by Morgan Rice
“The storm must have carried us close,” Kevin said. “We’re almost there.”
“We just have to find a way to get there,” Luna said, and some of the old optimism was back in her voice.
Chloe shrugged. “I think the tide’s carrying in the right direction, but we still need a rudder, and we need to fix up some kind of sail from what’s left.”
“Maybe if we attach the billhook to something, we could use that as a rudder?” Kevin suggested. He thought about everything down below. “Maybe like a cupboard door or something?”
“It could work,” Luna said. “And I got most of the sails down before I fell in, so we just have to finish fixing one.”
“You’re all right climbing back up there?” Kevin asked.
Luna nodded. “I want to. No boat is going to beat me.”
“We need to keep pumping out the water so we can get in to get something to use as a rudder,” Chloe said. “Keep going, Kevin.”
He did his best, taking turns with Chloe to pump the water out. Eventually, Chloe nodded.
“I think we might be able to get in there now,” she said. They went around to the cabin and looked inside. To Kevin, it still looked as though there was a lot of water in there, but it was low enough now that they could at least get inside. Together, they tore off the door from one of the cupboards, adding another to it just to be sure. Rather than using the billhook, they took a length of damaged mast, lashing the wood to it with ropes and attaching the whole thing to the back of the boat as best they could.
“It’s probably not a very good rudder,” Chloe said as she tried it. “Here, help me turn it.”
It was heavy enough that it took both of them, but the yacht did seem to move in response, turning a little as the current dragged it.
Above them, Luna seemed to have finished lashing together a kind of patchwork of sails, any scrap she could find connected to the mast and billowing in the wind. She clambered down with a satisfied look, and Kevin suspected it had as much to do with going back up the mast after falling as with repairing the sail.
Slowly, still leaning over to one side, they started to make their way toward LA. It helped that the current was pulling them in the right direction now, but Kevin wanted to believe that their repairs had helped make it possible. They’d been stranded, and they were still going to get where they were going. If they could do that, they could do anything.
He looked up to where the aliens’ world ship hung in the sky. He really hoped they could do anything, at least. The thought of taking on a whole world’s worth of aliens was enough to send a shiver down his spine.
But first, they had to make it into LA’s harbor, and with the shaky way the rudder felt under Kevin’s hands, that was still anything but certain.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Kevin waited by the bow of the boat as Chloe worked their lashed together tiller and Luna worked the sails. He clutched the bill hook, looking down into the water. In theory, his job was to guide them in, watching out for anything they might hit along the way. He really wasn’t sure how easily they would be able to dodge anything. He had the device in its bag over his shoulder, trying to keep it safe.
“I can see a beach ahead,” he called back.
It stretched out in front of them, a pier set on it with a Ferris wheel and a rollercoaster, all flashing in bright colors as if someone had left them running when they’d abandoned them. To Kevin, it was like a lighthouse beacon, giving them something to aim at and hopefully not crash into.
“It’s Santa Monica Pier,” Luna called out from the rigging. “My parents took me there once when we all went to LA.”
“Maybe we could head for the pier and I could hook onto it?” Kevin suggested. “What do you think, Chloe?”
“It’s hard getting the boat to go where I want,” Chloe called out from the stern. “The tide’s pulling us in.”
“Just as long as it’s not taking us out to sea,” Luna said.
Kevin smiled at the fact that they weren’t arguing for once. Maybe Chloe saving Luna’s life had helped each to see that the other wasn’t all bad, although he didn’t know if it would last. Right then, he was too busy hooking a lump of wood out of the way, then a large plastic container.
The debris got thicker as they went toward the beach, either washed in by the storm or left behind by everything that had happened in the world. About the only good part of it was that Kevin couldn’t see the sharks anymore. It seemed that their boat had left them behind along with the open ocean.
“Keep going,” Kevin called out. “We’re not far away now.”
It was only a little way, close enough that Kevin felt as though they might have been able to step onto the beach with just a little more effort.
“I’m not sure I can,” Chloe said. “It feels like the tide’s turning.”
Kevin looked out toward the beach, and sure enough, some of the flotsam carried on the tide was being dragged back out into the waves. If they’d had a little more sail, or even something to use as oars, maybe they could have worked against it to come into shore, but their limping yacht had no chance of tying up there as it was. The best they might be able to hope for was to drop the anchor and hope their craft would hold out until the tide changed again, but Kevin didn’t know what would happen before then. Maybe the boat would sink. Maybe the sharks would come back. None of it seemed good.
“I think we have to swim for shore!” he called out to the others.
“Can we make it?” Luna called back.
“We can find something that will float,” Chloe suggested. “Kevin, see what you can find. I’ll keep us as close as possible.”
Kevin looked around the yacht, quickly settling on a couple of orange plastic buoys. He tied them together, hoping they would be enough, then went to Bobby, taking hold of the dog’s harness.
“Come on, boy, we’re going swimming.”
The others came up to the prow of the boat.
“This seems like a really bad idea,” Chloe said, looking out toward the beach.
“I guess it’s better than floating back out to sea though,” Luna said. She slung her backpack over her shoulder.
They took hold of the float and jumped into the water together.
Even after the storm, it was enough to take Kevin’s breath away for a moment. He kicked up to the surface, hanging onto the float with one hand, while keeping a grip on Bobby with the other. The big dog seemed perfectly happy to be swimming, paddling along beside the three of them while Kevin, Luna, and Chloe kicked out for the shore.
It was hard work. The tide was fighting them, and after everything that had happened, Kevin guessed that none of them were as strong as they could be. The effort of kicking and kicking to move forward was exhausting, and Kevin wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to keep this up.
“Keep going!” Luna shouted. “We’re almost there!”
“Do you have to be so positive all the time?” Chloe demanded. Kevin should have guessed that they wouldn’t be able to go long without arguing, but at least they kept kicking, pushing themselves in toward the beach.
The waves pushed back at them, so that Kevin felt as though he was being rolled back and forth with the tide. He felt the effort it took to move their float forward through the water, and he was glad that it was there. Without it, he wasn’t sure they would make progress at all.
As it was, they inched forward through the water together, Kevin’s legs kicking in unison with the others’. Kevin could see the foam of the breakers ahead, see the waves lapping up against the shore as he kicked with all the energy he had left, trying to make it to the beach.
Finally, Kevin felt ground underneath his feet, letting him wade through the surf. He and the others staggered forward toward the beach, the water getting lower as they got closer. After all the effort it had taken to get there, he crawled the last few yards on his hands and knees, pulling himself up onto the beach and lying down on his back on the sand, too exh
austed to move for the moment.
Bobby was there, licking a long pink tongue over his face. Kevin winced.
“I’m fine,” Kevin assured the dog. He looked around at the others. “Are you both okay?”
Luna nodded. “I’m okay.”
Chloe sat up. “I’m going to miss the boat.”
Kevin looked out over the water. Already, their boat was washing back out to sea, the waves dragging it back into the vast open spaces of the ocean. It meant that there wasn’t any way for them to go back, and that the brief, happy moment of freedom that they’d had before the storm was long gone.
“Maybe we can commandeer another later,” Luna said.
“Did you ever consider the possibility that you might secretly be a pirate?” Kevin suggested. “You seem to really want to take other people’s boats.”
Luna shrugged. “It’s not like they’ll miss them. Talking of things people won’t miss…” She nodded to the pier. “I bet there’s some food up there. Maybe even some clothes.”
After their time on the ocean, Kevin would be grateful for either. Even so, the thought of it didn’t make him feel great.
“It would be stealing,” he pointed out.
Luna laughed at that. “I’m pretty sure the rules don’t count when it’s the end of the world.”
Chloe nodded. “You do what you have to do to survive. The people who ran these places won’t care. They’re gone. If they somehow manage to come back, a little missing food isn’t going to bother them. Come on.”
***
They made their way up toward the pier, its bright lights making the whole place seem like a gaudy bauble set on the edge of the city.
“Do you think there’s anyone there?” he asked, thinking about the people controlled by the aliens who had been wandering the pier where they got the boat. “Do you think there are people left behind?”
“Maybe,” Luna said.
Almost in unison, the three of them started to move more cautiously, crouching down so they wouldn’t be seen by anyone watching from the pier. Even Bobby slunk along, staying low to the ground as they advanced.
“There’s no one here,” Chloe said after a while.
“Maybe,” Kevin said.
“No, I’m serious, this place is deserted.” She stood up and raised her voice. “Hello, is there anybody there? See, no one.”
Kevin tensed at the thought of all the things that might have brought down on them if there was anyone listening, and he could see Luna shoot Chloe an annoyed look, but the pier stayed silent and still, nothing moving, and with no sign of anything about to.
They moved among the buildings on the pier, finding them unlocked and open, left just as people had abandoned them. There was a diner there, which had all the food the three of them could ever want, and Kevin was more than happy to grab a cup and drink soda from the place’s machine, before picking up hotdogs and starting to try to cook them. It wasn’t quite as good as the pizza on the boat, but after not eating since the storm, he was more than hungry enough that it didn’t matter.
“This is good,” Luna said, eating ice cream straight from a plastic jar. Chloe had found some hamburgers for Bobby, and was eating chicken out of a bucket.
“My clothes are pretty trashed,” she said. “Maybe there will be some around here too?”
They went to look, searching among the stores on the waterfront until they found one that sold clothes, grabbing T-shirts and fresh jeans, socks that hadn’t been soaked in the ocean, and everything else that they could want. Luna and Chloe disappeared into the changing rooms, while Kevin quickly changed into his new clothes and grabbed a new, less sea-worn bag for Phil’s DNA extraction device.
Luna came out first. She’d added a jacket that seemed shockingly, probably deliberately, pink to her ensemble, and new sneakers that squelched a lot less than her old ones when she walked. Chloe came out wearing black jeans and a dark blue T-shirt, with an aging brown leather jacket over them.
“You’ve gone for the inconspicuous look then,” she said to Luna.
“I figure that whatever we wear will probably end up covered in mud, or blood, or seaweed anyway,” Luna replied, “so I might as well start with a color that doesn’t make me look like I’m on the run from a horror movie.”
“I think you both look great,” Kevin said. It seemed like the answer that was least likely to cause trouble, and the truth was that both Luna and Chloe did look great, in different ways.
Luna looked very pretty and sweet, her newly “commandeered” pink jacket probably playing up to that, and it was only once you got to know her that it was easy to see that she was also tough and likely to pick a fight with anyone who assumed how she would behave just because of the way she liked to dress.
Chloe looked tougher, but she was still very pretty with it, and maybe that was the point. Maybe it was her way of telling people not to pay attention to her, or trying to disguise herself. Either way, Kevin found himself unable to look away from either of them.
“We should go,” Luna said. “It’s a long way to the tar pits from here.”
Kevin nodded, following as she went outside. The three of them started down into Santa Monica, Bobby padding along by their side. Around them, the city seemed ruined. There were broken windows everywhere, and some walls had collapsed. It even looked as though some areas had been gutted by fire.
“What happened here?” Kevin wondered aloud. The damage just didn’t make sense to him.
“It might have been the aliens,” Luna said. “Imagine how much damage they must have done trying to get to people to turn them into things like them. Or maybe their ships did it.”
“Or it could just be looters,” Chloe said. “People are capable of doing things just as bad as any alien. While I was getting to the bunker, I saw riots while people fought about who was going to get the last food in a small town, or they accused each other of already being converted, or…”
She trailed off, leaving Kevin to wonder what else she’d seen. It also made him wonder how they were ever going to get to the tar pits in one piece.
“At least there’s no ship over the city,” Kevin said, with a nod toward the sky.
“Maybe there was,” Luna suggested. “Maybe it already moved on.”
“Or maybe it’s not here yet,” Chloe offered. “Maybe the one over San Francisco will come south. I kind of hope so.”
Neither of those options seemed like good thoughts to Kevin.
“You want an alien ship overhead?” he said, not understanding.
“How else are we going to get what we find onto their big ship?” Chloe said.
Chloe had a point, and it was a worrying thought.
“We still need to do so much,” Kevin said. “How far is it to the tar pits?”
“About ten miles, I think,” Luna said. “It’s all the way in the middle of the city.”
“And even though it looks empty, we don’t know if there are going to be controlled people all along the way,” Chloe said. She shuddered. “The people they convert are just creepy, with the way they don’t say anything, and they just keep coming…”
“We can do this,” Luna said. “We made it here, so a little further isn’t that bad.”
Kevin knew Luna well enough to know when she was trying to put a brave face on things. Luna had to know how difficult this was, and how dangerous. Going through LA like this, on foot, there were too many things that might go wrong, too many ways the whole thing might turn out to be more dangerous than they could cope with. Yes, they’d gotten here, but even doing that had almost killed them.
Kevin was still wondering about that when he heard the sound of engines in the distance.
“People!” Luna said.
“Or ones controlled by aliens,” Kevin pointed out.
“I’m pretty sure aliens don’t drive,” Luna said. “There wouldn’t be cars left on all the roads otherwise. There are people coming.”
“People aren’t always a
good thing,” Chloe said. “We should hide.”
Kevin guessed that reaction came from her time as a runaway, when hiding would have kept her safe from all the predators of the streets.
“And what if it turns out that they could help us?” Luna asked.
“What if they want to hurt us?” Chloe countered.
They both looked over to Kevin expectantly, as if each hoped that he would take their side against the other. Kevin shook his head.
“We don’t know who these people are,” he said, “or even if they are people. I mean, if aliens can fly spaceships they should be able to drive. So we need to hide.”
“Ha!” Chloe said in victory.
“But just for a bit,” Kevin said. “Just until we can get a good look at them and see who they are and what they want.”
“Ha!” Luna shot back.
“That wasn’t even what you wanted to do,” Chloe complained.
Kevin nodded to one of the buildings. “Whatever we’re going to do, I think we need to do it fast. Those engines are getting louder. Come on, Bobby.”
Kevin could hear them, not as a single dull roar now, but as a whole collection of individual sounds. They sounded more like motorcycles than cars, and he guessed that made sense; back in San Francisco, there had been no room for cars to get through.
“In here,” Chloe said, leading the way into a storefront. There were mannequins there and drapes, making it easy to look out without being spotted. It seemed that Chloe was good at picking hiding places. They crouched down among them, Bobby sitting still by their side.
The sound of the motorbikes got closer, and now they rolled into view. There were all kinds there, from long, swept back choppers to dirt bikes, expensive-looking racing bikes to things that looked as though the rust on them was the only thing keeping them together. The surprising thing was the people riding them.
“They’re all kids like us,” Luna said.
She was right. All of the people there seemed to be schoolkids, most of them around the same age as the three of them were. Maybe a few were a little older, but hardly any of them looked old enough that they should have been riding motorcycles, and none of them looked like adults.