6th Horseman, Extremist Edge Series: Part 1 (38 page)

Rice shakes her head, “You two sound like
communists.”

Josh points at Rice and stabs his finger at
her. “I’m with you.” Then he looks at Ian. “Sounds like you want
fairness, which is an inherent impossibility. There are genetic
differences that determine all our abilities. Some are smarter than
others, some are stronger. It’s a matter of survival of the
fittest. Always has been. We’re just animals with opposable thumbs.
Fairness is an illusion. Children use fairness to get what they
want.”

“You sound like my father.” Ian replies. “And
the only reason you think there’s no fairness is because you’re
programed to protect the system by the very school that taught you
about the world. You let people get so rich they take over
countries and pollute entire hemispheres, all because you’ve been
taught that being dirty rich is the American dream.”

“No,” Josh retorts. “I’ve got my own mind. I
can look at the evidence and weigh its reality and its consequence.
I’ve also learned from historians how corrupt all communist
governments have been. Talk about fairness, if you were the
government, you always had more than the little people. The little
people were under your boot. In fact, the communist governments
were the worst polluters of all. They just hid it from their people
through control of the media.”

“People should always have the right of
self-determination,” Markus adds. “That is why capitalism worked
for so long.”

“Before it killed the world,” Ian
injects.

“Some stupid virus killed the world, not
capitalism,” Josh corrects. “You can’t kill the world for profit.
Because money becomes useless.”

“Got a point there, brainiac.” Ben
laughs.

Josh goes on, “Tom Palmer understood that
libertarianism is the application of science and reason to the
study of politics and public policy. That is, libertarians deal in
reality, not magic. Government doesn’t have magical powers. They
can’t ignore the laws of economics and human nature.”

“Ah, but capitalism did get out of hand,”
Markus clarifies. “Greed took over. Television and entertainment
warped the minds of too many people. Eden should be pure. The rules
should be strict, but according to God’s will.”

“No way!” Ben snaps. “No way I’m living under
religious rule. They’d off me for sure.”

“Yeah, I still like the idea of freedom,”
Josh says. “Natural rights are always the same. No matter what
president or leader is in power. No matter what system you have,
the natural rights are life, liberty, and property. When you break
those rights your system fails because people will eventually fight
to regain the natural rights. We know what they are because we all
understand them at the very core of us.”

“But our system was so corrupt,” Tanis
replies. “The natural rights didn’t mean shit. And we couldn’t do
anything about it. Like anyone’s vote mattered. Every election
since Taft was rigged. Democracy is a joke.”

“How would you run a government?” Ian
asks.

“You just make a bunch of rules that work and
that’s it. No messing with it,” Tanis answers.

“That’s what a constitution is, dork.” Ben
laughs again.

“Yeah, but not some outdated thing written by
posers in wigs.” He throws a cookie at Kat who is going from person
to person, sucking up attention.

“I’ve got some ideas about what should be in
a constitution,” Ian says. “There’s a theory out there that has yet
to be disproven. It’s called spontaneous order. It’s basically the
understanding that most of the order in society, from language and
law to the economy, happens naturally, without a central plan. The
constitution should only protect the law which protects the
freedom.”

“Well, it needs to level the playing field,
too. Because true democracy could get oppressive. Especially to
minorities,” I interject.

“Trouble comes in when you strip rights from
one, say rich people, and give to the other. That’s not fair. You
can’t fix unfairness with more unfairness. That is logically
flawed,” Josh says. “The U.S. grew one of the largest middle class
groups in history. That’s how I know it was as ‘fair’ as was
possible.”

Ian hands the wheel to Isabella and walks
off, giving up on the conversation. I watch him walk to the front
of the boat. I know what he’s feeling. I feel it too. It’s a kind
of darkness. Even in the morning light it is dark around us, an
eclipse that is blocking out all hope.

I sit in the middle of the ship, trying not
to think about those that I’ve lost, when Andy comes up to me. He’s
so young and cute. “Hi there.”

He sits next to me. “I’m hungry.”

“I’d cook you the biggest cake you’ve ever
seen if I could.” I poke his nose. He doesn’t smile. The boy is
very traumatized. His brain needs a distraction. “Here, let’s make
some food.”

His eyes widen. “Really?”

In front of me is the rear mast and behind
that is a large box, full of tools and supplies. I pull out a bag
and a few boxes. “What’s your favorite food?”

“Sapaghetti,” he says, saying it wrong like
every kid does. “And corn.” I dump the boxes of stuff on the
settee. We pretend that bolts are corn, tape strips are noodles,
and rubber plugs are meatballs. Screwdrivers are our utensils. We
pretend to eat slowly and delicately and talk about school and
friends.

Our fake dinner is interrupted by Ian’s
frantic calls. “Survivors! Come quick!”

We all run to the font of the boat. There’s
heavy fog. Deep in the shrouded horizon we see another boat. It’s a
beautiful sight, and I want to jump up and down like a
cheerleader.

“There it is!” Rice yells.

“Can you get closer?” Markus yells to
Isabella who slows the boat to a crawl. I finally see a small
fishing boat.

“There are two men aboard, fishing!” Ian says
excitedly.

All of us jump up and down, waiving and
screaming as our boat gets closer and closer. The other boat is
around two to three hundred yards away. I don’t see anyone on
board. A thick cloud of fog pushes between us and I lose sight of
them. When visibility returns, the boat is right in front of us. I
scream to stop. Everyone braces. We ram the boat. Little damage is
done because we are going so slow.

“What happened to them?” Rice asks. “I
thought you said there were two people on that boat.”

“I didn’t see anyone,” Josh interjects.

“I didn’t either,” I say. We’re so close we
can see the name of the boat, Day Job. It’s a large fishing boat,
and by the look of it, completely loaded. “Josh, I need your help.”
I run to a jumble of ropes and start to untie and untangle one.

“What do you need?” Josh asks.

“I need to find something like a grappling
hook. I want to get along side the boat and hook it to us.”

Josh runs off. I drag the thick rope to where
we are closest to the Day Job. Josh returns with a large pole with
a hook at the end. The boat is floating away now. I tie the rope to
the pole and throw it, javelin style, to the deck of the Day Job.
“Someone hold the end of the rope,” I order.

Ben takes the rope and wraps it around his
arm.

“Anybody there?” yells Rice. No one
answers.

Ian shrugs. “I thought I saw someone. Really,
I did.”

“They have fishing poles!” Tanis yells.

“Yes, lets get what we can from the boat.”
Markus suggests. “God has given us some help.”

“Tell him we need a Playstation, too,” Ben
says. “Oh, and some Cajun spices.”

Ian has his hand on his forehead. “There were
two people there.”

“Must be the light playing tricks on you,”
Josh says. “The refraction of light in these water vapor clouds can
be misleading. Probably happens all the time.”

“Nerd alert!” Ben hollers.

I slip off my pants and shirt and jump
overboard in my underwear and bra.

The water isn’t too cold, but it shocks my
system. I swim to the deck at the back of the Day Job and climb up
the ladder

The boat is a mess. There’s bird poop
everywhere. Whoever was out in this boat must have had a good catch
before they disappeared. I carefully study the mess. There were
definitely two men aboard. I see signs of a struggle. There’s blood
splattered on the hand railing and one of the cabin windows is
broken. There are two full cups of cold coffee, two sandwiches in
the cooler, and two tackle boxes. There are a dozen fishing poles,
but that’s typical.

There’s a splash. Ian climbs aboard the Day
Job.

“Need some help?” he asks. We are both
standing in our underwear. I notice his thin but muscular body,
then turn from him quickly, blushing, as I remember that I am in my
underwear as well.

“Yeah, um, there was a struggle here,” I say.
I planned on becoming a detective once I did my time. I have an eye
for detail. “Looks like the two men had a fight and probably fell
overboard.”

“I agree, but I can’t believe they just fell
overboard seconds ago. I must not have seen them fishing.”

“Sorry, Ian. These men have been gone for
quite a while. There’s mold on the coffee cups and the fish ice has
melted. I don’t think you saw anyone fishing. Look at the fishing
poles. All the lines are pulled in. See the bait? It’s dried up.” I
point to the bird poop. “Do you see how the bird poop is on top of
the blood? So they went overboard a long time ago.” I conclude.
“You could have seen a — ”

“Ghost?”

I laugh, “No, a mirage or something. Like
Josh said. The fog played tricks with your eyes.” I catch Ian
looking at my breasts. I let him, only crossing my arms when the
chill gets to me.

“I’m feeling kinda creeped out over here.
Let’s grab some of this fishing gear and get off this ghost
ship.”

We recover two tanks of propane, some rum,
whiskey, and lots of beer left in the cooler — plus a ton of
fishing gear. Ian siphons off the remaining diesel fuel from their
tank, giving us about twenty gallons to add to our supply.

Later that night we all crowd the deck of the
Pioneer
and share the whiskey we found.

“I tell you Ian, when it was my watch last
night, I saw some shit in the dark. Thought I saw a couple of
boats. There might have been a light too, further out to sea. It
flashed. On off, on off. Then it’d move over here and then over
there.” Ben pointed all around him. “But they weren’t lights, they
were too faint. I was seeing shit. I was seein’ ghosts,” he says,
lowering his voice. “But I saw them plain as the zits on my
ass.”

“No way,” Josh reasons. “Ghosts are
impossible.”

“The human soul is a powerful thing,” Markus
says. “Sometimes the soul can get trapped on Earth because it loses
its way.”

“So, we’re going to be seeing ghosts all over
the place now,” Tanis mutters.

Ian looks away. “I saw two men fishing. No,
it was foggy and my brain has been in a frying pan for days. It was
just a hallucination. Ghosts aren’t real.” His eyes shimmer with
moisture that he’s trying to hide. Again, I think I can feel what
he’s feeling. He’s feeling cold and panicky. Unsure and alone in
his head even though we’re all right here next to him. I feel it
too. This isn’t over. We’re still in the middle of the storm.

L
ast night was bad.
We hit a storm off the coast of Virginia. We all got real sick.
Stupid sick. We blew our guts all over the boat and had to watch
that dog lap it up. It was Ben’s fancy chicken parm dish. It tasted
good on the way down, but not on the way up. I’d passed out without
knowing what time it was and when I woke up the boat was sitting on
a sand bar half a mile off the beach.

I look over the side of the boat, squinting
in the bright morning light. There are puppets close by. Too close.
I look through Ian’s binoculars at the shore. There are dozens, and
more coming. They can’t get to us yet, but when one decides to take
a walk into the big blue, they all will.