And then he was running again.
As he searched for an escape from the tunnel, his mind flashed back to the battle at the Explorers Society, to running down hallways and around the glorious library, to fighting his way through a pit of foam pieces. He remembered himself and Evie at the university. At the zoo. He remembered it all. And the one thing he thought this moment as he finally spotted a staircase was Man, you need to be in good shape to do this sort of thing.
He took the stairs two at a time and burst out into a wide, brightly lit departures and arrivals lounge. It was full of travelers of all ages milling about, many looking bored or tired, except for the kids who were either extremely excited or extremely exhausted and having temper tantrums. Sound filled the hall completely. Announcements over the loudspeaker in Korean, English, and Chinese punctuated the noise at regular intervals. The beeping of little electric cars driving airport employees from one side of the facility to another was so constant that Sebastian hadn’t realized it was meant as a warning to move out of the way until he was almost run over. And Sebastian maneuvered his way through it all, not running now. He didn’t want to raise suspicions or get jumped by any security guards, but he went as fast as he could walk.
He had no idea where to go from here, but he did know to follow the signs. Signs…The Explorers Society…Once again another flash, of seeing that sign in the alley oh so many moons ago. How that sign had changed everything.
Now he needed only one: EXIT.
Finally he spotted it, and he picked up his pace, glancing behind him yet again. His heart flew up into his throat when he saw the three men in black crammed together on one of the little cars, speeding right for him. Sebastian had no choice but to run for it. He dashed forward and made his way through a large group of Italian tourists, all wearing colorful backpacks and speaking a mile a minute. They barely noticed him barrel through them toward the exit and baggage claim area. But they were awfully useful in blocking the little car.
Sebastian turned down the hallway and flew down the escalator, grateful that everyone in this particular airport seemed to appreciate the “stand right, walk left” rule.*
Of course, this meant it was just as easy for the men in black to chase him as it had been for him to run away, and Sebastian was now pretty sure he was about to be done for. Customs was fast approaching, and Sebastian had no idea what to do. He didn’t have a passport with him; he didn’t want to be stopped by police. He didn’t want to be stopped at all. And he didn’t generally enjoy the idea of starting his visit in a new country by breaking one of their laws. But considering he was trying to escape the clutches of some very dangerous men, he really hoped he would be forgiven.
Sebastian blended into the crowd waiting in line and then decided maybe his youth could work for him. He started to push through the crowd, apologizing. “My family is over there,” he said, pointing. Though very few people seemed to understand the words, they seemed to understand the sentiment, and let him through. He eventually made it to the front and looked around. There, down the row, was a loud, boisterous American family unit. Hard to miss with the father laughing happily, to himself, it seemed, and the kids ignoring him, playing on their phones. Slowly, and hoping they wouldn’t notice, Sebastian got in line behind them. Then, when they were called up to the customs official, he casually joined them as part of the group. As the customs officer was looking at their passports, Sebastian wandered through the family to the far side of the customs booth.
“Well, now. I don’t recall having five kids,” said the father, suddenly noticing Sebastian. Then he laughed at his own joke and turned back to the customs agent, who had looked up at that. “Hard to keep track of them all!” joked the father again, and the customs official sighed and looked back at the passports. As quickly as he could, Sebastian ducked around the desk and made his way toward the baggage claim area, trying to look like he totally belonged. Then he glanced over his shoulder, certain the men in black could not so easily get through customs.
No, it seemed they couldn’t.
Instead they had just chosen sheer force, pushing their way through the bodies and right past the customs booths.
Now not only were the men chasing Sebastian, but the border guards were chasing them!
Sebastian picked up his speed and ran into the large well-lit baggage claim area. He ran around a baggage carousel and looked behind him. There the men were, gaining ground. He turned just in time to careen into a large trolley filled with giant suitcases. As if in slow motion, Sebastian flew into the luggage and over, doing a full flip by accident and crashing to the ground hard on his face.
The man pushing the cart came to his side and said something to him in Korean. Sebastian pushed himself up and apologized as the man stared at him with concern.
“Really, I’m okay,” said Sebastian with a forced smile as he scrambled to his feet. “I just…I need to run.” He pointed at the men in black closing in on him. The man turned and stared, and Sebastian took the moment to run for it.
Sebastian noticed a blur to his side and quickly glanced at it. A large security officer had broken off from chasing the men and was now chasing him, running right for him. Sebastian turned and looked ahead at the exit. Two other security guards were standing there, preparing to take him down as he approached the line of passengers pushing their luggage out through the arrivals gate. He was cornered. He was done for. There was nowhere for him to go, no escape.
He veered away from the exit and skirted another large carousel that obscured him from his pursuers. He skidded to a stop and looked around. To his right he saw a group of five teenagers. They were chatting loudly, while several larger men piled suitcase after suitcase onto a trolley. The men were about finished, and the boys started to make their way to the exit, each putting on a pair of sunglasses as they went. Without thinking, since evidently that was his new thing, Sebastian raced toward the wall of luggage on the trolley, leapt onto the side, and held on to it for dear life, ducking down low. He had no idea if any of the men on the other side had seen him; he just held fast and stared in front of him as he was pushed closer and closer to the exit. The security guards were on the other side of the luggage. They didn’t seem to have seen him.
The man pushing the trolley itself, on the other hand…
Sebastian was forcefully wrenched upward and tossed to the side just in front of the exit doors, which swung open and then shut with each new exit. He skidded into an empty podium with no guard behind it and quickly jumped to his feet—only to turn and find himself face to face with Mr. M.
“Time to go,” Mr. M said.
Mr. M grabbed for him, and Sebastian fled. He launched himself toward the doors as if somehow, if he got through them, he would find himself safely whisked through a magic portal far away from these tediously efficient men. There was something pathetically desperate about it all, and offensively illogical. The doors swung open, and he and the teenagers and their luggage pushers all passed through at the same time. Sebastian could feel a hand graze the back of his shirt. He took another giant leap. This time the hand caught his arm, and he struggled to keep moving forward.
He was through, but he was caught. The exit was not a portal to safety, as he had fantasized.
Suddenly there was a massive explosion of bright light. Mr. M released his grip, and Sebastian found himself tumbling into what looked and sounded like a screaming wall of fire.
* So few people really seem to understand it. And it’s such a simple thing to follow, really. Stand on the right of the escalator if you want to ride it; walk on the left. Then everyone gets what they want! I don’t know why it’s that hard to do. I mean really, people!…
Evie stared out at the vast blackness before her. The bus driver had insisted that the view was fantastic during the day, a white sandy beach bordered by lush vegetation, stretching out to the Coral Sea. But rig
ht now, at the small bus stop where she and Catherine had been dropped off without much ceremony, it seemed like the end of the earth to Evie. She could smell salt in the air and hear waves somewhere off in the distance. Maybe the end of the earth was salty.
The stars were something, though. Bright pinpricks of light, a sweeping pattern caused by the overturning of the world’s largest sugar container.
“Let’s turn in,” said Catherine. It was, like many of Catherine’s statements, more of an order than anything else, but Evie didn’t want to argue. She was so tired she could barely stand, and so disoriented she could definitely have believed she was standing upside down here on the bottom of the world. She had no idea what day it was. If it hadn’t been dark out, she wouldn’t have even been sure it was night.
It didn’t take long for them to “turn in.” They just had to cross the street to a small two-story whitewashed inn. The front veranda was lit, but no one was sitting in the chairs facing the sea. Evie and Catherine climbed the steps and went through the front door, over which hung a white sign with bright blue letters that read THE OUTLOOK. The foyer was compact, with a ceiling so low that Catherine had to bend a little. They walked over to the check-in desk, painted a gray-blue like the walls. Mounted behind it was a large yellow-and-red surfboard from which room keys were hanging. No one was there. But there was a little bell.
“May I ring the bell?” asked Evie.
Catherine looked at her in that way she did, with that puzzled expression, and Evie couldn’t understand what she was confused about. Bells were fun to ring.
“You don’t have to ask my permission,” said Catherine.
Evie smiled and hit the bell. It made a very satisfying ding.
They stood there waiting for someone to come.
And continued to wait.
And wait.
Catherine cracked her neck and leaned her head to the right side to give the left a bit of a break.
Since no permission was required, Evie rang the bell again.
Suddenly a young woman, her dark, thick hair up in a messy bun, came flying down the stairs behind them near the entrance. She was out of breath and was wiping her hands on her apron. Though she seemed run ragged, she smiled brightly at them and dashed behind the desk, removing the apron and stashing it somewhere below.
“Hi! I’m Ruby. Welcome to the Outlook Inn. How can I help you?”
“I booked a room,” said Catherine efficiently.
“You did?” Ruby looked shocked at that revelation. “Are you sure? With us? With the Outlook?”
Catherine’s brow furrowed as she nodded. “Yes, my friend called the other day.”
“Erik must have booked it, I guess,” said Ruby, pulling out a black ledger almost as big as she was and dropping it with a thud on the desk. She opened it to the day’s date and then stared, her eyes doubling in size. She then looked back up at the two of them. “Are you Catherine and Evie?” she asked.
“I’m Catherine, she’s Evie,” replied Catherine, making sure, Evie supposed, that Ruby didn’t think she was both people.
“Well, I’ll be….A reservation. That’s cool.” Once more she grinned at them. Evie couldn’t help but grin back. Ruby’s energy was infectious.
“Yes, I suppose so. But we’ve been traveling a long time, and it would be nice to turn in,” said Catherine.
“Of course!” said Ruby, closing the book. She looked at them for a moment. “Did you want only one room? I know mothers and daughters like to share, but we have so many rooms that if you wanted to each have your own…I have two that join each other with a door.”
Ruby looked at Evie, and Evie didn’t know what to say. She was still stuck on the “mothers and daughters” thing. She supposed it did make sense that Ruby would draw such a conclusion. After all, they were the right ages. And when did one see this particular pairing, really? An explorer and a granddaughter on a rescue mission? That wouldn’t be nearly as common.
Still.
Mother.
Daughter.
She wasn’t anyone’s daughter. Not anymore.
When Evie didn’t speak up, Catherine did. “Yes, that sounds nice.”
Ruby nodded and grabbed two keys from the surfboard. “Follow me!”
And they did. They followed her back toward the entrance and then up the narrow staircase. The second-floor hallway was also narrow, but the ceiling was high and the walls painted a bright white. Hanging on them were photographs of the sea and surfers, and Evie looked at them with interest. If this was indeed what existed out in that blackness, then maybe their driver had been correct about the fantastic view.
“Here we go, rooms four and five,” said Ruby, handing the keys to Catherine. “Please let me know if you need anything. There aren’t…many of you…so you have my full attention. Breakfast is from seven to nine.” Once more she smiled that broad smile of hers. And with a contented sigh that seemed to indicate she felt she’d done her job well, she turned on her heel and went back down the stairs.
“Here,” said Catherine, handing Evie her key. After Evie took it, Catherine added, “Meet for breakfast at eight?”
Evie nodded, and then they split up, each slipping a key into her respective door and going into her room.
Once inside, Evie felt a wave of exhaustion hit her. The bed looked so welcoming with its modern white duvet with a gray stripe across the bottom. A large black-and-white photograph of waves crashing on the shore hung over the headboard. The furniture was a hodgepodge of items you’d find on the seaside, all painted white. The bedside tables were covered with a mosaic of seashells, and the curtains looked like netting. A chair in one corner was made of driftwood, and the low table before it was made of half a surfboard.
It was all very pleasant and very cozy, and Evie dropped her little bag in the corner before flopping onto the bed. It was soft and enveloped her like a sigh. And then, not meaning to, and still in her clothes and shoes, Evie fell into a deep, dull sleep.
Now, here’s a little-known fact: Screaming Wall of Fire was a not-so-famous metal band back in the eighties. They began their very short-lived career in a bar in Wisconsin, even though they were all from Detroit. After they struck their first chord, several customers had to be taken to the hospital for damage to their eardrums. And one unfortunate bartender went to a psychiatric hospital, the man being unable to understand how such a sound could exist in the universe, thus making him question his very existence.*
And that was it. One chord, one night, one bar in Wisconsin.
However. The band the Lost Boys had managed to play many chords so far in their rather short but hugely successful career. The only unfortunate souls ever sent to hospitals were fans who twisted ankles or wrists or whatever when trying to get a closer look at them. It was actually a miracle that none of the members of the Lost Boys ever got injured themselves. Especially since wherever they went, they were greeted by bright flashing cameras and walls of screaming fans.
Sebastian certainly found the experience utterly disorienting, and it took him a good moment before he understood what was going on: that what he’d thought was a screaming wall of fire was actually a throng of fans yelling and paparazzi taking pictures with flashes happening fast one after the other, and that he just happened to have exited the airport next to one of the most popular K-pop bands currently on the scene. He was lying at the feet of a particularly excited group of teenage girls who started furiously taking selfies with him as he tried to stand up.
“No, no,” he said, waving his arms frantically. “I’m nobody.”
But they didn’t seem to care. One even gave him a kiss on the cheek, and that caused his entire face to go red. For a moment he felt even more disoriented than when he’d thought he was facing a screaming wall of fire.
Also, he really didn’t have time for this.
&nb
sp; He turned and saw Mr. M keeled over, holding his one eye, blinded by the flashes of a thousand cameras and phones, and he realized what was happening. He needed to take quick advantage. He bolted over to join the band, and that was when one of the teens, a boy with black hair that flopped over his left eye, finally noticed him. The boy asked him a question as Sebastian walked quickly beside him.
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” replied Sebastian.
“Oh, sorry about that!” replied the boy with almost no hint of an accent. “I asked who you were.”
Sebastian knew he had to get the explanation out as quickly and as efficiently as possible before Mr. M regained his sight, and before the other men got to him too. “I’m Sebastian, I’ve been kidnapped, I’m trying to escape.” There it was. As straightforward as he could be.
The boy thought for a moment as they quickly marched past the fans and paparazzi straining against the ropes holding them at bay. It was silly, really. The fans could easily have ducked underneath. But it was a kind of respectful chaos. One of the boys in the band up ahead decided to do a front flip just for laughs, and the crowd went wild.
“Okay. Well, let’s help you escape, then,” said the boy. He took off his sunglasses and passed them to Sebastian, who immediately put them on. Then, in a perfectly timed moment, a fan tossed a baseball hat toward the band. The boy caught it deftly, grinned, and passed that to Sebastian. Sebastian looked at it for a moment. It had a cartoon version of the boy on it with a giant heart drawn around that. The cartoon was winking.
“Put it on,” said the boy.
Sebastian reluctantly did.
The Reckless Rescue Page 4