Seeking Safe Harbor: Suddenly Everything Changed (The Seeking Series)

by Albert Correia

  “We can use all we can get,” Zach agreed, “but we’re running out of time. Let’s all get what we can carry on one trip to the dinghy. Then we’re on our way.”

  George led the group across the lobby and down a hall to a room with no number on the door. They could feel the fire scorching the floor above. It was threatening to break through to that area and was likely to do so at any moment. “Here’s where we store our survival supplies,” he told the others. He didn’t consider keys; he just shot the lock and kicked the door open. The room was filled with boxes, jugs, and bags.

  Millie stepped in first and pointed to one area. “Canned foods are there,” she said. “How are you fixed for water?”

  “We were okay,” Zach replied, “but with two more bodies, I think we should take some extra.”

  “In the jugs,” she told him. “We’ve got medical supplies over there.” She pointed to some white boxes. “They seem to be getting more important by the minute.”

  “I’ll take a jug of water and some canned goods,” Zach said. “Glen, you grab the medical supplies.”

  “Millie and I will bring what we need,” George announced.

  They all loaded supplies in their arms and started to walk out, but George stopped. “Hey,” he called to Zach, “Those herbs you ordered are right here. Still want them?”

  “Yes,” Zach replied without hesitation.

  “Okay, I’ve got them.”

  They hurried down the hallway and out the door to the pool. The clouds had covered most of the moon, but there was still enough light that they could see that the man Zach had knocked out was still lying by the pool.

  As they stepped around him, gunshots erupted ahead of them. Zach dropped what he was carrying and darted for the dinghy. There was no doubt where the shots were coming from. Someone had opened fire on the La Sirena.

  Chapter 15

  DENISE tried to pull away from the man, but he tightened his grip on her shoulders, his calloused fingers digging into her flesh. He came straight at her from the front, so the automatic weapon she was carrying just above waist level was not only pointed at his stomach, it pushed into a gut that hung over his belt.

  “My… my gun is pointed right at you,” she warned him in a tremulous voice

  “C’mon, kid,” you ain’t gonna do nothin’ with that thing an’ you know it.”

  She’d never been so frightened, but tried to look stern. “If you don’t let go, I… I’ll shoot.”

  He tightened the grip on her shoulders even more and leaned an intimidating, unshaven, and grimy face close to hers. His breath caused her to gag. Then she saw a third man climb aboard behind the one that was holding her and another one behind him. As he edged around the first two men, she could see that this one was carrying a rifle. He looked past her toward her mother at the wheel.

  Pushing at the man in front of him to clear space, he began to level his rifle at Stacey. The man behind her main antagonist was shoved ahead, moving her foe even closer to her. That made the ugly assailant even bolder. He let go of one shoulder and reached for her weapon. At the same time, the frightened teenager saw a fourth man’s head peek over the deck from the boarding ladder.

  It all happened so fast; she didn’t have time to think. The one thing that was evident despite the fear that possessed her was that she was out of time. She closed her eyes and did the only thing that might get her and her mother out of this. She pulled the trigger.

  The rat-tat-tat of the bullets firing was deafening to her. The impact of the slugs driving into the man’s stomach knocked him backward with such force he took the man behind him over the aft rail with him. They landed in the skiff, where the last two men were starting to follow Harley up the ladder. Seeing what had happened to their compatriots, they changed their minds and instead jumped into the water and started swimming back the way they’d come.

  Cody, who was sliding around the side of the men who’d boarded ahead of him, managed to duck away as they went overboard. He leaned against a barrel, using it for leverage to straighten up. The girl was shooting, so he changed targets, swinging his gun around to shoot her.

  Stacey saw Denise start back to investigate the noise. She continued to keep the La Sirena steady at first, but when she realized there were men sneaking aboard, she abandoned the controls and un-slung her weapon. She watched in horror as Denise shot a man, but an even greater travesty was in the making. As Cody brought his weapon around to shoot her daughter, she fired.

  The weapon was on single shot, but one was enough. The bullet caught the would-be assassin in the chest. He staggered backward, caroming off the barrel he’d used a moment before to straighten himself up. He, too, plunged over the rail into the skiff.

  Harley was about to climb aboard, but he saw enough to discard any further dreams of commanding that sailboat. He dove into the water and swam after his two buddies.

  * * * * *

  Zach didn’t see the first part of the saga, but he got to the water in time to see one man fall over the aft rail and another dive in, swimming in the direction two others were headed.

  As he pushed the dinghy into the water, he called out, “Stacey, Denise, are you okay?”

  Stacey came to the rail. ¨We’re fine, but hurry. I don’t know if there are any more thugs around here.”

  Glen came up next to him, still carrying the supplies he brought from the hotel. He started to say something, but stopped when he heard a motor start off at a distance.

  “What’s that?” he wanted to know.

  “It sounds like a boat’s motor,” Zach replied worriedly. “And not a small one. It’s out there in the bay somewhere. With all this noise, we’re beginning to draw the kinds of crowds that spell danger. I don’t know who or what that is out there, and don’t want to know… but we may find out soon enough. We need to load the supplies, quick, and get out of here. We’re better off at sea.”

  They met George and Millie halfway up the hill. The two hotel people were overloaded with bags, jugs, and boxes. “We got about all you dropped,” George said breathlessly. “We left just a few canned goods back at the pool.”

  “We have to forget them,” Zach said, “Let’s load what we have into the dinghy and get it to the boat.”

  When it was all loaded, there was only room for two on the dinghy. Zach helped Millie aboard and then turned to George. “Do you swim?”

  “Like a fish.”

  Zach put his weapon in the dinghy and nodded for George to do the same. “Glen,” he said to his son, “row the supplies and Millie out to the boat. George and I will swim.”

  Both men were in the water and swimming before Glen had a chance to get settled at the oars. George was on the side where the skiff bobbed quietly in the water. He grabbed the side and lifted himself up. He saw three bodies at the bottom. He had no way of knowing that one was alive, but the guy was unconscious so he wasn’t aware that there were two bodies on top of him. George gave the skiff a shove toward shore. He heard splashing off to the right, but whoever was out there was moving in the opposite direction, so he discounted it as being an immediate threat.

  Zach got to the boarding ladder first and climbed it in seconds. He found that Stacey had abandoned the controls. She was sitting at the side of the cockpit, trying to soothe her sobbing daughter.

  When Denise saw her father, she jumped up and hugged him, her body shaking. Stacey looked pityingly at her, then at Zach. She shook her head slowly, a signal that he should use caution.

  “Dad, I shot a man! He was grabbing me, and I… I… I shot him.”

  His heart went out to her. What had the world come to that she had to do such a horrible thing? He patted her hair softly. “Sweetie… you had no choice. We’re living in an awful time, and there are terrible things happening all around us. We have to do what we can to survive.”

  “I… I think I killed him.”

  “We have no time to find out. We’re in real danger as long as we stay here.”

&n
bsp; The dinghy arrived and Glen, George, and Millie began hauling the supplies up to the sailboat. Leaving her daughter in the hands of her husband, Stacey went over to help.

  “We’ll just have to drop them in the salon until we have time to organize,” she said. She went down the ladder to the salon with a load, set the items down on a table, and reached up to take what George was passing down to her. In less than a minute, everything was stashed in the salon. She went back up. “We’re set here,| she told Zach.

  “Good!” He dropped his arms from around Denise. “We have to go, Sweetie.”

  “I know.” Her voice was weak, but steady. She stood straight. “I’m ready.”

  Zach stepped into the cockpit and took the controls. The boat was drifting toward shore and its bow swung to starboard but as soon as he pushed the lever forward and turned the wheel, the vessel straightened out and moved forward.

  The others were looking for places to settle in, but Zach warned them, “Everyone, we heard a motor start somewhere in the outer bay. There may be someone out there waiting for us, so it’s too early to relax. Keep your eyes open and your weapons ready.”

  They could hear the sound of another running motor in the distance as they rounded Coconut Island and motored toward the bay’s entrance. There was sufficient light on the water in the direction they were headed for them to see a dark shadow with the shape of a motorized boat leaving the bay.

  The shadow disappeared behind the dark breakwater.

  At the same time, the sound of a motor pushing a big boat also went away.

  Chapter 16

  “IF waiting for us, it will be behind the breakwater to our right, so I’ll keep as far left as I can,” Zach told the others. “Keep an eye out on that side as well. That’s the mainland, and there’s no telling who might be lurking in the dark over there.”

  The La Sirena, which had left this bay little more than a month before in daylight, sailing proudly with the wind, was doing it much differently this night. The sails were tied down, the motor was running at near full throttle, and the dinghy, which normally hung from davits off the stern, was trailing behind.

  The normally clear deck now had six heavy barrels of fuel lashed to the rails on the aft deck. Boxes, bags, and tubs were strewn around the salon they now used for eating and conversing. Before, a relaxed crew had viewed the local scenery in awe of its beauty as they passed. This night, they were tense and armed, all eyes on the lookout for gangs and terrorists – or whatever the people who turned to killing and looting for survival could now be called.

  As they passed through the bay’s entrance, George said, “I think I saw movement on the mainland.”

  “Everyone keep down,” Zach ordered as he turned the boat, which had been headed due north, to a northeast heading. It didn’t put them directly on their course to California, but it did take them away from a mainland where danger now lurked around every corner.

  Nothing happened, except that the boat began to rise and fall more noticeably when the La Sirena left the calmer bay waters and entered the more active ocean currents. The swells weren’t large, but the wind was picking up and they could see an occasional whitecap in places where the moon shone upon the water.

  When there was no move against them from the mainland, Stacey reasoned, “Either those over there aren’t armed, or they have no boat and saw no point in shooting at something they couldn‘t catch.” She moved over to the port side. “I think we’d all better come over here,” she told everyone. “If we’re going to be attacked, it will be by that boat we saw slip in behind the breakwater. If they do come after us, it will be from the starboard side, so we can keep under cover here behind the upper hull of the cabins and the cockpit.”

  “Do you think they’re still there?” Denise wanted to know. There was still a tremor in her voice. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Their lights are off, and in the dark, anything around the breakwater rocks would be almost impossible to see,” her mother said. “They must still be there, though. They haven’t had time to go anywhere, and we haven’t heard their engine for some time now. That means they’re just sitting there.”

  “What do you think they’re doing?” Glen asked.

  “Waiting,” said Millie. It was the first time she spoke since being introduced.

  “Waiting for what?” Denise asked.

  Millie shook her head. “I don’t know for sure but I don’t like what I’m thinking.” She checked to make sure there was a round in the chamber of her automatic weapon.

  They heard a motor start.

  “Where is that coming from?” cried Denise.

  “It sounds like it’s coming from over there by the breakwater,” George answered.

  “Everyone… do as Stacey suggested,” Zach said. “Get over on the port side and stay under cover until we find out what’s happening.”

  The sound of the motor was getting louder. There could be no question about its destination. It was headed right at the La Sirena. Zach began to slow the sailboat down.

  “Shouldn’t we try to get away?” Millie asked.

  “This is a sailboat,” Stacey told her. “It’s built to be propelled by sails. Our engine is only big enough to get us in and out of small places and move us a little in dead calms. Any powerboat in the world is at least four times faster. Trying to outrun whoever is back there is fruitless.”

  Zach didn’t add that he decided that if there was going to be a confrontation, there was no point in getting farther out to sea. If they were somehow forced to swim, it might as well be from a point closer to the breakwater. “Let’s wait to see what their intention is,” he said. “Everyone stay down, and make sure your weapons are off safety.”

  When the powerboat was thirty yards away, it slowed and a light came on, shining on the La Sirena.

  “Ahoy, there, sailboat La Sirena, this is the Hilo Coast Guard.” The voice came from the powerboat. Even though the moon wasn’t covered by clouds at that moment, the people on the sailboat could see nothing on the other boat except the light that was shining in their faces. They couldn’t tell what the man looked like or what he was wearing. “We need to board your boat to check for contraband,” the voice went on.

  In a whisper loud enough to be heard by those aboard, but not thirty yards away, Zach asked, “George, is there such a thing as the Hilo Coast Guard?”

  “Never heard of it,” George answered.

  “Me neither,” Millie said. “And I’ve been here for eighty years.”

  The point of origin of the light moved.

  “Zach,” Stacey observed, “that’s not a mounted light. It’s only a powerful flashlight, and whoever is holding it just changed hands.”

  “Good observation,” he said. “They’re bad guys, so we’re going to have to fight. I’m going to put it on autopilot, gun it, and then I’m ducking down in the cockpit. Be ready.”

  It took only a few seconds for whoever was at the controls of the powerboat to react when Zach increased speed. The sailboat had opened up more distance between the boats in that short time, but the powerful engine roared, and the powerboat was closing in on the La Sirena quickly.

  When it was again thirty yards away, the light was still shining on the sailboat, and those aboard the supposed Coast Guard boat opened fire.

  A hail of bullets tore into the sailboat.

  Chapter 17

  “EVERYONE stay down!” Zach yelled the second the bullets started flying.

  “We’re sitting ducks with that light on us,” George said over the noise of the fusillade.

  Zach was well aware that the real problems were that they couldn’t outrun the powerboat and that the light made them too visible, but he hadn’t worked out a solution yet.

  As if reading his mind, Denise called out, “I could knock it out, Dad.”

  “I know you could, Sweetie, but it’s too dangerous for you to get up to do it right now. Stay down while I try to come up with something.”

 
From his location at the bottom of the cockpit, Zach couldn’t see what was happening on the narrow deck between the cabin and the rail. All the other members of the crew and their two guests were lying low there. Bullets were either flying over their heads or hitting the hull or the masts and sails. Several bullets punctured holes in two of the barrels of diesel. He knew that… unlike gasoline… diesel wasn’t highly flammable, so there was no explosion or fire, but he also knew that they were losing valuable fuel.

  Glen and Denise were lying near the front of the cabin. He put a finger to his lips, then crooked a finger and urged her to follow him as he crawled forward. She crawled after him, and when he was in front of the cabin, she crawled up next to him.

  Having seen that everyone was in the center or toward the back of the powerboat where they were still standing and visible, the people were concentrating their fire. So far, nothing was hitting where the two youngsters were now. Glen whispered in his sister's ear, “As long as we’re careful, they won’t know we’re up here, so we can do things.”

  “If I slide around to the other side of the cabin, I can get a shot at that light from the corner,” she whispered back.

  “That’s what I was thinking. Be careful, though. Move real slow. And wait until I’m below.”

  He pointed to the hatch that was in the center of the boat, a few feet forward of the cabin. The cabin top was two feet higher than the deck at that point, so their actions were hidden from the others on the boat and, more importantly, from the people who were shooting at them.

  “What are you going to do below?”

  “I have an idea,” was all he said before he lifted the hatch, slid through the opening, and lowered himself onto the large V-berth bunk bed in the cabin at the front of the boat.

  Denise didn’t waste time asking any more questions. She edged over to the starboard front corner of the cabin and peeked around. All she could see was the light, and it was getting nearer. Fortunately, it was still pointed at the cockpit, so only a little peripheral light hit where she was hidden. As long as she didn’t make any quick moves, they shouldn’t notice her.