This Town Is a Nightmare

by M. K. Krys

  This dampened the mood a little, but Beacon still couldn’t help the small smile that curled at the corner of his mouth.

  “So what’s your plan?” Everleigh asked.

  “Do you know of another secret underground passage into town or something?” Arthur suggested. “Or maybe you have one of those pods that drive underwater? Oh! Or is it an alien trick to make us all invisible so we can just walk into town? That would be neat!”

  It was Galen’s turn to smile. “It’s something like that.”

  9

  “This is your plan?” Beacon said, plugging his nose.

  The barge sat low and heavy in the water. It was about thirty feet wide, with squared off corners and a single cabin in the front. The entire deck was covered with garbage. Beacon didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this.

  Arthur gagged.

  Everleigh grimaced and waved the sour smell away from her face. “Isn’t there a boat that isn’t covered in trash that we could take?”

  “This is the only boat we have any chance of hiding on,” Galen said. “No one’s going to start digging through the trash to see if there’s a stowaway on board.”

  “You expect us to hide in there?” Everleigh pointed at the heap of takeout containers and leaking garbage bags.

  “Don’t be such a princess,” Galen said. “You’re on the run. It isn’t going to be all five-star accommodations.” He leaped the gap from the pier to the deck.

  “That’s sexist, you know,” Everleigh said, but she jumped after him.

  “Are we sure this thing isn’t going to sink?” Arthur said apprehensively. “When was the last time it was safety-checked?”

  “Just get on the boat,” Galen said.

  Arthur grimaced, took a deep breath, and jumped.

  “None of you even has anything to worry about,” Beacon said. “All of you can breathe underwater. I’m the only one who’s in danger here.”

  Still, he jumped after Arthur onto the vessel.

  Galen had said the first workers usually arrived before sunrise, so they had to hide fast. They’d gotten lucky that there was a barge leaving for Driftwood Harbor so soon. If they missed this one, they’d need to wait six days for their next chance.

  “All right, just . . . find a spot,” Galen said. “Keep quiet, and don’t come out until I say so. No matter what.”

  Arthur followed Everleigh to the back corner of the trash heap, while Beacon trailed after Galen. They hunkered down under the most intact garbage bags they could find.

  Beacon tried to get into a comfortable position, but it turned out there wasn’t one under a pile of garbage. Who knew?

  “Good thing we didn’t bring Boots. He would’ve hated this,” Beacon said.

  “He would have been fine,” Galen snapped.

  Beacon had convinced Galen that it would be better for everyone if he put Boots up in a kennel while they traveled to Driftwood Harbor. They couldn’t exactly be incognito if Boots was barking at every Sov they passed. Galen had agreed, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

  The boat rocked on the waves. Thunder rumbled overhead. If it rained right now, Beacon was going to have to take it personally. If there was one thing worse than sitting in a pile of garbage, it was sitting in a pile of wet garbage.

  The trash bags shifted, and Beacon felt something drip onto his shoulder. Garbage or a raindrop, he wasn’t sure.

  “I have a question,” Beacon said.

  Galen shot him an annoyed glance. “I said be quiet.”

  “The workers won’t be here for a while,” Beacon said.

  Galen didn’t argue, so Beacon went on. “Is it true about the floods?”

  “Huh?” Galen said.

  “The ‘collection of weather events’ that will devastate our planet,” Beacon said, doing air quotes. He regretted it when the shift in position caused a leaky trash bag to spill mystery liquid onto his shoulder.

  “My dad—my real dad,” he went on. “The Sov told him that there would be a collection of weather events that would flood the earth. Storms, tsunamis, flash floods, that sort of thing. That was why they said they needed to inject us with that antidote. To help us breathe underwater until the earth could be restored.”

  “Oh. That,” Galen said offhandedly. “Yeah, that’s partially true.”

  “What?” Beacon squeaked.

  “Shhh!” Galen hissed.

  Beacon swallowed hard and lowered his voice. “What do you mean partially true?”

  Galen shrugged. “Last I heard, Earth was headed for water town. Not, like, tomorrow or anything. A hundred years from now or something like that,” he added, seeing Beacon’s look of horror.

  “Are you sure? I mean, how do the Sov even know about this?” Beacon asked.

  “Some of our oldest people have developed abilities to see into the future.”

  “Elders,” Beacon said, remembering the term Victor had used back in the alley.

  Galen nodded.

  “But they can be wrong sometimes, right?” Beacon said hopefully.

  “They haven’t been yet,” Galen said.

  A sinking feeling washed over him.

  “But the floods aren’t why the Sov were injecting people,” Galen said, interrupting his internal doom spiral.

  “It was to brainwash us,” Beacon said, remembering his conversation with Nixon.

  Galen nodded.

  Beacon had so many questions, he didn’t even know where to start.

  “Are the Sov going to flood us?” he asked. “Can they control the elements or something?”

  Galen scoffed. “No, this one’s all on you.” He answered the question on Beacon’s face. “Climate change, man. Haven’t you ever heard of it?”

  “Of course I have. But it’s really going to flood the earth?”

  “I mean, you don’t need elders to tell you that. Scientists have been warning you guys for years.”

  Beacon opened and closed his mouth like a fish on a hook.

  “Well, this is just great!” he finally said.

  They could defeat the aliens trying to take over their planet, and it might not even matter. Not because of aliens, but because of their own stupid decisions.

  “It isn’t set in stone,” Galen said. “Destinies change all the time. There have been some positive changes. Solar power, electric cars, Greta Thunberg, all that. It could be different now. Who knows?”

  Who knows.

  Cool.

  There was nothing much to say after that. They descended into silence again.

  After a while, Galen pulled something out of his pocket. It took Beacon a moment to realize what it was: the picture of the girl he kept in his wallet. He couldn’t have been able to see much, but the small amount of moonlight filtering in through the bags must have been enough.

  “So, who is she, anyway?” Beacon asked.

  Galen quickly turned the picture away. “Nobody.”

  “Oh, yeah, I keep pictures of nobody in my wallet, too,” Beacon said sarcastically.

  Galen narrowed his eyes at him. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Come on,” Beacon said. “You know our story. If we’re going to be doing this together, isn’t it fair you tell us something about you?”

  Galen looked down at the picture and absently flicked the corner with his thumb. Beacon couldn’t help leaning over and stealing a peek. He got a glimpse of a jeweled necklace that he hadn’t noticed the first time, at odds with the girl’s plain T-shirt and jeans, before Galen tilted the picture away again.

  Beacon thought he’d blown it, but Galen surprised him by saying, “I met her on the ship. We weren’t friends at first. I was actually kind of scared of her.” He laughed a little, gazing at the picture again. “She was really serious and angry looking.”


  “Just to clarify, we’re talking about that girl in the picture right here?” Beacon asked, pointing.

  “She’s scarier than she looks,” Galen said. “They wanted us to choose young human forms. People are less suspicious of kids.”

  Beacon had so many questions about that, but Galen was finally sharing something personal, and who knew if that would ever happen again. He had to keep him talking about the girl.

  “How did you meet?” Beacon asked.

  “I was doing freelance work then, little hack jobs for whoever was willing to pay, when I was approached by someone asking if I would be willing to do a bigger gig. I needed the coin, so I took the meeting. Turns out they were offering a ton of money for someone to join a crew heading for Earth. They needed someone doing their IT stuff. I figured, why not, right? Easy money. So I said yes . . . not knowing that we weren’t coming back.”

  “They didn’t tell you that you weren’t coming back?” Beacon said.

  “They didn’t tell us anything, really. Everyone was so secretive about the whole thing. ‘IT’ turned out to be hacking Earth’s government files. I slowly started realizing this was a lot bigger than I’d thought. By the time I figured out what was going on, what they were planning, it was too late. We were stuck here.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Beacon said. “They basically kidnapped you.”

  “I guess a lot of people would have backed out if they’d known the truth.” He sighed deeply. “Anyway, it didn’t matter. I was stuck here, and I hated it. Underwater all day and all night. They didn’t want us leaving the ship in those first years, and it was really isolating and lonely. So I started sneaking out.”

  Beacon sat forward. “Didn’t they have security making sure you didn’t get out?”

  Galen grinned, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “Of course. I hacked the security system so the cams would be disabled in the pod room and took one for a little swim.”

  “No way!”

  “It was so great being out of those walls. Like I could finally breathe again, you know? I started going out more and more, and I guess I got sloppy. I was climbing out of a pod one night and Daisy was just there.”

  “Daisy’s the girl in your picture?” Beacon said.

  He nodded. “I started rambling with all these excuses, and she told me to shut up. She said she knew that I’d been sneaking out and she wanted me to take her where I was going.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Daisy doesn’t give people much of a choice,” he said with a laugh. “I showed her all the places I’d discovered—the lighthouse, this amazing cave. It was weird at first, but soon I realized she wasn’t the stuck-up snob I thought she was. She was just lonely, like me. We started going out every night, and the rest is history.”

  “So . . . how come she’s there, and you’re here?” Beacon asked.

  “She couldn’t leave,” Galen said.

  “You said before that she didn’t want to leave. Was she a Kill Humans supporter or something?”

  “Of course not,” Galen spat. “She wanted to leave. She just . . . couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I have time.”

  Galen’s jaw locked tight. The conversation was over.

  Footsteps thundered on the deck, followed by voices. The workers had arrived.

  The journey was cold and uncomfortable. They couldn’t speak, or eat, or do anything, in case the workers heard them. So they just shivered in their trash heap and waited.

  Beacon tried not to think about his dad—it only made him feel anxious and helpless. But he couldn’t help it. He thought of the notes his dad left in his lunchbox each day, of the family Scrabble games everyone pretended were lighthearted fun but were actually cutthroat competitions, of his dad regaling them with the latest scientific breakthrough at work over breakfast.

  If Galen noticed him crying, he didn’t say.

  It felt like a century later when Beacon was awoken from a fitful sleep by a hand shaking him. When he peeled open his eyes, he found Galen crouched half in half out of the trash heap.

  “Come on. We don’t have a lot of time,” Galen said.

  Beacon stood up and froze. The harbor was bustling with activity. Boats creaked on the choppy waves as fishermen called to one another in thick, guttural accents, their voices carried on the salty breeze. In the distance, residents walked up and down the cobbled streets of the main square.

  Beacon ducked down.

  “What are you doing?” Galen said. “I told you we don’t have a lot of time.”

  “It’s still light out,” Beacon whispered harshly. “And we’re right next to the town square!”

  “It’s the best I could do,” Galen said. “This barge gets back on the water in an hour, so unless you want to go back to New York, I suggest you get off the boat.”

  Beacon gritted his teeth. It was too late now to start second-guessing Galen’s plan. They were already here.

  He pushed himself back up, plucking a banana peel from his sleeve. Everleigh and Arthur struggled out of their hiding spots. Arthur had sleep marks on his cheek, but Everleigh’s eyes were red-rimmed and fiery. She obviously hadn’t slept, and now wore an expression Beacon recognized instantly as her just waiting for an excuse to snap face.

  “There are people everywhere!” Arthur whispered.

  “What do we do now? We can’t just walk out there,” Everleigh said.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Galen said.

  “Look, I don’t like it, either, but we have to do it,” Beacon said. “Blackwater Lookout is a straight walk through those trees on the other side of the square. All we have to do is make it a few blocks.”

  “Famous last words,” Everleigh muttered.

  “Let’s just get this over with,” Beacon said. “Try to stay out of sight as much as possible, but walk slowly and casually. If we look panicked, it will call more attention to us. Everyone got it?”

  “Got it,” Arthur said.

  The others nodded.

  “All right, after these two ladies go past,” Beacon whispered.

  The women walked by in stony silence. Beacon shuddered. He’d forgotten how creepy the townspeople were, so devoid of emotion and life.

  As soon as the women passed, Beacon climbed off of the barge. The others followed suit.

  The main square consisted of a handful of buildings that branched off into four different directions. There was a bright turquoise bait shop, a long and low grocery store made of dark red brick, a clapboard-sided yellow diner with old-fashioned steel stools you could see through the big windows, and off in the distance, the towering stone church.

  Beacon couldn’t believe they were actually here. When they’d escaped Driftwood Harbor, he’d really been planning on never seeing this place again.

  They walked down the pier, into the main square. Beacon’s shoulders knotted up tight, but so far, no one was paying attention to them.

  An elderly man carrying a bag of groceries walked past.

  “Just out for a casual stroll!” Arthur said. The man frowned at them and shook his head, as if to say, “kids.”

  “Oh my God,” Everleigh muttered.

  Galen mashed his palm against his forehead.

  “Just . . . don’t talk,” Beacon ground out through clenched teeth.

  “What?” Arthur protested. It was hard to believe he’d once claimed to have completed hundreds of top-secret missions for YAT.

  They were almost to the far side of the square when the door of Tonkin’s Bait Shop and Antiques up ahead opened with a jingle. Jane and two of her Gold Star minions walked outside dressed in their characteristic blue-and-gold varsity jackets.

  “Code Blue!” Beacon grabbed Arthur’s arm and banked to the left.

&nbs
p; Everleigh followed suit.

  “What’s going on?” Galen whispered, speed walking to catch up. “What happened to the plan?”

  “Those people did.” Beacon nodded toward the bait shop.

  “Don’t look now!” Arthur said. “They’re in league with the Sov. We can’t let them see us.”

  “Just keep walking,” Beacon said. “We can cut behind the diner to get to the woods.”

  It took every last ounce of Beacon’s self-restraint not to run toward the diner. His legs itched to get away from the Gold Stars as quickly as possible, but it would only make them look conspicuous.

  Once they made it behind the building, they did run. Across a narrow dirt road, through a scrabbly patch of shrubs, and then, finally, into the forest. Twigs snapped and crunched under their boots as they pounded through the trees, ducking under branches and leaping over fallen logs. Before long, Blackwater Lookout came into view through a break in the trees.

  The inn sat on a craggy cliff overlooking the ocean. Thick vines crept over nearly every inch of the yellow-stained siding and crumbling chimney. Paint-chipped black shutters snapped open and closed in the wind.

  Beacon almost collapsed with relief. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t wanted anything to do with this place when they’d first arrived in Driftwood Harbor. Now, it felt strangely like coming home.

  He pushed through the trees.

  “Thank God we made it,” he said, spinning around to face the others.

  But something was wrong.

  “Galen?” he said.

  “Where did he go?” Everleigh asked.

  Arthur turned in a circle, as if Galen might be right behind him.

  But he’d disappeared.

  10

  A yelp sounded from the forest, right before Galen emerged, dragging Nixon by his collar.

  “This one was following us,” Galen announced.

  “Get your hands off of me!” Nixon shouted, trying to wrench free.

  “Is anyone else with you?” Beacon asked Nixon, his eyes darting all around them.

  “No. I told Jane and the others I forgot something at the bait shop. Now tell your goon to put me down.” Nixon tried to elbow Galen, but the boy held him away from his body like a used tissue.