by J. Thorn
“What happened? Did she bite it off?” I asked, leading her into the salon so I could administer some first aid.
I was surprised to hear her laugh in response. “No. Somebody needs to work on their aim.”
33
The next morning I started the engine and raised the anchor as soon as there was enough light to distinguish individual trees along the shoreline. Notching the throttles forward I settled on half power. The instruments on the flying bridge told me we were going 15 knots, which if my math was correct worked out to about 17 miles per hour. Exposed as I was to the wind and sounds of the hull slicing through the lake, it felt much faster.
I wasn’t a sailor by any means, having driven a boat only a handful of times in my life. Not very comfortable with how fast I could stop the big cruiser or what its turning radius was like, I didn’t plan on going any faster than our current speed. Getting there a little slower in one piece beats getting there a little faster in several pieces any day of the week.
We followed the lake for most of the morning. There was the occasional abandoned boat floating at the whim of the wind and currents, but we gave them a wide berth. Twice we saw infected roaming the southern shoreline, but there was no sign of life all morning. Shortly before noon we entered an area of the lake where it spread out and the southern shoreline disappeared over the horizon. I throttled back to idle and pulled out the maps.
We were in the widest part of the lake and it was nearly twenty miles wide at this point. We were closer to the northern shore which was apparently undeveloped. The map offered no clue, but I suspected it was protected land, possibly a state park or wildlife sanctuary. Otherwise, builders would have snatched up the valuable waterfront property and crammed in as many houses as they could.
Over the horizon to the south the map showed a dense tangle of roads right up to the edge of the water for miles in each direction. A marina was marked on the map as well as an area designated for amphibious aircraft. What I wouldn’t give to know how to fly. We’d be to Arizona in a matter of hours, not the weeks that I expected it was going to take.
Rachel joined me on the flying bridge, curious why we had stopped. I showed her the map and traced my finger to the far end of the lake where a river either emptied into or drained from the lake. The map gave no indication and I wasn’t familiar enough with the area to even hazard a guess. I just hoped the river was navigable.
Rachel agreed with me that we didn’t want to go anywhere near the southern shore. We not only had to worry about infected, but as we had learned there was a very real threat from survivors as well. I pushed the throttle back to half power and the big boat slowly picked up speed, coming to plane on the surface as we passed through ten knots.
Rachel leaned a hip against the bridge railing and used the binoculars to make a 360 degree scan of the lake. We both stayed on the bridge for the next few hours, me driving the boat and Rachel frequently scanning the horizon for other boats.
By mid-afternoon I was sluggish and sleepy from the sun and wind. I made myself stand to prevent nodding off from the gentle motion of the boat as it motored across the lake. Rachel seemed to have no issue staying alert and was once again holding the binoculars up, resting them on the back of her bandaged hand.
“Got something.” She said.
I was instantly alert as those two words triggered a big dump of adrenaline into my system. I looked in the direction Rachel was locked onto, not see anything except water and humidity haze.
“Can’t see it. What have you got?” I asked, hand on the throttle in preparation for pushing our speed up.
“Small boat. Looks like three people in it, but I can’t tell men from women. I don’t think they’ve seen us. Take a look.” Rachel handed over the glasses and I raised them to my face and adjusted the focus for my eyes.
It took some patience and scanning back and forth but I finally spotted the boat. It was a small ski boat, probably no more than twenty or twenty-five feet in length. There were three people visible, one driving and two sitting near the stern, but like Rachel I couldn’t see any detail other than a human form. The boat was traveling in the same direction as us, probably about four miles away, moving at a good speed. I agreed with Rachel that it didn’t appear they had spotted us. They seemed to be focused on getting from point A to point B and not paying any attention to their surroundings as they transited the lake. I scanned ahead of their direction of travel, seeing nothing except more lake and more haze.
“What do you think?” Rachel asked, watching me scan the lake.
“I think I don’t like it,” I said. “They could just be survivors heading for the river like us. Or, they could be part of a larger group that’s either ahead of us near the river or behind us on the southern shore. Either way I think we need to exercise some caution here.”
Reaching out I shut down the engine. The depth finder said we had almost two hundred feet of water under us at the moment, and I had no idea if our anchor line was long enough. I flipped the switch anyway. The anchor hit the water with a splash and the nylon line that attached it to the boat made a distinctly serpentine hissing sound as it unrolled and slid through a stainless steel ring set in the rail of the boat’s bow. It seemed to hiss forever, then stopped as suddenly as it had started. I moved the switch to the middle position which locked the anchor winch and a few moments later the boat came up against the line, stretching it tight and holding us fast to the bottom.
We stayed in that spot for the rest of the afternoon, taking turns on the bridge with the binoculars to keep watch. When it was Rachel’s turn to watch I went below and stretched out in the salon, resting but unable to nap. I planned to wait until dark before resuming our travel. I’d keep the speed down which would also keep the noise down and hopefully let us approach the river unseen and unheard.
I didn’t know what to think of the boat we’d seen, but if I was of a mind to set up an ambush for unwary travelers I couldn’t think of a better place than the natural choke point of the transition from a lake to a river. The lake was great and had provided us with an easy path to cover a lot of miles quickly, but to really make progress we’d have to transition to the river, again assuming it was navigable. It was certainly drawn large enough on the road map I had, but I doubted the cartographer had been particularly concerned with the accuracy of waterways when the map was created.
As the sun slipped below the horizon I started the engine, waited while the anchor winch did its job, then fed in enough throttle to get us moving. I had taken a compass heading before we dropped anchor and quickly got us back on that heading, slowly motoring towards the river.
We sailed with the boat blacked out, the only light showing being the dim, red glow from the instrument panel on the flying bridge. Even though it was dim I looked for a way to shut them off, coming up empty as apparently the light was on if the engine was on. I checked the fuse panel thinking to pull the fuse for the instrument lights, but it was poorly marked and I didn’t feel like messing around with something I knew little about. I finally settled for ripping off strips of duct tape and covering each instrument to mask its light. This was a better solution anyway because if I really needed to check something all I had to do was peel back a piece of tape and the gauge would be instantly visible.
Rachel stayed on the bridge with me, again acting as lookout with the binoculars, continually scanning all around us. Neither of us was in a talkative mood and the evening passed in silence.
Finally, shortly after midnight, Rachel lowered the glasses and stepped close to me, speaking in a low voice, “Lights ahead, just a little to the right of our direction of travel. They’re dim and I can’t see them without the glasses.”
Throttling back to idle, I took the glasses from her and raised them to look in the direction she pointed. Faint spots of light were visible against a darker back drop. It took me some time to realize that the back drop was heavy forest and we had reached the shore where the river cut through into the l
ake. I guessed the lights were still well over a mile away as they were completely invisible to the naked eye, so I nudged the throttle enough to get us moving forward again.
Taking a moment, I double checked the location and load on our rifles, made sure the extra magazines were loaded and at hand on our vests and pistols had rounds in the chambers and were ready to go. Satisfied we were as prepared as possible I focused on the darkness ahead, straining to spot the break in the shoreline that would indicate the path to the river.
A few minutes later I lowered our speed to as close to idle as I could get it and still have enough water flow across the rudder to allow me to steer the boat. The term ‘steerage way’ came to mind, but I wasn’t about to try and start talking like a sailor when I didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Peeling the tape off the Indicated Knots gauge I checked our speed, the needle bouncing right around three knots, and then spread the tape back into place.
“What can you see?” I mumbled to Rachel, lips close to her ear. I knew how sound could travel across the water and I was worried enough about the sound of the engine. I sure didn’t want to add in a human voice.
“Same thing,” She answered just as quietly. “Dim spots of light. If I had to guess I’d say they almost look like windows in a house with the curtains closed, but that’s just a guess. Oh, and there’s a break in the shoreline directly in front of us that I’m pretty sure is the river. It could just be an inlet to a cove, but I don’t think so. It looks nice and wide to me. See what you think.”
I took the offered binoculars and focused first on the lights, then slightly left to the break in the darkness that Rachel had referred to. She was right about the light looking like house windows, and if this was the river at least the mouth of it was nice and wide. Of course we still had the speedboat in tow which could operate in as little as two feet of water if needed. I hoped we didn’t need it.
We kept motoring forward, finally cutting the engines and letting the big boat drift to a stop when I estimated we were about half a mile from the mouth of the river. The spots of light were much more defined through the binoculars now, and it looked like Rachel had called it correctly. They were, without a doubt, windows with curtains pulled over them. We both spent a good amount of time scanning the shore, the opening to the river and the building with the lights, but neither of us spotted any indication of an ambush and thankfully no infected.
Decision time. Did we try to motor quietly into the river and past the building, risking navigating in the dark in a very large and cumbersome boat? Should we transition to the speed boat and head up river? Was it wise to try and make contact with the people in the building, or should we just pull back out into the lake and wait for daylight to make a run for the river at speed?
Rachel and I discussed and weighed each of the options, finally settling on pulling back and waiting. I was too concerned about taking the boat into the river in the darkness and neither of us was ready to abandon the big cruiser just yet. Neither were we eager to introduce ourselves to the strangers. Even if they were friendlies, it was almost two o’clock in the morning and not the time of day to make a social call.
As we sat and discussed our options I noted that we were slowly drifting back towards the open lake, away from the river. Well, that answered that question. We were in a mild current that was resulting from the river emptying into the lake. We rode that current for another hour.
Once we were far enough out into the lake that the lighted windows could only be seen with the binoculars, I dropped the anchor. I sent Rachel below to rest while I settled into the padded captain’s chair on the flying bridge to keep watch for a few hours. Dog padded into the salon with Rachel, leaving me to my thoughts in the quiet night.
34
The eastern sky was just starting to lighten when I went below and shook Rachel awake. Her eyes flew open and she sat straight up in bed the second I touched her shoulder, relaxing when I spoke softly to her.
“It’s going to be dawn soon. Can you take watch and wake me in two hours?”
Rachel nodded, rubbed her eyes, scooted to the edge of the bed and stood up. Dog looked up at us without moving and grunted his displeasure at being disturbed before rolling over onto his other side and ignoring us.
“Anything moving?” Rachel asked, pulling her pants on and picking up her socks and boots off the floor.
“Quiet as a tomb.” I said, then grinned in embarrassment at my poor choice of analogies.
Rachel patted me on the chest as she squeezed past, and I fell into the bed, sheets still warm from her body. I twisted the pillows around to get comfortable, pushed Dog’s big paws out of my face and closed my eyes. Moments later Rachel was shaking my shoulder.
“It’s been two hours.” She said.
I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was Dog’s ass aimed directly at my face. Slapping his tail down to cover the view I sat up, wincing from the pain in my chest. The good news was my chest only hurt when I moved now, not all the time. The bad news was it still hurt enough to slow me down if I needed to move quickly.
“Still quiet?” I asked, accepting the cup of coffee Rachel pressed into my hand.
“Very. Sun’s been up about an hour, but we’ve got a layer of fog on the lake that’s keeping us well hidden. Can’t see past the bow, but I’ve not heard anything so far.”
I stood up and sipped from the mug, wincing from the pain in my chest and the bitter coffee. Dog rolled over and laid his head on the pillow I’d just vacated, tail thumping the mattress like a big bass drum. Rachel leaned in and smacked him on the ass until he finally jumped off the bed so she could straighten the covers. While Dog wandered forward to the small deck at the bow to take care of personal business, I did the same in the small head. Finishing the coffee, I made my way out of the salon and up to the flying bridge.
We floated in a world of white cotton. The fog was thick and all enveloping, nothing visible beyond the boat’s railing. Leaning out and looking over the side I could make out the steel grey water lapping against the hull, but the sound was muted in the thick fog. Every surface had beaded water on it, and when Rachel climbed the ladder and joined me I noted her normally thick hair was plastered to her head in the damp.
We sat quiet, listening, but other than the gentle lap of the water all we heard were Dog’s nails on the fiberglass deck as he made his way back to the stern.
“When did the fog roll in?” I asked in a quiet voice.
“About half an hour after you woke me. It was clear as a bell when I came up, then it felt like the temperature dropped ten degrees and within fifteen minutes it was like this. This is pretty normal in Georgia for this time of year. In another hour the sun will have burned it off.”
We sat in the fog, talking in low voices, discussing our plan. Neither of us was anxious to make contact with other survivors. We had the supplies we needed for a while, were well armed and still had a good stock of ammunition. There was nothing we could see being gained by taking the risk of approaching more people at this time. For all we knew they could turn out to be even more paranoid than us and start shooting as soon as they saw us.
With our decision made, we ate a Spartan breakfast, sharing with Dog, and took the opportunity to individually jump into the lake with a bar of soap. Despite the chilly fog, the lake water was warm and refreshing. Rachel had bandaged my wounds with plastic wrap and medical tape before she’d let me get in the water, and it felt wonderful to get the last of the blood and grime washed from my body. The boat did have a small laundry set on board and Rachel had washed and dried a set of clothes for each of us. Before dressing I rummaged through one of the heads until I found a disposable razor, then sat on the stern rail while Rachel shaved the stubble off my head. I took care of my face, dressed in clean clothes and felt like a new man.
About 8:30 the fog started thinning slightly, then quickly burned off as the sun’s light warmed up. Back on the flying bridge I scanned with the binoculars and r
ealized that the lights we’d seen the night before hadn’t been a building on the shore, but a house boat tied to the shore. The ski boat from yesterday was tied to the house boat’s rail and there was no sign of movement.
Swinging the glasses to the left I was immediately thankful that we had not tried to take the cruiser up the river in the dark. Sitting half submerged, and blocking almost half of the river’s mouth was a crashed helicopter that had been invisible in the dark. The nose of the chopper was stuck into the muddy right bank of the river, the body of the aircraft tilted sideways nearly 40 degrees and the tail extending out into the water. The rotor blades were snapped off and it was easy to trace their path of destruction into the trees that lined the shore. I silently handed the binoculars to Rachel and she caught her breath when she saw the downed craft.
“Can we get around it?” She asked without lowering the glasses.
“The short answer is we’re going to get around it. Either in this or the speedboat.” I answered, looking over my shoulder, trying to identify the low sound I was hearing. Not able to see anything I reached out for the glasses, rudely taking them from Rachel without asking, and using them to scan the open lake to our rear.
Two bass boats with monster outboard engines were coming towards us at what had to be full throttle. Four men were in each boat and the long, stick looking things in their hands were most certainly rifles. I spun around, started the engine and hit the switch for the anchor to raise. Again, it seemed to take forever but if I started moving forward before it was fully retracted I could end up driving over my own anchor line and getting it tangled in the boat’s propellers.
Rachel had the glasses back and was watching the fast approaching boats. My eyes were glued to the anchor winch, willing it to go faster. When the anchor finally broke the surface of the lake I slammed the throttle all the way forward and the big boat’s engine bellowed. The stern settled for a moment as the props displaced the water directly under it, then we started accelerating. Much too slow. This wasn’t a speed boat, it was a floating luxury home and not made for fast starts.