by David Rogers
Trouble in Paradise
by David Rogers
Trouble in Paradise
Copyright © 2015 by David Rogers
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This is a work of original fiction. Some real locations and businesses have been used to set scenes, but all such trademarks are the respective property of their owners. All depicted characters are fictional and not intended to represent specific living persons.
Cover map data Copyright©2013 Google
Foreword
Zombies
Fun in the Sun
“Oh wow!”
Tiffany rolled her head toward the front of the yacht and cracked one eye open. Even through her sunglasses she found the glare of light beating down unpleasant. It had been pleasant laying on the . . . whatever the deck on the back of the pleasure boat was called . . . enjoying a semi-daze while she tanned. But Betsy’s exclamation seemed urgent. “What’s wrong? The cooler’s out of kiwi spritzers?”
Betsy shook her head. “Are you seeing this?”
“No.”
“Look.”
“At what?”
“That!”
Tiffany sighed and lifted herself enough to prop herself up on her elbows so she could look across the water in the direction her friend pointed. The yacht was anchored several miles off shore from Florida, beyond sight of land. That was on purpose; it was quiet out here, with nothing but wind and waves to disturb their planned day of peace; but usually at least one or two other boats were somewhere close enough to be more observable.
“What am I looking at?” Tiffany asked as she scanned the blue water. She saw two boats over in that direction. One that was close enough to be discernible as a boat; while the other, which she was pretty sure was a vessel, seemed to be headed south and merely passing through the area. It was already barely a boat shaped blob of color, at the limit of her eyesight.
“I was trying to take a nap guys.” Ann said from her towel on Tiffany’s right.
“So was I.” Tiffany said with a belabored tone.
“There!” Betsy said, stabbing at the air with her finger for emphasis. “Right there. Don’t you see that?”
Tiffany stifled her urge to scowl or snap at Betsy. Annoying and strident as the girl might be right now, her dad was still even richer than Tiffany’s. And her mom was good friends with at least three designers that Tiffany knew about. Being on Betsy’s bad side was moderately high on the list of things Tiffany was determined to make sure didn’t happen.
At least, not until Tiffany had used Betsy’s connections to get in good with the same New York crowd. Until then, Tiffany needed to play nice.
So she arched her back so her head went higher as she stared at the boat Betsy seemed to be indicating. The boat in question was an ordinary looking thirty or thirty-five foot affair, a middle manager’s mid-life crisis craft her dad called it. Big enough to feel useful, small enough to only seat maybe a couple handfuls of guests; but still a crappy little thing that only went for a few hundred thousand dollars.
She saw four people on it, on the back behind the little house looking deal where the driver steered from. Calling it a bridge was stupid when it was basically most of the ‘structure’ the boat offered for getting inside. Whatever it was called, the people aboard were moving around. They were making the boat rock heavily back and forth; far more than was explainable from wave action.
“Okay, what about them?”
“You don’t see anything strange about that?” Betsy asked.
“They’re dancing.” Tiffany shrugged, starting to lay back down.
“No they’re not!”
Tiffany looked over her shoulder again, and saw Betsy had picked up the pair of binoculars the trio of girls used to scope for cute guys anytime the yacht was near things worth looking at. “Betsy, they’re dancing.”
“Oh my God!” Betsy said after she put the binoculars to her eyes and pointed them at the other boat. Her voice was a scream, and the binoculars slipped from her fingers as she flinched violently like she’d been slapped. Tiffany sighed as the expensive viewing instrument clattered to the deck with a heavy thump; if they were broken the boat ‘captain’ was going to let her dad know, and Daddy would be annoyed at the ‘lack of respect for the value of things.’
“They’re killing each other.” Betsy blurted.
“What?” Ann asked, sitting upright and grabbing for her bikini top.
Tiffany squinted and looked at the other boat again. It was painted white and black, with a pair of big white outboard motors positioned at the back. She still couldn’t make out much of the figures on the boat, but she did see something wrong with the boat’s paint job. Red was visible, more obviously on the white than the black; but it didn’t look like paint to her. In fact, as she peered at the scene, she saw new splotches of red appearing on the side of the craft.
“What the . . .” she murmured, scrambling up off her towel.
“Ms. Wagner?” a male voice asked hesitantly.
Tiffany’s gaze left the other boat as her head came around to see one of the yacht’s deckhands standing in the doorway of the cabin. The younger one, the one that was her age; there was a second who was about the age of the captain. This one was working on the yacht for the money and experience, or so she remembered the captain saying. He was a nice enough guy, and reasonably cute; but his means were more than a few account placeholders beneath her notice. Anyone who had to think about what things cost generally was as far as she was concerned.
As all this flashed through Tiffany’s distracted mind – whatever was happening on the other boat, and the sudden appearance of the deckhand – she abruptly remembered she was topless. One of the reasons she’d talked Daddy into letting her and her friends use the yacht on the trip down to Miami Beach was so they could sunbathe properly without having to put up with tiresome problems like laws and voyeurs. Her eyes widened, and she grabbed for the towel she’d been laying on.
“Jesus, didn’t I say we weren’t to be disturbed?” she snapped as she hunched herself over so the towel – which she was still sitting on – would reach up enough so she could cover her exposed breasts.
The guy turned to face toward the wall next to him; obviously trying to make it clear he wasn’t looking at the girls. “Sorry, but the captain sent me to ask you to come up to the bridge.”
“Fine, fine.” Tiffany said as she got the towel spread enough to shield herself decently. “I’ll be up in a minute.”
“He did that on purpose.” Ann said, barely even waiting for the deckhand to vanish from view before she spoke. “He’s been staring ever since we came aboard.”
“He’s a guy.” Tiffany shrugged as she picked up her swimsuit top. She started arranging and tying herself back into it. “I’d worry if he wasn’t looking.”
“Good point. Gay guys are always the worst.” Ann said with a grin. “Cute as hell and completely off limits. Such a shame. Drives me crazy.”
“Tell the captain to get on the radio and call for someone to come out and deal with that over there.” Betsy said as Tiffany got her bikini knotted once more. “The Coast Guard or cops or someone.”
“They’re just having fun.” Tiffany said.
“You can be so boring sometimes.” Ann complained to Betsy.
“Fucking . . . look then.” Betsy insisted, leaning down and scooping the binoculars off the
deck so she could waggle them at Tiffany. “Look for yourself.”
“Do they still work?” Tiffany asked, standing up. The yacht’s motion was gentle, but enough to make her cautious. It definitely wasn’t like being on land. But she was semi-used to it after two days. They weren’t going anywhere in the yacht, but since there was plenty of room and supplies, there wasn’t any reason to put it into dock at night either.
Besides, the view out on the water once the sun went down was even better than during the day; Miami and Miami Beach lit up like beacons as the night clubs and hotels shifted into afterhours mode. The captain usually swung closer in so the girls could enjoy the view.
Betsy put them to her face and swiveled around toward the other boat. Tiffany made it over to her just in time to catch the binoculars when the other girl dropped them a second time.
“Betsy!” Tiffany said. Her building annoyance – resolution to butter Betsy up or not – was threatening to become evident. But she managed to choke most of it off when she saw how pale her friend was beneath her healthy summer tan.
“S-s-sorry.”
Tiffany turned toward the boat and lifted the binoculars. It took her a few moments to adjust them to fit her, and several seconds further to locate the boat. When she fiddled with the focus and made the craft leap into clear view, she almost dropped the binoculars as her jaw fell open and she felt most of the muscles in her body go weak with shock.
“Jeez, you too Tiff?” Ann asked in amusement.
Saying nothing, Tiffany just stared at the scene on the other vessel. It was five people, not four; but one of them was face down in a puddle of what just had to be blood. Nothing else looked that red or that stark when someone was positioned motionless in it.
There were four others; two guys and two girls. All of them were wearing swimsuits. She wasn’t positive, but it looked to her like one each of the men and women were attacking the other two. Everyone was covered in blood, and the decking beneath their feet was slick with it. The two ‘defenders’ seemed to be properly alarmed at the circumstances they found themselves in – she could see their mouths opened in screams and yells that didn’t carry across the water to where she stood – but their two attackers were surprisingly calm.
The defenders were losing. Tiffany knew nothing about anything physical, she didn’t even watch action movies, but she could tell which way things were going over there. The screaming people bore obvious wounds on their arms and torsos, and as she watched the woman slipped and went down with the man attacking her following her down on top. Tiffany swung the binoculars down slightly to see what happened, and blinked when she saw the man lean in close and bite her on the arm.
“Jesus!” she blurted, dropping the binoculars. They hit the deck for a second time, just missing her bare feet, but she ignored that. She found herself grabbing for the nearest chair, which fortunately was only a foot behind her, as she felt her knees buckling. Tiffany collapsed into it just in time, and sat staring across the water at the other boat in shock. Without the binoculars she couldn’t make any real details out, but with the perspective lent by her close-up look she could tell the last defender was just going down too.
“What’s with you two?” Ann said as she stood up and fluffed her hair back behind her shoulders.
“I . . . I . . . I need to see the captain.” Tiffany said weakly. She had no idea what was going on over at the other boat, or why; but she knew the captain could work the yacht’s radios. Betsy was right; someone needed to be told what was happening. To come . . . she didn’t know what, but someone needed to know about it.
“Ms. Wagner?” the deckhand asked from behind her.
“I’m coming.” Tiffany said, too blown away to even be annoyed that he had reappeared to hover and nag. But when she tried to push herself up out of the chair she found she couldn’t get her body to fully cooperate. She tried twice, nearly falling the second time, before she gave up and looked at the guy. “Can . . . can you . . . help me?”
“Uh, sure.” he said quickly, coming over and offering her his arm. Tiffany grasped his forearm with her hands and managed to pull herself to a standing position with his help. She almost fell as the boat’s gentle rocking assaulted her faltering ability to balance herself. The deckhand snaked an arm around her waist quickly, closing his fingers on her hip and pulling her against him to steady her.
Tiffany was suddenly very aware of her barely-there bikini. The deckhand wasn’t wearing much more – just a simple t-shirt and cargo shorts – but she found herself abruptly much more up close than she typically allowed anyone but her boyfriends to get when she was this scantily clad. However, she stopped herself from pulling away just in time. She was convinced the quivering feeling in her knees and thighs meant she’d just end up on the deck.
“Are you okay?” the deckhand asked uncertainly. Tiffany didn’t trust her voice much more than her traitor legs, so she merely shrugged. The guy blinked at her, then shifted his weight and her with him. “Okay, this way then.”
Tiffany let him guide her through the rear of the yacht’s cabin – a large sitting room with plenty of comfy sofas and chairs complimented by an extensive wet bar – and down the central passage past the kitchen and storage rooms to the stairs. They took a bit of doing to ascend, but between his help and her claw-fingered grip on the bannister, she managed to navigate them without making a complete fool of herself.
On the yacht’s upper level, the two of them went forward to the base of the bridge ladder. As she steadied herself against the wall, the deckhand raised his voice. “Captain? Captain? I’ve got Ms. Wagner down here.”
“Well come on up.” a booming voice called back.
Tiffany took one look at the ladder and shook her head quickly when the deckhand glanced at her. “Come down here.” she said, wincing internally when she heard the quaver in her tone. She hated feeling like this, but her mind kept replaying the splash and gush of blood, the silent screams and struggles, of the people on the other boat. It was throwing her off her game, and she couldn’t find a way to clear her head of the distracting horror.
“What’s that?”
“Come down here.” Tiffany said louder.
“She wants you to come down sir.” the deckhand added helpfully.
“What in the hell—” the captain swore before cutting himself off. A few moments later a lean and tanned older man wearing a smartly turned out civilian naval uniform appeared at the top of the ladder.
“Are you feeling alright ma’am?” the captain asked.
“No.” Tiffany said, shaking her head. “The boat over there . . .” she said, pointing vaguely in the direction she meant, “. . . get on the radio and get someone out here to deal with them.”
“Deal with them?” the captain said, his tone patiently curious.
“They’re . . . I don’t know.” Tiffany said. “Attacking each other. Something. There’s a lot of blood.”
A shadow of discontent crossed the man’s face, recognition and acknowledgement and . . . fear. Tiffany blinked at that realization while the captain finished digesting what she’d told him. He turned and looked across the water from the elevated position the bridge gave him, in the direction of the other boat, then stepped back from the edge out of view. She opened her mouth to call him back, but a moment later he returned to view with a pair of binoculars in his hands.
“The reason I called for you ma’am, was because of the news we’re getting from Miami and the rest of the country.” he said as he set the binoculars to his eyes. His binoculars were quite large, much larger than the set Tiffany and her friends had been fooling around with while they sunbathed and drank. The captain also handled them with rapid skill that escaped the girls; he had them centered and apparently focused in almost no time at all. She saw his mouth tighten into an almost scowl.
“And I guess maybe they’re not kidding.”
“Who’s not kidding?” Tiffany asked. “What news?”
The captain lower
ed the binoculars. “It sounded like just some sort of riot or civil disorder problem at first; but then the same story started coming in from other places too. And then the CDC released a medical alert about some sort of fuc—uh, some kind of disease or something that they say has symptoms that match up with the problems in the cities.”
Tiffany was feeling stronger now. She still felt chilled, and her control over her body was definitely tentative; but at least she didn’t feel her knees wobbling internally anymore. Pushing herself fully upright and on balance, she shrugged out of the deckhand’s grasp with a bit of her normal annoyed superiority. “Hello? You’re not explaining anything.”
The man above looked down at her. “Aren’t you listening?”
“I’m listening, but you’re not making sense.” she answered snappishly.
“It’s a plague. Some kind of plague. It’s making people turn violent.”
Tiffany frowned at him. Her automatic impulse was to object, but the images she’d seen on the other boat were too fresh. The assaults, the blood, the . . . She shook her head like something was buzzing around her. “Okay, so there’s a plague. What’s that mean?”
“Uh, something’s really wrong over there.” Ann’s voice said from the passage behind Tiffany. The girl turned and saw her friend approaching, with Betsy close behind.
“That other boat is starting to sink.” Betsy said worriedly.
“It is?” the captain asked.
Ann and Betsy moved out of the hallway so they could look up at the captain standing on the bridge. “It’s leaning way over in the water now.” Ann explained. “I don’t know; isn’t that what sinking looks like?”
The captain looked over the top of the yacht’s structure for a moment, then put the binoculars back to his eyes. He was muttering something that sounded to Tiffany an awful lot like “How in the hell did they manage that?”, but she wasn’t sure.
Betsy frowned at Tiffany’s questioning look. “What’s going on? It looks . . .”