Induction

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.