by James Sperl
He stepped over to her and handed her the gun and its corresponding, fully packed magazine. She took it gingerly from him, clutching the slide on the weapon firmly and guiding it back to check the chamber. Satisfied, she returned it to its home position then tucked the barrel end into the waistband of her pants. She felt ridiculous in doing so and the cold sting of steel on her lower back seemed to emphasize the laughable citizen soldier she had been forced to become. The discomfort was something she had never grown used to and was ever present when carrying a weapon.
She tucked the magazine into her front pocket, deeming it somewhat premature to be toting a loaded weapon around the kitchen.
Josh headed for the stairs.
“Where’re you going?” Catherine called after him.
“I’ll take first watch.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Catherine clarified.
“Look, I’m not gonna be able to sleep anyway. All I’ll be doing is wondering what’s going on above deck. So you may as well get some rest. I promise I’ll come get you as soon as something happens.”
Catherine stared at her son, appreciative and proud he had so selflessly taken on the role as man-of-the-house without a second’s hesitation. But there was an underlying sadness here, too. One that overshadowed his rite of passage. Whatever shreds of her little boy she was still able to see in this eighteen year-old man seemed to erode by the day as the fierce march of time and situation pushed that little boy farther and farther away.
Catherine stepped forward. “You come get me even if you think there’s nothing going on, you understand? And wear your PFD, but cover it with something dark.”
“Got it,” Josh said as he charged up the stairs.
Catherine turned to her daughters, crouching to Tamara’s level. “And why don’t you two try and get back to sleep. Okay?” she said as she stroked Tamara’s long, sandy blonde hair.
“Where’re you gonna be, mommy?” Tamara said.
“I’m gonna make myself at home right here on this sofa,” Catherine said as she indicated a cushioned bench which lay just opposite the dining area. “That way I can keep my eye on everyone.”
“Are we gonna be all right?” Abby said, real fear creeping into her eyes.
Catherine eyed her and couldn’t decide if what she was about to say qualified as a lie. But she said it anyway. “We’re going to be fine.”
Josh pulled the binoculars to his eyes and searched the darkness until he locked on his target. There it was, he thought. Still a considerable distance away, he had trouble determining its movement. Much like an approaching storm, the bearing it seemed to have may only be an illusion as compared to its actual course.
He set the binoculars down and held the rifle with both hands. In another life he had been a staunch anti-gun proponent, considering guns to be the cause of more problems than they solved. But now he was forced to take a different view and it didn’t really matter what his past beliefs were. You starve a vegetarian long enough and they’ll be more than happy to eat a steak.
He found he liked the feel of the rifle. It was lightweight, easy to assemble and would do, for the most part, what it needed to do. It was a twenty-two and it seemed a smart choice to acquire one that was silver so in the event it was dropped in the water—where it would float, by the way—the polished finish would reflect light and therefore be easier to spot.
Josh sat down cross-legged, his knees pulled up just enough to encircle with his arms. He’d thrown a navy blue wool blanket over his shoulders, making sure every square inch of the neon orange life vest he was wearing was covered. He fixed his gaze on that single, meandering light.
If pirates, how many of them were there?
He and his sisters had been warned at the onset of their escape regarding the possibility of pirates. Catherine had to be especially careful when explaining to Tamara that the variety of which she was speaking would not be like the ones Johnny Depp and his cohorts portrayed while gallivanting throughout the Caribbean. This new breed would be devoid of compassion or humility and their sole purpose, they were told, would be to take whatever they could by whatever nefarious means they felt appropriate. And sometimes, by means inappropriate.
Catherine spared her daughters the gory details of possible scenarios, but she had confided in Josh, relaying to him actual stories of piracy that still occurred around the world. Tales of pleasure boaters who had been boarded, robbed and in some cases murdered just for the hell of it—and this was before the world-altering event in which they now all found themselves.
While they’d been fortunate enough to evade any such diabolical encounters, they had run across a middle-aged couple, Stan and Louise something-or-other, two weeks into their evacuation from land. Leery at first, their senses were heightened as the couple’s fractional sloop drifted near their own, the couple waving excitedly from deck. Josh and Catherine had the weapons out that day as well, but kept them concealed in the event this was a friendly meeting. Josh remembered vividly Catherine’s instructions to him and his sisters to refrain from mentioning their reason for being at sea. If asked, they were all on a family trip to rendezvous with their father in South America. But no questions of that nature were raised. As Louise and Stan approached, it was clear from their appearance that banal pleasantries would be the least likely item of discussion.
Stan sported a sizable wound on the left side of his face and to label his wife distressed would have been a vast understatement. They’d met with some unsavory characters that had descended upon them in a speedboat, claiming to have had radio trouble. Stan and Louise agreed to allow them on board, but once the three-man crew had become deck bound they proceeded to rob the couple at gunpoint, issuing Stan a stern anti-hero statement alongside his skull with the butt end of a rifle.
Having had their radio smashed by the perpetrators upon departure from their vessel, the couple had been without a means of communication. Upon the chance encounter with Catherine and her family, Stan and Louise were presented with an opportunity to resolve their dilemma, ironically, utilizing the same premise the robbers had used to gain favor with them.
But Catherine had no radio to offer. At least none that would be of benefit. For days, there had been no contact. No communications. All channels were clear save for a handful of statically garbled transmissions that she presumed were originating from deep-sea freighters.
Catherine had asked where they were coming from and Stan indicated they were on the final legs of a west coast cruising vacation, having been at sea for the past eight days and now returning home.
Josh remembered Catherine conveying the unfortunate news to the couple that they had experienced communication difficulties, having discovered a predominance of radio silence over the past week. He recalled with some sadness the dispirited looks on Stan and Louise’s faces when learning that help would, in fact, not be coming. That they faced several more days of isolation at sea before facing whatever fates had been aligned for them back on land.
But mostly, Josh recollected the haunting, if not poignant, question Stan had asked just before re-embarking. The one that lingered in the back of everyone’s mind and persisted there, still, to this day: What’s happened?
With no suitable answer to provide, Catherine could only wish the couple well and hug her children as they sailed away.
Josh scanned the blackness again, verifying there was only one light with which to contend. Satisfied, he resumed his watch of the lone orb, it seeming a hair brighter than when he first stepped foot on deck. He and his family had been lucky so far, but everyone’s luck eventually ran out. If it were pirates, he would be ready for them.
He yawned with the intensity of an African lion, settling back just a little to make himself more comfortable. It certainly was exceptionally black tonight, he thought. And as his body relaxed while his gaze remained fixed, Josh became aware of another presence on the boat. One he knew well but had no time, this night of all nights, to engage. So somewhere
in the inky darkness he would keep it, placing it at bay until a more appropriate moment would allow for its companionship. But the Sandman was a fickle friend. And he didn’t like to be ignored for long.
The night swirled with menacing visions. Images of men in tricornes. Sweaty men, oily with stained teeth. Sinister smiles harboring malevolent intentions.
Thump.
Stan and Louise were there, strangely enthusiastic. Dancing, clapping, interacting with the men.
Thump.
There was rain and wind and turbulent weather. Ships listed, water coating everything. There was a one-sided struggle.
Thump.
There was violence. Machetes and blood. So much blood. There were the men again, enjoying it, reveling in it, laughing. There was inescapable death.
THUMP.
Catherine fought to restrain him, but Josh kicked like a mule. She had heard his screams just as she was heading topside and discovered him fending off heaven only knew with violent swats of his arms. She rushed to his side and placed his head in her lap until she could calm him. This had been a bad one. Maybe the worst yet. He had never been one prone to nightmares before. But they had all succumbed to demons of some sort since the day they stepped foot on the boat.
His eyes suddenly popped open in wide-eyed terror, flitting from side to side until they locked on Catherine. The sun had just started to rise and the early morning light cast an ethereal glow over her, creating a calming effect on Josh.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Catherine said reassuringly. “Everything’s all right. It’s just a dream.”
Josh froze for a second, attempting to rejoin the world and make sense of his current reality. He pushed himself quickly to a sitting position.
“You all right?” Catherine asked, running her hands through his sweaty hair.
Josh glanced over the boat. Everything seemed to be in order. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”
THUMP.
“Good. ‘Cause I need you.”
The sound shot Josh to his feet sending a jolt to his heart that reverberated throughout his wobbly legs.
“Can we come up?” Abby shouted from the galley stairs.
“No,” Catherine yelled back sternly as she got to her feet. “Now take Tamara and get back in your room and lock the door.”
Lock the door?
“Mom, what is it?” Josh said as he turned toward her. Having already positioned herself at the railing, he found her clutching the life lines, staring over the side. But before she could even open her mouth to speak he had his answer.
Thump.
He estimated it to be roughly thirty to forty feet in length. Another single-masted sloop much like the one on which he and his family currently existed. Josh could only surmise that he’d fallen asleep on his watch and during the course of the night a highly improbable scenario had occurred, one that involved light winds, accurate currents and a truckload of luck.
This was the light source.
Catherine scooted past him, jarring him from his lingering sleep-induced stupor. She shuffled toward the bow where she pulled an array of sea-blue boat fenders from a storage bin. Josh peered over the railing and watched as the bow of the alien ship repeatedly tapped at the hull of their ship as if magnetized to it. Realizing the catastrophic possibilities of a hull breach, Josh rushed to Catherine’s side, freeing the fenders and subsequently tossing them overboard, arranging them in a protective line along the exterior of the ship. Catherine then grabbed a boat hook and fished a dangling line out of the water near the aft section of the drifting boat. She guided it in, Josh reaching for it and promptly tying it off on one of the mooring cleats.
Having secured their boat, Catherine and Josh looked down into the visiting ship. They took their first real survey of the broken down vessel and discovered it was in a heightened state of disrepair.
The main sail was noticeably tattered and piled in an unmanageable heap below the boom. The mainsheet was severed and looked, from Catherine and Josh’s vantage point, to have been cut, as was the boom vang, its cascaded fiddle pulley system hanging limply from the mast and boom, the line for the mechanism nowhere in sight. There was a fair amount of debris on deck including food containers, water bottles and some clothing, which appeared to have been torn. The sum of all these discoveries indicated one clear and disturbing truth: there had been a struggle.
“Hello?” Catherine yelled at the ship. “Is anyone there?”
The ship floated peacefully, belying the tense and anxiety-ridden situation in which Josh and Catherine found themselves.
“Hello?” she cried again. “Please, if there’s anyone there it’s okay. You can come up.”
But the ship only rocked with the steady ebb and flow of the sea, which was eerily calm.
“Come on,” Catherine said to Josh. “We’ve got to secure that boom before it catches the right momentum.”
Josh snapped his head back toward the derelict boat and located the object of Catherine’s concern. Without a mainsheet or boom vang, the boom was free to swing unrestrained. His mother was right. A sudden swell in the water could allow the boom to swing forcefully in one direction and as the water shifted could cause a reverse swing that could prove devastating to the hull of their ship.
“Okay,” Josh said.
“You’re all right?”
Josh caught Catherine’s eye, astonished that even in this moment of apprehension she was still able to carve out a sliver of maternal concern.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Catherine pulled the magazine from her front pocket while simultaneously retrieving the Magnum from her waistband. She slid the clip into the magazine well, snapping it into place with a quick jab from the palm of her hand. With a certain amount of reticence she drew back the slide, letting it snap into place. She tucked the gun back into her waistband.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
5
The Boat
Catherine was the first aboard. She held her nine-millimeter uncomfortably in her hands, pointing it at the ground as she was trained to do. She glanced quickly over the boat and discovered that the signs of a battle were strikingly more evident than they had previously thought. Large, gaping holes riddled the deck and cabin. Were these gun blasts? There was also a fair amount of broken glass and a dislodged fire extinguisher that looked as if it had been used. An axe and a hammer lay scattered near an overturned toolbox, the latter coated with a dark brown substance over its metallic, flayed surface.
Catherine swallowed hard as she pulled back the hammer on her Magnum. “Is anybody here?”
The boat creaked and bobbed. Silence.
Catherine looked over at Josh, awaiting Catherine’s go-ahead signal from the deck of their boat. She waved for him to come aboard and with the survival rifle slung over his back, immediately set to traversing a rope ladder as he climbed from the safety of his ship to the relative insecurity of the foreign vessel. And as his feet hit the deck and he loosed the rifle from his back, he was made immediately aware of one undeniable element.
The smell.
“Mom?” he said.
“I know,” she confirmed, having encountered the foul stench upon coming aboard. Bad things had happened here, she thought.
Catherine edged forward toward the stairwell leading belowdecks. The shredded remnants of the main sail hung like a curtain over the opening, providing brief glimpses of the darkened area beyond with each breath of ocean air that passed by.
Catherine turned, looked over her shoulder briefly. “Josh, make sure...”
But Josh had already anticipated her request as he fixed the boom in place with a spare piece of rope he recovered from a nearby storage bin, tying it off to the aft railing.
Satisfied, she resumed her path toward the stairs as Josh scooted up alongside her, rifle in hand.
Catherine leaned forward. “Is anybody there? Please come out if there is. We’re not here to hurt anyone.” She waited for a response, but
got none. “We have guns,” she said.
“You think anyone’s down there?” Josh asked, his heart thumping in his chest like a kick drum.
Catherine glanced over the ship again. “I don’t think so. And if there are, I don’t think they’re the people that attacked this ship,” she said quietly. “With the mainsheet and boom vang gone and the mainsail destroyed there’s no way to control the ship. And we’d be too far out to power it in. Somebody wanted this boat to remain adrift. And I’d be very surprised if that same somebody was still here.”
Catherine reached forward with her left hand, holding on to the Magnum firmly with her right. She parted the shreds of the main sail over the entrance and pulled them aside.
“Last chance if there’s anyone here,” Catherine yelled into the blackened galley. Silence. She turned toward Josh. “Stay right on my back. And keep your finger off the trigger.”
“I know, I know,” he stammered as he loosened his sweaty grip on the rifle.
Catherine began her descent into the salon and was immediately assaulted by an intense, foul odor that virtually knocked her to her knees. She threw her hand over her mouth.
“Jesus Christ,” Josh said, his first steps below met with the same result. “What the hell is that?” he said through a muffled hand.
“I’m afraid to find out,” Catherine responded, feigning ignorance. But she knew straightaway what it was. Even to the untrained nose, there was no mistaking the aroma of death.
Catherine climbed to the bottom of the stairs and had her initial suspicions of foul play confirmed. Light filtered dimly through two open portholes, but it was enough to reach an unassailable conclusion. There had been a terrific battle as was evident by the enormous amount of debris strewn everywhere. Pots, pans, broken dishes and glasses, silverware, garbage, seat cushions and overturned chairs—it was almost as if the boat had been turned upside down, shaken, then returned to its previous position.
