Claremont Harbor

Chapter One

            In my eighteen years of life, I hadn't really spent a whole lot of time by the ocean. Having grown up in South Dakota, which is pretty far inland, I'd only been to the beach in Washington (which is kind of a cold and unpleasant beach, anyway) once, when I was nine. And, despite my mother's assurances that the beaches in places like California were much nicer, I had decided that oceans were for weirdoes.

Fast-forward nine years, to one August 16th, when I was just returning from the fifth coffee run of the day. The fact that it was only 11 o'clock didn't seem to faze Dan Crosby, my boss. When I walked into his office, he was on the phone, and waved for me to put his double-shot mocha down on his desk. I did so, and settled into my chair. I would have eavesdropped, but he was talking in hushed tones.

I stared at the wall for about a minute and a half, and Dan finally hung up the phone.

"Ryn," he said, taking a sip of his coffee. "I think we're going to Maine."

Since my mom was always suggesting that I get out of town, she thought going to Maine was a great idea. She was only slightly worried when I informed her that it was for the sake of an investigation (knowing she would be, I toned it down a little and didn't exactly convey the volume of the mystery: fifteen disappearances in two months).

But, after making me promise to take lots of pictures of the ocean, she once again decided that it was a good idea, and I started packing. Dan had planned for us to leave the next day, so I was in a little bit of a hurry. Apparently this was pretty urgent.

Morning came, and I drove to the police station, parked my car outside, and went in to find Dan. He was in the hallway, talking on his phone again while attempting to drag his suitcase down the hall.

I took over the suitcase, as grunt work was most of what an intern did, and we made our way to his car.

He got off the phone and hopped into the driver's seat. I loaded his suitcase and my backpack into the backseat and claimed shotgun. Dan started the car, and began driving.

"So the first place we head is the airport," he said. "We have a flight to Cleveland, where we have a forty-five minute layover, and then we go straight to Augusta, Maine, where there's a car waiting for us. We drive from Augusta to Claremont Harbor, where we check into our hotel and go to sleep. The next morning, we begin investigating."

"Cool," I said.

He briefly took his eyes off the road to glance over at me. "Your shirt says 'NVCR'. What's that?"

"Hm?" I said. "Oh, yeah, that's Night Vale Community Radio. My aunt Dana got a bunch of different ones, from the place she used to intern at. And speaking of clothes, what's the weather gonna be like in Maine?"

I was dressed for fairly warm weather: frayed jean shorts and a plaid flannel shirt over my t-shirt. Brown combat boots, as usual, and a cluster of hemp bracelets around my wrist. Okay, okay, I'm kind of a hipster. So sue me.

"Probably pretty warm," said Dan. "It's summer, after all."

The drive to the airport wasn't long enough for me to justify breaking out my CDs, and when we finally got there, it took barely any time at all to board our flight. We were on our way to Maine.

Thinking back, I was so calm when we were heading there. I didn't even have the slightest suspicion of the kind of things I'd be caught in the middle of when we got to Claremont Harbor. Which is probably best, 'cause if I'd known, there's no way I would have gone.