Richard DuBois - Last Resort

“Relax, Phil,” Robby holds forth a pitcher of booze. “There’s still plenty of liquor to go around.”

Winded, I point to the sailboat.

“Holy shit!” Conner hops off his stool. “It’s gonna crash.”

He is right. The boat lists even more than it did when I first saw it, and it sails directly towards the jagged coast of Goat Island.

“I know how to use the hobie cats,” Robby declares. “We could sail out to the boat.”

The three of us run to where the hobie cats are stored.

“Fuck,” Conner curses, jerking on the chain used to lock the hobie cat overnight.

“I’ll find Jonas. He must have the key,” Robby says and runs to Jonas’s bungalow.

Conner and I watch the sailboat. It rams into Goat Island at full speed, the crunching sound of the impact hitting our ears a moment later.

“Where’s the crew?” Mouth agape, Conner asks.

“I didn’t see anybody on deck.”

I hear the rattle of chains behind us. It is Jonas, bleary eyed in rumpled pajamas, hurriedly unlocking the hobie cats.

“The boat is still afloat,” Conner notes as we haul one of the hobie cats to the water. “If we hurry we can get there before it goes under.”

Robby, Conner, and I push the craft into deeper water. Jonas remains behind. Robby unfurls the small sail and steers us towards the damaged boat. I sit out front, ocean spray coating my face. Each minute the sailboat sinks further beneath the waves. As we approach, I see why: the reef tore a gaping hole in the bow.

Robby pulls alongside the sailboat. “We don’t have an anchor. I have to stay with the hobie cat.”

Maintaining our position is nearly impossible. Looking down into the turquoise depths, I estimate the water is thirty feet deep. Conner scrambles onto the tilted deck of the sinking boat and reaches back to haul me after him.

“Anybody here?” He calls out.

We grip the sail rigging to steady ourselves. The starboard deck is partially submerged. Behind the captain’s wheel, a small flight of steps descend to the cabins. Over a foot of water covers the floor of the interior. Cups, clothing, papers, and other debris float in the water. I head down the stairs. Expensive teak wood panels the walls and floor. Brass lamps suspended from chains hang at crazy angles. A long table bolted to the floor lies submerged. Opposite the table, cabinets hang open, their contents dumped into the water.

“Hello?” I call. No response. With each successive ocean wave, the boat sways and takes on more water. Suddenly, an electric crackle fills the air.

“What’s that?” Conner whirls in surprise.

Securely bolted to the wooden counter, a ham radio emits a static hiss.

“It’s working!” I seize the mic. “Hello? Hello? Is anyone getting this signal?”

Our only reply is a low buzz.

“How is it that this radio still works?” Conner asks.

I examine the radio. There’s no protective case Faraday cage to shield the radio from the E.M.P. blast. So how is it still working?

“The ship must have been outside of the blast zone. It’s the only possible explanation,” I say.

Conner snatches a photo of a man taped to the cabinet door. “Hey, I know this guy. It’s Dawson Hartford,” Because of my blank stare, Conner elaborates, “Dawson Hartford—the British hedge fund CEO. He’s huge—big time—one of the wealthiest men in England. In the financial biz, guys like me are pygmies next to him. I spent half my days trying to guess what his next move would be and profit from it.”

In the photo, Dawson Hartford stands at the wheel of the sailboat with a black captain’s hat perched on his head. He grips an open bottle of Dom Perignon, a frothy rivulet bubbling over his hand. Tall and imposing, with a thick mane of salt and pepper hair, he sports the proud, toothy grin of a man used to bringing the world to heel.

“You never heard of him?” Conner asks incredulous. I shake my head.

Conner regards the photo with the reverence a medieval pilgrim would give to the bones of a saint. “Floating across the Atlantic in a balloon, sailing around the world, rocketing into space—Dawson’s done it all. This has to be his boat. My whole life I wanted to meet him, and now I’m on his boat.”

“As it sinks to the bottom of the bay,” I pull Conner back to reality. “C’mon. Let’s see if anyone is onboard.”

Sloshing through the water, I open a door at the back of the cabin. It leads to a narrow, water-filled corridor. As we proceed down the corridor, we hear the unmistakable groan of fiberglass sliding against stone. The boat lists further to the side. Any moment, the boat could slip to the sea bottom with us trapped inside.

Conner points to a cabin at the end of the corridor. “That must be the sleeping cabin.”

Because the sleeping cabin is closer to the hole in the hull, the water level is higher—waist deep. Half the windows in the cabin are underwater. The room is dim. Clothes and paperwork float by. The body of a man slumps in a plush chair bolted to the floor.

“Is that Dawson?” Conner whispers.

Treading water, I move closer, but even from a distance, I can see something is terribly wrong with the man in the chair. The skin on the man is blistered and missing in long, oozing strips. Dawson’s thick hair—if it is Dawson—is gone. Only scraggly patches remain.

“What’s wrong with him?” Conner gasps.

I crouch before the body, bending to examine the mangled face. “I don’t know. He’s dead.”

“Holy fuck. That’s him… that’s Dawson Hartford. I recognize his face, even after… after whatever happened to him. It’s like somebody threw acid on him,” Conner grimaces, cautiously reaching out, nearly touching the man’s face.

Suddenly, the eyes on the body open, causing us to recoil in shock. Dawson Hartford sucks in a painful, rattling gulp of air and looks at us with an agonized stare.

“Help me,” he rasps, bloody spittle falling from his lips. “Help me, please.”

Recovering from my surprise that Dawson is still alive, I inch closer. Wracked with pain, his eyes beseech me. How could a man suffer such trauma and still cling to life? “What happened to you?”

“I… don’t… know,” he struggles to say, and then contorts in excruciating pain. It subsides and he continues, “Set sail… from London three days ago. Rio de Janeiro. Head for Rio. Everything… good. Two nights ago… just past Tropic of Cancer… storm. Massive storm. Out of nowhere. Wind roaring loud. So loud. About to capsize. Had to go on deck—right the boat. Everything foggy. The fog burned, felt like—like being roasted… alive. Need doctor. Please.”

Conner backs away towards the door, eyes wide with revulsion. “What kind of storm could do this?”

Dawson’s head sinks down. Only the faintest movement of his chest indicates he is alive.

Not getting an answer from Dawson, Conner grabs my arm and jerks me back. “Tell me what did this to him!”

“I… I don’t know. Maybe some kind of volcanic eruption—no, no, that couldn’t be it. The boat isn’t burned. He sailed into some kind of acid cloud. Maybe a chemical spill. Something that burns flesh but not wood—not the sails,” In a jolt, the answer hits me. “Radiation. These are radiation burns.”

With an awful rumble, the boat lurches downward. As Conner and I grab hold of the doorframe to steady ourselves, Dawson tumbles head first from his chair into the water.

“No, no, no,” I thrash through the water towards Dawson and flip him over.

“Leave him,” Conner orders. “We’ve got to go.”

“He needs a doctor!”

“No doctor can fix what’s wrong with him.”

Conner staggers towards the deck leaving me alone with the floating, blistered body of Dawson Hartford. His eyes flutter open—his swollen, ruined face just inches from mine. I struggle to drag him with me. I cannot. He is too heavy.