Gone (Gone 1)

“I maybe got something. Not a car, but better than walking ten miles.” Edilio led them to a garage door hidden away around the back of the pool changing room. He raised the garage door, revealing two golf carts with the logo of Clifftop Resort on the sides. “The groundskeepers and the security guys use them to get around and go over to the golf course on the other side of the highway.”

“Have you driven one of these before?” Sam asked.

“Yeah. My dad picks up a shift sometimes at the golf course. Groundskeeping. I go with him, help out.”

That simplified the decision. Even Quinn had to see the logic. “Okay,” Quinn said grudgingly. “You drive.”

Sam said, “We can try the direct road to the highway. It’s the first right.”

“You’re avoiding downtown,” Astrid said. “You don’t want kids coming up to you, asking you what they should do.”

“You want to get to PBNP?” Sam asked. “Or do you want to watch me stand around telling people they have nothing to fear but fear itself?”

Astrid laughed, and it was, in Sam’s opinion, probably the sweetest sound he had ever heard.

“You remember,” Astrid said.

“Yeah. I remember. Roosevelt. The Great Depression. Sometimes, if I really strain my brain, I can even do multiplication.”

“Defensive humor,” Astrid teased.

They motored across the parking lot and onto the road. There they took a sharp cut-back right turn onto a narrow, newly paved section. The golf cart slowed going uphill to barely better than walking speed. They soon saw that the road dead-ended into the barrier. They stopped and stared solemnly at the abrupt end of the pavement.

“It’s like a Road Runner cartoon,” Quinn said. “If you go paint a tunnel onto it, we can go through, but Wile E. Coyote will smash into it.”

“Okay. Back down to the cliff road then, but cut through the back streets to the highway—don’t go near the plaza,” Sam said. “We need to find Little Pete already. I don’t want to have to stop and talk to a bunch of kids.”

“Yeah, plus we don’t want anyone stealing the cart,” Edilio said.

“Yeah. There’s that,” Sam admitted.

“Stop,” Astrid yelled, and Edilio slammed on the brakes.

Astrid jumped off her seat and trotted back to something white by the roadside. She knelt down and picked up a twig.

“It’s a seagull,” Sam said, puzzled that Astrid should care. “Maybe bashed into the barrier, huh?”

“Maybe. But look at this.” She poked the bird’s foot with the twig, lifting it up.

“Yeah?”

“It’s webbed, of course. Like it should be. But look at the way the toes extend out. Look at the nails. They’re talons. Like a bird of prey. Like a hawk or an eagle.”

“You sure it’s a regular seagull?”

“I like birds,” she explained. “This is not normal. Seagulls don’t need talons. So they don’t have talons.”

“So it’s a bird freak,” Quinn said. “Can we move on now?”

Astrid stood up. “It’s not normal.”

Quinn barked a laugh. “Astrid, we’re not even in the same time zone as normal. This is what you’re worrying about? Bird toes?”

“This bird is either a solitary freak, a random mutation,” Astrid said, “or it’s a whole new species that suddenly appeared. Evolved.”

“Again I have to go with ‘so what?’” Quinn said.

Astrid was on the verge of saying something. Then she shook her head a little, telling herself no. “Never mind, Quinn. Like you said, we’re a long way from normal.”