In the end there was irony.
Irony in that after all those days or weeks spent in that other place, that bad place, they came out in what George figured was the Atlantic and they were just as lost as ever. When they got their bearings and decided they were actually home, really and honestly home, George turned on one of the cockpit lights and looked at the compass. It was pointing to what he figured was magnetic north. No deviation, no nothing.
And when that happened and the wonder of it all had faded, if only momentarily, George read the compass and pointed his finger. “That way’s east, Olly, that’s where land will be.”
So Menhaus fired up the cigarette boat and they headed east, the cigarette boat glad to be back in the sea, the real sea, back in water it understood. In reacted in kind, firing off into the night like a rocket, cutting through those black waters and kicking up a gout of spray in its wake.
George turned on the radio.
What he was hoping for was a station. Any station. News or music or anything that would tell them, yes, you’re back in the right century. But all they got was static. Maybe it was the radio and maybe atmospheric disturbance and maybe, just maybe, the worse sort of portent.
“We’re home,” Menhaus kept saying. “I know we’re home.”
George knew they were, too. The only question was, what year it might be.
But there would be time for that, wouldn’t there?
Because right then the air smelled salty and fresh and cool, no fog or stagnance or floating seaweed. No, nothing but the sea and the night and the boat beneath them taking them to a place either they would know or to one where they and their boat would be freaks, out of place and out of time. Regardless, breaking free of the Dead Sea, there was hope. It burned brightly and their souls burned with it. With the lifting of that perpetual fog, even in the darkness and starlight, they felt free, absolutely unbound. Around them they could feel the spaces and distance and it was good to be free of the fog and its claustrophobia.
But, there was irony.
The next day the sun burned hot and the sea became a mirror and the heat was almost unbearable. George had forgotten just how bright the sun was. By late afternoon, the cigarette boat had exhausted the last of the fuel and there was nothing to do but drift and hope.
When night came, George fell asleep.
Maybe for an hour, maybe less. But when he woke up, Menhaus was shaking him roughly.
“Wake up, Sleeping fucking Beauty! Wake up!”
When George did he saw what Menhaus was seeing: a plane. Far overhead, its lights blinking on and off. George fumbled out the flare gun and popped a flare into it. Then he took aim on the plane like he wanted to shoot it down.
The flare lit up the sea and sky.
Then there was nothing to do but wait and hope.