The Boat

by Christine Dougherty

  He came to groggy life, striking out and she caught his arm, pressing herself against him, her ear to his mouth again. “It’s me, Steve, it’s Maggie. It’s okay. I’ve come for you.”

  “Maggie?” He blinked and shook his head. Then he tilted backward almost toppling from the stool. She righted him, holding him steady.

  “You have to be very quiet, okay? Tell me what happened to your head. Were you shot?”

  He blinked again, a slow, owly blink. He shook his head and then nodded. “Sorry, I…I did get…after you…god, Maggie, I’m so sorry, are you okay? I didn’t…I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s okay, I’m okay, see? You saved me.” She smiled, her lip stinging. “Where did John Smith go? Did he shoot you?”

  “Yes, but it’s not…it isn’t that bad, see here?” He lifted his shirt to reveal a wound at his ribs–the bullet must have only grazed him–then he tilted again, almost falling. “But it turned me…spun me around and I fell…hit my head pretty good.” His fingers strayed to the sticky wound on his forehead and she pulled them gently away. “I don’t know where he went. I don’t care. My head hurts.”

  “Yes, you hit it pretty hard. Can you drink this?” She pulled a box of apple juice from the refrigerator, put it to his lips and squeezed a few swallows into his mouth. The sugar would help to revive him.

  Viciously, she hoped that John Smith had turned. She hoped that scratch on his neck meant that being one of the animated dead was his final stop in life. He deserved it, probably more than anyone else on Flyboy, probably more than most anyone left in the world.

  “Can you stand, Steve? I want to get you out of here. Can you walk?”

  He nodded and pushed himself up, groaning. Maggie froze, listening. Far below, the water lapped against the hull but that was all–no answering moans from the sinkers. But they were so vulnerable. “Hang on; sit back down,” she said and he did so with a groan.

  She rummaged in a cabinet and pulled forth a white linen tablecloth. She tore one edge and ripped down, making one long strip. She held onto the strip and dropped the bulk of the tablecloth. Then she fashioned it around her waist, tying it and slid the horseshoe poles into it, one on each hip like fat, stubby swords.

  She turned back to Steve and lifted his arm over her shoulder and his weight settled on and against her. She took a deep breath.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  They made their way back through the dining room and salon. The dove gray light coming in through the windows made the large room ghostly, as though it were stuck in time, its true purpose forgotten. Even the silence was eerie and Maggie almost felt she could hear the laughter and music of parties from days so long past it seemed they’d never come round again. They were the sounds of deepening despair buried in a place held in gloom, forever more.

  Maggie shivered and hurried Steve through. He carried more and more of himself, and his weight on her lessened. He was already doing better. Because Maggie had come back for him.

  They got to the glass doors leading out just as lightning ripped through the morning sky. A sinker stood just outside the door and Maggie reared back, blinded and gasping, nearly tumbling Steve to his knees. Thunder clapped right over them and Maggie cried out, throwing her hands over her ears. She looked wildly back to the door. There was no sinker, just the crack that went bottom to top, fanning out like shoulders, like raised arms. She blew out a pent up breath of relief.

  “Sorry,” she said and gathered Steve back to her but he stood on his own. He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. His gaze was steadier now, more concentrated.

  “I’m glad you came back,” he said.

  Maggie shifted from foot to foot under the weight of his arm and then she acquiesced and leaned against him. Her arms went round his middle and she hugged him tight.

  “Oof…careful of my gunshot,” he said, and she could almost hear the smile in his voice. She smiled and buried her face in his side, wiping away the tears trying to flow down her cheeks. Enough, she thought to herself, enough crying. Time to go.

  “Come on,” she said and led him through the doors.

  They made their way to the very back deck and the small lip where the jet skis were still tied up. Maggie selected a long, two person jet ski and she pulled it in closer. She turned back to Steve. He was staring at the other jet skis, his face creased into a frown. Lightning struck again, running sideways across the sky. It burnt its tree branch impression onto her retinas and she blinked a few times, dislodging it.

  Rain was imminent. She could see it out over the water. Headed this way.

  “Steve!” she said, straddling the jet ski, turning the key. It rumbled beneath her bare, outspread legs.

  He looked at her and gestured at the tethered jets. “Who got away? Who left?”

  Maggie shook her head. “No one! Dave would have told me if someone else made it! Why?” She had to yell over the approaching storm.

  The rain was close, hissing across the ocean, making fog jump before it.

  Steve looked back at the jet skis then he turned to scan Flyboy.

  “Steve! Come on!” The rain hit, unexpectedly cold and stinging across her thighs.

  He jumped on behind her, kicked them away. He tapped her shoulder and she twisted in the seat to look at him. His hair was plastered to his head and the rain was already washing some of the blood away.

  “Someone took one of the jet skis!” His voice was a hoarse roar over the pounding rain. Maggie’s mouth fell open and she turned to look for ThreeBees in the dim light.

  But the rain fell over her like a gray curtain.

  ~ ~ ~

  John Smith had watched with irritation as Steve was spun around from the force of the shot and thrown against the rail. From there he went down like a sack of bricks. John Smith had considered the pool of blood accumulating under Steve. Dead for sure, he’d thought with some annoyance. And now I have one less person to play with. He hadn’t wanted to shoot Steve; really he’d done it more in surprise than anger. It had gotten very good, right at the end there; it had been very satisfying, what Steve was doing to Maggie.

  The killing was excellent, but the hitting…and the stuff that would come after…that was even better. It had spread warmth through his lower stomach, reminding him nostalgically of being a kid.

  And didn’t everyone want that? To be a kid again?

  He hurried to the rail and looked over, but Maggie hadn’t popped up yet. Maybe she was dead, too, but he hoped not. He would get a jet ski and go find her, drag her back on board. Maybe he could try and finish what Steve had started, although he’d never raised his hand to anyone, and certainly he’d never had sex. But maybe there really was a first time for everything.

  He turned and made his way through the bridge and then descended the stairs. At the last step, he heard Maggie’s scream as she emerged from the water. He turned his head in the direction of her screaming, distracted and entranced.

  That’s when Carl grabbed him.

  John twisted like a snake, dislodging himself from Carl’s grip and threw himself forward, head-first down the stairs. The tips of Carl’s fingers grazed his calf. Close one. Close call.

  He scrambled to his feet on the next deck and trotted to the last set of stairs. He was stopped by the moans from below. They were such an arresting sound, almost peaceful, like waves on the beach. Between the living dead and the living, all in all, John preferred the living dead. Certainly they were more predictable, he thought, as the sight of Maggie going ass over the rail came back to him.

  Maggie.

  He’d go and fish her out right now.

  Once on the jet ski, he went cautiously around the far side to the front of Flyboy. He heard the other jet ski before he saw it and watched from the shadows as a man pulled Maggie aboard. They conversed and then headed toward ThreeBees, but then stopped and after a moment, reversed direction and were headed right for the back of Flyboy.

  Curious.

  But what rea
lly captured John’s attention was the sight of ThreeBees sitting peacefully half a mile away. There were more people aboard her…fresh people. He started to feel another swell of excitement. He could use ThreeBees as a kind of holding tank; bring them over one by one and really enjoy what would happen when he got them here. For that was his biggest regret about Flyboy…that everything had happened so quickly and so much of it had been out of his sight.

  He could even do the tethering method again, but give them more rope, more opportunity to fight for their lives. Maybe he could supply them with a weapon of some kind, but he’d have to be cautious about that.

  He pictured Candy–the woman who’d left Flyboy with the Indian doctor. He pictured her ripeness and her strength. She’d be good, very good. Very exciting. It would be best if the doctor and Candy fought first and then did…the other thing…but how could he make them? What would cause them to fight? What did they hold dear, besides each other?

  He wasn’t sure, but he knew he could find out in a hurry. People were very transparent.

  ~ ~ ~

  As Maggie began her struggle to find Steve and get him off Flyboy, John Smith pulled up to the back of ThreeBees.

  “Dave? Is that you?” The voice came floating out of the dark, uneasy and edged with concern.

  “No, it’s John Smith. Steve sent me. Who’s that?”

  A figure loomed up and shifted nervously from side to side. “John Smith? Oh, the guy from the raft, right? It’s me, Brian.” He came forward and grabbed the line that John tossed to him. He pulled the jet ski in and tied it off. “How’s it going over there? Everybody okay? We kept hearing shots and what not.”

  John clambered aboard ThreeBees and stood silently, hands on his hips and head down, as though he were deep in thought.

  “Is everything okay?” Brian asked, his face drawing down in concern. “Everybody okay over there on Flyboy? Like I said, we heard shots. And the guys over on Big Daddy keep calling here.”

  At the mention of Big Daddy, John’s head came up with a snap. “Big Daddy. I forgot all about her,” he said and slapped a hand to his forehead. He shook his head, amused.

  Brian, just beginning to sense the oddness of the conversation, took a step back. “Yeah, uh…the guys over there are–”

  “Brian,” John said and brought the gun up into Brian’s stomach. “Shut up, okay? Sit down right there.” He motioned Brian into a deck chair, then he scanned the deck. He glanced back at Brian as he crossed to the bench. “Don’t move now. Just be a second.” He scooped up the walkie-talkie and dropped it over the side where it blooped into the water below.

  “Hey, man, listen, what do you–” Brian started but John cut him off.

  “Be quiet, Brian. Who else is here besides you?” Brian shook his head, mouth hanging open. John rolled his eyes. “Well, there’s you, obviously, then the old man and old lady…Candy and the doctor…who else? Anybody? Anybody I’m missing?”

  Brian hesitated, blinking rapidly, and then shook his head. John grimaced and chuckled. “Okay, who am I missing? You’re a terrible liar. Not that you should let that get you down, most people are terrible liars. It takes lots and lost of practice to get good at it. So?”

  “So…” Brian parroted stupidly.

  John stepped toward him, gun coming up. All evidence of good-natured ribbing had left his voice and face, especially his eyes. They were dead flat.

  “So…who else is here? Tell me or I will shoot you.”

  “Babygirl…I mean…Samantha, her name is Samantha. But we just found that out. We’ve called her Babygirl until now, until Candy…”

  John raised his eyebrows, politely inquiring. “Until Candy what, Brian? Until Candy…what?”

  Brian’s stomach rolled over on itself and he gripped the wooden arms of the deck chair convulsively. He felt that he’d painted himself into a dangerous corner, but what the hell? How was he supposed to know this guy was some kind of fucking psychopath? He sighed and slumped forward.

  “She…Babygirl…had some kind of, I don’t know, breakthrough or something. She was calling Candy mommy, saying she loved her and stuff. Then she told Candy everything that had happened to her when Maggie had barely been able to get a peep out of the girl. Not that she tried too hard.” Brian rocked his head in his hands, near tears, thinking that he was dooming the girl, but not knowing how it had happened. Or why. “She’s in the room with Candy and the Doc. They’re like a family already. You can see how happy Babygirl–I mean, Samantha–is with the situation. Man, it just kind of breaks your heart, you know?” Brian glanced up at John and what he saw turned his stomach even more.

  John Smith was grinning, but it was the grin of a small baby with gas: painful and strained looking.

  “Where is everyone now? In their rooms sleeping?”

  Brian nodded. “Trying to. Because we figured we’d need our sleep in case they brought people back. What happened over there? Did Jade get over there somehow? Are there survivors?”

  “Survivors? Depends on what you mean by that,” John said and fished in the deck box. He came out with a length of rope and tied Brian to the deck chair. “They’ve changed. But they’re there. Kicking up Dickens, you could say.”

  “Steve and Maggie? Carl?”

  John shook his head. “I don’t think they made it. I shot Steve and it looked like Maggie was going back on board. Extremely inadvisable since the whole boat has changed. I’m pretty sure she didn’t make it. As for Carl, well, he fought a good fight. Does that make you feel better?” The question seemed an honest one, asked in genuine tones of concern, but by now Brian’s head was swimming.

  He would scream out, warn the others. At least they’d have a chance. He hitched in a deep breath and opened his mouth.

  John Smith reached forward with alarming speed and shoved a wad of cloth into his mouth. Then he tied it in place with another length of rope. Brian huffed and heaved against the ropes, straining his voice around the tight cloth, but it was partially down his throat and choking him. He couldn’t breathe. He was smothering; he was dying. He struggled harder.

  “If you calm yourself, you will see that you can breathe quite easily through your nose. But you can’t keep trying to scream; you’ll lose too much air that way. Calm down, Brian. Better…that’s better. Feel the difference? Feel the air going in? Don’t puke, whatever you do. Puking will kill you for sure.”

  Brian took another deep whistling breath through his nose and nodded, his head spinning. His eyes had filled with tears and now John Smith was a soft and blurry blob.

  “I don’t want to kill you Brian, believe me. It’s the last thing I want. You’re young and strong and I bet you’ll fight for your life, won’t you? I mean really fight!” John raised a fist to chest level, as if cheering on an athlete. “I’ll take you over last; how’s that?”

  Brian shook his head in confusion and raised his shoulders.

  “I’ll take Candy and the doctor and the little girl first, then the old man and old woman–because between you and me, I don’t think they’ll do well at all–and then finish it up with you! You’ll be like the headliner, you see? The main event!” John did not think Brian would be the main event, Candy and the new little family were the main event, but it didn’t hurt to try and make the boy feel better. Flattery just made people feel better. John had noticed that.

  Thunder rumbled distantly. The sky had begun to lighten, but it was a gray light, the morning sky full of tumultuous storm clouds. It was going to rain soon.

  A crack of lightning made John blink and Brian cried out around the cloth and turned his head into his shoulder. John put a hand on Brian’s neck and squeezed. It was what his dad had always done for him, when he was little Mikey. And he would say “Don’t be scared, son, it’s just lightning.” Although Mikey hadn’t been scared. What was there to be scared of?

  But he squeezed Brian’s neck again. “Don’t be scared, son,” he said and Brian jerked under his hand. “It’s only lightning.”r />
  Brian didn’t look comforted, he was trying to pull away from John’s hand…but it was hard to tell, sometimes. Well, he’d done the boy a good turn. That was nice of me, he thought.

  “Stay nice and quiet now so I don’t have to kill you or anyone else. Okay? Then we’ll get you a dog, okay? You want a dog, son?”

  John stood and strode off, not waiting for an answer, as though it was not a question that required one. To John, it wasn’t.

  He rounded up the sleepy and disoriented Randy and Bonnie first and herded them up on deck with the gun. He tied them to each other, sitting back-to-back, their legs straight out in front of them, tied at the ankles. They’d never be able to get up; they were too old and too fat.

  Bonnie’s varicose veins stood out distinctly in the gray light. She’d lost a slipper on the way out. She was crying, trying to wipe her face on the shoulder of her robe.

  Everything had happened so quickly that Randy felt as though he was just beginning to wake up to a nightmare instead of from one. Bonnie’s crying twisted him in two with anger. Her tears did that to him.

  The gag end was tickling his throat was making him nauseous as his sour morning breath was backing up into his nostrils. Bonnie shook and sobbed against him and then she made an odd yurking sound and the ropes tightened as she heaved. She yurked and heaved again. She was vomiting into the rag tied at her mouth.

  He felt it as she began to choke.

  Her feet drummed on the deck as she tried to draw a breath, but the vomit packed her throat. She slammed against him and slammed against him again. Panic bloomed in his brain like squid ink, darkening his thoughts. She was going to choke to death.

  He looked at John Smith and pleaded with his eyes, his voice straining against the rag. He was shrieking, but it still wasn’t as loud as Bonnie’s struggles. Suddenly she was over on her side, kicking like a landed fish, and he was pulled over, too, landing hard on his shoulder. He could just see her from the corner of his eye…her face red, mucous plugging her nostrils, her eyes bugging out of her head. Her neck was red and swollen and blue veins stood out sharply.