by James Cook
Lauren gave a slight laugh and shook her head. “That’s not who I meant.”
“Sophia?”
She nodded.
“She’s all right, I guess. Kind of a smartass.”
“I think she likes you.”
I stared at her flatly. “Maybe you’re the one that needs a therapist.”
“Call it a woman’s intuition.”
I turned back in the captain’s chair to stare across the bow. The second half of the drink went down the hatch easier than the first. When I could talk again, I said, “Even if she does, which I doubt very much, I’ve got more important things to worry about.”
“We all do, Caleb. But you shouldn’t let that distract you from what little pleasure there is left in life.”
I watched her drain her drink, then get up from the bench. “There a stateroom on this thing?”
“Down the ladder, first door to your left.”
“I’m going to take a nap. Come get me if you hear from your father.”
“Will do.”
She opened the door and took a few steps, then hesitated, eyes fixed on her feet, refusing to look up. “Caleb … I just want you to know I love you, and I always have. I know I’m not your real mother, but I love you as much as any woman ever loved her own flesh and blood. No matter what happens, I want you to remember that. Okay?”
Something in her tone made my stomach feel heavy and my blood run slow in my veins. “I know, Lauren. I’ve never doubted that for a second. You’re the best mother a guy could ask for. And for the record, I love you too.”
She gave a weak smile, still not looking me in the eye, and went belowdecks.
A gentle breeze blew across Canyon Lake from the east, stirring the water and sending white waves lapping at the western shore. The fabric of the canopy flapped lazily as the deck rocked slowly beneath me, a strong hint of rotten fish smell lingering in the air. I turned the empty glass in my hand and wondered why people like me hung on to life so hard when we were all destined, sooner or later, to lose our grip.
*****
It became a cycle.
Crank up the generator. Wait for the little amber light. Send out the message. Wait. Curse. Put the mike down. Turn off the generator. Stew for an hour. Repeat.
Night fell. Still no contact. Finally, I ran the generator until the batteries in the engine compartment were charged and left the receiver on. It takes a lot less power to receive a signal than to transmit one, so I felt confident the batteries would hold out overnight. That done, I sat and waited.
Lance brought me a plate of food. Chili, I think; I didn’t really look at it. After the tasteless mechanical function of mastication, swallowing, and the first stages of the digestive process, I went belowdecks and deposited bowl and spoon in sink and applied the necessary rinse.
Finished, I looked around. The door to Lauren’s stateroom was closed. Lance sat shirtless and sweating at the table, rifle dismantled, cleaning kit on display, hands moving with the exaggerated slowness and precision of the experienced drunk. At some point, Lola had moved to one of the fold-down cots forward of the galley and resumed sleeping it off. Sophia had changed into a bikini and sat in front of an open porthole, the evening breeze blowing over her bronze skin. My gaze lingered there for longer than I wanted it to, distracted by the sheen of sweat covering her chest and thighs. Sophia looked my way and smiled, eyes more than a little glazed.
“It’s a lot cooler above decks,” I announced. Lance grunted. The door to the stateroom remained closed. Lola snored.
Sophia stood up.
“Fuck it. It’s hot down here.”
I turned, climbed the ladder, and held the door for her. She took a hand I didn’t realize I had reached out and let me help her to the main deck. There was a bottle dangling from her right hand.
“Thanks,” she said as she stepped up to the forward lounge, a little extra sway in her hips. I thought about what Lauren told me and wondered if that over-emphasis of stride and flex of buttocks was for my benefit, or just something girls did when they were drunk.
I sat down in the captain’s chair and watched Sophia stand on the forecastle, long hair hanging loose and blowing in the breeze. She held her arms out and turned a slow circle to let the air dry the moisture from her skin.
“God that feels better,” she said. When her circuit brought her facing me, she tilted her head and held out the bottle. I held up a palm and shook my head.
“Come on,” she said and walked closer, that same sway in her hips, breasts shaking slightly under the fabric of her halter top. I am firmly convinced every girl in the world stands in front of a mirror and practices that bouncing walk to maximize its brain-dimming effect on the male of the species. She stopped in front of me, arm outstretched, holding the bottle close enough to my face to read Sine Metu.
“I’d rather not,” I said.
“What’s the matter, you a lightweight?”
I frowned at her. “No, I’m just not a drunk.”
“Not yet. But you will be.” She giggled and took another pull from the bottle.
“You’re going to feel like shit tomorrow.”
“Probably.” She turned and hurled the mostly-empty bottle over the side. I had to give the girl credit: she had an arm. The bottle sailed high and flipped over no less than eight times before it splashed down in the lake. I watched it float through the ripples and was about to say something about her future in professional sports when I felt a warm firmness press against one hip, then the other. When I turned my head, my view was obscured by the pebbled surface of Sophia’s breasts.
“Sophia …”
“Shut up.” One of her hands went behind my neck while the other pulled a string and let her bikini bottom fall away. A warm heat settled over my hips as she pressed her lips against mine, gently at first, then urgent and searching, forcing my mouth open, her soft tongue touching mine. She began to rock slowly back and forth, grinding her hips in a figure-eight.
My heart sped up until I thought it would burst. Fire roared through my veins. I ran trembling hands up Sophia’s back, then down to her ass and gripped her hard. She moaned against my mouth and reached down to fumble at my belt. I broke off the kiss and closed my lips over one of her breasts, sucking, swirling my tongue. She gasped and arched her back, fingernails digging into my skin, hips grinding faster and faster. I kissed my way up to her neck and bit down gently, eliciting a small, husky gasp. Seconds later, I felt her fingers wrap around me, gliding up and down, the warm wetness between her legs achingly close.
In that moment, I had a choice to make. I knew Mike would not approve of what I was about to do, nor would my father. Don’t do this, I told myself. This isn’t right. But her skin was so soft, and her taste sent my mind spinning, and her hand felt like magic as she kept our mouths together and stroked. Her heat was so close, all it would take was a lift, a bit of positioning, and then a warm, delicious plunge.
I wish I could say I stopped myself. I wish I could say I pushed her away and said, Not like this, Sophia. You’re drunk. If you really want to do this, come to me sober and we’ll see where it takes us.
That would have been the smart thing to do. The honorable thing.
But that’s not what happened.
*****
I awoke to the sound of static.
“Fox, this is Eagle, do you read? Over.”
My head rose from the bench, swirling with grogginess. I had been in the middle of a dream, a bad one, but could not remember the details. The world around me was dim gray, a cool wind blowing over my skin, and I had something firm and warm that smelled faintly of body odor and sex wrapped in my arms. Distantly, I wondered what all this talk of foxes and eagles was about.
“Fox, this is Eagle, come in Fox. Over.”
There are moments when you wake up in a strange place and nothing is clear. There is no recall. You feel disoriented, wondering where you are, how you got there, and what happened beyond the gauze of unremem
bered time. It is not a good feeling. Then the cobwebs clear, and you remember where you are, how you got there, and you spring up in a moderate state of panic, hand fumbling for the radio.
“Eagle, this is Fox,” I said in a voice thick with sleep. “Read you loud and clear, over.”
“Thank God,” Blake said. “Please tell me y’all ain’t in the cabin. Over.”
“No, we’re not. We took the boat and anchored out away from shore. Over.”
“Everyone all right? Over.”
“Yes. Can we stop saying over already?”
A chuckle. “I guess there’s no harm in it.”
“How are you guys?”
A silence. “We’ll talk about it when we get back.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, amigo.”
“Everything’s fine.”
“I know when you’re lying, Blake.”
A sigh. “Listen, those infected still have the cabin surrounded. We’re going to try something to get them out of there. Keep an eye out, but don’t approach until we give you the all clear. You copy?”
“Roger that,” I said. “What are you going to do?”
“Something probably not very smart. Shouldn’t take us more than an hour or so. We’ll be out of range for a while, but we’ll be back in touch with you as soon as we can.”
“Okay. I’ll let the others know.”
“Thanks, kid. Talk to you soon. Out.”
I hung the radio on its cradle and looked down to see Sophia staring at me.
After spending ourselves the night before, she had lain exhausted against me for a while, arms tight around my neck, her labored breath warm against my neck. Then she sat up, smiled sweetly, and told me she had wanted to do that for years. We kissed, and after a few minutes I felt a certain part of me come back to life, so I carried her to one of the wide benches where we made love again, slowly this time. Afterward, I got a blanket from belowdecks and we fell asleep to the sound of wind over water.
She reached up a hand to my cheek and smiled wanly. “My fucking head hurts.”
I laughed. Not just a chuckle, but a full-bellied guffaw that brought tears to my eyes and made my stomach cramp just a bit. Sophia slapped me, but without much enthusiasm.
“You’re such an asshole.”
I leaned down and kissed her. She smelled of sweat and sex and the whiskey she drank the night before, but I didn’t care. Something inside me, something ratcheting down with each passing day, something I knew was starting to fray at the seams, to pop its stitches, to bleed through the bandages, had finally let go. It felt good, and I didn’t ever want to feel any other way. I wanted to lay on that bench with Sophia and feel her soft lips against mine and forget the whole damn rest of the world.
I was beginning to consider an encore performance when Sophia gently pushed me away. Her skin was flushed, breath coming quickly, nipples erect against my chest. “Settle down, stud. We need to wake the others.”
I groaned and pulled her closer. “Do we have to? Can’t we just lay here for a while?”
When she looked at me, all the sarcasm and cynical mockery she’d shown over the last few weeks was gone. There was something else in her eyes, now. Something kinder, and open, and warm, and it pulled me in like a singularity consuming a star.
“Believe me, Caleb, there’s nowhere I’d rather be. But this is important. My Dad is out there. Yours too.”
The sun chose that instant to break the horizon, piercing the clouds and lighting Sophia’s face a bright shade of honey gold. I watched the way her irises seemed suspended in that burnished glow, as if floating in amber. “You’re right.” My thumb traced her cheek and came to rest at the corner of her mouth. “Just one question.”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you wait so long?”
TWENTY-FOUR
Hollow Rock, Tennessee
“Now I know what you meant.” Miranda said.
“About what?”
“About not liking what I was going to hear.”
Caleb laughed quietly. After lunch, he and Miranda had gone for a walk to Stall’s tavern. They had taken a table outside and ordered two tall glasses of what Mike Stall called his Special Hard Cider. Really, it was whatever fruit juice he could get his hands on laced with grain liquor.
A few high, wispy clouds had moved in, but it was still a bright, pleasantly warm spring day—not unlike the morning Caleb had woken next to Sophia on Dale’s boat. He looked across the table at Miranda, at how much she resembled Sophia, the biggest differences being Miranda’s curvier body and blue eyes, and wondered if his feelings for her were just a coincidence.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never had a boyfriend,” Caleb said.
“I could, but I would be lying.”
“Anybody worth mentioning?”
She shook her head, eyes fixed on her glass. “Not really.”
The conversation lulled for a while, and Caleb could tell she was working her way up to something. It went through a few fits and starts, until finally she said, “So what’s the big mystery here, anyway?”
Caleb frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well … you talk about your past like you’re carrying some kind of dark secret. But so far, you haven’t told me anything I might not hear from any number of people. I mean, the Outbreak was brutal; it took a toll on us all. And I’m not trying to downplay what happened to you, or how awful it was. But I’ve heard worse. Hell, I’ve lived through worse.”
Caleb took a long sip of eighty-proof pineapple juice and sat back in his chair. “I’m getting around to it.”
“I’m not trying to rush you, I just ... you know what? I shouldn’t have said anything. That was stupid. What a stupid, insensitive thing to say.”
“It wasn’t stupid, Miranda. Tell you the truth, I’ve been dragging my feet.”
She reached for his hand. “Not your favorite subject, is it?”
“No. It’s not.”
“It’s okay if you want to stop. You don’t need to tell me anything else.”
“I kind of do, Miranda. I need to get it out.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The server came by. Caleb ordered another round, and for the next couple of hours, he kept his voice low.
*****
Canyon Lake, Texas
Breakfast was instant grits and fried Spam.
Lauren, Lance and I washed ours down with coffee, whereas Sophia and Lola fled at the sight of food. After eating, I raided Dale’s liquor cabinet, whipped up a couple of Bloody Marys, and brought them topside. The girls’ spirits improved dramatically.
As the sun rose higher and a fine mist began to rise from the lake, I sat by the radio waiting in vain for it to squawk again. This lasted for the better part of a half hour, until Lola and Sophia declared the hair of the dog had eased its owner’s bite enough they could endure the short transit back to the cabin. Lance eased the boat forward while I used the windlass to pull in the anchor. We motored southward.
Rounding the bend in the shoreline, our view of the street was obscured by the houses lining the waterfront. Still, I could hear the unmistakable rumble of the Humvee’s engines followed by several cracks of a rifle. The infected walking aimless laps around the cabin whipped their heads in the direction of the reports, sending up an earsplitting clamor of moans.
“The heck are they doin’?” Lance muttered.
I stood beside him on the forecastle and shook my head. “No idea.”
A few minutes later, the strategy became clear. The sounds of engines and gunfire grabbed the undead’s attention as Dad and the others slowly led the horde away. I thought back to Perry Torrance, and how he seemed to know exactly where Tyrel and I were standing despite the fact he couldn’t see us, and a light bulb came on over my head.
“It’s sound,” I said.
Lance turned his head. “What’s that?”
“The infected. They hunt by sound.”
He narrowed his ey
es. “I don’t follow.”
“Think about it. Their eyes are glazed over with that white stuff. They probably can’t see very well. Back at the Kennedys’ house, they didn’t notice us until we were close enough they could hear our footsteps. And look at what they’re doing over there on the shore. The infected can’t see the Humvee any better than we can, but they’re still following it. How else could they do that?”
Lance brought a hand to his chin and watched the horde wander after the Humvees. “You know, you may be on to something.”
An uneasy hour went by while we watched and worried, and the lamentations of the undead grew increasingly distant. Sophia and Lola went belowdecks to clean up while Lance and I sat by the radio, waiting. Lauren paced back and forth from the forecastle to the aft part of the main deck, chewing on her nails, muttering and cursing under her breath. Finally, a crackle of static broke the silence.
“Fox, this is Eagle. Do you copy, over.”
I snatched up the handset. “Copy Eagle. Everyone okay?”
“More or less. We’re en route, ETA five minutes. Don’t approach yet, there’s still a few infected in the neighborhood.”
“Copy. Standing by.”
The roar of Humvee engines approached again, followed by the staccato clamor of gunfire. Several times, the thunder of M-240s pounded the air, the last of which ended with a tremendous WHUMP that sent every bird in a hundred yard radius flapping and screeching in fear.
“Jesus,” Lance said, shading his eyes as he stared at the shore. “Was that a grenade?”
“I think so.” I said.
“The hell did they get a grenade?”
“Beats me.”
Lauren stopped pacing. “Do you think they’re all right?”
I picked up the handset. “Eagle, Fox. What was that explosion? Over.”
A few seconds passed, then Blake answered, “Frag Grenade. Can’t talk.” Another voice said something else, but the hammering of a machine gun drowned it out.
The gunshots and steady thrum of 400 cubic-inch V8 turbo-diesels increased in volume until they were directly in front of the cabin. The frequency of fire slowed until nearly a minute went by with no shots at all. The engines cut off, then a few seconds later, the gun-toting silhouettes of Dad, Blake, and Mike appeared in the back yard.
