“Oopsie,” I let out in a ditzy voice. I placed the cup directly on the table, hard enough to ensure a few drops sloshed over the lip and landed onto the laminate. I looked up at Seth expectantly, knowing this was going to be epic.
“Gah,” he exclaimed in a strangled cry. “Coasters!”
By now we’d all dissolved into uncontrollable laughter. Except for Seth, who was repeating his 409 scrubbing with one hand and waving a coaster at me with the other. Once he completed the process and washed his hands, he sat back down and resumed planning.
“I suggest we keep the pantry foods for emergency and fish as much as possible,” he said. Was that the evil eye? Yep, Seth was definitely fixing me with a murderous glare. Maybe I should sleep with my door locked… and barricaded.
I groaned. I hated fish; I mean I really hated fish. The smell of it made me want to hurl. It was so bad that I even banned it from my house. Jake, who loved seafood when we met, got to eat it only on the special occasions I wasn’t around for. He grew up in an Italian household. They had weird food customs. Certain days of the week were planned out with certain foods. And holidays were a seven-course smorgasbord. The first Christmas after we were married, his family made lobster on Christmas Eve. It was the last time they served seafood around me, considering I spent about thirty minutes vomiting in their pool after I caught a whiff.
I can’t handle puke or any fluids that come out of the mouth or nose. When I hurl, it’s like I’m on a constant repeat cycle until I have nothing left in me. The taste of puke in my mouth caused me to throw up over and over again. It was also the day they drained their pool and scrubbed it clean to get my little gift out. Merry fucking Christmas! I felt bad and shelled out the hundred bucks for a new pool filter.
You would think being so close to graduating with a degree in nursing that I’d have a stronger stomach. Poop, I can handle. Vomit and sputum? All bets are off.
Chapter 19
Gold Nuggets
The next three weeks went by without incident. The group conceded to remaining close to the helicopter in hopes that the lost team would find their way to us. There was no need to leave our safe haven during that time since we had enough supplies. There was a fresh water tank used for bathing, and the toilets emptied into a composting tank. The owner had been kind enough to leave the user’s manual on the boat, and I learned that this particular type of tank was made to empty at sea. Good to know we weren’t breaking any maritime laws.
Adam and Seth had acquired a rowboat and a Jet Ski from nearby vessels. The rowboat made it easy to fish. Since we were dumping our waste into the water around us, we came to the consensus that rowing away was best for fishing. If nothing else, because it grossed us out thinking of what floated around us.
Every afternoon I took up residence on the upper deck, facing the deserted helicopter. I never stopped trying to coordinate another rescue mission, but the group didn’t support the effort. The lack of any clues as to his whereabouts made it difficult to convince them to risk their lives. Even Meg was hard-pressed to take a chance. I knew it was fear that drove them all to their refusal, but still I tried. Meg spent a lot of time up there with me. Some days we just sat in silence; others, we talked. We talked about everything: life before the outbreak, what we’d be doing now if it had never happened, foods we would never eat again, and our families. That was a tough topic for us, and usually ended in one or both of us dissolving into tears. I missed Jake so bad it hurt.
I stared at the screen of my phone. Service was still out, but I was able to keep a small charge. My heart sank as I flipped through the pictures stored on its hard drive. Jake’s face smiled back at me from the small screen. The questionable fate that had befallen him kept me up at night. I ran scenario after scenario through my head, trying to figure out where he could be.
I hadn’t spoken with my parents since the day before things started to go downhill. My dad had a heart condition. It was a medical marvel he had lived even this long. He always joked that he was hanging on until I gave him a grandchild. This thought brought a sad smile to my face. I had the best parents. Somehow they’d managed to become my best friends as I grew into an adult. It was hard on them when I left Massachusetts and moved to Florida.
We made sure to talk every day, even if it was about nothing. Their relationship with Jake had always been tense. Jake hated people meddling in our relationship, and my parents… well, they meddled. The first few years of my marriage had been rough. Both of us had very strong personalities and it made compromising difficult.
The biggest compromise I had to make came up before we’d even gotten married. I grew up with two best friends, Brooke and April. My move to Florida was hardest on April. Brooke was engaged to be married to someone we grew up with. April, though, was still looking for Mr. Right, and we went dancing every weekend in search of Mr. Right Now. When I moved, there was a definite period of separation anxiety for both of us, but then I met Jake and my priorities changed.
I didn’t visit home very much, and our relationship was relegated to phone calls and text messages. As Jake and I got closer, April and I drifted further apart. When Jake proposed, instead of being happy, April felt threatened. Close to our wedding date, she sent Jake an email and blamed him for the change in our friendship. I knew it was because she didn’t want to lose me, but Jake was a guy. He only saw someone trying to come between us.
It became a fight whenever I mentioned her name, and I needed to make a decision between my past and my future. On one hand, I had someone I’d shared my childhood with. On the other, I had my soon to be husband—the man I would live out the rest of my days with. I begrudgingly gave up my friendship with April. It was a wound that still stung, but I wanted my husband to be comfortable. I thought about my old friends; had they survived?
Gabby had taken on the very important responsibility of potty training Daphne for life at sea. It wasn’t as if we could just pull up to a grassy area and let her do her business. We moved the bathmat to the front of the boat and put her on it every time she whined to go out. It was a slow-going work in progress. My dog certainly took after me: she was stubborn. She started leaving us little presents in the most unlikely places. We found shit in the shower, under the kitchen table, under our beds. To Gabby, it became a game, while the others began getting annoyed.
Frayed nerves created a short fuse, and I could understand their frustration. It wasn’t their dog. One night I even found little brown nuggets under my pillow. As I lay down to sleep, I slipped my hand under the pillow and felt something. I thought it was a bug at first. So, of course, I freaked out. In the middle of a zombie apocalypse, the thought of a spider in my bed still terrified me more than the undead waiting to eat me. I threw the pillow onto the floor and jumped up. When I hit the lights I was rewarded with her deposit. How on earth had she gotten it under there? I held my hand up like it was melting from acid and ran around the room.
“Ew, ew, ew. Gross!” This produced a chorus of laughter from my peers as they ran into my room, armed for battle. Daphne looked proud of herself, like she had gifted me with nuggets of gold.
Did I mention we had electricity? The boat was equipped with a rechargeable battery. We used it sparingly, of course, but this had been a necessity.