For Those In Peril (Book 1): For Those In Peril On The Sea (7 page)

‘Shit!’

I search the cockpit with my eyes, looking for anything I could use as a weapon, but I found nothing. Fear bubbled up inside, threatening to overwhelm me. I fought it as hard as I could, knowing that if I let it win, I wouldn’t survive. Try as I might, I couldn’t formulate any kind of plan. As I watched, frozen to the spot, the man finally scrambled onto the deck. That was when I spotted the foot-long winch handle in its pocket beside the helm. I dropped the flare gun and lunged for it just as the man sprang into the cockpit. I felt my hand close on the cold metal and turned to find the infected man was almost upon me. I lashed out, smacking him across the side of the head, stunning him momentarily. Knowing it was him or me, I fell upon him, smashing him with the heavy handle. As I hit him, I heard the dull
thunk
of metal on flesh. Thinking this would be enough I stopped and tried to get up. As I did so, his hand shot up and grabbed my throat. I struck him again and again, bringing the winch handle down on his head with all the force I could muster. Finally I felt his grip loosen and his body go limp.

While it seemed like a lifetime, it must have all happened in seconds. As I sank back into the corner of the cockpit, Bill emerged from the cabin. One look at the battered body and the blood seeping slowly across the deck and he was wide awake. He did what I should have done, grabbing the foghorn, blowing it loudly. The others appeared almost immediately. They gathered in the cabin entrance, staring with disbelief at the bloody scene that lay before them.

‘What the hell happened?’ My head was reeling and I couldn’t focus on who was speaking. Questions seemed to be coming from all sides.

‘Is that one of them; one of the infected?’

‘Where did it come from?’

‘How the hell did it get
on board?’

‘Are there any more of them?’

I thought about what I’d just done and I felt the bile rise in my throat. I’d just beaten a man to death. I knew I’d had no choice, but I never thought I’d have been capable of being so brutal. Then again I’d never imagined I’d find myself having to fight for my life against a person infected with some mutant virus that made them want to kill me. I looked at the man’s body. His hair glistened with the blood seeping from his shattered skull. I could see fragments of bone sticking out in several places and there were grey flecks that I presumed were parts of his brain. A moment later, I was on all fours, retching uncontrollably.

‘Are you okay?’ My head was finally starting to clear and I could tell it was CJ who’d asked the last question. My stomach muscles gradually stopped contracting and I was left kneeling there, breathing deeply and noisily. I wiped away the last of the vomit from my mouth and I glanced down at my blood-spattered clothes. I thought about how I must look to the others and was about to tell CJ I was okay when I heard someone else speak.

‘Move!’ The voice was deadly serious. ‘Did he get bitten? If he did, he’ll be infected. He’ll become one of them. We need to kill him now before that happens.’

I stared over my crewmates’ shoulders and saw Mike standing there with the rifle aimed straight at me. His voice was cold, his hands unshaking.

I realised what he was thinking and struggled to get to my feet. ‘I’m fine. He never even got close to me. I bashed his head in, that’s where all the blood came from.’ I could see Mike didn’t believe me and his finger started to tighten on the trigger. I tried again, ‘I’m okay, honest ...’

Mike fired just as CJ tackled him. A few inches from my head, the fibreglass of the transom exploded as the bullet struck home. CJ wrestled with Mike and the gun slipped from his hands. Jimmy started forward as if to grab it but Bill got there first, scooping it up and holding it out of Jimmy’s reach. By then CJ had Mike pinned to the deck and he stopped struggling. 

I looked across at her. ‘Thanks.’

‘You didn’t get bitten, did you?’ CJ eyes flicked over my body as she spoke, looking for any injuries. She was concerned she might have done the wrong thing.

‘No, I’m fine, or at least I will be in a few minutes.’ I tried to clear my throat but it felt too raw. ‘Could you get me some water?’

CJ let Mike up and went inside, reappearing a few seconds later with a glass. I rinsed out my mouth and spat over the side. Next, I drank some down, trying to settle my suddenly empty stomach.

‘Where did it come from?’ This time it was Bill who was speaking.

‘There were two of them
in a life raft. It floated against the side of the boat and when they realised we were here, they attacked.’ I could feel myself babbling as I explained what happened. ‘I got one of them with the flare gun before he got on board, but the other one moved too fast. I can’t believe how fast he moved.’

‘How’d they get into a life raft?’ CJ’s question gave us all pause for thought. We would never know with any certainty, but the implication that there may be infected drifting around out there sank in as Bill and I carefully threw the man’s body over the side and then hosed down the cockpit. Once this was done, I stripped off my blood-soaked clothes and
pitched them into the sea.

During all of this, Mike and Jimmy held back, not wanting to get too close. They’d heard people talking on the radio, saying the infection was spread through bodily fluids, blood, saliva getting into a wound or a cut, even a tiny nick; anything that would let it through your skin. The most common way of infection was being bitten by someone with the disease, but if you had a cut already, even a spot of blood on it could be enough.

As we went back inside, Jon spoke, sounding deflated. ‘We’re not as safe out here as we thought we were, are we, Bill?’

‘No, we’re not.’ Bill had a solemn look on his face. ’If there’s going to be infected people drifting around out here, we’ll need to keep a careful lookout at all times.’

I thought about what this meant. Even at sea, we’d never be completely safe, we could never truly relax. Maybe this survival thing wasn’t going to be easy after all.

  Chapter Five 

I spent the rest of the night in the cockpit cradling the reloaded flare gun, scanning the darkness, searching for anything that might contain more infected. Mike sat across from me, not to keep me company but to watch me. He still didn’t believe I hadn’t been infected. Every time I shifted on my seat Mike jumped and reached for a large knife he’d tucked into his belt, Bill having locked the rifle away.

To pass the time I tried to get him to talk. ‘So what was it like growing up in Fort Lauderdale?’

‘Don’t want to talk about it.’

Maybe that was a bad topic. I tried a different tack, ‘How old’s Jimmy?’

‘Thirteen.’

That was more like it. ‘What about you?’

‘Sixteen.’

‘Where’d you learn to use a gun?’

‘Been hunting since I was twelve.’ He stared straight at me. ‘I know how to use a knife pretty well too.’ As he said that he pulled the knife from his belt and started to play with it. I figured it was best to steer the conversation in a different direction.

‘How’s Jimmy holding up?’

‘He cries a lot, mostly at night. He’s been having bad dreams.’ For a moment it looked like he was going to say something else but he remained silent.

I felt I was getting somewhere so I carried on. ‘Yeah, I’ve been having quite a few nightmares myself. I think it goes with the territory.’

Mike looked at me suspiciously, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or if I was just humouring him. He must have decided I was being honest. ‘I have nightmares too. I keep dreaming about what happened to Billy,’ Mike stared out into the darkness, his eyes glistening. ‘And about what I did to Sam.’

‘I think it’s only natural. Those are some pretty hard things to deal with. They’ll start to go away, though. It just takes time.’

‘But I don’t want them to go away,’ Mike was close to tears now. ‘It’s all I have left of them; it’s all I can remember.’

‘Give it time. Other memories will come back … better memories.’

‘Are you sure?’ Mike seemed sceptical.

I took a deep breath. ‘My parents died a few years ago, and at first all I could remember about them was how they’d looked when I had to identify their bodies.’ I didn’t like talking about such personal things with strangers but I felt it might help, so I pressed on. ‘After a while, I started to remember how they had looked before: when I was young, when they came to my graduation, all sorts of memories. Now I only remember them the way
they were when they were alive.’

I glanced over at Mike. He had a strange look on his face. It wasn’t that he looked happy, it was more that he looked like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
‘Rob,’ Mike looked down at his hands. ‘Thanks for telling me that.’

A few minutes later, I heard the knife clatter to the deck. I looked over and saw Mike had finally fallen asleep.

***

When morning finally came, I met it with relief. The blanket of darkness lifted, restoring our ability to see anything that might bring more infected to us. As a group, we worked in silence most of the day, each trying to deal with things in our own way, and soon we’d achieved a great deal. One of the boat’s engines was up and running, although it still sounded very rough. Using this, we finally got the batteries recharged. The electrical system had had plenty of time to dry out, and now we had power again most of the electronic equipment was working, including the radar, the
depth-sounder and, most importantly, the water-maker.

In the afternoon, Bill and I worked inside, checking out the communications equipment.

‘Well, none of it seems to be damaged. Where should we begin?’ I looked at Bill.

‘Why don’t we start with the shortest distance one, see if we can pick up anyone around here and then work
our way up to the long distance ones?

‘Sounds reasonable.’ I turned on the VHF radio and scanned slowly through the channels. Silence. I turned to channel sixteen and sent out a message. No one replied. I fiddled with the gain and tried again. Still there was no response.

‘Okay, so there’s no one on the radio around here. Let’s try the FM receiver.’

We’d had no luck with the one on CJ’s phone, but this was more powerful and capable of picking up stations from hundreds of miles away. We turned it on and heard nothing but static.

‘Try switching it over to AM. See if there’s anything there.’

T
here was nothing.

‘Okay.’ Things weren’t going the way Bill had been hoping, ‘How about the short-wave?’

With the short-wave set, we could potentially talk to people over thousands of miles. As I turned it on, a spark shot out, burning the tips of my fingers, and it went dead.

‘Should we try to repair it?’ I glanced at Bill.

‘Do you know how?’

‘No.’

‘Nor do I, so I guess that answers that one.’

‘Okay, so we’re down to the satellite TV receiver.’ This was our last hope and I was starting to sound desperate. If there was nothing on this one, it would mean we were well and truly on our own.

Bill put his hand on mine as I reached out to turn it on. ‘Just remember. Even if we don’t pick up anything, it’s not the end of the world.’

‘Bad choice of words there, Bill.’

‘Yeah probably,’ he laughed slightly. ‘But you know what I mean.’

I turned it on. We spent the next thirty minutes scanning through every possible channel, but all we got were automated notices saying broadcasts had been interrupted temporally and would be back as soon as possible. The satellites were still beaming down the signals but no one was transmitting anything up to them.

‘Shit, Bill, it looks like you were right.’ My voice sounded flat even to me. ‘This is global.’

‘Yeah.’ Bill
glanced down before looking up at me. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if we’re the only ones left.’

‘Surely we can’t be the only ones?’ A sense of despair was growing within me.

‘If there’s anyone else, where are they?’

‘Fuck!’ I thought for a few seconds, ‘I’m not sure I can do this, Bill, not if we’re the only ones left. What future do we have?’

‘You’ve got no choice, Rob. This isn’t about you or me; this is about all of us. There’s no way the others can survive without us. I know Jon thinks he can do it all, but he can’t, he’s too young, too inexperienced. CJ’s barely holding it together, and the boys won’t last on their own, not in the long term.’ Bill looked me straight in the eyes. ‘I heard you last night, talking to Mike about his nightmares, I heard what you said to him, what you told him. You did good.’

‘You can manage without me. I can’t do this.’

‘Yeah, you can. You have to.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Rob, I can’t do this without
you.
I need another adult. I can’t look after these kids on my own.’

I got the impression Bill was trying to make me feel needed, and I had to admit it was working.

‘Okay, Bill, what do you want me to do?’

‘Just help me look after them. You saw what happened to CJ the other day. We’re all going to go through
times like that … you, me, all of us. I need to know that when it happens to me there’s someone else who can take over until it passes. Rob, you’re the only one I can trust.’

‘I’m not a leader, Bill. I’m a follower.’

‘No, you’re not. I heard you with Mike, you were great. You might not realise it, but you’ve got what it takes. Anyway, I’m not asking you to take charge, I’m just asking you to be there when I need it.’

I considered what Bill had said for a few minutes before I replied. ‘Okay, Bill, you win.’ I smiled at him, ‘You really know how to get to people, don’t you?’

‘I think we should push on. We don’t know where those infected came from last night and there might be more of them around here.’ Bill looked round at the rest of us.

Night was falling and we were in the cockpit trying to decide what to do next. I was all for Bill’s suggestion. It was always a little more risky to do a passage at night, but it would be much more difficult for us to be surprised by any infected if we were on the move. In any case, we now had the depth-sounder working to warn us if we were approaching any shallows, and there was just enough light from the nearly new moon to see our way. Looking at the chart, I could see the waters around us were almost uniformly twenty feet deep, meaning there was little chance of running into any coral heads that might be out there. Jon, CJ and the boys were also happy to push on so, with the last of the sunlight disappearing from the sky, we pulled up the anchor and continued east, a stiff wind pushing us from behind.

‘How are we going to organise the watches?’ I glanced across at Bill.

‘I think there should be two people on deck at all times. One can steer and the other can take the gun and keep an eye out for anything that might be hiding any infected. Each of us can do two hours on, four hours off, and we’ll rotate the jobs every hour.’ Bill’s watch system was pretty standard for a night passage, and it was similar to the one we’d used as we’d crossed the Atlantic, with the exception of the need for someone to be armed with a gun.

‘Rob, you and CJ can take the first watch. Rob, you come down first and Jon can replace you, then Jimmy, then me, then Mike and that should take us back to Rob.’

The rota was well thought out. It meant there would always be someone with a decent amount of sailing experience — either Bill, Jon or I — on deck at all times.

After the others had gone inside I was left in the cockpit with CJ.

‘If you want to take the helm, I’ll take the gun.’ I went to pick it up.

‘What makes you think I can’t handle it?’ CJ had a defensive look on her face.

‘It’s not that CJ, it’s just ...’ I wondered what to say next and I decided I should be honest with her. ‘Look, CJ, how are you coping with all this?’

‘I’m doing fine.’ She looked down at the deck, avoiding eye contact.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ There was a note of defiance in her voice, but she still didn’t look at me.

‘CJ,’ I glanced at her, wondering how much I should share and decided this wasn’t the time to be holding back. I looked out into the darkness. ‘CJ, I’ve had my moments. I’ve thought about it, but we can’t. None of us can. We need to keep it together, not just for ourselves, but for each other.’

‘Rob, I know I fell apart before. I admit it. I couldn’t cope with it at first.’ She was staring at me now, her eyes burning with intensity. ‘I’ve had time to think since then. I can deal w
ith it. I’m not going to let this win.’

‘You sure?’ I searched her face, looking for clues.

‘Yes.’ CJ sounded so emphatic.

Against my better judgement, I took my hand off the rifle and let her pick it up. I was surprised at how confidently she handled it, checking the chamber and the magazine to see how many bullets were there.

She saw me staring at her and she looked back at me, making direct eye contact.

‘I told you. I can deal with this.’

I’d been drifting in and out of sleep for about an hour and a half when the boat suddenly lurched to the left and I heard something fall from a shelf in the galley and shatter on the floor. I grabbed a t-shirt and was in the cockpit in seconds, but not before cutting my foot on a shard of broken crockery. On deck, Jon was at the wheel, the spotlight next to him while Jimmy was at the table with the rifle, both had just woken up. As I turned off the alarm on the depth-sounder, I looked up at the sails, while they were still full, we were going nowhere.

‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing? If you couldn’t stay awake, you should’ve woken someone else up.’ I was pissed off, but I was probably being unfair. We were all exhausted and it could have just as easily happened to me.

‘I can’t believe I fell asleep.’ Jon was on his feet, looking around, trying to get his bearing. ‘What happened? What did we hit? Are we okay?’

I picked up the spotlight and shone it into the water. We’d run into the tip of a narrow sandbar that was separated from a low-lying island by a short stretch of shallow water. While the bow of the left hand hull was wedged onto the bar, there was still a good two feet of water under the right one.

I turned to Jon. ‘It’s just sand, I think we’ll be okay.’

Jon looked relieved. I ducked into the cabin and met Bill and CJ coming up from their bunks.

‘What happened?’ Bill sounded concerned but not worried.

‘We’re hung up on a sandbank.’

‘All the way out here?’

‘There’s an island as well, but luckily we missed that.’

‘How’d we do that?’ CJ looked confused.

Bill scooted over to the chart table, ‘We must’ve run into the southern end of Great Sale Cay. It’s the only land around here. Just as well it’s not inhabited. We won’t have to worry about running into any infected.’

It sounded logical, but he was wrong.

Jimmy spotted them first, just visible in the faint light of the crescent moon. It could have been the noise of us hitting the sandbar, or the light, or even the sound of us talking, but for whatever the reason we’d attracted the attention of a small crowd. There were six of them and from the way they were acting, prowling around the water’s edge like hungry predators, I could tell they were infected. I wondered where they’d come from, how they’d got there.