With some convincing, Krev approved our plan. Augie and Eva were to supervise the boat while the rest of D arranged to meet us at Dimon. Luckily for me, the captain did not recognize my face, nor recount that only two members of the team were aboard from the start. I'd climbed on halfway into the boarding process.
Augie shared with Eva and I the stories of the families. Recruiters weren't required or even encouraged to add strangers to the party, but when a few more members were injured in an attack and a family aided them, they felt obliged to continue with them at a slowed pace.
The Garcias were a strong family of four. Mr. and Mrs. Garcia were a compassionate couple, bent on getting the best future for their last remaining son, only months old. With them was Garcia Senior, Mr. Garcia's father, who spoke little English yet always knew ten steps ahead of what was going on. The family have been traveling by a cart contraption that Garcia Senior had begun inventing long before the outbreak and only finished one it's usage became much more significant than a hobby.
When they came across Prencess and Bitty, the team could not afford another burden. But Prencess and Bitty happen to be gorgeous, tall and lean twenty-something twins that were quite close to giving up on survival. Augie, who'd grown infatuated with both of them within hours of their meeting, agreed that their team's new mission would have to mean more than handing out little cards with tiny amounts on them; they had to save people, too.
It was a noble notion, and the team simply hope their leader could take on that responsibility as enthusiastically as he made it sound. But when the team discovered two more families with children not too much larger than the little Garcia boy, their ambitious quota started looking a whole lot more difficult. Unfortunately for the team, Bitty and Prencess adored children, and Augustus couldn't abandon his heroic reputation.
"We've been traveling with all four groups for nearly ninety percent of the trip since we last left Port Antigone. Tid, Masco and I trailed. Our engines were always attracting the zombies , and we weren't moving fast enough to outrun them. So we started killing ever last one we saw, 'cuz we expected them all the time, and there they were. Stopping at gun stores became second priority to finding food and shelter. And we got good. We never ran into serious trouble because we never missed a shot." He smirked and looked beyond us, childish pride resurfacing in his expression.
Eva was appalled. "You killed them?! Augie, the children are still alive... they still have a chance..."
"I didn't know that...!" Augie suddenly scanned me with regret in his eyes. "I didn't know there was a cure before yesterday night."
"There is no cure," I grumbled, setting unease to the air around us, "I know the disease. Once it has you... it has you. It's been chasing me for months but I haven't let it take me. One thing I can tell you is that this is no way to live, and that I'm closer to the grave than I'm willing to accept. That's not a cure by any definition.
She was looking down. I thought about the way she could've been peering down her cleavage at the same time.
The thought made me hungry...
hungry...
thirsty...
"Thirsty..." I repeated aloud as I struggled upwards into a standing position. Eva was by my side, supporting me. Augustus reaching for a cup of water and brought it to my lips.
The next thing I knew, it was in a puddle on the floor. I couldn't breathe something of this purity.
"Hey," Augie frowned, "I thought you said you were thirsty...."
"He needs the ocean water." Eva lead us down the stairs. It was nighttime so no one was roaming the boat. I gasped when I could see the pure black mirage of the darkened sea beyond the rail. Eva dragged my arm down another set of stairs and stood watch with Augie as I got down on my knees beside the lifeboat. I didn't just cup the water to my face, I stuck my whole head inside, using my hands to splash around my neck and back like moisturizer to desert skin.
But then I saw a figure emerging from the water.... two glowing eyes growing rapidly.
I jumped up and stumbled backwards into the rail that protected passengers from nearing the water. Eva and Augie had been waiting for me a few steps behind it, but after witnessing my strange reaction they too put distance between themselves and the sea.
Naceo appeared upon a tornado of water.
He wore a terrifying grin; it bore no joy.
"How dare you!!!" he screeched, his voice like a siren "You lied to me!"
"I didn't lie!" I cried, succumbing my bravery to his ominous presence, "I didn't... I really was going to stay..."
"You humans... all of you are liars! Promise breakers! You're full of shit and you only care for yourselves!"
Suddenly I was in a chokehold. Using a thick stream of water from his whirling platform, Naceo had commanded his element to form a massive, snakelike arm around his own. It lifted me into the air and I was useless to kick free. If I tried pulling away the water, it would split itself and worm around me. I gasped for breath.
"I could take down this entire ship right now it I wanted," he laughed madly, "but why bother? In a few days, you will have transformed into a killing machine. Sadly for your friends, there will be nowhere to run. You really doomed everyone, you worthless coward! You better hope they at least have the decency to kill you now!"
I didn't see him go. I was tossed onto the deck like dice.
All the noise had stirred the Captain from his den. He hadn't seen Naceo and his ruthless power, but when he saw me- soaked and trembling on the floor- he had the sense something was drastically amiss.
"Wait a second..." his finger shook to point at me, "I remember you! You were the other boy who'd been bitten from the SafeZone people... you....you were turned!"
The three of them surrounded me from a safe distance. I had enough water dripping from my clothes and skin to infect Eva, kill Krev, and Augustus...
He was too frightened to come forth and aid me. "Who... what was that guy?"
"What guy? What- how the hell are you still alive??"
"Stop!" Eva commanded, "please, Augie, you're the only one that can touch him. Help him up. I'll answer all your questions."
Bless Eva.
Augie had reluctantly offered his hand. Krev too was hesitant to come near me, but he trusted Eva, having known her as a local girl and the apprentice to the town's sole doctor. He allowed us to enter the main room on the top floor of the ship. By the time I was dry, Eva had kept to her promise. Of course there were many more questions to follow the first.
"The god of the sea...?" Augie wasn't convinced, although he'd seen Naceo's power with his own two eyes.
Krev nodded. "It's true. He is Rage. My father was an Araki tribesman. We were warned about him."
"He said Jace is going to turn completely in a few days..." Augie was on the edge of his seat, trying not to look at me.
"We won't let that happen." Eva's enthusiasm was hardly comforting now.
"Well, he won't let me touch the sea again." I growled blatantly. "I think 'a few days' was an understatement."
They were staring at my skin. There must've been something wrong with it. I couldn't tell. I was only looking at Eva.
"You need seawater to survive?" Krev stepped between us, "...there's places on this boat where you don't have to go near open water to get seawater."
Underneath a large metal hatch, we were led down rusted metal stairs into a steamy chamber. Krev placed a large plastic cup to the side of a strange device that turned like a wheel. Slowly but surely he was able to collect enough water to make it full.
He offered it to me, his hand protected in a yellow latex glove. I tried it.
It worked, but it was so awful I coughed as I breathed it, and brownish gunk began to trickle from my nostrils.
"What's this water for?"
Krev took a deep breath. "Maybe it's best you don't know."
I swallowed in disgust, nodded, then drank again.
From that moment on, our trip was no longer a pleasant cruise.
Augustus got sick again from touching the water from my skin, but it only lasted a day and a half. Krev vowed to keep our secret but insisted – for the safety of everyone on the boat – I was always accompanied by an armed friend. Since he claimed to be the sharpest shooter in all the west coast, that person was usually Augie, The ones he was feeling better he made it he'd rather be spending all this free time leisuring around on the moving vessel with the twins. As friendly as she was, somehow Eva did not get along with those girls. Whenever Augustus suggested the five of us stay together so that he could fulfill his responsibility and be around the girls at the same time, Eva volunteered to hold onto his gun and assume the duty alone. Neither of us had the will to deny this. As for me, I lacked the energy- the energy to do anything. All my life-force had to be put towards restraining myself, to hold back my angst. My mind ached, my skin itched, and my throat always tasted of decay. I never touched anyone and I rarely spoke.
When Eva handed me the plastic cup again, I had half a mind to slap it to the floor.
"Drink," she ordered when I hesitated to take it from her.
I was in the mood for picking a fight.
"Why don't you like Prencess and Bitty?" I asked dully.
"They're shallow," she huffed, setting the cup on top of a metallic crate. She was lying. Sure the twins were conventionally beautiful and simple-minded, but they were still kindhearted- and Eva wasn't blind. My silence spoke for me, and Eva reframed her response with a tired sigh, "I don't like the way Bitty looks at you."
"Ha," I scoffed, "Eva... I might still be breathing, but I'm a zombie. What could possibly interest Bitty?"
She gave me a look like a worried mother. "...the same things that interest me," she answered, he voice shrinking back into her chest.
"You ought to give up on whatever you liked about me. I'm not the same person."
"I don't believe that."
"It doesn't matter!" Next thing I know my knuckles are embedded into a fresh dent on the wall. "I can't go back to the sea anymore. What's supposed to happen when we reach shore? Naceo was right... I should have hoped you would kill me..."
"Naceo?" I hadn't shared his name before. Eva had picked up my hand by the wrist and was inspecting the wound I had just created from my burst of anger earlier, but I didn't realize it until I looked up and saw her standing hust inches away from me.
"I couldn't even feel you..." I choked, "I'm going numb!"
She embraced me, and slowly, like a song fading in from silence, I recognized her touch. She was stroking my back in soft circles. My body loosened, melting comfortably against her form.
"You feel that?" she whispered. I nodded.
She let go, offering me the cup again. This time I took it.
She was resting on the crate, swinging her legs up and down and bumping the side nervously as she spoke. "As much as I've wanted to ignore it, I know I can't... I've been thinking about what's going to happen when we dock too. But I have an idea."
I was desperate for ideas. Even though it was my own survival at stake, I hadn't been able to come up with anything.
"What is it?"
"The first night we were on the ship... the night that Rage came for you... he said 'all humans are promise-breakers.'"
"Yeah, he says that a lot," I groaned, refilling the cup.
"He's talking about the first promise humanity ever made for him- like Zupak told- to remain pure." I had made that connection myself when listening to Zupak's tale, but hadn't thought much else of it. Eva continued, "If we confront him with a plan to mend this promise, maybe he'll let you back in."
"Oh," I rolled my eyes, "so the solution is to cleanse the entire world of its impurities. That sounds so much easier than suicide." It was dark, but I got a laugh out of her anyway.
"I've been thinking on this for a long time. The world population is less than half of what it used to be, and all production and services have become for survival, not luxuries or for the sake of consumerism..." she seized her leg kicking and slipped down from the crate. "Zupak said the gods favor smaller tribes over government and state... and now we have places like Port Antigone shelter- dotted all over the globe! Maybe the argument won't be that difficult to make! If we can convince him we're already on our way to reform, maybe we can convince him that not all humans break their promises."
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