. “I just think that some of the stuff she does is… pretty odd.”
“I hear alien messages, and you’d probably fight an entire army of them, given the chance,” Kevin pointed out.
“That’s different,” Luna said, then pointed out over the side. “Look.”
Kevin followed the line of her pointing finger, and saw dolphins leaping out of the water. They splashed down and Luna laughed. It was good to hear her laughing again.
“It’s beautiful out here,” Luna said.
Kevin nodded. He had to admit that it was impressive, with so much water stretched out around them. “It’s cool. I’ve never been out on the ocean before.”
“What? Never?” Luna asked.
Kevin shook his head. “I’ve been down to the beach and stuff, but it’s not as though my mom ever had the money for taking me out on boats and stuff.”
The thought of his mother made Kevin wince. For almost a minute there, he’d managed to not think about the fact that his mother had been controlled by the aliens.
“Are you okay?” Luna asked.
Kevin nodded. “Just thinking about my mom,” he said. “Do you think she’s up there?”
He pointed to where the aliens’ world ship still hung in the sky, a sense of menace coming from it that Kevin found hard to ignore.
“I don’t know,” Luna said. “Maybe she’s still down here, like all the ones who’ve chased us. Maybe my parents are too.”
Kevin wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than them being on the ship. Would they be safer down here, or up there?
“When I was really little,” Luna said, “my dad used to make up stories with monsters to frighten me.”
“I bet none of it ever did, though,” Kevin said.
“I get frightened,” Luna said. “Just not by stupid monsters. Real ones, maybe. It frightened me when you told me you were dying.”
Kevin smiled at that. “The way I remember it, you shouted at a bunch of people that they weren’t allowed to go around enjoying themselves when I was sick.”
Luna shrugged. “Sometimes it’s easier to be angry at stuff.” She looked up at the sky. “Like them. I’m definitely angry at them. And I’m still angry that you’re sick. Are you sure you’re okay? You look pretty wobbly.”
“I think that’s just the boat rocking about,” Kevin said, although it wasn’t, not entirely. It felt as though the more he had to deal with aliens and their messages, the harder it was for him to deal with his sickness.
He saw Luna look out over the sea, taking in the diving gulls and the shadows of sharks moving just beneath the surface. In the distance, a whale breached, sending spray up into the air. Kevin stared at it. It was the kind of thing he’d only seen on TV before.
“That’s so cool,” Kevin said.
“Do you think the aliens are watching it?” Luna said. “Maybe if they looked at the world a bit more, they’d realize how amazing it is and decide not to blow it up.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” Kevin said. The kind of aliens who went around invading world after world didn’t sound like the kind who would suddenly make up their mind to stop.
Luna shook her head sadly. “Me neither. Hey, here’s a thought, maybe the aliens are out there. It’s not as though we know what they look like.”
That was a strange thought. All of this, and they still hadn’t seen the aliens, just the people they’d taken control of.
“Have you thought about what they might be like?” Kevin asked. “They could look like anything.”
“Giant squid who suck out brains through their tentacles,” Luna suggested.
“Gray people with big eyes,” Kevin guessed, joining in the game.
“You stole that guess from TV,” Luna complained, but then took her own next guess. “Cute furry things that ride around on the people they’ve controlled.”
“Patches of slime that move around by kind of glooping from place to place.”
“Uggh,” Luna said. She glanced over to where Chloe was steering the ship, Bobby the dog lying at her feet. “Maybe they just look like people.”
It took Kevin a moment to realize what Luna was saying.
“Luna,” Kevin said. “I get that you don’t like Chloe, but you can’t say that. She’s not an alien.”
Luna shrugged. “I guess not. Hey, Chloe, what do you think the aliens look like?”
“I don’t care,” Chloe said.
“Come on, you must have thought about it. What if—”
“I said I don’t care,” Chloe snapped, and jerked the ship’s wheel sharply to the left, so that Kevin and Luna had to hang onto the side rail.
“What’s wrong with her?” Luna muttered, then shook her head. “I don’t care. I’m going to go get some food together, maybe feed Bobby. You talk to her. She likes you.”
“Maybe she’d like you too if you were nice to her?” Kevin suggested. He couldn’t see why the two of them couldn’t get along a little better.
Luna gave him a surprisingly hard look. “You actually believe that, don’t you? How is it you can work out messages from aliens and not work out this?”
Kevin wasn’t sure what that meant, but he didn’t have a chance to ask, because Luna was already going below, gesturing for Bobby to follow her. The sheepdog ran in behind her, leaving Kevin and Chloe alone on the deck.
“Even the dog likes her better,” Chloe said as Kevin came closer.
“What?” Kevin said.
“I mean, you and her… I thought you said she wasn’t your girlfriend.”
“Luna isn’t,” Kevin said. The idea of Luna as his girlfriend seemed, well, kind of less likely than the idea of aliens flying down to take over the world. It was something that Luna would never b
e interested in, in spite of anything Kevin might feel when he looked her way.
“So you weren’t just over there making fun of me?” Chloe demanded.
Kevin frowned. “No, of course not. I wouldn’t do that.”
He almost said that neither of them would, but Luna had been doing more or less exactly that. Kevin felt kind of guilty about that, because he should probably have said more.
“People do,” Chloe said. “They make fun of me.”
It sounded a lot like the conversation they’d had back in the bunker.
“Well, I’m not,” Kevin said. He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”
Chloe looked at him and bit her lip as if thinking, then nodded. “No, I guess you wouldn’t. Bobby still ran off with Luna as soon as she called him.”
“I think he mostly ran towards being fed,” Kevin said.
“Please don’t do that,” Chloe said.
“Do what?” Kevin asked.
“Don’t make excuses for other people. It’s like you’re siding with them, telling me I’m wrong.”
“I don’t want there to be sides,” Kevin said. “The three of us are going to LA together. I want us all to get along.”
Chloe sighed. “I guess I can do that. It’s just… there’s stuff you probably need to know about me. Like, I push people away, because I know they’re going to go anyway, and I know people don’t mean it when they say they’ll be there for me. And I hate it when people lie to me, or call me crazy…”
“I feel like I should be writing all of this down,” Kevin said.
“My dad’s friend Pastor James used to make that joke,” Chloe said, with a haunted look. “Chloe’s commandments he used to call all of them. My brother used to say I needed to come with some kind of instruction manual.”
“You have a brother?” Kevin said.
“Had. He died,” Chloe replied. “Before all of this. Before the aliens. I feel like I was happy when he was around, but I don’t even know if that’s real, or just some trick my head is playing on me. I think it was the only time I felt safe with anyone else. They always found ways to lie to me, or ignore what I was saying, or hurt me.”
