Sylo

by D. J. MacHale

  “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.

  “What day is it?” Kent asked.

  Nobody answered because nobody could remember.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Must be Sunday,” he said. “There’s no traffic.”

  I hadn’t noticed because I had been lost in my own thoughts, but once he said that, I started looking around. We drove through a fairly rural area but every once in a while we’d pass a row of shops or a gas station. Not once did we see another car moving on the road.

  Or another person.

  When we turned onto the interstate, the lack of activity was even more obvious. There were no other moving cars. None. Several were pulled over to the side as if broken down, but nobody was with them. The stretch of I-95 outside of Portland wasn’t a typically busy interstate, definitely not like the section that runs past my old home in Greenwich, Connecticut, outside of New York City. Still…

  “I’m getting a creepy feeling,” Kent said.

  For the second time that day, I didn’t disagree with him.

  We switched from I-95 to I-295, which went past downtown Portland. Since we were getting closer to the city, I kept expecting the traffic to pick up. Or to see another person—or any sign of life, for that matter. I didn’t. Portland may have been a sleepy city, but on that day it was downright comatose. The only increase in activity was the growing number of abandoned cars on the side of the road.

  “My God, look,” Olivia said.

  Tori struggled to sit up. She needed to see what we were seeing.

  Not all the cars were abandoned. Olivia pointed to one that had driven off the highway and slammed head-on into a tree.

  “Pull over,” I said.

  Kent eased the car off the highway and came to a stop.

  I got out to see if anybody needed help. It was a horrible wreck. The entire front end was caved in and wrapped around the tree. All the doors were still closed, which meant whoever was in the wreck was probably still in there. I slowed down and approached cautiously. I could only imagine how gruesome the scene would be. I got closer to the car, squinted, and looked inside to see…it was empty.

  “Are they dead?” Kent called.

  “They’re not even here,” I replied.

  I felt the hood of the wreck. It was stone cold. There was nothing more to do so I hurried back to the car.

  “How could they have gotten out?” Tori asked.

  “I have no idea, and I’ll tell you something else—the engine is cold.”

  “So what?” Olivia asked.

  “So that means it didn’t happen during the sea battle. That wreck’s been there for a couple of days. Whatever happened here happened a while ago.”

  We all exchanged looks but nobody knew what to say to that.

  “Can we please keep going?” Olivia asked nervously.

  I got back in the car and Kent got us back on the highway. We passed several more wrecks like the one we first saw. It seemed like the people had driven off the highway, hit something that destroyed their vehicles, and somehow magically disappeared.

  “Things are not right in Portland,” Kent said ominously.

  “You think?” Tori said. “Look at that.”

  She was pointing to the side of the highway, where a hole the size of a swimming pool was cut into the ground on the edge of the forest.

  “Is it a construction site?” Kent asked.

  “Doubt it,” I said. “What would they build on the highway in the middle of nowhere? It looks more like a—look out!”

  There was another crater in the center of the road.

  Kent looked forward in time to yank the wheel and swerve around it. We missed falling in by inches.

  “Hell of a pothole,” Kent said nervously.

  “Or a bomb crater,” I said. “There were missiles flying everywhere. Some of them must have hit land.”

  Tori said, “So does that mean Portland was attacked too?”

  Nobody had an answer to that, but we’d find out soon enough.

  As we traveled closer to the city, we passed several more craters. Not all were harmless looking. Some still had smoke drifting up from within. Not all the stray missiles had hit empty stretches of land. We passed an industrial building that was on fire and another that had been reduced to rubble.

  “This was recent,” I said. “It must have happened during the battle.”

  Olivia said, “So where’s the fire department?”

  Good question.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement and looked toward the far side of the highway. What I saw seemed impossible, yet it wasn’t. It looked like a giant jellyfish moving across the barren landscape.

  “What exactly is that?” I asked.

  It moved slowly, its tentacles brushing against the ground.

  “It’s a parachute.” Kent answered with dismay.

  The large, white half dome of silk was full of air, which made it float gently on its own. The tentacles were the lines that hung down to the ground.

  Kent stopped the car to let it cross in front of us. It seemed to be moving in slow motion as the soft breeze gently pushed it along, its silk skin rippling. It was a strange and haunting sight.

  “So where’s the pilot?” Tori asked.

  “Keep driving,” I said to Kent.

  We were nearing downtown. I looked ahead to the skyline, fearing that I would see buildings going up in flames. Thankfully, nothing looked out of the ordinary.

  “I don’t think the city was attacked,” I said. “Everything must have happened out over the ocean.”

  “Almost everything,” Olivia said soberly and pointed ahead of us.

  There was another wreck. This one was in the center median. It wasn’t a car.

  It was a gray jet fighter.

  “I guess that tells us where the parachute came from,” Kent said, numb.

  The plane must have slammed into the ground going full blast because there was little left of it but wreckage. Flamin
g wreckage. This plane hadn’t been down for long. There were a few recognizable parts, like the tail fin and…

  “The cockpit,” Kent said. “I gotta see.”

  Before anybody could protest, Kent turned onto the median and drove right up to the largest piece of the wreck.

  “The canopy’s gone,” Kent said. “They must have ejected before they—oh, man.”

  Of course we all looked…and wished we hadn’t. Kent was right. One of the pilots must have ejected because the front seat was empty. The rear seat wasn’t. We could clearly see the outline of a charred body slumped forward, still strapped into the seat.

  Tori turned away and buried her head in my shoulder. I looked forward, already regretting having seen it for only a brief second. Kent did the same.

  “I…I’m sorry,” he said as he jammed on the gas and peeled out.

  The only one who didn’t take her eyes off the grisly scene was Olivia. She kept staring back at the poor victim until we were far past it. I couldn’t tell what was going through her mind. Was she in shock? Or fascinated by the horror?

  “We are so stupid,” Tori said, battling tears. “How could we have thought that everything would be normal here?”

  “Because that’s what we wanted to think,” I said.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” Kent said. “We’ve still got to get the word out.”

  “We’ll go to Maine Medical Center first,” I said. “Tori’s got to—”

  “No!” Tori shouted. “There’s plenty of time for that,” she said as she struggled to sit up. She may have been in pain, but she was still stubborn. “I’m okay. Go to the TV station on Congress Street. WCSH.”

  Olivia turned around and in her best mothering voice said, “We need to get you to a doctor.”

  “We need to do what we came here for,” Tori said adamantly. “Until then I’ll be fine.”

  End of discussion. We were going to WCSH.

  “Do you know where Congress Street is?” I asked Kent.

  “I’ll find it,” was his reply.

  “Center of town,” Tori offered.

  The closer we got to the city, the more my stomach twisted. I kept looking ahead, fearing that I would see damaged buildings or more bomb craters or fires or any other kind of destruction, but there was nothing. Though there were no obvious signs of an attack, things still weren’t right.

  Besides the distinct lack of activity, the first definite sign that something was truly off was that none of the street lights worked.

  “The city looks wrong,” Kent said.

  “You think?” Tori said sarcastically.

  “I don’t mean because we’re not seeing anybody. That’s plenty weird, but I’m talking about the city itself. I’ve been here a hundred times and something about it doesn’t look right.”

  I couldn’t imagine what Kent was talking about, but then again I didn’t know Portland as well as he did.

  “It’s, like…abandoned,” Olivia said. “Maybe people are hiding in their basements. I know I would be.”

  That made sense. We were so focused on Pemberwick and escaping from Granger and the quarantine that we didn’t give much thought to how the people on the mainland would be reacting to the naval blockade and the battle in the sky.

  “Even if that’s the case, the TV stations will still be operating,” I said. “That’s what they’re there for. If there’s a war, you don’t shut down the TV stations unless…”

  “Unless what?” Kent asked.

  “Unless there was an evacuation,” I replied.

  With that sober thought left hanging, we drove into town.

  There wasn’t a single soul on any of the streets. There was no life behind the windows. Trash blew across the cobblestones…or the paving stones.

  “Congress Street,” Olivia said, pointing to a sign.

  “Take this right,” Tori directed. “The station’s a few blocks down. It’s the building with the big NBC peacock logo on it.”

  Kent made the turn, not bothering to stop at the dead light, and continued down Congress Street through a gauntlet of abandoned or wrecked cars.

  “It’s up there on the right,” Tori said. “Just past the—oh my God.”

  “What?” Olivia asked nervously.

  “The building. It’s…it’s not there.”

  The spot that Tori had directed us to was nothing more than a giant hole in the ground.

  “You must be wrong,” I said. “Maybe it’s further down—”

  “No,” Tori said adamantly. “I came here with my father about a month ago when he did an interview. Look, there’s the NBC logo.”

  There was a parking sign with a WCHS logo and the rainbow peacock, but there was no building. No WCHS.

  “That’s it,” Kent declared. “That’s what’s wrong.”

  “What?” I asked with growing fear.

  “It’s the skyline,” he said. “It isn’t the same.”

  “How can that be?” I said. “A whole skyline can’t change.”

  “It can,” he said. “If buildings are missing. That’s what I sensed. Some of the buildings aren’t here anymore.”

  Without waiting for a response, Kent drove us back through the city, where we passed many similar holes in the ground, just like the site of the former WCHS. Each time it was the same thing. There was no rubble, no signs of destruction, no smoke from an exploded bomb, and no building—not even a foundation. Nor was there any damage to the buildings on either side of the holes.

  The grim reality was that several of the city’s buildings had been cherry-picked out of existence.

  “It’s like they just…disappeared,” Kent said, his voice shaking.

  “The weapon,” I said.

  “What weapon?” Kent asked, his voice shaking.

  “The one that vaporized the Patricia…and Quinn. That night we saw the lights flashing over Portland, those planes could have been attacking Portland. But not with bombs, with that laser weapon.”

  “This war started before the battle on the ocean,” Kent said, numbly. “That’s why the car wrecks were cold. This happened days ago.”

  “Go to the Old Port,” Tori said. “If there are still people in town, they’ll be there.”

  Kent jammed on the gas and with a squeal of tires we launched forward, headed for the easternmost end of town and the most popular and populated district in the city. Along the way I noticed many more empty lots. Had they always been empty? Or was it the work of the strange marauding planes that came at night and serenaded a sleeping city with their murderous song?

  We drove down Pearl Street until we hit the intersection at Commercial Street, the street that ran parallel to the shore and the downtown piers. This was the quaint tourist center of Portland. People came from all over the world to sample lobster rolls and Moxie soda, to buy miniature lighthouses and bibs with smiling lobster designs. It was the heart of Portland.

  It was deserted.

  When we made the turn onto Commercial Street, Kent hit the brakes hard and screeched to a stop.

  “Oh, this isn’t good,” Olivia said with dismay.

  Lying in the dead center of the empty street was another wreck.

  It was one of the black shadow planes.

  The thing wasn’t huge, maybe the size of a Hummer. It squatted like a giant roosting bird of prey that had decided to make its nest in the middle of the wide street.

  “It’s been here for a while,” I observed. “There’s no smoke or anything.”

  “It must have crashed when the city was attacked,” Tori said, stunned. “Does that mean the city’s been empty since then?”

  “I gotta take a closer look,” I said and started to get out of the car.

  Tori grabbed my arm to stop me, which made her wince with pain.

  “Don’t,” she said, gritting her teeth to fight the sting. “That thing could be ready to explode.”

  I looked ahead at the mystery wreck. It seemed dead.

  “We w
ant answers,” I said. “That thing might give us a couple.”

  Kent added, “There’s gotta be markings. At least we’ll know what country we’re at war with—or what universe.”

  I smiled at Tori and said, “I have to.”

  Tori nodded and reluctantly let go of my arm.

  “Be careful,” she warned.

  “Seriously,” Olivia added.

  I got out of the car. Nobody followed. Tori had an excuse. The other two were just scared. Can’t say I blame them. I was too. But that wasn’t going to stop me. Not anymore.

  I rounded the Subaru and walked slowly toward the dark wreck, ready to bail at the first sign of trouble. There was no smell and no sound. There didn’t seem to be danger of an explosion, and if it was leaking invisible radioactivity, we were already doomed.

  Its rounded lines reminded me of a B-2 bomber but with no obvious wings or engines. There didn’t appear to be any hatches or windows either. It was like a giant clamshell with absolutely no aerodynamic qualities. Kent’s crazy theory of these craft being from another world was beginning to seem less crazy. I walked with caution, hoping that there wasn’t an injured alien trapped inside preparing to defend his craft.

  As I drew closer, I actually thought of Marty Wiggins. This had all started with his final moment of glory. The crowd was going crazy. Marty was on top of the world—until he fell off. It didn’t seem fair that somebody’s life could end at a moment of such triumph.

  Or maybe that was a good thing. What better last memory to have than the joy of hearing the cheers of adoring fans? In light of all that had happened since, he might have been the lucky one.

  Marty’s death was the beginning.

  Or was it?

  I had to accept that my parents had moved us to Pemberwick Island years before to prepare for SYLO’s arrival and some big event that was planned long before Marty had taken a fatal dose of the Ruby.

  The event.

  What was the event? Was it the battle between the Navy and the dark aircraft? Was it the attack on Mr. Sleeper and his band of rebels? Or did the event have something to do with the lights in the sky and the fact that sixty thousand people from Portland seemed to have disappeared, along with some of their buildings?