Free The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) by Kevin Emerson Page B

I ran for the edge of the roof. Maybe whoever had taken the craft had tried to fly it, and crashed. . . .
    Then I heard a humming sound above us.
    I looked up and barely had time to dive out of the way as the craft careened out of the sky on a steep angle. I hit the ground just before the ship landed with a tearing slam. It skidded across the roof, spinning half around and slamming into the low wall at the edge.
    I jumped up and stumbled toward it. It looked empty.
    A head popped up. A girl with frizzed-out blond hair. She was younger than us, maybe eleven or twelve, with a curveless body and bony arms sticking out from a teal tank top. Her shoulders were seared red from the sun. She looked around, dazed.
    “Hey!” I could see already that one of the sails had come untied, and the mast looked bent.
    She saw me and started looking frantically in all directions.
    “Ripley!”
    I turned and saw Lucinda at the top of the stairs. She had Harvey draped across her shoulder. Smoke poured out of the door behind her.
    “Mom!” the girl shouted.
    “Run, Ripley!” Lucinda wheezed, her voice gurgling. “They’re murderers!”
    “No!” I pushed my weak legs, sprinting for the craft. Ripley saw me and screamed, her eyes wide, pupils adrift in seas of white.
    “Please, no!” Behind me, Lucinda had dropped to her knees, sobbing, Harvey sprawled on the roof beside her.
    “Don’t!” Lilly was grabbing Leech’s shoulder and keeping him from another attack.
    “Ripley, RUN!” Lucinda screamed.
    I had just reached the edge of the craft, could hear Ripley’s whimpering breaths, when her feet slammed the pedals. The craft lurched upward. I threw my arms over the side just as it whacked me in the jaw. I nearly lost my grip but managed to hang on.
    We hurtled upward in an arc, town far below us. The sails caught, then luffed again, and we were thrown into a wicked spin.
    “I don’t know how it works!” Ripley screamed, through sobs.
    I struggled to throw my leg over the side, but the spin was too strong. “Press back on the left pedal!” I shouted.
    Ripley stabbed at the pedals. The spin relented for a second, and I was able to drag myself into the craft.
    I got to my knees but fell into her. “Get off me!” she screamed. I felt something hot and wet through my shirt and I finally got a good look at Ripley. Her face, her arms, every inch of skin was covered in tiny, oozing spots, little red holes with yellowish pus dribbling out. I could see the squirming white lines under the skin. Heat worm, a parasite that thrived in polluted water supplies. There was a treatment for it, but it was impossible to get down here. I remembered a couple cases in Hub, but I’d never seen anything like this. Ripley’s skin was literally alive with the wavelike pulsations of worms burrowing through her. They were probably in her muscle tissue, by now, an advanced state. Eventually they would start eating through her organs, her bones, her brain.
    This was why Harvey and Lucinda were trading us to Eden: for the chance to save their daughter.
    Ripley slapped at me. Her feet hit the pedals again and we were thrust into a steep dive. The sails caught and wrenched us into a spin worse than the first.
    “Daddy, help!” Ripley screamed.
    I tried to flip back inside my head and find Lük, thinking, I need to pull out of a dive! but I couldn’t find the Atlantean city. Everything was a blur.
    “Get out of the way!” I gripped her bony shoulders and tried to push her toward the front of the craft.
    “Leave me alone!” She wailed through snot and tears, and as I blocked her blows I saw the white smudges of worms leaking out of her nostrils and tear ducts. She writhed like a snared animal, her fists flying at me.
    I held her firm. “Let me fly!” I shouted. With the world blurring around us, my gaze locked with her wide, young, worm-scribbled eyes—
    And something happened. It was like reality slipped, or like there were two things in my mind at