Final Crossing (2014)

by Sean Rodman

  But pretty in a real-person kind of way.

  I like how she smiles. A little shy, a little guarded. Like maybe there’s more waiting for you.

  “Nice to meet you, Will,” she says finally.

  Chapter Ten

  My hands feel a little steadier now, resting on the pretend steering wheel.

  “Okay, I need to get back out there. Find Big O.” I get up from the seat and stretch carefully. I’m aching in a whole bunch of places. I probe my jaw tenderly. My face still hurts from where Mr. Blank hit me. Marissa stands up too, and we step out of the dim arcade and Final Crossing into the brightly lit corridor. A young woman pushes an old grandma in a wheelchair past us.

  “Look, like I said, I can’t go with you to the crew or the cops,” I say quietly. “But you should go get help.”

  “I should.” But she doesn’t move.

  Just keeps staring over my shoulder, watching. “The thing is, last time I went off on my own, Mr. Blank showed up.It’s like he’s unstoppable. I mean, what if the crew can’t protect me?”

  “Marissa, you’re so close to being safe,” I say, taking a step toward her, studying her face. “Don’t be scared. Just find someone from the crew. Anyone.”

  “Dorkney,” she says.

  “Well, maybe not him,” I say. “He seems a bit clueless.”

  “No, I mean Dorkney is right there.”

  Sure enough, I look over my shoulder to see Dorkney coming down the corridor, waving his arms and talking with two other men in blue uniforms. He has a big bruise around one eye. Marissa grabs my hand and spins us around.

  We stay in front of them, walking fast in the same direction.

  “Wait—I was kidding,” I say quietly as we walk. “You can talk to him.”

  “But you shouldn’t, right?” She looks at me quickly. “They’ll keep you for questioning, maybe hold you until we dock. After what you’ve done for me, the least I can do is make sure you can find your brother.” We’ve come to an intersection where two corridors meet.

  I hesitate, but Marissa doesn’t. She shoves me to the left, toward a door to the outer deck. She pushes down on the handle, and the wind outside yanks the door open.

  The storm is brutal, wind hammering against us as we push the door shut. Just in time too. We watch through the glass window in the door as Dorkney and the Final Crossing other crew members stop at the intersection, talking. We wait for them to move.

  In seconds, we’re soaked. Cold, wet and shivering. I can hear the waves slamming against the hull far below us.

  Enough of this. I’m not waiting around for Dorkney to move. There’s got to be another door up ahead. One hand on the wall, the other grasping Marissa’s hand, I haltingly move forward. We stumble across the deck.

  It’s cold enough that some of the rain is turning to slush. Combined with the rolling of the ferry and my crappy shoes, it’s tricky just to stay upright.

  We reach a lifeboat station—a metal cage containing a big orange pill-shaped container. It stops the wind just enough to let us rest behind it for a moment.

  “Maybe we should go back,” yells Marissa over the wind. Her ponytail has fallen out, and her blond hair is plastered to her head. She shivers.

  “No. Just a little farther,” I say.

  Dorkney might still be there. We leave the shelter of the lifeboat station and keep pushing on into the wind. I squint through the rain and see a door up ahead.

  It’s at the end of the passenger section.

  Beyond that, there’s a waist-high white metal railing that separates this area from a forward part of the deck.

  I break into a half-run. Stupid.

  Almost immediately, I lose my footing and slip to the deck. I’m wobbling back upright when there’s a sudden, juddering impact. I feel the vibration through the hull of the ferry beneath me. The ferry rises, then comes down really fast as we pass through a massive wave. Too much for my lousy balance to handle.

  I stumble and slide forward. Toward the white metal railing. Fast.

  The railing hits me in the stomach.

  Off balance, I flip right over it and land on my back. Now I’m sliding down the Final Crossing slush-slick deck, the breath knocked out of me.

  I’ve fallen into the forward area of the deck—the part that’s off-limits to passengers. The ferry begins to rise up again on the next wave. My slide finally slows, and I come to a stop against a big round tower wrapped in thick metal cable, like a spool of thread for a giant.

  Instinctively, I reach down to my ankle.

  There’s a sharp pain deep inside it— something twisted when I slipped, and it isn’t good. I wipe my other hand across my eyes to clear the rain from them, then look back.

  Marissa is climbing over the white railing. Coming to get me. The ferry starts another carnival ride, rising toward the top of the next wave. But Marissa is too smart to fall. She takes it slow, staying on her hands and knees.

  Crawling until she reaches my side.

  She sees me holding my ankle.

  “You okay?” she yells.

  I shake my head. “Hurts.” The wind rips the words out of my mouth.

  “Lean on me.”

  Again, I shake my head. No way— we try that, and I suspect we might slip right over the side of the boat and into the dark ocean below. I look through the rain, trying to see a little more of where we are. It’s the very front of the ferry.

  There’s a wide span of flat steel that forms the deck, punctuated by a few of the giant spools of cable. I start to shiver hard, my body feeling colder than ever before. The passenger section on this level ends here. Above us is the bridge, a row of dark windows topped with spinning radar towers and antennae.

  The crew probably can’t see us down here, right underneath them. They definitely couldn’t hear us over the storm, even if we shouted. So it’s up to us to figure a way out.

  Then Marissa spots something. She shakes my shoulder and points. Maybe half a dozen feet away is a small metal hatch set into the wall beneath the bridge windows. It must lead back inside.

  “Can you crawl?” she asks. In answer, I roll over and start pulling myself across the deck with my arms.

  The ferry starts another plunge downward to the bottom of a wave. I lie flat during the worst part, then keep moving.

  It only takes a few moments, but it feels like hours as I drag myself over the cold deck. Finally, Marissa and I lean against the wall next to the hatch. Now to get inside and get dry.

  Except the hatch is locked.

  Chapter Eleven

  Marissa tries to open it, again and again. Doesn’t budge. She looks over at me, water streaming down her face.

  Panicking. I reach out to her with an open hand.

  “Help me up. Need to get closer.”

  She gets one shoulder under mine and lifts me up until I’m almost standing.

  I examine the lock as carefully as I can.

  Okay, maybe I can do this. I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket. Not the slim jim, not the tryout keys. There—a little leather pouch containing a bunch of thin metal tools. My lockpicks. Stole them from my dad years ago, and I’ve gotten pretty good with them. Just hope they do the trick this time around.

  Keeping a firm grip on the little pouch, I carefully open it and select a pair of picks. A thin, strong tension bar and another with a hook on the end.

  It looks like something a dentist would use. Leaning against the hatch, I slip the tools into the lock. I try to focus through the gusts of wind and rain. Try to steady the shake in my hands. I close my eyes and start working the tools around.

  After a minute, I twist too hard and one of the picks slips out. In the rain and dark, I can’t see where it went. I drop to the deck and feel around for the pick, ignoring the pain in my ankle. Finally, my fingers close around the thin piece of metal.

  Slowly, I stand back up and look at Marissa. Her arms are crossed tightly across her thin sweater, trying to keep warm. She looks so co
ld and wet.

  “We should try something else,”

  I shout. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Yes, you can,” she says and smiles weakly. “Try again.”

  I put the picks in, shut my eyes and close everything out. The storm.

  Mr. Blank. Big O and Marissa. I push all of it away until my entire universe consists only of the lockpicks and the lock. I start to work, pushing down with one pick and raking the other across the pins hidden inside the lock. Carefully, painstakingly. Pushing and holding each pin up until I can twist the tension bar and the pick together.

  And the lock gives way with a click I can’t hear over the storm but can feel in my fingers.

  I shove my picks back into my jacket pocket. Working together, Marissa and I haul open the hatch. Once the hatch is closed behind us, I look around. We’re in some sort of storage locker for the crew.

  It’s dimly lit and filled with ropes and cables. Not the fuzzy blankets and hot coffee I was hoping for. But I smile when I see another door at the opposite end.

  “Maybe that’ll get us back inside,”

  I say, my voice hoarse after all the shouting. I lurch toward it, holding on to the metal shelves around me for support. I realize I can barely walk at all, my ankle hurts so much.

  “Wait,” says Marissa. She reaches across one of the shelves and pulls out a red plastic box with a white cross on it. “You can’t go anywhere. We need to take care of your leg first. Sit.” Part of me wants to get out of here and to somewhere really warm and dry. But she’s right. Something is really messed up in my ankle. I slide gingerly to the floor.

  Marissa pops open the medical kit.

  “Hey!” she says happily. She pulls out a couple of small foil packages.

  “Heat blankets!” She unwraps them, thin pieces of foil about the size of a bedsheet. She wraps one blanket around herself and tucks the other around my shoulders. Then she rolls up the soaked cuff of my jeans.

  “Does that hurt?” she asks, carefully prodding and poking my swollen ankle.

  I jerk my leg back from the flash of pain.

  “Stop that!” I say. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  Marissa looks at me, a little pissed.

  “Actually, I do. I’m a lifeguard at our pool. I’ve dealt with a few owies. Most kids are a little braver than you though.”

  She pokes a little more. “I think it’s a sprain.” Taking out a roll of tensor bandage, she sets to work wrapping Final Crossing up my ankle. “Man up—no whining, okay?”

  I grunt. What’s a little more pain today?

  “That was pretty impressive with the lock,” she says while she works.

  “Where’d you learn to do that?”

  “My dad, mostly. He’s kind of an expert.”

  “So stealing things runs in your family, huh?” Marissa asks.

  “Yeah. My dad is more of a high-end burglar. He was, I mean. Not anymore.When he gets out of jail, he’s going to get out of the business.”

  “You dad was caught?”

  “Actually, he kind of killed a guy.”

  Marissa stops short, holding the brown bandage in midair. She looks at me for a moment. “How do you kind of kill a guy?”

  “It’s not what you think,” I say quickly. “Dad had just finished a job, robbing this fancy apartment. He actually had his hand on the doorknob to leave when this old guy opened it from the other side. It was the owner. Dad tried to talk his way out of it. But then he smiled at him. Honestly, Dad’s smile is spooky at the best of times. Bad teeth.”

  Marissa laughs and starts wrapping the bandage around my leg.

  “Anyway, for whatever reason, the old guy seized up and had a heart attack. Right there in front of Dad. Now, Dad is a thief, but he’s not a murderer.He wasn’t going to take off with this guy dying in front of him.”

  “So what’d he do?” asks Marissa.

  “Dad performed cpr while a neighbor called nine-one-one. And that’s how the cops found my dad—pockets full of stolen jewels and cash, pounding away on the old guy’s chest. Hey, that feels better.” I test the tightly wrapped ankle.

  Marissa smiles and closes up the box.

  “What about your mom?”

  “Mom left the picture years ago.So my brother and I were packed up and delivered to a group home for some proper supervision. Except that didn’t work out so well. About a month ago, another kid went after me. Big O hit him back—knocked him out. Then we took off. Figured Big O might be charged with assault.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Nowhere. Stealing enough to get by, sleeping in our pickup. Until last week. That’s when I convinced Big O we should head over to our uncle’s place in Seattle. We don’t really know him that well, but Dad always said he was a good guy. The honest one in the family. We figured we could stay with him for a little while, anyway. Maybe get a real job. Man, I’d love to go back to school again.”

  Marissa looks at me like I’m crazy.

  “No, seriously,” I say. “I’d like that.

  Sitting at a desk all day again. Learning history. Math formulas. It sounds—safe.

  You know?”

  “I do,” she says. “Guess I always kind of took safe for granted. It looks a lot like boring sometimes.”

  I nod, then test my ankle. Not too bad. “Speaking of being safe, I need to get out of here and find Big O.You dried off?”

  Marissa shrugs and tries to pull her hair back into a ponytail. “I feel like a wet sponge. How do I look?”

  I study her perfect face and deepblue eyes. My brain locks for a second.

  “You look nice,” I say finally.

  She snorts. “That’s sweet, but bullshit.” We take a second to ditch the heat blankets and straighten up our clothes. Then we open the inner hatch and step into the hallway.

  Chapter Twelve

  We’re in the clear. No Dorkney, no Mr. Blank. Just a pair of teenagers leaning against the wall, trying to sleep against their backpacks despite the rocking of the ferry in the storm.

  I stumble as I lead Marissa over to a map of the ferry on the wall. It takes me a moment to figure out where we are.

  Upper deck, close to the cafeteria.

  “So where do you want to start?” asks Marissa, studying the map.

  “If Big O is hurt, my guess is he’s still at Mr. Blank’s van. Or chucked over the side of the ferry, if—”

  “Slow down,” interrupts Marissa.

  “Let’s assume he got away. He’s a smart guy. Where would he go?”

  I think, spinning slowly on one foot.

  The fried-food smell from the cafeteria makes my stomach grumble. “Hang on. I just remembered. Before this all started, I think I told him to meet me in the cafeteria if we got split up.”

  “Okay, we’ll start there.” She starts marching down the hallway. I don’t move.

  “Wait,” I say. “We?”

  She looks back over her shoulder.

  “Just for a little longer, okay? Like I said, I owe you. But I’m going after we find your brother at the cafeteria.”

  She’s sounds so sure of herself, I’m not arguing. I follow.

  It turns out the cafeteria is shut down. A big sign on the wall reads Cafeteria closes thirty minutes prior to arrival. There are still one or two people sitting at the square plastic tables. A guy in a suit, tapping away on a laptop, and a gray-haired woman asleep in a chair, paperback open on her chest.

  “What’s that?” says Marissa. She points at a table empty except for a baseball cap. An Oakland A’s cap. I hurriedly weave in between the tables. Sure enough, it’s the one that Big O always wears. And there is a note beneath it, in Big O’s spidery handwriting.

  Meet me in the kitchen.

  I look around and see the steel door that leads into the kitchen. There’s an official-looking sign on it that says Closed. Without thinking, I start toward it. Looking around to make sure no one is watching, I push gently on the door. It’s un
locked. I shove it all the way open and step inside.

  There are only a few lights on in here, sparkling off the stainless-steel counters and pots. Deep shadows hide the corners of the room. I take a few steps in.

  “Big O?” I whisper. Something moves in the dark, over near the sink.

  “You in here?”

  “Yeah, Orville is here,” says Mr. Blank.

  He steps out of the shadows, shoving Big O ahead of him. “He told me about your plan to meet up in the cafeteria.It took a little convincing, mind you.”

  Big O is limping a little. He winces as Mr. Blank shoves the gun into his side.

  His hands are bound together in front of him with duct tape, and his mouth is covered with it too.

  “You all right?” I ask him. Big O nods, but he looks scared. Big O never Final Crossing looks scared. “Listen, it’s all going to be okay—”

  “Shut up,” says Mr. Blank. He moves behind me and locks the door I just walked through. He turns to me and points the gun. “Empty your pockets.

  Slowly.” I swallow, then drop my wallet, the tryout keys and the lockpick set onto the counter. He looks quickly through the wallet.

  “You’re Wilbur, huh? Your brother said you were crooks.” He sees the handful of bills—all the money we stole earlier. “Not very successful ones, apparently.” He pockets my wallet.

  Damn. Losing all our money is the least of my worries right now, but it still sucks.

  Mr. Blank turns his attention back to me. “So, Wilbur, where’s the girl?”

  I look around, expecting to see Marissa. She’s gone. Confused, I turn slowly back to Mr. Blank and shrug.

  “You don’t know where she is?” he says. “That’s what you said last time.”

  “She was behind me a second ago,”

  I say apologetically.

  Mr. Blank’s face clenches angrily, eyes squinting.

  “What is it with you? This was supposed to be a simple job,” he says.

  “I’m a professional, and I really like simplicity. I like a clean job. But you two”—he waves the gun at Big O and me, voice rising—“you came out of nowhere and screwed it all up!”