But then a silence like covered earth settled upon them, broken only by the soft lapping of the waves. A stillness, as well. For the first time in Isaac’s life, and for most of the others, they were connected to the land of the “real” world. The one they’d been hearing about all their lives. The one that had been flushed down the latrine of apocalypse.

  No one spoke. Kletter, a few pounds heavier than when she’d first arrived on the island, but still gaunt and pale and ill-looking, came out of the boat’s cabin, a place she’d hardly left during the voyage. Without a word she walked to the edge of the craft and jumped the half-foot gap to the cement pier, which was laden with cracks, pitted like some beast with iron teeth had taken a chomping to it. She was shivering, and stood there on the pier for a minute or two, her head bowed, cupping her elbows in both hands as if to warm them. Isaac and his friends watched her, this strange new world become a church, waiting for her to start some ancient ceremony.

  Old Man Frypan broke the reverence. “What’re we waiting on, people? I gotta take my hourly piss and I’d like to use an actual tree on actual dirt.”

  Someone snickered, and to Isaac’s shock he realized it had been Kletter herself.

  She turned to them and said, “Come on, then. Trust me, not a soul on that boat is happier than I am to be back in North America. I’m gonna take a bath for three days and eat about seven cans of chili. And take a break from you people.”

  With that less-than-religious benediction, she started walking down the pier toward the land of their new life. Old Man Frypan was the first one to follow.

  Then everybody, all at once.

  “This was Los Angeles,” Kletter said. “I mean, still is, I guess. City of Dead Angels.”

  They stood on a trash-strewn road, as cracked and worn as the pier. Abandoned chunks of metal and glass with four wheels—sometimes more, sometimes less—lay scattered like thrown toys wherever you looked. Cars. Trucks. Motorcycles. Bicycles. Isaac’s parents and grandparents had described the old world to him ad nauseam, but that didn’t lessen the impact of seeing it for real. Spectacular.

  Buildings spiked the area, growing bigger and broader and taller the farther away from the beach they stood. All of them bore marks of abandonment, destruction, erosion, decay—countless broken windows, charred remains of fire, vegetation growing in places it had no business growing. In the distance, towered a majestic cluster of the main part of the city, impossible structures loomed over the land, their tips almost touching the . . .

  “Skyscrapers,” Isaac said. “Those are skyscrapers.” It must’ve sounded dumb, but awe filled him top to bottom.

  Ms. Cowan, Old Man Frypan, even Wilhelm and Alvarez—the two members of Congress who’d been convinced to come—were just as taken aback as the youngsters, mouths open but speechless.

  Isaac glanced at his friends, enjoyed seeing their wonder.

  Sadina and Trish, arm in arm, rotated in a slow circle, taking in the sights. Miyoko stared at one building in particular—a massive thing that looked like the arm of a god—as if she were determined to analyze each and every structure, one by one. Dominic stood inches from her, his eyes darting to all kinds of places, perhaps worried he might miss something grand. The west-siders who’d joined them, and become honorary east-siders in Isaac’s opinion—Carson, Jackie, and Lacey—were no different in their awe. Carson in particular, giant of a man that he was, seemed to shrink into a wide-eyed child, given a room-full of toys. Jackie, absently running a hand down the length of her long braid of hair, also turned in a circle, trying to take in everything at once. Lacey, the shortest one of the bunch, had her arms folded in defiance, as if she refused to believe the city around them was actually real.

  “This is insane,” Trish whispered. “I can’t believe my own eyeballs.”

  Dominic replied, “I can’t believe your own eyeballs, either. Wow.”

  “How did a place like this even function?” Jackie asked. “All the people . . . I mean, I can’t even imagine the logistics of . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  Miyoko held her arms up to the sky then let them flop back down. “Our grandparents held back on us. This is way cooler than I ever imagined.”

  Old Man Frypan perked up at that. “It’s not like we were livin’ the good life. The world had already gone to Hell in a bucket when we were kids. It wasn’t like we wanted to sit around the fire and talk about the good ole days. The good ole days shat the bed long before I shat my first diaper.”

  Kletter let out a motherly sigh as if Dominic had made a fart joke. “I think we’d all be blown away if we could’ve seen it before the Flare. Imagine all those places filled with light, the air with music and car horns, people walking shoulder to shoulder, eating and laughing. I’d give my left foot for time travel.”

  Her conjuring of the past just made the present that much quieter and more empty. Besides the birds, besides the distant susurration of the ocean, besides the rustle of wind in the tree leaves, the city was a tomb.

  “Are there any . . . people here?” Miyoko asked.

  Cranks, Isaac thought. She meant Cranks.

  Kletter sighed again; maybe that was just how the woman breathed. “We don’t really know what happened here. A lot of flood damage, a lot of bones, a lot of nothing. But no people. They all died or left, I guess, decades ago. It’s why my people set up camp on top of a mountain nearby. Seemed like we had the whole place to ourselves. Although it’s not much of a place. You go to some cities, they actually have things like grocery stores and hospitals up and running. At least that’s what we hear. That’s not for us.”

  “What is for you?” Alvarez asked, a quiet fellow who hardly ever spoke.

  Kletter cut him a glare that made Isaac think the man had said something wrong. “Sadina. All of you. Why in Earth’s name do you think I just went through hell and back to get you people here? And . . .” She cut off abruptly and looked away. They all knew what she didn’t have to say. She’d killed her own friends, associates, whomever they’d been, to accomplish the task of getting here with residents of the island in tow.

  “Never mind,” she finally said. “You all came by your own choice. You’ll understand a lot more once we get to the Villa. It’s about two days’ hike from here.”

  Isaac and his friends spent a moment exchanging glances. No one said a word, but eyes attempted to communicate things, although Isaac wasn’t quite sure what. The air had taken on an ominous, heavy feel, as if they’d been so preoccupied with getting off the ocean that the prospect of what awaited them had only just now occurred. That was, of course, far from the truth. Isaac had spent many sleepless nights wondering about the old world and the many terrors that resided there. And now, there was here.

  Ms. Cowan spoke up. “We’ve spent our whole lives hearing about what happens to people who caught the Flare. Cranks, whatever you wanna call them. Do we have to worry about people like that leaping out of these dark buildings? Coming out of the sewers? Jumping out of trees?”

  Those questions gave Isaac a shiver that started at his feet and shimmied itself all the way up to his shoulders. But he was glad someone finally put a voice to his fears. He wasn’t the only one who looked at Old Man Frypan, his face a mask of mystery. What must he be thinking, the only one in their company who’d had the pleasure of hanging out with Cranks?

  Kletter wearily shook her head. “You all think I’m a wealth of knowledge, don’t you? I know maybe ten percent more about the world than you do, if that. But as far as I do know, in this city at least, Cranks are a thing of the past. I’ve never seen one. Not a single one.”

  “So we’re safe,” Dominic declared.

  That made Kletter bark a laugh that echoed off the decayed walls of the closest buildings, and she went on laughing for a solid five seconds. Then the smile swept right off her face like she’d wiped it with a rag.

  “You’re not safe, boy,” she said. “You’re never gonna be safe again. Now let’s get walking.”

  It was a long walk, through streets filled with trash and weeds; past buildings broken and crooked; under a sky that slowly darkened toward dusk. To Isaac, the rusted skeletons of old vehicles remained the starkest reminder that this place had once been inhabited by humans. Despite the rotted wheels and the broken glass and the faded paint, their purpose remained obvious—a carriage for people who no longer existed. Like hands and feet without a body to move them. The buildings took on a tableau of nature, as if they were mountains and hills and ridges of stone, their surfaces riddled with countless caves into the mysteries of the deep earth.

  As they trudged their way along the filthy roads toward a rise of foothills scabbed with bushes and scrub oak, Isaac noticed pockets of odor that brought back the nausea of their sea voyage. Although he tried to deny it, he knew they were the smells of rotting bodies, the wet decay of flesh.

  Animals, he thought, convincing himself. Just animals. It’s been too long for it to be . . . people.

  Cranks! his mind screamed at him.

  This spurred him to ask a question, make people talk. He addressed the distinguished members of Congress, all of whom looked like three days of rough road, as his grandpa used to say.

  “What made you guys do this?”

  Ms. Cowan looked at him, a little dazed from daydreaming. “Do what?”

  Isaac couldn’t help his chastising expression, no matter her age. “This.” He gestured at his friends, at the city. “Go against the other Congress folks and bring us on this trip.”

  Sadina’s mom shrugged. “It was the right thing to do. Sonya, famous Sonya, was Sadina’s paternal grandma. And Kletter says that means something important.”

  “We know that, Mom,” Sadina piped in, “but there had to be something else. For all three of you.”

  Wilhelm was the oldest and crankiest of the three, the one who seemed most likely to have dreamed as a child about taking over the island and becoming dictator someday. So his reply surprised Isaac.

  “I was sick of that place,” the older, bald, tired, wrinkled man said. “I’ll be honest with you all. I didn’t care much about Kletter’s reasons. I just wanted off that island, a chance to see the world. It was a prison to me. Always was.”

  “Same,” Alvarez agreed, he of few words. “Same.” He of one word, for the moment.

  “What about you, Mom?” Sadina asked.

  Ms. Cowan shrugged. “Maybe there was a little of that. Or a lot, I don’t know. But if there’s even a small chance that a few samples of your blood or whatnot can change the world for the better, we have to take it. And I know you agree with me, sweetie. It’s not like we haven’t talked this to death already.”

  Sadina only nodded, then gave her mom a quick side-hug.

  “You’ll all feel better soon,” Kletter said. “If it makes you happy, when we reach the Villa, you can have a knife to my throat and slit it the moment you think you’ve been betrayed. You won’t be. You’ll finally know we did the right thing in coming back.

  The Villa. At some point she’d started referring to her mythical compound with this fancy moniker, as if they should know what it meant.

  Lacey surprised them all when she was the one to respond. “I’ll do it. I’ll have the knife to her throat.” She shrugged. “Just in case, ya know.”

  Kletter smiled, a curiosity more rare than Lacey speaking. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”

  That kind of shut everyone up for a while.

  They reached the steeper incline of the foothills.

  Businesses and shops transitioned to once-bright, dilapidated homes, their yards gone rogue with hideous, choking weeds that could survive with little water. Each and every house looked haunted to Isaac. No one said much as they made their way through the creepy neighborhoods. If the others were like him, it took every breath just to get air to their lungs—not enough left over for talk. Two weeks of doing absolutely nothing on a boat is not an ideal exercise regimen, and he was really feeling the effects of it. The quick, deep breaths racing through his mouth and throat dried them to a desert landscape.

  “Anyone got water left?” he asked in a rasp, the first person to have uttered a word in at least an hour.

  “Aren’t you sick of water after floating on it for two weeks?” Miyoko retorted.

  Isaac gave her a look.

  She did something with her face that kind of resembled a smile. “Yeah, I could use a drink, too.”

  “Let’s take a break,” Kletter pronounced. “We’ll have a hot meal and plenty of water once we reach the Villa.”

  The Villa. It still sounded silly to Isaac. But the word “break” had never sounded so good, and he figured she could call her place whatever she wanted.

  Backpacks slipped off shoulders; bodies collapsed to the ground in exhausted heaps. Isaac wandered a piece—as his mom used to say—and found a thick palm tree, its bark worn from the passage of time. He sat, propped his back against it, closing his eyes. A few seconds later, someone nudged him with a foot and he looked up at Sadina.

  “You can have my last sip.” She held out her thermos.

  “Really?” The word felt like air blowing across sand.

  She unscrewed the cap and held it out again. Isaac gladly took it and drank the sweetest swallow of cold liquid in his life.

  “Thanks,” he said with an intake of breath. “I was five minutes from death by dehydration.”

  “You’re a softie is what you are. Don’t worry, I am, too. Our parents should’ve trained us better in case we ever returned to live in the apocalypse. Before this trip, when was the last time you were hungry?” She flumped to the ground next to him; he handed the thermos back to her. She tipped it toward the sky and finished it off.

  Isaac thought about it. “Sometimes I’d skip breakfast because I was so excited to work at the Forge every morning.”

  Sadina didn’t dignify that with a response. Isaac glanced over at Kletter, who sat alone in the middle of the road, legs crossed beneath her, staring at a spot in the distance with no life in her gaze. He’d assumed in the beginning that they’d get to know her inside and out by the time their voyage on the sea came to an end. But the reverse had happened. She was more of an enigma than ever—more than she’d been on the day they’d helped drag her out of the ocean.

  “Hey.”

  Isaac’s thoughts froze inside his mind. Someone had uttered the word in a harsh whisper from behind his tree. It definitely hadn’t been Sadina. Though fear tiptoed its way into the crevices of his brain, his rational side assumed it was somebody in their group. Casually, he leaned over and peered around the trunk of the ancient palm. No one. A quick look around revealed that everyone was in the road or on the other side. Out of easy earshot, anyway. The small trace of fear suddenly scratched a heavier tune on his heart.

  “Did you hear that?’ he whispered to Sadina.

  She furrowed her brow then shook her head. “Hear what?” She had the awareness to speak in a voice just as quiet as his.

  “I swear I heard someone say—”

  “Hey.”

  No mistake this time. Isaac jumped to his feet and leaned into the palm tree, using it as a shield as he searched the area on the other side. Sadina scrambled behind him, pressing against his back. The house in front of them had been a two-story home once, but the roof and most of the upper floor were missing, replaced by the dark remains of a fire that appeared somewhat recent. With the sun sinking ever closer to the horizon, the ruins of the structure and the wilderness of the yard were a grand festival of shadows. Whoever had spoken could be hiding anywhere.

  “It couldn’t have been a ghost,” Sadina whispered directly into his ear. “Ghosts don’t say, ‘Hey.’”

  He closed his eyes and reopened them in a long blink. “You think this is a joke?”

  “Tell your people you want to explore the house,” a disembodied voice said from somewhere in the yard, just loud enough to decipher. “I’ll meet you inside. You need to hear what I have to say.” There was a rustle of movement in the weeds and the dart of a shadow. The measured flurry of words from the intruder, the avuncular sound of them, made Isaac think it was an older man.

  He turned and looked at the others. No one had heard. No one but Sadina.

  “There’s no way we go in that house,” she said.

  Isaac couldn’t have agreed more. “So much for what Kletter told us. That guy might not be a Crank, but he’s definitely a human!”

  “Your ability to figure things out always amazes me. Come on, let’s tell the others.”

  He grabbed her arm before she could move away from him. “Wait. Just . . . wait.”

  “Wait? We have to tell them.”

  Isaac had a burrowing rat of suspicion in his gut, and the worst part was that he didn’t know its source. Kletter was a weirdo, no doubt, but they’d all thrown their lot in with her and traveled across the ocean itself to show their trust. But . . .

  “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Just . . . this person appears out of nowhere and wants to meet us secretly? Suddenly I’m doubting everything.”

  “You’ve lost your mind. Because of some dude in the weeds.”

  He knew she was right—knew it before she’d even responded to what he’d said. He wanted to get as far away from that house as poss—

  A rock landed with a thud next to him, thrown from the direction of the overgrown yard. It was wrapped with a piece of paper, tied in place with a bit of twine. Letters had been scrawled across the paper with something like charcoal, and done in a hurry by the messy looks of it.

  “What is going on?” Sadina asked. She glanced over her shoulder at the others as if they’d been creeping up on the secret whispers.

  Isaac was too busy untying the string to bother with an answer. It slipped loose easily; he spread the paper flat on a large, flat root jutting from the old palm tree. The mystery man was a fellow of few words like Alvarez, but his message came through loud and clear.