“Kind of like when your folks came over the border from Mexico, huh?” Quinn said.
Sam and Astrid both aimed shocked looks at Quinn.
Edilio stood even straighter and, despite being six inches shorter than Quinn, seemed to be looking down at him. In a calm, quiet voice Edilio said, “Honduras is where my folks are from. They had to come all the way through Mexico before they even reached the border. My mom works as a maid. My father is a farmhand. We live in a trailer and drive an old beater. I still have a little accent because I learned Spanish before I learned English. Anything else you need to know, man?”
Quinn said, “I wasn’t trying to start anything, amigo.”
“That’s good,” Edilio said.
It wasn’t a threat, not really. And in any case, Quinn had twenty pounds on Edilio. But it was Quinn who took a step back.
“We have to go,” Sam said. To Edilio, he explained, “We’re looking for Astrid’s little brother. He’s…he needs someone to look after him. Astrid thinks he may be up at the power plant.”
“My father’s an engineer there,” Astrid explained. “But it’s about ten miles from here.”
Sam hesitated before asking Edilio to join them. It would annoy Quinn. Quinn wasn’t acting like himself, which wasn’t really strange, given what was going on, but Sam found it unsettling. Edilio, on the other hand, had kept his head together at the fire. He’d stepped up.
Astrid made the decision for him. “Edilio? Would you like to come with us?”
Now Sam was a little peeved. Did Astrid think Sam couldn’t take care of things? She needed Edilio?
Astrid rolled her eyes at Sam. “I thought I would cut to the chase and avoid more male posturing.”
“I wasn’t posturing,” Sam grumbled.
“How are you going to travel?” Edilio asked.
“I don’t think we should try to drive a car, if that’s what you mean,” Sam said.
“I maybe got something. Not a car, but better than walking ten miles.” Edilio led them to a garage door hidden away around the back of the pool changing room. He raised the garage door, revealing two golf carts with the logo of Clifftop Resort on the sides. “The groundskeepers and the security guys use them to get around and go over to the golf course on the other side of the highway.”
“Have you driven one of these before?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. My dad picks up a shift sometimes at the golf course. Groundskeeping. I go with him, help out.”
That simplified the decision. Even Quinn had to see the logic. “Okay,” Quinn said grudgingly. “You drive.”
Sam said, “We can try the direct road to the highway. It’s the first right.”
“You’re avoiding downtown,” Astrid said. “You don’t want kids coming up to you, asking you what they should do.”
“You want to get to PBNP?” Sam asked. “Or do you want to watch me stand around telling people they have nothing to fear but fear itself?”
Astrid laughed, and it was, in Sam’s opinion, probably the sweetest sound he had ever heard.
“You remember,” Astrid said.
“Yeah. I remember. Roosevelt. The Great Depression. Sometimes, if I really strain my brain, I can even do multiplication.”
“Defensive humor,” Astrid teased.
They motored across the parking lot and onto the road. There they took a sharp cut-back right turn onto a narrow, newly paved section. The golf cart slowed going uphill to barely better than walking speed. They soon saw that the road dead-ended into the barrier. They stopped and stared solemnly at the abrupt end of the pavement.
“It’s like a Road Runner cartoon,” Quinn said. “If you go paint a tunnel onto it, we can go through, but Wile E. Coyote will smash into it.”
“Okay. Back down to the cliff road then, but cut through the back streets to the highway—don’t go near the plaza,” Sam said. “We need to find Little Pete already. I don’t want to have to stop and talk to a bunch of kids.”
“Yeah, plus we don’t want anyone stealing the cart,” Edilio said.
“Yeah. There’s that,” Sam admitted.
“Stop,” Astrid yelled, and Edilio slammed on the brakes.
Astrid jumped off her seat and trotted back to something white by the roadside. She knelt down and picked up a twig.
“It’s a seagull,” Sam said, puzzled that Astrid should care. “Maybe bashed into the barrier, huh?”
“Maybe. But look at this.” She poked the bird’s foot with the twig, lifting it up.
“Yeah?”
“It’s webbed, of course. Like it should be. But look at the way the toes extend out. Look at the nails. They’re talons. Like a bird of prey. Like a hawk or an eagle.”
“You sure it’s a regular seagull?”
“I like birds,” she explained. “This is not normal. Seagulls don’t need talons. So they don’t have talons.”
“So it’s a bird freak,” Quinn said. “Can we move on now?”
Astrid stood up. “It’s not normal.”
Quinn barked a laugh. “Astrid, we’re not even in the same time zone as normal. This is what you’re worrying about? Bird toes?”
“This bird is either a solitary freak, a random mutation,” Astrid said, “or it’s a whole new species that suddenly appeared. Evolved.”