The Escape Read online

  Fuck. She looked around the abandoned graveyard, the grass overgrown, moss covering the tombstones. God was probably way too busy to listen to her. Especially since there were so many people in the country right now probably saying the same exact prayer.

  It only took her a couple of minutes to reach Clarissa on the side of the road.

  “Let’s go. We need to get to that boat.”

  But when they got back to where they’d left Barker lying on the pavement, he was gone. Only a spot of blood remained.

  “Barker!” Jenna called.

  Where the hell had he gone? Had he left them?

  “I’m here,” a voice yelled down the road.

  Jenna and Clarissa ran to him.

  “You can’t just leave like that,” Jenna said. “I thought—”

  He wrapped his muscular arms around her, getting the blood from her clothes on him, and not seeming to either notice or mind. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “We’re safe now.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “I bet it looks worse than it is. I’m fine.” He kissed her gently and she stood on her tiptoes, wanting to give him more access to her lips, wanting to lose herself in him.

  But Clarissa was standing right behind them.

  “Sorry,” Jenna said, and Clarissa waved her hand, as if to say it was no big deal.

  “I can carry that,” he said, and took one of the bags Clarissa had gotten from the dead soldiers. “At least we have more supplies now. And guns.”

  “And ammo,” Jenna added. “We used up a bunch of it.”

  “That we did.”

  The silence was crushing, the realization of exactly what that meant filling the very air around them.

  They walked single file again, faster than before despite the new supplies weighing them down. It was as if they all had an unspoken understanding.

  Get as far away from that battle scene as possible.

  * * *

  They arrived at Locust Point Marina several hours later.

  Barker hadn’t known what to expect, but a nearly empty marina wasn’t one of them. The place was eerily quiet—even the seagulls that usually perched around the docks were missing.

  “Where are all the boats?” Clarissa asked.

  Where, indeed. Holy fuck.

  “People must have taken them. My father’s boat used to dock right out there,” he said, pointing to an empty dock. “Someone hijacked it. Motherfucker.”

  Jenna inhaled sharply.

  He sat down, needing to rest, needing to think. “I can’t believe it’s gone.”

  “There are other boats here,” Jenna said. “We’ll take one of them.”

  “We can’t steal a boat,” Barker said. “I used to know some of these people.”

  She burst into laughter. “Seriously? We can steal food, supplies, guns, we can kill people, fucking kill people, but we can’t take a boat when we have no other options?”

  “It just doesn’t seem right,” Barker said.

  “Well, you enjoy sitting here, waiting for the soldiers to come looking for the men we just murdered, and Clarissa and I will be on some other dead guy’s boat.”

  It was a bluff. Had to be. Neither Jenna nor Clarissa knew how to operate a boat. But they were walking up and down the docks, looking for the best option.

  “Fine,” he said finally, standing. “We’ll take that one.” He pointed to a medium-sized boat with a cabin. “It’s just like my father’s. I’ll know how to sail it.”

  They walked onto the dock, but Jenna kept staring at the water.

  “I want to jump in. Can I jump in, clean off?”

  “Let’s get on the boat first, and put on life preservers,” Clarissa suggested. “No point in drowning now.”

  But when they got nearer to the boat, Barker shouted, “This is my father’s boat.”

  “No way.”

  He pointed to the name on the side of the hull. The Marjorie. “It was named after my father’s mother. Someone moved it. Don’t know why, but someone moved my boat.”

  Clarissa stepped aboard, setting her pack down on the wooden deck. “It’s really nice.”

  Barker grinned, ready to board his boat, when he heard Clarissa gasp, and suddenly she seemed to fall—no, she was pulled down into the cabin.

  “Don’t take another step,” a gruff voice said from below.

  Clarissa’s eyes were wide with fright, and a tan male arm was around her neck, the rest of his body hidden inside the boat’s interior compartment.

  “Get out of here, now. This is my boat,” the voice said. They couldn’t see his face.

  “Let her go,” Barker said, raising his rifle. But there was no way to get a clear shot, not with Clarissa being used as a human shield.

  “Sir?” Jenna called. “Please don’t hurt Clarissa. I’m Jenna, this is Barker. And this is—was—Barker’s family boat. We won’t hurt you.”

  “Don’t lie to me! Barker’s dead. Now drop your weapons.”

  Jenna looked at him, but he shook his head. The man had just threatened them. Without their guns, they were all as good as dead.

  The man squeezed Clarissa’s neck and she cried out, a strangled sound.

  “It’s my boat now,” the man said. “If you drop your weapons, we can continue this discussion without anyone dying today.”

  Jenna laid her rifle down, but Barker kept his up, ready to fire when he got a clear shot.

  “Please,” she said, “we just walked in on this guy. Put the gun down.”

  “Walked in on him? He stole my boat!” He kept his rifle aimed on the man. “Let her go.”

  “No problem. Drop the guns, I let her go. We talk, man to man.” Despite the man’s hardened voice, he sounded almost . . . sane. But sane people could be dangerous too.

  The man kept Clarissa in front of him, but he pushed her back up the stairs out of the cabin and onto the port side of the boat. His face was covered in facial hair, his hair long and messy. But he didn’t have that too-thin look Barker was so used to seeing. In fact . . . something about him looked . . . familiar?

  “Put down the gun, soldier, and I’ll let go of Clarissa here,” the man said. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, not if I don’t have to.” The man seemed cautious, as if the wild look Barker knew was still in his eyes from the earlier battle had him rattled.

  “Who are you?” Barker asked.

  “Name’s Roy,” he said tightly. “What do you know about Barker?”

  “That’s me. Let her go, now. This is my boat.”

  “Robert Barker was my friend, asshole,” the man hissed. “And he’s dead. This isn’t your boat any more than it’s mine.”

  Oh shit. Barker lowered his rifle slightly. “Robert Barker’s dead? For sure? Do you know that, for sure?”

  He blinked rapidly to keep himself from tearing up. It had been a fucked-up day. Yeah, he’d assumed his parents were dead, like so many others, but to hear it from someone—he hadn’t expected it to hit him like that.

  Barker took a shaky breath and exhale. “He’s my . . . he was my dad. I’m Ken Barker.”

  “Ken?” Roy risked peering out more from behind Clarissa. “Good lord in heaven. Do you remember me? Roy Nolan? Last time I saw you, you were a teenager. Didn’t recognize you with the uniform and the bandaged head. . . . What happened?”

  Roy dropped his arm from around Clarissa’s neck, and she scrambled up the steps, tumbling onto the boat’s deck in her effort to get away.

  Jenna pulled Clarissa toward her and wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders. Clarissa touched her neck, running her hands over that necklace she wore, as if to make sure it was still there. The man’s arm had been so tight on her throat that the necklace chain had left an imprint on her pale skin.

  “Are my parents dead?” Barker a
sked, touching the gauze on his head wound. He did remember a Roy Nolan, but barely. What he remembered mainly was that Roy owned a boat and liked to talk with his dad about his renovations, that sort of thing. Stuff a kid wasn’t interested in.

  Right now, the only thing that mattered was whether or not this man knew what happened to his parents.

  “I’m sorry,” Roy said. “We were at a FEMA camp together set up at the church. There were too many people, it was chaos. There was some sort of virus that spread like wildfire. No clean water, contaminated food—what little there was of it. Lot of people died. That’s when I left. Figured I’d be safer on my own than in a crowd.”

  “What are you doing on our boat?” Barker asked. “Where’s yours? The . . .”

  Barker couldn’t remember the name of Roy Nolan’s boat, but he did know it was named after his late wife. His dad had told him Roy had never sailed a day in his life until his wife told him she wanted to be cremated, to have her ashes scattered in the water. It was the kind of story that stuck with a kid.

  “The Holly,” Roy whispered. “I’m just glad my wife passed away before the Pulse—that she never had to see everything we’ve had to see. As for why I’m here, well . . . figured you were dead, like everyone else. It . . . I didn’t think anyone would be coming for it. And my boat . . . it’s gone. Was gone when I got here.”

  “Well, we’re here now,” Barker said softly. “I need my boat.”

  “What brought you back to the marina now, after all this time?” Roy asked.

  “We’re looking for a quick way to get up the coast,” Jenna said. She whispered to Barker, “How well do you know this guy? Do you trust him?”

  “My dad liked him. I barely knew him,” Barker said.

  But Roy was surviving, and surviving well, without any help from the army or FEMA or men like Colonel Lanche. And that wasn’t something Barker wanted to mess up, for anyone.

  Fuck. Fuck.

  It wouldn’t feel right to kick Roy off the boat, but he didn’t know where that left them. Roy had said he was safer on his own, not in a group.

  “Hey,” Roy said. “Maybe you could use some help. You guys are the first people I’ve spoken to in . . . God, in over six months? Wouldn’t mind going to a town—something that’s got space, fresh air.” He looked at Barker’s bloodied uniform and frowned. “Someplace with no soldiers, if there is such a thing anymore. No offense.”

  “None taken.” Barker looked at him. “So, what now? You’re saying . . . we can stay on the boat? All of us?” He knew the interior cabin was large enough, with enough berths for up to six people.

  “I meant, maybe I could leave with you. This boat . . . I never actually got the boat under way.”

  “What does he mean?” Clarissa asked Barker.

  This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

  “Look up,” Roy said. “The main sail and jib are missing. And if you feel like getting wet, you’ll see the centerboard and rudder are destroyed. The fuel that was in the tank is gone, too. Someone messed this boat up, but it wasn’t me. I just used it for the shelter, and the easy access to the water. For the fresh air. The only people that survived were the ones like me, who avoided the crowded rooms, avoided the viruses that spread—”

  But Barker was still stuck on the first thing Roy had said, about the sails. He looked up in horror—Roy was right. The sails were gone. And without a functioning rudder and centerboard underneath the hull, there was no way the boat was going anywhere.

  This can’t be happening. He saw their dream of sailing away to freedom disappear like a morning fog.

  “So who moved the boat?” Clarissa asked.

  Roy shrugged. “Like I said, it was here when I found it three months ago. Don’t know what happened before that. It was cleaned out, like all the others.”

  “Where are all the other boats?” Barker asked.

  The man shook his head. “Don’t know, Ken. Barker. What do I call you?”

  “Just Barker. Like my dad.”

  “All the boats left here are as useless as this one. Where are you headed, anyway? Do you know of a specific place to go, someplace safe?”

  “We’re just going up the coast to see if there are any fishing communities or anything. Maybe up by Connecticut. We don’t know any more than you do, I don’t think,” Clarissa said. “Unless you’ve been up that way?”

  “Wait,” Jenna said, putting her hand on Clarissa’s arm. “How do we know he didn’t sabotage the boats himself? Barker said he barely knew him. People have done stranger things after the Pulse.”

  “I suppose you don’t know me,” Roy said. “But I’d rather have a working means of transportation than a wrecked one, so it doesn’t really make sense that I’d single-handedly mess up all the boats in the marina.”

  “So you want to . . . join us?” Jenna asked. She looked at Barker, but he shook his head emphatically.

  “Wait. That’s a decision that needs to be made carefully. There’s one thing the Colonel taught me that I’ll never forget,” Barker said. “It’s called OpSec. Operational security. And bringing along a guy just because he used to talk to my dad on the weekends—a man I haven’t even seen in over a decade, someone who just used Clarissa as a hostage—puts us—our security—at risk.”

  “I apologize for that, Barker. I thought you were going to shoot me.”

  Barker sighed. The man seemed normal. But could they trust him?

  “I don’t like this idea,” Clarissa whispered. “He had his arm around my throat. He’s proven he could be dangerous.”

  “I’m not dangerous,” Roy said. “I can help you guys. I have my own supplies, I know how to shoot, and you have extra guns—”

  “We’re not giving you a gun,” Barker said. “Like I said. You knew my dad, but that doesn’t make us instant best buds, all right? Slow down.”

  Roy shook his head. “We got off on the wrong foot. I made a bad first impression, I get that. And here I am, squatting on your father’s boat like a hobo or something. And . . . what happened with the girl.” He nodded toward Clarissa. “I’m sorry. Truly.”

  “Barker,” Jenna whispered. “Can we talk?”

  She pulled him off the boat, onto the dock. Clarissa looked at them, as if unsure whether to join them or to stay and guard their guns. She stayed, watching the man warily.

  “Pick up a gun, Clarissa,” Barker said, and she did, but she held it pointed to the ground instead of at Roy.

  “We should take him with us,” Jenna said quietly. “If the soldiers find him, they’ll get him to tell them where we went.”

  “Do you really think they’ll find their way all the way up here?”

  “I don’t know. But there was a reason you didn’t want us parking that truck here, right? In case they found it.”

  “It’s a long shot. It was just . . . a precaution. Is it really worth bringing a potentially dangerous man into our group?” he asked.

  “He was friends with your dad, what more do you want?” she asked. “You barely knew me and Clarissa, and yet you took us.”

  “Things change, like you said. It’s been a long time, and good men have gone bad since the Pulse. Good men, good women . . . We’ve done bad things. He was ready to hurt Clarissa to save his life. We can’t forget that, even if he knew my dad.”

  “And you, once upon a time.”

  “I was just a stupid kid back then.”

  Jenna’s blue eyes looked up at him. God, she was so beautiful, even covered in dirt and grime and blood from the men she’d helped him kill. She was so strong, so fearless. If she wasn’t concerned about Roy, why should he be?

  But still, the idea of putting her in danger turned his stomach.

  “There’s a very good possibility that the Colonel will send more soldiers looking for us, especially after what we did,” she said. “We weren�
�t planning on staying at the marina. We planned on setting sail as soon as we got here, getting away. Fast.”

  “I need to check under the boat. See if he was telling the truth about the damage. If he was, then . . . then we can take him. Okay?”

  Jenna smiled and kissed his cheek. “Okay.”

  They boarded the boat again, and Clarissa glanced at Jenna, an unspoken question hanging in the air.

  “I have to check some things,” Barker said, and he stepped past Roy and down into the cabin. It looked different from how he remembered it. It no longer held the comforting memories of his childhood. Instead, Roy’s presence was everywhere. He’d made himself quite at home.

  Barker grabbed two life preservers and came back up to the deck.

  “Jenna, hold on to this,” Barker said, handing her one, and putting another on her, strapping it on tightly. “I’ll need you to toss it to me when I ask you to. I’m going in.”

  “Put it on first,” she said, confused.

  “I have to check under the hull and I can’t do that with a flotation device.”

  Barker stepped off the boat and onto the dock, and then took his boots off, leaving them on the wooden planks. He’d go in with his clothes on, since they needed to be cleaned anyway. He had fresh clothes in the pack. His head had stopped bleeding, so he unpeeled the bandage.

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” Jenna said, as if reading his mind. “Just a big scrape.”

  “I got lucky.”

  Before he could change his mind, he jumped in. The water hit him like a wall of ice, making him gasp as his lungs constricted.

  He waited until he’d adjusted to the first shock of the water before he ducked his head under, the coldness nullifying the sting from his scalp wound. Barker felt along the bottom of the hull until he reached the rudder at the stern. It wasn’t just broken, it was completely crushed, as if someone had dragged the boat onto shore and knocked the whole thing off.

  He stuck his head up for a breath and went back under, finding the keel with his hands, and feeling for the centerboard under the boat. His breath was tight, and he needed air.

  The centerboard was destroyed as well. Just like Roy had said.