Forever Neverland(17)

He laid there in the dust, breathing hard, his eyes as wide as golf balls, and barely noticed when Peter’s motorcycle came to hover noisily above him once more.

John looked from the motorcycle to the burning house below. A figure came running out the front door of the home and John’s gaze narrowed.

It was Dr. Coffer.

And Coffer was looking right back at him. He was looking at Peter. And the motorcycle. And the human-sized flying pixie beside them.

“Bugger,” John muttered, wide-eyed.

“Shit,” Peter agreed, his gaze locked on the doctor’s form below. “Not good, Johnny. Get up now.” Peter lowered the bike until it pulled up on the ground alongside John.

“John,” Peter repeated, “get up and get on.” His voice, though relatively calm, still managed to convey an extreme sense of urgency. It cut through the chaos around John as if he’d used a megaphone. John made his legs move so that they were under him. He forced himself to stand.

“That’s it. Hurry now.” Peter chanced a glance across the darkness toward the burning house, with its single figure in the front yard, and its licking flames and rising black cloud of billowing ash in the background.

In the distance, sirens wailed. A few more people had left the comfort of their homes in order to gather in the cold street and peer, in awe, at the fire.

John turned and got on the back of the bike, grabbing Peter around the waist, though his grip was weak in his numb state. He waited for Peter to take off, but when he looked up at Pan, it was to find his green gaze pinned on Alexander Coffer, who was running madly toward his car, which was parked on the curb in front of his house.

“He’s going after Wendy,” John muttered under his breath.

“Not before I get to her,” Peter replied.

Peter took off at a slower pace this time, as if he could sense that if he didn’t, John would fall off. Soon, the glowing motorcycle was in the air and soaring across the night sky once more, the roar of its motor drowning out the crackling thunder of the conflagration behind them.





Chapter Six

Captain Hook slowly sat up in his bed, amidst the wailing song of wind and the mad flutter of papers that were free and sailing about his cabin. Absently, he reached up and, like lightning, snatched one of the sheets of paper from the air. He cocked his head to one side and listened. There were doors opening below decks. Footsteps.

The crew was awakening.

He stood and looked down. He was fully dressed, but for his red brocade coat, which hung over the back of his desk chair a few feet away. The last thing that he could recall was the lethargy. It had fallen over all of Neverland like a shroud. It hit the land first, but within sheer heartbeats, an evil plague of fatigue had overcome his crew. They’d had no time to draw anchor and escape.

As his men had dropped off, one by one, some before they were able to make it to their beds, Hook had barely managed to close the door of his cabin, shrug off his coat and lie down before the sleep had claimed him.

And now they were awake again.

“But why?” he asked the wind softly.

It answered with another loud howl. He looked down as the wind attempted, futilely, to tear the page of paper out of his hands. He idly studied it and recognized it as a small map. Have I tried to follow this one yet? He thought, distractedly.

Then Hook shook himself, straightened, and calmly donned his coat, placing the small map in an inner pocket. He then shut and barred the windows once more against the building gale outside.

There came a knock at his cabin door.

“Enter, Smee.”

Behind him, a shorter, rotund man with glasses and a sagging sleeping cap entered the cabin, shutting the door behind him. “Good evenin’ Cap’n” said Smee.

Hook turned to him, now fully composed. “What is the situation, Smee?”

“There’s an evil wind about us, Cap’n,” said Smee, who very respectfully made it a point never to slouch in front of his captain.

“Indeed?” Hook replied as he strode across the room toward Smee and the door. “I hadn’t noticed. And the men?”

“Comin’ around, Sir, that they are.” Smee followed Captain Hook out of the luxuriously appointed cabin and onto the aft deck. The wind attacked them immediately, ripping at their hair and clothes. Smee leapt up off of his feet and caught his cap just as it was torn from his head by a hard gust. He thought better of replacing it on his head and, instead, stuffed it into the front pocket of his trousers.

“Smee, wake the others. Douse them, if you have to. We need all hands on deck.” Hook gave Smee his orders and then turned to the few men who were already scrambling up onto the main deck of the giant ship.