The Boat (13 page)

“And Maggie, his main squeeze. What did you think of her?”

This time John raised his brows and his gaze went to ThreeBees, although it was too dark to see anything. “They’re a thing, huh? Got something going on?”

“Oh yes, they certainly do,” Adam said and crossed his arms over his chest, in unconscious imitation of John. “But listen, we haven’t talked about you at all. How did you end up in that life raft? Where did you come from, before?”

Everyone knew ‘before’ meant before the sickness, before the dead had started to come back. Before the world had turned upside down.

John glanced at Adam and away. Heavy sorrow flowed over his features. “Boat I was in sank…before that, well…I guess my story’s pretty much the same as everyone else’s. I lost everything.” He turned back to Adam and there was a kind commiseration in his gaze, more acknowledgement than pity. “I guess you did, too.”

Adam lowered his head with a sigh. “Yes, my parents. I talked to them the night before everything and my dad was already sick. I’m sure my mom got it, too.” His voice was thick with pain but there was something theatrical in it, something that didn’t quite ring true.

John nodded. “Did you try and get her out, or did you just count it as a lost cause?”

Adam sat up, stung. “There was nothing I could have done.” His voice was bordering on strident.

John merely nodded again, calm as calm water. “Nope, nothing you could have done by then. What was done was done, wasn’t it? You had to make the hard choices.” He stared out over the water, thoughtful and sad.

Adam found himself nodding. “Yes. It…it was a difficult choice…but the right one. I know it was the right choice.”

“Course it was, because here you are. And look at everything you’ve done! Doesn’t sound like they’d have much of anything going on without you to lead them, isn’t that right?”

Adam nodded again. He stared at John’s profile, almost hypnotized by the wonderful, soothing flow of words. “Yes, that’s right. They couldn’t even figure out how to get
Flyboy
started.” Of course, there had only been a handful of people here at the time, and chances are that someone would have figured it out eventually. Most likely.

“These people must worship you,” John said and the admiration in his voice was unmistakable, now. “It takes a lot to step up in these circumstances. To be a man, be the hero. Most won’t do it.”

“No, they don’t worship me. They don’t need to! I’m here to serve, really, more than anything. I just want to help out.” False modesty ran from Adam in rivers of insincerity.

John smiled at him and Adam felt himself growing warm from the praise.

“What else you got going on over here? Who’re your best friends? Your right hand men? Anyone else as important as you I should know about?”

Adam missed the slight hitch in John’s tone, the wink of insincerity. He was too busy thinking how he was going to tell Steve what a truly lousy judge of character he was.

“Well, there’s Sami: Dr. Sami Rafiq. I keep him close. He’s useful. The rest of them,” Adam shrugged, “they’re okay, each good for something.”

“How about a lady friend? Got anyone in your bunk or in your sights?”

Maggie came immediately to Adam’s mind and he colored in embarrassment. “No, not really. No time,” he said, mumbling. He was glad for the dark. His mortification must be written all over his hot face.

But John
did
see the color in Adam’s cheeks and he noted it and then put it aside.

“Plenty of time for that later. After everything is settled,” John said and yawned.

Adam nodded, not really paying attention, still embroiled in his conflicting thoughts about Maggie. And Steve. The ominous tone of John Smith’s last statement passed by him entirely.

Chapter Eight

“We can’t keep this from Adam forever. Especially now, with both of them out there,” Maggie said to herself, watching the rowboat tethered behind ThreeBees. There was no movement on it but she could just make out the huddled forms of Singer and Jade…they must have fallen asleep leaning against each other after Jade swam out there last night.

It was very early, the sun just beginning its ascent and the colors in the sky were beautiful. Light blues and light pinks, deeper salmon gradually becoming a hot orange right where the sun was about to crest. It was a sunrise that bespoke of a good day, weather-wise.

Maggie checked her own internal barometer. How will her day be? Calm? Changeable? Stormy?

The rowboat rocked gently.
It must be nice
, she thought,
to have someone so close to you, so close by.
She missed being physical, hugging, cuddling. Just the comfort of an arm around her shoulders, a known arm, a comfortable weight. She missed having a man. She missed her husband.

Light as a butterfly, a hand tickled into hers and Maggie smiled, turning. Babygirl’s pale skin was washed sweetly in the pinkish orange glow of sunrise, but her eyes remained anxious.

“It’s okay, honey,” Maggie said and gave the girl’s hand a gentle squeeze. “Want to pull up a chair? Sit next to me?”

Babygirl looked at the scatter of deck chairs and then looked back at Maggie, shaking her head. She pointed to Maggie’s lap.

“You’re too big to sit on laps,” Maggie said, mock scolding, but dismayed at her internal reaction to Babygirl’s suggestion: reluctance with a dash of fear. Had she really become so emotionally stingy?

She relented and pulled Baby onto her lap and the girl settled sideways, leaning against Maggie’s chest, her head tucked under Maggie’s chin. She plugged her thumb into her mouth and sighed. Maggie held her loosely; she felt like a warm, felt-covered bag of bones under Maggie’s arms. But she wasn’t that heavy, actually. No, not heavy at all.

~ ~ ~

The whine of a jet ski roused her from a half doze. She looked out at the rowboat and then glanced at Babygirl. She was sound asleep. Maggie hesitated, her hand on the white-blond floss on the girl’s head. It was so soft, it barely made an impression on her hand. The word ‘precious’ slipped into her mind, unbidden, and she frowned. Then she stood, lifting Babygirl, and turned to place her on the cushioned deck bench.

The engine whine cut off and Carl scrambled up onto the back deck of ThreeBees. At the sight of his giant’s form, Maggie felt a shift of disappointment. She had been expecting to see Steve.

“Hi Maggie,” Carl whispered, glancing at the sleeping girl. Even his whisper was big–gruff and gravelly. “I’m here to spell you guys for a while.” He glanced from the gun near the deck chair to the rowboat. “Everything quiet out there?”

“Yes, quiet as the grave,” Maggie said and regretted her words instantly. There were very few quiet graves anymore.

But Carl merely nodded. “Gotcha.” He glanced again at Babygirl. “She need a…a blanket or anything?”

Maggie smiled to herself. Even this early, it was already close to eighty degrees; the girl would roast under a blanket. But everyone was solicitous toward Babygirl. Part of it, Maggie knew, was pretty standard…most everyone felt protective of a child this age. But there was more to it than that. There was a sad and certain feeling that children were rare, now. Each one was (
precious
) to be guarded with extra caution, extra vigilance.

“She’ll be okay. It’s warm enough out here,” Maggie said and smiled at Carl. “Want me to take a look at your leg?”

“No, that’s okay. It’s not even bleeding anymore.” He shook his head and his eyes were drawn back to Babygirl. “I can understand why she did it. Why she was so crazy at…at what happened. I don’t even blame her for shooting me.” He sighed and it sounded like a minor brushfire, filtered through his beard. “Mohammed was her actual family. Not many of us have that anymore, but for it to be a kid…someone you’re responsible for…well.” He shook his head again. “I’d’a shot somebody, too, I guess.”

“She shot the wrong guy, though,” Maggie said, surprised at the bitterness in her own voice.

“Yep, that’s the truth,” Carl said, still unperturbed. “I feel like that guy, that Adam, is going to have a lot to answer for once all this is…” He trailed off. Maggie knew why, it was the backlash. It was hard to get your mind wrapped around the fact that this was–most likely–a permanent state of affairs. No one was going to be held accountable for bad decisions.

Unless Carl meant he’d be judged in Heaven, in which case Maggie heartily disagreed. Heaven would soon be closed for lack of participation, in Maggie’s opinion. Not that she actually believed any of that stuff anymore, anyway.

She nodded her understanding. “How long are you staying?”

“I dunno. Till whenever I guess. Who watches next?”

“Brian. I’m glad you came because he’s pretty racked up. Between Denny and Mrs. Adams…well, let’s just say I think he can use some catching up on his sleep, you know?”

“You, too.”

“Me, too, what?” she said, honestly confused.

“You could use a rest. It’s been hard on you, too, hasn’t it?”

“Oh well, yes, of course, but not as much…I didn’t go on shore and Denny wasn’t…I mean, Brian and Denny were friends, they came together from Stockton State, so you can imagine that Brian would be more upset about everything.”

“But you’d been on this boat with him, with both of them–Denny and Mrs. Allen–for what? Two months? That’s enough time to develop a friendship, a bond. I know the guys on
Big Daddy
feel as close to me as my own brothers did; back before all this.”

Maggie stared at him, open-mouthed. The words he spoke seemed to have no connection to his brusque, biker’s exterior. He sounded like a therapist, not a pirate.

He smiled at her surprised expression.

“I was a psychologist, before everything. Well, technically, I guess I still am. I’ve let myself get a little carried away, I think, with the whole seafaring thing. Avoidance, a little, plus using fantasy to cope with a bleak reality, would be my diagnosis of myself.” He smiled again. “Want me to diagnose you?” His tone has a slight teasing quality, but underneath is warmth and strength. A safe place to fall into.

Maggie laughs and shakes her head. “No, thanks. I prefer to remain ignorant to my inner workings.”

“Ah…classic avoidance!” He smiled. “Something we all seem to be practicing to one degree or another.”

Maggie shook her head, still smiling, and bent to pick up Babygirl. “I’m going to lie down. Brian is in the salon, right through there, okay? Just give him a shake when you need a rest.”

Carl nodded and settled into the deck chair facing the rowboat.

At the entrance to the salon, Maggie hesitated and turned back.

“Carl?”

“Hmm?” Carl looked at her over his shoulder.

“Did you help Steve take John Smith to
Flyboy
?”

“No, why?”

“Nothing. I was just wondering if you’d had a chance to talk to him.”

“To John? No,” he said his features pulling down in concern. “Something about him bother you, Maggie?”

She frowned and opened her mouth to respond but was stopped by a splash and a scream.

Jade was coming back toward ThreeBees, her strokes frenzied and ungraceful, churning the water. She was screaming her brother’s name, her voice choked and breaking, her face a panicked white disc.

Behind her in the rowboat, Singer stood, swaying, staring dumbly after her. Then he stepped off the side.

And sank.

~ ~ ~

Jade shivered under the big towel Maggie had thrown around her. She sobbed, her face buried in her hands. She had not stopped sobbing since Carl had pulled her from the water. Maggie wondered absently if tears could ever be used up.

Carl sat across from Jade, patient as a mountain, waiting for the fury of her emotional storm to pass.

Maggie tied the rowboat up at the back of ThreeBees as the diesel engine rumbled to life beneath her feet. She had asked Randy to move them a few hundred yards away. He’d wanted to know in which direction, and Maggie had replied simply: any.

Any direction would do as long as it got them away from the presence that seemed to lurk beneath ThreeBees. Denny’s body down there had been bad, but the thought of Singer down there, too, staring up in silent despondency at the underside of ThreeBees…that gave her the creeps. It also saddened her in a way that the deaths of Denny and Mrs. Allen had not. They had died and
stayed
dead.

They were lucky.

She glanced back at Jade, scanning automatically for any sign of injury. Maggie had looked her over after Carl pulled her back on board, but Jade hadn’t been cooperative. She was too distraught to be cooperative.

But Maggie had to be sure, because there was no question now that Singer had been overcome by the sickness. He wouldn’t have slipped out of sight like that if his body had held any air. It meant that people on the boat weren’t automatically immune–at least not from direct contact.

Scary thought. Especially if it meant that Jade might now be a carrier.

Maggie’s eyes went to Babygirl, who sat next to Jade, her small hand making circles of comfort on Jade’s back. ThreeBees jolted, pulling forward, and that moment of disorientation seemed to color Maggie’s thoughts.

“Babybirl, come over here,” Maggie said, more harshly than she’d intended. Babygirl looked up in surprise then slipped from the bench and trotted obediently to Maggie.

Maggie took Babygirl’s face in her hands. “I think you should go take a nap, okay?”

Babygirl shook her head, not in defiance but in confusion. “But I just woked up!” she said, her little voice like that of a bird peeping.

“I know, honey, I know you did. Just go in there and look at the picture books, then, okay? But stay in our room. I’ll ask Bonnie to come sit with you. Keep you company. Will you do that for me, Baby?”

The little girl nodded and trotted toward the salon. She waved one hand to Jade on the way. “Bye, Jade, I hope you feel better.”

Jade never looked up.

~ ~ ~

Steve stood next to Maggie on the back deck of ThreeBees. They both looked at Jade, who’d fallen asleep on the deck bench right where Babygirl had slept that same morning. Carl had told Maggie that Jade wasn’t really asleep, not in the sense of the restorative state we are accustomed to. He said that she was in something called a fugue state, on the verge of catatonia, overwhelmed with guilt and sorrow, completely unable to cope. He said they’d have to watch her very closely.