The Boat (26 page)

She screamed for a nightmarish long time and then Dave appeared on the jet ski, still trailing the rowboat behind him. “Maggie!” he said and drew up even with her. He grabbed her hand and hauled her up behind him. “You’re okay? Not bit?”

She shook her head no. She was so tired. She’d never been so tired. She leaned against Dave’s back. His voice came to her through his ribcage as much as through the air. “Steve and Carl?” he asked her and she shook her head no, unable to speak but trusting that he would feel the movement, would understand that they were gone. “I didn’t find anyone in the water,” he said. “Only you.”

She nodded in acknowledgment. He cranked the throttle and turned the jet ski away from
Flyboy
. She saw over his shoulder to ThreeBees sitting peacefully in the water. Just like before, she was home free. She’d never even tried to find Joe, to help him if she could. She knew he would have come for her. But now she could fix it; she could fix it as best she could.

“You have to take me back.” Her voice rasped painfully and she swallowed, tasting salt. It was either seawater or her blood or both. She didn’t care. She tried to increase her volume. “Dave. Take me back!”

“You got it, Maggie, we’re on our way,” he said, shouting over the engine whine.

She shook her head again. “No.” She sat up and thumped his back. “Not there, not ThreeBees!”

He throttled down and turned to her. He took in her battered face, her one eye beginning to blacken, her split lip. The long cut on her cheekbone.

“Back to where, then?” he asked, confused.

“Back to
Flyboy
. I’m going aboard.”

Chapter Fifteen

He’d fought her on it, of course he had, but not as much as she would have thought. She’d never felt so determined; had never known that it was
this
–this determination–that caused others to stand back and let you do what you wanted to do.

She stood on the back ledge of
Flyboy
where they’d all been less than two hours prior and waved Dave away to continue his search for survivors in the water. Now it was just her. But she wasn’t here to clear the boat, she was only here to find Steve, if she could.

She looked at the horizon. The sky was just beginning to lighten and the deep, inverted bowl was flattening to a uniform gray. She regretted that the last sunrise she expected she might ever see was not going to be a pretty one. Then she shrugged and turned away from that, too.

The small deck was clear, and she ascended the starboard side stairs to the next deck and paused, scanning. This deck was clear, too, just two bodies lying near the far rail–she knew if she looked she’d probably find gunshot wounds to the heads. The sliding glass doors that led into the main salon were closed but a large spider-webbed crack ran through one from the bottom to the top. One hard push and the whole thing would crack apart. Listening carefully, she heard distant moaning. The belly of the boat must be filled with sinkers by now. If they blundered onto the stairs, then they might come up–but sinkers were too stupid to actively seek them out.

The first time they’d come aboard, they were completely unprepared; she saw that now. They’d been like fish in a barrel, especially the guys who’d gone to the lower decks. There were no survivors on the boat by the time they’d gotten here, John Smith had made sure of that. Even a small army might not have stood a chance against a boat of sixty or so sinkers, not without foreknowledge.

But now she knew what to look for, what to expect. She would go directly to the bridge and find Steve. If he was…if he was gone, dead…then she’d come right back down and take one of the jet skis still tethered to the back of
Flyboy
and get back to ThreeBees. At the thought of driving away from the sinker-filled
Flyboy
, a shift of unease tried to work its way into her consciousness but she stifled it. Whatever problem her brain had seen, she’d examine it later, not right now.

She ascended the next set of stairs, thankful she could get to the bridge without going inside the boat. It would be way too claustrophobic in there, too dark. Too many nooks and crannies where a sinker might be…what? Resting? Did they rest? She shook her head to clear it. This was the deck below the bridge deck and she was hoping to see Steve on this one with–at worst–a gunshot to the leg, making his way down to safety, resting…waiting for her?

“Steve,” she said, spurred on by a sudden flood of anticipation, and peeked over the edge.

Carl swiped at her head, missing by mere millimeters. She could feel his fingertips brush across the top of her head as she gasped and nearly fell backwards down the stairs. She braced herself and looked up in time to see Carl disappear from view. The chain still holding him to the rail clanked as he stepped out of sight.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. She hadn’t considered that Carl might still be there, but of course he was. After all, where would he have gone?

She thought and then went back to the lower deck, scanning the salon doors for movement from inside. She saw none and crossed to the deck box, avoiding the half-sinker that Carl had knifed the first time they’d come through. She lifted the lid and rifled through pillows, a throw, a plastic margarita pitcher, a line of cotton rope… “Come on, come on, there must be
something
,” she said, her words an impatient sigh. Then she heard a metallic clank. She pushed aside a canvas with a flamboyantly ugly sunrise painted on it and then, at the very bottom of the box, she found a horseshoe set. The original owners of
Flyboy
must have used it when they went ashore for beach picnics or maybe even lawn parties. Next to it was a badminton net and an old shuttlecock with tattered tail feathers.

Maggie pulled out the two iron posts that in better days would have been hammered into the sand at the beach to catch the flying horseshoes. The ends of each were rusty and sharply pointed. She hefted them. Heavy. She had nowhere to put the extra post so she held one in each hand and, avoiding the half corpse again, went back to the stairs.

She watched and listened. Nothing. Then she heard a faint clink: the chain. She ascended halfway up the stairs. “Carl?” she said, her voice low. There was an immediate, frantic clanking and Carl appeared near the top of the stairs, the chain pulled tight behind him. He reached for her, straining, but he could go no further. His arms swung in agitation and then Maggie heard a sound like wind through fall-dead leaves. Carl, trying to talk.

His throat had been eaten away and part of his chest. The links were buried in the blackened meat of his neck and Maggie wondered briefly how much longer he would be held before the chain just cut right through his spine.

He had the advantage of the higher ground and she wondered how she was going to get the spike in his eye before he was able to grab her. He had a much longer reach than she did. She wished she had a gun. She wished she’d taken Steve up on the lessons he’d offered her in firing one.

Well, too late now, she told herself. Figure something out.

Then she had a thought.

She went back down the stairs again and Carl disappeared. Both times, she’d said something as she came up. Maybe if she kept quiet, he would forget she was here. They forgot things in the blink of an eye.

She crept back up, breath held, iron posts clutched in either hand, staying silent. She peered over the edge, tensed and ready for anything. Carl was on the other side of the deck, the chain pulled taut behind him. A large seagull stood on the railing just out of his reach. As Maggie watched, Carl lunged forward and the bird lifted itself up on large wings as its head darted forward. It flapped a few feet backward, still on the rail, but now something dangled from its mouth–Carl’s eye. The seagull snapped its head up, opening its beak and the eyeball flipped into its mouth and down its throat. Still Carl fought and struggled toward the bird.

It tilted its head at Carl, watching his waving arms, seeming to gauge them, and it hopped a foot closer.
Probably going in for the other eye
, Maggie thought. Her stomach twisted with grief, outrage, anger and even a dark variety of humor.

She’d had enough. She slid the few feet to the stairs that would take her to the bridge. She’d worry about getting back down when (if) the time came. She lightly ascended to the bridge, slipping distractedly on blood that had puddled on one riser.

The door was pushed in giving onto the dark bridge. There was no one there. On the far side, the door to the observation deck was closed. She went to that door and peeked out, seeing nothing. She opened the door.

“Steve?” she said, voice barely above a whisper. From where she stood, she could see Carl below, still struggling to grab the seagull. His chain clinked and clanked fretfully as the bird flapped and danced just out of his reach.

“Steve?” She pushed the rest of the way out onto the deck, but it was empty. There was a pool of blood near the far rail where she’d gone over. It was just beginning to dry at the edges; then she remembered slipping on the stairs coming up. She made her way back through the bridge, this time actively looking for a blood trail and she found it. Someone had come through here, bleeding pretty heavily. It continued down the stairs.

As she was descending past Carl, she paused, wishing she had a way to relieve him of his torment. The seagull was eating him piece by piece. She shuddered as it nipped in for a go at one of Carl’s lips, pulling it out like a fat, elastic worm.

Sorry, Carl, I’m so sorry
, she thought and continued down.

The blood trail led into the lounge on the next deck. She hurried through, trying to see everything at once, conscious of being silent. The rising sun was beginning to light the inside of
Flyboy
but it only served to make the space scarier. In the half-light, distracted by the glittering mirrors and chandeliers, everything seemed animated, moving eerily.

The trail took her through the lounge, past a dining room that had been stripped of its finery, and then into a kitchen.

Steve sat on a stool, slumped over the large butcher-block that dominated the middle of the kitchen. He wasn’t moving. Half his face–the half she could see–was covered in blood from a large knot on his forehead. That must be where all the blood had come from. Had he been shot in the head?

She sucked in a breath and then checked herself and went to him, lowering the horseshoe posts to the counter as she went by. She reached out a shaking hand and placed it on the exposed nape of his neck. He was warm. Thank god.

She shook his shoulder and put her mouth to his ear. “Steve,” she said but he didn’t move. She slid her hand around to the side of his neck and felt for his pulse…nothing. Her stomach sank. She palpated his neck, moving her fingers slightly and was so surprised by the strong pulse under her fingers that she nearly jumped back.

A flood of relief weakened her knees and she gripped his shoulder harder than she’d intended.

He came to groggy life, striking out and she caught his arm, pressing herself against him, her ear to his mouth again. “It’s me, Steve, it’s Maggie. It’s okay. I’ve come for you.”

“Maggie?” He blinked and shook his head. Then he tilted backward almost toppling from the stool. She righted him, holding him steady.

“You have to be very quiet, okay? Tell me what happened to your head. Were you shot?”

He blinked again, a slow, owly blink. He shook his head and then nodded. “Sorry, I…I did get…after you…god, Maggie, I’m so sorry, are you okay? I didn’t…I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay, I’m okay, see? You saved me.” She smiled, her lip stinging. “Where did John Smith go? Did he shoot you?”

“Yes, but it’s not…it isn’t that bad, see here?” He lifted his shirt to reveal a wound at his ribs–the bullet must have only grazed him–then he tilted again, almost falling. “But it turned me…spun me around and I fell…hit my head pretty good.” His fingers strayed to the sticky wound on his forehead and she pulled them gently away. “I don’t know where he went. I don’t care. My head hurts.”

“Yes, you hit it pretty hard. Can you drink this?” She pulled a box of apple juice from the refrigerator, put it to his lips and squeezed a few swallows into his mouth. The sugar would help to revive him.

Viciously, she hoped that John Smith had turned. She hoped that scratch on his neck meant that being one of the animated dead was his final stop in life. He deserved it, probably more than anyone else on
Flyboy
, probably more than most anyone left in the world.

“Can you stand, Steve? I want to get you out of here. Can you walk?”

He nodded and pushed himself up, groaning. Maggie froze, listening. Far below, the water lapped against the hull but that was all–no answering moans from the sinkers. But they were so vulnerable. “Hang on; sit back down,” she said and he did so with a groan.

She rummaged in a cabinet and pulled forth a white linen tablecloth. She tore one edge and ripped down, making one long strip. She held onto the strip and dropped the bulk of the tablecloth. Then she fashioned it around her waist, tying it and slid the horseshoe poles into it, one on each hip like fat, stubby swords.

She turned back to Steve and lifted his arm over her shoulder and his weight settled on and against her. She took a deep breath.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

They made their way back through the dining room and salon. The dove gray light coming in through the windows made the large room ghostly, as though it were stuck in time, its true purpose forgotten. Even the silence was eerie and Maggie almost felt she could hear the laughter and music of parties from days so long past it seemed they’d never come round again. They were the sounds of deepening despair buried in a place held in gloom, forever more.

Maggie shivered and hurried Steve through. He carried more and more of himself, and his weight on her lessened. He was already doing better. Because Maggie had come back for him.

They got to the glass doors leading out just as lightning ripped through the morning sky. A sinker stood just outside the door and Maggie reared back, blinded and gasping, nearly tumbling Steve to his knees. Thunder clapped right over them and Maggie cried out, throwing her hands over her ears. She looked wildly back to the door. There was no sinker, just the crack that went bottom to top, fanning out like shoulders, like raised arms. She blew out a pent up breath of relief.