And so he sat, as the sun dropped closer to the horizon behind them. He watched the waves; he watched the debris field float and shift with unseen currents in front of him. He watched for hours. He watched the seagulls, terns, and sandpipers go about their business as if nothing had happened. He'd never seen so many shorebirds, on the ground and in the air in massive flocks.
He half-dozed, his mind pleasantly lulled into neutral and his eyelids heavy as he watched the relentless motion of the wreckage as it floated on the water of Massachusetts Bay. The warmth of the day, tempered by the moisture in the air, made sleep seem lovely and impossible at the same time. He hated wet clothes on his skin. Reese plucked at the filthy, sticky fabric of his shirt and wrinkled his nose. He’d have to clean his shoulder again or risk infection.
When two sailboats popped into view just north up the coast, he thought he'd imagined it, like a mirage. Reese blinked, rubbed his face again with a salt-crusted, muddy hand, and stared hard. "It is two boats…” he muttered. He got to his feet, stumbled, and tripped over Jo.
"What?" she groaned.
"Get up," he hissed. "There's boats out there—two of them!"
"What?" Jo said again as she sat up. The hair on one side of her head stood up at an awkward angle, held in place by sweat, saltwater, and dried mud. "What boat? Where—where did they come from?" she mumbled when she spotted the two sailboats.
"They just ghosted into port. Must've been running their outboards, I didn't see any sails at all. Only saw the glint of binoculars or something from the deck of that first one." Reese squinted. "It looks like they’re towing the second one."
"Look, there’s a little boat coming out!" Jo remarked and pointed.
"Come on, we gotta go meet them on the shore. Maybe they can give us a ride. Even if it's only for a day or two, it'll get us out of this hellhole!”
Reese helped Jo stand, and they picked their way along the shoreline, as Reese watched the boats, and Jo watched for movement on the surface streets. The last thing they needed was to be spotted by the survivors from the convention center and taken out before they could talk to whoever was on the sailboats.
Reese continued to push hard, despite the fact that they tripped and fell on debris more than once. The risk of injury—and all the consequences that entailed—-paled in comparison to what Sean Mayo would do if they were caught. He shoved all thoughts and worries about the crazy politics among the survivors in tsunami-ravaged Boston out of his mind, and focused all of his attention, energy, and will upon the dock just a few hundred yards away where the small tender from the sailboats came to a stop.
By the time Reese saw actual people in the distance climb up out of the boat and move cautiously down the dock toward the shore, his mood had lifted so much that he practically ran to meet them. He left Jo far behind, with instructions to catch up when she could, and sprinted along every clear stretch of shoreline he found. Long before he reached the dock, however, the people spotted him and trained weapons on him. Someone called out for him to halt.
Reese tried to stop, tripped, and fell face first onto the pebble beach. He lay there for a moment and panted, while he caught his breath and let the waves of pain from his elbows and arms and his injured shoulder subside. Reese rolled to his good side and groaned, then looked up the slope to see a white-haired man and one who looked similar but with dark hair, and a woman with short white hair—all with shotguns—stare down at him from the raised dock. He raised his good arm and waved at them.
"I'm unarmed—or, I think I am." He looked down and patted the ground around him. "Yeah, my guns’ over there," he said and pointed to the revolver that Jo had taken from her attackers. It lay just out of arm's reach on a piece of broken deck planking.
"Make a move for it, and I’ll cut you in half," the older man on the dock growled.
"Trust me, I don't want any trouble. My friend and I—“ Reese began.
“What friend?" demanded the younger man.
Reese craned his neck and looked over his shoulder. Jo was nowhere in sight. He turned from the people on the dock. "Jo?" he called.
"I'll say it again, what friend?"
"You two spread out,” said the gruff, older one. “Whoever he’s talking about could be trying to flank us—keep an eye on this guy. If anything happens, shoot him.”
Reese turned around to face them again. "No, wait, please! We’re just trying to get out of here. She was kidnapped by the Scavengers—at the convention center," he said, the words spewed from his mouth faster and faster. Everything came out at once when the dam broke. He tried to explain about Maine and got tripped up over details, and instead rambled on about the kidnapping and how he'd come to find Jo in the convention center.
"Hold up, hold up," said the younger man. He lowered his shotgun and raised his trigger hand to indicate to Reese he was in no immediate danger. “Slow down there, man.”
"What are you doing? We can't trust this guy—he could be setting up a trap!" warned the surly, older one.
“He doesn't look very threatening," said the woman as she shifted her stance. "I don't see anybody else, either."
"No, I
