Dangerous Shores: Book Three; The End of the Road

by Christine Conaway

  Dangerous Shores;

  The End of the Road

  Christine Conaway

  Copyright©2015 by Christine Conaway

  No part of this book may be copied or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author.

  This book is a product of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to persons alive or deceased, person’s names or names of places or incidences is completely coincidental or used in a fictitious manner.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One- You can’t un-see a memory

  Chapter Two-Finding Brian

  Chapter Three-The last goodbye

  Chapter Four-New sails for an old boat

  Chapter Five-Sighting a ship on the horizon

  Chapter Six-Mutiny of a cruise ship

  Chapter Seven -Boarding the ship

  Chapter Eight -Bath water for the crew

  Chapter Nine - Camp Pendleton Marina

  Chapter Ten - Survivors

  Chapter Eleven - Jeopardy again!

  Chapter Twelve - Will it run or not?

  Chapter Thirteen - An unexpected swim.

  Chapter Fourteen - Decisions...Decisions!

  Chapter Fifteen - New crew mates

  Chapter Sixteen - Silence is invisibility

  Chapter Seventeen - You had no other choice!

  Chapter Eighteen - Hang on buddy!

  Chapter Nineteen - Forced to stay

  Chapter Twenty - Destiny or chance?

  Chapter Twenty-one - Monkey wrenches in my tool box

  Chapter Twenty-two - Are the animal’s immune?

  Chapter Twenty-three - Holly is her name!

  Chapter Twenty-four - The blockade

  Chapter Twenty-six - Contact with Neah Bay.

  Chapter Twenty-seven - The loss of the rudder.

  Chapter Twenty-eight - The end of the storm

  Chapter Twenty-nine - If it keeps snowing.

  Chapter Thirty - He’s a lemming too.

  Chapter Thirty-one - Where is everyone?

  Chapter Thirty-two - The girls were gone.

  Chapter Thirty-three - It’s not your fault!

  Chapter Thirty-four - Somewhere safe is our priority.

  Chapter Thirty-five - Guilty by association.

  Chapter Thirty-six - No way you made it this far!

  Chapter Thirty- seven - The new additions.

  Chapter Thirty-eight - A Viking funeral.

  Chapter Thirty-nine - Respecting last wishes.

  Chapter Forty - Hell or high water.

  Chapter Forty-one - A real nor’easter.

  Chapter Forty-two - The end of the road.

  Chapter Forty-three - The bad guys are coming!

  Chapter One- You can’t un-see a memory

  Frank had elected to take the first watch. Ellen had been through enough that day and he was sure she could benefit from the extra sleep. Being an old hand at finding dead bodies from his time in Afghanistan and Iraq he knew what they could look like after a couple days in the hot sun and being piled in a room one on top of the other like cordwood…he shook his head at the memory.

  They, as in Ellen, Chuck, Darius, Scott and himself had gone to shore in search of provisions. The grocery store had been a gold mine for staples. The only things the looters had taken were from the junk food aisle. Frank had thought they would be lucky to find anything, but Chuck reminded them how quickly people had died off when the sickness hit. Those who were still alive after the first week had headed for the hills to escape.

  When he saw her barrel through the door to the back room, followed immediately by the sounds of intense gagging, he knew what she had found. The stench wafting out the open door said it all. In the seconds it had taken him to pull her from the room, he had taken the horrific sight in. The gelatinous mass on the floor, the flies, the missing body parts that had sloughed off, and the worst of all, the maggots that made the whole pile look like it was moving. He knew it wasn’t a memory she would soon forget.

  The Lord knew he’s been running and hiding for years trying to forget. It had started with his first tour of duty in Iraq, his wife had begged him to get out of the corps, when he’d been plagued with the nightmares. In a misguided effort to escape the dreams he’d volunteered to go back. His wife Amanda had been beside herself, begging him to stay telling him that she was going to have their baby. She had accused him of abandoning his obligations. In his mind, he thought he was trying to ensure a safe environment for their child and other children to grow up in.

  The outcome, couldn’t have been any different. His wife had miscarried and then died of cancer. He’d blamed himself for the miscarriage and her cancer. He had never been there for her during their whole marriage. Had she lived, he knew she would have eventually left and then divorced him.

  He’d finally been forced to retire, and bought a 35 foot Cheoy Lee and set off to find himself. What he’d found instead of himself was a whole new set of problems. He’d arrived at Garden Key the day of September 11 2016. A stopping point to nowhere for him. He’d only know the grid was down when he went to shore.

  A military type cutter had shown up sometime during the night and curiosity had got the best of him. He hadn’t seen anyone and the office was locked when he tried the door. He decided to explore the fort. He was on the top tier when shouting brought him to an opening. He could look down and see the courtyard inside the fort. Soldiers had marched into the grassy area in front of the staff apartments, lined them up and shot them.

  Without thinking he’d shouted at them to stop. They had turned their rifles on him and fired. Nowhere to go but down, he had turned to run when a bullet pierced his side. He didn’t have time to inspect it, but ran across the walkway and jumped out the window opening. He’d thought the ocean would be below, but it was a moat. Subconsciously he’d changed his dive to a belly flop just before hitting the water. The fall had almost killed him, unable to breath, he’d floated waiting for the pain to stop. He’d finally had to raise his head for a breath and had heard men yelling from above him. A quick breath and he was face down in the water again. He floated as if dead and they must have thought the same thing when they simply laughed and disappeared from sight. He slowly worked his way to a culvert where he pulled himself in. To his relief it led out to the gulf. He worked his way around the island back to his boat and went inside to find a foot of water over the cabin sole. Weak from loss of blood he wrapped strips of his sheet around his middle and climbed into the V-berth.

  He wasn’t sure at the time how much time had passed until someone rapping on his hull had awoken him. He hadn’t wanted to answer in case it was the soldiers coming to finish what they’d started. Hearing the voice of a woman had taken him by surprise. His boat was lying on its side, his possessions floating or water logged. In a special holder above the port-lights hung his shotgun. He forced the hatch open and climbed out onto the deck. He was in time to see one of the soldiers shoot the woman in the head. Acting on instinct, he had blown both of the men in uniform away.

  He had gone on to their boat with nothing but the shorts he was wearing, a strip of dirty bandage and a shotgun with two shells missing.

  They had found sickness in Cuban waters which threw the country back into the dark ages, if any people actually still survived. He knew at least one Cuban would survive because they had rescued her from a chug filled with her dead and dying family members. Her father’s last act had been to throw her into the water, literally at their feet. Frank had no option but to dive in and save her.

  He, not paying enough attention to the surrounding waters had hit a barely submerged contai
ner putting a hole in their hull. Ellen had come up with a whacky duct tape patch and repaired the leaking hole. To his amazement the patch was still holding. At a later date they may have to replace or find a better fix, but for now it would have to do. They needed a safer moorage for a permanent fix because it would render the boat unmovable until the permanent repair was ready to be submerged in water.

  Now, here he sat over two months later, in Panama standing watch, guarding his newly found family. An army unit had helped them through the canal, barely keeping ahead of a Columbian faction who were claiming the canal as their own.

  The last of the soldiers through the canal had blown up the inner doors on the last set of locks as well as the control building where the main components to run the locks were housed. It would be a long time before the Columbians or anyone could profit from the canals.

  To keep them safe as well as stopping a small group of men determined to cross onto the causeway, the guys had used C4 explosive to obliterate it effectively taking out the pursuing men as well.

  Seventeen men had re-joined Staff Sergeant Wilson and his army of three. He had declared earlier that with only his three guys, they were no longer in the military and were going to raise a little hell up in San Diego where they hoped to find other survivors. Being from the east coast which no longer existed, they had nothing better to do. With the addition of these new guys, they would form a militia and go home to the United States. They would decide their next moves once they touched American soil. The next problem for both groups was getting there.

  The army guys had confiscated a retired military conversion to use for some of their team, but planned to take the Zodiac as well. Chuck, had laughed and said it could be their fast attack response vehicle.

  They had all laughed when Alan said, “Yeah, that will work until someone with a big gun puts a hole in a pontoon.”

  Chapter Two-Finding Brian

  He was almost ready to wake Alan for his turn in the cockpit when he thought he heard someone yelling. He immediately extinguished the lantern he’d had turned on low. The red glass had saved his night vision and still provided a small amount of light. They expected to hear anyone sneaking up on them but not necessarily see them. He listened to the silence; finally, he heard it again.

  “Hello…Is there anyone out there?”

  “Son of a…holy crap. What idiot starts yelling in the middle of the night when every living bad guy can hear you?” Frank mumbled, and answered himself, “A dead one.”

  He wondered if the guys voice carried to the island and figured it had to. The voice sounded like it was coming from the island or beyond. The Annie-C was anchored on the north side of Isla Flamenco putting the island between them and where he thought the voice had come from.

  Just when he thought he could ignore whoever it was, Ellen stuck her head through the companionway door.

  “Isn’t that Brian? Where is he? Can you see him?”

  “Well crap Ellen, how do you know it’s him? It could be anybody.”

  “Come on Frank. Of course it’s him. Besides even if it wasn’t him, it’s an American. That’s English he’s yelling not Spanish so it doesn’t matter who it is. It’s an American.”

  She came the rest of the way up into the cockpit and turned to face the island. “I wonder if Chuck is going to investigate? Or is he going to leave an American citizen behind?”

  “Oh come on. Be fair. I wasn’t going to leave him behind. What do you want me to do? Jump into the dinghy and row over there?”

  Ellen saw the way Frank was going. He couldn’t row all the way. She hoped the guys on shore had heard him too. Seeing as the voice had woken her from a sound sleep, it had to have woken the guys on shore too. “And every person within shouting distance too.” She said aloud.

  “My thoughts exactly, but if he doesn’t shut up, there may not be a need for a rescue.”

  “I can’t say that I wouldn’t do the same thing. I mean think about it, if you thought that maybe there was a chance that someone was still sitting out here wouldn’t you try to get their attention? He’s smart enough to know if it’s us we would try to find supplies and then get out of here. If we were my last chance to leave here, then hell yeah. I’d be doing the same thing.”

  They heard the rumble of the dual motors on the Zodiac when someone started them. While they couldn’t see the marina where the army guys were docked, they heard it when the Zodiac left the slip.

  Ellen sank onto the lazarette seat, “Good! I didn’t think Chuck would leave him out there.”

  Frank chuckled without humor, “Yeah especially when he’s drawing unwanted attention to us all.”

  “I wonder if Clare and Dan are with him? I’d be surprised if she had enough strength to make it this far. I sure wish I knew what had prompted him to leave us in the first place.”

  “I’m sure he had his own reasons or thought he did. I’m not even going to try to figure that guy out. I guess if they’re all there, we’ll know in the morning.”

  “I’ll do watch. It looks like the sun isn’t far from coming up. Why didn’t you wake one of us sooner? You can’t keep doing more than your share Frank. We set a schedule and we need to stick to it. You’d be screaming bloody murder right now if Alan or I had have stayed up all night and you know it.”

  Frank looked at her and straight faced he confessed, “I don’t scream.”

  “Well you know what I mean. We all have a part to play and you have to let us do our share. Besides, it may have been the last night you get to sleep for a while.”

  “I think I’ll just stretch out up here until the boat gets back.” He did this and was soon snoring softly.

  She wondered if they would come to them or would they even bother. As far as she knew they had said their goodbyes last evening. She almost hoped they would come by before they all left so she could thank them again. Had they been tied up in Cuba or had problems that delayed them by just a few days, they would have found themselves having to turn around and go back the way they’d come.

  Or they could have all been killed. The way that Chuck had talked about the Columbians made it sound like they were killing everyone they saw, not bothering to ask questions. The women they had captured were turned into camp whores or slaves. As near as Ellen could tell, she didn’t think there could be much difference between the two.

  She wondered about the children they found. Did they turn them into soldiers or slaves? She couldn’t imagine Hannah or Olivia in the hands of the Columbian’s. Chuck hadn’t even been positive they were Columbian soldiers. He said they were probably escaped prisoners or roving bands of criminals. He had commented on how organized they appeared to be.

  “Ellen, want some coffee?” Hannah asked from below.

  “Please. I never made any before I came up. Sorry.”

  “No worries, I have it. It’s almost ready.

  “Thanks,” Ellen said when Hannah brought it up. “How are you feeling?”

  “Most of the time pretty good. I can’t imagine how I’ll be out on the open ocean. I’ve never been seasick before but I guess there is always a first.” Hannah sighed loudly…it was obvious that something besides being seasick was on her mind.

  “Do you want to talk about it or sit there and sigh the rest of the night?”

  Hannah laughed softly, conscious of Frank sleeping so close by. “That obvious was I?”

  “You are…but it’s okay. You know you can talk about anything with us?” She thought maybe Hannah wanted to talk about the baby or Alan or Olivia, but she was wrong.

  “Do you honestly think we can make it all the way to Washington State? I mean, it’s about five thousand miles and I just wonder if we couldn’t stop somewhere closer.”

  “Actually the longest part of our whole trip is from here to San Diego. That’s about thirty-four hundred miles from here to there. I have no intention of staying anywhere outside of the U.S. However, if the trip is too bad I would consider stopping somewhere else fo
r a short time to rest up, but my goal is to get home. I see my future there. It’s away from any big cities and unless you had a reason to be there you would never know the town existed. Our farm is eight miles from town as the crow flies, but closer to twelve if you follow the road. The house sits on a low hillside looking out over a grass valley that is perfect for raising cows or whatever. My Uncle’s house sits back in the trees hidden from view from everyone but those on the hill. I can’t tell or make you go with me, but I can say that you will be safe there. It would make an excellent place to raise Olivia and this new baby.” She reached over and covered Hannah’s hand with her own, “Just think on it. Talk it over with Alan and if you decide not to go on or we find someplace sooner that you want to stop, it’s okay. I’ll understand. I may not like it, but I’ll understand.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to go with you, it’s that I don’t want to be a burden. It could take months to get there and I’ll be big as a house. Alan doesn’t even know I’ve said anything.”

  “Oh Hannah, don’t be silly. Of course we want you with us. If it takes a little longer, so what. The way I see it, we have all the time in the world. My farm isn’t going anywhere. When we do get there it will be waiting for us along with some of my old friends.”

  “Ditto what she said,” Frank said as he sat up. “We all go together. Besides, who else in this group can cook like you do?”

  “Thank you. I don’t know what I would do without you guys. I just don’t want to get anyone hurt because I can’t move as fast…oh you guys know what I mean.”

  The sound of a motor broke the morning silence. They waited to see if the boat was going to the marina or if it was coming to them. It sounded like it stopped at the marina briefly and then it headed their way.