Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 26

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Second Chances in New Port Stephen - Chapter 26

Eli wasn’t quite there yet, comfort-wise. He practically tore Nick’s arm from its socket as he
wrenched him away from the giant fucking hole opening up in the ground. “Get to the fence!”
A few days prior, a light jog at the beach had been more than enough of a challenge, but now
Eli’s arms and legs were pumping like he was trying out for the track team. He’d never moved
that fast in his entire life, including the time he’d fought his way onto the field at Central Park to
watch Lewis Black do a set for Summer Series. Nick was right next to him, sprinting just as
quickly. Eli could hear his labored breathing and the pounding of his feet on the ground. He
tried not to listen to the sounds of the sinkhole widening right behind them, sucking everything
in its path down into the earth.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of vaulting over felled palm trees, they reached the fence.
It was not the section of the fence they had slipped through,
though. Eli groped for the break in the chains but found nothing but solid links.
“Fuck it, we’re going over the top.” Nick tucked away his phone and grabbed Eli by the waist.
“Whoa,” he yelped. “Hold on, wait a—” But there was nothing he could do about being tossed
bodily onto the fence. He clung to the chain link and scrambled up until he could swing first one
leg, then the other over the top. Nick was doing the same beside him.
They both hit the ground at the same time. Nick went down harder, sprawling in a heap. He
groaned and rolled onto his back. “Is it still going?” he asked.
Eli stared into the blackness of the campus beyond the fence. It was so quiet, he couldn’t hear a
single bird or bug, nothing except for Nick’s heaving breaths and his own. He approached the
fence once more and hooked two fingers into a link. “It stopped.” Half of their old high school

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was gone. The library and the orchestra room and the basketball courts, the courtyard with the
cabbage palms: it was all swallowed up. Eli could see a few hundred yards in the distance,
where half of the gym was gone, its innards exposed like an open dollhouse. The massive
sinkhole sat still and ominous, a gash of absence on the world.
Eli grimaced. “Do you think anyone will notice?”
Before Nick could weigh in, the rest of the gym tipped over and fell into the void with a boom.