by J. B. Beatty
“Go for it,” I say. “What's the worse that can happen?”
“Stop saying that,” Carrie snaps.
Finally, we round a point and Justin thinks we're near it. “Suddenly, we have a current pushing us away.”
“Maybe we should take the hint,” says Carrie.
“No, we're going in slowly.” But as we get closer, we can see that we're not the first to have this idea. Another boat is ahead of us, and it seems pretty steady in the water.
“What the hell,” says Justin. “Even keel.”
“What does that mean?” asks Carrie.
“Level in the water. Looks like it's in pretty good shape. It could be occupied. Rifles.”
I put the clip into mine and aim at the new boat, Carrie doing the same. It is almost the same size as ours, and though no one is visible above board, there could be people below in the cabin.
“We're going to give them some warning,” says Justin. “No sense in shooting at them out of the blue.” He brings his hands up around his mouth megaphone-style, and yells, “Ahoy!”
We wait a minute before Justin repeats the call.
We are all shocked when the door of the cabin opens and a man looks out. “Oh, hello,” he says. We continue to drift closer but now Justin puts the engines in reverse to try to brake our movement.
When our flashlights fall on him we see it's a young man, blond, maybe 25 or so. He appears to be unarmed, and he's wearing a gray sweatshirt and glasses. He looks completely harmless.
“Welcome! Who are you?” he asks.
“We have the same question for you,” Justin asks.
The young man appraises us, and suddenly I see us through his eyes. We have two semi-automatic rifles pointed at him. He appears to be armed only with a flashlight.
“I'll answer first, I suppose, because otherwise it appears as if you may be inclined to dispatch me with violence, eh.” He laughs awkwardly.
None of us laughs, though it appears he was joking.
“But yes,” he continues, “my name is Thomas Viskari. You can just call me Viskari, because there’s another Thomas. I'm used to people calling me Viskari.” He looks around like the shy guy at the party who can't make small talk. “It's early,” he says. “What brings you to this part of town?”
I look to Justin but he doesn't answer.
“Do you have names yourselves?” asks Viskari.
“I'm Justin. This is Arvy, and this is Carrie.”
“Oh, Arvy. Are you Finnish?”
“Um, not that I know of.”
“That's interesting. I know some Arvys. That's short for Arvinen.”
“What are you doing here?” Justin asks, as our boats drift to within 10 feet.
“Well, now that's actually a good question. We were kind of looking for a place to put up for the day, and we seem to be a little stuck on a sandbar.”
“We? How many of you are there?”
“Well, there's another good question. I sometimes have trouble counting because—” and he raises his left hand “—I was working in a mill one summer before my junior year of college and I lost a finger.”
“Ooh,” I say.
“Oh, it's really not so bad, or uncommon really. It's something of a local rite of passage. When we shake hands with a new stranger we'll often surreptitiously glance at their fingers afterwards just to do a quick count, to see if our tactile impression matches the actual number of fingers. It's just a thing that happens up there.”
“Where's up there?” I ask, but Justin puts his arm across as if to stop me.
“Throw out the anchor,” he tells me. I have to find the anchor and throw it off the back of the boat. “Tie it up so we don't drift too much.”
He turns to Viskari: “How many of you are there?”
“Yes, as I was saying, I'm not so good at counting...”
“Bullshit.”
“Ah.” Then he turns and to the darkness on shore, he says, “Mateys, might you please count off.”
A gunshot. I instinctively flinch. Another. And another. I see the flashes from the shore. We have all taken cover but it appears none of the shots are coming our way. They're firing in the air. One at a time. Counting off. I get eight.
“Yeah, so I think we have you outnumbered. The next round of shots will be at you if you don't stop pointing those guns at us. That seems awfully unneighborly of you, considering we just met, eh?”
I had just picked up my gun again after messing with the anchor. Now I lower it. Carrie does the same.
“There's no need for violence,” says Justin.
“That's exactly what I am saying,” agrees Viskari. “I believe we have a mutual interest in shared survival in a world turned upside down, a joint quest, as it were, to meet the challenge of flourishing in a topsy-turvy world where all of our previously-held assumptions prove...”
“Shut up, Viskari!” shouts a woman from the darkness on the shore.
“I think she's ready to talk now,” he says sheepishly. “She being our pirate captain.”
“Pirates?” asks Carrie.
“We'll see,” says the woman. “Still trying that one on for size. Why don't you put those guns completely down. We're going to pull our boats together and see what's up. Make sense?”
Justin looks at me. I shrug. Viskari has a grappling hook which he swings back and forth. “Watch out now!” he says. “I will try to be gentle, but this actually could put out an eye in the event of an unfortunate trajectory.” And he tosses the hook onto our boat, where it lands on the deck; he pulls, catching it on the rail. Then he starts pulling until our boats touch.
Meanwhile the crew of people that had been on land have been splashing their way back to their boat, climbing aboard, and showing themselves in the light. They are all young, a mix of men and women. No black uniforms. All are armed.
The woman speaks again: “We don't have much time before sunrise and we generally don't like to be out and about in the sun.”
“It's almost like we're vampires,” says Viskari.
“Shut up,” she says. But it sounds more like she says “Shut oop.”
“Are you Canadians?” I ask.
“Ah, now that' a hoot,” she says. “You hear one 'eh' and you think you've got a bunch of Canuck pirates. Hah, the Canadians. Haven't seen much sign of them since the rats came out of the toilet, so to speak. No, when people started turning into beasts with the flu, I suspect all the Canadians apologized and opened their doors wide. 'Are you hungry, eh? Then have a nibble o'me arm.' ”
She laughs. Viskari laughs. All the pirates laugh. I laugh too, because it's somewhat funny and I need a little comic relief. Carrie and Justin don't laugh because they probably have issues with all the guns pointed at them right now. I guess I'm different. I'd rather die laughing in the end.
Which could actually be quite soon.
“We're just vagrants of the sea,” she says. “My name is Leena. And we have to do some quick thinking now, and I like to be direct about things. We have to decide if you're good guys or bad guys and be done with it before the sun rises. If you're good guys, maybe we can work with you in some way. If you're bad guys, we have to hurry up and kill you.”
“Take your time,” pleads Carrie.
“We're good guys,” says Justin.
“Well, now everyone is, eh, when they've got guns pointed at them.”
“There's the rub,” says Viskari.
“Don't mind him,” Leena says. She's shorter than the others, maybe 35ish, with auburn hair and a thick build. In another life she might have been a janitor or a barmaid or a member of the House of Representatives from a very rural district.
“Why haven't you turned to beasts?” she says.
“Beasts?” I say. “Is that what you call the zombies? That is so interesting...”
“Why?” she demands of me, and a couple of the gun barrels swivel in my direction.
“Um...” I say.
“Hurry!” Carrie whispers at me.<
br />
“Um, a near-death experience apparently rendered me immune to the virus.”
“Uh huh,” says Leena. “And you?” She points at Justin.
“HIV.” He clears his throat.
“Uh huh. And you, sweetie?”
Carrie hesitates, then says, “Lupus... It's an auto...”
“I know what it is, honey. I think I even gave money to Lupus once... You're welcome. Is anyone here Finnish?”
Several arms go up in the crowd behind her. Leena looks at Justin: “I know you're not. No one? That's weird.”
“What's with the Finnish business?” Justin asks.
“You sound like everyone who's ever traveled through my hometown,” she says. “Okay, level with me. Where are you going? What are you doing out here on this boat?”
Justin holds his lips firm. Carrie looks at me. I decide to spill, because these pirates or whatever certainly don't seem to be soldiers from Great America.
“We're going to the other side of the fence, enemy territory. We need to find a supply of their vaccine and bring it back to some kids who are waiting for it.”
Viskari jumps to Leena's side. “What did I tell you? There must be a vaccine. That's the only thing that would explain it. All those soldiers can't be Finnish... or have Lupus.”
“Shut up,” she says to him. Then she turns back to us. “But he has a point. We need to talk. Do you want to come back to our place? It's safe, mostly. Will take about 20 minutes from here, if you can pull our boat off of this damn sandbar. Should be no problem.”
Justin looks at us both and says, “Yeah. We can do this.”
We scramble to find the best tow rope. About half the pirates jump back into the shallow water to help push at the boat. Soon we have turned around, and with the rope pulled taut, start working the engine faster and faster to get the pirate boat to budge. Finally, it moves and our boat lurches ahead. I fall when we jolt, but rise quickly as if it was just part of the plan.
Leena's boat comes alongside and one of her men toss us the rope. Then she says, “Follow me.”
But instead of going north or south, we head straight into Lake Michigan, into the darkness. I look at Carrie, who is standing next to me, clutching the rail. “Well?” I say.
“This is a twist,” she says. “One I did not see coming.”
53→THESE KIND OF THINGS WAS ADVENTURES
Strangely, once I get past the drowning fear and the death-by-pirates fear, I find being on the water strangely calming. That lurking trepidation in the back of my mind is silenced, in a way much more effectively than it is in the bunker. I realize that here we are safe from zombies.
Of course, I have no idea if they can swim. Yet it stands to reason, from what we have seen of them, that their physical abilities are close to what they were able to manage before they were hit by the virus. There may be some former varsity swimmers who could pose a threat. But a mile from shore, I'm not so worried.
The sun is beginning to rise above us as we leave land far behind. Eventually the horizon separates into water and sky. Water and sky and dark thing way out there. As we get closer, that dark thing takes the shape of a ship. And it just keeps getting bigger and eventually I realize we are heading toward a Great Lakes freighter.
“That's bigger than a bass boat,” says Justin.
The looming behemoth dwarfs us as we approach. We hang back a little while the Pirates tie up alongside it. They wave us in and indicate a bar that we are to tie up to. Still we face an impossible climb up the steel side of the freighter, impossible until I see a rope ladder being thrown from above.
Leena gestures for us to head up first. We bring our backpacks and our sidearms, and begin the climb.
At the top, we are met by two women and a man, all in their 30s, by the likes of it. “Welcome aboard the Stewart J. Cort,” the man says. He's got crazy red hair that looks untamable, on top of a wiry frame and piercing blue eyes.
“Hello,” Justin says, surveying the deck that goes on forever, with cabin structures at each end.
The two women stand back. One of them is carrying a rifle, which she is nervously cradling.
“Is Leena coming up?” she says to the man.
“Leena's right here,” says Leena, hoisting herself over the gunwale.
“Are they...” asks the woman.
“They are friendlies, me thinks. No need to kill them just yet.”
“This freighter,” Justin asks. “How is this safe from their air patrols in the daylight? Why aren't you sitting ducks?”
“Oh, we are,” assures Leena. “Let's hurry up and get inside.”
We hustle into one of the cabin structures and only then does the pace slow down to conversational. “I have so many questions...”
“Us first,” says Leena. “Our boat is bigger. And we have more guns.”
Justin looks over at me for my reaction. I look at Carrie. She gives a half-hearted nod.
“We need to get Lawrence down here,” says Leena to one of her minions, who disappears through a narrow door. We hear his footsteps ascend a metal staircase. She explains to us, “Lawrence is kind of our person in charge. Our admiral.”
“You're the person in charge,” says Viskari.
“It's more like co-leaders,” she insists. “We each have our fields of specialty.”
Viskari seems confused, and almost says something before he decides to just go with it.
“Ask away,” says Justin hesitantly.
She holds up her index finger and taps her foot on the floor. We all watch it intently. Looking at my sling, she says, “What happened to your arm?”
I look down. “Collarbone. Fell off my bike.”
Someone laughs. Soon we hear multiple sets of feet descending the staircase. The first one to emerge is a fairly large guy, I'm guessing linebacker. He's got sandy blond hair and he tilts his head a bit to the right, as if he's checking us out the same way he would a used car. Or boat, since he's been referred to as an admiral.
Behind him is the minion, as well as a heavyset woman with graying hair who I can't help but notice is wearing green and red bowling shoes. I don't often pick up on fashion statements, but I remember when I was a kid I tried to convince my mom to buy me bowling shoes so I could wear them to school. I failed, and now, I feel the tiniest trace of envy.
“You're the three people on the mission of certain death?” he says, evaluating us.
“We actually,” begins Carrie, “had looked upon our mission in a slightly more optimistic light.”
“Be that as it may,” he says. “Have a seat. Tell us your story.”
I look around. There are four stools in the room, and more than 10 people. “No really,” he says. “Pull one up.” We each grab a stool and sit in a semi-circle, almost as if we are facing judgment from all the people standing around me. It makes it slightly less awkward seeing Lawrence and Leena doing an awkward dance of politeness over which of them will sit on the remaining stool.
Finally, an exasperated Leena says, “Will you just take it!” And he does, with an unreadable expression on his face.
“Okay,” he says, “Who's our narrator?”
“It's one of you guys,” says Carrie. “I was late to the party.”
Justin points his thumb at me. So I go.
Chances are, dear reader, that you already know our story. I gave him a condensed version minus the emotion. I only referred to Maggie in the phrase, “one of our people died of natural causes over the winter.” I thought I could avoid feeling anything by saying that, but instead I felt like an ice-hearted turd. I did not explain any aspect of the bunker. Instead I said that we holed up in the basement of a house in the woods.
Lawrence turns to Justin. “Iraq?”
“Afghanistan. 101st Airborne. Medic. Corporal.”
Lawrence nods and says, “Iraq. Marines. Master Sergeant.”
“Then you're not actually an admiral,” says Carrie, half-playfully.
“Who told you...” T
hen he tilts his head at Leena. “No. The closest I came was I trained on an amphibious assault ship. A Wasp,” he says mostly at Justin. “But there wasn't much use for that kind of training against the Taliban.”
He stares at Leena now, but he is talking to us. “I think we might be able to help you from time-to-time. Sounds like you have some good experience on land. We've spent most of our time on the water, as you might have guessed.”
“What's your story?” asks Carrie.
“There's about a dozen different stories here. We're all survivors. Sounds like we may have had more of them in the Upper Peninsula than you do down here.”
“How is that even possible?”
“Believe me, there's been a lot of discussion on that. None of us are medical experts...”
A throat clears behind him.
“Okay, Dickie is a nurse assistant whatever. Anyway, we have had a few survivors like yourselves that may have been ill with, what did you call it, immune diseases?”
“Autoimmune,” Carrie corrects him.
“Yeah. Could have been. And Estelle is sick.”
The woman in bowling shoes raises her hand. “Breast cancer,” she offers.
“But the rest of us, as far as we know, completely healthy. Though Austin...” A hand raises in the back. “...has a nasty toothache and he won't let anybody pull the tooth and we haven't found a dentist anywhere.”
“That's bad, man,” Justin says to the man. “A hundred years ago, toothaches could kill you. You need to let somebody help you.”
“You sound just like us, eh?” says Leena.
Lawrence continues, “The nearest we can figure is that we're Finnish.”
“Yeah, what's up with that?” I say.
“The Upper Peninsula had a lot of Finnish settlers,” explains Leena. “And all of us here, who aren't sick, are from pure Finnish stock. Parents, grandparents, and all the way up the line. No mongrel Swedish blood here. We tend to think that might make us immune to the virus.”
“Roger read an article once in some science magazine,” Lawrence points to one of the men leaning against the wall. “What did it say?”
Roger responds as if his answer is memorized. “The population of eastern Finland is genetically unique and has a number of chromosomes that are different than anyone else on earth.”