Chapter 33: Two if by Sea
Without Charlie they probably would have gotten lost. Rebecca tried to watch the sun’s position every day. Keep it on your left shoulder in the morning and right at night. Atticus and Marcus did their best to learn the workings of a sail boat, but only Charlie could get them where they needed to go, and that was Savannah, Georgia, almost 500 miles due south.
Marcus looked after Jackson, a lasting reminder of Annie, the girl he never told just exactly how he felt. He knew the chances were highly unlikely that they would ever see each other again. So, he took care of Jackson.
A week went by for them to get used to life out on the open sea. A confined space, but whenever the claustrophobia got to you could just take an afternoon dip. There was enough food and water for months, Atticus and Marcus made sure of that. Learning their lessons from last time. There worries were few. The world of the undead was behind them. Sometimes Rebecca worried about Samuel and Warren and the rest of them, but she knew Samuel would take care of them and get to Savannah. He had gotten them this far.
Everything was perfect until the night of the storm. The dark clouds rolled in. Charlie warned them it could mean dire straits. When the winds kicked up and the thunder moved the waves, everyone held on for dear life. Marcus took the dog, Jackson down into the galley while Atticus and Rebecca helped Charlie steer the ship.
Atticus had to climb the mast to fix a tear. While he slinked up the post and the rain plastered his face an amazing feeling came over him. He never felt so free. The storm gave him the deep cleanse he needed ever since the Lincoln Tunnel. He closed his eyes and let nature’s fury flow through him.
When he opened them, Atticus could not believe what he saw. The approaching wave was taller than anything he had seen since the city. It made the massive yacht they were on seem miniscule by comparison. In the belly of the ship, Marcus kept Jackson close while all the food around him flew off the shelves. The floor tipped and tried to pull them on their backs. Jackson struggled to stay on all four paws. When it became too much to shake, Marcus fell back and rolled into the door outside. Jackson stumbled after him. Panic and rain covered him, knowing if the dog got outside it would most definitely fall overboard. He had to do something. Before he dropped out of the door fully, he snatched the handle and pulled it closed after him.
The thunder and lightning above his head was barely noticeable amid the tumbling yacht. Marcus locked the door handle and took out his knife and shoved it in the hing, trying to ensure the pup’s safety inside. It was too wet. The handle on the door would not be able to hold his grip. The boat was too shaky. They all knew what would happen next. Rebecca and Atticus watched helplessly (hanging on for dear life themselves) while Marcus flew overboard and sank into the depths of the ocean. As it barely avoided getting broken beyond repair, the stormy waves rolled the yacht back over, right-side up, before subsiding.
They searched for Marcus for several days after the storm. For all they knew he was dead at the bottom of the ocean. The time would soon come when if they did not sail away they would run out of food and fresh water. Charlie waited for Atticus and Rebecca to call it quits. Once it became clear there was nothing they could do, so did the choice of leaving. They continued on their journey south without Marcus, and Atticus worried about their destination. How was he going to tell Samuel that he lost the guy who knows the location of prison?
“How much longer until we hit the coast?”
“ Another day tops.”
“I hope your right.”
“That’s not what you need to be worried about,” Charlie warned Atticus.
“Speak your mind, old man.”
“This boat is in bad shape. If there’s another storm…”
“How long have you gone between storms?”
“On average? We’ve already run our luck since the last one.”
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Atticus had no more reason to talk. Now all he could do was watch the skies and beg they remain in his favor. It did not last long, like some sort of jinx put on the irony just because they mentioned it and had a conversation about the odds. As night approached, Rebecca stayed close to Atticus and Charlie in fear of the clouds and rain coming from above, but it was no use.
Before long, the ship gave way to the storm. Atticus knew how old man Charlie felt wanting to go down with his ship, a captain in his own right. But when the hull fractured from the waves, Charlie along with the rest of the crew had to hang onto the remaining pieces through the undertow.
The thunder and lightning did not cease just because the boat was destroyed. Light whipping the sky was what gave them a view of the damage. Atticus had already realized what this meant, and after what happened at the beaches of the OBX zone their chances of survival, already bleak, were cut in half. There were no signs of the old man or the dog. He waded through the water and wreckage to link up impromptu floatation devices with Rebecca in the wild waves of the ocean.
Once connected by debris, Rebecca tried to just close her eyes and pretend like she was swimming backstroke, for some reason water spilling on your face was okay for that particular style of swimming. When the clouds parted the winds slowed, and when the winds slowed the waves subsided. It was not long before both Atticus and Rebecca fell asleep on the sea trash.
They awoke in the morning by barking. When Atticus opened his eyes he saw an old man kneeling next to a dog. The man’s knee and the dog’s paws were all pressing sand between them and the earth. Atticus arose to find they were marooned on an island.
“You can do it, Rebecca. Don’t give up, please. Don’t give up now,” Atticus pleaded with her, “After all we’ve been through.”
Atticus couldn’t help but think they were still in danger, somehow, on a deserted island. Still his fears were not entirely his own as there were a couple of red flags. When they came ashore there was a demolished pier leading nowhere. That raised more questions than anything. He was also hearing echoes of weird moans and the all-too-familiar undead gurgle.
The call of the eternal hungry.
And finally, a sign big enough to put Atticus in motion, the trail of blood just past the treeline. He immediately moved them inland to a rock formation that could offer some shelter. Imbedded in the rock-face was a cave.
Atticus walked inside with no hesitation. It was dark but he could still make out the perimeter. There was only one breach, a path that led deeper into the mountain. Rebecca followed Atticus deeper into the dark. The passage had gotten so small Rebecca wondered why Atticus was still going in.
What drove him to this? Was it the same as the answer to what was waiting for them at the other side?
Whatever it was drove Atticus straight to the bottom and what they found just raised more questions. It was a sliver, slightly still polished (beneath all the rust and erosion) circular handle around a one man hatch. The passage was too narrow and steep for anything else. The first thing Atticus thought was there had to be a main entrance. The first thing Rebecca thought was, “what the fuck?” If it had not come to them getting marooned on an island during a zombie apocalypse, Atticus and Rebecca wouldn’t be in this position before a mysterious door on a deserted island.
The island was the void of all life. Nothing to kill, nothing to eat, left with very few options to survive. Charlie was adamant from the get-go. Their solution was clear, staring right back at them from across the beach bonfire, drooling like an idiot. Jackson the poor dog was on the chopping block and didn’t even know it. Of course, Rebecca would rather starve than eat Jackson. What would she tell Samuel and his son? Oh, sorry but we had to eat your dog to make it back alive. Atticus was convinced he could catch enough fish to keep that from happening.
They were getting weak, and Charlie was pushing the subject even harder. “If we don’t eat him while he’s still got meat on his bones and recuperate from the shipwreck, we will never get back to a hundred percent.”
“We’re not killing the dog, Charlie, enough!”
“You’re not the boss of me girl! Neither of you are. If I need to eat, I’M GOING TO EAT!” Charlie kicked Jackson in the ribs and sent him flying. Rebecca ran over to Jackson collapsed on his side, his stomach rising erratically. Atticus tackled Charlie and didn’t stop there. He clenched his fist and pounded the old man’s face into garbage. He took out all his frustration on punching Charlie into puddy. After a while it stopped being about the helpless dog and started being about helpless Atticus, stuck in a world that is constantly throwing shit at him. He let go of the old man before he completely lost control. Charlie used all his strength to roll away from Atticus and run deeper into the island. Atticus did not chase after him but ran to Rebecca and Jackson’s aid.
“Is he gonna be okay?”
Rebecca was already crying. “That asshole broke the poor thing’s rib. There’s fluid in his breath, which means he has a punctured lung. He’s going to die.”