Voyage After the Collapse (The Pulse Series Book 3)

by Scott B. Williams

  “It always looks worse than it is. But nah, it’s just a squall line. It’s a bit too early in the season for tropical storms, though not impossible. This isn’t one though. You can feel the difference in the air after you’ve been in enough of them.”

  “Have you ever been caught out at sea in one?”

  “Several times; Category One hurricanes too. I’m still here to tell about it; but that’s probably more to do with the boats I was on at the time than anything I did.”

  “Did you ever think about living in one place for a while? Like on land, maybe? I mean before the blackout happened.”

  “Nope. I’ve been sailing so long I couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Why would I trade this for that?” Larry swept his arm across the horizon in a 180-degree arc.

  “To avoid storms like that one,” Tara said, still staring at the dark clouds ahead.

  “You take the storms with the sunshine. It’s all part of it. Don’t worry about this one. The Sarah J. will do just fine.”

  Larry did have plenty of faith in Tara’s boat. He might have built a catamaran for certain advantages it offered for his particular use, but he could certainly appreciate a good monohull—especially a classic like the Sparkman and Stephens designed Tartan 37. He liked the feel of a heavy-displacement hull in a seaway, and how its weight would allow it to carry way even against a chop in light air. Out here in bluewater, the shallow draft of the catamaran was not a plus. And though the Tartan 37 was relatively shallow for a mono of her size, she also had a weighted centerboard that increased her draft at sea to nearly eight feet and gave her better pointing ability into the wind. She would be slower than the cat, of course, on a beam reach or run, but if a passage involved significant beating to weather Larry knew she just might get there first. All boats were compromises in one way or another—that was a fact that Larry had accepted long ago. There were many he loved and a few he despised, but any boat that could take him to sea and bring him back again was a good one in his book.

  He knew his brother, Artie was glad to be on the catamaran. Some people just couldn’t take the heeling and rolling of a monohull at sea, and Artie was one of them. Casey seemed to be doing fine with it though, as was Tara. He couldn’t help but wonder how her kid, Rebecca was holding up down below and all the way forward in the V-berth. That was the worst place to be on any ship at sea, as far as motion. He figured the girl had a stomach of iron to stay down there in this. Tara had checked on her several times during the day, but she showed no interest in coming out to socialize. Tara was worried about her, of course, but Larry was sure she’d be fine and that she would come out when she was ready.

  It turned out he was right. Rebecca emerged from the cabin but not until hours after dark. She said she wanted to see the ocean at night but didn’t care anything about being out there in the daylight, even though it was cloudy. Tara gave her one of the foul weather jackets her parents left on board, and the two of them sat across the cockpit from where Larry had the helm. Casey had gone below at Larry’s insistence to get some sleep, because he said he would need her to relieve him at dawn.

  “Why don’t you take a turn at the wheel, Rebecca?” Larry asked. “It’s more fun sailing at night.”

  “I’d probably just wreck the boat. Let my mom do it.”

  “She’s already been steering a lot today. Let’s give her a break and let her go get some sleep. Come on. All you’ve got to do is hold it steady and try to keep an eye on ol’ Scully up there ahead of us in the catamaran.”

  Rebecca followed his gaze to the boat ahead of them; visible only by the battery powered emergency anchor light the crew had hung in the rigging after dark. Larry had done the same with one of the fancy bronze yacht lamps Tara’s dad had hanging in the main salon. The dim glow from the these single lamps were the only way the two crews could stay in visual contact at night, and each time they were hit by a band of rain even those were invisible to each other until it ended. It was dicey, but Larry and Scully had both agreed on their course before it got dark when they were still sailing within hailing distance. They would try to maintain the same pace and headings through the night whether in contact or not, and hopefully, conditions would be better in the morning.

  Larry knew beforehand he would probably be awake most of the night, even with Casey and Tara taking a watch. The most he could hope for was a few minutes of sleep at a time, but as he knew from past experience, that would be enough to keep him going. He loved the challenge of long passages and there was nothing he’d rather do. Looking at Rebecca, he was hopeful that he now had an opportunity to win her trust. That was important, because he certainly wanted Tara’s, and getting closer to her meant getting close to her daughter as well.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and go down below, Tara? Rebecca and I have got this ship under control. If we get too tired, we’ll call you, but you need your rest so you’ll be fresh for your next watch tomorrow.”

  Larry could tell Tara didn’t really want to, but she did as he suggested, probably relieved that Rebecca was out of her isolation in the cabin and beginning to open up again, if only just a little.

  “Where is that rope going behind us?” Rebecca asked, when they were alone in the cockpit.

  “It’s tied to that little red sit-on-top kayak that my friend, Grant found.”

  “I can’t see a kayak. Why are we pulling it back there?”

  “It’s on a long rope; about a hundred feet behind us. That’s so if we get in big waves it won’t come surfing down on top of us.”

  “Why didn’t you just put it on the boat? Can’t it sink back there?”

  “It won’t sink. It has a self-bailing seat and the rest of it is sealed up like a cork. I could have put it on the deck but we’ve already got the dinghy up there and it would be in the way. I’m towing it as a last-chance lifesaver. If someone were to fall overboard, especially on a night like this, they might be able to grab hold of the kayak or the towrope and hang on until one of us noticed. It’s just an old habit I have from my singlehanded passages. I used to always tow a long rope—just in case!”

  Rebecca seemed to contemplate that idea for a while; then she moved closer to the helm. “I’ll try to steer if you really want me to.”

  “You bet I do. Here,” he stepped to one side to make room, “see this compass? We want to keep that middle line—that’s our heading—right about on 145 degrees. It’s going to swing back and forth a bit; but that’s okay. The main thing is to keep it between about 135 and 155, so we don’t get too far off course. You can do it, just keep your grip relaxed and let the boat do its thing in the waves.”

  Rebecca seemed to have the feel for it right away, and Larry figured it was because she had probably steered the boat before, in happier times when her grandparents were aboard. He wanted her to believe he trusted her; that he had faith in her to keep them on course all by herself. He knew it would be good for her to build a little self-esteem, and he knew that the challenges of the sea had a way of doing that for most people. Because of this, he said little and instead busied himself by going forward, checking the rigging, looking at the set of the sails and keeping an eye on the distant flickering light that was the dim glow of the Casey Nicole’s L.E.D. lamp. Satisfied that everything was okay, he returned to the cockpit and sat down beside Rebecca.

  “I’m going to show you a trick that’ll make the steering even easier,” he told her. “We might not have an autopilot, but people figured out how to make a ship self-steer way back before electronic stuff like that was invented.”

  Larry dug into one of the cockpit lockers and retrieved the rubber tubing he’d found earlier that afternoon. Tara’s parents had fishing gear on board; including the simple rubber-tubing-powered Hawaiian sling spearguns that were the only type of speargun legal to use in the Bahamas. The extra tubing in the locker was for making spare bands, as the stuff dry-rotted fast in the tropical sun. It took him a few minutes of adjusting and experimentation, but soon he had
rigged a contraption of lines balanced by the elastic tubing between the mainsheet and the center spoke of the ship’s wheel.

  “Check this out—no hands!” he said as she stood by and watched. The boat maintained its course, because each time it would try to fall off the wind the line connected to the sheet would hit the end of the tubing’s stretch and give it a gentle tug the other way. After a few minutes of watching it, Larry was satisfied the Sarah J. would hold her course without human intervention, at least as long as the wind direction didn’t change.

  “There you go!” he grinned at Rebecca. “You can stand watch and keep an eye on it, but you don’t have to keep wrestling with that wheel the whole time.”

  “I don’t mind steering, really.”

  “I know you don’t, but everybody gets tired. Trust me, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to steer all you want. I just wanted to set this up so you don’t have to worry about staying on course so much in the dark. I’m leaving you in charge while I curl up over here on the leeward cockpit seat and try and get some shuteye. All you’ve got to do is keep an eye on the compass and make sure our course doesn’t change, and that we don’t lose sight of the Casey Nicole.”

  Larry knew that turning over the watch to Rebecca would give her a huge boost in confidence, especially the next day when she would probably tell her mom all about it. He had seen this too many times before with kids on boats and he wasn’t worried because he was right there in the cockpit. He knew that with all his years experience on passage, any major change in the way the boat was moving would wake him in a flash. Besides, he didn’t expect to really sleep. Just a few minutes of dozing here and there in between sitting up and looking around would do him a world of good.

  But Larry had seriously underestimated how tired he was. The stress of the gun battle the day before and all the worries of hurriedly prepping both boats for a hastily planned voyage had worn him out. The gentle and steady motion rocked him to sleep, and he didn’t wake until a new round of driving rain was pelting his face. It was another band of minor squalls, which was not unexpected, but when he turned his arm over to look at his watch he was surprised to see that he had slept more than an hour! He quickly sat upright and turned to see how Rebecca was holding up. He was about to ask her when he realized she was not there. Larry glanced forward to make sure she had not foolishly wandered up on deck, but there was no one there either. The wheel was still moving gently back and forth, held captive by his contraption of rope and rubber tubing that was still working to keep the yacht on course. He couldn’t see the light from the Casey Nicole through the rain, but that was not his primary concern. Rebecca must have gotten tired or else had to go below to use the head. Larry quietly slipped down the companionway, taking care not to wake Casey and Tara as he made his way forward to her cabin. The V-berth door was open and latched with the hook to the adjacent bulkhead to keep it from swinging with the boat’s motion. He whispered Rebecca’s name and peered into the bunk area, seeing only crumpled sheets and a couple of pillows. Then he opened the door to the forward head after knocking gently first. It was empty! Larry felt a wave of panic suddenly sweep over him. He grabbed a flashlight from the bulkhead near the companionway and looked in every conceivable nook and cranny large enough to hide a person below decks. Rebecca was not in the cabin! He tore his way back up the companionway steps, not caring how much noise he was making now and this time he noticed something he hadn’t before. The towline that had attached the kayak to the starboard stern cleat was missing!

  FIFTEEN

  ARTIE DRAGER WAS ALONE with his thoughts, enjoying a brief break from the rain until the next band of showers passed over the boat. Scully had fallen asleep in the forward end of the cockpit, under the spray dodger that kept most of the wind and water off of him. Artie knew from sailing with him all the way here from the Caribbean that the island man preferred to sleep on the open deck, saying the cabins were much too claustrophobic. Grant had already gone below a couple of hours ago, and when Jessica’s turn at the helm was over, Artie noted that when she left the deck she did not go to the forward cabin in the port hull she had been sharing with Casey. Instead, she retired to the starboard hull, and Artie was pretty sure he knew why.

  He knew his daughter had a major crush on this remarkable young man—she had practically let this slip even before this disaster happened, telling him about meeting Grant on a field trip and how interesting he was. Since they’d all been reunited on the boat, however, it was obvious to Artie that Casey’s friend and former roommate; Jessica had a crush on him as well. Jessica didn’t do a good job of hiding it, and Artie was sure that Casey was aware of it too. He supposed it was inevitable, given the circumstances and especially the time that Jessica had spent in the woods alone with Grant when Casey had gone missing. He wasn’t sure how Grant felt about it, but it was not such a bad problem for a young man to have. Artie got the feeling though, that Grant was not the kind of guy who would willingly hurt either one of the girls if he could help it, and he sure wouldn’t play them against each other.

  He was a bit surprised that Jessica would so blatantly go after Grant right in front of him now that Casey was on another boat. Wasn’t she worried about what her friend would think when she found out? Artie didn’t know, but he hoped that it wouldn’t go too far right now anyway, because nothing was more important in their small group than that they all continue to get along and work together. The longer the cabin hatch stayed shut, the more Artie wondered, but soon another band of rain enveloped the ship and he found himself wishing he were down there as well.

  Every time the rain came he lost sight of the single lamp lighting the Sarah J. It made him extremely uncomfortable when this happened because his only daughter as well as his brother were on that boat, and Artie was terrified of the prospect that they would somehow get separated again after all he had been through to get to Casey. He kept telling himself not to worry and that Larry knew what he was doing. The rainstorm would pass like all the ones before it through the afternoon and evening had, and the Sarah J. would still be there. Then, dawn would break at last and they could all relax again as daylight allowed them to see each other and maybe even sail close enough together to shout between the boats.

  Unlike the earlier rain bands though, this one seemed to only grow in intensity and it showed no signs of letting up in a few minutes. Artie hunkered down under the hood of his foul weather jacket as he waited and waited for the catamaran to break out on the other side of the shower, but it just wasn’t happening. The hatch on the starboard cabin slid open and he saw someone emerge, likewise bundled up in a waterproof foul weather jacket. It was Grant, even though it wasn’t nearly time for his watch.

  “It’s pretty nasty out here right now, Grant.”

  “Yeah, I could tell. I thought I would come out and give you a break, if you want it. Jessica didn’t want to get wet going to the other hull, so she’s sleeping in my bunk.”

  Artie didn’t comment on that, but he figured if Grant was willing to come out here in the middle of a driving rain with a girl as beautiful as Jessica curled up in his warm, dry bunk, then there must not be anything going on between them—at least not yet.

  “I’m already pretty much soaked now anyway,” he told Grant. “I might as well stay out here a while longer. I’m not as sleepy as I thought I would be.”

  Grant said he wasn’t either, and so the two of them sat there together, huddled in their jackets as the rain diminished slightly and finally began to show signs of letting up. Passing the helm to Grant, Artie stood to stretch while turning to look astern for the Sarah J.

  “I don’t see her light,” he told Grant. “Keep it steady and I’ll get up higher and see if I can spot it.”

  Artie clambered over the port cabin coach roof and caught hold of the foremast shrouds. Larry had rigged ratlines between them to enable easy climbing, and Artie availed himself of a higher vantage point several steps up to get a better look into the darkness beyond t
heir wake. Still there was nothing; no light, and he could see nothing moving out there but the breaking crests of the wave tops.

  “I can’t see them,” he called back to Grant, as he carefully scanned the horizon for a full 360 degrees, just in case the other boat had somehow passed them during the rainstorm. But there was nothing anywhere. This was exactly what Artie had been afraid of. With no radios to stay in communication and only those barely adequate lamps to see by, it simply seemed all too easy to get separated out here in the dark of night.

  “They can’t be too far away,” Grant said. “If anything, they slowed down to change a sail or something.”

  “Yeah, I hope you’re right. We need to get some sail off and slow down too, to give them time to catch up. I hate this weather, especially at night! I wasn’t expecting all this rain. Staying together would be a cinch on a nice clear night! But I know it could be a lot worse too; at least we’re not dealing with rough seas. Take her up into the wind and I’ll pull the foresail all the way down. That ought to take us down a couple more knots, but before we get underway again, I think we ought to heave-to and wait a few minutes. Maybe they’re just barely out of sight behind us.”

  “I’m sure they are,” Grant said, as he followed Artie’s instruction. “They should catch up any minute now.”

  As soon as the boat changed course and slowed, Scully was on his feet wanting to know what was going on.

  “We can’t see the Sarah J.,” Artie told him.

  Scully climbed the ratlines and looked around for himself. “Hard to see on de night like dis, mon. More rain comin’ too.”

  Artie looked in the direction he was pointing but could see nothing, not even the horizon. That was the way it was out here at night with these approaching squalls. There was darkness, and then there was the face of these storms that simply looked like nothingness in the direction from which they approached. The rain totally obscured even the faint ambient light that normally allowed one to see where the water ended and the sky began even on a dark night at sea. He fought to suppress the panic trying to overtake him as he realized he didn’t know exactly where his daughter was out there in that blackness. What if they were in some kind of trouble? Larry had plenty of faith in Tara’s boat, but Artie also remembered him talking about some of the things that could happen with a ballasted monohull that the catamaran was mostly immune from. One of the worst was the possibility of hitting some unseen, partially submerged object, like a floating container lost off a cargo ship. A single-hulled boat with a heavy keel could be torn open on such an obstruction and sink straight to the bottom. Larry said it had happened on more than one occasion, usually on dark nights like this one. Yachts along with their entire crews had been lost at sea that way, and that was one thing that swayed him to build a lightweight catamaran with watertight bulkheads. Artie wished he hadn’t heard Larry talk about this, because all the possibilities of what could have gone wrong were starting to play on his mind. He had to make his imagination stop running wild and do something instead.