World After (Penryn & the End of Days #2)(38)
Author: Susan Ee

Raffe glides down, circling silently near the ships, as curious as I am about what’s happening.

The decks are covered with people huddling together for warmth. Someone must have caught a glimpse of our darker shape against the sky because the engines shut off and the boats float silently through the night. There are men with rifles pointed at the sky, but most of them are not pointed at us, so we must not be very visible. And the best news is that none of the guns go off.

I’m guessing they have orders to shoot only as a last resort since the noise from a single shot could beckon a horde of monsters to them. The boats seem to be doing okay silently drifting through the fog. If this is the Alcatraz escape, they’ve probably been on the water for hours, which means they’ve had their engines off most of the time.

There is no light, motion, or sound anywhere except on the roof of the largest boat that’s leading the fleet. The reflection from the water’s ripples and the moonlit glow of the mist are enough to see that there’s something tied to the roof.

It’s a thrashing scorpion.

Someone hovers over the writhing monster. As we silently glide past, I get a better look.

The beast’s body and tail are securely tied. Its mouth is gagged and making a muffled hiss as it tries frantically to sting the woman who bends over it.

The woman is absorbed in whatever she’s doing and doesn’t notice us. She’s drawing something on its chest. I can’t see her face but there’s only one person she could be.

My mother is alive and apparently uninjured.

Two men holding rifles stand on either side of her. I’m guessing by the bulging arms of one and the yuppie collar of the other that they’re probably Tattoo and Alpha. If so, Mom must have impressed the hell out of them during the escape or they wouldn’t be protecting her as she draws on a scorpion.

We sweep over the boat, but it’s too dark for me to see what she’s writing.

“She’s drawn a heart on his chest in lipstick and is writing ‘Penryn and Paige’ inside the heart,” whispers Raffe in my ear. We circle back on our way to the pier. “Now she’s drawing flowers on his stomach.”

I can’t help but smile and shake my head.

I feel lighter.

And for a moment, I hold Raffe tighter in what some people might mistake as a hug.

Chpater 66

PIER 39 is mostly as I remember it. Broken planks sticking out every which way, demolished buildings, a boat on its side.

Captain Jake’s ferry has been driven into the pier, plowing the planks in a crown of jagged splinters. The ship sits lower than it should, slowly sinking. A spotlight from the deck remains on and throws a ghostly ray of light across the pier.

So not everyone chose to go down the bay to the peninsula. Some must have wanted to take the shortest crossing to the mainland and then scattered. That would make sense if you thought your chances were better on land than on water, or if you had loved ones in the city. But whoever piloted the ship probably wasn’t Captain Jake. Unless he was seriously drunk, which is a real possibility.

We circle above the pier, scoping out the situation. Looters scatter when they glimpse our moon shadow. A couple of them are just kids. Word must be getting around about the valuables left on the pier. I wonder if they have any idea how dangerous it is for them to be here?

As soon as everyone disappears, we land silently in the shadows.

Raffe holds me a second longer than necessary before he puts me down. And then it takes me a second longer than necessary to slide my arms away from his neck and step back from his warmth. Anyone watching us might assume we were a couple kissing in the dark.

The lights illuminate the beams and planks sticking up on the dock. The moist air of our breaths condenses into mist and swirls together as we watch and listen to make sure no one is around.

Someone is crying.

There’s a lone figure sitting in the debris of a half-standing candy shop. She’s trying to be quiet but the soft sobs are unmistakable.

There’s something about the shriveled figure and the voice that seems familiar. I gesture for Raffe to stay back while I go talk to the person. I skirt around the beam of light to reach her.

It’s Clara. She hugs her shriveled body, looking even smaller than usual. The cheeks that look like beef jerky glisten with tears as she sobs alone.

“Hey, Clara. It’s me, Penryn.” I call softly to her from a few feet away so I don’t scare her to death. She gasps, and it’s clear I practically give her a heart attack anyway.

She half-smiles and half-sobs when she realizes it’s me. I walk over and sit by her. The broken boards are hard and damp. I can’t believe she’s been sitting here for hours.

“Why are you still here? You should be running as far away as you can.”

“This place is as close as I can get to my family now.” Her voice breaks. “We had happy Sundays here.” She shakes her head slowly. “That, and I have nowhere else to go.”

I’m about to tell her to go to the Resistance camp when I remember how they treated her and the other scorpion victims. People who would rather bury their loved ones alive than risk having them changed like Clara will probably never accept someone like her. No wonder she didn’t go down the bay with the Resistance.

I put my arm around her shoulder and give her a squeeze. It’s all I can think to do.

She gives me a weak smile but tears streak down her face again and her face crumples.

Something clanks and rolls nearby.

We both tense, proving that Clara is not quite ready to give up.

A grubby little girl with a mass of finely tangled hair runs a couple of steps out of hiding behind a car. An adult arm reaches out and tries to grab her.

“No, it’s her,” says the girl. “I heard her. She’s here.”

Someone whispers urgently from behind the car.

The girl shakes her head. She turns and runs toward us.

“Get back here!” whispers the urgent voice from behind the car. A man sprints out, running half-crouched. He snatches the little thing into his arms and runs back. The kid squirms like a sack of puppies. She kicks and twists and tries to scream bloody murder but he has his hand over her mouth.

Her muffled yells sound a lot like, “Mommy!”

Beside me, Clara sits perfectly still.

A second girl’s face peeks out from behind the car. She’s a little bigger but just as grubby with hair just as tangled. She looks wide-eyed at us.

“Ella?” Clara whispers so softly that even I have trouble hearing her. She gets up, almost panting. “Ella?” She lurches, then runs toward them.

Uh-oh. This could be really wonderful or really awful.

It’s dark and we’re far enough away that I’m pretty sure they can’t see the details of what Clara looks like yet. I get up and follow discreetly in case she needs backup. Not that I can really help her if her family rejects her, but at least she’ll know she has one person in her corner.

The man freezes on his way to the car. He turns around with the girl in his arms. The kid is going ballistic with her muffled screams of “Mommy!”

The second girl steps gingerly out from behind the car. “Mom?” She sounds totally lost and unsure.

“Chloe.” Clara sobs out her name as she runs toward them.

The older girl approaches Clara. I’m about to have a full-blown smile on my face when the girl stumbles to a stop, staring wide-eyed at her mom. She’s close enough now to see us better. I see Clara again the way my mother sees her, the way the others see her. She really does look like she crawled out of her grave after being dead for a while.

Please don’t scream, Chloe. That would be the end of Clara.

She was strong enough to survive a scorpion attack, strong enough to crawl out of being buried alive and escape from monsters on Alcatraz. But having her little girl scream at the sight of her would shatter her into so many pieces that nothing could glue her back together.

Clara’s steps falter and she stops too. Her face shifts from amazed delight to horrible uncertainty.

The younger girl has managed to squirm out of the man’s arms and dashes over to us. Unlike her sister, she has no hesitation about jumping into Clara’s arms.

“I knew it was you!” The girl looks like she’s about to melt with happiness as she hugs her mom. “Daddy made us wait until we knew for sure. We watched forever. You just cried and cried and we couldn’t tell. Then you started talking and I knew! I heard your voice and I knew. See Daddy? I told you.”

But Daddy stands frozen a few steps away, staring at Clara.

Clara strokes Ella’s hair with a trembling hand. “Yes, baby girl, you were right. I missed you so much. So very much.” She looks fearfully at Chloe and her husband, her eyes begging.

Chloe takes a hesitant step toward her. “Mom? Is it really you? What happened to you?”

“Yes, sweetheart. It’s me. I’m all right,” says Clara. “I’m all right now.” She puts out her arm in an invitation and Chloe gingerly steps into it.

Dad yanks the girl back. “Is it contagious?”

“What?” Clara looks confused.

“Are you contagious?” Dad enunciates every word like she no longer speaks his language.

“No,” whispers Clara. Her voice cracks and I know she’s barely holding it together. “I swear.”

Chloe slips out of her dad’s hold. She pauses, staring at Clara. Then she hesitantly steps into Clara’s arm. Once there, though, the older girl clings onto her mom as tightly as her baby sister.

Clara’s husband stares at them, looking like he’s torn between running to join his family and simply running away. He stands there, watching his kids chatter to their mom about how they came here to scavenge, that they’d heard valuable things were left here on the dock. How they’d begged their dad to come here one last time. How they pretended they were coming here for their Sunday lunch like they used to.

Hearing Clara chat softly with her girls brings up a picture of a mom that every kid deserves to have. The girls look cozy and happy in the shelter of their mother. I’m guessing that feels pretty great.

Eventually, their dad steps over to Clara like a man in a dream. Without a word, he enfolds all of them in a hug and begins to cry.

I can almost see this pier the way it was when Clara and her husband brought the kids here for lunch. The sound of the seagulls, the salty smell of the ocean on the breeze, and the warmth of the California sun. I can see the couple walking hand-in-hand as the girls run ahead. Clara, the way she used to be with fresh skin and a smile, holding flowers from the farmers’ market, laughing with her husband on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

I melt back into the shadows.