The Plan

by Shawn Chesser

  “Go,” he said, “I’ll catch up.”

  A shouted warning came from the captain above.

  Not wanting to shoot the Shockwave one-handed and suffer the same fate as Tara, Riker raised the Sig, threw off the safety, and superimposed the glowing red dot on the Bolt’s neck. Knowing the pistol’s recoil would drag his gun hand upward a tiny increment with each shot, he pressed the trigger repeatedly.

  The pistol belched orange flame and leapt in his hand as a half-dozen nine-millimeter slugs walked a jagged line from the Bolt’s sternum to its left eye.

  The pattern the bullet strikes made would be a good thing on a 401k statement.

  For the Bolt, the devastation was catastrophic. It jerked and began to lose its feet as the first rounds punched neat holes in its upper chest. It commenced to spin away toward the yacht as the next two bullets ripped hunks of meat from one side of its neck. And as the final two lead missiles struck the cheek and eye, gravity and inertia were already working together to bring it down. But it didn’t land face-first on the dock’s textured concrete treads. Instead, it struck the yacht’s hull headlong at nearly full speed, the sound of misshapen skull striking fiberglass but a hollow thud amongst a cacophony of sounds.

  Next came the hair-raising sound of bare skin dragging against the hull as the Bolt’s twice-dead body contorted strangely and slithered through the narrow space between the Chris-Craft and dock.

  When all was said and done, the only evidence Riker had just killed what was once a college-aged man was a number of shell casings on the ground and the pair of crimson streaks running vertical down the yacht’s white hull.

  Hearing the familiar whine of Miss Abigail’s ramp lowering into place, Riker flicked the safety, holstered the Sig, and struck off for the Shelby.

  Chapter 35

  Steve-O was awake and staring wide-eyed at the siblings as Riker’s palms slapped against the driver-side door. Since he had thrown the locks and started the V8 with the fob seconds before reaching the Shelby, the only actions he needed to take to get them moving toward the open ramp was select Drive and disengage the parking brake.

  Standing on the ramp, Shorty waved them forward. Backpedaling as the Shelby crept up the ramp and onto Miss Abigail, only the man’s shoulders and head and hands could be seen over the pickup’s hood.

  Seeing the tailgate clear the ramp, Riker let the Shelby roll forward another foot or two, then shut her down and set the brake.

  Looking sidelong at her brother, Tara said, “You’re stopping here?”

  “Yep,” said Riker, digging out the Glock from the center console. “Take this and follow my lead.”

  “How is Tobias going to get his truck on if you stop here?”

  Speaking slowly, Riker said, “Follow my lead.”

  “How can I help?” asked Steve-O.

  Regarding Steve-O over his shoulder, Riker said, “Same as before. Watch our backs from in here.”

  Steve-O said, “You got it,” and threw Riker a crisp salute.

  When Riker reacquired Shorty’s gaze, the man’s head had a slight tilt to it and his graying brows were scrunched together. Taking the Shockwave off the floor, he drew the Sig and stepped from the cab.

  The gunfire near the house died out about the same time Riker’s boots hit Miss Abigail’s steel deck.

  To get away from the zombies trudging across the lawn toward the bait shop, cars and trucks were turning wide circles on the drive and speeding off.

  The headlights on Tobias Harlan’s Chevy flashed and the horn blared once.

  Hanging his head out his window, Tobias hollered, “What the hell are you doing stopping right there?”

  Standing with his back to the Shelby’s open door, Riker raised both arms level to the deck, aiming the Sig in his right at Shorty, and the Shockwave in his left at Harlan.

  Eyes still locked on Harlan, the tone in his voice all business, Riker said, “We’re going it alone.”

  The passenger door on the Chevy opened and out stepped Jessie with some kind of a rifle in hand.

  Riker glanced at the pilothouse, saying, “Shorty, get us underway.” Shifting his gaze to Tara, he instructed her to train her Glock on Shorty.

  Without waiting to see if Shorty or Tara were going to comply with his calmly delivered orders, Riker edged around back of the Shelby and crouched down near the ramp controls.

  Jessie screamed, “You asshole,” and stalked toward the dock crowding Miss Abigail’s port side.

  Shockwave following Jessie’s every move, Riker pressed the up arrow, starting the motor to whine and the ramp to lift off the wet boat ramp.

  “We had a deal,” bellowed Jessie. “First you tail us here. Now you’re hijacking our bought and paid for ride?”

  “Shorty will return for you,” promised Riker. Seeing the young man’s rifle start that slow swing to horizontal, he warned, “You don’t want to do that.”

  Jessie hesitated for a tick.

  Taking advantage of the pause, Riker nodded at the Shockwave. “I just saw what this thing will do to a man’s head. It’s not pretty.”

  Just as the ramp hit the stops and the electric motor went silent, Riker felt a surge of energy ripple through the deck underfoot. Next, his upper body was being tugged toward the bow as Miss Abigail surged away from the boat ramp in reverse. He holstered the Sig and, keeping a low profile, backpedaled aft, alongside the Shelby, the Shockwave’s muzzle never leaving Jessie.

  Thirty yards from shore there was a disconcerting clunk and a shiver ran through the barge cum ferry. Then the outboards went real quiet for a moment as Shorty put them at idle and allowed accrued momentum to carry Miss Abigail into the dark.

  As the ferry completed the reverse J turn and slowed to a near standstill broadside to the end of the dock, some sixty feet from where it had started, there was another clunk and the engines spooled back up.

  The Harlans’ pickup was reversing up the boat ramp when Riker dropped the Shockwave’s muzzle, told Tara to “stand down,” then introduced her and Steve-O to Shorty.

  Shorty started to laugh.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” she asked, the Glock still pointed at Shorty.

  Just to annoy her, Riker spoke real slowly as he repeated himself. “You can stand down now, Sis. Put the pistola away.”

  Shorty was doubled over and laughing hysterically as Tara stuffed the Glock into her waistband. Then, regarding a still dumbfounded Tara, he stopped laughing long enough to spit a stream of tobacco juice into a paper cup. Wiping his lip, he said, “You should have seen the look on your face when Lee told you to put that heater on me. It went all tight. So tight I figured those braids atop your noggin were going to come undone.”

  “Your face would be tight, too, if you just about had your arm ripped from its socket by a damn shotgun,” shot Tara as she began massaging her left shoulder. “And if that wasn’t bad enough, the gun whipped over my shoulder and whacked me right between my ass crack.”

  Without missing a beat, Shorty said, “Want me to massage it for you? I can assess the well-being of your coccyx while I’m down there.”

  “Oh boy,” said Steve-O, his cheeks flushed red.

  Flipping Shorty the bird, Tara looked to Riker. “Spill your guts, Bro. And it better be good. Hell, I ought to put this heater on your dumb ass. Put a little pressure on you while you come clean with me and Steve-O.”

  Sheepish look on his face, Riker raised his arms in mock surrender. “Sis,” he said, with a subtle head wag, “it had to go down like it did.”

  “Are you effin kidding me, Lee Riker? You just had me point a loaded weapon at a living human being, for, like, ten whole minutes.” She put her hands on her hips. “And the most jacked-up part of it all is that I didn’t even need to.”

  “It was two minutes, max,” Riker said. “But who’s counting?”

  Shorty said, “I sure as hell was counting. How about you try staring down the barrel of a Glock.”

  “With
as much as you’re charging me,” Riker shot, “I feel like I’m the one staring down the barrel of a gun.”

  Shorty thrust his hand out of the pilothouse. “That reminds me,” he said. “Time for you to pay up the other half you owe me.”

  “I’ll pay you the other half when we get to where we’re going,” insisted Riker.

  Without warning, Shorty steered Miss Abigail into a shallow turn to port.

  Riker leaned against the Shelby as the ferry’s stern bit into the water. Adding the threat of being dropped off back at the boat ramp among the angry mob and hungry dead things to the top of his list of effective bluffs, Riker said, “Give me a second. It’s in the truck.”

  Steering to starboard and once again lining the ferry’s bow with a dim bubble of light far off on the horizon, Shorty said, “While you’re at it, I need you to center your rig on the deck.”

  Riker nodded and made his way around front of the truck. As he reached the driver’s side door, he paused and stared out into the darkness.

  Standing on the ferry tooling along the river with nothing to orient himself to was quite unnerving. Though he knew the tree-lined banks were near, that he couldn’t see them and wasn’t at all in control of their ultimate destination had started the muscles in his neck and back to tense.

  Looking up at the moonless sky with its funeral veil of high clouds only added to the sense of vertigo that had been building within him since leaving Shorty’s and the dock lights behind.

  Leaning out of the pilothouse, Shorty called out to Tara, asking her to help by hauling in the fenders.

  Approaching the pilothouse, a puzzled look on her face, Tara said, “Boats don’t have fenders.”

  Pointing out a two-foot-long pill-looking item lying on the deck atop some coiled ropes, Shorty said, “That’s a fender. You’ll find three of them hanging by ropes from the port-side rail. Pull them out of the water, please.” After a short pause, he added, “On a boat, port means left.”

  “And starboard is right,” Tara replied. “Why should I have to do it? First off, I’m not your deckhand. Secondly, we’re paying you way more than I think a fifteen-minute boat ride should cost.”

  “We underpaid, big time,” interjected Steve-O. “Lee said so.”

  Shorty ignored Steve-O’s comment. Still meeting Tara’s glare, he said, “Your brother didn’t tell you where we’re going?”

  Tara stopped massaging her shoulder and her hands went back to her hips. She craned around and bellowed, “Lee … what happened to our plan?”

  Already inside the Shelby with the door closed, Riker detected the sudden shift in his sister’s body language. Saw her brows furrow and neck muscles go rigid as she squared up to the Shelby’s grille. Just as her mouth started moving, he added fuel to the fire by drowning her out with the Shelby’s big V8. Waving her aside, he drove forward a half-dozen feet.

  After setting the brake and stilling the engine, Riker climbed out wearing a What did I do? expression and carrying two banded straps of uncirculated fifty-dollar bills. Each short stack was wrapped by a brown paper band with $5000 stamped across it.

  “No way,” shot Tara. “You’re paying him more money?”

  “It’ll be worth it, Sis. I promise.” Sensing the conversation was about to get heated, he sent Steve-O off with orders to get one of the fuel cans from the bed and take it to the stern.

  Riker cast his eyes toward the sky as the man plodded off. It was dark as the inside of a coffin. No moon. No stars. And to add to the inland waterway’s claustrophobia-inducing atmosphere, there was no ambient light coming from either shore.

  Once the sound of Steve-O’s cowboy boots clicking on the metal decking had ceased, Riker swung his gaze back to Tara.

  Slapping the tight stacks of cash against his palm, he said, “Doing what I … I mean, what we did, gives Shorty plausible deniability once he goes home.”

  Sour look on her face, Tara said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I had to sell it, Sis.”

  “It was my idea to keep you in the dark,” Shorty conceded as he switched on Miss Abigail’s running lights. “If I wasn’t already on the bottom of your shit list, guess I’m there now.”

  “You sure as hell are, Shorty.” She paused and they all watched Steve-O doddle by with a weighty jug containing five gallons of fuel.

  “Put it near the stern rail,” said Shorty. He spat into his cup, then looked to Riker. “Thought we agreed the second half was to be paid in the same manner as the first.”

  Riker shook his head. “That’s you acting on assumption. You want more gold, which is shooting up in value by the hour, you’re going to have to take us a lot farther than our original agreement.”

  Obviously mulling over his answer, Shorty stared at Riker for a long ten-count. “OK,” he finally said, turning on the pilothouse lights. “I don’t like it, but you have a deal.”

  Riker pocketed the cash and dragged out the blue Crown Royal sack he’d lifted from the Miami mansion. It was heavy in his hand, the velvet soft on his skin as he palmed the bulging sack. Items inside clinked together as he loosened the gold drawstring.

  “As of this morning, gold was trading for twelve hundred and fifty dollars an ounce. If my math is correct,” said Riker, “I owe you eight ounces.”

  Tara was massaging her left wrist and fingers on that hand. The same hand that had been trapped in the Shockwave’s pump strap when she face-shot the Bolt. “Eight ounces is ten grand. Ten effin grand.” She shook her head. Being wealthy was new to her. Her upbringing had taught her that money was not easy to come by and should never be squandered. There goes Lee spending like a drunken sailor, was what she was thinking as she watched him drag a handful of different-shaped pieces of gold from the sack. As he separated the round coins from the square ingots, the assortment in his mitt-sized palm glittered orange under the soft light spilling from the pilothouse.

  While Riker was counting out the coins, Shorty had been steering the ferry hard to starboard. Once Miss Abigail was again tracking straight on calm water Shorty called Blackwater Bay, the far-off bubble of light Riker assumed to be Pensacola was off the bow to starboard and no longer the sole point of visual navigation.

  Ranging out from Pensacola, left to right, were a half-dozen similar patches of light Riker assumed were smaller towns on the larger city’s inland periphery. Ambling along left of Miss Abigail was a long spit of land dotted with lights too numerous to count.

  Ashore on the starboard-side were the flickering orange and red flames of dozens of camp fires.

  Now and again they saw the sweep of headlights on vehicles traveling unseen roads on the distant shores.

  Finished with his task, Steve-O stopped at the open door to the pilothouse. Pushing the Stetson’s brim up with one finger, he fixed Shorty with a blue-eyed stare. “What’s next?” he asked. “The Pacific Ocean?”

  “East Bay is next,” said Shorty. “Then Pensacola Bay.” Indicating the twin horizontal rows of halide lights bisecting their path ahead, he added, “First we’ll motor under Garcon Point Bridge. Next bridge down the way connects Pensacola and Gulf Breeze. We call it Three-Mile. After we leave the two bridges and a couple of more miles of Pensacola Bay behind, we’ll be home free on the Gulf of Mexico.”

  As they motored underneath the first bridge, Shorty asked Steve-O if he wanted to steer the ferry.

  “Heck yeah, I want to steer Miss Abigail.”

  Shorty made room in the pilothouse. “Stand right here and take the wheel.”

  Steve-O took a spot next to Shorty. Thanks to his cowboy boots, he stood eye-to-eye with him.

  Speaking slowly and repeatedly asking Steve-O if he had any questions, Shorty went over the controls. Next, he pointed out the lights on Three-Mile’s cement supports. “Keep the throttle where it is and aim for the middle of those lights.”

  A wide smile on his face, Steve-O said, “Aye, aye, Captain.” Eyes fixed forward, he asked, “How fast is she going?”

/>   “We’re pushing ten knots.”

  “Is that her top speed?”

  “That’s classified, kid.” Shorty snickered. “Think you can man the helm while I go shake the dew from my lily?”

  “I peed like a racehorse a while ago.”

  “That’s a yes?”

  “I got this,” said Steve-O with all the confidence of a seasoned bar pilot.

  Having been privy to the whole interaction, Riker flashed a thumbs-up to Shorty when he stepped from the pilothouse.

  In passing, Shorty said, “Not a lot to see from here on out. You and your sister ought to get some sleep.”

  Riker looked to Tara for her input.

  She said, “Hell if I’m going to fall asleep and let that thing I just killed start haunting me.”

  Shaking his head, Riker said, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  “Suit yourselves,” Shorty said. “I’ve got to hang one over the rail.” Winking at Tara, he added, “You can watch if you want.”

  Smiling, Tara said, “I’m afraid I’ll be needing binoculars to view that peanut in your pants.”

  Calling back over his shoulder as he strolled past the Shelby, Shorty said, “That can be arranged.”

  Chapter 36

  As Miss Abigail neared the Garcon Point Bridge—a two-lane, three-and-a-half-mile-long span—the flashing blue and red lights atop a number of emergency vehicles sixty feet overhead cast an eerie purple hue on the mostly still surface of East Bay.

  Out on the open water, the air temperature fluctuated greatly. As the ferry entered a pocket much cooler than anything on the inland waterway, Riker buttoned his shirt to his neck and rolled his sleeves down.

  Standing just outside the pilothouse, Shorty leaned in and said, “You got it, Steve.”

  “I know I do. But it’s still Steve-O to you, sir.”

  “Understood,” Shorty said, tapping himself on the head. “My memory, she ain’t so great these days.”

  Standing just off Shorty’s right shoulder, Riker asked, “Worrying about Megan?”