For Those In Peril (Book 1): For Those In Peril On The Sea by Colin M. Drysdale

’If there’s going to be infected people drifting around out here, we’ll need to keep a careful lookout at all times.’
    I thought about what this meant. Even at sea, we’d never be completely safe, we could never truly relax. Maybe this survival thing wasn’t going to be easy after all.
     

  Chapter Five 
     
    I spent the rest of the night in the cockpit cradling the reloaded flare gun, scanning the darkness, searching for anything that might contain more infected. Mike sat across from me, not to keep me company but to watch me. He still didn’t believe I hadn’t been infected. Every time I shifted on my seat Mike jumped and reached for a large knife he’d tucked into his belt, Bill having locked the rifle away.
    To pass the time I tried to get him to talk. ‘So what was it like growing up in Fort Lauderdale?’
    ‘Don’t want to talk about it.’
    Maybe that was a bad topic. I tried a different tack, ‘How old’s Jimmy?’
    ‘Thirteen.’
    That was more like it. ‘What about you?’
    ‘Sixteen.’
    ‘Where’d you learn to use a gun?’
    ‘Been hunting since I was twelve.’ He stared straight at me. ‘I know how to use a knife pretty well too.’ As he said that he pulled the knife from his belt and started to play with it. I figured it was best to steer the conversation in a different direction.
    ‘How’s Jimmy holding up?’
    ‘He cries a lot, mostly at night. He’s been having bad dreams.’ For a moment it looked like he was going to say something else but he remained silent.
    I felt I was getting somewhere so I carried on. ‘Yeah, I’ve been having quite a few nightmares myself. I think it goes with the territory.’
    Mike looked at me suspiciously, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or if I was just humouring him. He must have decided I was being honest. ‘I have nightmares too. I keep dreaming about what happened to Billy,’ Mike stared out into the darkness, his eyes glistening. ‘And about what I did to Sam.’
    ‘I think it’s only natural. Those are some pretty hard things to deal with. They’ll start to go away, though. It just takes time.’
    ‘But I don’t want them to go away,’ Mike was close to tears now. ‘It’s all I have left of them; it’s all I can remember.’
    ‘Give it time. Other memories will come back … better memories.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ Mike seemed sceptical.
    I took a deep breath. ‘My parents died a few years ago, and at first all I could remember about them was how they’d looked when I had to identify their bodies.’ I didn’t like talking about such personal things with strangers but I felt it might help, so I pressed on. ‘After a while, I started to remember how they had looked before: when I was young, when they came to my graduation, all sorts of memories. Now I only remember them the way they were when they were alive.’
    I glanced over at Mike. He had a strange look on his face. It wasn’t that he looked happy, it was more that he looked like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. ‘Rob,’ Mike looked down at his hands. ‘Thanks for telling me that.’
    A few minutes later, I heard the knife clatter to the deck. I looked over and saw Mike had finally fallen asleep.
     
    ***
     
    When morning finally came, I met it with relief. The blanket of darkness lifted, restoring our ability to see anything that might bring more infected to us. As a group, we worked in silence most of the day, each trying to deal with things in our own way, and soon we’d achieved a great deal. One of the boat’s engines was up and running, although it still sounded very rough. Using this, we finally got the batteries recharged. The electrical system had had plenty of time to dry out, and now we had power again most of the electronic equipment was working, including the radar, the depth-sounder and, most importantly, the water-maker.
    In the afternoon, Bill and I worked inside, checking out the communications equipment.
    ‘Well,