SYLO

TWO

I needed a midnight ride.

Gotta get out.

I sent the text to my best friend, Quinn Carr. He would know what it meant. It was a custom that Quinn and I had started shortly after we first met in middle school. Whenever one of us couldn’t sleep, we’d sneak out of our houses and meet up with our bikes near the town pier at the end of Main Street. From there we’d saddle up, turn on our headlights, and race each other along the frontage road that circled Pemberwick Island, our home. We usually went after midnight, which meant there was little or no traffic to deal with, especially since we always took a remote route that traveled along the beach and away from civilization. It was ten miles of frantic insanity since most of the time it was too dark to see beyond the throw of our headlights and neither of us would bow to safety and slow down. A major crash might change that thinking, but neither of us had ever been thrown. So far.

Quinn came up with the idea. He said the rides would release endorphins into our systems that would shoot electrical impulses to the brain that helped reduce stress and create a feeling of well-being. Quinn was always coming up with things like that. I think he spent too much time watching Discovery Channel and reading Wikipedia. All I knew was that the rides were a perfect outlet for blowing off steam and working out problems…and that night I was definitely having a problem.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Marty. How could somebody that young and in such great shape just…die? I lay in bed, only hours after the game, trying to keep my mind from replaying his final moments over and over, but it was no use. Sleep would not come.

I threw on my sweats, grabbed my helmet, and left my bedroom the only way possible at that hour of the night—through my window. My parents wouldn’t have been too happy if they knew I was flying around the island in the middle of the night, so I quietly made my way across the roof over the porch and shinnied down a column to the ground. I kept my bike in the garage (which was separate from our house) so there was little chance of my parents hearing. I’d done it enough times that I had it down to a quiet science. Less than five minutes after I had sent the text to Quinn I was in the saddle and pedaling toward town.

It was long past midnight and Arbortown had shut down for the night. The restaurants closed by ten and the shops long before that. It was a tourist beach town, not an after-hours hangout. I rode straight to the town pier, where the ferryboat that made the five-mile run between Pemberwick Island and Portland, Maine, was tied up. It was a huge old thing that carried not only people, but trucks and cars as well. During the busy summer months, it was incredible to see the number of people and vehicles that would flood off that vessel. It was like watching one of those circus clown cars. I have no idea how it could handle so much weight and not sink. I’m sure Quinn knew. He’d have read it on Wikipedia.

At that hour the ferry and the pier were quiet. The ferry boat wouldn’t be fired up again until five in the morning, when it would start making round trips to the mainland. I coasted to a stop at the head of the pier and pulled out my phone to see if Quinn had texted back, when…

“What took you so long?” came a familiar voice.

I spun around to see Quinn lying on a bench.

“No way!” I exclaimed. “I only texted you like ten minutes ago.”

Quinn sat up, stretched, and rubbed his face.

“I’ve been here since midnight,” he replied with a yawn.

“But…” I thought a moment, then said, “You knew I’d want to ride.”

“It’s amazing how insightful I can be.”

“Did you hear what happened?”

“Seriously?” Quinn exclaimed sarcastically. “We live on an island, Tucker. News like that travels at the speed of heat. Besides, I was there.”

“At the game? You hate football.”

“True, but I wasn’t going to miss you playing in your first varsity game. Not that there was much playing involved. But you did have some all-pro bench-sitting action going on.”

“Give me a break. Most of those guys are three years older than me.”

Quinn laughed. “I know. I think it’s cool that you’re even on the team. Crazy, but cool.”

Quinn and I couldn’t have been more different from each other and maybe that was why we got along so well. He was tall and thin like a lanky scarecrow with a wild mop of curly blond hair that rarely saw a brush. He wore heavy-framed glasses that sat on his big nose, making him look like he was wearing one of those Halloween glasses-and-nose combos, but it worked for him. It didn’t hurt that he was incredibly smart—and enjoyed the fact that he stood out in a crowd. I, on the other hand, was more of the “blending in” type. I stood a good head shorter than Quinn and kept my brown hair cut short. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly brainy, though I weighed in with a solid B-minus average in school. Not bad, in my book. Unfortunately my parents had a different book. I was tired of hearing: “Tucker Pierce, you are not living up to your potential.” How did they know what my potential was? How could anybody know? It was a constant argument that often led to a midnight ride.

Quinn jammed his helmet down over his bushy hair and pulled down goggles over his glasses. He looked like a dork and couldn’t have cared less.

“What do you think happened to Marty?” I asked.

Quinn shrugged. “We’ll know more tomorrow.”

“Why’s that?”

“My parents are doing the autopsy as we speak.”

The quiet night suddenly got quieter. I’d forgotten that Quinn’s mom and dad were doctors at Arbortown Medical.

“Oh, right,” I said softly. “Thanks for that image.”

“Hey, you asked. Let’s ride.”

I did my best to shake the gruesome reality as we mounted up, flicked on our headlights, and pedaled out of town. Quinn and I rarely spoke during these ten-mile rides because the whole point was to push ourselves physically and mentally. It took serious concentration to keep from hitting a pothole or a patch of sand that would lead to a painful case of road rash, especially at the speed we were going, at night, with only a small light focused on the pavement ahead. The winding road was full of dips and turns, which meant we had to stay focused or end up with broken bones.

The route took us along the perimeter of Pemberwick Island. We traveled counterclockwise, which meant the ocean was to our right. The four-lane road never got much closer than a hundred yards from the beach. At times there would be thick forest between us and the water; other times we’d pass sandy bluffs covered in sea grass that gave us a clear view of the water. We occasionally passed a darkened house, but most of the route was through undeveloped terrain that hadn’t changed in, well, ever.

There was no moon out, which normally meant a dark trip, but it was one of those nights that was so incredibly clear you could see most every star in the sky. Downtown Portland was well over five miles away across the water so there were no lights to prevent the sky from lighting up with millions of tiny sparkles. It was so bright that I considered turning off my headlight but figured I still needed to see obstacles in the road so I directed the beam to hit just ahead of my front tire.

It didn’t take long before I was breathing hard and sweating, which was exactly what I needed. I could feel the tension drift away. I don’t know if it was about releasing endorphins or about forcing myself to focus on something as simple as working out, but the ride was doing the job. Quinn was a genius, not only because he knew this would help but because he knew that I needed it.

“What’s that?” he called to me.

“What’s what?”

“Listen.”

All I could hear was the sound of our tires rolling over the blacktop and the turning of our chains.

“I don’t hear anything,” I replied.

“You don’t hear that?” he asked. “It’s like music.”

I listened again…and heard it. It was a single, steady note that drifted on the breeze. It was faint, but definitely there. It didn’t sound natural, like wind through the trees or a migrating whale. It was too precise for that. The note changed and hung there for a few seconds, then changed again. It wasn’t a tune, but a series of notes held steady, as if being played by an unseen electric piano. It came and went, sometimes loud and clear, other times hardly audible.

“What is it?” I asked. “There aren’t any houses around here.”

We slowed and sat up on our seats.

“It wouldn’t be from a house,” Quinn said, using his analytical voice. “It’s gotta be moving because we haven’t passed it.”

“Look!” I shouted, pointing out to sea.

Something was moving over the ocean. I saw it move beyond a dip in the bluffs. It was a shadow. A big one. We had gained elevation and were traveling along a section of bluffs that rose and fell. When the terrain dropped down, we could see an odd mass moving over the water. When the bluffs rose again, we’d lose sight of it.

“Speed up,” Quinn commanded, and we both dug in to catch the strange shadow.

“Is it a whale?” I asked, breathless.

“It’s not in the water, it’s moving above it, like a boat.”

“A boat with no running lights?”

It was pitch black and looked to be the size of a small airplane. The only reason I thought it could be anything other than an actual shadow was that it was giving off the musical sounds. Shadows didn’t do that. When it cleared a bluff, we could hear it. When it was blocked by a dune, so was the music. It was treacherous trying to stay with it while keeping one eye on the shadow and another on the road ahead.

“Somebody’s on the bluff,” Quinn called.

Sure enough, with the stars providing light, I could see that somebody else was keeping pace with the shadow, too. It was a rider on horseback, charging across the dunes. It was impossible to see who it might be because they had to be a hundred yards away from us. Whoever it was had to be an experienced rider because they were galloping over some treacherous terrain.

I saw the shadow again as it appeared beyond a dip in the bluffs.

“It could be a low-flying plane,” Quinn offered.

“Again, no running lights,” I countered. “No engine sound either.”

The guy on horseback passed a pickup truck that was parked on the bluff. Pickup trucks weren’t unique on Pemberwick, except when they were sitting on top of a bluff in the middle of nowhere…in the middle of the night.

“It stopped,” Quinn announced.

I looked ahead to a break in the dunes and didn’t see the shadow. The horseback rider realized the same thing, pulled up, and trotted back the other way. Quinn and I put on the brakes. Though we could no longer see the shadow, we could still hear it. The music was growing louder.

“This is freaking me out,” I said. “Where did it go?”

Quinn didn’t need to answer, for the shadow suddenly reappeared, this time rising straight up above the bluffs.

“That’s no boat,” Quinn said, dumbfounded.

The shadow lifted ever so slowly toward the sky as the notes began changing more frequently, as if the rising movement required more energy. I looked to the sky, hoping to see a source of light that could be creating a huge, moving shadow. There was nothing but stars, except for where the shadow was.

The entity seemed to be sucking up light, looking more like a dark gash in the sky than something with substance. It was oval-shaped, like a flying manta ray. There was no way to tell how big it was or how close it was to shore because there was nothing to give it perspective.

We stood there straddling our bikes, staring at the rising shape, dumbstruck.

Quinn put it best. “What…the…hell?”

A brilliant streak of light appeared so unexpectedly that there was no way to know what it was or where it had come from. It was blinding, especially since we had been straining so hard to see the shadow in the near dark. Quinn and I threw our arms up to shield our eyes, which was smart because the streaking flash was only a prelude.

Boom!

The shadow exploded like a massive Fourth of July skyrocket. Sparkling particles blew out from the center of the black hole, lighting up the horizon, momentarily turning night into day.

The horse on the bluff reared up in surprise, its silhouette burned into my eyes. I had no idea if the rider stayed in the saddle because a second later we were hit with a wave of heat and sound that knocked us off our feet. I fell back, getting my feet twisted in my bike and landing on my butt. Still, I kept my eyes open to see what was happening. If I had had a few seconds to think, I probably would have run for cover, but it all happened too fast to think.

Like an exploding firework, thousands of dazzling sparkler-like particles spread across the sky. They hovered for a moment then fell to the ocean. Seconds later the fiery storm hit the water, extinguishing each and every bit of light. The event lasted no more than fifteen seconds. Once again, it was dark. The shadow was gone. The music was gone. I couldn’t even see if the horseback rider was still on the bluff. The only sign left of what we had witnessed was the ringing in my ears.

I turned to Quinn. He looked as stunned as I felt. He gave me a wide-eyed look through his glasses and goggles…and smiled.

“Well, there’s that,” he said with a shrug.

Under other circumstances I might have laughed.

“This has been the freakin’ longest night of my life,” I said with dismay.

“Yeah,” he replied. “And it’s not over yet.”