The Boat by Christine Dougherty Read Free Book Online Page A

hiding their relationship? Habit?
    Sami ducked away from Adam, excusing himself, and followed after Candy.
    Adam kept his eye on the ThreeBees, thinking. Maybe he should insist on having the survivor brought over, even if it was just to show Steve who was boss. Maybe that was reason enough. He brought the walkie-talkie up but before he could depress the button, a voice came blasting through the speaker, obviously panicked.
    “ Flyboy , this is Mitch, we’ve got trouble, over!”
    The screaming whine of an engine ran counterpoint to the voice, adding to the sense of immediacy. “ Flyboy , do you hear me? Over!” Adam felt his stomach twist in a knot of shock and his hand froze on the walkie, squeezing it convulsively.
    “Mitch, this is Steve, what’s the trouble? Over.” Steve’s voice over the walkie-talkie was concerned but not panicked. Adam looked across to ThreeBees and spotted Steve standing on the deck, facing the shoreline.
    “We’ve got about eighty corpses on our tail, over.”
    “Just shag ass, then, Mitch. How far out are you? Over.”
    “We’re not far, but that’s not the problem, over.”
    “Well don’t get shy on me, Mitch, what’s the trouble? Over.”
    There was a long space of static and then it smoothed out and the engine whine was back. “Uh, it’s Mohammed, Steve, he was, uh…the fucking things got him and…” Engine noise over the open line and then a choked off sob and then silence again as the line cut off. Around the railing of the Flyboy , people’s faces had gone white. They began to wander away. None of them seemed able to look at Adam.
    Steve’s voice across the walkie: “What happened, Mitch? How bad is he? Over.”
    An even longer silence and then the engine whine as the line opened back up. Mitch’s voice was calmer now, bled of emotion. “We had to, uh…we left him. We had to. We…”
    The line cut off again. Adam stared at the walkie, open-mouthed and then his eyes lifted to the deck of ThreeBees. Steve had turned to face the Flyboy ; he seemed to be looking right at Adam. His stance was either that of anger or shock.
    Behind Adam, a woman began to scream.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    The first thing Adam did when he got to work every day was to mark off the day on the calendar and today was no different. He put a black line through June 6. He dropped his lunch into his bottom desk drawer and docked his laptop. Carl and Anita were already tapping away in the cubicles across from him, logging into the help desk queue.
    Adam hated the queue; hated it. He hated being part of the help desk for a pharmaceutical company. He despised the other employees who didn’t understand their computers. At thirty-six, he felt he should have been in charge of the department. Even though he hated it.
    But he never got a break. Everyone was always against him. He’d seen it time and time again how he was passed over. He’d complained about it to Carl and Anita (both in their early twenties) back when they were new to the department and they’d all gone to lunch together on a regular basis. But those two would just shrug it off and change the subject. Couple of losers.
    Adam had stopped going to lunch with them. He didn’t acknowledge to himself that they had stopped asking him to lunch. People came and went pretty quickly from the help desk; maybe he’d have more luck with the next person who came to work here.
    His current manager had actually started out in the cubicle right next to Adam and now he was his direct supervisor. Just goes to show you what an ass kisser can get away with.
    He logged into the queue. Only fifteen complaints so far today.
Strangely light. Although, maybe people were already starting to take long weekends. It wasn’t unusual in the summer in a town so close to the shore. A hand descended on his shoulder.
    “Got a minute?”
    Adam turned. His supervisor, Toby, was smiling at him, but it was a tight, perfunctory smile. Adam nodded.
    “Yeah, sure. What’s