Deluge | Book 1 | The Drowned

by Partner, Kevin

  Bobby shook his head. “It’s not catching. It's just my foot. It’s …going bad. I’ll be okay. Honest.”

  He awoke to find himself lying on his back with his jacket rolled up under his head. His boots had been taken off and his foot left to throb in the open air.

  Someone moved to his right and he saw it was Eve. She was kneeling beside something, poking away at it. A rich smell permeated the air and Bobby realized he was starving.

  “He’s awake, Mom!” Josh moved at the periphery of Bobby’s vision and Eve turned around to look at him.

  “Good,” she said. “Go tell Tanta.”

  “How long was I asleep?”

  Josh ran off and Eve crawled across to where Bobby lay carrying something in the palm of her hand. “A couple of hours. Excuse the fingers,” she said, as she held up a chunk of something warm and moist to his lips. “It’s fish.”

  He opened his mouth and chewed. It was gristly and rich, but it was good.

  “How did you catch it?”

  She smiled, for the first time since she’d hit him over the head with a saucepan. “Tanta did it. He made a trap in the stream. Farther along, where it isn’t fouled up by the seawater.”

  “He’s got another one!” Josh called as he appeared with Tanta behind him. “This one looks a lot nicer!”

  “I’ll gut it,” he said. “Then we must get on with it.”

  Eve gave Bobby another handful of fish and then sat down beside him. “We have to deal with your foot, or you’ll get blood poisoning.”

  “What do you mean, ‘deal with it’?”

  “Well, we haven’t got any antibiotics, so the best we can do is clean it up. Finish your fish and I’ll boil some water.”

  As he was eating the last of the fish and picking the final bone from between his teeth, Bobby reflected on how differently he thought about food now. A week ago, he wouldn’t have touched something a virtual stranger had pulled out of a stream however hungry he was. Now, starvation had blunted his palette and he felt as though he had a little more energy. His forehead was warm to the touch and he didn’t dare put his foot down, but, in himself, he’d recovered a little.

  Until Eve touched his sole.

  “You’ve got to hold still if I’m to clean it. Come on, Bobby, don’t let yourself down in front of Joshua.”

  Bobby considered telling her how little he cared what Josh thought, but bit down the words. She was only trying to help.

  “Look, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to squeeze the wound to get the poison out.”

  Tanta kneeled beside her. “You sure you don’t want me to do it?”

  “It’s okay, I told you I was a school nurse in a former life.”

  Tanta glanced at Bobby with an expression that might have been sympathy or possibly amusement, then he put both hands on Bobby’s leg.

  Never in his life had he experienced such pain. It was like having a knife pushed into his foot and twisted around. Blood spilled from his mouth as he chewed down on his cheek, arching backwards and trying to kick reflexively. He heard running feet and knew that Josh had decided the scene was too gruesome even for a boy to watch.

  “You gotta try to hold still, Bob,” Tanta said. “If we don’t clean it out, you’ll lose your foot. Or you’ll get blood poisonin’, and that’s a bad way to go.”

  Bobby ground his teeth as Eve twisted the knife, but when he dared to open his eyes, he could see nothing in her hands. Then he felt pressure ease. He didn’t care about Tanta’s grunt of disgust. His foot still hurt like hell, but the dagger had gone.

  “That’s it, I think,” she said.

  He felt warmth and looked to see her pouring boiled water over his skin. “It’s a pity we don’t have any antiseptic. The best we can do is keep it clean and that won’t be easy unless you keep your weight off the foot completely.”

  “Well, there is an old Indian medicine you may wanna try,” Tanta said.

  “You’re Indonesian, not Indian,” Bobby snapped.

  “I know, but we’ve got our own customs, and you know what’s good for healing wounds?”

  Eve looked over at him. “I’d heard honey’s effective. But we haven’t got any.”

  Bobby sighed as Eve patted his foot gently dry and then left it for the sun to work on. “What’s this witch doctor magic?”

  “Pine sap. You just dab it on and it keeps the bugs out.”

  “What about the bugs on the pine sap?”

  Tanta shrugged. “Look, it’s a well-known remedy among my people. My grandfather told me. And what do you know? This valley is full of pine trees.”

  Eve made a noncommittal sound. “I’ve cleaned it out, but it’ll be infected again within a few hours, especially if you don’t want us to leave you here and go fetch help.”

  “No way!” He looked up at the criminal. “Sure. Why not? If I don’t do anything, I’ll likely be on my back again by tomorrow morning.”

  Tanta smiled, and scuttled off carrying the kitchen knife Bobby had taken from the cabin.

  “You can trust him,” Eve said. “I’m a good judge of people.”

  Bobby pulled himself upright. “Yeah, I do. I’m not sure I trust his folk medicine, but I don’t see I have much choice.”

  When Tanta returned, he’d pulled off a section of bark that had what Bobby could only describe as a pustule on it; it looked like some sort of tree version of bubonic plague. But he was desperate. He had to make it to Santa Clarita because that was the only way to find help for Maria. So he let the man with the kitchen knife and orange jumpsuit smear tree pus into his torn flesh.

  Chapter 18

  Taken

  Ellie leaned her head back against the wall and groaned as she pulled against her bonds.

  “There’s no point, they know what they’re doing,” Tom said.

  His arms were also tied behind his back, the rope looped around the bedframe in Ellie’s cabin.

  “I can’t believe you let them take my boat.”

  Tom sighed. “You’re like a broken record. I told you, they took me by surprise. There was only one of me; I couldn’t look in all directions at once.”

  She knew he was right. She was also only too aware that she hadn’t taken enough care when she boarded the boat. She’d been fooled into thinking it was Tom she saw in the cockpit when it was actually one of the pirates. Their boat had been tied to the other side of Kujira so it was out of sight. They’d read her like a book and now she was tied up here, totally helpless.

  “I wonder what Patrick will do? Maybe he’ll go back to Douglasville and get Sheriff Williams to help.”

  Tom shook his head. “Why would the sheriff help? And how’d he know where to catch up with us?”

  “So, it’s up to the two of us to get out of this?”

  “Now you sound like Patrick. This isn’t a movie, you know.”

  Ellie considered this. “That’s true enough, but I’m not going to let them steal my boat without doing something about it. After all, they still don’t have enough fuel.”

  “They’ve transferred it across from their boat. I get the feeling they’ve been stealing it from gas stations, or from other boats, maybe to sell to folks who are isolated.”

  “They’re still not going to be able to go very far, are they? I mean, Kujira takes a lot of fuel and they don’t know how far the next land is.”

  “That’s why they’ve kept me alive, I reckon. Because I know how to sail. Luckily for you, I told them you could too, so if it comes to that you’d better pretend you know what you’re doing.”

  “That’s been the story of my life so far, Tom. I’m sure I can manage it. Have you seen anything of Lewis?”

  Tom shook his head. “No. The pirates found him, but they just locked him in the galley cabin. Sooner or later, they’re gonna decide to get rid of him. I just hope they wait till they reach dry land.”

  She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. Light was leaking through a gap in the drapes, shimmering reflections bouncing f
rom the water surface. She’d been kept there for over twelve hours now and she’d felt the vibrations of the engine as the boat had moved. Right now, however, her main concern was her bladder.

  As if in answer to her prayers, the door opened to admit a woman Ellie hadn’t seen before. She was followed by one of the thugs who’d taken obvious pleasure in tying Ellie up the previous night. The woman kneeled beside Ellie and, after a struggle, untied the knot. She was thirtyish with brown hair tied into a ponytail and a smell of lavender about her. “You can use the bathroom now,” she said.

  “But don’t go gettin’ no ideas,” the man said as Ellie got clumsily to her feet. “You ain’t got nowhere to run to, and you don’t wanna make an enemy of ol’ Linus.” He was a moth-eaten kind of man. A monkey rather than an organ grinder, Ellie had decided. But dangerous enough in his own way.

  Ellie said nothing. She made her way as quickly as dignity allowed into the bathroom and sat down, aware that they were all on the other side of the thin door. After what seemed like forever, she relaxed. “Can I take a shower?” she called.

  “No way. We ain’t got water to spare. You wanna wash, you take a skinny dip.”

  So, whoever was in charge had some brains, then. Water and fuel—those were the most precious resources on the boat at the moment and they only had any new water they’d transferred from their vessel and the container she’d been stupid enough to bring aboard. She filled the sink and washed herself as best she could. She had standards, unlike the mousy woman who’d freed her.

  “At last,” the man called Linus said. “Now, you tie her back up, May. You tie her up good.”

  Ellie had no choice other than to sit down and allow the woman to bind her hands again. “I want to see whoever’s in charge,” she said.

  “Oh, you’ll see Fletch soon enough. You’ll see more than enough of him before you’re through. Meantime, you come with me, Tacohead. You got work to do.”

  Ellie saw the flash of anger in Tom’s eyes before he cloaked it and rose from the floor beside the bed. She could now see that Tom’s hands were tied twice—once around the wrists and then a separate tether connected him to the bedframe. He got to his feet, and Linus waved him toward the door. “And I don’t have to tell you that yer girlfriend here’ll not look so pretty if you try anythin’.”

  Linus glanced down at the knot behind Ellie’s hands and nodded. “Good. Now, you sit yerself here and be a good girl. Fletch’ll be along presently.”

  She watched as they left the room, waited for them to close the door and then, when she knew she was alone, cried out in frustration and rage.

  She hadn’t been alone for long before Linus returned. “Come on then, pretty. Fletch wants to see you.”

  As he bent down beside her and fumbled with the ropes, she thought about kicking out, but he seemed to read her thoughts and moved a little away. “I like a woman with spunk,” he said, his breath stinking of tuna. He lifted her up and pushed her out of the door and into the saloon.

  “Ah, there you are. Our intrepid captain.” The speaker was a man of late middle age with skin that was either tanned or betrayed a trace of mixed history in his blood. He had gray hair that gathered to the sides of his crown as if he’d been given a monk’s tonsure, and a small ash-colored mustache. He looked to Ellie as though he was used to living in comfort and to getting his own way.

  “Are you okay, Lewis?” Ellie said. The boy sat on the end of the banquette with Hector the dog on the floor beside him. His eyes lit up as he saw her, and it pierced her to the heart that she had been the cause of false hope.

  He nodded. “Yes, miss. I’m a little hungry, that’s all.”

  “Come and sit beside me,” the man said. “I am Harry Fletcher and you, I know, are Ellen Fischer. I like your boat. Though you’ve made something of a mess of it in recent days. Fortunately, I’ve done some tidying up.”

  With little choice other than to comply, Ellie sat on the other side of the banquette from Lewis, keeping as far from Fletcher as possible. “Yeah, my boat.”

  “Well, technically it’s leased; isn’t that right? I mean, I’m sure you’re a fine young woman, and successful in your own way, but I doubt you could afford a million-dollar catamaran. But no matter. It’s mine now. And the question for you is whether you can find it within yourself to accept this and to make yourself useful…”

  “Or?”

  He shrugged. “Well, if you are no more use to me, then you will go the way of all such tools. We do not have the luxury of being able to carry dead weight. Linus!”

  The older man emerged from the galley. “Yes, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “It’s time to throw out the trash.”

  “Oh good. About time, too.” Linus stalked across the saloon, passed behind Fletcher, and grabbed the dog.

  “No!” Lewis yelled. But Fletcher had the boy around the collar as Linus dragged the protesting creature out on the aft deck.

  Ellie got up, but Fletcher hissed at her. “Sit down!” He brought a Ruger out from under the table and pointed it at her as a man Ellie hadn’t seen before ran in and put his hand on her shoulder.

  With a single movement, Linus pitched the dog over the side of the vessel, then walked calmly back inside.

  Lewis cried out in agony, his voice distending in his grief and rage as Fletcher kept an iron grip on him.

  Ellie stabbed a finger at him. “You b—”

  “If you don’t want the boy to follow his dog into the sea, I suggest you modify your tone and remember that I hold his existence in my hand. Krasinsky, take the boy away and lock him up.”

  The pressure on Ellie’s shoulder relaxed, and she watched as the newcomer—a dark-haired man who looked like he might have been an accountant a few days ago—dragged the weeping boy from the saloon and into the galley.

  “You hate me?” Fletcher said casually. “I don’t care. You now know what the cost of disobeying me is.” He leaned across to her, almost close enough for her to taste his breath. “Survival of the fittest. Like most people, you have a weakness when it comes to others. I do not. Everyone carries their weight on board this vessel, or they follow that dog into the sea. Now, you will prepare breakfast for the crew. We’ve brought our own supplies since you had so little.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. May will help and Krasinsky will supervise. I suggest you get started. Please me, or that boy is thrown overboard.”

  He got up and climbed to the cockpit, leaving Ellie to follow Krasinsky into the galley. “Please me”. What was that supposed to mean?

  She didn’t see Tom again until that evening. She’d been confined to her cabin, though her hands were no longer tied. Fletcher clearly thought that his demonstration had been enough to convince her of his brutality and that he’d throw Lewis overboard with as little compunction.

  She’d been alone for half an hour or so, searching her mind for any way out of this, but her head now hurt from the effort and the emotion of the hardest day of her life. Ellie considered herself a pretty resilient person, as long as she had some control of whatever situation she was in. But right now, she was a slave to her conscience. One false move and Lewis would be killed or, at the very least, hurt. He had no purpose on the boat other than to keep her and Tom in line.

  The key turned in the lock and Tom appeared.

  “What’s happened to you?”

  “Got on the wrong side of Linus,” he said, rubbing at the cut beside his eye.

  “That’s going to swell up. Jeez, it must hurt. What did you do?”

  Tom shrugged. “Told him he’s a moron. Can’t tell east from west.”

  “Clever. Real clever.”

  “Yeah, from what I could see, you were being a very good girl. Not like you at all.”

  Well, at least he still retained something of a sense of humor.

  She touched his face, feeling the dried blood around his wound. “C’mon, let’s get this cleaned up,” she said, leading him into the tiny bathroom.
“I’m surprised they let us share a berth.”

  “They haven’t got the space to do anything else, and they know as long as they’ve got Lewis, we won’t do anything.”

  Ellie wiped at the cut with a wet cotton ball. “Poor kid. He’d been through enough by the time we pulled him out of the water. I mean, it wasn’t as if he’d known the dog for long, but they’d shared the ocean together and I think he saw Hector as a link to his family.”

  “We haven’t known Lewis for long, either. But we’re letting those…” he spat out a curse, “……hold us hostage because of him.”

  Ellie grunted. “That’s because we’re better than them. At least, I hope so.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “We’ve got to get control back, Tom.”

  He winced as she dabbed away the last of the blood, then followed her back into the cabin’s bedroom.

  “I know. I just don’t see how we can do it. There’s three of them.”

  “Four—Fletcher, Linus, Krasinsky and May.”

  He shook his head. “She’s not going to get in our way.”

  “No, but she might help us.”

  “Her? No chance. She’s totally under Fletcher’s thumb.”

  “Is she his wife?”

  “Not as far as I can tell. I guess he picked her up along the way, thinking she might be useful.”

  “How?”

  “Use your imagination, Ellie.”

  Ellie thought about the mousy woman. “Seriously?”

  “He probably didn’t have a lot of options while he was escaping the wave. And then you turned up.”

  Her stomach dropped. “What?”

  “Come off it, Ellie. You can’t be that naïve!”

  She sat back on the bed. So, this was the way of the new world, was it?

  Not if she could help it.

  #

  Patrick Reid waded into the oily water, grabbed the dog by the collar and hauled it to the bank.

  “That’s twice, old fella,” he said, grunting with the effort. He kept himself as low to the ground as his back would allow, realizing he was in full view of the boat if anyone happened to be looking in his direction. But he hadn’t been able to let the dog drown.