Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59739 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59739 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 299(@200wpm)___ 239(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
“Adrian has got the radio making noises, like crackling noises. I think it is working. This could be it!”
There is an excitement in her voice that makes me think she is holding every ounce of hope left in her that this will work.
We all are.
I throw off the one thin sheet and drag myself out of bed. Aggie rushes out into the hall, and I follow. She is clutching a mug of something steaming, her hair wild and eyes impossibly wide. She doesn’t say anything else, just turns on her heel and speed-walks for the stairs leading up to the captain’s station.
As we near, I hear it—a low, variable crackle that isn’t part of this ship’s usual sounds. I follow Aggie and the noise right to Adrian’s little workstation. Inside, every available body is crammed around the main console. Adrian is hunched over the radio, elbows planted on an old desk, one crutch propped precariously against the wall beside him. Wires snake out from the panel and across timber, some joined by twisted bits of foil. Kellen and Zeke stand close behind, and Ace and Kaylee hover over Adrian’s shoulders, staring at the radio like they could will it to work.
“It’s working?” I breathe, stepping into the room.
Adrian looks up. “It’s so close...”
Zeke scans the horizon through the front windows, the muscles along his jaw clenched tight. He looks back at Adrian. “If there’s anyone out there, what’s the plan?”
Adrian shrugs, still fiddling with a dial. “We find their position, try and see where we are, anything is better than nothing. I’ll get someone on the line, just give me a—shit. Listen. Hear that?”
It’s faint, but underneath the static, I catch a voice—a real voice, not our own, not a hallucination. It’s masculine, muttering something about “weather northwest” and “fish on deck.” I freeze, afraid that if I breathe too loud it’ll scare the voice away.
“Did you hear that?” Aggie screeches, so loudly we all flinch.
“Oh my god!” I gasp.
“Is it working?” Kaylee says, her hand over her mouth.
Adrian leans in, fiddles around frantically, twisting dials and jiggling wires. “Can anyone hear me?”
“Just be careful who answers, we don’t want any more pirates,” Zeke points out.
Adrian nods and keeps going. “Can anyone hear me? Please. Can anyone hear me?”
Over and over he repeats it, twisting the dials a quarter turn at a time, jiggling the connection where the foil is wedged in, then starting over.
“Can anyone hear—”
The static breaks. A voice comes back, louder now, still warped by bursts of noise. “I can hear you.”
“Oh my god,” Aggie screams, so loudly we all flinch. “Oh my god.”
Adrian stays calm, but I can see his hands shaking as he leans into the mouthpiece. “We are stranded with an injured person on board. We need help.”
“Say again your vessel name.”
“I don’t know. We have been stranded on an island and have been picked up by this ship.”
Static. Then, “Copy. How many souls on board?”
“Nine,” Adrian says. “Nine of us.”
“Who is injured, and how?”
“A young woman, impaled by wood. We are doing everything we can, we need medical help, urgently.”
Silence.
Strong, broken silence.
The crackle thins out to nothing—just a flat hiss, like the radio has gone dead.
“Are they gone?” Kaylee gasps. “Did we lose them?”
Adrian slaps the side of the unit. Twists the dial back and forth through the same range he just worked for ten minutes.
“Come on,” Zeke says under his breath. “Come on, come on.”
Nothing.
“They’re gone,” Kaylee says again, softer this time.
Ace reaches past Adrian and raps his knuckles against the panel, once, hard.
The static surges back—loud, wrong—and then clears like someone wiped a window.
“What is your location?” The voice is back.
Definitely male.
“We don’t know,” Adrian goes on. “We have no idea where we are. We were stranded for a while.”
“How long is a long while?”
Adrian looks around at us. Nobody answers him.
“Months, maybe. We lost count.”
A long moment passes.
I forget how to breathe.
My hands are clenched so tightly by my sides, my fingers ache.
“We have a doctor on board, but we are a long way out from land. It might be the only chance you’ve got.”
They have a doctor on board. I could scream, because it truly feels like a miracle.
“Do you have GPS?” the man goes on. “Any navigation equipment at all?”
“Nothing works,” Adrian says. “The ship is old and broken, but it is enough to have gotten us off the island.”
We aren’t about to tell them we hijacked a pirate ship after murdering everyone on board.
Another pause. “Alright. You got any maps?”
“Yes,” Adrian continues. “Paper, but yes.”
“Anything else? Anything at all you can use?”
Adrian shakes his head, as if the man can see. “No, but we have an old compass we have been using to take us in one direction in hopes we find land.”
“This radio only picks up signal from other ships less than fifty miles away, so you are close to our location. Head north, north-east, and we will wait in our current location. If you keep coming in that direction, you will run into us. I will give you our coordinates, too.”