by Gary Weston
Oceans Of Death
Short Story
Gary Weston
Copyright 2013 Gary Weston
Oceans of Death, Sick, Tin Man, Eyes and the full length Death Flight, in one great audiobook “a little bit creepy” narrated by the author from distribly.com
https://www.distribly.com/product/1306?aid=8786
Other audiobooks by this author on distribly.com
The Amazing Abbey Jones
One Man's Dream
All mixed up Complete Series
Last Flight for Craggy
The Fix it Lady, Ghosts and Other family and Fix A Broken Life (one audiobook)
Oceans of Death
They said they had no biological weapons. They lied. Their enemies also said they had no biological weapons. Guess what? They also lied. A few of us survived. We are the unlucky ones. At least the ones on land died relatively quickly, but I can only imagine the pain they suffered.
One of the viruses was airborne, spread from the battle zone to the cities, hundreds of miles away. The other by human contact, highly contagious and deadly. There was also a time delay of three to four days before the sickness manifested itself,. Enough for it to travel around the world. Then, it was everyone against everyone else with the nuclear weapons.
* * *
I wrote that on the front of this journal. I don't know why, but I read it every time before I write in it. I don't know why I keep this journal, which I started immediately after the war. After all, we'll all die so there will be nobody left alive to read it. The survivors of the war to end all wars were the ones at sea at the time. I was on this yacht when it happened. It isn't my yacht, you understand. Not at first,anyway.
I had the best job in the world. I got all the pleasure of yachting and actually got paid to sail them. Just the smaller ones, you understand, worth a million or two. Ones not requiring a full crew to sail. I deliver them from here to there, for the real owners. It was happening more these days. A rich man or woman would fancy having a yacht, buy it on line maybe, and people like me would deliver them. Which was exactly how I came to be at sea when the very quick war happened.
I was on my way from Cairns, Australia, to San Francisco, California, USA. I was listening to the madness on the radio, having my lunch and a beer, hearing how the tensions were reaching a tipping point. It doesn't matter who it was who started it. In the end, it was everyone. East, West, North or South. All as bad as one another. I remember thinking at the time, how damn lucky I was, to be nowhere near the action.
Believe me. I don't think that now. I was about a week away from any land, and I realised, I couldn't go anywhere. One by one, every country was involved, and if I wanted to die, I could take my pick of any country in the world to either catch the viruses or be fried by the radiation. I had no choice, but to stay put. I developed a ritual. Awake about eight in the morning. Breakfast and radio. Do chores. Lunch and radio. Do some fishing, listening to the radio. One by one, the stations went off air.
A few radio announcers bravely kept up their own rituals, letting me know how dire things were getting, until they either lost power or gave up, to spend what little time they had with their families. One even shot himself as I listened. I don't blame him for that. I'd probably have done the same in his position. I do blame him for involving me in it, though.
I was feeling miserable enough already without that happening. Eventually, all I got was static. It took nine days to reach that point.
If I had to count my blessings, it was that I was living out my time in a fairly luxurious style. The yacht was designed to accommodate six people, so I had a choice of three cabins. I stuck to one. They were all well equipped and in good condition for a second hand boat. Built eight years before, in 2009, she was almost fifty five feet long with a fifteen foot beam.
Powered by a fifteen hundred and sixty horse power diesel engine, with her two thousand litre fuel capacity, she could cruise for around six hundred and fifty hours, making eighteen knots. Not that I was going anywhere at all, now.
I guestimate there were anywhere between one hundred and fifty thousand and two hundred and fifty thousand of us alive on the sea. Add up the luxury cruise liners with up to three thousand crew and passengers, fishing vessels, oil rigs, and a few more like me, it soon mounts up. A sustainable population, had not the land been so stuffed up. Not much use out at sea.
The world's food would soon run out, as would my own now meagre supplies. I had planned a two week trip, but experience always taught me to double up on provisions. I got that right. I could stretch it out for another couple of weeks, supplementing it with whatever fish I can catch. I never go on a trip without my trusty fishing gear. Water's more of a concern. What would you do if it rained? Any rain stands a good chance of being radioactive. Do I go thirsty, or glow in the dark?
I scored lucky, two days ago. Crossed the path of an ocean liner. A good old girl, close to forty years old and starting to show it. I sailed alongside as it slowed to a stop. The captain, a hairy South American, beamed a smile at me, his officers looking on.
'Signor. Englishman?'
'Australian.'
'Very nice for you. How are you?'
'Ok, I guess. You?'
The hairy man laughed. 'Like you. Dying a little more each day. Where are you going?'
It was my turn to laugh. 'I'd like to say the world is my oyster. Now, maybe only the ocean.'
'We decided to continue to Mexico. May as well die at home as go mad and starve out here. We took a vote on it. Think we are mad, signor?'
'No,' I told him. 'No madder than the idiots who killed the world. Could you spare any water seeing as you're going off home?'
He said something to his men who scurried away. I asked him. 'Have you heard anything on your radio?'
He sighed. 'No, alas. I fear the worse. Maybe you should try to find an island to live on?'
'Maybe. You don't have a woman or two you could spare me to live with me on this island?'
He laughed hard enough to wobble his belly. 'Not one under sixty five on this trip. Mostly rich widows looking for a toy-boy. I could ask for you?'
'I'm twenty nine. I think I'll pass, thanks.'
'Ah! You know the old sailors saying. Any port in a storm, and I think for you, it will get very stormy.'
His men returned, carrying cases of beer, some cans of food and a twenty litre container of water. They lowered it down to me.
'Thanks. I'll send you a cheque.'
We said our farewells, and I pulled away to let them go. I watched them until they were just a blip on the horizon.
'Maybe I should have taken a rich widow,' I told myself. I looked at the cases of beer I'd been given. 'At least I could drink myself to death if I wanted to.'
I did take a beer as I reflected on life's ironies. The captain was taking a shipload of women past their child bearing ages to what was probably a country desperate for people who could repopulate it. I gave thought to the captain's other advice. Go find an island. It would have to be one without people who may have succumbed to the viruses. It was something that had been going around in my mind already. I expressed those thoughts in my journal.
* * *
Now I have it. As I suspected, I am not alone. Others, like me, survive at sea. It occurs to me, we didn't exchange names. Looking back, I suspect that may have been deliberate. We were ships that pass in the night, so to speak. Our vessels probably nothing more than floating coffins. The captain was knowingly taking his ship home, those on board wanting to die on their own turf.
But what of I? Could I survive on my own on an island? Being alone has never bothered me. Being an orphaned baby I had no family to grieve over before, now my friends are all dead, too. Which is why th
e yacht delivery job always suited me perfectly. Enjoy the companionship of the fair sex when on land, and then the solitude of a solo life at sea. Finding an island needs some serious contemplation, washed down by beer. A job for tomorrow.
* * *
It has to be said, I know my way around a yacht. Over the last few years, I've learnt all I need about navigation, maps, the laws of the sea, and enough mechanical ability to get myself out of most situations. So, I knew where I was within half of one nautical mile. I would have GPS, but that wasn't working. Like the radios, everything was out. So it was up to doing things the old fashioned way. I got the charts spread out.
'Okay. I'm here. Islands. Large enough to have a water source, not large enough to have people, or be somewhere people from the populated places would go to carrying the virus.'
I was on a route I'd been on a dozen times before, some trips one way, some the other. There was little worth exploring on the charts. In better times, I would have headed for Hawaii if I needed a safe port and provisions, but they had an airport and population large enough to have guaranteed a few flights from places where the virus was. It would only take one carrier, and then a couple of days later, they'd have been dropping like the proverbial flies.
There were a few islands between where I was and Hawaii, about the right size. A few still not even having had a man's foot step on them. Nobody even knew for certain how many of these tiny islands there were, but around thirty thousand in the Pacific was a close guestimate. I had enough fuel to explore a few. Hell. I had nothing else to do. I sure wasn't going to San Francisco. This million dollar yacht was now mine and nobody was going to contest ownership. I charted a route to a promising cluster of islands, off any regular routes.
I decided to spend the day checking the engine, listening to the radio, just in case...Having a feed. But mostly, I was thinking things through. Was I doing the right thing, heading the right way? I caught a fish. A small red snapper. Good eating. I washed it down with my last bottle of white wine. I slept soundly. The next morning, before I set off to find my island paradise, I made an entry in the journal.
* * *
I guess only time will tell if I'm making the right decisions here. But my options are limited. I can maybe survive for a month on the boat, but man cannot live by fish alone. Some kind of fruit would be good. Coconuts at least. I think I read somewhere they have at least a little vitamin C in the flesh. Other good things, too. Ok. Time to get this show on the road.
* * *
The weather was perfect. The ocean calm, flat almost, a slight headwind, no clouds. I was pleased about that. I was developing a fear of rain that was bordering on the paranoid. I saw something I hadn't seen in a couple of years. A whale. A humpback. Then my spirits were lifted to see her baby, swimming easily by her side. I hoped we hadn't stuffed up the planet completely for them.
Later that day, I saw a pod of dolphin, who joined me, leading the yacht for a time, before breaking off. This day felt so right. I made a mental note to write about the sightings in the journal. I was feeling good.
After another few hours, I was losing the natural daylight. I fixed my position and lay on my bed for an hour, writing in the journal, before dozing off into a fitful sleep. Maybe it was the passage on the front I'd reread. Why I let that spoil an otherwise perfect day, I'll never know. Words were going around in my head, memories, bad ones, the voices I'd heard on the radio, and I was once more hearing about the horrors; the people dying in the street.
“We have dead bodies everywhere. The emergency services have broken down completely. My God. Every country on the planet is going the same way. God. What have we done? What have we done?”
Then the single gunshot. It was that bang which had woke me up. Just a damn dream. Then the yacht was moving in an odd, slowly spinning way. There was an awful, groaning, tearing sound, then the boat was rocking in a most unnatural way. I ran up onto the deck, the yacht rolling and pitching and then I could see why. I'd been rammed by an oil tanker. Its prow has smashed straight into the side of the yacht ripping into it, and as the tanker ploughed on, it caused the now sinking boat to spin and lurch. I was going down.
I couldn't understand it. I'd done the right thing, using my experience and training. I'd left the warning lights on. No way could they have not seen those. And I know for a fact an oil tanker shouldn't be out here, anyway.
Then I saw why the tanker hadn't seen me. Over the rail, high above me, two dead men were hanging grotesquely, their arms waving obscenely at me with the movement of the tanker. They had caught the virus before leaving port, thinking they'd be safe out at sea. How wrong they had been. And the stricken vessel was destined to sail blindly until it either ran aground, or ran out of fuel.
I had to get to the lifeboat at the rear of the yacht if I were to stand any chance of surviving this catastrophe. The boat was listing badly, taking on water fast. I had maybe a couple of minutes, or I would be going to the bottom with her. I raced up to the aft and to the lifeboat, I wrestled with the securing arms, and the lifeboat was finally free. Already the water was up to my waist. I dived into the boat and pushed off. As the yacht sank beneath me, I could see the tanker sail serenely away. As I floated helplessly in the dark, it started to rain. I laughed.
I wasn't laughing next morning when it was still a torrential downpour. I now had no food and no idea where the hell I was, after floating helplessly through the night. At least I wouldn't die of thirst for a while. If the rain was radioactive....well, that could be another story.
Things were getting worse as black clouds rolled over, turning day into night, thunder and lightning hammered and crashed in the heavens. I now had a continuous battle to keep the lifeboat from being swamped. Night fell before the storm abated. I was soaked, freezing, and my spirits were at their lowest. There was enough rainwater sloshing about in the bottom of the lifeboat to keep me alive for a few days.
I was drifting along on some current or other, I think north east. There were oars, but there was little point in me expending energy heading nowhere in particular. I did a stock-take. Flares and flare gun. Hilarious. Two yellow waterproof suits. Great. Now I find those. A first aid kit. Good. Some dried rations, about five years beyond their use-by date. A length of nylon rope.
I pulled the suit on to protect me from the burning sun's rays that had followed the storm. I spent ten days floating around, all drinking water gone. I kept going in and out of consciousness, getting weaker with fatigue, hunger and thirst. I had fallen asleep in the heat of the day at some point, my face becoming a mess of blisters, my lips bleeding from drying out, the last of the lip balm being used up. I saw three sharks circling the boat. I was tempted to let them have me, get it over with. I passed out again.
Another night, a freezing contrast to the relentless sun. I picked up the flare gun, considering a shot to my head. I had enough knowledge to realise I'd merely injure myself horribly, adding to my long list of woes. Another burning day, drifting, heading somewhere. I slept, on and off. Then, as I somehow survived another night, when I woke up, something fell on my face.
I opened my eyes and looked up. Several gulls winged effortlessly above me. Birds! That meant land, right? I grabbed the side of the boat and hauled myself up. Where, where? And there it was. Land, some greenery, and what looked like the tops of coconut trees. I was drifting away from the island, and had it not been for the bird crapping on me, I'd have missed it, maybe lasting another day or so at most.
Human beings do incredible things when the chips are down. I got the oars in place, turned the prow towards the island and with strength dragged up from God alone knew where, I rowed that damned boat for three hours, until it beached in the sand in a small cove. I scrambled over the side, getting a face full of sand for my efforts. I tried to spit it out, but my mouth was too dry.
I knew I had to get the boat onto dry land so the tide wouldn't take it away from me. I couldn't afford to lose or waste a thing. Wading
back into the sea, I placed my shoulder against the stern and heaved. I didn't get the boat far up the beach, but maybe enough until I got my strength back. If I ever got it back. I remembered the rope.
I got it and secured the boat to a nearby coconut tree. There were a few coconuts by the base of the tree, and those I knew would be the ripe ones. I hadn't the strength to tackle those. I rested for a few moments, and went into the islands interior. In a hollow, at the base of some large rocks the rainwater had filled it to over flowing.
I fell thankfully to my knees, and drank my fill using some of it to wash my face and head with. I rolled over in the shade of a small bush, and slept for perhaps a couple of hours. Using the lower branches of the bush I dragged myself to my feet.
To my right I saw a small knoll and I decided I might get a reasonable view of the island if I climbed up it. I could only make it to the top by crawling up on my hands and knees. It took twenty painful minutes to make it to the highest point.
The view was promising. Some greenery, a little gnarled and patchy in places, twisted and stunted, but still green. There were birds here and there, which would mean eggs. There was water. I could catch fish; learn to love coconuts. The lifeboat would help make some kind of shelter. There was enough for me to survive on.
Feeling oddly buoyant, I got down the bank again, to see if I could maybe find some crabs to eat, make a fire and a shelter. I could do this. I got to the cove and looked into the shallow water for likely places to find seafood. Anything edible would do. I saw some heavy rocks that had broken away from a low cliff. A good place for crabs, right? I made my way towards the rocks, then noticed odd pieces of driftwood, useful to start a fire with. I'd gather those later after checking for crabs.
Before I reached the fallen rocks, I noticed partly covered in undergrowth, something incongruously red against the greenery. I was drawn to investigate. Making my way towards it, I pulled back the branches. On the large rotting red painted sign, was a skull and crossbones, with the words in flaking yellow,
This island is off limits due to lethal radiation following nuclear testing, by the order of the Air Force of the United States of America.