Jason Frost - The cutthroat

He looked at her and shrugged. "I don't know."

And both burst out laughing at the same time. It was a long laugh that caused as much pain as pleasure. Both clutched their wounds as they shook with laughter. It was a communion of mirth, a lightening of spirits that seemed to even float free of the Long Beach Halo. Eric reached into the water at the bottom of the canoe, gripped Tracy's ankle to steady himself as he laughed. Tracy held onto the gunwales, causing the whole boat to rock precariously. Neither seemed to notice. Afterward, tears brimming in their eyes, smiles still stretching their lips, they fell silent.

Eric stared out over the ocean before him, the long square necks of buildings craning out of the water. Their laughter seemed to still echo across the ocean, perhaps bouncing around inside the buildings, and he thought what a strange sound it was. And how little of it they'd heard since the quakes. How little they'd done.

"You're looking kind of pale, Eric," Tracy said. "How about you doing the bailing and I'll paddle for a while."

"Can you sit up?"

"Sure," she said, but when she tried to curl her legs up, the hip jerked with pain. Her fingers dug into the gunwales until the knuckles glowed white. The jersey cloth fell from her wound and Eric leaned over to inspect.

Jesus, he cursed to himself, but kept an impassive face. The bullet hole had pounded through the hip like a dull nail, charring the flesh around the entry hole. He tore open her pants around the wound. The skin was puckered and the angry red glow of infection was spreading. The bullet had bored straight through and out the back of the thigh, so at least he wouldn't have to dig the slug out.

Eric opened the one half-filled backpack he'd managed to grab before jumping off the ship. A pair of thick socks, two rolls of duct tape, a stick of bee's wax he'd used on his bow string. No medical supplies, no compass, no knife, no food. And with Tracy's wound looking so bad, he'd have to do something quick.

"Reminds me of The Angry Red Planet," Tracy said, staring at the wound. "Remember that movie? The giant spider on Mars."

Eric nodded. "We'll paddle over to that building there, rest for the night. Tomorrow we head straight for land."

Tracy looked at him. For Eric to break off his search for Timmy meant that this was serious. "How bad is it? Am I going to lose my leg or what?"

"I don't know."

"Don't pull that crap on me now, Eric. Maybe part of the reason I sometimes feel so frustrated and helpless is that you keep things from me. We're in this together, right?"

"Right," Eric said. "It's too early to tell yet, but I've seen enough bullet wounds to know this one needs immediate attention. We're both too tired to make it to land today. Besides, we'd be idiots to travel during the day anyway. So we hole up in that building until dark and head straight for land, where I have a better chance of treating your leg with herbs and medicinal plants."

Tracy examined her pulpy hip, made a sour face. "What if we don't land near any of the plants you need?"

"Then I find something else."

"What?"

"You really want to know?"

"Yes, damn it."

Eric hesitated. "Maggots."

"Oh Christ, Eric. I'm serious."

"So am I. Maggots ingest dead tissue. A common treatment of infected battle wounds during World War I. We just expose the wound to flies and pretty soon we'll have our maggots."

Tracy swallowed the thickness in her throat. "I've changed my mind about wanting to know everything."

Eric smiled. "Don't worry. I'll have you on your knees paddling this thing in no time."

"Some incentive."

Eric guided the canoe toward the nearest building. Only two and a half stories stuck out of the water, but that would be more than enough. At least a third of the reflective glass plating that encased the building like armor was shattered. Huge gaping holes stared out where floating debris had rammed through. As they neared the building, they could see that the tail of a small Piper plane stuck out of the building. The rest of the plane was lodged in the top floor where it had crashed.

"Rhino and your former playmate are hauling their butts out of here," Tracy said, pointing at The Centurion, sails full as it sped away. The Home Run still sat quietly in the middle of the ocean, flames engulfing the whole ship, hissing as falling boards touched water. "Did you really sleep with her one night and try to kill her in the morning?"

"Yes. It was the quickest way to get past her guards."

"But she knew who you were all the time."

"Thanks to Fallows. I should've known he'd find a way to turn some profit out of the war." He traced his finger along his scar, the scar that Fallows had given him back in Vietnam.

"Eric, they're coming toward us."

"What?"

"That ship. The one that picked up the passengers. They're sailing right at us."

Eric watched the sails being hauled up, the last of the survivors being pulled aboard, as the ship turned its bow toward them. He could see four or five armed archers standing at the railing, arrows already nocked into the strings.

He dug the paddle into the water, churning at the ocean until the canoe was closing in on the building. His wounded chest throbbed as if the ribs were poking through the skin, tearing at the muscles, but he had no other choice.

"As soon as we land, we search the place for anything we can turn into weapons."

"Fine, as long as it doesn't involve maggots."

"Check the plane first. See if there's any fuel left. Maybe we can mix a couple Molotov cocktails."

"Okay. But maybe they don't want to harm us. After all, they did try to destroy Rhino and that bunch."

"That doesn't necessarily make them our friends. It could have been a business dispute."

"Business dispute?"

"Look at the flag?"

Tracy shaded her eyes with her hand and peered across the water at the approaching ship. High atop the mast was a fluttering black flag-with a skull and crossbones.

"They've got to be kidding," she said. "It's too corny to be real. Pirates?"

Eric backwatered the paddle, easing the canoe up to one of the large holes in the glass. Tracy dragged herself through the hole, cutting her hand on a jagged piece of glass. Eric followed, hopping into the dark dusty room and hauling the canoe in after them.

They turned to face the room they'd entered. A steel filing cabinet stood against the wall, but otherwise the room was empty. The floor was wet and sticky with clumps of seaweed that the ocean washed in every few seconds as another wave lapped through the hole.

Eric anchored the canoe, wedging it behind the filing cabinet. Then he slipped an arm around Tracy's waist and helped her toward the room's only door, which was closed. "We'll find the stairs and climb to the next floor. That'll give us the upper ground advantage. We might even be able to block off the stairs after us."

Tracy reached for the doorknob, turned, and pulled it open.

The three men stood with weapons ready. There was an ax poised over one man's shoulder, another man thrust his makeshift spear against Tracy's stomach, a third man pressed a.22 automatic against Eric's temple. Behind them stood a tall woman with a red bandana tied around her forehead giving orders.

"Kill them now?" the brutish man with the ax asked her hopefully.

Eric Ravensmith scraped the steel blade against his dry cheek. Though the room was too dark to see anything, he felt the slivers of brown whiskers sprinkled lightly on his chin like tiny leaves. For a moment he thought of himself as a giant sequoia tree, witnessing hundreds of years of human turmoil, but at the end still standing, calm and indifferent in the dark forest. He brushed the whiskers with his hand. He knew without looking that there were dozens of gray ones mixed in with the brown, more than last month. At this rate he'd be all gray by Christmas. He tilted his head back and carefully scraped his neck.