“You’re kidding. Right? I mean about walking?” he stared at her with skepticism written all over his face. “Come on Ellen, tell me you are just kidding. Do you realize how far that is? It’s got to be a couple of thousand miles.”

  “Yep and no, I’m not kidding. At least it is not the 3600 miles it is from here, give or take. The more time we spend at sea; the calmer things will be once we come ashore. At least I hope that’s what will happen. With no power commerce will stop. No big trucks to move the food, no pipelines or tankers to move the fuel, no electricity to keep the factories running and the biggest no of all, will be no water. Disease will run rampant when people begin to drink from rivers and lakes. Others will kill and be killed just to feed their own family. Can you imagine having to watch your own children starve to death?”

  Alan’s face had lost all color with the realization that she is right. “Oh my God, we’re pretty much screwed then. Aren’t we?”

  “Pretty much. I haven’t even mentioned the immediate deaths from people dependent on machines to stay alive, people whose medicines run out or those needing extensive hospital care. Diseases such as the plague, cholera and diphtheria would make a comeback and claim more than their share. The common flu would be considered deadly without antibiotics to treat it. Infection would claim more. A simple scratch could turn gangrenous and kill you.”

  “Airplanes? They would have all fallen then wouldn’t they? The ones over the U.S., they all would have crashed.” He was barely above a whisper by the time he finished speaking.

  They both continued to sit and stare across the water, each lost in their own thoughts.

  A piercing whistle startled Alan and Ellen. The only man whose name we did not know was on the sandbar waving at us. They must have been waiting a while, because they had taken the time to start a fire.

  “Okay,” Ellen said, “let’s get the dinghy in the water and head on over. You can have the privilege of rowing me to shore.”

  “Okay, but are we really going over un-armed?”

  “Yes, but be ready for anything. I have no logical reason, but I trust these people. Besides, no parent would put their own children in danger like this, and they don’t look in any danger of starving. Give them another month then I may feel differently, but now, I think we’re good to go.”

  Ellen threw the bow-line and the man named Brian caught it and snugged it tight to an old tree trunk embedded in the sand. “Thanks,” she said as she grasped his outstretched hand, stepping over the pontoon to the beach. Alan landed firmly beside her, obviously needing no assistance.

  He held his hand out to shake Brian’s, “Alan Boone, and my sister Ellen,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Ellen, silently asking for confirmation.

  “Hi,” she nodded at Brian. His wife or the woman they thought had to be his wife came walking up. She linked her arm in Brian’s.

  “Hello, my name is Millicent but everyone just calls me Millie. I’m surprised you found this out of the way spot.”

  Ellen almost laughed because she did look like a Millie. Tightly curled blonde hair, drawn on brown eyebrows, spray booth orange tan, cat woman glasses and a taller than average, too skinny body. Her capris and flowered shirt matched perfectly, in a coral and yellow combination. However, her smile reached all the way to her brown eyes. This is not a person to be afraid of, she thought.

  “Hi, I actually wrote a piece on this anchorage, last year I think. All I can say is thank God I remembered the channel in and that we had enough wind to make it. Are those your children?” Ellen asked looking to the fire. The kids had wieners on sticks and were roasting them. Who’s the guy?”

  “Guilty, they are ours, Stevie and Penelope, but you can call her Penny and that’s my brother Dan helping them and his wife Clarisse, but just call her Clare. Everyone does. And they,” she pointed to the last couple sitting down at the far end of the sandbar, “are Jeff and Linda. She’s having a hard time right now. They arrived before us, on what we are calling day one and apparently, the guys from the fish boat boarded them while they were asleep. Don’t know what happened before we got here last night; they haven’t said much, but when we got here…” Her voice trailed off and she looked as if she wanted to cry. With a deep breath she continued, “There had been some kind of fight, it looked like they were trying to throw Jeff over the side.”

  Brian had walked back to where Alan was resting on the side of the dinghy. They talked for a while then both came over to where Ellen and Millie were. Dan joined them followed closely by his wife Clare. Clare is as tiny as Dan is large. He looked nothing like Millie, other than they shared eye color. Clare looks more like a sibling to Dan than his own sister. However, he and Millie both have the same trait of smiling with their whole face. Until his look grew sober.

  He and Brian shared a look, that would have made Ellen nervous until she heard him say, “She’s still not talking and Jeff doesn’t say much either. I think there is more to the story than they let on. I guess when they’re ready; we’ll get the whole story, but then again, maybe never.”

  “I’m sorry to hear they had troubles. I guess we all have a story to tell, but right now isn’t the time,” she said, thinking of Alan. Ellen was sure he didn’t want anyone to know about what had happened yesterday.

  I told Brian what happened,” Alan said softly, “He is an officer with Tampa P.D. (Police Department) Dan is a detective for Dade county. We have nothing to worry about. What happened goes no farther than this group. He has assured me that right now the United States has more to worry about than one scumbag.”

  “Make that four scumbags, Brian said. Between those two fishing boats there were three more. Now, there are none.”

  Alan had been standing, staring off to the largest power boat, ignoring the conversation. Finally, he piped in, “Did you guys look and see if they had a dog on their boat?”

  “A dog?” Dan asked, obviously puzzled. “We didn’t see no dog, but we didn’t go over there either. We had our hands full with them on Jeff’s boat. That took us some time to clean up and then we all stayed together on my boat until you both got here. What makes you ask?”

  “Maybe nothing, but I keep hearing a dog whine. Do you suppose they have one locked inside?” Apparently Alan has a thing about dogs, because he was already untying the dinghy.

  “Anyone want to go with me? You did say there was no one left on that boat, right?”

  “I’ll go, just to keep an eye out for you. If there is a dog, it’s been locked inside that thing all day. He may be a little upset.” Dan winked at them and trudged to the dinghy that Alan had already pushed into the water.

  They walked over to the now dying fire, where Millie offered a stick to Ellen, “Hot dog?”

  “Thanks, but we just ate before coming in.”

  Alan must have been right about the dog, because no sooner had they broke in the door, when something let out a god awful howl. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. However, it didn’t sound much like a dog, and if it was, it must have been in great pain. The howling continued for 30-40 seconds, in length, paused and began again.

  “Doesn’t really sound like a dog to me,” Jeff said. “I don’t think this is going to be good either.”

  He looked around, “Millie, can you and Clare take the big dinghy and get the kids to our boat. See if Jell and Linda will go with you. I think Linda is a little too fragile to deal with this right now.”

  “You got it,” Millie said. She must have read between the lines because Ellen had no idea what they were talking about. “Stevie, you and Penny come on now. Time to get back to the boat,” she called.

  They were very well mannered children. There is no fussing or whining, they just helped Clare gather the hot dog paraphernalia and raced each other to the boat. Millie had her arm around Linda’s shoulders and led her away. Jeff wiped his eyes and walked to where they were standing. Apparently he had not even heard the insane howling coming from the power boat.

  Then Ellen realized it was her who didn’t hear them anymore. Now it sounded like someone was crying. Huge gulping sobs. She could only imagine what was going on over there. They would have to wait and see what the guys brought up.

  With the women and children gone, Brian and Jeff were silent. Occasionally, Jeff sniffed loudly. If what Ellen has suspected happened to his wife, he had good reason to be sad. She also thought Dan and Brian had used vigilante justice to take care of the problem. Ellen could find no fault with this idea. After all, hadn’t Alan used the same kind of justice? It had not been his intent to kill the guy, but the end result was still the same. It was hard to believe that whatever had happened had turned people into monsters. It had only been three days and already social etiquette was falling apart.

  “Oh my God,” Brian murmured, “Oh my loving God. Those guys must have had her locked in there the whole time.”

  Alan was standing on the swim platform, trying to hand what appeared to be a young woman or girl, to Dan who was already in the dinghy. The girl was fighting to keep her arms wrapped around Alan’s neck. They couldn’t hear what Dan was saying to Alan, but his give her to me gesture said it all. It was also obvious she was afraid and won’t let go of Alan. Almost as if she weighed nothing, Alan stepped down to the pontoon, one arm holding on to her and the other holding on to the grab rail of the power boat. Dan grabbed Alan to steady him and finally they are all in the boat. Alan sitting on the starboard pontoon, the girl clutched in his arms and Dan rowing. Alan appeared to be talking quietly to the girl, holding her as if to shield her. Dan’s face was filled with grim determination as he rowed steadily to the sandbar. Brian hurried to them, grabbed the bow-line and pulled the bow onto the sand. Dan and he talk for a couple seconds, and grim faced, they came to where Ellen is standing.

  “Those animals had that little girl in their boat the whole time. We found her tied up in the forward cabin. She has been beaten severely, raped and God knows what else. She has multiple cigarette burns on her face, neck, breasts and about everywhere else you can imagine.” Dan said in disgust. He looked at Brian and says, “Had I known… those three would be strung up on the nearest tree. What we did was too good for them.”

  Ellen was speechless, unable to take her eyes off of Alan. It is as if he has aged right before her eyes. His demeanor is that of a caring parent. She was beginning to see another side of him, or maybe it has always been there and she just hadn’t noticed before. She had thought of him as a young kid, but clearly she was wrong.

  “That is some brother you have Ellen. You didn’t mention that he’s a doctor. Why that little girl took to him like he is her personal savior. Wouldn’t let me even get near her.”

  “Um…,” She didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t told her he was a doctor; in fact, he hadn’t volunteered anything. She knew he is or was going to college, because he had told her, but not what he was studying for.

  “Yes he is special,” she acknowledged. It sounded lame even to her ears. “The question is, what do we do with her?” She was still clutched tightly in Alan’s arms. Small angry red spots were visible on the side of her face that Ellen could see.

  “So, do we take her to the hospital?”

  “Well, I’m not sure you can. The closest as far as I know is back at Fort Meyers and I wouldn’t go back there for anything. Didn’t you see the smoke? It looked like the whole town was on fire. I’d be surprised if you could even get her there.”

  “Actually no I didn’t, we came in from the outside. I didn’t think the bridges were working. I guess I will go talk to Alan and see what he wants to do. If we can’t take her somewhere, we will have to come up with a plan.”

  “Okay, we are going to try to leave in the morning. Let us know if we can do anything to help before then.” Dan said, as he turned and began to walk to his dinghy. “Wait! Leaving? For where?” Her mind was reeling. They still hadn’t shared any information because of Alan’s discovery.

  “You have to tell me what happened?” She was almost begging, but if they knew anything she wanted to know it. How could they plan adequately if they had no information?

  Dan stopped walking and turned, “Actually we aren’t sure exactly what happened. But when someone from the government tells me to shelter in place and that someone would come to help when they could, that sent red flares up for me. Seconds after the broadcast, I got a conference call from Jeff and Brian. We think alike and here we are.”

  “Broadcast? From the government? I didn’t see anything; I was anchored out. Please, what did they say?”

  “Well, we were just sitting down to dinner, the T.V. was on and an emergency beacon came across the screen. A minute or two of that and the President came on. He started out with an apology to the American people. I’ll tell you that got my attention. Anyways, he announced a national emergency. People were to shelter in place. Fill every container and bathtub with water and conserve it. Those people that had swimming pools to put covers on and for everyone to put themselves on strict food rationing. All off-duty police officers were to return to their stations and all military personnel on leave were under orders to return to their bases and lastly, that FEMA, (Federal Emergency Management Agency) would come as soon as they could. With a sad smile, he said, “May God Bless all Americans.” He walked off stage and within ten minutes everything went dead.

  “So, he did know beforehand that something was going down. But, why the secrecy? Why not give people a chance to prepare? Jesus, this is no more than I expected of him. At least he could have given families the chance to unite in one place.”

  “Can you imagine what kind of turmoil we would have had to deal with had he made his announcement any earlier? The freeways would have looked like parking lots. People would have started looting immediately. Getting anywhere would have been a catastrophe. As much as I hate to agree with his strategy, I can’t see where he had any other choice.”

  “Good point, but still…wait, Police officers? Don’t you fit in that category?”

  “I do, I am on compassionate leave. Clare has been sick and I have been taking care of her. Then next month I have my thirty in and I retire. There was no way I was going to leave Clare alone. I’ve seen how these things work. Look at the way they handled Ferguson, those guys worked 36 hours straight. She can’t be alone that long.”

  Ellen understood what he was saying. Had she been in his shoes, Ellen wouldn’t have gone either. She only wished that she had paid more attention when the mysterious lights had woken her. Perhaps, her story would have taken a different track, but then Ellen wouldn’t have Alan, or met these people. Instead she could have been sailing off alone, still not knowing anything.

  “Well, I guess I need to get them to the boat and see what I can do for her. Maybe Alan has gotten her to talk. I guess any information he has learned will help me make some decisions. Do you have a destination in mind?”

  “That’s what we were discussing when you showed up. So far, we just want to get somewhere safe. Pull out your charts and figure it out.” Dan seemed to want to name a destination but was reluctant to say.

  “I was hoping to do the same thing myself. However, I was hoping to find some diesel somewhere to top off with. But, after what you’ve just told me, we have enough. I don’t have sails for nothing. It may take us longer to get there, but get there we will.”

  Ellen wasn’t sure where they intended to go, so she offered up her first choice. “I think I have the perfect spot. It’s about a hundred miles from anywhere, and best of all there will be few people there. Another good thing is, it is defendable. However, there is a down side. There is little water there. Nevertheless, there is a desalination plant there. The park service maintains the island. Once we get there, I can’t imagine them making us leave.”

  Dan seemed to be pondering what she had said, and then confessed, “I guess you do know the area some. The Dry Tortugas is exactly where I had in mind. Brian and I used to go out and dive on the wreck just off Loggerhead Key. Of course that was many years ago,” he added, patting his rather large stomach. “Gave diving up when the kids came along.” He stopped talking, staring down at his feet, “I wonder where they are right now…I can only hope they are okay and remember this place.”

  “Here we are talking like we’re going on some great adventure and in reality our world is changing as we speak. I don’t know you or your children, but you have to believe they are fine. If you were like my Dad growing up, they will remember.”

  “I need to get them back to the boat,” Ellen said nodding in Alan’s direction. “Good luck Dan and with any luck we’ll be chasing you soon.” She started to walk to the dinghy, turned and saw Dan was standing right where she left him, probably thinking on his kids or Clare but she needed to tell him, “Dan, whatever you did to those men, was too good. No one has the right to treat an animal like that, let alone a young girl. You don’t have to answer this, but can I assume you guys are all armed?”

  “You can ask, but in my opinion only crazy people and people intent on protecting their families run around with guns. Good night now Ellen. You let us know if there is anything we can do to help with the young lady.”

  “I guess you can call me crazy too.” she said, and turned to walk away. She still didn’t know the exact nature of the emergency, but thought with everything that had happened her earlier thoughts were correct.

  Chapter ten

  It didn’t appear as if Alan had even moved since sitting down. The girl, still wrapped in a bed sheet was curled up in his lap. She seemed to be asleep. Ellen could not imagine the horror she must have faced and then to be bound and locked up. She probably thought they had gone off and left her that way. No one mentioned how long ago they had taken care of the men. The poor girl must have thought she was going to die in there.