End of the Line (Book 2): Stuck in the Middle

by Lara Frater

  “If we toss the rice and cans, how long we got food?” Tanya asked.

  “If we stretch and open up some of emergency rations maybe to March. But I don’t want to open the emergency rations. When it gets warmer we need to go on raids gather food. I don’t know what the weather will be like. It could be cold until April. I don’t think it was the cans. I think it was the rice.”

  “Do we wanna risk going now or hope we gotta enough to last us till spring.”

  “We still don’t know if all the cans or rice were contaminated. It could have been the cans and not the rice,” this came from Jim.

  “Judging by the illness, it was probably in more than one can,” Hannah said, “Or in one bag of rice. We can’t risk it. We were lucky this time. Maybe not as much next time. I would suggest dumping it all. Better to be safe that sorry.”

  “Why don’t we just use the emergency rations?” I asked. “I mean it is an emergency.”

  “Because the emergency rations are just that,” Mike explained. “They last 20 years. Canned, bagged and box food not as long. If we are unsuccessful at farming and we’re out of cans, we’ll have the emergency food. We currently have a year supply for all of us for 2 meals a day, 3 for the kids. We’re going to need that.”

  “Then why don’t we just leave? It would be better if we stayed in a house away from the ocean. The sea breezes are unbearable. We can find a house with a fireplace. There are plenty of supermarkets—“

  “We’re staying here good or bad,” Tanya interrupted. “You really wanna undertake a move now? We need to find two cars, a house free of bodies and zombs. We’re staying here, Annemarie, end of story. Mike don’t leave any leftover food out. Whatever we don’t finish get rid of. Dump the bag the rice you used. Leave the cans but don’t use them unless we run out. Open a bucket of those emergency meals to give people some variety.”

  I was mad but I didn’t say anything. I looked to Mike for guidance or to say Tanya was a fool but he said nothing.

  Three nights later, I awoke to a bang. I opened my eyes to darkness. I heard more banging. The air was ice cold. I got up and threw on my robe. I grabbed my flashlight and headed to the salon. It was pitch black except for two lanterns on the table burning low and I could see some light coming from the crew quarters downstairs.

  I saw a light and someone came up the stairs. It was Grace. She was dressed in her coat and carrying a blanket, pillow and her gun.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Hull breach,” she said, calmly, not a hint of panic in her voice.

  “What the fuck?” I said. “We’re sinking?”

  She looked annoyed like I had asked her a stupid question.

  “It’s a pint size hole. Mike is trying to fix it.” She then took the blanket and pillow and laid on one of the cushioned benches.

  “Should I help Mike?”

  “Whatever,” she said and put the blanket over her head. Not that I expected Grace to panic but her attitude made me think there was no danger. No one had gone to wake up Jim or figure out a way to get off the ship as soon as possible.

  I was curious so I took my flashlight and walked down the steps. Shininess greeted me but not from the lights but water on the floor. It was about a half inch deep. I was only wearing socks and didn’t go down further. A flashlight came towards me. It was Tanya holding Idiot.

  “Good timing,” she said, handing me the cat. “Can you take her upstairs?”

  I took Idiot in my arms. She squirmed but I held on.

  “Where’s the hole?”

  “Engine room, it ain’t pretty.”

  “The engine isn’t working?”

  “No, but Mike thinks it might be fine once it dries out. Dave and Keith are helping. Come back after you take up Idiot and get Olive and bring back Henry. If he’s well we can use him.”

  I climbed the stairs with the struggling cat in my arms. I knew I couldn’t put her and Olive together, so I knocked on Jim’s door.

  Eric opened the door. He wore a large robe over flannel pajamas.

  “What?” I realized that Jim was on watch that night.

  “We have some water in the crew quarters, can you watch Idiot?” I said, handing him the cat. Eric took her without reluctance.

  “Should I be worried?” he asked.

  “I don’t know— But the engine isn’t working.”

  “Figures,” he said, then closed the door.

  I went back into the salon and slid on my boots before going back downstairs. I wanted to take a look at the engine room. Tanya wasn’t waiting for me. I walked across the cold wet floor and went first to Dave’s room. I knocked and when no one answered, I opened the door. Olive was sitting on the top bunk along with some of Dave’s stuff. She gave me a happy bark when she saw me. I didn’t know where Dave kept her leash and I didn’t want her to walk on the cold floor. I picked her up directly. She was so happy to be picked up, she licked my face.

  “Good girl, we’re going to visit Henry for a little while.” I took Dave’s bag hoping he wanted it out of the water.

  Olive didn’t struggle as I carried her out of the icy waters and up the stairs. When I got to the salon, I put her on the ground, dumped Dave’s stuff on the table and took off my boots. Grace was lightly snoring on the couch, her rifle was next to her at the edge of the bench. She really did sleep with it. I wished I had a camera. Jim had three Polaroid’s locked up somewhere. This wasn’t the time to look.

  “Come Olive,” I said. She hesitated so I picked her up again and took her to my room. I opened the door and put her on the bed. She yapped once. Henry rustled around.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “We have a leak in the engine room. Mike is plugging it up now. They need you. Are you up to it?” I lit one of the room lanterns.

  He got up. Despite the cold air, a sheen of sweat formed across his brow.

  “You don’t look up to it.” The food poisoning had been bad on Henry and it took him a while to recover.

  “Water can’t be good for the engine,” he said and pulled his legs over the side. “I should check it out.”

  “Wear your boots.”

  “Okay.”

  I left Henry to get dressed and went back to the salon to put my boots back on. Grace was still out cold completely oblivious to the danger.

  I went downstairs flashing my light on the water. It looked deeper. The engine room was nestled between Tanya and Grace’s room. I could see lights inside the open door. It was two steps down and the water was deeper here spilling now over the steps.

  Dave, Keith and Tanya stood in water knee deep around Mike who was nailing something to the floor that I couldn’t see because it was under the water. He must have been freezing as he wore shorts and a tank top. Hannah was going to be furious.

  I didn’t step down into the water but I added the extra light.

  Water was bubbling from where Mike hammered near the floor. Those were the bangs from before.

  “You guys need help?”

  “Light is great,” Tanya said.

  “Idiot’s upstairs with Eric, Olive’s in my room.”

  I heard some footsteps and turned around. I saw a flashlight and Henry came into focus.

  “Henry’s here.”

  “You up to looking at the engine?” Tanya said. “Mike’s fixing the hole.”

  “We should bail first,” Henry said.

  “See, even Henry thinks we should leave.”

  Henry laughed and snorted. “I meant we should get some buckets and bail out the water. We should do it in a chain. One person has to be outside. We can switch so no one gets to be in the cold for long. Engine’s gotta get dry first.”

  Grace wasn’t happy about being woken up, but the salon door had to stay open with freezing cold air coming in. When she didn’t seem keen on bailing, I told her to go to sleep in my bed. She vanished into the back and I envied her as I felt the biting wind. I wondered what would happened if I refused to help. Compl
ain that as a shooter I deserve special treatment. Tanya would no doubt yell at me to get to work.

  Jim started as the outside person, with Henry and me in the middle and Keith doing the bailing. I wore my coat, hat and gloves over three layers, because of the below freezing temperatures. We would switch positions so no one would have to be out the entire time, except for Keith who was downstairs getting soaked.

  You would be surprised how hard it was to do a chain of buckets back and forth; how impossible it was to use gloves. After 10 minutes I pulled them off. Five minutes after that, my fingers were red from the cold and I put them back on. We switched every fifteen minutes and in a half hour it was my turn to be outside. I looked downstairs. It didn’t look like we even made a dent in the water.

  When I went outside I thought I was getting frostbite. The winds chilled me as if I was wearing no clothes. My fingers were stiff as I dumped the water over the edge. I wished I was anyplace else. I wanted to wake up from this nightmare with Mark’s warm arms around me. I hated this world, hated everything about it. I hated not being able to call the super to fix things. He was dead too. Everyone was fucking dead and some of them just won’t die.

  Somehow we got the water down to an acceptable level where the engine could be left to dry. Mike fixed the hole somewhere at dawn and Henry stayed in the engine room to see if it would start.

  We were all soaked and freezing by various degrees. No hot water for a shower. No heat except from the kerosene heaters. Thankfully the sun was coming up.

  I was so cold I could barely move. I had stripped off my jacket and boots and wrapped myself in a blanket while sitting in the salon drinking warm tea that Mike had made using one of the emergency sternos. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I kept them in gloves and they hurt when I warmed them up on the cup.

  Mike, Jim and Tanya looked beat. I would have dried off and gone straight to bed. Instead my adrenaline was in high gear. I was tired of this boat and its mishaps. Something had to be done.

  “We should go to shore as soon as it’s full light.”

  “What for?” Tanya said, taking a sip of tea. She had removed her coat and boots and wrapped in a blanket Maddie had knitted.

  “We have no heat, a broken engine, and the ship is soaked.”

  “We’ll get the engine back up,” Mike said, he wore a robe and had a towel over his head. I would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so dire. “Henry doesn’t think the pistons got wet, so it should be able to start again once it’s dry.”

  I looked at Tanya. “And if it doesn’t.”

  “We’ll make due.”

  “We need to get off this boat. It’s a death trap.”

  Tanya gave me a look that she didn’t want to hear it. “We plugged the hole. I think it’s time we went to bed.” She stood up and placed the blanket on the chair behind her but I wasn’t going to let her off so easy.

  “Doesn’t mean there won’t be another one, a bigger one or something else. What happens if the boat catches fire? Will all 13 of us live on the dinghy?”

  “Same problem as before. There ain’t a warm house waiting for us.”

  “Anything has to be better than here, a place with fireplaces.”

  “I agree with Tanya.” Mike said as he stood up. Neither them looked like they were ready to argue, but I didn’t care. No one here lived in reality. We were going to sink or freeze. “We’ve passed the point of no return. We might reconsider if we hit a patch of warm weather, but we’re in a deep freeze. No point moving through choppy partially frozen water and hoping to find a house that’s free of zombies and full of fireplaces.”

  “What do you think?” I asked Jim who had been silent through the conversation. He looked hesitant. He looked cold even with the blanket around him. His cheeks were still bright red.

  “Annemarie,” he said. “I think you have a bit of cabin fever. It’s the middle of January. It will warm before you know it.”

  “That has nothing to do with it—Food poisoning, freezing temperatures, leaks and it’s only January. We’re going to die out here. Can someone at least take me to shore? I don’t plan on dying like the rest of you.” I thought that was harsh but everyone was so calm and cavalier.

  “No one’s taking you to shore Annemarie,” Tanya said, her tone had anger in it. “We ain’t gonna sink or die. If we got a warm day and I’m willing to risk someone and they want to, they’ll take you to shore and you can be on your own.”

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t really want to be on my own, I just wanted off this boat.

  “You’re being an idiot.” That did it. I opened the flood gates.

  Tanya surprised me by not looking pissed. Instead she looked to Mike.

  “Annemarie, you’re exhausted,” he said. His voice was calmer but patronizing “We’re all cranky. We’re all been up all night. I’m about to turn in. Dry off and go to bed.”

  I didn’t reply, furious that at 25, I was being sent to my room.

  To make matters worse, I forgot I let Grace sleep in my bed and I found her curled up on Henry’s side. The gun standing next to mine in the corner. Olive had balled herself up at the bottom of the bed with the end of blanket over her. I didn’t know if she did that herself or if Grace covered her. It figured she was kinder to animals than people. Olive woke up, lifted her white and brown head, saw I wasn’t a threat, and went back to sleep.

  As far as I knew Henry was still down in the engine room. Puttering was his favorite thing to do. When he wasn’t throwing up, he was down in the engine room. I didn’t know where he would sleep but at this point didn’t care. I was angry at being lectured, tired of this boat and of being cold. I stripped off my wet clothes and hung them to dry and changed to new flannels.

  Grace used the blanket she bought and one of Henry’s. I took mine and lay next to her. It dulled my anger a little thinking how surreal it was climbing into bed with a woman I couldn’t stand and who would never share. Even at Costking she had her own room. She was never with a man or even expressed interest in women. As far as I knew she was asexual.

  I bundled myself up in the heavy blanket trying to warm myself up in this icy deathtrap. Sun was slowly leaking into my window. I kept my back to it.

  I didn’t think I could sleep. I worried what other calamities were going to befall us. None of us were really experienced sailors, even Grace had been a novice and had previously relied more on her GPS and crew. We were a mile off shore. Could you swim in freezing water or would we freeze like the people on the Titanic? Just be an icy corpse and sink to bottom where even the floaters couldn’t find you.

  I had to stay on this death trap and keep my mouth which seemed to be the only thing I could do, since everyone else was nuts and agreed with Tanya. Apparently I was the crazy one.

  I balled myself up more in the blanket, disrupting Olive, who got up, stretched, walked to me and licked my face. She was a loveable dog, almost oblivious to the danger around us. I reached my arm out and petted her. She circled around trying to find a spot to settle. I felt Grace move next to me.

  “Dog, go to sleep,” she said.

  Olive obeyed, settling her warm body into a ball next to me. I covered her with one of the blankets. I think she was afraid of Grace.

  “Annemarie, go to sleep.”

  I wanted to tell her to fuck off, but instead I drifted off.

  Chapter 5

  I was on duty tonight but Henry was on now, so after lunch I went back to bed to have it for myself. I snuggled in the warmth of the blanket and tried to enjoy the space. I looked forward to having my own bed when we went to shore. I can’t imagine the farm house would have enough rooms for everyone. I just looked forward to being able to walk around. It was almost February finally and I had some hope we would survive until spring. So far no more holes, no food poisoning, and only six floating zombies. One had been scary because it had come in the dark. I heard it moaning outside the port window. I still shivered thinking about it but three minutes later I heard a
shot and it was gone.

  I got up around six pm, took my two minute shower, grateful it rained two days ago, and washed up what I could. The rain hadn’t been heavy but enough to give us some short showers because we all stank except for Grace who used her drinking rations to bathe. I changed my underwear. Everything else smelled musty but not that stinky so I put yesterday’s clothes on. The boat had a washer and dryer in the downstairs galley. Because we had limited power, laundry was only done when there were no clothes left that hadn’t been worn several times. Now that it was cold, we wasted some battery power running the dryer for 30 minutes. We never washed sheets, towels, or blankets, just kept using it no matter how rank. A blanket that Brie threw up on got tossed overboard. When I got my period I was careful not to soil my clothes. During supply runs I searched health food stores for diva cups, but never found them. I stuck to tampons because they were easy to flush. One great thing about this boat was it has a large capacity waste holding tank. We can piss and shit for six month without dumping it.

  I looked forward to moving to a house. Sunlight in the summer and a fireplace in the winter could be our dryer.

  I had dinner with the others. One of the freeze-dried dinners from a Costking emergency bucket that tasted like cardboard. Tanya never mentioned my outburst again. Mike had been right. Henry got the engine running later that day.

  Tanya sat in her usual spot. I think she wanted to live on this boat forever.

  At five minutes to ten, everyone had left the table. I grabbed a cup of strong hot black coffee, a lantern and went to bridge. The air was frigid and I was dressed for it with five layers. Eric was waiting for me. All the lanterns were lit and the kerosene heater was going. In eight hours, Hannah would relieve me. I hated night shifts. Only ten of us could do it, which meant I had to do one every two weeks. Night shifts were the worst. It was hard to read in the lantern light and most of the time people including me had fallen asleep. I had a DVD player and book, but I was supposed to be on watch and occasionally walk around.