by A J Newman
Personally, I think that having his head on Joan’s lap for the rest of the trip may have sealed the deal. They were bonding and his kids were already fond of Joan. It seemed strange to me, but there could be no question that here in the After, relationships developed at hyper speed.
***
“Aaron, vehicles approaching. I hope it’s our girl and her friends.”
“Better safe than sorry. Man the SAWs and call for Mort while I run up to see who it is.”
Mort brought six armed people with him and they quickly set up a cross fire to ambush any undesirables. They lay behind walls, boats in dry dock and in culverts. They were prepared, and professional.
Aaron saw the lead vehicle turn down their street and immediately recognized the woman manning the SAW on the roof of the old pickup. It was his beautiful daughter. He stepped out into the street and waved at the convoy approaching them.
“My Davi, I have missed you so much. I know many of your friends, but when we get them all aboard ship and safely out to sea, you will have to introduce everyone to your Uncle Mort and his people.”
“Davi, are you okay?” her mom yelled.
Davi hugged her mother and father then turned to see her Dad’s best friend and cried out, “Uncle Mort, you rascal, you haven’t changed a bit.”
“And you my dear are as beautiful as ever.”
They were fed sandwiches and fruit while Mort filled them all in on the progress of getting the boats loaded and ready for the trip.
“My friends, I’m sorry, but we have to immediately load up and get out of here. There are some very bad people a few miles north of here.”
I replied, “There are twenty less of those bastards. We had to blast our way through them to get here.”
Mort looked terrified and replied, “Then we have to leave right away. You see the boats. Start loading them now and prepare to sail in two hours. All hands on deck and we leave in two hours even if we leave supplies on the dock.”
The next two hours were all assholes and elbows as we frantically moved all of our supplies and people onto the boats before the sun came up. Mort was glad to see the four extra SAWs, LAWs and large amount of weapons and ammo we brought to the party.
Aaron said, “Keep the SAWs handy, but we’ll mount them after we get away from this place. Who has sailing experience?”
Roger Forrest and Mike were the only ones that had sailed small boats and were immediately drafted to help move the yacht, renamed the Exodus II, away from the dock.
We stacked our supplies all over the deck and in the cabin space. We didn’t try to stow it away in its proper place as we wasted no time and quickly had everything piled high on the two boats.
“Joan. Please take charge of the children while the rest of us prepare to sail and stow the supplies.”
Mike and Roger removed the mooring lines while Aaron started the auxiliary diesel engine. Aaron skillfully pulled away from the dock and headed the three quarters of a mile downstream to the Gulf of Mexico. Navigating only by moon light to avoid being seen was dangerous close to shore, but wouldn’t be an issue in open water.
“Men, we need to get a half mile out before we can be sure we can tack port or starboard. Maintain light discipline. We are living on borrowed time and I want to get out of sight as soon as possible.
Mort, please take the lead and use your depth finder to tell us when we cut west. We’ll go that way for a mile or so, and then head straight out into the Gulf.”
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Chapter 17
Sailing
Mort passed us in the channel and led the way out into the Gulf. Davi was on Mort’s boat and both of us were charged with watching the shore for the enemy. Mike and one of Mort’s crew were charged with watching for aircraft. I saw several Humvees approaching on the main road by the docks and radioed Davi. The sun was just below the horizon and the dark was yielding to a soft hazy light.
“Enemy vehicles by our dock. They have mounted machineguns. The dumbasses have all of their lights on.”
Davi told Mort, he checked the depth and had her reply, “Cut right now! Follow us.”
The enemy had not spotted us yet, and we would soon be around the mouth of the channel and out of sight. We were almost out of their line of vision when I saw the vehicles flying towards the closest point of land in our direction.
I yelled, “Everyone take cover,” as I radioed the warning to Davi.
The vehicles stopped and started firing at us, missing short and wide, but were getting closer.
“I yelled, “Start firing! I’ll watch through the binoculars and guide you in to the target.”
The team fired all eight SAWs at the vehicles hitting water most of the time until I talked them closer and closer to the enemy. Then we unleashed the .50 cal. BMGs on the bastards. The tracer’s glow enabled us to walk the bullets on to the targets. The .50s had the range to devastate the Humvees and soon both were on fire and the crews dead.
The remaining troops popped up and fired a few times, but only two rounds hit Mort’s boat with none hitting ours. The .50 cal. BMGs wiped them out.
We moved past their line of sight and started angling out to sea as we stayed out of their line of fire.
Mort radioed to Aaron, “Keep a close watch on the sky. They could have helicopters.”
The sky was clear and yet there were no helicopters, so we sailed due south. Mort waited for six hours before calling us to make sure we were out of line of sight radio range and no one could easily track us. Our small handheld radios only had a range of 10 to 15 miles over water.
We sailed at seven knots and as expected, it would take another day to get out of the range of aircraft.
There hadn’t been time to cover our long range plan. Aaron said, “I will give you the short version tonight. We’ll stop for an hour, lash the boats together and give you the full briefing.”
“Sounds good. Where are we heading.”
“Many of our compounds around the world have recently come under attack by an unknown enemy. This, coupled with the invasion of the USA by multiple countries makes it necessary to head to one of our compounds in South America.
Initially, we are sailing to Belize, and then on to Aruba or perhaps French Guiana if necessary. Just before we arrive in Belize, we’ll stop at the eastern most point of the Yucatan peninsula to fish and search for game.
While there, we’ll try to smoke and sundry the fish and meat.
This is not a long trip, but we will pace ourselves as though it were. We will catch rainwater and fish at every opportunity.
We need, and intend to conserve all supplies for the proverbial rainy day. Get used to eating a lot of fish until we find, and grow our own food.”
I replied, “Mort, we understand and everyone here will do their best to make sure we are conserving our supplies. I’m not sure what fish we can catch in the open Gulf moving at seven knots, but we’ll give it a try. ”
Nodding his head, Aaron said, “No, you are right, well, unless you are fond of flying fish. The deep waters of the Gulf are akin to a desert. We’ll wait until we are off the coast of the Yucatan to do any serious fishing.”
We made two large rain catchers out of spare sails and placed one on each ship. We rigged them so we could quickly put them in place during the day and left them in place at night. They were roughly ten feet by twelve with a low end that funneled water into four plastic 250-gallon international bulk carriers. It rains often in the Gulf and we intended to catch as much water as possible.
Trolling artificial lures was moderately productive, but we would go for hours before we caught anything. Still, we ate fish every day and soon had our fill. Even Mort asked the galley staff to cook some beef stew on the third day.
On the morning of the fourth day Sam was on lookout on the yacht; he saw something and yelled, “Land ho! I see land.”
“Where?”
“South, dead ahead” he yelled pointing in the d
irection of his sighting.
I had just taken over the watch from Ben and trained my binoculars ahead. I saw a green mass about 10 miles ahead.
The yacht cut power and I saw Mort waving for us to drop the sails, which we quickly accomplished, well, not as quickly as a more competent crew does. Still, we dropped sail in, for us, record time. We brought the boats together and Mort gave us his plan.
“Radar doesn’t show anything but the land ahead. Everyone has to keep an eye out for pirates or government troops. Either would be bad for us. We need to divide into hunting and fishing teams. We don’t need any water thanks to our rain catchers, but I want a couple hundred pounds of both meat and fish, in addition to what we eat while we stay here.”
Mike, Ben, Davi, Paul and I took one of the Zodiacs to shore to hunt while the others stayed back to fish or pull guard duty. We each took a compound bow with plenty of arrows along with our usual weapons.
Mort said, “This area was sparsely settled before TSHTF, but why take chances shooting when we are all proficient with the bows.”
We landed the Zodiac about five miles east of a village called Holbocks, which was on a peninsula that formed the north end of a large bay. We landed, hid the boat and walked inland to start hunting. There were hundreds of monkeys, birds, and small lemur type animals, but nothing we wanted to eat.
Davi scolded us with, “If you go hungry for a week, you will eat monkey. It’s not bad roasted over an open fire.”
“I’ll take your word for it. Let’s find a pig, cow, deer or two hundred rabbits.”
We hunted for two hours and only had a small pig to show for our effort. The pig field dressed down to about 25 pounds. I placed it in a plastic bag and threw it over my shoulder.
I said, “We’ll starve at this rate.”
Davi shushed me and pointed to the ground.
“She whispered, “Those tracks are from a big cat. These are from a small woman or a child. The cat is stalking the human. Let’s hurry.”
“Davi, should we risk being seen to save someone we don’t know,” blurted Ben.
I replied, “What if it was your wife?”
We walked for ten minutes when we heard a terrifying roar up ahead. Davi motioned for us to follow her. We only covered about fifty feet when we saw a large black cat trying to shake a young woman from a tree. The cat looked like a Panther and was twice the size of a big German Shepherd. The young girl was about 15 feet up in the tree clinging for dear life while beating on the cat with a club.
I notched an arrow, drew my bow back and shot an arrow deep into the side of the cat. It turned, looked at me and charged. I reached for another arrow, brought it to the bow, notched it on the string when I heard a shot as the Panther crashed down on top of me. I pushed and shoved to get the big cat off me and finally with Davi’s help, managed to roll the beast off me.
I walked away with only a few deep scratched from its front claws and knew I was lucky to be alive.
“Davi, thanks for your timely, and accurate, shot.”
“I’m always saving your sorry ass. Come on, we need to check on the girl.”
Mike and Paul coaxed her down from the tree and tried to make sense of her Spanish.
Davi and I walked up and I heard her say, “We must go. They are searching for me.”
I couldn’t catch every word, but my high school Spanish class was finally coming in handy.
I replied, “Who is searching for you and why are they searching for you,” in my broken Spanish.
Her reply scared me more than the Panther.
My translation of what she said was, “The Cartel, and I’m one of their slaves. My friends and I escaped this morning. The Panther killed her, and would have killed me if you had not arrived. Hurry, we must go. They will kill all of us.”
I translated for the team and said, “Let’s get back to the boat now and get out of here.”
We ran back to the boat, only stopping once for a minute to rest. Mike fired up the Zodiac and we headed full speed back to the sailboat.
Davi said, “Don’t use the radios. They might overhear us and pin point the signal.”
It only took a few minutes to motor back to our sailboat, we immediately told everyone about our new friend, and that we had to haul ass out of here. The team quickly stowed the fishing gear hauled in the anchors and prepared to head back out to sea.
I said, “Mort told us to head on to Cancun and try to trade or purchase food there.”
The young girl took me off to the side and said, “No Cancun. Cartel own Cancun.”
I yelled to my friends and said, “Does anyone speak Spanish?”
Callie replied, “Dad, you know I took five years of Spanish. I’ll talk to her.”
A few minutes later Callie filled us in on why the girl was adamant on not going to Cancun.
“Dad, this drug Cartel has taken over this end of Mexico down to the north end of Panama. Cancun is their headquarters. We must head out to sea and we must not even think about landing anywhere until we are south of Panama.
Oh, and her name is Susan Imelda Herrera Garcia.”
I signaled for Mort to head due west out to sea and we remained on that heading for 10 hours before I radioed Mort. We agreed to head southeast for another 10 hours as fast as the sailboat would go before deciding where to go.
We tied the boats together for 3o minutes to have a meeting and as usual, Mort led the meeting. I rather enjoyed the roll of X.O. besides, Mordecai was for more qualified to serve as the leader of our band of gypsies, than I was.
“My friends, I think we take the girl at her word and skip landing until we clear Panama. I suspect that some War Lord will also control Venezuela.
This means that we have to live off our supplies longer than planned. On the other hand, and it’s a big hand, we can try the Cayman Islands, or Jamaica for food. While I don’t know much about the Cayman’s, I’m sure Jamaica will be, again run by pirates. I think we should definitely give it a wide berth.”
We voted to try the Caymans for food and water if needed. The Grand Cayman Island was just over 380 miles, or two to three days sailing time from our current location.
The Cayman Islands didn’t pan out. We were met at sea by friendly, but firm natives who offered water, but no food.
We heard, “You Gringos are flooding down south to escape the Mexicans, Russians and Cubans. We don’t want you. No one wants you. Go home.”
They gave us water and told us to move on. We did.
Aaron, are you sure that any of the Israeli compounds survived. We are going to starve if we don’t find a home soon.”
“I can’t guarantee anything. I pray every night.
I see no option other than to move on and find a place. We need to make a decision on heading down the east side of South America or up the west side to the Pacific. No, that is not possible. Our little flotilla would never survive the trip around the Horn. It’s a pity that the Panama Canal is owned by the Chinese.”
“Aaron, everyone is getting worn out from not knowing if we will find a place to call home.”
***
We decided to stay on the east side of South America. The days were getting longer, hotter and more humid as we headed southeast. It seems really odd to us that hot and cold no longer seem to matter as much now as it had before the lights went out…humanity adapts, and the Earth abides.
We are tougher and never sweat the small stuff anymore. We laugh more, dance and have time for our friends. We tell more jokes and never take offense when kidded. The people around us are our family, our clan.
We didn’t know what lay ahead. Pirates, War Lords, or paradise, but we knew the USA had gone down the toilet and we vowed never to become slaves to any man or government. We had resolved to live free or die trying.
“Dad, Susan has an idea on where we can find a home.”
I looked at Callie and started to tell her to tell Susan to mind her own business, when I remembered my manners and said, �
�Please, ask Susan to join us.”
Susan walked up to the table and sat down between Mike and myself and said, “I told Callie, my last name is Herrera Garcia. That’s not true. My real name is Aimee Bassot. I am from the island of Martenvous, which is not far from here.”
I had to stop, look at her and say, “You are speaking in perfect English.”
“Yes, I speak seven languages. I was on vacation from school in Cancun when I was kidnapped by those asshole drug lords.”
“Go on.”
“My father, Henri Bassot, is the highest ranking military officer on Martenvous. He is the Capitaine de Vaisseau, the commander of the French Naval and Air Forces, stationed at Fort Saint Charles. He will reward you if you take me home.”
“I thought you were Spanish.”
“I didn’t know you, or trust you, at first. Martenvous is a French Island. I know you can find a home there.”
***
Martenvous was 210 miles southeast from us with Grenada and Trinidad due south. We decided to try Martenvous first and hope Aimee/Susan wasn’t playing us. My French is much better than my Spanish.
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Chapter 18
Martenvous
“The island of Martenvous is only 40 miles long by 15 miles wide and the native population is around 385 thousand before the lights went out up north. The capitol and largest city is Fort de Ville. My dad lives on the base at Fort Saint Charles.”
“Have you heard anything about life on the island since the lights went out?”
