by John L. Monk
He almost lost the trail near a shallow gully. A set of new tracks led off in a completely different direction, but the steps looked different—wider, heavier, less dragging. In the gully, the vegetation was smashed flat, making him think Lisa or someone else had been lying there. Beyond it, the trees were sparse and the land free of snow. On a hunch, he went that way, figuring he could double back if needed. He found a bloody swipe on the scabby white skin of a birch tree and had the trail again. Five minutes later and he arrived at a barbed wire fence with a wide field on the other side and houses in the distance.
Jack sighed in relief. The field was free of snow, but he saw a faint trail through the grass leading to the nearest house.
In the distance, the booming report of a rifle stopped him in his tracks. Pistols followed after, and then the distinctive blast of Larry’s shotgun again and again. Jack listened intently, wanting desperately for those shots to have been the last, but then the handguns started back up again.
Larry and Olivia had each other, which was more than Lisa had right now. Hating his options, wishing he’d brought more people, Jack hurried through the meadow toward the nearest house—a big colonial with two floors.
Jack pulled his hood off so anyone could easily see his face through the back door window. Someone had busted a hole in one of the panes. Probably to open it from the inside. He tried the knob and found it unlocked, but hesitated. Doors made a little noise when they opened—even well-greased ones. This one hadn’t been used for the better part of a year, and certainly hadn’t been greased. He pushed it a little—just a crack—and winced at the groaning hinges and the mechanical clack of the knob as he released it. It was too dark inside to see, so he listened, but of course heard nothing.
He opened it wider, unslung his rifle, and passed his jacket through, dangling it from the barrel like in the old cartoons his parents liked: Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Wile E. Coyote. Foghorn Leghorn. His coat didn’t get shot full of bullets. Now came the part where he poked his head through and got it shot off, just like in the cartoons.
When he didn’t get shot, he slipped into a kitchen, eased the door shut, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the cavelike darkness within. It was so quiet inside, he briefly worried he’d chosen the wrong house. But no, it smelled different than an empty house should. Less dusty, with a hint of recent smokiness.
“Hello?” Jack croaked, noting how his voice broke squeakily into the upper registers—a recent source of embarrassment. Whenever he tried to talk low and not loud, it broke between two entirely different versions of himself. When that happened, Greg always made sure to grossly imitate him, which usually got Tony and some of the other officers started.
What Jack wouldn’t give to have a few of them here now. Even Tony.
After his eyes adjusted, he crept through a short hallway and peeked through an opening on the left to a dining room. Farther down was the living room, where he found a cold fireplace and Lisa lying unconscious in front of it.
18
Greg had marked out their route on a road map, and they’d brought five vehicles with them—one per volunteer for the expedition to Occoquan. The reason for the separate cars was simple: if they ran into any roadblocks, they could line up and push through.
Over the winter, Greg had thought a lot about the makeup of the expedition. In addition to Tony, he’d chosen two girls and another boy from the ranks of the Dragsters. The boy—a kid named Andrew—even had actual sailing experience. Greg had gone on powerboats before with his dad, but never on a sailboat. Much like horseback riding, hang gliding, and spelunking, sailing was relegated to a far off, mythical future where he was eighteen years old and could “risk the life God gave you.”
Funny how his mom never said stuff like that to Lisa.
During their planning, Greg and Jack agreed that fishing seemed the most sensible thing in the world for a fledgling civilization. It could easily provide most of the nutrients they needed, with or without farm animals. It was also easier than farming … probably. Definitely more exciting. A lot of the survivors didn’t realize it, but life was only going to get harder. How many grain silos could they chew through before that sank in? Greg didn’t know, and his stomach certainly didn’t want to find out.
They took 66 to 28 to Braddock, and that’s when they hit their first roadblock, right at the intersection—a pile of SUVs, three deep, blocking one lane and a fire truck blocking the other.
“We gonna shove through, Greg?” one of the Dragsters said over the radio. She was a pretty girl named Sarah he’d seen fishing in the pond a few times—one of the few people at Big Timber who’d ever caught anything out of there. When invited to join, she’d jumped at the opportunity.
“Hmm,” Greg said. “I don’t think so. Too many stacked up. Over.”
“How many roadblocks you planning on skipping?” Tony said over the radio. Not as harshly as he might have if Jack were in charge, because Greg and Tony got along better. Mainly because Greg was good at keeping him off balance, and didn’t mind making him uncomfortable if he became too annoying.
Tony was notoriously shy about girls, and nobody knew it but Greg.
“Skipping? I never skip. Girls skip,” Greg said. “You know—kind of like how Alison’s always skipping around?” Greg waited to see if Tony remembered how Alison was always skipping around. Truth was, she never skipped. But if Tony said otherwise he’d be admitting he watched her. “She sure loves skipping … Anyway, for now, we’ll saunter around as many roadblocks as we can, and force our way through only when it’s serious. Don’t wanna mess up our cool rides. Over.”
Tony didn’t reply.
A minute later and they were back on the interstate. Greg pulled out the map and looked at it while driving as best he could, charting another course: 66 to Fairfax County Parkway to Ox. When they got to Ox, the way was blocked by cars and not fire trucks. More good news: someone had already pushed through, leaving a narrow opening they could scrape past. Soon they passed a familiar road sign, and Greg got back on the radio.
“That way’s Fountainhead Park. My dad took me and Lisa fishing there all the time. She was afraid of the worms.” She hadn’t been—that was him—but his sister wasn’t here to correct him, and too bad for her tough reputation. “Where we’re going, there’s easy access to the Potomac, and from there, the Bay. Lots of big fish in the Bay. Over.”
“Oh yeah?” Andrew said. “How big?”
Greg thought about that. “Oh, about ten feet, I’d say. And everyone better start saying over when they hang up. I’m in charge, remember? Over.”
The airwaves flooded immediately with everyone saying “over” repeatedly and honking their horns.
A few minutes later, Andrew said, “Think we’ll catch any today? Over.”
“We could,” Greg said, “but that’s not why we’re here, remember? We need to establish a base. See what’s left, what we can use—and find out how much Andrew remembers from his sailing lessons. Over.”
Greg smiled again at the sound of more honking. Their way of saying woohoo!
Yes, his crew was a good bunch. And except for Tony, they were always positive, despite being cooped up together for so long—a major reason for their selection. The way he figured it, a person would need that sort of temperament to spend long amounts of time sitting on a boat with nothing to do but look at the water. Even more during the summer with bugs and sunburns and the heat.
Greg’s one experience with boats was on a chartered fishing trip with Lisa, his dad, and one of his dad’s friends. The smell of bait, the constant roll of the waves, and the brutal sun had made him sicker than he’d ever been in his life. He’d been much younger then—about ten. Hopefully by now he was grown enough that it wouldn’t happen again. Tossing one’s cookies was a very, very bad trait in a seagoing captain.
When they crossed a bridge over the Occoquan river, he slowed to a stop and got back on the radio. “Another roadblock. Only a couple of cars, thou
gh. Everyone line up like we practiced. Over.”
Greg touched the outermost car with his bumper and honked. One after the other, the other four cars did the same, touching their bumpers together and honking.
“When I beep the horn,” Greg said. “Push. Ove—”
One of the Dragsters hadn’t heard correctly, because he or she beeped and everyone started pushing when Greg wasn’t ready. There came a loud crunch from the back of the car. Greg released the brakes and the crunching got louder, this time coming from the front. So he floored it, and the blocking cars slid out of the way as if they were on ice.
In a panic, he stomped the breaks but it didn’t matter—the car flew down the incline that led to the tiny town of Historic Occoquan. Fifty yards later, the ice ended, the tires bit, and he slammed against his seatbelt.
“Seriously?” Greg shouted into the handset.
“You okay, boss?” Andrew said.
“Barely!”
“Just wondering,” Chelsea said. She was a tall girl he’d included mainly because she was friends with Sarah. “Because you forgot to say over.”
More honking, and everyone saying over again and again.
From there on, Greg took it slow. His bumper now rubbed against the front left tire, causing the car to vibrate and the frame to thrum. When he could see the water and the boat rental with the kayaks and paddle boats, he pulled over, got out, and waited for the others.
Near the rental area were a bunch of cafes and art shops, and one place offering “Natural Healing And Wellness.” Unbidden came the notion that natural healing and wellness hadn’t saved the owners … and then he felt ashamed. He tamped it down, though. Shame also wasn’t a good trait among seafaring captains.
“This place is awesome,” Sarah said when she and the others got there.
“It’s all right,” Tony said in that perpetually unfazed way of his.
Chelsea pointed at one of several houses on a large hill that sloped away from the water. “They got chimneys. Probably no kids, though. Just stinkies.”
Stinkies. A word used among the Dragsters for the decomposed or sometimes desiccated corpses found in the houses they scavenged.
“Come on,” Greg said. “Let’s explore.”
The closest four houses were clearly the most expensive in the tiny town. Before the Sickness, they’d been for sale—realtor signs hung in the windows saying who to call for a walkthrough. They were painted green, yellow, and red, with spires and cupolas and decorative porches. Despite being pretty, Greg immediately disregarded them. No chimneys. The more normal-looking houses across the street and up the hill all had chimneys, so they went there next. Sure enough, these houses had stinkies in them, but that wasn’t an issue. That was just something to endure.
All along the water were old cafes and restaurants, antique shops, and art stores. They passed a shop that had once sold “vaping” supplies, and another advertising bridal gowns. There was also a church, and it had a chimney. With all that open space inside, Greg figured the church would be perfect for setting up beds. Better use of fuel if they could keep a few buildings heated rather than fifty.
“So, where’s all the boats?” Chelsea said.
“Yeah,” Tony said. “Thought we’d get to go sailing, not go door to door sniffing out stinkies.”
The others laughed, and Greg smiled indulgently. “All right, settle down. A sailing we shall go. We’ll make our base here. The boats are farther down.”
They went back to the cars and crammed into two of them, leaving behind Greg’s damaged car, then continued down Ox Road. A minute later, they crossed the bridge over 95—all eight lanes of it—and entered a more rundown area. Greg saw a marine supply store and silently thanked the heavens. There’d be a lot of great replacement parts in there. Maybe even fishing gear.
When they got to Route 1, he took a left, then another left farther down and pulled into an industrial section. A mountain of sand rose prominently from a lot on the right with construction vehicles around it. Greg took the next right and the marina popped into view. He sped through the empty lot and parked near the docks in front of a sign saying not to park there.
“Wow, pretty boats!” Sarah said when they got out.
Gazing at the almost fully-packed docks, Greg breathed a huge sigh of relief. He hadn’t told Jack, because his friend might have made him stay, but he’d worried the boats had been winterized—taken out and stored dry for the winter. A gamble that news of the Sickness had spooked the marina workers early enough to keep them home, like everyone else.
Most of the boats were expensive powerboats, but there were several sailboats there, too. Those looked super expensive—some of them easily forty feet long. Maybe bigger. Way too huge to take out on their first trip. Greg wanted to preserve them for when he knew what he was doing. No … what they needed was something smaller. The problem was, the place looked like it only catered to rich people. Everything was big.
“Come on, man,” Tony said. “What we waiting for?” He started off alone.
Greg rolled his eyes and followed him. Now he knew how Jack felt.
The five friends walked up and down each dock oohing and aahing the whole way. A few of the boats looked worse for wear. The rubber bumpers dangling off the sides had slipped too far, causing them to rub against the planking, which had chewed up the fiberglass. Still seaworthy, he figured. Just not as pretty.
Other boats had been less lucky. One had smashed against the rocks on the far side of the river. Another sat on the bottom with the mast poking out at an angle. A bad storm, Greg figured. But this far inland, surrounded by tall trees and hills on both sides, the rest of the boats looked safe and in good shape.
“Greg!” Chelsea called from further up, where she’d gone with Andrew. “What about this one? It’s really small!”
He went to look and smiled. She was standing next to a modest-sized boat named “Kahlua” that could easily hold the five of them. About twenty-five feet long, or thereabouts. The mainsail was wrapped protectively against the elements, and the down-below area was blocked by a door of interlocking wooden slats, shiny on the inside and winter-rough on the outside. The jib wasn’t attached, nor furled around the forestay like some of the bigger boats. Greg figured—and hoped—that it was in a hatch somewhere. The books all said the jib was incredibly important for sailing “close to the wind.”
More good news: the Kahlua also had a motor, for which he was secretly grateful. He couldn’t shake the feeling they’d get stuck on the water somewhere, hopeless at sailing and unable to get back.
The whole purpose of choosing sailboats, he and Jack had agreed, was to rely less on irreplaceable technology. But Jack took things too far sometimes. He wanted them using wooden boats, and that’s where the two friends disagreed. Greg wasn’t about to make things more difficult for no reason. They had enough work ahead simply learning to sail—and how to fish on a sailboat. Way more difficult than lounging on a beach with a line in the water.
“Okay, Andrew,” Greg said, climbing unsteadily aboard. “You’re up. Show us what you know. But don’t forget: I’m the captain. You’re only the navigator. Got it?”
“What about me?” Tony said.
Greg smiled. “Tony’s captain of the poop deck.”
Everyone laughed at that. Even Tony.
Andrew scratched his back and smiled sheepishly. “Man, I don’t know nothing about boats. I just wanted to come along. Should be easy, though. Pull up the sail and go, right?”
19
Greg knew the difference between tacking and jibing. He knew that sheets were really lines, and that lines were made from rope. He understood the difference between port and starboard, and why it was much more useful than right and left. He also knew what “red right returning” meant, and understood the basics of why a sailboat slipped through the water, even if the wind was coming from the front of the boat. But though it made sense when he read about it, he was wise enough to realize he’d forge
t it all as soon as he stepped aboard.
And that’s why Andrew’s spot in the expedition had been so important.
“What do you mean you never sailed before?” Greg shouted. Andrew flinched and stepped behind Chelsea’s tall form. Greg wasn’t done: “There was another kid who said he’d sailed! You said he was making it up!”
“I’m sorry!” Andrew said. “I only wanted to come. We’ll figure it out as we go. It’s a stupid boat, man, not a car. Jesus!”
“You’re a real dickhead, you know that?” Tony said.
Andrew glared at him. “You can’t sail neither!”
“And I never lied about it. I should kick your ass.”
“Guys,” Greg said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Shut up a minute. Let me think.”
Andrew nodded vigorously.
Chelsea stepped over near Sarah, who stood scowling.
Greg forced a smile. “All right. So as you all know, I’ve been reading a bunch of books on sailing and stuff. Before we head out, I’m gonna sort of tell you the stuff I know … only, it won’t be enough. When we get out there, we’ll be afraid, and we’ll probably forget everything. If you think you’ll freak out and panic, you can stay here until we get back. We kind of need to guard the cars anyway, so—”
“I’ll stay!” Andrew said, raising his hand.
The hazing started anew, with Tony and the girls calling him a liar, a coward, and various types of insects and body parts while Greg nursed his growing headache. When they finally quieted, he told them what he knew about sailing, and received a lot of confused looks in response—particularly about port and starboard, which Tony claimed was “just stupid.”
Greg led them around the boat, pointing out the parts he remembered: the winches and cleats, the tiller, the rudder, the transom, the boom, the hatches, and the compartment with the anchor and chain. Down below, they found a tiny galley with an alcohol-burning stove, and places to sleep and store things. They also found a bag with a sail in it. Greg figured it must be the jib. For now, he left it where he found it. They also discovered a life ring and three life preservers. The life preservers were too bulky over their coats, so they left them there and solemnly promised each other to be extra careful.