Tye thought it amusing that their travels would take them close to what had been the greatest rainforest on Earth. A jungle that after forty years of man not constantly trimming it back had probably taken over every inch of the continent except the shorelines where the salty sea and sand provided a natural wall cutting off the stifling green. There were bound to be tribes in that jungle still. Like Respite, they’d been self-quarantined.
The sun was almost touching the horizon and Milly said, “Now?”
Tye nodded and Milly threaded her way through the supplies. Vera and Robin slept on the benches which lined the side of the launch. Milly trailed her hand across the orange safety floats strapped to the ceiling. They were frayed and falling apart, but still something from the lost world, which made them fascinating to islanders. Tye chuckled. Perspective. The clothing Milly and the others wore was proof that what he said of the gone world was true. Regular cloth would be threadbare, but synthetic fabric, while it may lose its color, remained usable much longer, yet they couldn’t understand this. They had no frame of reference, yet to Tye that was no excuse. Vera wore an old pair of Nike Pros, and there was no way to explain them away, no matter what you believed.
When Milly reached the front of the cabin she leaned forward, squinting through the gaps in the logs that covered the opening on the bow that had once been the front window. Tye watched her mark the aluminum bulkhead with a thin line next to eleven others.
They’d finished their twelfth day and there was no land in sight.
The wind turned overnight and died to a song bird’s fart. So they floated, one person on the rudder and two on the oars so they didn’t go in the wrong direction. It was times like these when Tye asked himself what he was doing out here with these kids. Robin, Vera and Jerome were young, and Milly and Peter had broken their fire guard oath to serve on the Jolly Roger. They’d turned in their sacred rings and left their spouses and children. None of them had ever been off Respite, except for Milly who had been two and had no recollection of anything before The Day.
As they cut through the still ocean, Tye pictured the old world, his old life. He had trouble seeing his mother’s face, and a day didn’t pass without him wondering if she was alive. It was possible, but unlikely. He’d never know. Those two weeks leading up to The Day, the tsunami, and the hardship and death that followed, had stripped him of most of his hope, and the rest had worn away over the slow death march of time.
It pained him to think of the old world and what he’d abandoned there, as if his old life had been deficient. He still cried sometimes, the vague blurred faces of his lost friends, the distant events of his past nothing but confused fragments of a broken life. Haven would hold him, and rock him back and forth as he wept. She was the only person who’d ever seen him cry. Haven and Tye still loved the people they’d left behind, but had accepted their deaths. If his mother and sister were alive, he hoped they’d moved on. Tried to find some kind of life.
Tye constantly questioned his decision to leave Haven behind. It was like a splinter in his mind. While everyone in the party believed they’d return to the island after they completed their mission, Tye felt he had a fifty-fifty chance of making it back, at best. He’d abandoned the woman he loved because the pull of the gone world had been so great.
The sun came up like Sauron’s eye and the south Pacific became a desert, heat pressing on everything, the sea breeze an inconsistent nothing that slowed them to a crawl. It was a good time for Tye to take a break, so he ate some jerky, forced himself to hide among the supplies with the shit bucket, then washed himself up with sea water. Then he lay down, his eyelids heavy with sleep. The ocean lapped against the boat, the sea breeze sang its mournful song, and in moments he was asleep.
At forty days out, no land in sight, Tye started to worry. Dark clouds filled the horizon, and the crew put out the rain catchers. They’d agreed to ration the food a little harder, and with some rain they could extend their supplies ten days. Depression had set in and other than Tye shouting the occasional order, nobody spoke. Mostly they were in good health, but hunger, thirst, and the rocking sea made everyone uncomfortable.
“Heave the log, Robin,” Tye said.
Doc Hampton’s daughter noted the time on the watch, then tossed the log into the water. Thirty seconds later she yelled, “We’re barely moving. Five knots maybe.”
“OK,” Tye yelled. “Take down the sails and batten the hatches.”
The storm was coming straight at them and the wind picked up. The sound of waves slapping against the hull got louder, and white caps marched toward them across the boiling sea. It grew dark, the black horizon filling the sky. The rain came in weak bursts, then became a deluge. Waves pounded the Jolly Roger as Tye fought to keep the boat turned into the breakers. The gimbal compass
