Apocalyptic pirates 3, p.9
Apocalyptic Pirates 3, page 9
“They could be,” I acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to be friendly. This could be a trap.”
“They could be trying to lure us in and steal the yacht,” Shannon agreed. “Plenty of people in the water round here know that we’ve got enough fuel to trade with. Maybe they fancy taking out the middleman.”
“It’s Dexter,” Letty insisted. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when we’re being dismembered and turned into fish food.”
“I’ll try to keep my recriminations in check,” Shannon said with a grin. “Drew, what do you think?”
“I’m going to message them again,” I said and typed in: Where are you now?
Another quick response from the mystery person on the other end of the inbox: I’m at the Key West Airport. I’m trying to find my grandfather.
I didn’t want to admit how quickly that melted my suspicions. What could I say? I was a family man through and through, and I had such good memories of time spent with my grandparents.
Growing up, I knew of many kids who only saw their grandparents a couple of times a year, usually at Christmas and Thanksgiving, but my Gram and Pops had been pretty constant presences all throughout my childhood. I had so many great memories of roasting marshmallows on the firepit in their garden, learning to whittle in Pops’ workshop, Gram trying to teach me to make simple biscuits and cookies on the kitchen stove. I’d been far more interested in eating the finished product than actually baking the things but just spending time with Gram was fun, no matter what we ended up doing.
It had been one of the saddest days of my life when they passed on, and I always regretted that Sam would never meet them.
“Oh, no.” Letty could see my thoughts on my face. “You want to go and help rescue Dexter, don’t you?”
“They’re looking for their grandfather,” I protested. “They’re alone.”
Letty didn’t look convinced.
“Letty might be right,” Shannon said. “Not about the Dexter thing, that’s definitely crazy.”
“Come back to me when you’re being fed into a woodchipper,” Letty sniffed.
“But we can’t just rush in,” Shannon continued.
“I have to say, I’m not sure this is a great idea,” Ally said and put her hand on my shoulder.
I cupped my hand over hers and squeezed it tight. Sometimes I forgot how different Ally’s background was to Shannon’s and how far she’d come in such a short amount of time. The beautiful redhead had shown far more courage and daring than I would ever have expected from her and probably far more than she’d ever had to muster up in her life before the apocalypse. But that didn’t mean she was made of stone, and I wanted to reassure her that we were still looking out for each other.
“Don’t worry,” I said seriously. “I have a plan.”
“Oh, well, so long as you have a plan…” Letty smirked.
“The drone,” I said. “We’ll get as close as we can to the shore, and then we’ll fly the drone inland to scope out the airport. We can see what the situation is without even having to go on land.”
“Okay,” Letty sighed. “That does sound like a good plan.”
“I’ll even let you pilot the drone, if you’d like,” I said.
“Yes!” Letty fist-pumped the air. “Okay, this is a very good plan.”
“Okay.” Ally’s brow cleared. “That does sound like a good start.”
I typed out another message: We’ll give you a ride, but we have to be sure that you’re alone and that this isn’t a trap or an ambush. We’ll keep you updated.
I clicked out of YouTube and put my phone back in my pocket.
“Ally,” I said. “Can you set the course for Key West?”
“Sure thing,” she said and went to the cockpit. She was back in a few minutes and gave me a nod to indicate that the course was set. The yacht’s autopilot would take care of the finer details.
“At least they don’t know when we’re coming,” Letty said. “We can take them by surprise.”
“Push them into the woodchipper first, you mean?” I grinned.
“Exactly.” Letty chuckled.
“What will we do if it turns out that they are dangerous?” Ally asked seriously.
“What, you think we can’t handle them?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” she said and gave me a warm smile that instantly filled my stomach with butterflies. “I know you can handle them. I mean, what if we did find a serial killer out here? Would we have a duty to execute them?”
“Wow, Ally,” I exclaimed. “What a question.”
“She’s got a point,” Shannon said, and I could see her lawyer’s senses tingling. “What if it was our civic responsibility to judge someone in order to prevent more crime or endangerment to other people?”
“Like a vigilante.” Letty’s eyes gleamed.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I told her. “Batman. John Wayne. Spider-Man.”
“Zorro!” Letty exclaimed. “Judge Dredd!”
“I’m totally lost,” Ally confessed.
“I’m saying maybe we’d have to answer to a higher authority,” Letty said. “When the law of the land has failed us, and there ain’t nowhere else left to look, all we have is our own morals and our own code of conduct.”
“Surely that’s not right.” Ally frowned. “If everyone went about and acted just as they wanted but managed to justify it to themselves, we’d have all kinds of mayhem.”
“Girl,” Letty exclaimed. “You looked out the window lately? There’s all kinds of mayhem happening every day, everywhere.”
I thought of the man that I’d shot in the cellar, very early on in our adventures. I supposed that had been a kind of vigilante justice. Some people would have disagreed with the verdict I’d meted out and insisted that we either let the guy go or haul him off to stand trial.
But what court would waste time trying a rapist in the middle of the apocalypse? The papers were full of stories of miscarriages of justice that happened every day, and that was without radioactive dragons terrorizing the planet. And if we’d let him go, there was no telling what he might have ended up doing. Who he might have hurt. That guy wasn’t a human, he was a predator. The thought of his hunting tools– the drawers full of drugs, the video tapes, the hidden cameras– made me feel sick to my stomach.
What if we’d let him go and he’d found even more women to hurt? Women like Ally, Shannon, and Letty? And what if he decided to extend his hunting grounds and came upon a girl like Sammy?
The fury that shot through me was so intense that for a moment I couldn’t even see straight. My fists clenched.
It was a primal emotion, that urge– no, the need– to protect my family. And if executing subhuman scum like that motherfucker was a way to protect my family, then by God that was what I was going to do and not waste time feeling sorry about it.
“Maybe it depends on how you view humanity’s moral compass,” Letty suggested. “If you think the majority of humans are bad, then the idea of everyone acting according to their own morals is terrifying. If you think most humans are decent creatures, then it’s not so bad.”
I shook my head. “I think it’s so much more complicated than that.”
“I agree with Drew,” Shannon said. “The first thing you learn in law school is that it’s always messier than you want to believe it is. On my first day in class, the professor told us that even if we took nothing else away from the seminar, she wanted us to get rid of the idea that there was such a thing as ‘good’ and ‘bad’. She said all that mattered was whether we could make a case or not.”
“Oh, well, I’m not sure I would go that far,” I protested. “I believe in good and evil, I just don’t think you can divide people into those groups. We’re all a mixture of both things.”
“So if we’re all a mixture of good and evil, what makes any of us able to judge another person?” Shannon cocked an eyebrow. “Is there an amount of actions you have to take in order to tip the balance one way or the other?”
“That’s so depressing,” Ally sniffed.
“Welcome to law school, baby,” Shannon chuckled. “What do you think, Letty?”
“I don’t know.” Letty shook her head. “In a way, this is what all horror movies are about: trying to figure out the line between good and bad so it fits all nice and tidy. Sometimes evil guys wear a mask and carry a chainsaw while the good guys are pretty and nice. But sometimes the line gets blurred, and you can’t tell who’s what anymore. Even Dexter says he only does bad things to bad people… but then, he’s a serial killer, so of course he would say that.”
Ally was still shaking her head.
“Look at your case,” I said to her. “You were going to trash the yacht because of how terribly Lonnie treated you. You’d be found guilty in a court of law, but I don’t think there’s a person alive who would judge you outside of a courtroom for what you wanted to do.”
“That’s true.” Ally sighed. “It’s so complicated.”
“Welcome to law school, baby.” Shannon grinned while we all groaned. “What, it’s true.”
“That still doesn’t give us a better idea of what we should do,” Ally said seriously. “What if our Dexter at the airport is a serial killer? What if they killed the other survivors, and this is all a ploy to lure us in so they can kill us and take the boat and all the fuel?”
“I’d probably kill them,” I said with a shrug, and Ally’s green eyes went as wide as saucers. “What? A person who kills people during a fucked-up situation like this? And then has the gall to put me and my crew in danger? No sense leaving them alive… I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but the world just doesn’t need assholes like that living in it these days. I’ve got you three to look after, but I also feel somewhat obligated to help others out. What if this Dexter wannabe killed someone’s parents? Killed someone’s daughter? You expect a man like me to let them sit around waiting for their next victim?”
Ally looked a little on the fence about this, but both Letty and Shannon nodded in agreement with me.
“He ain’t wrong,” the Southern woman muttered.
“How about we cross that legal bridge when we come to it,” Shannon suggested.
“Deal,” I agreed. “We’ve got the drone, so we can scout out the airport and see what the situation is there. If it looks safe, we can message Dexter that we’ll give them a ride. If it looks sketchy, we’ll hightail it out of here.”
Ally still looked worried, and I put my arm around her shoulders.
“It’ll be okay,” I assured her. “The drone will do all of the hard work here. We’ll be safe on the boat. You’ll take us in as close as we can get, Shannon and I will be on deck with the guns, and Letty can work the drone. We’ve got this. It’s a good plan.”
Ally sniffed and tried to smile.
“Come on, girl,” Letty said, and she and Shannon crowded around the two of us. We huddled together in a group hug until Ally laughed.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Let me breathe.”
“Not until you admit that we’ve got this,” Shannon murmured.
“Squeeze her,” Letty giggled and wriggled in closer.
“Okay, okay!” Ally laughed. “We’ve got this!”
We let her go, and she shook out her luscious red waves and stretched out her arms toward the sky.
“We’ve got this!” Shannon reminded her.
“We’ve got this!” Ally shouted, and we all laughed.
I was surprised by how quickly we made it to the Key West airport, but I wasn’t surprised at the sight of the destruction spread out all around.
There was a row of palm trees along the shoreline that at one point must have been picture perfect. I could imagine them waving against the perfect blue sky and inspiring a thousand artists and producers of promotional travel literature.
Now, however, the natural beauty of the coastline was slightly ruined by the palm trees being blackened and broken. They’d been set on fire, and while the flames appeared to have died down, gray plumes of smoke still spiraled up into the air. The blackened fronds fluttered slightly in the wind, and there were scorch marks on the tree trunks that were still standing. More of the trees had been ripped at by something huge with even bigger claws, and the trunks were broken in half with the tops of the trees bowed toward the white sand and the pale, splintered edges of the trunks that gaped up like a raw mouthful of teeth toward the sky.
Behind the trees, a thick pall of black smoke tarred the blue sky. It hung heavily over the horizon, like the world’s most menacing duvet, and more dark lines of smoke and fumes snaked their way up to join in.
“Looks like an alien spaceship.” Letty shuddered and then coughed.
The cough turned into a full fit where Letty couldn’t catch her breath, and I caught hold of her arm and quickly took her into the cockpit.
Ally was there at the controls, but she left the wheel and rushed to Letty’s side.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Do you need your inhaler?”
Letty couldn’t say anything, but she nodded and tried to fumble in the pocket of her shorts.
Ally reached in for her and drew out the other woman’s inhaler. Letty took it gratefully, shook it, and pressed the button. She threw her shoulders back with the force of her attempts to inhale. The sound of her painful wheezes as she tried to draw breath filled the cockpit, and I winced in sympathy for her.
Ally and I watched her with concern. Then Shannon poked her head into the cockpit to see where we all were. When she realized what was happening, she hurried over to stand by Letty with the rest of us.
“Is she okay?” Shannon demanded.
“It’s the smoke from the fires on the Keys,” I explained. “It looks like a war zone out there.”
Letty’s breathing was finally starting to ease. She pressed her hand to her heart– one of her mock dramatic gestures that I was used to seeing as a joke, but it was made very real and serious in this moment.
“Thank you,” she managed to say eventually in a voice that was barely above a hoarse whisper. “That smoke out there is really somethin’, huh?”
The fact that she could still make light of a situation that had real-life health consequences for her was a testament to her bravery.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “How do you feel?”
“Lord, don’t go on and on.” Letty looked around at our worried faces and managed to wheeze out a breathless laugh. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Just need to catch my breath.”
“Do you want a drink of water?” Ally fussed around her like a mother hen with a tenderness that, despite everything, warmed my heart to see. “Or tea? Coffee?”
“Only the finest Earl Grey for a lady like me,” Letty chuckled.
The color was coming back into her face, and she patted Ally’s hand with a smile.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I prodded.
Letty waved her hand. “Sure, just give me a second.”
“Hey, Drew?” Shannon put her hand on my arm and pulled me aside. “What about the drone?”
“What about it?” I looked at her blankly.
“Letty was supposed to be flying the drone,” Shannon whispered.
“I know, but I don’t want her overdoing it while she’s not feeling well,” I said. “Letty won’t be happy, but I can just pilot the drone for now.”
Shannon nodded and peered out of the cockpit window.
“Where do you think is a good place to stop, Captain?” I asked Ally.
“There’s a dock up ahead,” Ally said.
She hesitated for a moment longer by Letty’s side, but the other woman waved her away, and Ally went back to the controls.
I went to stand by her side, and Ally pointed to a short wooden dock a little ways up ahead. It jutted out from the land like a pointing finger, but we’d have to get closer to the island than I’d have liked.
“It’s very close to land,” Ally voiced my worries aloud. “But I guess we don’t have many better options available.”
I looked at her in surprise and with a glow of pride.
“You sound more confident now,” I told her.
“Well, if we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it,” she replied. “There’s no point being worried about things that are actually happening.”
“So you prefer to worry about imaginary scenarios instead?” I teased.
“Potential scenarios,” she corrected me. “Anything is possible until it happens.”
“Yeah.” I blinked. “I guess so.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ally laughed and tossed back her hair. “So long as it makes sense to me, that’s all that matters.”
Ally steered the yacht closer to the dock, and I could see the remains of broken railings hanging off the side and being tossed about in the waves. There were more broken and blackened palm trees here, and the cloud of smoke seemed even more of a threatening presence than before.
Ally killed the yacht’s engine, and the vessel bobbed up and down in the waves.
“Do you hear that?” Shannon asked.
“What?” Letty came to look out of the cockpit window.
Her breathing was a lot easier now, with only the faintest crackle in her exhale to indicate that anything had gone wrong.
“There’s no sound at all,” I realized.
We looked at each other.
“That could be a good sign.” Shannon shrugged. “Not hearing any dragon screams has got to be a positive, right?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m going to get the drone ready, and then we can get a better idea of what’s waiting for us onshore.”
I went and fetched the drone, popped in a fresh battery, checked the charge on the remote. It was at full again, and when I glanced at Letty, she gave me a rueful smile.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “There ain’t no way I’m gonna be of much use while that enormous mothership of smoke is still there. I’ll cheer y’all on from in here and rest up.”
“You can keep me company.” Ally smiled. “I know it’s not as glamorous as flying a drone, but I’ll appreciate the company.”
