Flyers by Scott Ciencin Read Free Book Online Page A

Her cell phone would have come in handy at the moment, but too late she realized that she’d left it on the floor of the
Jaws
boat ride.
    “Hey, you!” she called to the reporter.
    “Manly,” he told Amanda.
    “Uh . . . right. Sure you are. Not that I care how manly you are. What I want to know is whether you might have somehow forgotten you were carrying a cell phone.”
    “Lady, my
name
is Manly. Manly Wilks, and my cell phone is in my car.”
    Alan watched the exchange and shook his head. “Don’t look at me, Mrs. Kirby. My laptop, which Mr. Wilks here managed to destroy, was the extent of my rendezvous with twenty-first-century technology.”
    While the adults discussed the phone situation, Eric looked around for Josh. He noticed the boy sitting in a corner, his head down. Eric went to him.
    “Y’know, when I was stranded on Isla Sorna,” Eric said, “I had to get myself through it—even when I was certain no one would rescue me for a long time.”
    “How’d you do it?” asked Josh.
    “I had to believe it would be okay—that everything would turn out just fine. Can you do that, too, Josh? Can you imagine your dad and everyone else down there getting out of this just fine? Same for all of us. Can you?”
    Josh hesitated, then nodded. Still, there was something like betrayal in his eyes. Or maybe Eric was just being paranoid. Eric looked up to find Alan watching them from across the room. The scientist motioned Eric over.
    Alan spoke very softly. “Eric, I just want you to know, about yesterday . . .”
    Eric waited.
    “I may have been a little cranky.” Alan took off his hat and fingered the brim. “You were wrong, but you didn’t deserve to be treated so shabbily. That’s all.”
    Grinning, Eric said, “Maybe you can make it up to me on my next visit to the island.”
    “You never give up, do you?” Alan asked with a slight smile.
    “Never.”
    On the other side of the first-aid station, Amanda hung up the phone and raised the map she had been studying. “This phone is useless. But I’ve got another idea. Come here.”
    The group gathered around her. Amanda pointed out a small communications backup room on the map. It was in the very building where they were, which also housed the Kongfrontation ride.
    “If we head there, we should be able to reach the outside world,” she said. “Short-wave radio, satellite, PA systems—all that stuff, I’d wager.”
    “A working computer,” Manly said. He looked at Alan. “Sorry about wrecking your laptop.”
    “It was that or my head, right?” Alan said.
    Manly nodded. “Yeah. Then what kind of quotes could you give me?”

CHAPTER 12

    Armed and supplied, the group entered a dimly lit employees-only hallway that branched within the large building and allowed them to travel in safety. Thumps and hums told them the ride in this building was still going, too.
    Alan and Eric traveled far ahead of the others.
    “So what else is bothering you?” Alan asked.
    “The truth?” Eric asked.
    “I can take it,” Alan said.
    “Josh,” Eric said.
    “Really.”

    “Josh seems like a good guy. I want to help him, but . . .”
    Alan nodded. He understood. “
But
he worships you. You’re his hero. And you don’t know how to deal with that, right?”
    “Kind of,” Eric said. “Did you ever meet someone who’s read about you, or they’ve read something you’ve written, so they think they know you? And they think it’s cool to say things to you they normally wouldn’t even think about saying to a total stranger?”
    “Personal and insulting things, like you’re not real, like you’re on the other side of the glass with them, making commentary on your public persona?” Alan asked.
    “Yeah. Like this thing he said about my dad . . .”
    Alan sighed. “I suppose it goes with the territory of being a celebrity. Not that we’re movie stars or anything like that, but for some people, we might as well be. And they don’t know how to act around