Voyage After the Collapse (The Pulse Series Book 3)

by Scott B. Williams

  “I agree that we can’t just leave Tara and Rebecca here Larry, but come on. You’re our captain! You can’t abandon the Casey Nicole!”

  Casey was glad to hear that her dad felt the same way she did. And what of Tara herself? Did she even want to go with them? Or want Larry on board her boat?

  “I’m not abandoning anything, Doc! I’m talking about sailing together in company, staying within sight of each other. I don’t know if Tara even wants to go with us,” Larry looked at her, “but if she does, she can’t keep up, sailing around the clock with just her and her daughter on board. It’s going to take days to cross the Gulf.”

  “Dat boat she can’t keep up no way, Copt’n. Too slow fo’ sailing’ wid de Casey Nicole.”

  “She may be slower all-out, but this isn’t a race, Scully. The Tartan 37 is a good boat that can make decent passage times. We’ll adjust sail area as necessary to keep the two vessels together. Besides that, she’s got a working diesel engine and that might come in handy somewhere down the line. We will take all the extra fuel we can carry from the Miss Lucy’s tanks. What do you say, Tara? Would you and Rebecca like to sail to the islands with us?”

  “NO!” Rebecca answered for her. “I’m not going off to some other country. My friends are all here! In Gulfport!”

  “Rebecca, you’re not going to see your friends for a long time anyway, whether we stay close to Mississippi or not. I think we ought to go with these nice people while they are offering to help us. You’ve never been to the Bahamas anyway. How do you know you won’t like it?”

  “Because it sucks, that’s how! Everything sucks! I might as well just die now!”

  Casey felt for the girl; she had sure been through a lot even before this catastrophe that changed the world. Tara had told them what her ex-husband did, and it was a shame he had been so callous to abandon his only daughter. Then all this had hit the girl shortly after. It was tough, but like everyone else, she was going to have to deal with it somehow. Casey figured she would come around, but for now, Rebecca just stormed out of the cockpit and went as far forward as she could to sulk and stare at the water from the starboard bow.

  “If you’re dead set on us sailing together then, little brother, maybe I should be the one who goes with Tara aboard the Sarah J. I want you on board the Casey Nicole to look out for my daughter and the rest of the crew.”

  “Scully will skipper the Casey Nicole,” Larry said. “I need another crew member with me on the Sarah J. anyway. I’ll take Casey with us—if she’ll go,” he looked at her for an answer.

  Casey was surprised by this proposal, but trusting Larry and willing to do what she could to help, she said she would. Just as she expected, her dad had all kinds of objections to that proposal.

  “You don’t know anything about that boat, Casey. You’ve never sailed on a monohull and just because Larry says he sailed one of the same model doesn’t meant that one is up to the task of an open water passage.”

  “You just said you would be willing to go; to help Uncle Larry sail her,” Casey said.

  “I did, but I want you to be on the safest boat possible. I didn’t sail all this way with your Uncle Larry to have something happen to you after all I went through to find you.”

  “I’ll go too,” Grant said. Casey and I both can help them.”

  “That’s stupid!” Jessica said. “You’ve never sailed any boat before, Grant. Larry is a captain and Casey’s been sailing with him a bunch of times!”

  “She’s right, Grant. You’ll learn more if you stay aboard the Casey Nicole and give Scully a hand.” Larry turned to his older brother: “Look, Doc. I’m going to go over to the Sarah J. to give her a quick survey right now. You keep forgetting this is what I do for a living! I’ve taken boats that were far less seaworthy than that one on voyages far longer than the one we’re about to undertake. I’m not planning to put anyone at risk here, especially not my niece, but if Tara wants to come with us, then I intend to help her.” He turned to Tara: “Now, if I have your permission to board your vessel, I’d like to take a quick look at her before it gets too dark for an inspection.”

  Tara agreed of course, and Larry asked Casey to come with them for a look around the boat to see how she liked it, if she was indeed willing to accompany him. Casey knew her dad wasn’t happy about the arrangement and neither was Grant, but Larry wasn’t having it any other way. Besides, he assured them all that with Scully at the helm of the Casey Nicole, they could keep the two boats together on the passage. One thing she knew for sure though—if there was one person in the crew who was happy about this split it was Jessica. Casey knew she was eager to be alone with Grant again, but she wasn’t going to let it bother her. They’d been alone already for a considerable time while she was missing in the Honey Island Swamp, and she didn’t see that Grant had fallen all over Jessica then. She doubted he wanted to be anything other than friends with either one of them at this point, and she certainly wasn’t going to push the matter. Jessica, on the other hand, wasn’t too happy about Tara joining their group except for the fact that it would give her that time with Grant. Despite her infatuation with the much younger grad-student, Casey could tell her former roommate was also jealous of Larry’s obvious interest in Tara. Jessica was just used to getting all the attention when it came to men. With Joey Broussard a distant memory now, she would not be satisfied until she had the full attention of another one. Casey knew Jessica wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt her, it was just one of those quirks she had that wouldn’t likely change anytime soon. Being on a different boat from her for a few days might do them both some good, and besides, it was always nice to get to spend time with Uncle Larry, who she rarely saw ever before this event brought them together so unexpectedly.

  The dinghy that Tara’s parents had purchased for the Sara J. was a beautiful, handcrafted rowing design built of lapstrake plywood and epoxy. Larry pointed out the varnished mahogany gunwales and bronze fittings as he rowed the four of them over to the yacht, and he told Tara that her mom and dad certainly had good taste in boats.

  “They wanted a dinghy that was traditional-looking but also lightweight. And Dad said it had to be a sailing dinghy. The rig for it is stowed on the deck of the big boat.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Larry said. “That will come in handy for fishing and exploring when we get to the Bahamas.”

  “What about the two-seater kayak?” Casey asked. “Are we going to go back and get it?” Larry had already mentioned that he and Grant had to leave it on the beach when they set out after the last man in the group of murderers.

  “You bet. We left it tied to a driftwood log, so I’m sure it’ll be there. Scully can get in closer to the beach with the Casey Nicole. We’ll swing around there in the morning before we head out to sea.”

  Once they were aboard the Sarah J., Casey couldn’t help but notice how different the classic monohull yacht was from their catamaran. For one thing, it was built of heavy fiberglass and the hull and cabin side surfaces were all finished with gleaming off-white paint that Tara said was the best you could buy for restoring old boats.

  “Awlgrip,” Larry agreed.

  Like the fancy dinghy, the yacht had lots of varnished wood trim and classic bronze cleats and other fittings. The winches and sail handing hardware were all modern though and of gleaming stainless steel. It was obvious that Tara’s mom and dad loved the vessel and lavished lots of time and money on keeping her in such condition. Even now, several weeks since they’d last been on board to clean and shine her up, the Sarah J. looked magnificent.

  If what she saw above deck was impressive, Casey was blown away when Tara led the way below. The interior of the 37-footer felt positively huge compared to the tunnel-like hulls of the catamaran. Inside this boat, there was actually room to move around and lots of comfortable places to sit, not to mention full standing headroom throughout. While Larry inspected the critical components such as the seacocks and hoses and engine, Casey marveled at the wa
lk-in head that included a shower and the big U-shaped galley with its propane 4-burner range and oven. The Sarah J. was certainly a vessel a couple or small family could live aboard comfortably.

  Larry moved through the interior with purpose and precision and soon was back on deck, where he checked things like the standing and running rigging, ground tackle and sails. Although he found a few issues that would eventually need attention, he told Tara that her parents had been thorough in their refit and upgrade of the old classic and he pronounced the Sarah J. seaworthy and ready to sail tomorrow. But as he said this, Casey wondered if he was completely telling the truth. It wasn’t like he was going to say Tara’s boat was not up to the task and just leave her here. But Casey also knew he would not put her life at risk if there was something really major wrong with the boat either. She completely trusted her uncle’s judgment and was ready to sail with him.

  The inspection done, Casey, Larry and Tara returned to the catamaran to share the evening meal and conversation with the others before embarking in the morning. Rebecca refused to come with them, choosing instead to lock herself in the forward cabin and spend the evening alone.

  “I hope she’s not going to hate me from now on,” Larry said, as they rowed back to the Casey Nicole.

  “She won’t. She’s just having a hard time accepting all these changes. She was already having a hard time before the blackout.”

  “I can’t imagine going through all this at her age,” Casey said. “I know it’s tough, and I know when you’re that age your friends are the most important thing in the world. I can see why she doesn’t want to leave.”

  “It doesn’t help to tell her that she’ll see them again either, does it? It feels like a lie and she knows it basically is. We may not be able to come back here for a long time.”

  “If ever,” Larry agreed. “What will there be to come back to?”

  “This has got to get fixed eventually, don’t you think? I mean this is America! They’ve got to be working on it, right?”

  “Who is working on it? And where? We don’t have the answers to that, and I don’t know who does. Maybe we’ll find those answers somewhere over the horizon, but you’ve got to realize that maybe we won’t, either. If this electromagnetic pulse affected the whole planet, then modern civilization as we know it is finished. It will take who knows how long to start over and rebuild all that from scratch. It won’t happen in our lifetimes, that’s for sure.”

  Casey let that sink in for a minute before they joined the others. She hoped Uncle Larry was wrong. She hoped that somewhere beyond the horizon there was a place where life was like it was before—where people got along with each other for the most part instead of trying to kill each other and take what ever they had of value. She had to imagine that place was out there because she couldn’t imagine living the rest of her life like this. She had to believe that life went on as before somewhere—if not on this side of the Atlantic— then maybe in Europe. Surely the pulse didn’t wipe out everything in Europe too? Thinking about that, she was ready get a good night’s sleep and set sail as soon as possible in the morning.

  TWELVE

  TARA HANCOCK HAD A hard time falling asleep once she finally climbed into her aft quarter berth bed aboard the Sarah J. and closed her eyes. The evening conversation on the deck of the catamaran had lasted late into the night, despite everyone’s good intentions to turn in early and get plenty of rest for the big departure in the morning. Tara hoped she was doing the right thing, putting her own safety and that of her daughter into the hands of people who were complete strangers until a few hours ago. It would have been an odd thing to do, to make such a decision so quickly in the world as it was before, but not so much now. She didn’t really have a better alternative that she could think of anyway, other than the two of them simply sailing away somewhere alone. That wasn’t so appealing after what just happened. And staying here at Cat Island even one more day was even less so.

  Though she had not seen the bodies or the scene of the crime, images from her imagination replayed over and over in her mind as soon as she closed her eyes. These images were even more effective at keeping her awake than her worries of the future. Then there were her concerns about Rebecca. The child was devastated at the prospect of leaving the Gulf Coast for an indefinite period, and she was so upset with her mother for agreeing to the idea that she still would not speak to her when she returned to their boat to go to bed.

  Tara knew Rebecca would come around eventually, but she hated that her daughter was carrying so much anger and that she had fallen into a pit of hopelessness and despair. Nothing could have hurt Tara more than hearing her only daughter say over and over that all she really wanted to do was just die. Tara didn’t believe Rebecca was really suicidal, but she was certainly depressed enough to think that life would never get any better. And she was angry enough at her circumstances to think that these new people who they’d been so fortunate to meet would only make it worse.

  And thinking of that fortunate meeting, it troubled Tara that it was because she didn’t heed Mike Owens’ warning about trusting strangers that it was she and Rebecca who were alive tonight while he and his wife were dead. It troubled her that she had left them just before they were so violently attacked, but as Larry and Grant had told her earlier, there would have been nothing she could have done to help them; unarmed as she was. If she had not sailed around to the other side of the island when she did, she and Rebecca would have been victims too and her new friends on the Casey Nicole might have been caught by a surprise attack as well. Logically, she knew she had done the right thing, and she had done it with every intention of helping the Owens. It was just unfortunate for them that it didn’t work out that way, and it was tearing her apart to think of the terrifying end they had met in that lonely place. Thinking about it reignited her worries for her parents, who would have been just as helpless, and another sleepless hour passed as she tossed and turned in her bunk.

  The harder she tried to sleep, the more wide awake she became, and she had to force herself not to go ahead and get up and make coffee while she awaited the dawn. Larry and Casey would be there at first light, and if she didn’t get at least a few hours sleep, she would be useless as crew on her own boat. She wanted to show them that she could do her part—even if she didn’t have the kind of experience a professional skipper like Larry had.

  Tara could tell that Larry Drager found her attractive; not that this was unexpected, as it happened often with new men she met. She hoped that his interest wasn’t the only reason he was so insistent on her and Rebecca sailing with them though. She didn’t really think it was, but she knew it didn’t hurt matters either. The fact that she was in possession of what he deemed a good, seaworthy vessel and that she knew the basics of sailing it played a huge part too, of that she was certain. Without it, there was no way she and Rebecca would have been invited aboard the crowded catamaran despite any interest he might have in her. Tara considered that she was fortunate indeed that Larry was familiar with and liked the model of boat her parents had chosen.

  She would not have even contemplated a straight offshore passage across the Gulf of Mexico alone with Rebecca. Even if the two of them had the experience to do so, it would be tough rotating the watch between just two people as well as doing all the sail handling and dead-reckoning navigation that would be required on such a voyage. Larry said the crossing would take four to five days, possibly a bit longer, depending on the wind. Without help, that many long days and especially nights of sailing nonstop would be exhausting, though Larry said he’d made longer passages many times before singlehanded. Of course the boats he’d done that on had been equipped with either electronic or wind vane self-steering devices, and the Sarah J. had neither since the pulse fried the onboard electronics. Her dad had fitted a powerful autopilot for their annual cruises, but had never bothered with a more expensive mechanical wind vane system since they had no plans to cross entire oceans. But with both Larry and C
asey aboard, it wouldn’t matter that there was no self-steering. Three people—four if Rebecca could be persuaded to help—could split the watches into manageable periods, sharing the drudgery of all that hand steering.

  Although his brother wasn’t too happy about it, Tara was glad Larry was bringing his niece, Casey aboard with him. She knew she would feel better having another woman aboard until she had time to really get to know and trust Larry. It was not that she had any real misgivings about him, but this was essentially the same thing as inviting a strange man into her small home to live with her and her daughter for a few days. Casey would be a nice buffer between the two of them, and it would be nice to have another adult female to talk to, even if she wasn’t quite twenty years old. Casey seemed to Tara to have a good head on her shoulders and it was obvious that she and her dad had a special kind of relationship. Tara would have given anything if her own daughter could have a father like Artie instead of the worthless, dishonest loser that betrayed the two of them in the worst way. Tara thought that when they got to wherever they were going, just being around a father and daughter like Artie and Casey would do Rebecca a world of good. Maybe it would show her that there were good, caring people in the world, in spite of all the bad ones that sometimes seemed to outnumber them.

  * * *

  It seemed to Tara she had barely dozed off when she heard Larry calling from the dinghy as he tied it to the rail of the Sarah J. She crawled out of her berth and welcomed him and Casey aboard, pausing to light the propane stove to boil water for coffee before opening the companionway and stepping up on deck.