End of the Line (Book 2): Stuck in the Middle (9 page)

I left Henry to get dressed and went back to the salon to put my boots back on. Grace was still out cold completely oblivious to the danger.

I went downstairs flashing my light on the water. It looked deeper. The engine room was nestled between Tanya and Grace’s room. I could see lights inside the open door. It was two steps down and the water was deeper here spilling now over the steps.

Dave, Keith and Tanya stood in water knee deep around Mike who was nailing something to the floor that I couldn’t see because it was under the water. He must have been freezing as he wore shorts and a tank top. Hannah was going to be furious.

I didn’t step down into the water but I added the extra light. 

Water was bubbling from where Mike hammered near the floor. Those were the bangs from before.

“You guys need help?”

“Light is great,” Tanya said.

“Idiot’s upstairs with Eric, Olive’s in my room.”

I heard some footsteps and turned around. I saw a flashlight and Henry came into focus.

“Henry’s here.”

“You up to looking at the engine?”  Tanya said. “Mike’s fixing the hole.”

“We should bail first,” Henry said.

“See, even Henry thinks we should leave.”

Henry laughed and snorted. “I meant we should get some buckets and bail out the water. We should do it in a chain. One person has to be outside. We can switch so no one gets to be in the cold for long. Engine’s gotta get dry first.”

Grace wasn’t happy about being woken up, but the salon door had to stay open with freezing cold air coming in. When she didn’t seem keen on bailing, I told her to go to sleep in my bed. She vanished into the back and I envied her as I felt the biting wind. I wondered what would happened if I refused to help. Complain that as a shooter I deserve special treatment. Tanya would no doubt yell at me to get to work.

Jim started as the outside person, with Henry and me in the middle and Keith doing the bailing. I wore my coat, hat and gloves over three layers, because of the below freezing temperatures. We would switch positions so no one would have to be out the entire time, except for Keith who was downstairs getting soaked.

You would be surprised how hard it was to do a chain of buckets back and forth; how impossible it was to use gloves. After 10 minutes I pulled them off.  Five minutes after that, my fingers were red from the cold and I put them back on. We switched every fifteen minutes and in a half hour it was my turn to be outside. I looked downstairs. It didn’t look like we even made a dent in the water.

When I went outside I thought I was getting frostbite. The winds chilled me as if I was wearing no clothes. My fingers were stiff as I dumped the water over the edge. I wished I was anyplace else. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare with Mark’s warm arms around me. I hated this world, hated everything about it. I hated not being able to call the super to fix things. He was dead too. Everyone was fucking dead and some of them just won’t die.

Somehow we got the water down to an acceptable level where the engine could be left to dry. Mike fixed the hole somewhere at dawn and Henry stayed in the engine room to see if it would start.

We were all soaked and freezing by various degrees. No hot water for a shower. No heat except from the kerosene heaters. Thankfully the sun was coming up.

I was so cold I could barely move. I had stripped off my jacket and boots and wrapped myself in a blanket while sitting in the salon drinking warm tea that Mike had made using one of the emergency sternos. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I kept them in gloves and they hurt when I warmed them up on the cup.

Mike, Jim and Tanya looked beat. I would have dried off and gone straight to bed. Instead my adrenaline was in high gear. I was tired of this boat and its mishaps. Something had to be done.

“We should go to shore as soon as it’s full light.”

“What for?” Tanya said, taking a sip of tea. She had removed her coat and boots and wrapped in a blanket Maddie had knitted.

“We have no heat, a broken engine, and the ship is soaked.”

“We’ll get the engine back up,” Mike said, he wore a robe and had a towel over his head. I would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so dire. “Henry doesn’t think the pistons got wet, so it should be able to start again once it’s dry.”

I looked at Tanya. “And if it doesn’t.”

“We’ll make due.”

“We need to get off this boat. It’s a death trap.”

Tanya gave me a look that she didn’t want to hear it. “We plugged the hole. I think it’s time we went to bed.” She stood up and placed the blanket on the chair behind her but I wasn’t going to let her off so easy.

“Doesn’t mean there won’t be another one, a bigger one or something else. What happens if the boat catches fire? Will all 13 of us live on the dinghy?”

“Same problem as before. There ain’t a warm house waiting for us.”

“Anything has to be better than here, a place with fireplaces.”

“I agree with Tanya.” Mike said as he stood up. Neither them looked like they were ready to argue, but I didn’t care. No one here lived in reality. We were going to sink or freeze. “We’ve passed the point of no return. We might reconsider if we hit a patch of warm weather, but we’re in a deep freeze. No point moving through choppy partially frozen water and hoping to find a house that’s free of zombies and full of fireplaces.”

“What do you think?” I asked Jim who had been silent through the conversation. He looked hesitant. He looked cold even with the blanket around him. His cheeks were still bright red.

“Annemarie,” he said. “I think you have a bit of cabin fever. It’s the middle of January. It will warm before you know it.”

“That has nothing to do with it—Food poisoning, freezing temperatures, leaks and it’s only January. We’re going to die out here. Can someone at least take me to shore? I don’t plan on dying like the rest of you.” I thought that was harsh but everyone was so calm and cavalier.

“No one’s taking you to shore Annemarie,” Tanya said, her tone had anger in it. “We ain’t gonna sink or die. If we got a warm day and I’m willing to risk someone and they want to, they’ll take you to shore and you can be on your own.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t really want to be on my own, I just wanted off this boat.

“You’re being an idiot.” That did it. I opened the flood gates.

Tanya surprised me by not looking pissed. Instead she looked to Mike.

“Annemarie, you’re exhausted,” he said. His voice was calmer but patronizing “We’re all cranky. We’re all been up all night. I’m about to turn in. Dry off and go to bed.”

I didn’t reply, furious that at 25, I was being sent to my room.

To make matters worse, I forgot I let Grace sleep in my bed and I found her curled up on Henry’s side. The gun standing next to mine in the corner. Olive had balled herself up at the bottom of the bed with the end of blanket over her. I didn’t know if she did that herself or if Grace covered her. It figured she was kinder to animals than people. Olive woke up, lifted her white and brown head, saw I wasn’t a threat, and went back to sleep.

As far as I knew Henry was still down in the engine room. Puttering was his favorite thing to do. When he wasn’t throwing up, he was down in the engine room. I didn’t know where he would sleep but at this point didn’t care. I was angry at being lectured, tired of this boat and of being cold. I stripped off my wet clothes and hung them to dry and changed to new flannels.

Grace used the blanket she bought and one of Henry’s. I took mine and lay next to her. It dulled my anger a little thinking how surreal it was climbing into bed with a woman I couldn’t stand and who would never share. Even at Costking she had her own room. She was never with a man or even expressed interest in women. As far as I knew she was asexual.

I bundled myself up in the heavy blanket trying to warm myself up in this icy deathtrap. Sun was slowly leaking into my window. I kept my back to it.

I didn’t think I could sleep. I worried what other calamities were going to befall us. None of us were really experienced sailors, even Grace had been a novice and had previously relied more on her GPS and crew. We were a mile off shore. Could you swim in freezing water or would we freeze like the people on the Titanic? Just be an icy corpse and sink to bottom where even the floaters couldn’t find you.

I had to stay on this death trap and keep my mouth which seemed to be the only thing I could do, since everyone else was nuts and agreed with Tanya. Apparently I was the crazy one.

I balled myself up more in the blanket, disrupting Olive, who got up, stretched, walked to me and licked my face. She was a loveable dog, almost oblivious to the danger around us. I reached my arm out and petted her. She circled around trying to find a spot to settle. I felt Grace move next to me.

“Dog, go to sleep,” she said.

Olive obeyed, settling her warm body into a ball next to me. I covered her with one of the blankets. I think she was afraid of Grace. 

“Annemarie, go to sleep.”

I wanted to tell her to fuck off, but instead I drifted off.

Chapter 5

I was on duty tonight but Henry was on now, so after lunch I went back to bed to have it for myself. I snuggled in the warmth of the blanket and tried to enjoy the space. I looked forward to having my own bed when we went to shore. I can’t imagine the farm house would have enough rooms for everyone. I just looked forward to being able to walk around. It was almost February finally and I had some hope we would survive until spring. So far no more holes, no food poisoning, and only six floating zombies. One had been scary because it had come in the dark. I heard it moaning outside the port window. I still shivered thinking about it but three minutes later I heard a shot and it was gone.

I got up around six pm, took my two minute shower, grateful it rained two days ago, and washed up what I could. The rain hadn’t been heavy but enough to give us some short showers because we all stank except for Grace who used her drinking rations to bathe. I changed my underwear. Everything else smelled musty but not that stinky so I put yesterday’s clothes on. The boat had a washer and dryer in the downstairs galley. Because we had limited power, laundry was only done when there were no clothes left that hadn’t been worn several times. Now that it was cold, we wasted some battery power running the dryer for 30 minutes. We never washed sheets, towels, or blankets, just kept using it no matter how rank. A blanket that Brie threw up on got tossed overboard. When I got my period I was careful not to soil my clothes. During supply runs I searched health food stores for diva cups, but never found them. I stuck to tampons because they were easy to flush. One great thing about this boat was it has a large capacity waste holding tank. We can piss and shit for six month without dumping it. 

I looked forward to moving to a house. Sunlight in the summer and a fireplace in the winter could be our dryer.

I had dinner with the others. One of the freeze-dried dinners from a Costking emergency bucket that tasted like cardboard. Tanya never mentioned my outburst again. Mike had been right. Henry got the engine running later that day.

Tanya sat in her usual spot. I think she wanted to live on this boat forever.

At five minutes to ten, everyone had left the table. I grabbed a cup of strong hot black coffee, a lantern and went to bridge. The air was frigid and I was dressed for it with five layers. Eric was waiting for me. All the lanterns were lit and the kerosene heater was going. In eight hours, Hannah would relieve me. I hated night shifts. Only ten of us could do it, which meant I had to do one every two weeks. Night shifts were the worst. It was hard to read in the lantern light and most of the time people including me had fallen asleep. I had a DVD player and book, but I was supposed to be on watch and occasionally walk around.

There was nothing to keep an eye out for. All I saw in every direction was fucking darkness. No lights from shore, not glowing zombies, nothing but blackness and some light from the stars when it wasn’t overcast. It wasn’t tonight. It was clear and freezing cold.

Eric had a book with him. His shift was from 2-10 so he had a few hours of daylight to read in. Tanya never bothered him for his behavior like she did with me. As long as he did his work and he wasn’t a problem. Quiet and brooding was fine. Acting out like Dena or I guess me wasn’t.

“Hey Eric, how are you doing?”

“Fine.”

“No trouble?”

“Nothing.” He put on his coat and hat. I had one similar that Maddie knitted. We all did. Maddie
had spent a lot of her off time knitting things.

“Have a good night.”

He didn’t respond, instead left the bridge, allowing one last frozen blast of air inside. I had a strong suspicion if Eric ever got the chance to leave us, he would. He’s only here because he knows survival in numbers.

Since this was a luxury yacht, the bridge was elaborate with plush couches, leather seats and a captain’s chair. I sat in that with a blanket around me. It had been one that Maddie had knitted.

I had a book with thankfully good eyes. Besides Keith, only Eric and Hannah wore glasses. Rachel did Eric’s prescription a month before we fled Costking and she made four pairs for him. Hannah said she had two extras. I don’t know what to do about Keith. Since I didn’t think we could get him new glasses. We could steal them out of stores or off the dead but it might never be the prescription he needed. 

I put the book under one of the lanterns and began reading. It was a light hearted mystery, something easy to read without thinking. I knew I couldn’t do this for eight hours. Read one page, look around at the dark, then read another. Night shifts needed two people. I don’t know how Grace did them at Costking. I guess she liked shooting zombies. Now there wasn’t that much more to kill. In the dark I wouldn’t be able to see the floaters. There were two battery operated torch lamps on the outside deck but I could barely hit anything even in broad daylight, let alone the choppy frozen dark ocean. I’m pretty sure droves of floating zombies came in the night that no one noticed. I only noticed the one because it was moaning outside the port window.

I got tired of reading after about two hours. I decided to take a walk around the deck. When I had watch in the fall, it hadn’t been that bad because you didn’t have to sit on the bridge, you could hang out in the cold crisp night air.

Coming out of the warmer room, the outside seemed icy. A cold wind bit into my face. I wrapped the scarf around my mouth and walked the boat. It was pitch black but the weather was clear and every single star illuminated the sky. Even though I had seen these clear nights multiple times, like the whales they still amazed me. This was where you felt both the loneliness among millions of stars but you also felt like you weren’t alone.

The deck had some lounge chairs. I laid on one and watched the stars, hoping time would go by and it would be dawn. Around 5am Jim bought me coffee. He was a morning person and hated overnights more than I did.

Sometimes I wondered why we had watch on the bridge at night. In the pitch black you can’t see a damn thing. We could hear the floaters and I was sure no other idiots were on boats in the middle of winter. It was force of habit. We kept watch at Costking, but we had flood lights on the roof so Grace could shoot.

After a significant time stargazing, I took a stroll around the deck. Looking out and seeing utter blackness wasn’t scary. Mark and I had gone on a cruise to Nova Scotia and there was a time where you looked out and saw nothing. It was spooky the first time but then you get used to it. Besides we were on a boat with lights, dancing, midnight cocktails, working bathrooms, and a radio if we needed help. Here we had nothing. Our rescue flares wouldn’t bring anything, no rescues, no help, no coast guard. We spoke to other survivors on the ham radio but Tanya and Jim were insistent: No one was to know about the boat. As far as anyone knew we were hunkered down in a house like everyone else. Jim didn’t even tell his father.

I aimed my flashlight forward. It brightened the darkness, like a knife but nothing could be seen after the light faded. We were anchored a good mile from shore which we could see during the day. At night there was nothing but emptiness.

I walked down the front of the ship where we stowed supplies. The solar panels were here and that gave us some electricity. Dave set it up so it went into an array that went into keeping the ship’s battery charged. We originally had two solar panels but one was on the other truck that got wreaked. At least the array was on the truck that didn’t crash. 

I walked around the supplies stored in the front. The two bikes we haven’t needed to use were tied down and covered with a tarp. Tanks of fuel were next to them.

The cold entered my bones despite the warm winter men’s jacket. I knew I should go back to the bridge and warm up, but I didn’t.

I moved closer to the front of the ship. There was a smaller deck leading out that goes over the ocean. You could stand and feel the wind in every part of your body. Nice in the summer, but not so much in the winter. Mike discouraged using it except to hunt floaters and to fish and only during the day. It was slippery and would ice over. He said that no one should go out there in the dark and preferably not in the light either.

I didn’t care. I was bored and tired. Probably not a good idea to do something dangerous. I still didn’t care.

Mike put heavy boxes in front of it. He didn’t care about the adults who should know better, but he wanted to make sure the kids couldn’t go on. Dena might out of spite. Brie and Simon probably wouldn’t. Both of them hated to be away from other people and never went off alone.

I didn’t move the boxes, instead climbed over them. Even in the dark it wasn’t hard so I don’t know how Mike was going to stop anyone. I shone the light on the ground to find the two steps up. I climbed them. Not slippery. The wood plank was a narrow but I walked slowly, keeping one hand on the railing, one on the flashlight that I aimed at the floor. I debated going back and doing it at first light. I still kept moving forward as I thought about it. One foot in front of the other like an awkward ballet.

I got to the edge and leaned against the railing. I flashed the light down to the water. It was dark but not as choppy as expected.

I didn’t know what the state of global warming was. Did the demise of the human race fix the problems? The last two summers had been brutal. The winters hadn’t been kind either. Would it be better for us? With billions of people dead, we won’t see a large population for a long time. Jim wanted us to only use renewable energy. He said we had a second chance and we needed to do things right. Less waste and more reliance on solar and wind. Jim was a beautiful optimist. He wants to see this new world as beautiful and a chance to start again.

I still wanted it back. I wanted to close my ey
es and wake up next to Mark with this all a bad dream.

I sat on the deck, Indian style. It was a little uncomfortable because the floor was small and my ass was big.

I laughed.

I often thought I was going crazy, that the end of the world would drive me mad. But it wasn’t really the end of the world, just the one I lived in.

Sitting was uncomfortable so I dangled my legs down towards the water. I was high enough not to get wet but low enough occasionally felt drops of water hit my boots.

“Annemarie?”

If I was standing, I would have slipped, but I didn’t. I saw a dim light. 

“Who’s there?”

“It’s Keith,” a voice in the darkness. “I thought maybe you fell.”

“No—“ I was a little angry to have my lament interrupted. “I’m enjoying the view.”

Keith didn’t make a sound

Then I heard the moan.

I didn’t move. It sounded close.

“Annemarie— maybe you should come in.”

“Quiet,” I said, sharply.              

I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination until it moaned again. This time it didn’t scare me. It sounded sad like a lost sailor looking for home.

“Should I get Grace?” Keith finally said in a timid voice.

I didn’t respond. I flashed my light into the water but I couldn’t find it. Did it come because it smelled me?

“Annemarie?”

I didn’t respond. I put my hands in front of me to push myself up.

I lost my balance. My right foot slid off the deck. I thought I could stop my fall by grabbing the railing but it was slippery, I lost my grip. I slid off the floor and into the icy waters, screaming all the way down.

The fall was terrifying, the feeling of being
on out of control high dive. My body plunged into icy waters to a cold beyond anything I ever felt. My feet didn’t hit bottom but I was smart enough to use my hands to stop my acceleration. All the air left my lungs and I couldn’t breathe which I didn’t realize was a good thing because I would have breathed in ice water. I thought I heard my name being yelled but I was too much in shock. I heard bells ringing everywhere. I tried to stay afloat. Kicking to keep my head above water. I don’t know why I felt so tired.

Something fell into the water next to me-- A floating white circle. My hands felt numb from the cold, I grabbed on but couldn’t get a grip.

I couldn’t feel anything in my lower extremities and then I heard moaning. I knew that I was going to die. I couldn’t see anything. The zombie had all the advantages.

I felt a large splash next to me.

Part of me wanted to get out of this cold water away from the zombie. I felt its cold fingers around me. This was it.  The zombie was going to bite me and if I was lucky rip me apart. If it didn’t, I would become one of them. I would become a floater that Grace would shoot through the head. For some reason that felt calm and serene. I almost wanted to fall into the cold darkness and let the zombie take me.

The thing’s hands were around me. There was a lot of thrashing and screaming all around, but no bite came. I heard a man scream in agony. I saw lights and then a single shot. I couldn’t scream. The hand holding me pulled me to the life preserver and tried to put it around my waist, but it wasn’t made for a fat person, nothing was made for a fat person. Instead the other person put my hands around the ring and held me. I felt myself being pulled through the water the icy waves hitting my face. Then I felt arms, arms pulling me to the swim deck. I was out of the water, coughing, now with cold air hitting me. I was pulled into a standing position, my coat and outer garments were removed and something warmer placed around me.