Shy realized how hard this conversation must be for Addie. She had no idea if her dad was dead or alive, and now they were talking about him possibly being a criminal. He was about to make a comment about that when Addie climbed to her knees suddenly and squinted, like she was looking at something in the distance.
“What is it?” Shy said, pushing up from the side, too.
She pointed directly in front of their boat. “I think I see something.”
Shy’s whole body started tingling as he scanned the darkening horizon, hoping to find land. What he saw was far away, but it definitely wasn’t land. The longer he stared, the clearer it became, the dusky sky maintaining just enough light to see. “Is that a boat?” he said, turning to Addie. “That looks like a boat.”
“I think it’s a boat,” she said, her face now lit up with excitement.
Shy stood and sloshed across the boat to the supply cabinet, where he flung open the door and grabbed the flare gun.
37
The Boat
There were four flares left. Shy loaded the gun and stood up. He knew from training to fire the first one straight into the air, then follow with another, five seconds later, so that any potential rescuers would see where the first flare had come from.
He aimed the gun at the sky and fired.
The flame shot up above them, and Shy turned his attention to the distant boat.
“Over here!” Addie shouted, waving her arms.
Come on, Shy thought as he hurried to load the gun with a second flare. In the distance, however, the boat just floated there.
He aimed the gun above his head and fired a second time. Watched the glowing ball of fire arc across the dim sky, then fall toward the water, where it landed in a soundless splash, maybe twenty yards from them. It fizzled into a tiny puff of smoke that lifted off the water and drifted apart.
Still nothing from the boat.
“Should we go to them?” Addie asked.
Shy stared ahead. There was no way they hadn’t heard or seen the flares. What were they waiting for? Or was it someone who didn’t want to help? He glanced down at the small amount of water they had left. There was no choice. They had to go.
“Hand me the oar,” he told Addie.
She reached down next to her feet, held it out to Shy, and he hurried to the front of the boat.
The closer they got, the more it became clear. They were definitely approaching a boat. But it was just sitting there. He ignored the bad feeling in his stomach and kept digging through the water with his oar. Every now and then Addie would call out to the boat, to try and get some kind of response; otherwise they kept quiet as Shy moved them through the calm ocean.
Soon they were right in front of it.
It was a brown motorboat, about twice the size of their lifeboat. The engine turned off. A cabin underneath the surface with tinted windows and “Number 220” written on the side. There was no sign of anyone on board.
“Looks like it’s abandoned,” Addie said.
Shy called out toward the boat: “Hello? Anyone in there?”
Nothing.
Addie pushed her hair out of her face. “Why would an abandoned boat be way out here?”
“The tsunamis might’ve torn it away from its dock.” Shy pulled the oar from the water and let their momentum carry them toward the motorboat. “Maybe we’re closer to land than we realize.”
“God,” Addie said. “The tsunamis. What if the entire island’s underwater?”
“We’re not gonna think about that,” Shy told her as he reached out for the front end of the motorboat to lessen the impact. Still, the lifeboat crashed into the bow of the thing. Shy grabbed the metal bar extending off the motorboat and called out “Hello?”
Still no answer.
“You coming with me?” Shy asked Addie.
She shook her head. “I’m waiting here.”
Shy reached down for the length of rope he’d grabbed out of the supply cabinet and tied the two boats together. Then he stepped onto the jagged side of the lifeboat, balancing carefully, and pulled himself up onto the bigger boat. He walked around the perfectly dry deck, having no idea what to expect. He saw two empty life jackets. A folding chair on its side. He opened the tackle box near the stairs. Instead of fishing gear, a few shattered vials lay in the top tray, which seemed strange. It also smelled a little like smoke.
There was nothing else up there so he climbed down the three steep stairs, his heart pounding now, and peeked his head inside the open door of the cabin where the smoke smell was stronger. “Hello?” he said, but no one answered. It was so dark inside he could hardly see.
He stepped deeper into the cabin, using his hands against the wall to guide him, until the familiar smell of death hit him and he stopped cold. He saw a large shape on the ground and quickly backed out of the cabin.
Shy was ready to head right back up the stairs when he came across a flashlight in a holster on the wall. He grabbed it, powered it on and moved back into the cabin, shining the light on two men in lab coats. The one with red hair was lying on the ground, facedown. The bald one was slumped against the far wall.
Shy covered his nose and mouth with his left hand, seeing the pools of blood coming out from underneath the two men. He stood frozen for several seconds before forcing himself forward to nudge the body on the floor with his bare foot—he didn’t know why, it was clear both men were dead.
He shined his light all around the bodies and spotted a gun half covered by an open duffel bag. He kicked it free and stared at it, feeling incredibly on edge. He’d grown accustomed to death on the ship, but this was different. This looked like murder.
He used his foot to turn over the first corpse and saw bullet wounds. The redheaded man had been shot in the chest and the leg and the right arm. There was blood crusted all over his white lab coat. The other man was thinner and older and he had a large gash on the side of his face, like he’d been struck by something. He also appeared to have been shot in the stomach. It was an awful sight of blood and gore, and Shy moved the light away, trying to figure out what the hell had happened.
He kneeled down, shined his light into the bag. A few packs of syringes, like the kind they use for flu shots, and none of them broken. Some kind of code written on each label. Dozens of pill bottles, too. They weren’t anything like the illegal drugs he’d seen back home. These were from an actual hospital or a pharmacy—and he recalled Addie saying her dad’s company was in the medical field. Which meant they had to be close to the island. Underneath the packs of syringes was a beat-up blank envelope with a few folded papers inside.
He shined the light on the bodies again. The men were dressed like doctors or scientists. But why had they been shot? And who did the shooting? Shy stood up and shined the flashlight around the rest of the cabin. Bullet holes in the walls. Some of the cabin looked charred, like someone had tried to set the boat on fire. But there was no water anywhere. The boat was somehow unaffected by the tsunamis.
Eventually the smell overwhelmed Shy, and he hurried above deck, back to where Addie was waiting for him.
“Anyone in there?” she asked him right away.
“Two guys,” he told her. “They’re both dead, though.”
Her face filled with worry. “How?”
“I think they were shot.”
Addie covered her mouth and started breathing more quickly. “Was one of them my dad?” she asked.
“No,” Shy told her, shaking his head. “If I can get the motor going, we have to switch boats, okay? It’s a little burned up, but it doesn’t seem like this thing was affected by the tsunamis.”
Addie nodded. “Are you sure my dad’s not down there?”