Sea (A Stranded Novel)

by Shaver, Theresa

  Chapter 11

  Dinner that night was a silent and tense meal of rice and canned tuna. David and Emily sat at the table and ate quietly. Mark ate his meal standing at the counter and Emily kept her eyes away from him as he shoveled the food in to his mouth. Mason took two bowls up on deck for himself and Tim and Lisa hid in the bedroom. Emily was worried about the girl and when she finished her meal, she was going to go and check on her.

  Emily stood and gathered her and David’s bowl to put them in the sink when Mason came back down and brushed past her. He went straight to the bedroom door and knocked briefly before entering and closing it behind him. As Emily turned to go back to the table, she met Mark’s eyes and wasn’t surprised to see the amusement in them. She felt a small shiver go down her spine and quickly looked away. There was something sinister about him and Emily was counting the days until she could get away from him.

  She helped David spread the maps across the table and they bent their heads to study them together. They were trying to determine the best route to take through Washington State. They wanted to avoid the major population centers but they also had mountains that they would have to get around or over. Emily cursed for the thousandth time the lack of technology. A few minutes on Google Earth and they would have a much better understanding of the terrain and populations of all the towns listed on the map.

  The sound of a door being thrown open and slamming into a wall was like a gunshot in the small cabin. All eyes turned towards Mason as he stormed out of Lisa’s room. His face was furious and as his gaze found Emily, he let out a snarl. He came to a stop in front of the table and stared at her in anger. She waited for him to start yelling but after a minute of staring at her, the anger in his eyes seemed to slide away and before he whirled away to stomp up the stairs, she thought he was going to cry. The look in his eyes said he was lost.

  Mark’s head swiveled from the empty stairs to Lisa’s now closed bedroom door and then back to the stairs before turning to look at Emily. There was a beat of silence before he let out a sharp, hard bark of laughter. He slapped his leg and laughed some more.

  Emily looked to David in confusion but he just shrugged his shoulders. He was just as mystified by Mark’s reaction as she was. Emily looked to the closed bedroom door and sighed. Lisa must have taken her words to heart and turned Mason down. For a brief moment, she felt sorry for Mason. In one day, he had lost his girlfriend, lost his mistress, for lack of a better word, and now his best friend was clearly enjoying his misery. She shook her head. Mason had made the choices that brought him to these circumstances and he would have to live with them.

  Mark had stopped laughing and was looking at Lisa’s door intensely before he turned and followed Mason up the stairs. Emily looked at the door too and was trying to decide if she should go and talk to the girl when David squeezed her arm and shook his head.

  “Just leave her. She will come out when she is ready.”

  “I know. I just hate all this drama. It’s so…so…high school!” she laughed. “This crap is the last thing we should be worrying about, right?”

  “Yeah, I know. It will straighten itself out. A few more days and we will be too busy trying to stay alive to worry about anything else.” He went back to the map for a minute and then let out a laugh.

  “What?” Emily asked.

  “Just thinking this would make a really good reality TV show. It’s the end of the world as we know it so we put a bunch of kids from different social groups on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean and watch them tear each other apart! I bet that would make prime time!”

  Emily laughed at his announcer voice. “I never was much of a reality show girl but I know what you mean. I can’t help but think of all the things we will never have again. Do you know how many times I’ve reached for my phone to text Alex? It just feels like so much is gone and at the same time none of it really matters. TV, cell phones, internet, it made things easier but we can live without all that stuff. It’s other things that I’ll really miss, like my swim team, for one. This is the longest I’ve gone without swimming in four years, all that work and training and now…no Olympics. I’ll never have a shot at winning a gold medal. It’s going to be really hard to let that dream go,” she said quietly.

  David gently squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, Em.”

  She gave him a small smile and turned back to studying the map.

  Up on deck, Mason stood at the bow and watched the empty ocean slide by. He was miserable, and the worst part was he knew it was his own fault. He had ruined everything, and he didn’t know what to do to fix it. When Emily had first started to tutor him, he had used his charm on her figuring she would be easily swayed by it. The more he flirted with her, the more she looked at him with contempt. There was something so fresh and real about her that he found himself looking forward to every conversation. When he let go of the fake charm and just talked to her she warmed up to him. They started to talk on the phone and their conversations grew longer and longer. He found himself confiding in her. Things he hadn’t told anyone or hardly even admitted to himself, he told her. There was just something so attractive about Emily and the way she wasn’t impressed by his status in school. She was interested in him, Mason the person not Mason the quarterback. When they were alone together he felt like he could be himself and she made him feel like he was a good person.

  Mason knew what he was doing with Lisa was wrong but she made it so easy. He had thought it would be the one time but even after he had started dating Emily, Lisa had made it clear that she would be with him in that way. He knew deep down that Lisa wanted to be his girlfriend and she was only having sex with him to try and persuade him. He knew he was using her but he had just pushed the guilt down. He thought about Lisa’s tear-filled face and the sadness in her eyes when she had told him she was done being used and that she deserved better. He thought about Emily’s heartfelt plea for them to be friends when she had every right to be furious with him for what he had done. But what really brought it home was how he had felt sitting alone in the golf cart after he had left Emily in the middle of the street during the gunfire. He had felt like a selfish coward and he realized that that was exactly what he was.

  Lost and alone, he thought back on the past few years of his life. Always being compared to his older brother had driven him to be a better football player and more popular in school. He had been so absorbed in being better than his brother that he stopped caring about anyone but himself. Mason didn’t want to be that person. He wanted to be the guy that would be there for his friends and put others first. He knew that if he couldn’t find a way to make amends and change his ways, he would end up all alone in this new world.

  Standing at the rail and looking out at the empty ocean with the sun setting behind him, Mason had no way of knowing that Lisa had come to the same conclusions hours earlier. He just knew that everything he thought about himself and others had just shifted and it would take a lot of hard work to stay there.

  Mason heard Mark’s lumbering footsteps before his friend joined him at the rail. His friend just stood beside him for a minute before speaking.

  “Tough day for you, bro. Shot down from all sides!” he exclaimed.

  Without even looking at Mark, Mason muttered, “It’s my own fault.”

  “Whoa! Looks like little goody goody Emily’s influenced more than just Lisa,” he laughed.

  Mason turned to look at him with a frown. “It was wrong. I was wrong. I treated them both badly.”

  Mark laughed, “It’s only wrong if you get caught, buddy, and you are so busted!”

  Mason looked away and rubbed his hands over his face. He tried to remember why he was friends with Mark and couldn’t come up with anything. They played football together and hung out in the halls and at parties but Mason couldn’t think of anything that really connected them. It was just one more way he had been selfish and self-involved. He turned back to Mark and tried to do better.

  “We haven
’t really talked about what’s going on. Are you worried about your family?”

  “As if! The last thing I would want to do right now is have to fight my brothers for food. Trust me, they’re fine. Besides, I’m sure my mom is just happy she has one less mouth to feed,” Mark said sarcastically.

  Mason studied his face and realized that he meant what he said. “Wow, that’s cold.”

  Mark shrugged, “That’s life. Don’t sweat it. I’m not.” He grinned in a not nice way. “So are you and Lisa done? Is she back on the market?”

  Mason shook his head. There really wasn’t anything to this guy. “Yeah, good luck with that,” and he turned to look back out at the passing ocean so he didn’t see the smirk on Mark’s face.

  “Well, it’s a brand new world, anything could happen.” he said in a bland tone and turned and walked away.

  Mason thought about Mark’s words. It was a brand new world and he was determined to be a brand new person in it. Tim called out to him from the wheel and he went to join him there. There was still a lot to learn about sailing and he would do his best to help get them all home.

  Mark came down into the cabin in time to see Emily and David disappear into David’s room and shut the door. He gave a smirk and laughed to himself that Emily hadn’t taken very long to move on. He looked to Lisa’s closed bedroom door and then back up the stairs. After a moment, Mark settled down onto the couch and closed his eyes. It wasn’t long before he heard Mason come down and go into the other bedroom for the night. Tim would stay up on deck at the wheel for most of the night. He had told them that as they got closer to land they would run into more and more stranded vessels and they would have to keep a close watch so they didn’t run into any of them. Tim had said that this would be the last night he would keep sailing in the dark. They would anchor at night starting tomorrow.

  It was an hour later and Mark hadn’t heard any noises coming from the bedrooms in a while. He eased himself off the couch and quietly made his way to just beside the stairs to the deck. Peeking around the corner, he could just see the edge of Tim’s arm at the wheel. He backed up further into the cabin and crossed to the other side of it. It was only a few steps before he was standing at Lisa’s bedroom door. He leaned his forehead against the door and closed his eyes, listening for any sounds from within. Standing there he let his mind go back to all the times she had put him down and used her nasty sarcasm to wound him. He let the cold rage fill him and he took a deep breath before opening the door.

  The soft light of the bedside lamp shone over Lisa who was sitting back against the pillows on the bed. She was reading a book and glanced up when her door opened. It took a moment before her brain processed that it was Mark in her room and not Emily. Shutting the book with a snap, she scowled at him.

  “What do you want?” she demanded. A shot of fear went through her when he didn’t answer her but continued to stare at her. “Mark, what do you want?” she asked again.

  He stayed where he was with his back to the door and cocked his head to one side. “I thought we should talk about what’s going to happen in the future. You understand that everything is different now, don’t you?” he asked softly.

  Lisa frowned in confusion. Mark had never really spoken to her about anything and he hadn’t really seemed all that concerned with the current crisis. She wondered if he was starting to worry about his future too.

  “Yes, I know that things are different and I know how hard life is going to get when we get off this boat.”

  He nodded his head. “Good. I wanted to make sure you understand that only the strong will survive and that nothing will be free from now on. In this new world, everyone will have to be useful or have something to barter if they want to live.” He paused and looked at her thoughtfully. “It seems to me that you won’t be very useful. You’re the kind of girl who will have to be taken care of and now that you dumped Mason, there’s no one who will do that.”

  Anger filled Lisa. As if she needed this jerk to tell her how inadequate she was to deal with and survive what was coming. She had spent all day coming to terms with that very thing.

  She snarled at him, “Get out!”

  Mark didn’t seem to hear her as he took a step towards the bed. “I don’t want you to worry. You have something that I value. I’ll take care of you and make sure you live as long as you take care of me.”

  He took another step towards the bed.

  Lisa pushed herself further up against the pillows. She was angry and scared at the same time. There was a blank glaze to Mark’s eyes. “I don’t need your help. I can take care of myself. Just get out of my room,” she said the last with a slight tremble in her voice.

  He took one more step and he was up against the bed. “The people with power will rule now. If you want to live, you’ll need to make them happy.”

  He reached behind his back and pulled out a small handgun. He held it in his hands and stared down at it almost lovingly. At Lisa’s gasp, his head whipped up and their eyes met. The blank glazed look was gone and in its place was cold as ice determination.

  “This gives me the power now and you will make yourself useful to me or you won’t be making it off this boat. You will want to be quiet now or things will go very badly,” he told her in a flat, hard voice.

  Lisa stared wide-eyed at the gun and felt tears trickle down her face. When Mark reached out and grabbed her ankle in a vise-tight grip and dragged her down the length of the bed, it was only a small whimper that escaped her throat, not nearly loud enough for anyone on the boat to hear.

  Chapter 12

  When Emily woke the next morning, she laid still and listened to David’s quiet breathing. She was so grateful to have him onboard with her. The ache in her lower back told her that sleeping in the cramped single bed with him was over. She needed to make peace with Lisa and that thought reminded her that they were almost to land. A few more days and they would start the final journey towards home. She was scared and excited all at the same time. Other than the high school drama, things had been so easy so far. Once they stepped off this boat, all that would change. She quietly left the bed and stepped out into the main cabin. There was no one in the room so she went to the bathroom and got cleaned up and brushed her teeth. There was no longer enough water for showers so she had a quick wash with a cloth and braided her hair back. When she came out, the cabin was still empty so she decided to make breakfast. They still had plenty of propane for the small stove so she dragged out the biggest pot and started making oatmeal. Emily added raisins and dried cranberries to sweeten it and left it on the stove to boil.

  With only a few days left, she decided that today would be a good day to wash all of the dirty clothes. They wouldn’t be able to do much with them once they were walking. She went to her and Lisa’s door and knocked softly before opening it and going in. Emily didn’t even look at the bed but went straight to the pile of dirty clothes she and Lisa had been throwing in the corner. Gathering them up in her arms she turned to go back out when her eyes landed on the bed and she froze with surprise.

  Sprawled across the bed with a sheet pulled over him was Mark. Even in sleep his face hadn’t softened, it still had a scowl on it. Emily glanced around but Lisa wasn’t in the room so she quickly left and softly closed the door behind her. She dumped the dirty laundry on one end of the couch and gave the oatmeal a quick stir. She turned the heat down on it and went over to the panel that had the gauges that showed the boats holding tanks levels. There was a quarter tank of fresh water left. They still had plenty of water bottles and jugs left so she figured it would be okay to wash the clothes as long as she used the water sparingly.

  Emily went to the stairs and looked up to see who was at the wheel. Mason was standing behind it and looking ahead with a frown on his face. She pulled back and thought for a minute. Yesterday had been full of tension and she didn’t want today to be a repeat. So she filled a bowl with the steaming oatmeal and grabbed a spoon. Carefully carrying it up the
stairs she brought it to Mason and hoped he would take it as a peace offering.

  He studied her face as she held the bowl out to him and then he reached out and took it with a small smile. “Can you take the wheel for a minute while I eat?” he asked. “Just hold it steady.”

  Emily stepped up to the wheel and took Mason’s place while he took a seat close to her. They didn’t speak for a while and Mason made short work of his breakfast. When he was done, he stared into his empty bowl.

  “Thanks, Emily, this was really good. You should make a big pot of this before we leave the boat and take it with us. It would be easy to warm it up and it’s great carb and fiber-loaded food for when we are walking a lot.”

  Emily was surprised at his comment. Mason hadn’t really talked about preparations for the long walk ahead and his comment was a really good idea.

  “That’s a great idea, Mason. Good thinking!” She looked at him for a minute and then asked, “Are you okay?”

  His head came up and his face showed confusion. “How can you be so nice to me after what I did to you?” he asked her in awe.

  She shook her head. “You made a mistake, Mason. I know you are a good person but you struggle with it. Everybody makes mistakes. We’re teenagers; we are supposed to make mistakes! Besides, this isn’t really a good time to be fighting with each other. You know the whole end of the world thing? We really need to work together, especially in a few days when we hit land,” she said with a laugh.

  Mason looked out to sea and was quiet for a minute. When he turned back to face her, she saw such sadness on his face that she reached out her hand and grabbed his.

  His voice was choked when he said, “God, I’m so sorry Emily. You didn’t deserve to be treated the way I treated you. Please forgive me?”

  “Oh, Mason, of course I forgive you! Listen, listen to me. This is not an excuse for what you did but I understand some of the reasons for why you act this way. I know how much pressure you get from your dad to live up to your brother’s accomplishments. I know how hard he makes it for you to be the cool popular sports star. But your brother is a jerk! Just because he has talent with a football he thinks he can treat people like dirt. I mean, how many girls does the guy use and discard on a weekly basis? And the way he’s always bragging about his conquests and putting you down whenever he’s home. You have told me how much you don’t like him so tell me why would you want to live up to that? If you really want to be better than your brother then be better than him. You’ve shown me the good person inside of you now you need to show the rest of the world.” She wasn’t surprised to see the tears in Mason’s eyes and when his met hers, she finished. “Who you really need to show that to is Lisa.”