Arrival

by Morgan Rice

  Kevin could hear the pain there and it sounded almost like too much for one person to take.

  “Chloe,” he asked, “what happened to you?”

  Chloe shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You can trust me, you know,” Kevin said.

  “It’s not that,” Chloe said. “I don’t want to talk about it. Having to remember something… it’s almost like you’re living it all again. Like when they made me go to a therapist, just having to say it over and over and over…”

  “It’s okay,” Kevin said, reaching out to put a hand on her arm.

  Chloe hugged him almost out of nowhere. “It’s not okay,” she said. “It’s really not.”

  Kevin paused, surprised by the feeling of her pressed this close to him. It was impossible not to notice how pretty she was, even though she looked very different from most of the girls he knew. Kevin stood there, not sure what he should do; not sure if he should even do anything, really.

  Chloe was the one who pulled back first, making a face as she went.

  “What is it?” Kevin asked. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Chloe said. “Can’t you feel it? The yacht’s drifting.”

  Kevin couldn’t feel anything, but looking out toward the bow, he could see the sky slipping sideways past it.

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “I think it means there’s a strong current,” Chloe said. She looked over toward the shore. “If we don’t want to end up sitting on a beach, I think I’m going to have to take us into deeper water.”

  “Will we be able to find our way if you do?” Kevin asked.

  “There isn’t a choice,” Chloe said. “I need you to help with this winch.”

  They set to work turning the boat. Kevin worked the winch along with Chloe, winding out more sail. They started to turn away from shore, moving slowly. Looking over his shoulder, Kevin could see the shore receding from view.

  “Are we far enough out yet?” he asked.

  Chloe shook her head. “Not yet.”

  Eventually, the shore disappeared, and with it, it seemed, so did the drag toward it. The ocean seemed so much bigger here, a vast landscape of blue on which their boat was only a speck.

  “We should stop here,” Chloe said. “It’s going to get dark soon. Better to drop anchor, lower the sails, and wait for light. Besides, I’m hungry.”

  “Luna’s making food,” Kevin reminded her, and for once, the mention of Luna didn’t bring a frown to Chloe’s face.

  “Pizza,” Chloe said with a smile.

  “Pizza,” Kevin agreed.

  They started to lower the sails, and Luna came up on deck to help them. She looked around.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “We had to move away from shore,” Kevin said. “There was a current.”

  Luna looked a little worried by that, but even so, she helped them to pull in the sails and lower the anchor. It seemed to take forever.

  “There’s pizza below,” Luna said. “I’ve just microwaved it.”

  Microwaved pizza sounded like the kind of food Kevin’s mom wouldn’t have approved of, but that just made it sound even better. The three of them went down below, where Bobby was busily chomping his way through a bowl of dog food. Luna got out the pizza, and they had chips and soda with it.

  “One good thing about the end of the world,” Chloe said. “There aren’t any adults telling us we can’t eat all the pizza we want.”

  “Maybe not that much,” Luna said. “There’s only so much food in the cupboards.”

  “We’ll be in LA before we finish it, though,” Kevin said. There were only three of them, after all.

  “Maybe.”

  They started to eat, and for just a moment, things were happy. If they’d been out here on this boat for any other reason, it would have been an amazing experience. It would have been an adventure. Kevin guessed that technically it still was, but if that was the case, then adventures were big, and terrifying, and had too much chance of going wrong.

  “I’m sorry about the bunker,” Chloe said out of nowhere. “I’m sorry I messed it up for you. I just felt like… like no one wanted me there. Like I was trapped.”

  “It’s okay,” Kevin said. “If we hadn’t left the bunker, then we wouldn’t have found out about the way to beat the aliens. We would have had to leave sometime.”

  “Maybe not right away though,” Luna said.

  “We couldn’t have stayed there forever,” Kevin insisted. “We couldn’t have stayed there until we were old.”

  “The aliens would have blown up the world before then, I guess,” Chloe said.

  “Exactly,” Kevin said, wanting her to feel better about it all.

  “But we could have stayed there long enough plan things properly,” Luna insisted. “We could have brought more food. There’s only enough dog food for another day. What’s Bobby going to eat?”

  Given the size of the sheepdog, Kevin suspected that the answer might be them if he got hungry enough.

  “Maybe he’d like pizza,” Kevin suggested. The dog barked, deep and echoing in the cabin space. Kevin threw him a piece of pizza, and Bobby ate it down in a couple of bites.

  “I’m pretty sure pizza isn’t good for dogs,” Chloe said.

  “It’s not that good for us,” Luna shot back. “We can’t just live on pizza.”

  “You can eat most things when you have to,” Chloe said, and there was something about the way she said it that suggested she knew that from experience. How bad had things been for her, running away?

  “We wouldn’t have to if we’d had time to bring food with us,” Luna said.

  Kevin had to admit that Luna kind of had a point. If Chloe hadn’t run out of the bunker, then they could have brought all the food they could carry with them. This way, he wasn’t sure what they were going to do for food. He didn’t say anything, but only because he didn’t want to upset Chloe any more.

  “I said I was sorry,” Chloe said.

  Luna shrugged. “Sorry doesn’t let us go back and get more food.”

  “How long before we get to LA?” Kevin asked, trying to change the subject. It was the only thing he could think of to do to avoid an argument.

  “I don’t know,” Chloe said.

  “You don’t know?” Luna countered. “I thought you knew all about boats.”

  “It depends on the wind, and the currents, and whether we throw you overboard to lighten the weight.”

  “Try it,” Luna said.

  The rest of the meal passed with the two obviously angry at one another and Kevin not knowing what to say. He didn’t understand why they’d taken such a quick dislike to one another. It was almost as if they were fighting every time he was around, but that didn’t make any sense.

  “I’m going to go off to bed,” Luna said at last. She grabbed the last slice of pizza, heading for the cabins. It left Kevin and Chloe there in the kitchen space. Kevin could see Chloe holding back tears.

  “I didn’t mean to mess things up,” Chloe said. “I didn’t. And I do know what I’m doing.”

  “It’s okay,” Kevin said.

  Chloe shook her head. “It’s not okay. I’m just a horrible person.”

  “No you’re not,” Kevin said.

  “I am. You just don’t see it yet.” Chloe sat there, and Kevin couldn’t think of anything to say to comfort her. He suspected that if he told her she was one of the best people he knew, she would only accuse him of lying.

  “We should get some sleep too. It’s going to be hard getting to LA if we’re exhausted,” Chloe said.

  She was obviously trying to stop Kevin saying anything else, but the truth was that he couldn’t think of anything to say. He felt kind of out of his depth when it came to Chloe, and Luna, and trying to make sense of whatever was going on.

  “Okay,” he said. “And maybe things will be better in the morning. Maybe Luna will see things aren
’t as bad as she thinks.”

  “Things are almost always worse than you think,” Chloe said with a sad smile.

  “I hope not,” Kevin said. “Because I think that with the whole alien invasion, things are pretty bad.”

  “Yeah,” Chloe said. “I guess they are.”

  “Maybe we can make them better, though,” Kevin said. He hoped so, although it seemed like a lot to do. They still had to make it to LA, find something that might have an ancient virus within it, and find a way to release it within the aliens’ world ship.

  It was so much to do, and even if things were peaceful now, Kevin could still feel the danger waiting ahead for them. He hoped they would be up to dealing with it, and he thought that it was kind of stupid that three kids like them had been left with the safety of the world in their hands. They had, though, and Kevin would do whatever it took to get things back to what they’d been, even if it killed him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kevin flitted in and out of sleep, the rocking of the boat whenever a big wave passed bringing him back to a space that was only half awake. In between, images of aliens flickered across his mind’s eye, impossible to escape.

  He was running down streets filled with people he had once known. Their eyes were as white as ice, and where the people the aliens controlled were normally silent, these spoke as they chased him.

  “You know there’s no such thing as aliens, Kevin,” Dr. Linda Yalestrom, the psychologist they’d taken him to see, said as she hurried after him. Kevin ducked into a building to avoid her, and discovered that somehow it was his school. His teachers were there.

  “You’ve been missing class, Kevin,” the principal said. “Today, we’re learning about how wonderful the Pure are, and how perfect it is to serve them. You should join us.”

  He started toward Kevin, and Kevin ran again. At least in his dreams, he was faster than them, although it just meant running through another set of doors, coming out in another location. This time, he was back in Colombia, in the press conference where Professor Brewster had announced the alien capsule to the world. This time, though, Kevin was the only one up on the stage, and the audience was composed of people with staring white eyes.

  “Why did you help them fool us, Kevin?” a reporter asked, standing up to ask his question.

  “I didn’t know,” Kevin said.

  “How could you not know?” another reporter asked, holding her microphone out in his direction. “You’re supposed to be the boy who knows everything. You’re supposed to be the chosen one.”

  “I was tricked,” Kevin said. “We were all tricked.”

  “But if you hadn’t said anything, none of us would have known,” Professor Brewster said, standing up with a microphone of his own. “If you hadn’t come to us with what you saw, the capsule would still be buried. The world would be safe.”

  “Are you as ashamed of yourself as I am?” his mother asked, poised to take down his answer in a notebook.

  Ted stood, pure white eyes gleaming. “Why didn’t you save us?”

  “Why didn’t you save us?” the others echoed, as they started forward toward the stage. “Why didn’t you save us?”

  This time, Kevin couldn’t run. There was no way to get past them as they grabbed him and pulled him to the floor, their mouths opening to breathe out vapor until it filled Kevin’s world…

  He was walking through mist now, and in that mist, he saw the aliens’ world ship. His mind darted close to it, and he saw creatures both horrible and beautiful, misshapen and reshaped in a thousand different ways. His mind skimmed the surface of the place, and dove down deeper into its heart. Here, there were people who seemed to shine with beauty, so that it almost hurt to look at them. There was something cold about that beauty, as if the emotion had been burned from them. They looked at him and Kevin felt the weight of fear welling up inside him…

  “Kevin, wake up!”

  Kevin’s eyes snapped open to the sight of Luna standing over his berth. That was a weird feeling, having a girl in his room while he was sleeping. Okay, so it was Luna, and they’d already shared one corner of the bunker’s giant dormitory, but even so, it felt a bit… strange, having her watching him like that.

  “You were crying out in your sleep loud enough that I could hear you next door,” Luna explained. “I figured I’d probably better wake you up. Are you all right?”

  “Just a bad dream,” Kevin said. At least, he hoped that was all it was. “What time is it?”

  “It’s pretty early,” Luna said. “The sun’s just coming up.”

  Kevin got up and they went up on deck. As Luna had said, the sun was just starting to rise, in shades of red and purple that stretched out across the horizon, shining off the surface of the ocean as it got higher. It was one of the most spectacular things he’d seen, seeming to surround them and fill the world.

  “It’s beautiful,” Luna said, which caught Kevin a little by surprise. “What? I’m allowed to appreciate the sunrise.”

  “But you’d probably beat up anyone who said you should,” Kevin pointed out.

  “That’s just because I don’t like people telling me what to do,” Luna said. “This is good, though. It makes me think maybe this will be all right.”

  “Do you think we should wake Chloe up?” Kevin asked. “She’s the one who knows how to get the boat moving.”

  Luna shook her head. “It’s probably more peaceful if we don’t.”

  “If we don’t what?” Chloe asked, walking up from the stern of the boat.

  “You’re already awake,” Kevin said. “We didn’t think you would be.”

  Chloe shrugged. “I’ve been up… well, come and look.”

  She led the way back to the stern, where Kevin saw a sport fishing rig set up.

  “I guess whoever owned this boat liked to fish,” Chloe said. “I saw the rods and I thought maybe I could make up for everything with the food.”

  She nodded to an ice box where several freshly caught fish sat, while Bobby sat by the side, chewing on one the way another dog might gnaw at a bone.

  “That’s amazing, Chloe,” Kevin said. It meant that they weren’t going to go hungry. Even Luna seemed pleased that Bobby had something to eat, petting the dog while he continued to chew his breakfast.

  “Looks as though you get to eat something other than pizza,” Luna said to him, and he barked happily.

  “Thank you, Chloe,” Kevin said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” she said, shrugging like it was nothing, but Kevin caught the smile as she turned away. “We should get going. It’s still a long way to LA, and I’m not sure I like the look of the sky.”

  “You don’t like it?” Luna said, with a pointed look toward the horizon. “It’s the sunrise.”

  “It’s more than that,” Chloe said. “Look at it.”

  Kevin looked out toward the horizon, trying to make sense of what Chloe was saying. For a moment or two, he couldn’t; it was just the same red and purple band that had been spreading since he woke. Then he realized that there was a lot more of the purple than there had been before, and it was turning darker, becoming bruise-colored clouds that were starting to fill the horizon.

  A storm was coming, and if they didn’t get out of the way, they would be right in its path.

  ***

  “We need to get the sails up,” Chloe said. “If we’re lucky, maybe we can get ahead of the weather.”

  “You want to try to outrun a storm?” Luna said, her tone telling Kevin just how bad she thought that idea was.

  “It’s that or sit here waiting for it to hit us,” Chloe said.

  Kevin nodded. “I think we have to do this. I’ll get the anchor up.”

  Winding the anchor up was a lot harder than letting it down had been. The winch wasn’t heavy, but it meant that Kevin had to wind and wind, the hard work making him pant with the effort. He could see Chloe and Luna working both sides of a winch over toward the mast, raising sails a
nd tying them into place. Like this, with no time to argue, they seemed to work well together.

  Kevin could feel the wind picking up around them. It billowed the sails and tugged at them raggedly, pushing the yacht forward far faster than it had gone the day before. In the distance, Kevin could see flickers of lightning jumping among the clouds as it advanced, a couple of spikes lancing down in awkward zigzags to the surface of the ocean. He really didn’t want to be caught here when the storm arrived, especially not so far from land.

  “I think we need to hurry,” he called out to the others.

  Chloe was already at the ship’s wheel. “I’m going to try to steer us out of its path. Hold on.”

  She cut the boat on a course that looked designed to take them wide of the clouds, although with no land in sight, Kevin couldn’t be certain whether that meant they were going back in the direction of shore, further away, or running parallel to it.

  One thing they weren’t doing was outrunning the storm. It closed in like a giant hand reaching out to snatch them, the long tendrils of cloud filling the sky so quickly that there was nowhere left to run. Wind came with it, and Kevin felt it pushing at him, battering at him, as the sea rose up in waves that seemed too jagged-edged and high.

  “Come on, Bobby, let’s get you inside,” Luna said, leading the dog down into the cabin before coming back up on deck.

  “Why aren’t we down there?” Kevin called out.

  Chloe answered. “Because if we don’t control the boat, we’re all going to die! Help me, both of you!”

  Kevin and Luna ran to the wheel, grabbing on and trying to hold it steady. It took all the strength they had to hold it in place, and then even that wasn’t enough. Kevin heard a crack, and the wheel wrenched out of his hands, the others barely managing to let go in time as it spun wildly, the handles on it moving so fast that he was sure anyone sticking a hand in to grab one would break an arm, or worse.

  “We can’t let it turn sideways to the waves!” Chloe called out. “We—”

  It was too late, though, because the yacht chose that moment to start to topple over, capsizing with the slow inevitability of a falling tree. Its mast tumbled down toward the waves, and Kevin grabbed for the rail while rain battered at him, feeling as though it was trying to tear him from the deck. Chloe and Luna were scrambling over the rail, onto the side of the hull as the boat capsized. Kevin managed to hook a foot over it, his grip slipping so that it took him at least two attempts before he was able to pull his weight up.