Adventures in the Apocalypse: Post-Apocalyptic America: After The Flare

by A J Newman

  “Crispy pirates.”

  “Yep.”

  “Tell him to armor plate the tanks or a wild shot could burn us all.”

  “He already has plans to handle that.”

  “Good man.”

  ✼

  Chapter 5

  Kidnapped – Patty’s Notes

  The Gulf of Mexico

  Ten nautical miles from the East Coast of Mexico

  Antonio moved me to the small boat after tying Patty’s hands behind her back and tying her feet to the mast of the sailboat.

  Then he helped his children into the larger sailboat and told Patty, “I know you want me and will be a good mother to my children.”

  “Antonio, you can’t do this. Matt is unconscious; we can’t just turn him adrift to die.”

  Antonio pointed the gun at me and said, “I can kill him now, and then we can sail away or you can forget him and promise to be my wife. Which do you want to do?”

  “Don’t shoot him…please. I’ll do anything that you want, just don’t shoot him.”

  He set the sails and soon the small sailboat and I were out of sight. Patty kept looking until Antonio came over and untied her feet and hands.

  “If you behave, I’ll leave you free, but if you try to escape, I’ll tie you up again.”

  “Antonio, was it you that kept trying to get in my room those nights?”

  “No, it was Carla. She wanted to kill you after I slipped up and told her I loved you.”

  “One more question.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Before today you were speaking in broken English around me, now you speak it very well; what gives?”

  “Just a habit around Gringos. Your people think we are stupid, so I just play the part.”

  “Hey, you are an American, we are all Americans.”

  “Correct, I am a Mexican American, and you are a white American.”

  They continued to sail southeast to go around Yucatan and then turned southwest to head to the tiny coast of Guatemala. Antonio’s goal was to drop by his dead wife’s village in Puerto Barrios and then go on home to Morales.

  Antonio checked the supplies and was amazed at the bounty. There was enough food for ten people for a month, guns, ammo, and camping equipment.

  “Who chose the supplies for this boat?”

  “I did. We were about to be overrun by thugs, so I had to throw what I could find on the boat. Sorry if I missed something,” Patty replied sarcastically.

  “I wasn’t complaining. You did a great job. We have everything we need. It’s about 1,200 miles to the Guatemala coast and sailing straight through could be done in nine days. I plan to only sail during the daylight hours so now make that 20 to 24 days for the trip. We have plenty of food and almost enough water. If we catch rainwater, we will be okay.”

  “Why are you telling me this? I was going to Brazil with the man I love and just want to get away from you as soon as I can.”

  This infuriated Antonio; he slapped her with the back of his hand. She fell sideways but recovered quickly and glared at him.

  He pulled her close to him and said, “I am so sorry that I hit you. I love you and will never hit you again.”

  Patty saw Antonio’s daughter crying, and his boy ran down into the cabin after he hit her. She guessed that this wasn’t the first time Antonio had beat a woman. She then wondered what happened to their mother.

  The next evening they sailed from the sun up to the sun down with Patty cooking and tending to the children. She only was allowed to steer the boat when Antonio ate or had to relieve himself.

  “What are we going to do when we get to your wife’s village?”

  “I stored some things there, and then I plan to visit with mi’ family for a day and then go on to my home.”

  “How long has it been since you were last there?”

  “Oh… about 12 years ago. We left to go to the USA two days after we were married. It was a horrible trip all the way to Mexico and then crossing the border was even worse. The Coyotes took our money and treated us like shit. They dumped us a mile inside the border and ran away like the rats they were.”

  “Was your home that bad, that you had to escape?”

  Antonio had gotten angry with all of the questions, but wanted to try a nicer approach, so he said, “I know you want to learn more about me and my wife, but I am ready to put the kids down for the night. Then we can take the time to answer all of your questions.

  Patty tucked the children in and kissed them on the forehead. The little girl was about ten years old and cute as she could be.

  “Patty, are you our madre now?”

  “Your dad thinks I am. You and your brother are very sweet, and I care about you, but I plan to go see my family.”

  “Can you take us with you?”

  “What? Leave your father.”

  “He’s mean to us, and he hurt our mom. They got into a fight one night and the next day he told us she left. We hate him. He beats us when we make him mad.”

  “I’m so sorry for you,” she said as she wondered what she could do to help these poor kids.

  She had been right about this bastard since day one. She should have never trusted Carla or him and never traveled with him. Now she needed to think things through. She knew she could easily kill Antonio, but that would leave her with the kids alone. She would wait while she developed a plan to get the kids and herself away from this monster.

  She waited too long.

  Later that night she slept on top and fell asleep with the cool breeze and the riot of stars in the sky to keep her company until she fell asleep. She had only been asleep for a little over an hour when she woke up when she felt someone beside her on her air mattress. She froze and opened one eye slightly as she felt a hand slide up under her t-shirt.

  She grabbed the hand, rolled over, and yanked the hand sideways as she heard a man yell, “Stop, you fuckin’ puta that hurts.”

  She stood up still clinging tightly to the hand and said, “Oh… Antonio, I didn’t know it was you. I thought pirates had attacked. I could have killed you.”

  She dropped his hand and stared at the angry man who could be seen in the moonlight. He saw the knife in her hand and was so mad he was shaking.

  He calmly replied, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I fell asleep beside you, and my hand must have moved when I rolled over.”

  “Sleep in your own bed, and your hand will mind its own business.”

  The next day was a duplicate of the one before except Antonio went out of his way to being nice to the kids and Patty. This made her very leery of him, and she watched his every move. Being nice and sweet talking her would not work since she knew what a monster he had been to the kids and a dead wife.

  After supper and the kids had been down for the night, Antonio was on his best behavior. He helped clean the table and wash the dished, which he had never done before. He was very nice and asked Patty many questions about her family and hometown.

  Patty’s radar was working at full speed, and her defenses were deployed. She knew he was up to something; she just didn’t know when or what he was up to, but she knew it was no good whatever it was. It didn’t matter to her how nice he tried to act; he wasn’t going to be her husband or lay his hands on her again. She had her boot knife and a small kitchen knife tucked in her waistband under her shirt. She would kill the asshat before she would let him touch her.

  Antonio came up to the deck from the cabin with a tray of sliced cheese and a bottle of wine. She looked at the food and wine and thought, that piece of shit wants to get me drunk and take me to bed. That fuckin ain’t going to happen. I’ll cut his balls off first.

  Antonio passed the cheese tray to her, and she took a piece, nibbled on it as he pulled the cork from the bottle, and poured the wine into their cups. She watched carefully to make sure he didn’t slip anything into the wine and was surprised that he did not. She ate the cheese, drank two glasses of wine as her eyelids
got heavy. She had trouble staying awake.

  She remembered that the cork slid out of the bottle without a pop and he didn’t use a corkscrew to open the bottle. The bastard had spiked the wine before he came up the steps.

  “Damn you, I’ll ki…,” were the last words she said as she slumped down on the seat.

  Patty woke up with a blinding headache and couldn’t remember where she was or why she had a headache. She felt a cold washcloth being applied to her head and tried to open her eyes. She was met with a blinding light and pain in her eyes.

  She heard a child say, “Please lie still. You have been asleep all night. Did our Padre hurt you?”

  “Padre, who is he? Your father.”

  “Yes this is Emma, we are Antonio’s nino.”

  “What happened? Where is he,” she said as she remembered who the bastard was.

  She couldn’t remember last night, but she remembered every day before. She thought the son of a bitch drugged her.

  “You are safe. He can’t hurt you. We tied him up and tied him to the mast.”

  She looked over to the mast and saw Antonio struggling against his ropes with a gag in his mouth.

  “What happened?”

  The little girl Emma replied, “I woke up last night to…pee… and heard father saying something about you that was very bad. I crawled up the stairs saw him taking your clothes off. I thought you were dead.”

  The little girl broke into tears, and her brother held her tight.

  “I stopped him. I hit him on the head with a pan, and he fell to the deck. Pedro and I dragged him to the mast and tied him to it. I hate him. I thought you were dead like our Madre. He yelled at us and cursed, so Pedro stuffed a sock in his mouth and taped it over until he shut up.”

  Patty pulled her boot knife, walked over to him, held the knife to his throat, and whispered in his ear so the children wouldn’t hear, “You drugged me and were going to rape me last night. I’m going to wait for the children to go to sleep tonight, cut your dick off, and throw it to the fish. Then I’m going to make you wish you were dead and then I’ll throw you overboard.”

  She didn’t see the girl come up behind her but heard her say, “Please don’t kill him. He is our padre. We can put him off on an island and go on. Please?”

  She removed the knife from his neck, smiled at the girl and said, “Of course. I just wanted to scare him a bit. I’ll look at the map and find a nice place for him.”

  She checked the ropes, tied him more securely and then retrieved a roll of duct tape from the supplies and taped his hands together.

  Five days later, they arrived off the northwest coast of the Yucatan, and she brought the sailboat close to shore and anchored. She kept her pistol aimed at him while Emma cut the ropes.

  “Place the bag handle over his head and let it hang down on his back. Kids, I placed a knife, hatchet, thermal blanket, a canteen full of water, and some matches in the bag. Your father will be…”

  “Give me a gun and some ammo! I need it to survive.”

  “Hell no! You were going to ra…. err, screw you,” she saw the kids and didn’t finish the statement.

  She went on to say, “Don’t cut the tape binding his hands. He will attack you. Now, Antonio, the water is only four feet deep here, and you are going to jump overboard and walk to the shore. Jump!”

  Antonio hesitated, so she walked over and pushed him overboard. He went under for a second, found his footing, and then cursed them as he walked to the shore.

  “I’ll kill all of you when I find you. You are not my nino. Puta, you will die.”

  Patty started the iron sail, motored away from the beach, and quickly got back on her course to go around the Yucatan. Her mission now was to find the kid’s grandparents, drop them off, and then find Mary and Matt.

  ***

  Antonio watched the boat sail away while he cursed his children for helping the puta strand him on this desolate coast. He picked up a walking stick and walked down the beach heading east. He knew that if he continued east then south, he had to run into Cancun and then he would be safe. He walked for hours in the hot sun, opened his bag, and took a long drink from the canteen.

  He fell to his knees vomiting as the salty water came back up he yelled, “That bitch gave me salt water. I will kill her and those damn kids.”

  He looked through the bag and found no food, no knife, or anything useful. There were four car magazines, three books on aviation and a note.

  The note read, “You were going to screw me; now I have screwed you. Die slowly, you piece of crap. Patty.”

  He sat on the beach for a few minutes growing thirstier due to the salty water, so he headed inland to find fresh water. Every pond or slough he stopped to taste was brackish and not drinkable. He continued inland until he found a pond higher up and found it to be a bit muddy, but it contained no salt. He drank his fill and took a nap after filling the canteen.

  Two days later, he began throwing up between bouts of diarrhea. It took him a week to die from the bacteria and amoebas he drank from the pond, and it was the slow horrible death Patty predicted.

  ✼

  Chapter 6

  Escape - Mary’s Notes

  Grand Cayman Island

  Mary looked out over the Caribbean wondering what life would have been like if Matt had survived. She thought back a month to the day they had fled the US in a hail of bullets as they sailed away from the port and saw the man she cared for die. There was nothing she could do about it, but she kept thinking about what she could have done differently to save his life. These thoughts haunted her every day, and she felt they would have the rest of her life.

  A severe storm had damaged the boat’s sails a little over a week after fleeing the USA. They drifted for over a week as Brett pumped water out of the boat and patched together a small sail to get them moving again. Going was slow, but they finally saw land, which Brett claimed to be one of the Cayman Islands. Brett stopped for repairs in the Grand Cayman Island. He was familiar with the island from his many travels for the government. He sailed in from the north, entered the large bay, and headed due south to get as much shelter from severe weather as possible during their stay. He was able to sail to the south end of the bay and then use the diesel engine to take them into the canals in the village of Grand Harbour, which was where the very rich had large houses and large sailboats. He hoped to borrow usable sails from one of those boats.

  Mary and Sister Angela watched the shore for an empty house for their short stay while Sister Nan tended to the children. Most of the houses were vacant, and a high percentage of them had been destroyed by the recent hurricane that damaged their sails. They only saw a couple of people at houses close to the bay and none after entering the canal.

  Brett yelled, “What do you think about that two story over there with the trees close to the beach? There are several large sailboats docked by the houses around it.”

  Sister Angela replied, “Looks good to us, but I don’t see any people.”

  “Great, I should be able to find sails that will work even if I have to cut and sew a bit. I hate fuckin’ sewing…pardon my French Sisters, but I’ll do what I have to do to get this ole’ bucket back on the high seas. Oh, there are folks hiding in some of the houses. They are checking us out. We may have to kill a few.”

  He steered the large Oster 56 to the dock in front of their new house and Mary jumped to the dock and tied the boat securely to the cleats.

  “Mary, keep your rifle ready while Meg and I scout the house and area. Some of those shy people might try sumthin.”

  Mary called for her two apprentices, “Billy and Bobby, come here. Bring your guns.”

  Mary and I had found the orphans at a junk yard in New Mexico on our journey south. The boys were the oldest, so Brett had overruled the Nuns and began their military training on the trip away from the states. Both were proficient shots with pistols or ARs and were better than most adults are in military tactics after four weeks
of training and drills. Mary sat in on the classes and felt much better about her skills if the shit hit the fan and they were attacked.

  “Now don’t shoot unless you see someone about to shoot at us; otherwise wait for me to tell you to shoot.”

  “Mary we know what to do. Mr. Starnes drills us every day on handling our weapons and when to use them.”

  “That’s great, but a reminder doesn’t hurt.”

  She posted Billy at the stern, Bobby at the bow and kept herself in the middle of the boat. Mary manned one of their Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) and was ready to repel all invaders. The boys each had a 9mm pistol and an AR. They all had field glasses and kept scanning the houses and streets for danger.

  The Nuns weren’t happy about the young boys being trained to kill but had seen their kids shot at, and friends die at the hands of thugs and criminals, so they tolerated the extra protection while praying that the poor lads never had to shoot another living human.

  About 10 minutes later Billy reported, “Mary, the house two houses to the left of the one we will live in has several people moving the curtains as they watch us.”

  Bobby chimed in with, “I’m seeing the same movement across the canal in some of the houses.”

  Mary began to worry about being attacked when suddenly she heard rather loud voices coming from a few houses to her right. She aimed the SAW at the sounds and was ready to engage when she heard Brett’s voice.

  “You old bastard; I’ll betcha’ shit when those pirates stormed aboard.”

  “Yep, I had to change ma’ drawers twice that day. The ‘focken’ dickweeds about ran over us until Maud opened up with that damned Ma Deuce. She kilt’ the pirates, sure ‘enuff’ but blasted a million focken’ holes in ma’ boat.”