The Shadow Priest: Omnibus Edition: Two Complete Novels

by D. C. Alexander

  *****

  Sure enough, shortly after midnight, the waves did start to break. Arkin lashed himself to the captain's chair with a spare halyard. Fatigued and dying for sleep as he was, he knew that if he faltered now, if he let go the helm for even a few seconds, he could, in the blink of an eye, turn to take one of the huge waves abeam and capsize. To guard against that, he was making constant adjustments to keep the bow headed into the waves, squinting to discern their direction in the dim starlight, fighting the wheel. He wondered how tall the waves were, worrying that if they got much higher, they could pitch-pole his boat, sending it end over end. He wished he'd had the forethought to rig some sort of improvised sea anchor from the jib sail. But it was too late for that, as he didn't dare let go of the wheel. He hadn't slept more than an hour in the last grueling day-and-a-half, and began to fear that he might simply fall unconscious from exhaustion.

  Waves crashed over the bow, one after the other, relentless, cold, soaking Arkin to the skin. After heading nose-in to one of the largest waves yet, the boat popped out the other side at such an angle that the rudder was momentarily raised out of the water, just long enough for the boat to be turned a few more degrees off the swell. Before Arkin could regain control, the boat took a wave largely abeam, and rolled to the point where he hung in the air, dangling from the halyard that lashed him to the seat. As his feet flailed about trying to find the deck before the boat righted itself, he heard a loud crash from inside the cabin. Engaged as he was in managing the boat, he couldn't go below to see what had caused it. But he had a bad feeling and worried through the night, listening as whatever had come loose continued to clunk around in the cabin as the boat listed this way and that.

  *****

  To his considerable surprise, Arkin survived the night. And shortly before dawn, the swell began to recede. By mid-morning, the seas, while still rough, had subsided to the point that Arkin thought it more-or-less safe to heave-to and go below for what he imagined would be the best sleep of his life. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have risked it. But there was nothing normal about his state of exhaustion. Plus, he was aching with hunger and thirst.

  Going below at long last, he was chagrined to find that the crash and clunking sounds he'd heard through the night had come from his water jugs. The hinges of one of the high cupboard doors had detached from the flimsy, brittle wood to which they'd been screwed, and Arkin's water jugs had, one and all, broken through and fallen out. They were spread out over the floor, dented and broken open. He was almost too tired to care. He did what he could to direct the last few sips from each jug into his mouth, refusing to panic, reasoning that he'd simply sail east toward the coast as soon as he woke up. There, he'd find a place to drop anchor, go ashore, and find water. Despite being forced to head farther out to sea to contend with the storm, he figured he couldn't be more than a day's sail from land. He knew from his Marine Corps survival training that he could go a few days without water. No problem. He opened a tin of smoked oysters, dumped them, oil and all, onto a slice of bread, folded it in half, and devoured it in three bites. Then he lashed himself to a berth and passed out, still in his soaking wet clothes.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Arkin woke up 18 hours later in predawn darkness under a canopy of bright stars. The sea was calm. Dead calm. He was parched. And as the eastern sky slowly lightened, he realized he was also out of sight of land—even the high mountaintops of the Andes—with no real idea of how far he was from the coast. Still, he refused to panic. The weather would change. The wind would surely pick up as the day wore on.

  As the sun popped over the horizon, he decided to check the condition of the VHF radio. He'd had the foresight to dismount it from the console and put it in the cabin before the storm got out of hand. But, like the water jugs, it had fallen to the floor. Then it had slid to a corner and come to rest directly under a trickle of rainwater that leaked in through the top of the cabin doorjamb throughout the storm. It shouldn't have mattered, given that it was a presumably water-tight maritime radio of a respectable brand name that Arkin recognized. But when he hooked it back up to the battery and turned it on, it didn't work. Perhaps the circuitry had been damaged as it was knocked about in the storm. Perhaps it was a cheap counterfeit that wasn't really waterproof. Whatever the case, it wasn't good. He removed the cover to find water droplets on the wiring. He shook them out as best he could and set the open radio in a sunny spot on the deck, hoping the problem was simply water inundation, and that it might eventually dry out and work again.

  As the sun rose higher in the sky, the air began to grow hot. It was, after all, nearly summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Arkin went below to get out of the direct sun, but soon found that the temperature in the cabin was climbing above what it was outside. He rigged the Genoa sail over a section of the deck as a sunshade, then lay in the shadow beneath it in his underwear with nothing to do but wait. His thoughts returned to the question of how long he could go without water. What was it they taught him in the Marines? Five days at best? No. Not this time. Given the heat, as well as the quantity of body water he'd surely lost in his exertions through the storm, less. Maybe four days. Maybe.

  It occurred to Arkin that there could be potable water in bilge compartments below the cabin floor, including at least some of what had spilled from his jugs. He went below and pulled up the only floor hatch he could find. Hallelujah! There was water. Maybe three gallons sloshing around in the bottom of the reservoir. A rainbow sheen of oil floated on its surface. But Arkin figured that if push came to shove, he could rig some sort of straw to draw water from below the oil slick. And even if he drank a little oil, he'd still be better off than if he had no water at all. Hopeful, he dipped a cupped hand and drew it up to his nose. It smelled of saltwater. He stared down at it, frowning, then let the hatch drop with a bang.

  Hour upon hour he lay on the deck, thirsty, a mouthful of cotton, waiting for the wind. For a breeze. For anything. He hadn't urinated in at least a day and had no hint of an urge to. He ate his two remaining oranges for their moisture, but they didn't put a dent in his thirst. And as soon as he finished them, his mouth was dry again, his tongue tacky, feeling swollen. In a moment of fleeting hope, it occurred to him that he could fashion some sort of condenser to boil fresh water from the salt water. But then he remembered the stove was out of propane.

  *****

  A day and a half passed. The occasional gentle lapping against the hull taunted him. The sound of water. Such an abundance of water, all around him. But all of it poison. To ingest even a cupful would draw the water remaining in his cells down below the critical level at which the cells would begin to die. He hoped that, if he began to lose his grip, the temptation of the sight and sounds of water wouldn't overcome his awareness that a drink of it would seal his fate.

  He made a makeshift rain-catcher out of the jib sail, shaping it into a broad funnel that would direct water down into a plastic bucket he'd found in the cabin. But overhead, the sky was as blue and clear as any he'd ever seen. There wasn't so much as a single puff of cloud from horizon to horizon.

  Seeking comfort in normal life routine, he wet his face with saltwater and gave himself a rough shave with the safety razor he'd stolen from his hostel bunkmate. Though he had no mirror, he pictured his cheeks starting to sink inward, the tissue starved for water. He convinced himself he was being silly. He hadn't been that long without water. His cheeks were fine. He was fine.

  At the end of the day, he reassembled the radio, attached it to the marine battery, and flipped the on-switch. It was still dead. He figured its components would have dried off by now. Perhaps the problem wasn't moisture. Perhaps the fall had simply damaged it beyond repair. Regardless, Arkin disassembled it once again and set the components out to dry further, though they weren't visibly wet anymore. It was worth a shot.

  *****

  Toward the end of his second waterless day, Arkin's mind began to obsess over his location. Specifically, he wondere
d how far west he'd sailed during the storm, and which direction the current was taking him. For all his previous efforts to avoid other vessels, he began to wish he were near the main shipping lanes. The invisible highway containerships and other vessels took as the most direct and fuel-efficient route between Cape Horn and the major Chilean ports of Antofagasta, Valparaiso, and Talcahuano. Perhaps an enormous Korean or Dutch-flagged vessel would scoop him out of the sea and spirit him off to some distant land where he wasn't wanted and where he could regroup and renew his quest. But, in all likelihood, he'd sailed and drifted well to the west-north-west of the shipping lanes. Indeed, he hadn't seen so much as a distant mast or running light in two days. More disconcerting still, he hadn't seen a single living creature. No whales, seals, or jumping fish. Not even any birds. It was as if he'd drifted into some sort of maritime dead zone. A pelagic wasteland. A desert.

  "What was it that Paul Shepard said?" he asked out loud, trying to redirect his thoughts. "To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape, but to find reality." This trackless sea is a desert, he thought. But it's not my destination. It's just another leg of the journey of another exile.

  Realizing that the lack of activity and the heavy silence were starting to get to him, he decided to do a few yoga moves Hannah had once taught him after badgering him into trying them out as a way to reduce stress. The sun salutation, the downward dog, and a couple of others with names he couldn't recall—though he clearly remembered thinking the names were ludicrous. But doing it reminded him of Hannah, making him sad, so he stopped after a few minutes.

  Around midday, he reassembled and turned on the radio again. It still didn't work. As he tried to keep his mind occupied, his eyes scanned the horizon to the east, straining to see any hint of land. In all directions, the glass-calm sea stretched to the absolute limits of his vision. He maintained his watch until the glare of unobstructed sunlight made his head hurt, forcing him to take a break. He tied a shirt into a Bedouin style keffiyeh headdress, drew it around his face to give his eyes a break from the glare, and resumed his watch.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Another day came and went, and Arkin's control over his conscious mind began to flag. Unwelcome thoughts began to intrude, no matter how hard he tried to focus on other things. His biggest mistake had been in trying to picture the future—a future in which he was alive and back on land. It was another trick they'd taught him in one of his numerous survival courses. To stave off despair, visualize the future with you alive in it. The problem—the landmine—triggered with trying this trick was the unavoidable observation that Hannah was gone. As he tried to picture the future, her absence made it altogether sad and empty. He didn't want to think about the future. But having done so, he'd had to burn considerable emotional and mental energy to turn away from it again. Somehow, the effort had cost him dearly. Somehow, this had worn him down, made his mind more vulnerable.

  At one point, he actually considered praying. But after giving it serious thought—even forming the first lines of prayer in his head—he laughed out loud at his own hypocrisy. Him, an avowed atheist who prided himself on basing his understanding of the universe around him on facts and reason. He laughed again as he pictured himself on his knees, deep in prayer. Ridiculous. Still, the idea stuck with him far longer than he cared to acknowledge.

  *****

  Around the middle of his fourth waterless day, Arkin was wavering between hope and despair. Clichés began to pop into his mind. This too shall pass. But will it, really? I'm so tired. Easier to say to hell with it and quit fighting. No, no—what was it Churchill said? When you're in Hell, keep going. Or something like that. But keep going where? And what difference will it make? Hannah is gone.

  It came to him that he could turn his sorrow back into anger, and that the anger could possibly sustain him. Hannah died alone because of the group. Pratt died because of the group. His career and former life died because of the group. When I find them, I will destroy them. I will kill every last one of them.

  Then he caught a brief glint of reflected sunlight out of the corner of his eye. He turned and stared in the direction from which he thought it had come. But there was nothing there. Nothing but empty sea, clear to the far eastern horizon. Wait! It flashed again. A ship! A ship reflecting the light of the sun. His heart pounded. What to do? His sails were up and a radar reflector was installed high on his backstay. He could think of no other way to make himself more noticeable to anyone aboard the ship who might be on watch and using binoculars or radar. He had no means of signaling his distress. No flares, no flags, nothing with which to make a smoke column. Not even a mirror. He continued to stare. At length, though it remained many miles away, the vessel drew close enough that he could make out its basic shape. It was, of all things, a cruise ship.

  Arkin imagined a vigilant lookout catching sight of him through his powerful binoculars, deducing the direness of his situation, and alerting his captain that a rescue was in order. Arkin imagined him using the antiquated but charming language typical of the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, much as it was described in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander novels. "On deck, there! Sail, ho! Three points off the starboard bow." Salvation. And a cup of tea with the captain.

  But it was not to be. Arkin watched the ship progress southward with surprising speed, from one corner of the horizon to the other, all the while desperately willing it to change course, watching for the slightest change of heading. None came. As it steamed farther and farther away, he pictured what might be happening onboard. Passengers in swimsuits lazily kicking around in the enormous freshwater pool of the sundeck. Passengers sipping from large glasses of cola served over ice. Lemonade. Pure, fresh water. Passengers eating from large platters stacked high with juicy slices of ripe fruit that Arkin could almost smell and taste—bright yellow pineapple, orange mango and papaya, green kiwi, red strawberries. Passengers happily sweating away some of the bounty of fresh water carried in their bodies. A bounty of water they all took for granted. Water available in abundance, 24/7 and on-demand, piped to every conceivable corner of their massive, comfortable ship from giant tanks concealed within. Giant tanks of fresh water, now disappearing below the southeastern horizon.

  By sunset, Arkin was sure his heart was beating faster than normal despite his being utterly inactive. As darkness fell, the air grew cold. Mercifully, he fell asleep just after nightfall and slept until dawn.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The next day, he woke to find that the sea was still dead calm. He kicked his empty water bottles across the floor and slammed the hatch as he emerged from the cabin before realizing his irritability was probably a side-effect of his worsening dehydration. His heart rate was still elevated. He felt hung over. His sense of desperation grew as he took stock of his situation. He wouldn't last much longer. And again, the relentless, blazing sun was, with each passing second, climbing higher and higher into the sky.

  Hardly believing it was worth the effort, he reassembled the radio once again, hooked it up to the marine battery, and turned it on. Static! It was working. There was hope.

  He had to do a few breathing exercises to calm himself before he could turn the frequency dial slowly enough to scan for chatter. Regaining his composure, he turned the dial in micro adjustments, roughly two-tenths of a megahertz at a time, pausing, then another two-tenths, and so on up the frequency range. He ran through the full frequency spectrum four times. Nothing. Nobody. Not knowing how much battery power he had left, he decided to switch off and try again every hour or so.

  Hour upon hour, he ran through his radio check, beginning with a renewed sense of hope, but ending each check with a little less hope than before. By evening, he began to despair once again. For all he knew, he was hundreds of miles offshore, out of the commercial shipping lanes and far from any fishing grounds, beyond radio range
of anyone who might be listening, out where the South Pacific was a great blue nothing.

  He was growing lethargic. Before long, he knew, he would go into shock. And that would be it. Maybe they would find his desiccated body, still aboard, off the shore of New Zealand or Fiji. Maybe the current would push him north, to Peru. To Ecuador. Maybe they would find and bury him in the Galapagos Islands. Darwin's islands. A place Arkin had always thought of as a happy symbol of a quantum leap forward in human reason. There were worse places one could be buried.

  At one point, lying on his back on the deck under the radio, he tore open the oppressive silence by breaking into song. An old favorite, Pink Floyd's melancholy Wish You Were Here.

  "So, so you think you can tell, Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain...."

  He stopped as he ran out of energy. A few moments later, he chuckled for no reason he could fathom, then resumed singing, skipping to the song's refrain as he pictured Hannah sitting under a palm tree on a remote Hawaiian beach years before, smiling and healthy.

  "We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year." Deep breath. "Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here." He rested his head on the bare deck and silence descended once again.