Darby looked at him then. Shock on his face. "Captain, you can't be serious."
Schwenk said nothing, but he did Darby the favor of not pointing the handgun at him.
"Captain, you can't do this. It's just a bite. It's small; it's nothing. Doc, tell him," Darby pleaded.
The doctor shook her head, either refusing to do what Darby was asking or denying her role in the whole affair. It wasn't clear which.
Griego appeared, and he handed the life preserver to Darby, thrusting it at this chest so hard that Darby's arms instinctively came up and wrapped around it. He stood in a daze.
"You're serious. You're going to throw me over the side like one of them?" Darby asked.
Schwenk had nothing to say. Nothing he could say would make this right. What he was doing wasn't right; it was survival.
Darby stopped pleading with Gary. He knew he would find no mercy there. The Captain always did what he thought was right. Instead, he addressed the rest of the crew, the refugees standing on the deck, muttering to each other and watching. "You see this? This is the kind of man that runs this ship. I was his friend. We had dinner at each other's houses. This man played with my boys! Now he's going to throw me over the side like garbage. Know that! You're next!"
"Alright, get him out of here," Schwenk said. He turned his back as Griego and another man escorted Russell Darby to the edge. He went on his own with no more complaint.
The sea was calm that evening, which was good for the swimmers. He felt good about that, at least. He heard the splash as Darby hit the water, and then he opened his eyes to find everyone staring at him. They looked at him with fear. He never thought he would have experienced that look in his life.
He was a good man, faithful to his wife, to God above, and to his men. He never did anyone wrong. He did what he needed to do and what he was told by the company, but now they were all looking at him like he was a madman. He couldn't handle that look.
He spoke to them. "Listen. I didn't want to do it. But the bites, they were all going to get sick as well. My number one concern is the safety of the people on this ship. I think we got everyone. I don't think there are any more infected. Know that I am a good man, at least I believe myself to be. If you have a problem on the ship, you can come to me. I don't value my life over yours or the lives of my men. We are all equals here. And while it's my ship, and I'm calling the shots of what to do with it, if you have an idea or want to voice any concerns, know that you will always have my ear."
"We don't know what's going on here. We don't know what this is, but I will try to find out. I will try to find you a place that's safe."
His speech didn't strike the fear from everyone's eyes, but he saw a good many of them look at him as if he were a human again.
"I'm sorry about what happened today. Know that I don't like this any more than you do. With that being said, I think we should all get some rest and see what tomorrow brings. Maybe I can make contact with the shore and see what's going on. We'll be alright. Trust me on that."
The people walked back to their makeshift quarters down below, the cold rooms of the ship's interior. There were about fifty of them, including his own men. It was still a lot of mouths to feed. A few of the people muttered half-hearted thank-yous as they walked by. It was a start, at least.
****
That had been months ago. They had sailed up and down the west coast, burning through fuel, stopping at cities along the way, and trying to reach anyone on the radio.
As food had dwindled on the ship, he had been forced to open up the shipping containers on board. Many of them were filled with crap, a whole container of jeans, a container devoted to transporting someone's Mercedes, a container piled high with crates of wristbands for some cause or other. These containers they had pitched over the side using the crane on board.
The less weight they carried, the longer their fuel would last. In some of the crates, they had found what they were looking for, food. Many of the crates contained canned goods from a grocery store that no longer existed. They had rationed those, causing consternation among some of the people onboard. But in the end, those crates, filled with generic spaghetti in a sauce that would stain anything it came in contact with, had kept them going for months. Boxes of cereal, so dry that it made your throat ache to swallow it, kept their bellies full. And the rain barrels on board kept them supplied with fresh water.
But it was all running out now. The fuel, the food, the crate of alcohol they had found hidden in one of the containers. The people were getting desperate. He could have stayed aboard his ship for the rest of his life, but these other people weren't used to the sea. They wanted to be on land, and he could understand that. On the sea, they had no control. It was the captain's way or the highway, or at least a pretty good talking to until they saw the light, his light.
They had stopped at every large city between Vancouver and San Diego, finding nothing but smoldering ruins and shades of the dead. Through his binoculars, he spied a world that had gone
