I’d bought her secondhand a few years ago from a retiring fisherman in Gloucester who’d been deeply skeptical that I knew what I was doing with her, and he’d been right about that. Sailboats were not my thing, and for the most part, I professed that loud and clear for anyone who would listen. But this one had spoken to me. She’d required more work than advertised, more money than I’d budgeted, and more weekends than I could count spent learning her particular personality—the way she sat in a swell, the temperamental nature of her secondary bilge pump, the specific throttle setting she preferred at cruising speed. I knew every inch of her the way you know something you’ve earned.
I’d genuinely not expected to see her again.
“Is that—?” Fiona’s voice came from between the headrests, the question hanging unfinished. She’d been on the Dredge twice.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Finn.” Her voice was tentative, the name hanging in the air for a moment. “She’s still here.”
“Looks like it.”
“I assumed—”
“Yeah, me too.”
I stepped out into the salt air and stood there looking at her. The dock lines were still tied the way I’d tied them. The canvas cover had come loose at one corner, lifting slightly in the breeze—but otherwise, she was as I’d left her, solid in her slip, entirely indifferent to everything that had happened since.
You have no idea how glad I am to see you.
Libby appeared at my shoulder, and I heard her quiet intake of breath when she saw what I was looking at.
“Is that yours?” she asked, her voice quiet.
“She’s mine,” I said. “Name’s the Dredge.”
She was quiet for a second, looking at it. “She’s beautiful.”
I glanced at her sideways.
“She’ll do,” I said, the most I’d ever managed to say about something I was actually proud of. I started walking toward the dock.
We moved fast, hauling everything from the car to the boat: the gas can, Fiona’s medical box, the food bins, our personal stuff.
On the last trip back to the car, I grabbed the final bag from the boot, straightened up, and something stopped me before I’d taken a step back toward the dock.
The gate stood open.
I stared at it. I’d closed it—I was certain of it. I’d heard the latch engage.
It was open now.
I turned slowly.
They came from the treeline at the far edge of the lot—not one, not a handful, but dozens, spread across the full width of the entrance in a loose, shambling mass that carried no urgency and didn’t need any. That remained the horror of a horde, every single time—the complete absence of urgency. They moved with the patient, indifferent momentum of a tide coming in.
My brain ran the distance in under a second.
Too close. Far too close.
“GO!” The word came out at full volume, every pretense of quiet gone in an instant, and I spun and sprinted back down the dock with my boots hammering the boards hard enough to shake them loose from the pilings. “GET ON THE BOAT—NOW—MOVE.”
Libby saw my face before she saw them. That was enough—she dropped everything and moved. Fiona looked past me toward the lot, went completely still, then grabbed the nearest line and started working it free.
I hit the dock at a dead run, seized the stern line and threw it clear, grabbed the bow line and threw that, then swung myself down into the cockpit and hit the ignition on the trolling motor. It caught with a low electric hum that sounded absurdly small against the scale of what crossed the lot toward us—but it could move us, and moving remained the only thing that mattered.
“Push off the piling—get us clear—”
I looked back toward the lot to check the distance.
