I already liked Dan, but I liked him all the more for asking rather than presuming he could. Some people seem to forget that boats are people’s homes, and they shouldn’t just clamber all over them without asking first.
‘Come on up.’ I looked over to where Jack still stood in his runabout. ‘You want to come aboard too?’
‘No, I’ve got things I need to be getting on with, but I’ll drop by later to see how you’re settling in.’
As Jack sped off, Dan and Kathy tied their runabout to the back of the catamaran and climbed over the guard rail.
‘Nice to meet you properly,’ Kathy smiled as we shook hands. ‘We didn’t really get time to say hi at the meeting. They can get a bit tense sometimes but it wasn’t too bad today.’
‘That’s because David wasn’t there,’ Dan added as he shook my hand.
Dan and Kathy exchanged a knowing look.
‘Yeah, he does have a tendency to try and take over.’ Kathy swept a stray hair away from the side of her face. ‘He’s been like that ever since he turned up. He seems to think he’s still in the army and that everything should run military-style. We’ve got things working just fine our own way, there’s no need to go changing it just because he thinks we should be doing it differently.’
She paused and looked towards the lighthouse. ‘He’s also got this idea into his head that we should be trying to clear an island of infected so we can live on it.’
I couldn’t believe it was true. From what I’d seen of the infected, this would never be possible, not for a group like the Hope Town community at any rate. I could only assume Kathy had misunderstood, but she carried on.
‘David’s always pushing that one, even though no one else thinks we could do it, or even wants to try it. He just won’t take no for an answer. He’s just being so pig-headed about it. He’s got to realise he’s not in the army anymore; that this isn’t something we can solve with bullets and guns. He’s got to realise it’s not a war, it’s about surviving, not winning ...’
Dan could see Kathy was building up a head of steam and he decided to head her off. ‘Anyway, I’m Dan and this is Kathy. The kids are Jeff, Katie and Sam. Back on our boat there’s another Jeff, Kathy’s dad, but we call him Gramps to avoid any confusion.’
After I’d introduced them to the others, we sat in the cockpit and chatted. It was nice to just sit and talk, not really discussing anything in particular, although we all knew we were tip-toeing around the elephant in the room.
‘It’s okay to ask,’ I said, figuring we might as well get it out of the way.
‘Are we really that transparent?’ Dan laughed. ‘No wonder the kids can wrap us round their little fingers.’
‘From what I saw, I don’t think that’s true. You’d already decided to let Jeff take the dinghy out, hadn’t you?’
‘Yeah, we talked about it this morning and went over it with Jack before the meeting. The kids have been driving us nuts being stuck on the boat all the time.’ Dan grinned. ‘We figured a little freedom wouldn’t go amiss.’
‘Nice of you to let Jeff think he persuaded you.’
‘Well, you’ve got to give them a little victory every now and then.’ Kathy smiled at Dan.
Dan smiled back and then leaned forward, looking a bit more serious. ‘So where’ve you come in from? Have you got any news about what’s going on? Is anyone doing anything about it?’
I knew this was what they wanted to hear, it was only natural. It had been the same with us when we’d met Matt.
‘You’ll be disappointed, I’m afraid. We don’t really know much. In fact, we were hoping we’d find out more from you guys.’
I gave them the potted account of how we’d ended up in Hope Town and what we knew. It wasn’t much and it was nothing they didn’t already know. Kathy seemed a little dejected, and as I watched, Dan reached out and took her hand.
‘Sorry, it’s not better news.’ I smiled weakly.
‘We were just hoping there might be some news about when things might start getting better again, or even when all this might end.’ Dan stopped for a moment and when he spoke again, his voice sounded flat. ‘But I think we have to start accepting it’s never going to end.’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean. I guess we’re in this for the long haul. That’s why I’m so glad to have found you guys. This place is great. You guys have really got your act together.’ I surveyed the anchorage. ‘I really can’t think of anywhere better to ride this thing out.’
Both Dan and Kathy perked up at this. Dan looked around as if trying to see how things would appear to a newcomer. ‘It’s really all down to Jack. He’s the one that’s held us all together.’
‘Hey, come on, Dan. You’ve done your fair share too.’
Dan smiled, ‘Yeah, I guess ...’
‘Oh, stop being so damned modest!’ Kathy punched him gently.
They were both smiling now, at the normality of their couple’s tiff while chatting with new friends as their kids pottered around the harbour.
‘You know, Dan’s come up with this great idea.’ Kathy gave him a stern look ‘He was meant to raise it at the meeting today, but he got cold feet. He’s worried the others will think it wouldn’t be possible. He doesn’t want to come across like David, always pushing for some crazy plan he’s obsessed with.’ Kathy spat out the last few words. I was startled by the venom in her tone, and wondered why she disliked David so much. I almost asked there and then, but I felt it was better if I left such questions until after I’d met David for myself. Instead, I steered the conversation in a different direction, ‘So, Dan, what’s your idea?’
Before Dan could say anything, Kathy leapt in. ‘Well, as you know, one of the problems with living on boats has always been getting fresh fruit, veggies, stuff you need to keep you healthy. If we can’t get that sorted, we’ll be well and truly screwed in the long term. It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to spend enough time on shore to plant anything there, but that doesn’t mean we can’t grow things. We just need a way to be able to grow them on the water. That’s where Dan’s idea comes in.’ Kathy glanced across at him.
Dan smiled back as she continued. ‘There are lots of boats around here that aren’t really suitable for living on or driving around in, but they float, the hulls are sound. With a bit of time and effort, we could clean them out and fill them with soil and we’d have our own floating gardens.’
Kathy beamed at me waiting for my response.
‘That’s brilliant!’
I hadn’t noticed Jon come out into the cockpit and I was surprised by his enthusiasm. In my experience so far, Jon had never been particularly positive about other people’s ideas, yet he seemed to really take to this one. For the next twenty minutes, he and Dan discussed every aspect of it, working through some of the potential problems and they even designed a rudimentary system to prevent all the water evaporating off in the midday sun. This last bit was Jon’s idea. It was, he explained, just a matter of putting something over the soil, leaving only small holes for the plants to grow through. I had to admit it was a simple but elegant solution.
As he worked away with Dan, I thought about how Jon had changed from the brattish youth I’d met in Cape Town. In the short time since our first encounter with the infected at Hole-in-the-Wall, he’d become noticeably more mature. He was no longer so self-centred, and he was starting to take other peoples’ thoughts on board rather than simply dismissing them out of hand. He still had his moments, especially when it came to CJ, but I was beginning to view Jon in a different light, more as an equal than a dependent. Maybe he’d always had these characteristics and I’d simply failed to notice them before, but I was starting to think the end of the world might just be the making of him.
About an hour later the kids returned, and the McGanns headed back to their boat. Jimmy had enjoyed his time away. It had allowed him to be just a kid again, even if it was only briefly. Mike was also more relaxed. I think the time without Jimmy had given hi
m a little breathing space. I suppose he worried about Jimmy as much as I did, maybe more so now he was the only family he had left. I think being older, Mike felt responsible for Jimmy, for his safety, and it was a lot to carry on his young shoulders. For that hour, Mike had accepted Jimmy wasn’t his responsibility, that he could relax and just be himself rather than his brother’s keeper.
That night we all turned in early and I lay in my bunk, sweating gently. With all the hatches closed, the cabin was hot and stuffy but, as Jack had pointed out, it was better than being attacked by drifters in the night. I considered the day and all I’d found out about the infected and the Hope Town community. If, a few days before, I’d been told such a place still existed, I’d have dismissed it as a pipe dream, but now I was here I was so grateful that it did.
For the first time since we’d lost Bill, I could see a future; I could see how we could survive in the long term in this cruel and arbitrary new world. I no longer felt like the only adult on a boat full of children, and I could feel my body unwinding, releasing some of the tensions that had been building within it. While responsibility for the others still weighed heavily upon me, and while I had no doubt life would still be difficult, I felt that with people like Dan and Jack around we at least had a chance. As I thought about the future we now had available to us, I drifted off and, for the first time in ten days, I slept uninterrupted until dawn.
***
By the following evening, we’d met pretty much everyone. They stopped by in ones and twos, all wanting to find out what we knew and whether we had any news. Some were more open about it than others, asking if we’d seen other people, looking for information about friends and family that might have made it out, but all left disappointed by how little we knew.
Soon the only person we hadn’t met was David. He was still in quarantine, but I got the feeling some of the people in his group were sounding us out, trying to gauge what we were like. I had no doubt they’d be reporting back to him as soon as his quarantine was over.
***
It was the morning of our second day in Hope Town that David finally showed up, cruising up alongside as I ate breakfast in the cockpit. David was tall and muscular with a short, military-style haircut. While he had stubble, it was neatly trimmed and as short as he could get it without shaving.
‘Hey, I heard some new guys had turned up. Sorry I couldn’t come by sooner. I was in quarantine, but I guess you’ll have heard about that.’ I could feel him giving me the once over with his eyes as he spoke. ‘So where’d you come in from?’
I gave him the same speech I’d given everyone else when they’d come by.
‘I wondered what happened to Matt. We waited for him as long as we could, but we didn’t know where we’d lost him. I hated abandoning him like that but I had no choice, I had to think about what was best for my group. It was my suggestion to come over here. They were following me, I felt responsible for them. I still do.’
‘I know. It’s the same for me.’
‘Kinda weighs you down, doesn’t it?’
I smiled. David seemed to know exactly how I felt.
‘So,’ David held out his hands towards the surrounding anchorage, ‘What d’you make of this place?’
‘Pretty good. You guys have really done a lot in a short space of time.’ It was much the same thing I’d said to Dan and Kathy.
‘Yeah, but we could do so much more. Jack’s happy just sitting around on boats waiting for someone to come and rescue us, but I think we should be more pro-active, y’know what I mean?’
I got the impression David was trying to figure out how I viewed the world, trying to see if I saw things the same way he did.
‘I don’t know. Everything seems to be going well enough as it is.’
David’s eyes narrowed. This was clearly not what he wanted to hear. Then he smiled. ‘Yeah, each to his own, I guess. I think I’m very much in the minority around here on that front, and the way everything’s set up, I guess I just have to go with the flow. Well, at least until I can persuade enough people I’m right. After all, that’s what democracy’s all about, isn’t it?’ David had a wry smile on his face. It seemed to me that while he wanted to do things differently from Jack and the others, David was willing to play by their rules.
‘So, do you have any guns on board?’ David’s question caught me by surprise.
I hesitated before answering. ‘Yes.’
David’s eyes lit up in a way that made me uneasy.
‘Good, we need guns. Jack’s not keen on them but we need guns, as many of them as we can get, especially if we’re going to try and clear an island.’
‘You want to try to clear an island?’ I glanced at him to see if he was joking, but I could tell by the look on his face he was serious. ‘Is that even possible?’
‘Yeah.’ His eyes met mine for a moment. ‘We just need enough guns and ammunition, and people willing to do what it takes.’
‘I’m not too sure we’ll be much help. We’ve only got one rifle and half a box of bullets.’
David looked a little crestfallen at this. ‘I was hoping you might have more than that. What about using guns? Have you and your lot got any experience in using them?’
‘Well, I’m not a bad shot, and I guess Mike and Jimmy can handle a gun, but I doubt that Jon or CJ have ever even held one before, let alone used one.’ I thought back to how CJ had handled the rifle when we were on watch together just before we’d lost Bill. ‘Actually, I don’t know about CJ. Maybe she has.’
‘Well, it’s a good start and anyone who doesn’t know how to use a gun can always be trained by those of us who do.’
I was dubious, but I decided not to say anything. Instead I took a different tack. ‘So how many guns are there in the community?’
David looked a little shifty for a moment. ‘Yours makes five.’
‘I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t think you’ll be clearing any islands with only five guns.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ David sounded deflated. ‘I still think it’s important that we at least consider it. Think of the benefits of having the land under our feet again, and it’s a better long-term bet.’ He tapped the side of the catamaran, ‘These boats won’t last forever you know.’
I thought about this. He was right. The boats wouldn’t last forever, but they’d last many years, decades even, so it was the least of our worries for the foreseeable future. I decided to change the subject. ‘So how’d you end up here?’
‘I won’t give you the long story now, but the quick version is that I was with my unit when we were ordered to enforce the quarantine of Florida. This was the day after Miami fell, when everyone was starting to worry about people spreading the infection as they tried to get away. By the time we got to the border between Florida and Georgia, everything was already falling apart. We spread out in groups of ten to set up our road blocks, but we were fighting a losing battle from the start. The road was already jammed with people and cars. We did our best and got the road block set up, but almost immediately a crowd formed in front of us, all desperate to get past.
‘For a while we managed to hold them back but suddenly out of nowhere an infected appeared in their midst. I don’t know where it came from: maybe someone who’d been carrying the disease had finally turned; maybe it was just attracted by all the noise. The crowd panicked and surged forward. We started firing over their heads, trying to turn them back but the fear of the infected was too much. There were only ten of us and thousands of them. We couldn’t tell the infected from those who were just scared. Some of my men started firing into the crowd, shooting at anyone. I couldn’t get them to stop.’ David didn’t say anything more for almost ten seconds, lost in his own story.
‘Anyway, I could see we weren’t going to be able to hold them back and I gave the order to bug out. We got into our Humvees and drove north. Only we found we couldn’t get far because of all the other traffic on the road. I decided we should head ea
st instead, towards the coast, to see if we could find another way. Somewhere along the drive we lost the other Humvee. One minute they were following right behind us, the next they were gone, but there was no time to go back for them.’ Again David halted, this time more briefly.
‘When we got to the coast, we drove up the beach until we found a marina. There was no one around, so we commandeered a boat and set about trying to sort out some supplies. From the chatter coming over my radio, I could tell things were going to get really bad and I wanted to make sure we had enough to survive for as long as possible, without coming back to shore.
‘We found a mini-mart in a strip mall a few blocks away, and we were just filling up the Humvee with all the food we could carry when an infected turned up. It was just a skinny little dude, but he got the jump on us and the Sarg was down before we could do anything about it. We stood there, rooted to the spot, staring as the infected clawed at him. I can still hear the crunch as the guy bit down onto the Sarg’s fingers as he tried to fend him off. Big Mac was the first to snap out of it. He grabbed his gun and shot the infected right in the face. By then the Sarg was missing most of his fingers and was bleeding badly from a deep wound on his neck. I pulled out the first aid kit and we worked as fast as we could. All the time the Sarg was screaming and thrashing around. Once we were done, it took three of us to get him into the back of the Hummer.’ David glanced up at me and smiled sadly.
‘Obviously we didn’t find out how dangerous that was until later. The government still hadn’t let on quite how infectious the disease was and how quickly it could set in.’ David sounded bitter.
‘We were about half-way back to the marina when Mac told me the Sarg was dead. I was driving, Bobby was beside me and the rest were in the back. Next thing I know, pandemonium was breaking out. That’s when I realised it must be the infection. I slammed on the breaks and jumped out. Bobby tried to do the same, but before he could the Sarg reached over the seat and dragged him into the back. That was when I started running.
For Those In Peril (Book 1): For Those In Peril On The Sea Page 15