I felt like jumping overboard and drowning myself. I had tried to cheer Lucy up and the music had done the trick but then I had let my idiotic expectations get too high. I was crazy to think Lucy could ever go for a guy like me. There was a reason I spent most of my weekends locked away in a fantasy game world. It was time I faced reality.
And now Lucy was ashamed because we had almost kissed. She must be down there looking at herself in the mirror and saying, “What the fuck are you doing? He’s an inexperienced geek. Even in this post-apocalyptic world, you can do a lot better for yourself.”
I went over to the radio and turned it off.
Striding through the living area to the back of the boat, I climbed the ladder to the bridge. If Mike couldn’t get up at a reasonable time because he was too busy in bed with Elena, I would get the boat started myself. After all, how hard could it be to get to Scotland? All we had to do was point North and follow the coastline. I couldn’t take any more of this drifting and going nowhere.
I sat in the bridge chair and looked at the instruments on the panel. OK, maybe this looked complex but all I needed to do was raise the anchor and start the engine. The keys sat in a cupboard that also contained maps and charts. They had a neon yellow plastic float attached to the key ring so if they fell into the sea they would float and would be easy to see. I took them out and fit them into the ignition.
And stopped myself before I turned them.
I really didn’t know what I was doing.
I took the keys out of the ignition and put them back in the cupboard. I looked out at the calm sea and the clear blue sky. Just sit here and try to calm down. No point crashing The Big Easy into Swansea just because you’re a loser.
A crackling sound made me jump. It had come from the instruments. I listened carefully.
Crackle
“…Big Easy…” A man’s voice. Coming from the radio set that sat on the wall.
I turned up the volume and moved the tuning knob a fraction until his voice came in clearly.
“…Lighthouse hailing The Big Easy. Do you read? Over.”
I picked up the handset and pressed the button. “This is The Big Easy, reading you. Over.”
“Ah, so you have got the radio on. I’ve been hailing you all morning. Saw you on deck dancing with your girl.”
Saw us? I leaned towards the window and scanned the coastline. To the north, in the distance, the dark shape of a lighthouse rose from a rocky island. If he could see us from there, he must have some powerful binoculars.
“I wondered if you knew the latest news. Over,” he said.
“What news is that? Over.”
“If you want the details, I’ll do a deal with you. Face to face. Not over the radio. Over.”
I frowned at the lighthouse. Could he see me? Was he watching me even now? “What deal? Over.”
“You get me off this rock and we can all be saved. Over.”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” I almost forgot to add, “Over.”
There was a static-filled pause then he said, “The Americans are coming to save us. If you get me off this rock, I’ll tell you where and when. Over.”
I looked at the radio. I didn’t want to make a group decision without the others. “I’ll have to get back to you in a few minutes. Over.”
More static. Then, “Alright, lad, but don’t be too long about it. Otherwise, we’ll all be dead. Over.”
I wondered if he had lost his mind, surviving alone in that lighthouse while the world around him went to hell. “What do you mean? Over.”
“After they pick up survivors and get to a safe distance, they’re going to drop The Bomb. Over and out.”
seventeen
“Maybe he’s just a crazy guy who got into the lighthouse and is using the radio to lure us into a trap, man,” Mike said as we sat around the dining table. We had eaten a breakfast of pancakes that Elena had made from some sort of egg powder, flour and long-life milk. They actually tasted good even though they had a rubbery texture. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the ingredients or Elena’s lack of cooking skills. The mug of coffee I washed them down with was strong and bitter. I usually took two spoons of sugar in hot drinks but had decided to cut down to half a spoon. Sugar was in plentiful supply on The Big Easy at the moment but that situation probably wouldn’t last long. We needed to preserve what we had.
Lucy barely looked at me as we discussed the lighthouse. She had dressed in blue jeans and a tight black sweater, her perfect curves amplifying the fact that she was way out of my league. I tried not to think about it.
The radio call from the lighthouse had caused us a problem. Either the man in there knew where and when the rescue ships were going to land, in which case we needed that information, or he was trying to draw us into a trap.
“It doesn’t add up, man. Why does he need us to get him off his island? Where’s his own boat? He must have got out there somehow.”
“And if all he wants is to use our boat so he can get rescued,” Elena added, “he won’t care if we’re with him or not. What if he steals The Big Easy?”
“He said he wanted to make a deal. I assume the deal is how we know he isn’t going to steal our boat.”
“Yeah, right,” Mike scoffed, “make a deal with a fucking madman.”
“We don’t know his story, Mike. He could be telling us the truth. If he’s stuck in that lighthouse and Britain is going to be nuked, don’t we owe it to him to take him with us to the rescue site? Otherwise, we’re leaving him there to die.”
“A lot of people are dead, man. A fucking lot of people.”
“So we shouldn’t care about one more even if we have a chance to save his life?”
He shrugged. “We need to look after ourselves.”
“I agree. And if he has information about the rescue mission, we need it.”
“And if this is a trap, we could all get killed, man. We don’t know how many people are in that lighthouse. There could be a dozen killers in there waiting to steal our boat.”
“So what do we do?” I asked. “Should we vote on it?”
“Fuck that, man. I’m going to talk to this guy.” He got up and strode out to the aft deck.
We followed. The bridge was only big enough for two people so Elena climbed up while Lucy and I stood on the deck. We could hear the radio from there. Mike was talking into the handset. “Hey, lighthouse guy. You there?”
Static.
“Hey, lighthouse guy. You want us to save your ass, you need to talk to me.”
Static.
“He isn’t even fucking there, man.”
The radio crackled and hissed.
I looked over at the lighthouse. Was he watching us through his binoculars? I felt like raising my middle finger and flipping him off. Maybe that would get a response out of him.
Lucy came over and stood next to me. “Alex, about earlier…”
“Hey, it’s OK. Forget it.”
“No, I…”
The man’s voice came from the radio, cutting through the static. “My name is Eric.”
“Well, Eric, I’m Mike. There are six of us on this boat and we want to know what the fuck your deal is.”
More static. Then Eric said, “There are four of you.”
“Are you fucking spying on us, man?”
“I can see you. There isn’t much else to look at out here. There are four of you. Not six.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Well you’d better tell us about this deal you want to make, man.”
“I need to get off this rock, Mike. They’re going to drop The Bomb. I don’t want to be around when that happens. There’s a rescue mission taking place. I know where and when the ships are going to land. After that, everyone in this area is going to be dead. That includes me and it includes you. All I want is a ride to the rescue site.”