by Jon Schafer
Uneasy at this thought, he suddenly stopped. The figure in front of him turned and said, “What's wrong, Randy. It's just a little bit further. We're almost there. We'll grab the radio and get out before anyone knows we've been here. It's early, so the Faithful are all passed out. We still need to hurry though.”
Trusting his companion, and excited at the prospect of having a radio they could use to contact the military, Brain steeled his resolve and moved forward again. They had only travelled a short distance further when the person leading him stopped in front of a cabin and said, “In here,” before slipping through the door. Excited at being so close to the object of their expedition, he didn't hesitate.
As Brain entered the room, rough hands grabbed him from both sides and slammed him face down onto the floor. His arms were roughly pinned behind his back and his pistol was wrenched free of its holster. He tried to struggle, but a kick to the side of the head took the fight out of him.
Barely conscious, he heard Reverend Ricky say, “Don't hit him too hard, I need him,”
Hearing the screech of duct tape being pulled quickly from a roll, Brain felt his hands and feet bound. Once he was secure, he was lifted up and deposited into a chair where more tape was used to secure him to it. Brain shook his head to clear the cobwebs from the kick and faced his captors.
Reverend Ricky and two of his men stood in front of him. Ricky held Tim's wrists pinned behind his back. Brain felt anger rush through him at seeing Tim manhandled.
“Let him go,” he said through clenched teeth. “He's just a kid.”
Ricky only laughed and handed Tim to one of his men who led the boy out of the cabin. When they were gone, Ricky said, “He might be a kid, but he's my insurance policy. If you don't cooperate, I'll have one of my men start cutting his fingers off one joint at a time and send them down to his sister. Think she'd like that?”
Brain deflated slightly at this threat. Connie loved her brother. After the loss of her parents, something like that would crush her. Not to mention Tim would be maimed for life. The situation wasn't looking good.
“You don't need to do that,” Brain said calmly as he struggled to keep his anger under control. “I'm sure we can work something out. Just tell me what you want.”
“That's simple,” Ricky said. “I need you to accompany me and some of my men on a trip. As you know, the Calm of the Seas is sinking, and it’s time to move on. We're going to Cozumel. Once we're there, you'll help us start a new life.”
Ricky saw the confusion on Brain's face and explained, “Cozumel is free of the dead and the perfect place to settle in until this thing blows over. But once we get there, we'll need to get things up and running. Generators and wind turbines and any number of other things will need to be set up. I have it on good authority that you're some kind of savant when it comes to machinery and electronics.”
Brain stayed silent as he searched for a way out of this mess. He didn't want to be kidnapped and dragged off to Cozumel; he wanted to stay with his friends. Trying a quick con job in the hope he could get his hands and feet freed, he said, “Alright, that sounds like a good deal. I’m tired of Steve running things like a dictator. I’ll go with you and help. You can let me go.”
Ricky laughed and said, “I'm not stupid, Randy. Until we get on the sailboat and are well away from the Calm of the Seas, you will remain restrained. Don't try to fool me with your pathetic attempt at a con job either. You can't con a con.”
Brain was prepared for his attempt to fail and wasn't surprised. He didn't react to Ricky catching on to his attempt to con him, but at the mention of the sailboat his eyes grew wide. Seeing this, Ricky said, “Yes, we'll be taking The Usual Suspects when we go. It's the only way to reach Cozumel.”
“They'll never let you take the boat,” Brain said forcefully.
“They won't have any choice but to give it up after they're dead,” Ricky gloated. Seeing the alarm on Brain's face, he reached down and patted his cheek as he added, “Don't worry, we don't plan on killing everyone. We’ll save your little senorita for you. And if you behave, I won't have her passed around to be used by the men, but if you resist me...”
Anger and defiance welled up in him again on hearing Ricky speak of Connie like that. “Fuck you!” He spat out.
Ricky made a tsk-tsking noise, turned and called out, “Brother Seth, we need an example set.”
Immediately, the sounds of a series of slaps and blows interspersed with Tim's cries of pain came from the hallway.
“Stop it!” Brain screamed as he struggled against his bounds.
Moments later, the beating ended as quickly as it had begun, leaving no sound except Tim crying. This faded as the youngster was dragged down the hall.
Ricky tilted his head back in an arrogant posture and said, “The next time you curse at me or show any sign of rebellion, I’ll tell Seth to cut off the first joint of the little finger on Tim's right hand and send it to Connie.”
Knowing that any overt acts of defiance would get Tim hurt and Connie gang raped, Brain decided to act like he was beaten until he could figure out a way to escape. He let his shoulders sag and said in a dejected voice, “You win. I’ll go with you, but I want your word that Connie and Tim won't be hurt.”
Ricky thought about this and said, “I promise they won't come to any harm, but you need to do as I say. One deviation and...” Ricky made a scissoring motion with two fingers before walking out of the cabin followed by the other man.
Brain waited until they were gone before testing his bonds. Duct tape had been wrapped several times around his hands and feet and several more loops were used to bind him to the chair. He knew it was futile but he had to try. He had to get free and warn the others. The door remained open a crack. After fifteen minutes of struggling, he heard a low murmur of voices coming down the hall. As he eyed the opening, Ricky suddenly popped his head in and said, “I know the urge to warn your friends is overwhelming, but I want you to know that Brother William will be right out here in the hallway. Don't even think about trying to escape.”
He turned off the lights and shut the door, leaving Brain in the dark.
Ricky entered the bridge of the Calm of the Seas and said, “Brilliant performance, young Tim.”
Standing near the wheel, Tim replied with a sob, “What do you mean, performance?” He pointed at Brother Seth and said, “He was really hitting me.”
Ricky tsk-tsk'd and said, “We had to make it seem real. If your friend Randy hadn’t been convinced by your act, I would have been forced to start cutting you up into little chunks. We don't want that, now do we?”
Hanging his head in shame at what he'd done, and in fear of what Ricky might do to him, Tim said, “Okay, I get it. Now I’ve held up my end of the bargain. You have Randy, so where's my dad?”
Dead somewhere, but you don't know that, Ricky thought. Instead of voicing this, he said, “He's safe, just like I told you, but he’s going to stay with me for a while because I might need you to do one more thing for me.”
“I can't!” Tim cried. “They'll know it's me if I do anything else. If they even find out what I’ve done so far, there's no telling what they'll do to me. Besides, we had a deal.”
Ricky said sternly, “And the deal was of my making, so I can change it anytime I want. If you ever want to see your father alive again, you'll continue to do as you're told.”
Tim's mind was in turmoil as he realized he was trapped. There was no way he could deny anything Ricky asked of him, especially now that he'd lured Randy up to deck ten so he could be kidnapped. He was torn by his decision to set Randy up but didn't have a choice. They were holding his dad. Instead of turning his anger on Ricky though, he rued the day the people from the sailboat came on board. It was their fault he was in this mess in the first place.
He hadn't planned on being caught sneaking around the ship. It just happened. One of Ricky's men recognized him when he was up on deck nine looking around for a sextant for Steve and Tick-Toc
k. The man had been one of the watchers on deck five and had seen Tim with the people from the sailboat. He put two and two together, and they grabbed him. At first he thought they'd kill him, but instead he’d been brought to Reverend Ricky.
Ricky recognized him from when he had seen him and Connie on deck four. He remembered that his dad was missing and his mom was dead and told Tim that his dad was alive and would be held hostage unless he worked as an informer. Tim was elated at the news of his father and had been more than willing to spy on the newcomers in exchange for being reunited with his dad. It had been easy at first, like playing a game. But when Ricky told him of his plan to kidnap Randy, he'd balked. Ricky threatened to have his father tortured, so he had no choice. But now that he'd delivered Randy to Ricky, the Reverend wanted something else.
When would it end? Tim's mind wailed. I’m trapped.
Ricky motioned to Brother Seth who handed Tim a radio and a three-foot long pair of bolt cutters. Tim looked dumbly at the objects so Ricky said, “Like I said, I may need you to do one last thing for me. Let me explain.”
***
Steve steered The Usual Suspects back toward the Dead Calm on the way back from the second trip to get a clear view of the sun.
Tick-Tock had gone below fifteen minutes earlier to use the table so he could lay out the chart and calculate their position. As Steve made a slight adjustment to their course, he came on deck and said excitedly, “I got it! I know our position.“
Hearing this, Steve felt relief wash through him. He trusted that Tick-Tock could get them to land and eventually to a port by using dead reckoning, but being able to sail directly, without the fear of the unknown hanging over them, lifted a huge burden.
“Where are we?” Steve asked.
“It's not exact, but its close. I’ll need to take some more sightings at sundown and sunrise to get it perfect but I know I’m within a couple miles,” Tick-Took said.
“Where?” Steve asked again.
Tick-Tock unrolled the chart on the deck and pointed to a spot in the Gulf of Mexico. “Right here.”
“Holy shit!” Steve exclaimed, as he saw how far away from Florida they were.
Tick-Tock nodded and said, “We’re a long-ass way from Kansas, Toto.”
Studying the chart, Steve said, “It looks like the closest port we can head to is Galveston.” After a moment, he asked, “Can we even make it back to Florida? I mean, that was our original plan.”
“We could make it,” Tick-Tock replied, “but why bother? Texas has a shitload of Army and Air force bases where we can take Cindy. Why risk a long cruise to Florida? It’s not hurricane season but the storm that blew us out here sure felt like one. I really don't want to have to go through that again.”
Steve had to agree. Although the sailboat was an excellent way to move around, their luck hadn't been too good so far. First the storm before being becalmed and then finding the Dead Calm prompted him to decide it might be better if they got to dry land as soon as possible.
“So Galveston it is,” he said and then asked, “You ever been there?”
“Nope, never,” Tick-Tock replied. “But the one thing I’ve noticed about all port cities I’ve ever been to, is that very few people live down around the docks. The Z’s congregate where there's food, so that means the docks should be deserted. We'll have a pretty easy time moving around when we hit land. We need to find transportation first thing when we go ashore but that shouldn't be a problem. There're all kinds of stuff lying around out there. If I remember right, Texas declared martial law long before Florida did. Maybe we'll get lucky and come across some abandoned National Guard vehicles.”
“Another MRAP?” Steve asked with a smile.
“I’d settle for a two and a half ton truck,” Tick-Tock replied. “All wheel drive would be nice too.”
“And we can hit the local library to find out where the nearest military bases are,” Steve said.
“The hard part will be finding supplies,” Tick-Tock added as Steve pulled The Usual Suspects up to the hatch at the side of the ship. As he did this, both men gauged the distance between the bottom of the opening and the top of the gunwale, but neither could see any change from that morning.
Steve considered that they might be nearing the end of their trek now that they had a solid direction to go in. Out of curiosity, he asked Tick-Tock, “What do you plan on doing after we drop Cindy off?”
“Explore,” he answered with a grin. “Dead or no dead, I’m gonna check things out. I even thought about getting another sailboat and cruising to Europe.”
Steve's brow lifted and he commented dryly, “Great, you can check out Dracula’s castle while you're there.”
Tick-Tock laughed. “No I think I’ve seen enough scary shit to last me a lifetime. I'll skip the land of Vlad. I’m thinking of the Louvre and the British Military Museum.”
“Are you going to ask Susan to come along?”
Tick-Tock shrugged, “I’ll ask, but that's up to her.” Then he asked, “What about you and Heather? What are you two going to do?”
“She wants to go to North Carolina,” Steve replied. “She's got family up that way and she wants to check up on them. I guess I’m along for the ride. After that, who knows? North Carolina is nice. Maybe we'll stay there.”
After tying up the sailboat, Steve and Tick-Tock went to the kitchen in search of something to eat. As they were sitting down to fried chicken left over from the night before, Heather burst through the fire doors at the far end of the dining room. Spotting Steve, she called out, “Is Brain with you? Have you seen him? Please tell me he went with you guys.”
Feeling a crisis at hand, both men rose as Steve said, “No, he stayed here because he had to watch the stairs.”
Heather rushed forward as she said, “He was supposed to take over from Susan and hour ago but he never showed. She called me a half hour ago and we’ve been looking for him ever since.”
Steve ran through the possibilities of where Brain could be. None of them were good. His first thought was that Ricky and his people had grabbed him so he asked, “Did anyone see him go to the upper decks?”
Heather nodded and said, “Susan was watching the stairs, and she said he went up to five with Tim to grab something to eat. She didn't see them come back down. When we asked Tim, he said they both came back downstairs through the elevator shaft because they wanted to explore.”
“Is everybody else here?” He asked, relieved that Ricky didn't seem to be involved. Now they just had to find Brain in case he was hurt and laid up somewhere and not take on over a hundred religious fanatics.
“Everyone's accounted for,” Heather answered as she approached Steve and hugged him. “I left Susan at the stairs and got everyone else organized to search the shops. I already checked the elevator shaft and he's not there.”
“Who else saw him this morning?” Tick-Tock asked.
“Connie saw him, and they made plans to get together for lunch. After that - nothing.”
“Okay, we'll find him,” Steve assured her. “He couldn't have gone far. Hopefully he didn't go exploring the ship on his own.”
“We’re almost finished searching deck four and then we planned to check five,” Heather told him. “I came back here to look for him in the kitchen and the dining room.”
Taking charge, Steve said, “There are three of us here now so we'll split up. Tick-Tock and I will take the kitchen and you look here in the dining room. Before you start though, go out and tell everyone to wait when they've finished searching the shops. We’ll go up to deck five as a group.”
Heather rushed off as Steve and Tick-Tock each un-holstered their pistols. Even though they dreaded finding Brain injured or dead, if they found him undead, they would have to put him out of his misery. After a thorough search of the kitchen with no results, they re-entered the dining room to find Heather, Tim and Connie lifting table cloths to make sure Brain wasn't lying unconscious under one of the tables. Pitching in, they fin
ished in no time. Steve noticed that Connie wore a T-shirt with the words ‘I’m not as dead as you think I am’ on the front. Brain had made one for everyone.
Steve thought to himself, I hope you're not as dead as I think you are, Brain. Then pushed the thought from his head. If you're alive, we'll find you, he vowed.
Moving into the Centrum, Steve heard Sheila and Mary calling out for Brain. As he approached the stairs, the shouts suddenly stopped. Thinking that the engineer had been found, he hurried forward. Instead of finding the missing tech though, he saw a man standing at the bottom of the grand staircase while Susan covered him with her rifle.
Not wanting to be interrupted in his search by one of Ricky's people, Steve asked abruptly, “What do you want?”
“Ricky sent me down to see if you needed some help,” the man said. “One of our people said you were running around down here looking around and calling out for someone named Blain.”
“Brain,” Steve corrected.
The man nodded and smiled, “Brain then. If one of your people is missing, we can help you search for him. It happens with us all the time, so we’ve kind of got a grid system set up that covers all the accessible areas of the ship.”
Steve was debating this when the man looked past him and said, “Hello Sheila. How are you?”
“You son-of-a-bitch,” she spit out in reply.
Turning to her, Steve said dryly, “I take it you know him.”
Her face had become almost the color of her hair. Sheila said venomously, “That's Brother Seth, one of the guys that Ricky sent to kill me.”
“I beg to differ,” Seth said in a sanctimonious tone. “The truth of the matter is that you killed Brother Raymond and ran off. I used to be a cop, so I could arrest you for murder if I wanted to.”
“Where did you work?” Heather cut in.
“The Lee County Sherriff's office in Fort Myers, Florida,” Seth said with pride.
Heather made a snorting noise. “It figures you'd be with Ricky then. You used to be one of the back shooters.”