Slow Burn (Book 5): Torrent (8 page)

For such a large boat, there really wasn’t much to it. Above the water line it was a big, square-
ish thing with two white decks painted with red trim. The lower deck was a rectangular space, open on all sides except the stern. On both the port and starboard sides, a structure was built to look like housing for a paddlewheel. They were purely cosmetic. In the stern, on the main deck, was a kitchen large enough to cater a hundred meals. In the superstructure above the kitchen, on the second deck, was the pilothouse.

Stretched out in front of the pilothouse was another open deck. In the evenings, as the boat cruised up and down the river, the sunset tourists would stand under clear Texas skies, watching them change from blue to orange and red while they sipped alcohol and pretended they were in love.

Restrooms were below deck, along with the engine room.

Outside of tables, chairs and benches, nothing was on the decks. Before we arrived, Amy, Megan and Brittany had put the pilothouse to use as their sleeping quarters. The rest of us set up to sleep on the lower deck on seat cushions removed from the other boats. That’s also where
Steph chose to hold our first communal meeting, between the faux paddlewheel housings, to keep us somewhat hidden from curious eyes on the banks.

Amy, Megan and Brittany, the
original tenants of the riverboat, were there, of course. Dalhover, Mandi and Steph rounded out the six normals. Murphy, Nico, Russell and I made up the infected four. We sat in a rough semi-circle around Steph who was standing, in charge.

Steph
started the meeting. “First off, thank you, Amy, Megan and Brittany for letting us stay on your boat.”

Several of us
added our thanks.

“We’ve all agreed I’ll be in charge
,” she said. “Sergeant Dalhover will be my second in command. I’ll consult with Amy on major decisions and we can all talk about them whenever we get together like this.”

“Will this be a regular thing?”
Mandi asked.

Steph
nodded. “The first thing we need to talk about is whether to bring anyone else into the group.” Steph looked straight at me. “Amy and I have talked about it and we’re reluctant, but will consider people on a case-by-case basis. That’s the plan going forward.”

Nico
jumped to his feet, looking plenty normal after having spent the afternoon napping. “Th…thank you all for tak…ing me in. W…words can’t express how g…grateful I am. I j…just want you all to kn…n…now that I’ll d…d…do my best to p…pull my weight.” Frustrated with his new stutter, Nico took a deep breath before finishing. Speaking in slow clear words, he said, “You won’t regret it.”

“
Nico,” Steph said, “as we discussed earlier, you can stay for now. We’ll see how things work out, and in a couple of days, we’ll decide if you can stay permanently.”

“I…”
Nico seemed overcome with gratitude or frustration. He slowly sat back down in his chair and muttered. “…won’t l…let you down.”

Did he say, “W
on’t I?” Nico’s speech problem was more than just a stutter.

“I’ve posted a duty roster outside the door to the kitchen,”
Steph said. “Please don’t see this as tyrannical. If our goal is to thrive and not just survive, we need to work together. That means we all have to share in the duties nobody wants, like standing night watch, washing dishes and cleaning latrines.” Steph was nothing if not anal retentive about organization.

Nods of agreement.

“I don’t have Russell on the duty roster for obvious reasons. He seems glued to Mandi for the time being, and appears more than willing to copy whatever she’s doing. I’ll try and take advantage of that as I assign her duties, so Russell can earn his keep along with the rest of us. Zed, Murphy and Nico won’t be assigned guard duty.” Steph looked around at all of us to gauge our acceptance of this. “They’ll be going out to collect food and whatever else we need. They’ll have plenty of dangerous, strenuous work without also having to stand guard at night. Does that sound fair?”

Mostly nods, but
Nico jumped back to his feet again, shaking his head emphatically. “N…no, P…please. I can’t.” He pointed at the shore and tears gathered in his eyes. “P…p…please. I c…can stand guard.”

I wondered if he was shy in front of crowds. He was having a really hard time with his stutter.

“You have to pull your weight if you want to stay,” Steph said.

Murphy’s big voice boomed. “Man, he’s a pussy.” He looked over at
Nico. “No offense, man. I’m just sayin’. I don’t want him putting me and Zed in danger if he’s out there doing stupid shit because he’s afraid. Me and Zed’ll handle it.”

“Zed, what do you think?”
Steph said.

I looked at
Nico, who was slumping in his chair, ashamed. “Nico, can you drive the boat?” I asked. “I’d feel better if we could leave someone in the boat, rather than leaving it alone when we’re on shore.”

With attention focused on his feet,
Nico shrugged.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“C…can I have a few days first? I…I need time.”

“Time?” I asked. “For what?”

Nico looked up. Tears were running down his cheeks. “I…can’t go back out there again. Not yet. P…please.”

I turned to
Steph. She was the boss. She could make the call.

“You can have a few days,” she said. “You need to understand we’ve all been through a lot,
Nico. We all need to find a way to keep moving forward. You, too. You understand?”

Nico
nodded. He’d hit the limit of what his brain could process. He was broken. I felt bad for him.

But
Mandi wasn’t satisfied with what she saw. “If Murphy and Zed can go out there and risk their lives, then so can you, Nico.”

It was out of character for her. And it took us all by surprise.

With everyone looking at her, she got embarrassed. “What?”

“Let’s move on,”
Steph said. “Zed, Murphy, thank you for going out this morning and getting those weapons and all of that ammunition. I know it turned out to be a lot more dangerous than we thought it would be.”

“That’s just how Murphy and the Null Spot roll, man,” Murphy said.

Steph giggled. “I almost forgot about Null Spot.”

I rolled my eyes. “Can’t we all just forget about that Null Spot business?”

Steph gave me a smile and changed the subject. “Amy and I put together a shopping list.”

“A shopping list?” Murphy laughed.

“It’s a list of things we need. Not really a shopping list,” Amy said.

“That’s all right. I gotcha.” Murphy grinned.

“We have enough food for maybe a couple more days, if we eat light.” Steph said. “But we could run out of propane at any time. Since most of the stuff we have is canned or boxed, propane isn’t a necessity, but if we catch any fish, we’ll need to cook them.”

“Most of these houses have grills on the patios,” I said. “We can start swiping the tanks when we stop by to raid the pantries. And while we’re on the subject of food, I think Murphy and I might be able to go back down to that country club where we parked the boat this morning. I think there’s a restaurant in there. We may be able to stock up with bulk supplies.”

“That’s a great idea.” Steph grew excited. “There’s got to be at least a dozen restaurants right on the water up and down this section of the river.”

“We could hit them all,” I said. “But we’re going to need more gas for the boat. We’ll have to scrounge up some of that, too. The marinas probably have some. We’ll need to work out something to pump it out with, though.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Dalhover said. “There’s a hand pump down in the engine room. That and ten feet of hose should be all you need.”

“We can always use a garden ho
se,” Murphy said. “Plenty of those lying around in peoples’ yards.”

“Speaking of boats,”
Steph said, “we need to make a plan for ours.”

“What do you mean?” Amy
asked.

“We have five boats at the moment.”

“Six.” Murphy grinned.

“Six?”

Murphy looked down at the deck.

Steph
rolled her eyes. “Yes, six. But we have five small boats. Amy, where do you keep the keys for the boats?”

Amy reached into the pocket of her pants. “I’ve got them.”

“I think it would be best if we distribute the keys among the ten of us. Excluding Russell, because… Well, for obvious reasons. And Nico is provisional. That leaves eight people and five keys. I think if we ever find ourselves in a position where we need to get out of here in a hurry, we may not want to have all of our eggs in one basket.”

“In case I get killed,” Amy said.

Sergeant Dalhover spoke up. “We should leave the keys on the boats.”

Steph
shook her head. “I don’t want to leave the keys dangling in the ignition switches. We all know how unscrupulous people can be. We don’t want anyone swimming up in the dark and running off with our boats.”

“We hide them on the boats,” Sergeant
Dalhover said. “We can all do it together so everybody knows where the keys are.”

“And
Nico?” Amy asked.

“If he doesn’t work out, he can’t steal more than one,”
Steph said. “Everybody good with that? No offense, Nico.”

Nico
stared at the floor and didn’t respond. The rest of us nodded.

Steph
started talking about water consumption and conservation. That transitioned into a conversation about long-term food plans. I should have been interested in all of it. I’d been passionate about the subject since practically the first moment I realized the whole world was falling apart. But I was bored.

I was fidgety.

I wanted to move my feet.

I squirmed in my seat.

A debate about something or other went on and on and I found myself staring at Russell who, as it turned out, was also staring. I followed his gaze to Nico, who was also staring. At that point, it became a game. The angle between me and Nico wasn’t optimal for figuring out exactly what his gaze had settled on, but my guess was Megan.

S
he was bored and busy playing with a pocket knife, opening and folding the blade over and over. I wondered if Nico’s fixation on Megan had something to do with his deceased daughter, though Megan was probably six or seven years older.

Somewhere in there, Sergeant
Dalhover droned off a list of the weapons he’d catalogued. He talked about training and maintenance, emphasizing the necessity of each if a weapon was to be depended on to one day save the life of the person holding it.

With the rain falling again and draining off of the upper deck into puddles on the lower deck, I became mesmerized by the relative silence of the splashing water and the sight of splashing drips.

“Zed. Zed, are you okay?”

I looked up. Everybody was looking at me. “What?”

“Mandi asked you a question,” Steph said.

I looked at
Mandi. Everybody was still staring at me. I ventured a guess. “I’ll take care of it.”

Mandi
laughed.

I looked around. “What?”

“You were kind of zoned out, there. Are you all right?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I guess I just need to get some sleep.”

“Mandi asked if you still had your flash drive. You know, the one that your friend Amber made for you?”

I looked down at my feet, prepared to feel bad about the Amber situation, but I didn’t. I didn’t feel anything at all. That was progress. “I had it in my pocket and I lost my pants when my canoe capsized
, after I tried to blow up Sarah Mansfield’s house.”

Steph
reached into her pocket and showed everyone a flash drive she had stashed there. “I’ve still got mine.”

“Good.” I looked over at Murphy.

He patted his pocket. “I’ve still got mine.”

“So just the two
, then.” Steph looked at Murphy. “When you and Zed are out, if you happen across any laptop with a charged battery, pick it up. We need to make more copies of that flash drive. These drives have information vital to our long-term survival.”

“You got it, boss.”

Steph shook her head. “You, too?”

“Zed calls you boss.” Murphy smiled.

“Speaking of our long-term survival, does anybody have any ideas on where we go from here?” Steph said.

“Let’s stay here. We’re safe,” Megan said.

Amy put a hand on Megan’s shoulder. “We’re just talking about possibilities, okay?”

Murphy spoke up. “We should go down to Corpus Christi, find a big yacht and sail out into the gulf until this whole thing blows over.”

Steph nodded, as did a few others. Heck, it sounded like a good idea to me. Plenty of logistical difficulties, but good nonetheless.