Knowing I was so close to the island filled me with equal parts excitement and dread. Leaving Danni started an ache in my heart, and I swore I'd find a way to get back to her, no matter why it was hard. I couldn't let small things keep me from her. But still, my family, whatever was left of it, was so important. I'd been gone for most of twenty years, only visiting occasionally for shore leave, I'd spent most of the last few years trying to rebuild those connections.
I was excited to see Gil, and his pretty wife, Hannah. He wasn't as capable as I was in a fight, or with a rifle, but he knew how to do all those things that grandad taught us. He had whatever genes had saved me, he'd be okay too. They'd have a good chance to be there. I was sure of it.
More than anything, I wanted to pick up my nephew and tousle his wild blonde hair, hear that little kid laugh he had.
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Slead's Landing was coming up on my left, and I took a deep breath, praying silently that they were all safe and sound as I rolled past the gas station at the entrance to town, now abandoned.
Slead's was pretty much empty, as far as I could see. I'd prepared for the worst, both handguns I had loaded and ready in case they were needed, but no, nothing. Odds had not been kind to the tiny town of around one-hundred-fifty. It seemed like the whole place had been hit, and whoever had survived must've abandoned it. No movement on streets, no flicking curtains in windows, nothing. I rolled along the three east/west streets, watching carefully for signs of life.
I'd grown up here, spending summers and school breaks with grandad on the island, Gil and I had been known well here, John Travers grandsons. From the city, but still Travers'. It'd given us a little trust and reputation in a small town where big city folk got almost none of either.
Gil and I both had friends here and on the lake, old girlfriends, hell, we'd both worked the marina at least one summer. As I rolled down Lake street toward the marina and the public docks that jutted out deep into the water, I thoughts of all of this, and I felt hollow.
I drifted past a little house where a prettt young woman named Sadie had once welcomed me. I'd been carted away by MPs eventually, I got so lost in her, and other than one short visit full of anger and lust, I never looked back. Freddie had started out here, in the tiny towns, where rural folk would gather from their farms. It'd probably been a good two weeks ahead of Toronto, but here... it passed with a whisper, dying like an already half-lost memory.
The first order of business was to get ahold of a boat that could get me to the island. Searching the public docks didn't do too much for me in that department. There were no boats floating tied to it. Someone had sunk them all.
"Shit," I spat as I moved on. I didn't want to have to go into the marina if I could avoid it. The place was a dead-end surrounded by the tree line on three sides, and the lake on the last. It was also full of tempting gear, making it either a perfect trap, or a heavily defended location for survivor's. Maybe even more dangerous was if it was truly abandoned. Scavengers would target it and fight tooth and nail for every scrap.
Private docks and boathouses peppered the entire shoreline of town, and the outer docks of the marina where their gas pumps stood in a sea of huge cruisers were not far from me, but those boats were worse than the runabouts that were sunk. They were massive, visible, and ran on large amounts of gas. That made them a beacon to anyone looking to raid the moment their engines turned over.
What I really wanted was a small sailboat. Maybe just a single-sail ten or twelve footer. Silent, just large enough for me and my gear, easy to manage single handed, and I could row it if there wasn't any wind. That would carry me up the western shore of the lake to the island easily.
If only I could find one.
I headed back to my truck, inching along the road to the Marina, hoping to find what I needed. I knew there'd be sailboats around. They were common on the lake, but all I could see were the massive cruisers that the marina staff would have been getting into the water at the time Freddie hit them. The huge boats were tall, obscuring my vision of the other slips and the boats in them.
"Fucking cruisers, fuck," I cursed under my breath steadily as I rolled past each vantage point, craning to see between the huge boats. I was getting closer to the marina than I'd like, and was in danger of breaching external lines of defence set up by any ambushers who'd wrap around behind me to block escape if they sprung a trap to catch me.
I stopped hard, not twenty feet from the Marina entrance, a large electrical gate that blocked cars from entering with no gate on either side of a small rise. There, halfway into the water, tethered to the dock on by a pair of docking ropes, was a twelve-foot boat, its mast and sail down. Exactly what I'd been looking for.
I looked around, wary of watchers. If someone had a gun on me already, I'd be a sitting duck. On the other hand, the dock was just barely outside of the pillbox that the marina gate made. I had to take the gamble.
Pulled over, parking on a tight angle to block the dock and give myself cover to grab my things. Slipping over to the passenger side and slid out of my pickup, I made sure my doors were locked, closing it as carefully and quietly as I could. The semi-automatic I'd taken off the gas station crew was in my belt where I could get it it quickly if needed, the revolver nestled comfortably in my jacket pocket. I grabbed my things from the back of the truck, a large camping backpack with my clothes and camping gear, and a bundle of food stuffed into a large duffle. Last was the rifle I'd lifted, also from the gas station bandits. It was heavy, but I didn't want to risk a second trip.
Keeping low, I moved to the boat, a wooden, floating high on its keel, and would have been lovingly preserved for a good forty or fifty years by this point. Perfect. Its front had a small covered section for cargo, and I crammed my bags into the front, beginning to workon the ropes. Someone had done a hell of a job on them, someone that wasn't great with ropes, knotting the lines poorly.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing," a woman's voice interrupted me and my head shot up. She was small, maybe five five, but she had curves. Her face scowled at me, huge green eyes under a mess of blonde hair hanging from a kerchief, she looked around thirty, she was scared, glancing around, and then back to me, brandishing a pocket knife as a weapon. Something in the back of my head clicked.
"Wendy Becker?" I couldn't believe it. I hadn't seen her since she was maybe ten, but she looked so much like her sisters I couldn't miss it. Recognition dawned in her eyes. I'd babysat her. I'd dated her eldest sister off and on through our teens, Gil had dated her middle sister too. My mom had told me she'd gone off to med school, doing the same regretful sigh about how things shook out with Grace and me.
Wendy cocked her head, to the right, her hips to the left and looked like she had as a little girl chasing me and her sister into the woods to ruin our makeup sessions, now staring back at me with adult eyes as she scanned my face, "holy shit, go looking for my sister and he's right there," she murmured, "Cal Travers." I waved, trying to smile innocently, one rope still in my hand.
A howl, low and animal filled the air, slowly twisting to a snarl, and Wendy snapped to attention, the knife in her hand falling to her hip. "You still know how to sail these," she motioned toward the little boat.
"Been a while, but I think so." Gil and I had a similar boat growing up that we were allowed to take out on the lake. We'd often sail back and forth to the Becker's place, as boys to play with the girls, and as teens to play with them in a different way. We'd won a boat race or two back then, and even a fishing challenge once or twice.
Wendy strode to me, all business, clearly a woman who was used to giving orders, "then I'll take care of the rope, you get this tub moving towards your family's place. They're coming."
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Growing up, my folks had been friends with the Beckers. They had a large piece of land a little north of Slead's Landing, right on the shore of the lake that was a three-season cottage. Their grandfather, a wealthy surgeon to the rich and political, had bought up the land with profits from creating a surgical tool, building the home, leaving it to their mom when he died.
Wendy's mother knew my dad growing up, and became friends with my mom. So, the tax attorney from the boondocks and his legal secretary wife spent a lot of time around the heirs of a fortune.
