Chapter 50
They moved along the shoreline with the water to their left and dunes to their right, staying low where the sand dipped into swales that collected the haze.
Charlotte kept the boy’s hand in hers while the dog ranged ahead, then circled back.
The boy stumbled, and she caught him, feeling the tremor running through his frame.
Shock, her clinical mind supplied. He had pale skin, rapid breathing, and glassy eyes.
She kneeled and adjusted the mask, which had slipped.
The seal was poor. The straps were tightened as far as they would go, but the mask was built for an adult, and his face was too small to fill it.
Haze leaked around the edges with each breath.
Charlotte unzipped one of the suit’s external pockets and removed a water bottle.
She held it to the drinking port on his mask, tilting it carefully.
“Drink. Small sips.”
The boy steadied the bottle with shaking hands and managed two swallows before turning away.
Charlotte recapped it and returned it to her pocket.
She stood and took his hand again. The formation on the horizon had consolidated.
The lead ship had dropped anchor in the bay, a second vessel maneuvering beside it.
Through the haze, Charlotte could make out smaller crafts being lowered from the larger ships, landing vessels designed to put personnel ashore.
She knew they needed cover. The shoreline north of the pier offered a damaged marina with half-sunken boats and collapsed docks.
Charlotte angled toward it, pulling the boy with her.
The dog followed closely. They reached the first dock.
It had partially collapsed, and a cabin cruiser rocked against the damaged wood, its hull breached.
She led the boy behind it, using the boat’s bulk as cover, and checked the horizon.
The landing craft was in the water. There were three of them, maybe four, moving toward shore in formation.
They would make landfall south of the pier, near the public beach access where the sand was widest and most suitable for bringing equipment ashore.
Charlotte looked at the boy. He was watching the landing craft with the same attention he had given his parents’ bodies.
“We need to keep moving,” she said. “Can you run if I need you to?”
The boy nodded. They continued north along the marina, using the wreckage as cover.
The fuel dock had burned, its blackened pilings rising from the water.
Beyond it, the marina office stood, its windows blown out and a door hanging from one hinge.
Charlotte considered it, then rejected it because it was too exposed.
Suddenly, her cough took her. She bent over, one hand on her leg for support, and felt the wet rattle in her chest. The boy’s hand remained in hers through the spasm, his grip tightening as if he feared she might let go.
When the coughing passed, she kept moving.
The dog disappeared ahead, then reappeared from behind a storage shed at the marina’s northern edge, tail low and ears forward.
Charlotte followed. The shed was concrete, single-story, with a corrugated metal roof that had partially collapsed at one corner.
Inside were shadows, the smell of motor oil, and rotting bait.
It wasn’t ideal, but it had walls, a roof, and a line of sight away from the bay.
She led the boy inside. The interior was cluttered with fishing gear, coolers, fuel cans, and the detritus of a marina operation abandoned mid-shift.
A workbench ran along the far wall beneath a window boarded from the inside.
Charlotte closed the door behind them. Not all the way, but enough to break their silhouette from the outside.
The dog settled by the workbench, its eyes on the door, its body tense.
She helped the boy to a cleared space on the floor and kneeled beside him.
His breathing had quickened again, shallow hitches in the mask.
Charlotte checked his pulse. “Talk to me,” she said. “What’s your name?”
The boy’s eyes found hers through the mask. His lips moved behind the plastic, forming a word she couldn’t hear. He tried again, but the sound emerged muffled and broken, as if language itself had become difficult. “Ma…” He stopped, swallowed, and tried again. “Mason.”
“Mason,” she repeated. “That’s good. That’s really good.”
She was about to say more when the dog’s head snapped toward the door, and its body went still.
Charlotte placed a hand on Mason’s shoulder and listened.
Voices came from the shore. They were distant but distinct, carried through the gaps in the boarded window.
The voice was male, purposeful, and speaking a language she didn’t recognize, with the cadence of orders being given and answered.
She knew in that moment that the SNA had made landfall.
They were moving through the contamination zone, coming north along the shoreline toward the marina, where a woman in a yellow suit and a child with an ill-fitting mask had just taken shelter in a concrete shed.
Charlotte pulled the boy closer. His small body pressed against her side through the open portion of the suit, and she felt the rapid beat of his heart through the fabric of his hoodie.