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I dropped the gutted fish into a bucket of saltwater and set its guts in Lucullus’s bowl. He watched me with feline intensity, as if to ask what the hell was taking so long.

“Here you go, your majesty.” I stroked his back as he pounced on the fish guts. “It’s not Whiskas, but at least you won’t starve, buddy.”

Lucullus chewed noisily, smacking and purring, and a wave of nausea washed over me. I leaned against a doorframe until the feeling passed. I’d seen too many people die terrible deaths over the last year and a half. Sometimes ordinary things, like watching a cat eat fish guts, turned my stomach. Before the Apocalypse, the closest I’d gotten to death was buying steaks at the supermarket.

Lucullus looked up from his bowl and stared at me, apparently surprised to see me slumped against the wall. He made a typical cat comment and went back to eating.

I picked my way through the small cabin and into the head, where I splashed my face several times. We hadn’t had time to stock up on fresh water before we sailed, so we had to severely ration what little we had. We stored water right out of the ocean in the tank in the head, and used it for bathing. Washing with saltwater made our hair frizzy and our clothes stiff, and the salt would corrode the boat’s pipes in a few months, but I didn’t expect to be on the boat that long.

I studied myself in the chipped mirror above the sink. A sharp-featured, deeply tanned man with a thick mop of black hair looked back at me. His eyes were sunken and bloodshot from stress and lack of sleep.

My life had been an odyssey from the moment the pandemic forced me out of my home. First I’d sailed to the nearby city of Vigo, headed for the largest Safe Haven in Galicia, only to discover that the city was devastated. After a series of adventures among the charred ruins of the city, I became fast friends with Viktor Pritchenko, a Ukrainian helicopter pilot who’d fought forest fires in that part of Spain. The catastrophe had stranded him there, thousands of miles from his family and home.

Prit and I had been inseparable ever since and had saved each other’s lives many times. We first teamed up to flee from Vigo and the hordes of Undead there. Then we made a nerve-racking flight in his helicopter to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. But our hopes for restarting our lives there were dashed when we discovered that the islands had become a huge refugee camp for survivors from around the world. Everything was strictly rationed and a repressive military ruled. When civil war broke out, our lives were in danger, so we set sail down the African coast headed for the Cape Verde Islands, not too far away. Before the Apocalypse, they’d been sparsely populated and isolated. We were hopeful that the virus hadn’t spread there.

And then there was Lucia.

I walked out of the head and inched between the central table and the base of the mast. The cabin door was standing ajar. I stuck my head in, trying not to make any noise. Lucia was lying on the bed, fast asleep and wearing a pink-flowered bikini she’d found stuffed in a drawer on the boat. One arm hung limply over the side of the bed. She clutched an old issue of a fashion magazine; it, along with a navigation manual and a sports magazine, comprised the entire onboard library.

Lucia joined our little group several days after Prit and I met. She was only sixteen when she got separated from her family during the chaotic evacuation of her hometown. Lost and scared, she and Sister Cecilia, a nun and trained nurse, took refuge for a year in the basement of a hospital—all alone—until Prit and I stumbled upon them. Before Lucia and I could stop it, we were deeply in love, despite the ten-year difference in our ages.

The world had changed drastically. Most of those changes added up to a pile of shit the size of an aircraft carrier, but I was grateful I’d met Lucia, I thought with a half smile.

With all the chaos, death, and devastation in the world, some things hadn’t changed. People were still violent, selfish, and dangerous. Some became murderers if the situation called for it. But people still laughed, sang, dreamed, and cried—and even fell in love. How could they help it if they met a woman like Lucia?

Eighteen now, Lucia was tall and slender with legs that went on forever, black hair, high cheekbones, and bright-green eyes. She had a sensual beauty that could stop traffic. I’m sure that before the Apocalypse, every man who saw her did a double take. She reminded me of a panther, especially when she stretched lazily, like she was doing just then.

I didn’t want to startle her, so I gently kissed her hair. Lucia moaned in her sleep and turned, opening her eyes just a slit.

She asked in a sleepy voice, “Is it my turn to take the watch already?”

“No, honey,” I whispered as I ran my hands along her long legs.

Lucia had slept only four hours since she’d taken the night watch. We’d all agreed to stand watch the same number of hours, but Prit and I knew that Lucia was at the limit of her endurance, so we tried to spare her a couple of hours when we could. She wasn’t stupid; she knew what we were doing. Exhaustion was taking its toll on everyone, but Prit and I had more stamina. For the moment, anyway.

“Go back to sleep. It’s still three hours before it’s your turn again.”

“Why do you smell so fishy?” She wrinkled her nose.

“Guess what’s on today’s menu.” I’d washed my hands, but they still smelled, so I stuck them under the quilt.

“Yuck!” Lucia covered her head with the pillow.

Just then a wave struck the hull and the boat lurched. If the sea was getting rough, I needed to finish fixing dinner and then go help Prit tie down loose lines.

“Well,” I continued, faking nonchalance, “I was torn between beef Wellington with a port wine reduction and roasted potatoes or a plain mackerel with no sides. I know deep down, you and Prit have simple tastes, so I decided on the lighter menu.”

“Shut up or I’ll shut you up!” she said as she linked her hands behind my neck and stared at me with her big green eyes.

When the boat lurched again, I lost my balance and fell on top of her. Her breasts pressed against my bare chest and her kiss seemed to go on forever. The temperature in the cabin shot up several degrees.

“Maybe we should have dessert first,” I whispered in her ear, as I slid my hand toward the knot in her bikini top.

She arched her back as I nibbled her neck. The sea surged again, shaking the Corinth II so violently that we rolled against the bulkhead. My back hit a sharp corner and knocked the wind out of me, proving the old maritime adage that you always hit the part of your body that will hurt the most.

“You OK?” Lucia asked, trying to stifle her laughter.

“What the hell’s Prit doing up there?” I grumbled as I rubbed my back. It felt like someone had hit me with an ax.

The Ukrainian’s urgent voice broke in. “Get up here! Now! You gotta see this!”

I jumped off the bed and shot through the hatch. As I crossed the galley, I noticed that the bucket of fish had fallen. Lucullus was stalking the gutted mackerel that skidded across the floor each time the boat pitched and rolled. I decided I’d rescue our dinner later and rushed up the stairs onto the deck.

What I saw left me speechless. When I’d caught the mackerel two hours before, the sky had been crystal clear, as it had been every day since we left Tenerife. Now it was an eerily white mosaic.

Clouds shredded apart, clumped together, then wildly broke apart again. The sea had been calm, but now whitecaps the size of rams broke against the sides of the boat.