Apocalyptic pirates, p.2
Apocalyptic Pirates, page 2
The theme for today was green. My mom wore a dark green sundress that complemented her petite figure, large sunglasses that covered up her bright green eyes, and a tan sun hat that was twice as large as any sun hat had a right to be.
Dad had on khaki shorts with a Tommy Bahama style shirt that had palm leaves in place of the usual flowers. His gray hair was cut short as it always was, and his tanned skin had gotten even more wrinkly since the last time I’d seen him.
“Hi mom, hi dad,” I chuckled. “I’ll be home soon.”
“When is your flight again?” Sammy asked as she turned the camera back to herself.
“I’m a couple time zones ahead of you,” I reminded her. “It’s early afternoon here. I just closed the deal, so I’m heading to the airport right now. I’ll fly from Connecticut straight to L.A., and then I’ll hop on the red-eye and see you first thing in the morning.”
“I’m sad you won’t be here for the meteors,” Sam said, and she looked down for a second.
“I know,” I sighed and pushed my hand through my hair. “I’m sorry, Sammy. You know I didn’t want to come here, but Mitch insisted I was–”
“The only one who could close the deal,” she finished for me with a wry smile.
“Tell Mitch I’ll kick his ass,” my dad laughed offscreen.
“Grandpa!” Sammy chuckled.
“What?” he asked. “The old bastard needs to retire already and just give you the company.”
“Then dad will just work more.” Sam rolled her eyes and looked back at the camera. “Well, was it a good deal, at least?”
“Good enough for what?” I asked with a suspicious and knowing smile.
Sam knew just after I closed a deal was the best time to ask for something she wanted. She was a good kid, so it was usually something I would buy her regardless, but I liked to make her think she didn’t have me wrapped around her finger. Or maybe I just tried to make myself think that.
“Well, you know my birthday is coming up,” she led with a smile.
“I do.” I nodded. “The big one-three.”
“Yes,” she agreed fervently. “And I’ve decided what I want.”
“Oh, really?” I laughed. “And what’s that?”
“A star,” she said matter-of-factly.
“A star?” I asked, and my eyebrows pulled together with confusion. “What are you talking about, kiddo?”
“You can buy ‘em!” my mom shouted.
“Grandma, he’s on the phone, he can hear you just fine,” Sam giggled.
“Well, I don’t know how all that technology works,” she said, and Sam panned over just in time for me to see her giving a dismissive wave.
“You can buy stars now?” I scoffed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, no, it’s real!” Sam insisted. “You can buy them, and you get a certificate and everything. And it’s even entered into the International Space Registry. It’s literally sooo cool! Dad, please!”
“And just how much are we talkin’?” I asked, and I narrowed my eyes on my daughter.
“You can get a supernova for only forty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents,” she said, and she smiled wide and blinked her puppy dog eyes at me. “Pleeeeeease, Daddy?”
I almost laughed out loud at how good of a kid I had on my hands. Fifty bucks was all it took to buy a damn supernova? At that rate, I’d buy her a whole constellation.
“Well, it is your thirteenth birthday,” I said with a sly smile. “I guess I could spring for it.”
“Really?” she gasped. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Alright, alright,” I laughed. “But you’ll have to show me the website and all that. I want to make sure you get the one you want.”
“I will!” she squealed. “Thank you again, Dad! I can’t wait.”
“Does that make up for me missing the meteor shower tonight?” I asked hopefully.
“It’s technically a meteor storm,” my daughter swiftly corrected me.
“Ah, that’s right.” I nodded. “My mistake.”
“I’m still sad you won’t be here,” she finally answered with a little smile. “But Grandma and Grandpa promised to watch with me, so I guess it’s okay. Just take lots of pictures while you’re on the plane! I bet you’ll have an even better view than we will.”
“I’ll do my best,” I assured her, and I suddenly saw the time on the dash of the car. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked, and her eyebrows pulled together.
“Nothing, it’s okay,” I said as I put the car in gear and pulled out of the parking lot. “But I gotta get to the airport, baby. I’ll call you when I get to L.A., okay?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Have a safe flight, honey!” my mom called.
“I will,” I chuckled, and I glanced down at my phone to get another look at my beautiful daughter. “Hey, Sammy girl.”
“Yeah?” she asked.
“I miss you,” I said.
“I miss you, too, Dad.” Sam smiled, and my heart cracked into a million little pieces.
“I’ll see you soon, alright?” I asked.
“See you soon, dad,” Sam said with a little wave, and with that, the line went dead.
I sighed and looked up just in time to see someone standing in the middle of the road directly in front of me.
“Shit!” I screamed as I slammed on the brakes.
Chapter 2
It was too late.
I slammed into the guy and sent him and all his groceries flying.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I breathed as I threw the car into park and got out to rush over to the man on the ground. “Are you alright?”
The guy was probably in his late twenties, but he looked rough. The dark circles under his light-brown eyes told the story of weeks of sleepless nights. I looked him over for injuries, but as I did, I realized something was off about him. I hadn’t seen a single person in this entire town wear an article of clothing that cost less than a hundred dollars, and yet here he was in worn-out denim pants and a ratty coat.
Before I could get a better look at him, he jumped up, grabbed the bags of groceries, and shoved what he could back into them before running off down the street.
“What the fuck?” I breathed as I looked around with complete confusion.
“Get back here!” an older dark-haired woman yelled as she rushed out of the small artisanal grocery store the man had just come from. “Thief!”
The woman took off after the man, and I was left standing in the middle of the street trying to figure out what in the fuck was going on.
This was Westport, Connecticut. People didn’t need to rob anyone here, everyone was richer than rich, and I didn’t think they had even a small homeless population. So what the hell was that guy doing? And why did he take off after I literally hit him with my car?
I hadn’t noticed any apparent injuries, but still. He could have tried to sue me or something if he needed money, but instead he just grabbed his grocery bags and left.
What the hell was happening here?
I walked over to a bag of beef jerky the man had left on the ground and picked it up. Then I looked around for someone to hand it to, only to realize I had no idea what I was doing anymore.
“My car looks okay…” I said as I looked at the front of the rental, but there was no sign of the man or the woman, and a quick glance at my watch showed me that I needed to get the hell on the road.
But then I paused and looked around the street.
Something felt… off.
There was a stillness in the air. It was a complete lack of breeze or sound besides the slight hum of car engines coming from somewhere. Even though this seemed like a busy intersection with a grocery store on the corner, I didn’t see any cars pulling in or out of the parking lot.
I glanced around again in a three-sixty, and it for real felt like the time that I’d done a deal in the south of Mexico and walked around the city of Oaxaca during the afternoon siesta time. The city had felt like a bit of a ghost town then.
But this was Connecticut, not Mexico, and New England culture wasn’t much for taking naps.
Something was weird.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” I grumbled, and I tossed the bag of jerky back on the ground and got back in my rental Ford Focus.
Then I gunned it toward the airport without a second thought.
As weird as that situation had been, there was nothing I could do about it at the moment. The man had run off, which pretty much absolved me of any responsibility, at least in my mind. If I didn’t have to get to the airport, I might have stuck around and tried to sort things out, but I’d already missed two days of my vacation with Sam, and I wasn’t about to miss any more of it.
I needed to get on this flight, and halfway running over some asshole wasn’t going to stop me.
Still, how fucking weird was that?
Maybe the poor guy had wandered in from some other nearby town by accident or something. However he’d gotten there, he definitely didn’t belong in Westport.
And neither did I.
As the city sign disappeared in the rearview mirror behind me, I was happy to be getting out of that uppity town and heading back home. Well, not quite home, but close enough.
Hawaii had become like a second home to me in the past few years, and I couldn’t wait to see Sammy girl.
I realized then that my hands were shaking, so I took a deep, steadying breath to calm myself down. Then I continued on to the airport and pulled around to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car that was located right beside it.
I only had a carry-on with me, so I pulled it along as I returned the keys to the Ford. I retrieved my boarding pass from one of the little kiosks, took my shoes off for security, and asked one of the TSA guys where the nearest Starbucks was.
I needed a coffee.
It had been a long day already, and hitting that guy in the street had really thrown me for a loop. But I tried to focus on the good things, like that fat commission check I’d be getting, and the fact that I was only two flights away from seeing Sam and officially starting my vacation.
I got in line at Starbucks and ordered an iced mocha with five pumps of caramel. I wasn’t proud of my Starbucks order, but it was damn good.
Once I had my coffee in hand, I made my way to the gate and took a seat among the rest of the people waiting to board the plane. We were all pretty well packed in since it was so close to boarding time, so I pulled my arms and legs in close to keep them away from the people I was sitting between. Then I sipped my iced coffee as quietly as possible as I allowed my eyes to wander around the airport.
There was a family standing near the window. A mom, dad, two young children running around playing, and a teeny-tiny baby the mom carried on her chest in a baby carrier.
Seeing the two of them made me think about when Sam was that tiny, and I couldn’t help but smile. She’d been the cutest damn kid, even if she was bald for the first two years of her life.
Seriously, it took forever for her hair to come in. Marie didn’t care, though. She just put headbands on her with huge flowers or bows that dwarfed her entire body and made her seem even smaller than she already was.
I moved from the family over to a young couple practically sitting on each other’s laps. Next to them was a man with dreadlocks and headphones working on a MacBook.
Across from me was a young woman with wildly frizzy hair and sweatpants on, and a couple of old women who were gossiping about one of their other friends back home.
Finally, I turned my attention to the woman on the airport television.
It was one of the gals from The Today Show. A man with a beard sat next to her, and the subtitles introduced him as Dr. Shaun Hickory. Apparently, he was some kind of scientist, and this was a special afternoon episode to cover the meteor shower that was about to start.
I sipped my coffee and settled in as I watched the woman on the television ask the man about the meteor shower this afternoon and what onlookers should expect.
“Well, I think everyone is in for quite a treat,” the bearded man said. “Of course, small meteors hit Earth every day, but they’re tiny, so tiny you probably wouldn’t notice at all. And most of them are never recovered because of this. But today will be the closest to Earth we’ve seen meteors of this size get so far, and in a huge quantity unlike anything we’ve seen before. Since we’ve been able to document events like this, that is. I imagine we’ll see a few of the larger ones during the day, but tonight is really when things are going to pick up. We’ve got scientists all over the world waiting with specialized cameras to take pictures and collect data from the event. It’s really going to be a wonderful experience.”
“It certainly sounds like we’re in for a treat,” the dark-haired woman chuckled. “Now, I know there’s been some concern on social media about whether or not this is going to affect travel for today, if airports should shut down, all of that. So, can you assure our viewers that they can travel without worry?”
“Oh, certainly.” The scientist nodded. “These meteors are going to be much larger than the ones that usually get close to Earth or breach the atmosphere, but they’re still going to burn up in the atmosphere long before they get anywhere near us, and that includes planes. There’s nothing to worry about. In fact, if you’re on a plane, you may just get a better view of the meteors than the rest of us down here on land.”
“Hm,” I mused to myself.
That was exactly what Sam said.
The newswoman and the scientist went on to discuss how this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Apparently, an event like this wasn’t set to happen again for at least another hundred years, if not longer. The scientist was clearly passionate about his work, and as I sipped my coffee and watched, I wondered if that would be Sam one day.
She was smart enough to do whatever she wanted with her life, and I knew already that whatever she chose was going to be science related. She’d already chosen what college she wanted to go to, but she hadn’t yet decided on a major. The kid was only twelve, and she had more ambition than half the adults I knew.
I was a damn proud father.
I slurped down the last of my iced coffee and watched as more and more people crowded near the gate. There were no more seats left, so they were standing around just waiting to board. It was typical airport behavior, and I checked my ticket to see what zone I was in as I hoped I wasn’t going to get stuck behind a million different people.
I always hated boarding airplanes. It made no sense to me. Why in the hell did they board from the front to the back? It made so much more sense to board the people in the back first and then keep moving forward.
I always seemed to find myself in zone three or four, which meant I had to squeeze my way through a million people from the previous zones trying to get their shit together. And it didn’t help that I was tall, because I was constantly asked to help people get their luggage in the overhead bins.
I didn’t mind helping, it was just the lack of logic of it all that pissed me off.
Or maybe I was just grumpy because I had to miss watching the meteor storm with Sam.
I’d keep my promise and take plenty of pictures out of the plane window, but that didn’t make up for the fact that I was going to miss this with her. And the scientist on the television wasn’t helping when he called it a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
Still, Sam was young, and I had plenty of time to spend with her.
I let that thought calm me as I stood up and risked the walk to the garbage to throw away my Starbucks cup.
Just as I’d suspected, before I even reached the garbage can, someone had already taken my spot.
Oh, well.
I got in line behind the rest of the people crowded around the gate and waited for my turn to get my ticket scanned.
Finally, the stewardess came over the loudspeaker and announced the boarding of zone one. All the businessmen and first-class passengers made their way onto the jet bridge, and I made a mental note to remind Mitch about switching company credit cards so we could start accumulating miles.
Lord knows I was on a plane often enough to justify it.
I looked down at my ticket. Zone four, row thirty-seven, seat A.
Well, at least I had a window seat.
I sighed and turned my attention back to the people around me. The young man who’d stolen my seat pulled out an old beat-up laptop and oversized headphones. Once he put them on, he immediately started pressing buttons in strange patterns, and after a moment, I realized he must be playing some sort of online game.
I chuckled to myself.
I knew a lot of people who would get angry with kids nowadays for wanting to play games or be on their phone, but the older generations were just as bad. My mom was constantly checking the weather, and my dad was always on the phone with one of his old buddies reminiscing about something or another.
Hell, if playing a few games helped kids cope with the craziness of the world, then far be it for me to say anything about it. The older Sam got, the more I realized just how much things had changed from when I was a kid. There was so much more for kids nowadays to worry about.
The panicked screech of a small child drew my attention, and I turned back to the family standing near the window to see the young girl of the group, who was maybe two or three years old, was on the verge of a full-on meltdown. She wanted to run, and the father was doing his best to hold her in place and explain to her that she couldn’t run in the airport. All while the mother looked around with eyes full of the fear of judgment as she patted the baby in the carrier on her chest.
The little girl started screaming and kicking, and the father did his best to remain calm. The little girl really pulled out the stops, though, and her ear-piercing scream caused the baby the mom was holding to start to cry.
I shook my head sympathetically, but then I realized they were missing one. When I saw them earlier, they had three children, and yet I only saw two now. They were missing the older boy.
