speechless, until Prit coughed to get our attention.
“Sorry to interrupt this reunion, but we’ve got a lot to do. They’re looking for us and we don’t know how Sister Cecilia is. Maybe we should—”
“Oh, Prit,” Lucia dropped my hands and hugged the Ukrainian. Her pained voice broke and she started to cry. “Prit, I’m so sorry. They killed her right in front of me. It was horrible.”
“Calm down. Calm down,” Pritchenko managed to say, as he gave her a clumsy pat on the back. The Ukrainian was as pale as a ghost, his eyes like two black marbles. I knew my friend, and whoever killed the nun had earned a mortal enemy.
Lucia pulled away from Prit and leaned on me, sobbing, as she described the nightmare she’d lived through over the past two days, from the time she entered the hospital until she took refuge in that boat.
“How’d you know no one would find you on this boat? What about her crew?” I asked as I held her tight.
“They were admitted to the hospital for botulism. They ate some rancid canned food,” Lucia managed to say between sobs. “They were patients on my wing. I knew no one would come around for at least fifteen days.”
“What if we hadn’t found you? What would you’ve done?”
Lucia stopped crying. A sad smile lit up her face and she gave me a long kiss. “I was sure you’d come,” she said, calmly looking me in my eye. “I never doubted you for a minute. Nothing in the world—not human or Undead—can stop you.”
I hugged her tight. I’d never let any harm come to her.
I turned to Prit, who was sitting on the cabin stairs, crestfallen, his arms folded. Not only had he lost his best friend, he’d been robbed of the chance to get revenge. I knelt beside him. “Prit, don’t fall apart now. We need you, old friend. We’re comrades-in-arms, remember?”
The Ukrainian raised his glassy eyes. I saw a spark of life in the back of his eyes. “
“
53
Five hours later, as the sun was coming up, the Tenerife fishing fleet set sail for the traps they’d set a few nautical miles away. From the shore, the sight of hundreds of sailboats spreading their sails on a dimly lit sea was unforgettable.
A veteran sailor might’ve noticed that the rigging of one of the boats was pulled tight on the leeward side, as if she were in a race. Her crew was scurrying around on deck, tying down loose ends.
Two hours later, when the boats reached the fishing ground, the same sailboat didn’t cast her nets like all the rest. Instead, the crew let out the spinnaker in the morning breeze and set sail for Gran Canaria. No one in the fleet noticed as the boat pulled away.
She grew smaller and smaller on the horizon.
And finally disappeared.
54
Twelve-year-old Marcel Mbalo and his fourteen-year-old cousin, Yayah, had gone out on their fishing boat very early that morning to catch the trade winds at dawn. Although their long, dug-out canoe had an old noisy outboard motor, his uncle had forbidden them to use it unless it was an emergency, since the village had almost no gas left. So Yayah and Marcel had to paddle hard every morning to get past the surf at the beach and then let out the sails to reach their fishing ground.
Marcel thought it was an exciting life. A year ago, the men of the village would never have allowed two children to fish alone in one of their beautiful boats, but now there was no alternative. Most of the men had been forced to serve in the army when the demons from hell had taken possession of the souls of the living. None of those men had returned, so there were hardly any working-age adults left in the village.
The few who remained kept watch night and day at the small bridge over the marshes, the only access to N’Gor peninsula, where the village was located. Marcel’s uncle said that being so isolated was a blessing from Allah, but Marcel and Yayah didn’t understand what the advantages were, living in such a remote place, hundreds of miles from the nearest town. There were about two hundred men, women, and children in their village. They lived off those fish and the crops they grew outside of town. No one went hungry, but they couldn’t afford any luxuries. At night, they all slept in the old school, which everyone thought was fun.
Yayah manned the tiller, while Marcel tightened the boat’s small triangular sail that propelled their canoe. His mind was wandering over the horizon when he spotted a white dot in the distance. That white dot turned out to be a sailboat approaching fast.
Marcel pointed out the sailboat to Yayah. Under those circumstances, an older, more cautious man would’ve sailed away from any stranger, but Marcel and Yayah were just teenagers with no sense of danger. Their curiosity got the better of them and they let their canoe drift toward the boat.
When they were about three hundred feet from the sailboat, Marcel unconsciously reached for his
The vessel looked like it had been through a ferocious storm. The mast was broken in half and its cockpit was flooded with seawater. With no one to control it, the rudder rolled freely, driven by the wind. There wasn’t a soul onboard.
Marcel called out a few times, but no one came on deck. When Yayah brought the canoe alongside the sailboat, Marcel jumped aboard, clutching the machete he used to cut the heads off fish.
The little fisherman immediately wanted to turn and run away from that ruined, sinister boat, but his older cousin was watching. If he let on that he was afraid, he’d have to endure the taunts of the other children in the village. He took a deep breath and pushed open the cabin door.
The cabin looked deserted. A black assault rifle lay on the table next to a large knife. Marcel trod carefully across a carpet of broken glass. Spread out on one of the seats was a painting that caught his attention. It was a garden landscape with a statue and some white men talking in the foreground. Marcel thought the painting was ugly, so he tossed it onto the floor, where it floated face down in seawater.
After checking out every inch of the deserted cabin, he picked up the assault rifle and knife and started out. Satisfied with his haul, picturing Yayah’s face when he saw all that loot, he took one last look inside the abandoned boat.
In a corner, hanging from a hook attached to the ceiling was an old wetsuit, watching him, swaying to the rhythm of the waves.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is very hard to mention, in just a few lines, everyone who has been part of this adventure called
First my wife and family, for their endless patience, love, and understanding in those moments when I ran aground on the reefs of bewilderment.
