Ruins

They buried Ryssdal by the side of the ocean, laying him in a shallow grave and covering him with rocks. It took long enough that he was already blanketed with snow by the time they finished. Kira wondered how long the storm would last, but she didn’t dare to wait any longer. The park Ryssdal had called them to sat at the head of a long, narrow bay leading out to the sound, and a quick run across a bridge brought them to a large pier crowded with boats. Many of them had long ago come loose from their moorings, and the years of waves had washed them into a massive pile on the edge of the wharf, or out into deeper water where they dotted the bay like tiny white shipwrecks. Several were still tethered tightly to the docks, but none of them looked seaworthy enough to risk sailing. They walked through the vast lot of beached boats, safely stored for an off-season that had lasted thirteen years, and cut off the tight plastic wrapping that covered them, searching for one that would suit their needs. No one in their group knew how to sail, but one of the larger yachts, sixty feet at least, was equipped with wide, black solar panels, and a console that leapt dimly to life almost as soon as the panels were uncovered.

“We’re not going to have much sun to rely on,” said Green, looking up at the clouds. “It’s late afternoon already, and those clouds aren’t going anywhere.”

Falin looked in the gas tank and waved his hand in front of his nose as the foul stench rose up. “The gas is almost completely settled out—mostly resin now, probably won’t even turn the motor. The solar panels will still work until nightfall, but that’s probably not enough to get us across the sound.”

“Let me show you a little trick I learned,” said Kira with a smile, and pointed across the lot to a tall AUTO BODY sign a few blocks away. “If that place has any turpentine, we’re good to go.”

“Paint thinner?” asked Falin.

“What do you think gasoline resin is?” asked Kira. “Come on.”

Falin glanced at Green, who only laughed. “Trust me, she knows her stuff.”

The auto body shop did indeed have turpentine, and they brought it back in heavy metal cans and pushed the boat down the ramp into the water. It took them an hour to get through the press of broken and overturned boats, clambering over them and cutting them loose while the snow grew heavier and wetter. When they reached open water Kira cranked the engine up to full power, pulling from both the panels and the gas tank, and roared out into the bay.

“Stay away from the exhaust vents,” she called back, “and be careful if the wind changes and starts to blow it toward us. That turpentine smoke is poisonous like you wouldn’t believe.”

The mouth of the bay was choked with small sandbars and islands, and they maneuvered through them carefully. By the time they reached the sound it was already night, and they were forced to rely solely on the gasoline as they thumped through the choppy water. The boat had a convertible canvas awning that raised up over the pilot’s station, but the years had not been kind to it, and it cracked nearly in half when they tried to unfold it. Green found a baseball cap belowdecks and gave it to Kira to keep the snow out of her eyes while she steered, and when she needed a break she passed both controls and hat to him. They steered slightly westward as they drove, and made land in Huntington Bay sometime around midnight. The beach was wide and pebbly, and they beached the yacht carefully in case they needed to use it again, tying it to a sturdy upright log that had once been part of a dock.

The snow was getting thicker, and with the storm clouds blocking out the moon, they could barely see enough to walk. They took shelter in a massive mansion just off the water, sleeping soundly in a small bedroom with all five of them huddled together for warmth. In the morning they scoured the house for canned food, finding some garbanzo beans that hadn’t gone bad yet, and shared the meager fare before trudging back outside into the snow. The world was covered with a thick, white carpet, with more still falling in a slow, steady curtain. They didn’t walk far before Falin stepped on a small bump and jumped back with a curse.

“That’s a body.”

Kira looked up quickly, glancing around to see if there was danger she hadn’t registered yet, perhaps some ambush from the storefronts, but she saw nothing. She walked to the group, clustered around the prone body, and knelt down next to it. Now that she was looking closely, she could tell it was a vaguely man-shaped outline, lying on his side in a fetal position.

“Not a Partial,” said Green. “No death stamp on the link.”

Kira brushed away the snow and frowned as she uncovered more and more dark, frozen blood. Whoever it was had died violently. She wiped the snow from the dead man’s face and gasped in horror.

“You know him?” asked Green.