by Jeff Thomson
“Shut your fucking pie hole,” Duke snapped. “You heard the man. Strip people. And if anyone grabs my ass...” the voice cut off as Jonesy closed the Chartroom door.
Without a word, he began to de-rig. Slowly, but surely, he un-clipped the M4 and set it on the desk, then removed the machete in its sheath from his harness belt, then undid the straps of the harness. He ripped the velcro from first one thigh holster, then the next, then the first calf-sheath, then the next, and placed all his guns and knives and ammo next to the M4. He shrugged out of the body armor and added it to the pile, then turned around.
Molly was facing the chart table with her back to him. She was not disrobing.
“If you’d rather somebody else did this...”
She stiffened, then her shoulders began to slump, bit by bit. “No,” she said in a very quiet voice. Finally, she turned to face him. “Jonesy,” she said softly. “We can’t...”
“I know,” he said, just as softly.
“Ever.”
“I know.”
She stared at him for a moment longer, then her lips quirked into a crooked smile. “You said that a little too easily,” she said, then turned her back on him again and began to get undressed.
“You know me,” he said, chuckling, then he, too, turned his back.
“Yes, I do,” she said, and Jonesy thought he detected a touch of sadness in her voice.
They disrobed in a silence weighted down by an unresolved past that he wasn’t sure he wanted to remain unresolved. At the same time, however, he also recognized the impossibility of the situation. The words he’d uttered to his subordinates so many times over so many years - you ain’t gotta like it, you just gotta do it - came back at him with a vengeance.
Finally, he heard her heave a heavy sigh. “Why didn’t you ever call me?” She asked. “No, wait. Forget it. I don’t want to know.”
He laughed, and tried to keep it to himself, but ultimately it slipped into audible range and danced around the room. “Don’t strain you brain, Molly. The answer is simple,” he said. “You told me not to.”:
“And you believed me?”
They still had their backs to each other, but he knew what the expression on her face would look like: that mixture of exasperation and humor and anger and amusement he’d always managed to get out of her, both before and during their affair. “Yeah, I’m funny that way,” he said, pulling off his tee shirt. “I tend to do what people say they want me to do.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
He dropped his trousers, then his underwear, then turned to face her. As if in some rehearsed and intricate ballet, she turned at the same time. They stood, facing each other, neither of them saying a word, and both of them stark naked. He watched her eyes slowly, inexorably descend from his face, to his chest, to his abs, and finally to...
“Why do I think you’re enjoying this?” she said, her gaze lingering on his half-erect penis.
“Because my eyes are open?” He quipped.
“Wasn’t thinking about your eyes,” she said, and finally looked at his face again.
“Oh just ignore that,” he replied.
“Right,” she said with a tanker truck full of sarcasm. She sighed again, and said: “Let’s get this over with.”
Jonesy eased open the interior Bridge door and called: “Everybody decent?” He heard an affirmative reply at almost the same moment he heard the door to Radio click open behind him. Bill popped his head out.
“Got something,” he said, as he headed past them and onto the Bridge. He took a look around at the assembled crew, some of whom were still partially undressed. “Did I miss something?”
“Whatchya got?” Molly asked.
“An EPIRB,” he replied (referring to an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon), going over to the GSB 900 on its rack near the remnants of the deep fathometer. He said it as a word (eeperb), rather than a series of letters. That always drove Jonesy insane when he heard it pronounced as letters on TV by people who supposedly should know better. That went double for SAR (search and rescue), which always seemed to be said as S-A-R. Didn’t the idiots in Hollywood understand that acronyms were created for brevity? Didn’t they make the connection that other such acronyms like FUBAR, SNAFU and BOHICA, were said and not spelled out?
A dim and distant, but still clear and readable beeping came through the speakers as Bill tuned the GSB to 406mhz. He reached over and did the same tuning on the Radio Direction Finder. The relative direction indicator pointed slightly to the right of straight ahead.
Jonesy glanced at the gyrocompass and checked the bearing. “About two-nine-zero,” he said. “Somewhere towards Midway, I think.” He lifted the top of the chart table and rooted around until he found a smaller scale chart. He glanced at the GPS in its rack above him, roughly plotted their position using his fingers, then slid the Wheems Plotter into position in the direction of the signal. He nodded, then looked at Molly. “Two-nine-zero will do, till we get some better information.” She gave him a subtle but clear questioning look. “We only have one bearing. We need three.”
She stared at the deck for a moment, mulling it over, then said: “Can you blow this up onto a maneuvering board?” she asked, indicating the chart that covered such a wide area. To get three bearings that would make any sense on a chart that covered so much ocean, they’d have to move fifty or sixty nautical miles in one direction, then turn around and go a hundred in the opposite direction. By blowing up the scale onto a maneuvering board, however, they reduced that distance to maybe ten, depending on how far the source of the signal actually was.
She turned to Duke. “You and Simmons get in the RHIB (pronounced “rib”), head ten miles south, get a bearing with the RDF, then turn around and go ten miles to the north. We’ll maintain position right here.” She glanced at Jonesy, who nodded.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Duke said, then turned and headed below, adding: “Move your ass, Harold.”
Jonesy looked at her and smiled. “Looks like we got us a SAR case.”
130
They located the signal roughly six hundred and eighty nautical miles from their original position, using the method Molly devised. In theory, they shouldn’t have been able to pick it up at that range, but every now and then (or so Bill explained) you could get an atmospheric bounce that would spread any signal for a thousand miles or more. Jonesy remembered sitting at the PACAREA Command Center, in Alameda, CA, and hearing radio chatter from Sector Honolulu on VHF, which should only have been line-of-sight, so it was within the realm of possibility. Of course, the world was pretty damned empty, these days - of live, sentient people to talk on a radio, at any rate, so maybe that had something to do with it, as well. Whatever the case, Jonesy would take it. They needed some good news.
While Duke and Harold had been taking their little boat ride, the others began the grizzly task of removing the bodies of their shipmates. Those below deck were moved to the Forward Hold, and once Duke returned, they popped the Buoy Deck hatch with the crane and hoisted them up on pallets. It was gut wrenching, heartbreaking work, but it had to be done, and so they had done it.
The worst part, however, was cleaning the blood and guts and shit from the compartments where the various fights had taken place. Three of the staterooms were so bad, Jonesy almost recommended welding the doors shut, but decay and rot spread insects and disease, so if they wanted to survive the aftermath, they had to clean it all.
Frank had taken the Engine Room, and Molly had taken the Bridge, which left Jonesy, Bill, Dan, and Gary to clean the worst of it, until Duke and Harold returned to give them a hand. By the time they neared the EPIRB signal, two and a half days later, the worst of it was over - except for dealing with the emotion..
Jonesy had thought he was becoming hardened, and could no longer feel anything like a normal human being. All the killing, all the senseless death, all the guilt and horror, should have made him desensitized, numb, immune. It
had not.
When this was over, he really was going to have to get shitfaced.
The signal turned out to be a sweet little sailboat, the Pretty, Pretty. It bobbed on a calm sea, apparently empty. But appearances, as they used to say, could be deceiving, and so Jonesy went armed to the teeth, and since they might be able to salvage the boat, or at least take the fuel and some of the parts, Molly decided (at Jonesy’s suggestion) to send Frank along, instead of Duke.
The boat had already been moved to the rail, so Jonesy and Frank climbed aboard and sat on the sponson as they began to lower it onto the sea. Jonesy brought along a gym bag, which he put on the deck at his feet.
They were away in less than three minutes, thanks to Duke’s practiced handling of the drop, and in a bit more than two, were tying off onto the Transom Deck of the S/V Pretty, Pretty. It was an apt name, for it was a pretty boat - or had been before the Fall, and however many days it spent adrift. She was blue and white and forty-five feet long, with nice lines and a straight, but empty mast that reached toward a windy sky that would never propel it onward again.
They tied off and climbed aboard to eerie silence. The sound of the Sass could be heard in the distance, but it was subdued and almost covered by the breeze. Tackle slapped against the aluminum yard arm. Nothing moved. No one came on deck to greet them.
They found the EPIRB, its light flashing in its rack on the bulkhead just forward of the steering console. A cast metal car (a Trans Am, to be precise - black, like something out of Smokey and the Bandit) sat just to one side.
An abandoned child’s toy...
Jonesy and Frank looked at each other. A chill ran up Jonesy’s spine.
He opened the gym bag and pulled out two respirators, a can of disinfectant spray, and a jar of Vapo-Rub. He handed one of the respirators to Frank, then tucked the spray can under his arm, opened the jar and offered it to his friend.
“It’s gonna stink in there,” he said.
He had seen people in movies use the stuff to mask the smell of corpses, most famously in The Silence of the Lambs., a movie that had scared the shit out of him. Apparently, so had Frank, who dipped a finger in the jar, and wiped a glob of it beneath his nose.
“It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.”
The chill was back, doing wind sprints along Jonesy’s vertebrae. He wiped some of the sharp, medicinal-smelling stuff beneath his own nose, then dropped the jar into the bag at his feet and donned the respirator.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said, his voice muffled by the mask. Before I lose my nerve, he added - but only inside his own skull. He re-fastened the helmet, dropped the face shield, then opened the outer hatch and stepped inside, holding his .45 at the ready - just in case.
131
Molly and Harold watched from the open Bridge door. She supposed at least one of them should be paying attention to the radar, but the Dynamic Positioning System was holding them on station, they were two hundred and forty-three miles from the nearest point of land (Midway Atoll), and there hadn’t been a single contact in days, until they found the sailboat. She glanced down onto the Boat Deck, and saw Duke and Gary also watching their shipmates disappear into the bowels of the unknown vessel.
She felt like she should be doing something - issuing orders, acting like a Commanding Officer - some damned thing, any damned thing, other than watching two of the eight survivors of the Sassafras disaster vanish into God Knew What was waiting for them. But she shoved the thought down and locked it away, tight as a bank vault.
This was the job. Like it or not, want it or not, she was in command - their Glorious Leader, for good or ill.
Uncle John had once told her a quote from Admiral Chester Nimitz, the man in charge of all Naval forces in the Pacific, during WW2: “If put in a position of leadership, lead.” She’d nodded sagely at the time, as if she understood - which she hadn’t. She might understand it now. It meant, make a decision, stick by that decision, take responsibility for that decision, and watch as others got on with the business of executing that decision - even if it meant putting them in harm’s way.
But they could die.
She shoved that thought into the vault, as well, and spun the combination.
The moments ticked on. The DPS maneuvered the ship. The engines and generator chugged away below. They waited.
The hatch popped open with a bang, sending a bolt straight into her heart as Jonesy and Frank staggered out onto the deck of the sailboat. Frank fell to one knee and stayed there, bowing and shaking his head. Jonesy paused in the hatchway, then stepped toward the rail on the far side, pulling off his helmet and respirator as he went. He leaned his free hand on the rail, leaned his torso over the rail and convulsed, as if he were about to vomit. He did not, but it looked as if it had been a near thing.
Molly glued the binoculars to her eyes, willing them to make sense out of the tableau. They didn’t. Something had happened. Something bad.
After a period of that odd sort of time that could be moments or could be hours, Jonesy straightened and moved back from the rail. He seemed to wipe at his eyes before he turned . Were those tears? She couldn’t tell, but something was clearly wrong. And all she could do to help her shipmate, her friend, her (former) lover, was wait.
He said something they obviously couldn’t hear to Frank, who looked up at him, then raised a hand toward him, as if in supplication.
But no. That was just Molly’s imagination getting the better of herself. Jonesy grasped the offered hand and pulled Frank to his feet. They stared at each other for a moment, then Jonesy slapped his friend on the side of the helmet, and reached for his radio.
“Sass, Boarding Team, over...”
Molly stared at the comco in her hand, scarcely remembering that she had brought it with her when she and Harold exited the Bridge. She brought it to her lips.
“Go Boarding Team, over...”
“Three dead,” Jonesy’s voice said, sounding flat and emotionless over the radio. “Two adults and...” he paused. “One child.”
He didn’t say “Over,” but she’d heard the faint electronic pop as the handset key was released.
“Understood,” she said. “Over...”
He took a deep breath she could see, even without the binoculars, then continued. “Vessel is not worth recovering,” he said, not explaining. “But it is filled with fuel and stores. Recommend we strip it of everything...” he paused again. “Then burn it to the waterline. Over...”
132
Jonesy made a slicing motion across his throat, signaling Duke to shut off the pump sucking all the diesel fuel from the Pretty, Pretty. He disconnected the intake hose, then watched as the large Bosun Mate pulled it onto the buoy tender.
They’d covered the bodies of the mother and...child..., but left the father where he was. Hadn’t seemed any point in moving him.
Frank set a large cardboard box heavily onto the bar. “This is the last of the dry stores.” He peered into it. “Pasta, mostly, but a few spices. Gary ought to be happy.”
“What’s left?” Jonesy asked. They had been at it for hours. Duke and Harold had both offered to come over and help (Harold reluctantly) but he turned them down. Two people with nightmares would be plenty, he’d thought. Besides, they’d needed to stay aboard for the fuel offload. Dan needed to stay in the Engine Room, Bill needed to remain locked in the Radio Room, and Molly needed to be on the Bridge. That would have only left Gary to handle the fuel transfer, and Gary was a cook. Competent, yes, absolutely, and certainly capable, but still a cook. Fuel Ops were not in his job description - nor did he want them to be.
“Just the booze,” Frank replied. They had both taken off their helmets and respirators some time ago.
The interior still stank of decomposition, but they opened all the port holes and exterior doors, closed the husband into his stateroom, and then Jonesy sprayed the fuck out of the main cabin, using the entire can of disinfectant. They still had th
e globs of Vapo-Rub beneath their noses, and, after a while, they’d just gotten used to the stench.
Amazing, the shit you can get used to, Jonesy mused.
From what they could tell of the scenario they’d discovered on entering the interior, the child - a boy of perhaps ten - caught the virus and turned. He’d mangled the mother. Looked like something out of Jack the Ripper, but without the knives. The father had then, apparently, killed the child with a knotted length of nylon line, then used more of that line to hang himself from a beam in the Master Stateroom.
Jonesy wondered if there was enough alcohol in this entire fallen world to blot the memory of it from his mind. He doubted it, but looking at the bar, he thought they might be able to make a really good start.
There were excellent (and expensive) bottles of scotch, rum, gin, vodka, bourbon, and (gods be praised!) even a full case of El Tesoro de Don Felipe, Jonesy’s favorite Anejo tequila. There were also numerous bottles of various liqueurs, including, he saw with a pang of loss, BM2 Masur’s favorite: Cointreau. The man had drunk nothing but the orange liqueur, every chance he got - which was often - and he usually ended up face down in some inconvenient gutter as a result. Many was the time Jonesy or Frank or Duke or Harold or Bill or (name pretty much every other enlisted crew member) carried the poor bastard home.
Now he was dead, and nobody would carry him home ever again.
They loaded several boxes filled with bottles into the RHIB. When they were done, and with barely enough room in the small boat to hold the two of them, they returned to the main cabin to take care of the final task.
That poor family on that poor sailboat had suffered true tragedy. Jonesy had never seen anything so tragic, and he was sure he’d remember it for the rest of his days. Simply scuttling the boat and allowing the ocean to swallow it whole didn’t seem to be enough, somehow. They needed to burn the tragedy out; to scour it from the earth, to leave no trace - not even at the bottom of the sea.