Voyage After the Collapse (The Pulse Series Book 3)

by Scott B. Williams

  “We haven’t seen it. Uncle Larry says we may not until we get to the islands. He says it’s so easy to get separated in these conditions and even if we passed very close to them we wouldn’t have known it. I know my dad and Grant must be worried sick.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tara said. “I didn’t think Rebecca was serious with all her talk of wanting to die. I knew she was depressed, but a lot of teenagers are, most of them, probably. She’s been through a lot with what her dad did and then all this disruption of normal life.”

  “Do you think she will try to do it again? Do we need to keep a close watch on her or something? She seemed glad to be rescued, it looked like to me.”

  “She was. And no, I don’t think she’s ever going to do anything like that again. She realized she made a mistake as soon as she was alone out there and discovered that changing her mind wasn’t an option. Thank you for your help in looking for her, Casey. I’m sorry I got so upset, but I still think your uncle should have come and gotten either you or me if he didn’t think he could stay awake on his watch.”

  Tara knew Casey was going to take sides with her uncle, no matter what. It was obvious that she thought the world of him and nothing she could say would ever change that. She was glad she could at least talk to Casey though, because she sure didn’t want to talk to Larry and planned to avoid him as much as possible. When Casey said she was fine keeping the helm for at least another hour, Tara went below to make them both some soup for a late lunch. Larry Drager could fend for himself when he woke up.

  TWENTY-ONE

  ARTIE DRAGER HAD BEEN coping with his anxiety as best he could, but now that he knew they had to be nearing landfall, he was as nervous as he’d been since he first realized the Sarah J. was no longer right behind them. Reconnecting on the passage simply hadn’t happened, and he finally had to accept that doing so was simply improbable, given the immensity of the Gulf of Mexico and the fact that they had no radio or other means of making contact outside of a visual sighting. Another clear dawn broke over the Gulf from the east, marking the forth day since that morning they’d sailed back for hours in search of the other boat. Rain had hampered visibility that entire day and into the following night, but after that they’d sailed out of the squalls and had enjoyed starry nights and subtropical sunny days as they reached to the southeast.

  The backtracking in bad weather and the limited visibility for so many hours had turned Scully’s dead reckoning navigation into more of a guessing game since Larry was no longer available to help. Larry had taken his sextant aboard the Sarah J., which was the logical thing to do since he was the only one among them who was adept at celestial navigation. Scully had told Artie that if he had a sextant, he could at least get their latitude, but the mathematics involved in calculating longitude were beyond what Larry had taught him. It didn’t matter though, because without a sextant all they could do was guess their progress by eyeballing the angle of Polaris above the horizon each night. As Artie learned from Larry on the passage from the Caribbean, that star’s height in degrees above the horizon corresponded exactly to the observer’s distance north of the equator in degrees. They couldn’t precisely measure the angle, but eyeballing it at a slightly lower position each evening gave them a pretty good idea of their southerly progress.

  Based on these rough measurements and Scully’s log of their estimated daily speed made good, the expectation was that they would see the islands later that very day. Artie had studied the charts and he knew the Dry Tortugas were a small target to hit after crossing the entire Gulf from north to south. A slight deviation to the west would cause them to miss this last cluster of islands in the Florida Keys altogether. The next stop would be Cuba if that happened, although Scully assured Artie that if they did indeed sail west of the Dry Tortugas they would soon know it by the color of the water and the current of the Gulf Stream. The other possibility was that they could have gotten off course to east, which would have them reaching the inhabited parts of the Keys that were connected to the mainland by the Overseas Highway. Artie and Scully had already seen enough of that area to know they wanted to avoid it, but as it turned out, they were even farther east than any of them would have guessed.

  “I see land!” Grant shouted after a quick climb up the ratlines to look ahead. “There!”

  He was pointing off the port bow, to the east of the course they were steering. Artie had the chart spread out in front of him. Scully was off watch and asleep, but Grant’s shout brought him around. He stretched and yawned as he looked about, and not seeing what Grant saw from his vantage point up the mast, Scully scrambled up the ratlines on the other side to join him.

  “See it? It looks like a long, empty beach, just like the one on Cat Island.”

  “Do you see any buildings? You should be able to see Fort Jefferson if it’s the Dry Tortugas,” Artie shouted up the mast.

  “No building mon! Just white beach and bush.”

  “You don’t see a bridge? Any towers?”

  Scully shook his head and Artie watched as he climbed down.

  “Need to get closer, mon. But I an’ I don’ see not’ing manmade on dat place.”

  Artie stepped aside and let Scully steer, since he knew exactly where the land was. Then he scanned the charts more carefully, looking for an island in the Lower Keys that might have a beach like Scully described. The Marquesas Keys were another cluster of small islands between the Dry Tortugas and Key West. They were remote and uninhabited, but Larry said they mostly consisted of mangroves. On the chart it didn’t look like any of them had extensive beaches, but still, he thought maybe that’s where they were because in other parts of the Keys there would be lots of manmade structures. If he was right, then they had not missed the Dry Tortugas by much. He was excited to think that he could be within mere hours of seeing Casey and Larry again.

  Steering for the land put them on a close easterly reach into the southeast breeze, and Artie was convinced he was seeing the Florida Straits directly to the south. But when the land came into view from deck level, he was surprised at how far the empty strip of white sand extended. They could barely make out the southern tip of it but to the north it stretched on and on, running completely out of sight.

  “That can’t be any of the keys in the Marquesas,” he said as Grant and Scully stood with him, comparing what they were seeing to what was depicted on the chart.

  “Dat’s a long coastline, mon. Not little island like dem cay Larry talk about.”

  “Where could it be if it’s not the Marquesas?” Grant asked. “There’s not much else out here.”

  Sailing closer only made the landfall more mysterious. There was absolutely nothing to identify it from a distance of two miles or so out. But they could now clearly see that it was a long coastline of empty beach, the interior beyond the sand nothing but a dense forest of tangled greenery. Artie turned the bow to starboard to sail parallel to it, hoping that reaching the visible point at the south end would give them a clue, while Grant went forward with the binoculars to get a closer look.

  “There’s a sign of some kind up ahead,” he yelled back. Steer a bit to your left!”

  They approached the object Grant pointed out and found it to be an official U.S. Coast Guard channel marker. The marker consisted of a triangular red sign affixed to a tower-like metal structure standing at least 15 feet above the water. Atop the sign, there was a red light fixture and a small solar panel. The number depicted on the red marker was “4.” Scully was already poring over the chart in the area of the Marquesas Keys and surrounding waters, looking for the corresponding marker on the charts. Artie knew it was there somewhere, as every single channel marker like this was designated on the chart with its number, height, light color and other critical information that made it useful to mariners for navigation.

  “Don’t see dat numba four,” Scully said. “Got de red numba ‘2’…. de green numba ‘3’…. red numba ‘6’….”

  “Hey, there’s more signs clos
er to the beach!” Grant yelled.

  Artie steered in the direction he was pointing. He didn’t see any evidence of anyone on the wild-looking shoreline, so he figured it couldn’t hurt to get a closer look. Grant was fixed on the first of the small signs with the binoculars, and a few minutes later he relayed his findings back to the cockpit:

  “It says ‘Welcome to Everglades National Park: Special Regulations Apply.’”

  “The Everglades?” Artie repeated, incredulously.

  Scully scanned the chart, trying to find this strange name that he’d heard before but couldn’t quite place.

  Artie stared at the shoreline and then back at the chart, looking at a whole different region than the area they had been scrutinizing. “That’s the Florida mainland, Scully! It’s got to be!”

  Grant had returned to the cockpit, just as Jessica emerged from the cabin, where she had been sleeping during her off watch.

  “We must be off Cape Sable!” Artie said. “See here!” he pointed it out on the chart.

  “We made it to land?” Jessica asked, surprised to see the nearby beach.

  “Cape Sable is the longest uninhabited beach in the state of Florida,” Grant said, answering Artie first. He remembered reading about it while dreaming of a canoe trip to the Everglades.

  “We were way off course then,” Artie said. “Like a hundred and something miles!”

  “Must be some current we can’t see. Push by a current an’ all dat rain too in de beginning. Wid no GPS an’ sextant too, it’s easy to go wrong dat weh, Doc.”

  Artie was just sick, thinking about this. Now they still had a lot of sailing to do before he would know if Casey and Larry were okay. And if they were okay and waiting there, they would be the ones worrying what happened to him and the others on the catamaran.

  “We’ve got to sail west then. If they haven’t gotten to the Dry Tortugas already, they probably will soon, and they’re not going to know what to think.”

  “De Copt’n he gonna wait, Doc, not to worry ‘bout dat.” Scully took the binoculars from Grant and studied the beach. “Dis place better than dat Cat Island, mon. Look, see dem palm tree?”

  Artie took the binoculars and looked at where Scully was pointing.

  “Yeah, so what? It’s Florida. There’s supposed to be palm trees.”

  “Not any palm tree, Doc. Dat’s coconut mon. I an’ I not seein’ de coconut since we leaving Culebra. I t’ink we can take de time to stop on dat beach and get some.”

  “I don’t know, Scully. It makes me nervous being this close to the mainland coast.”

  “But it’s the Everglades,” Grant said. “There’s like a million acres of wilderness here. And it looks like we’ve got it all to ourselves.”

  “Another t’ing too, Doc. De day is late an’ sailin’ here close to de island is no good in de night. Almost five day an’ night at sea an’ de whole crew, we tired, mon. Bettah we sleep at de anchor someplace quiet like dis an’ sail in de mornin’.”

  Artie studied the shore as they closed in on it at five knots. There was no sign of anyone camping there or otherwise occupying what looked like a pristine coast. It seemed surprising, considering its relative proximity to big urban areas like Miami and Ft. Lauderdale on the other side of the peninsula. Wouldn’t many of those people evacuate the cities like so many of the residents of New Orleans had done and try to find a safe hideout in the woods? Artie could think of no better place to go than a forbidding wilderness like the Everglades.

  “It would be okay in the winter months,” Grant said, when Artie mentioned this. “But from the research I did when I was planning a trip here, it’s apparently hell on earth in the summer due to the salt marsh mosquitos and other bugs.”

  “I’m not going ashore here, that’s for sure,” Jessica said. “There are pythons in the Everglades now. I’ve seen the pictures on Facebook!”

  “There are,” Grant said, “but probably not on the beach. I think Scully’s right about getting some coconuts. It would be great to have green drinking nuts. I got addicted to those things when I was in Guyana.”

  Artie had to admit that he was tired. They all were. It was simply hard to get used to the interrupted sleep patterns of rotating watches and the constant motion of the boat around the clock. And he’d had even less sleep than he would have hoped for at sea, lying awake on his off watches worried about Casey. He was no less worried now, but even though they’d gotten off course and not ended up exactly where they’d planned, they had crossed the Gulf, so there was that. They were much closer to their goal and they could work their way west along the north side of the Keys, easily reaching the Dry Tortugas from here. Artie told himself he just had to be patient. Nothing had gone exactly as he’d wanted it to ever since that night in the Caribbean when he’d first seen strange lights in the sky to the north. It was hard for him, with his meticulous organization and a lifetime of scheduling ingrained from a career in medicine, but he was adapting, little by little.

  They sailed to within a quarter mile of the deserted beach and dropped the anchor in seven feet of water. The wind was blowing from the direction of the land, so they had shelter from the waves, and Scully said if it kept up through the night the mosquitos wouldn’t likely bother them out there. He planned to go to the beach for coconuts before dark, so once the boat was secured, he and Grant unlashed the two-man kayak and slid it into the water. Armed with the Saiga AK and the lever-action carbine they’d used in the incident at Cat Island, and machetes for cutting loose the coconuts, the two of them left for the beach leaving Artie and Jessica waiting on the boat.

  TWENTY-TWO

  LARRY DRAGER TOOK HIS noon shot with the sextant while Casey had the helm and then went below to work out their position at the chart table. It was the forth day since they’d found Rebecca that rainy morning, and Larry was happy to once again have clear skies to enable him to get a noon sight. They were going to raise the Dry Tortugas this afternoon, and he wanted to be sure they were close enough to scope out the situation there during daylight hours. He hoped they would see the masts of the Casey Nicole above all else. Though they’d kept a constant watch for the catamaran around the clock, no one on board had sighted a sail for the entire passage. Larry wasn’t worried about the boat or the crew, but he knew Artie must be a nervous wreck by now after being out of touch with Casey for so long. He wanted to reach the anchorage without delay to avoid prolonging his brother’s suffering any more than necessary. He fully expected to find the catamaran safely anchored there because he had every confidence in Scully. The only reason they wouldn’t be there was if for some reason his trusted friend deemed it too dangerous. Larry knew that was a possibility, depending on who might already be occupying the harbor.

  Larry’s calculations put the noon mark on the chart almost exactly where he’d expected based on his dead reckoning since yesterday’s sight. He wasn’t surprised but it was always nice to have confirmation with the sextant. With this done, he put away his tools and went back on deck to tell Casey.

  “Are they still asleep?” Casey asked.

  “Rebecca probably is. Her cabin door is shut. Tara is reading.”

  Larry had kept his interactions with Tara Hancock to the bare minimum since that night when Rebecca went missing. She’d finally apologized for attacking him, and he’d told her he understood her reaction, but they’d had little to say to each other since. Larry was sure that Tara still thought of him as incompetent and irresponsible—two things as far from the truth as it was possible to accuse him of—but he wasn’t going to go out of his way to try and change her mind. He’d certainly been attracted to her at first sight; but that attraction was diminished somewhat in light of how she’d turned on him and all the trouble her depressed teen daughter had caused them all. Larry wasn’t sure he could deal with more of those kinds of issues considering everything else he had to worry about. But at least Rebecca had shown no sign wanting to do something that stupid again, and as long as she stayed below
where he didn’t have to keep a constant watch on her, he was happy. The last thing he needed was for her to go overboard again on his watch.

  Tara had been taking her share of the watches, and for the most part, when she was on deck, Larry was down below. There would be time to talk to her later, unless she was still planning to rid herself of him and Casey as soon as they made landfall as she’d sworn she would do at the height of her rage against him. And if that’s what she still wanted, Larry wasn’t planning to argue with her. He’d done his best to help the two of them and he would continue if they wanted him to, but if not, he and Casey would gladly move back aboard the Casey Nicole and leave Tara to do what she wanted. Now with the crossing rapidly drawing to a close, Larry was anxious to see how that would all play out. They’d been stuck together at sea for days with no alternative, but once the anchor was down, Tara could make her choice.

  Larry expected to see the islands by late afternoon, well before sunset, based on the remaining distance and the steady seven knots the Sarah J. was currently making. But at 2:00 p.m., Casey shouted from where she was standing at the bow pulpit, watching a pair of dolphins that were riding the bow wave.

  “Look, Uncle Larry! A ship!”

  Stepping up on the cockpit seat to see around the mast, Larry looked where she was pointing and saw that she was right. The distance was deceptive, because Larry knew it was really big, but almost dead ahead there was the gray outline of a massive military vessel that almost certainly had to belong to the U.S. Navy. It wasn’t an aircraft carrier, but he was sure it was a warship—probably a modern destroyer or frigate guessing from its sleek hull form and tall superstructure bristling with radar and antenna towers.

  The ship had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, but Larry knew most of these navy vessels could cruise at 30 knots or even much faster in the case of the newer ones. He was a bit shocked to see such a sight; because this was the first sign of the military they had seen in all the miles they’d sailed since leaving the Caribbean. There were navy ships anchored near St. Thomas, but since they weren’t moving, he and Artie didn’t know at the time whether they were still operational after the pulse. Did the sight of this one mean they had technology that was protected from the affects of the EMP or did it mean the ship had come here from somewhere else in the intervening time? It had been several weeks now, so the latter was possible. If the damage had not been global, perhaps the navy had moved assets back to U.S. coastal waters from the Persian Gulf or no telling where.