Night of the Purple Moon (14 page)

It was a whopper all right; a whopping disappointment.

He hoisted a mesh bag of pale, waterlogged grapefruit into the boat. The label said, Indian River, Florida. Jordan imagined the grapefruit had drifted in the Gulf Stream, all the way up the coast. He decided to keep the bag to show Eddie— otherwise his friend would never believe him.

Later, he once more steered into the wind, putting the skiff in irons. Jordan maneuvered Chad’s right leg over the side and waited for the crest of a wave to roll the body overboard. Pushed by wind and wave, Chad floated away.

Jordan placed one hand behind Zoe’s neck and his other hand beneath her tiny waist and lifted her as easily as a bundle of twigs. Some of the kids blamed Zoe for her own death because she was anorexic. They said the space germs only provided a convenient excuse for her to stop eating. Jordan did not agree. Space dust
had
killed her, just not in the same way it killed the others. The germs had infected her with fear.

Zoe slipped beneath the surface when he released her.

Jordan served as a human crutch with Colby’s arm draped over his shoulder. Together they moved in starts and stops toward the bathroom. He felt the searing heat radiating off Colby. During the past three weeks, Jordan had seen Colby go from being the strongest kid on the island to the weakest.

He stopped to let him rest in the hallway. “How are you doing?” Jordan asked.

“Great,” Colby replied.

Jordan had expected him to say that. “No cramps?” Jordan added.

“Nope,” Colby said. “I feel fine.”

That was a lie. Before entering his room, he had seen Colby doubled over in bed, using his pillow to muffle his groans.

“How do your legs feel?”

Colby forced a grin, “Light as a feather.” He broke out in sweat straining to lift his right leg.

They continued to the bathroom. Colby leaned against Jordan to pee in the toilet. Jordan flushed, but the bowl did not refill. He turned on the sink tap, no water came out. Colby didn’t ask if there were a problem, and Jordan didn’t mention one.

He helped Colby limp back to bed and used his pillow to prop him on his side because of the painful rash oozing pus between his shoulder blades.

Jordan hoped the absence of running water was limited to the upstairs bathroom, but he wasn’t terribly worried, either. They’d been planning for this day for a long time. They had stored bottled water and cases of soft drinks in the basement. Their wisest move had been to fill fifty 55-gallon drums with fresh water from the hose. Eddie had found the drums inside a warehouse near the docks. They now sat in the back yard. Between the drums of fresh water and what was sitting in the basement, Jordan estimated they had a two-year—or longer—supply of drinkable liquid.

Downstairs, he checked the taps in the kitchen and in the three other bathrooms. None worked. Outside, not a drop came out of the hose. He raised Derek on the radio, who was conducting secondary searches of homes, looking for anything of value they might have missed earlier.

“The water’s not working here, either,” Derek told Jordan.

Jordan thought he should first test the water in several drums before he informed the other kids at council tonight. He pried off a cap and inserted a two-foot section of hose. To siphon the water, he pressed his lips against the end and gave a quick, hard suck, quickly inserting that end into an empty bottle.

He took a swig and immediately spit it out. The water tasted awful, like rancid fish oil. There must have been some mistake. Eddie had tested the water in several drums before filling them all, and he’d said it was fine.

Jordan sampled the water in every drum. Only six drums were good. He calculated they had a two month-supply of fresh water. Because the antibiotic would not be available for nearly seven months, it meant they’d have to drink a lot of rancid water.

Abby boiled water on the wood stove, let it cool, skimmed off the layer of oil, poured the water through cheesecloth, and added a packet of lemonade powder. She took a sip and grimaced. The final concoction tasted like fishy lemonade.

She was ready to test it on the patient.

Colby had refused to drink bottled water and soda, and even the decent water from a drum, telling her to save the good stuff for the babies and younger kids. When Abby entered his room, Cat jumped off his bed. The cat had been spending her days and nights curled next to him, sleeping and grooming herself.

Abby helped Colby sit forward and brought the glass to his mouth. His attempt at a sip barely moistened the tip of his tongue.

He smacked his lips. “Mmm, sardines and lemons.”

“Wait until Kevin finishes building his still,” Abby said. “He claims we’ll be able to boil sea water and condense the steam to get fresh water.”

“Kevin’s smarter than he looks,” Colby said with a wink.

“In the meantime,” Abby added, “you know what he says we can drink?”

Colby shrugged. The tiny movement caused him to yelp in pain. Abby tensed and bit her lip. She had promised Colby she’d stop feeling bad for him, which, of course, was impossible, so she had to overlook moments such as these.

“Toilet water,” she continued. “Kevin says the water in the tank is clean. He figures there’s five-hundred gallons of clean toilet water on Castine Island.” Abby made a face. “Disgusting, huh?”

Colby raised his eyebrows. “Have you tried your fishy, lemony water?”

Abby updated Colby on daily events to take his mind off his pain, and tragically, his imminent death.

“We’re getting a little tired of canned peas, corn, beets, and spinach,” she said, “but the good news is that Emily and Tim have become excellent rabbit trappers. So far they’ve caught two. They plan to raise them in the barn. Toucan calls them Mr. and Mrs. Bunny. This time next year…” Abby’s voice trailed off. She couldn’t finish. Colby wouldn’t be around in a year, and maybe she, too, would have fallen victim to the germs.

“Yeah, go on,” Colby said, “this time next year…”

Abby took a deep breath. “We’ll have hundreds of rabbits, as long as one of them is a girl and one is a boy—it’s impossible to tell.”

“Ask Kevin.”

Abby smiled. “The genius can’t figure it out.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

The comment surprised Abby. “Yeah. He’s kind of nerdy, but everyone puts up with Kevin.”

“I mean, you really like him.”

Were her feelings for Kevin that obvious?

“He’s okay, I guess,” she said, throwing in a shrug of indifference.

The corner of Colby’s mouth curled into a smile. “I’m jealous. You’re really pretty, Abby.”

Nobody had ever told her that, except for her mother. Abby felt her face flushing. She glanced in the mirror behind Colby’s nightstand. She
was
blushing.

“Do you like me?” he asked, his eyes red-rimmed.

Abby had always liked Colby as a friend. They were very similar. Since the earliest days of the purple moon, they had both understood the importance of everyone working together. Abby had thought many times that Colby’s hatred of Toby had nothing to do with Toby’s personality. He hated that Toby, Chad, and Glen weakened the group by choosing to live separately.

Abby kissed him lightly on the forehead. “I like you very much,” she said.

Colby closed his eyes and seemed, for the moment, to be at peace.

Abby peeked into the mirror again and this time saw fat tears streaming down her cheeks.

The space germs had so far claimed three survivors on Castine Island since the night of the purple moon, KK, Zoe, and Chad, and the germs were about to claim a fourth victim.

Abby had just left Colby’s room. He was running a high fever, but it was impossible to know how much pain he felt because Colby never complained.

She stared out her bedroom window, silently cursing the CDC scientists, the smartest in the world, according to Kevin. How about ‘the most inept scientists in the world’? Why was it taking them another seven months—or longer— to distribute the antibiotic? Unless a miracle happened, Colby would be dead in weeks. How many others would die because of the failings of the CDC?

Abby saw the speck on the glass and remembered her improbable fantasy that a ship would rescue them and take them to a land where no adults had died. Now she’d settle for going to a place ravaged by space germs, but where they would cure Colby and commute the rest of them from the death sentence of puberty.

The speck looked somehow different today. Her speck, the smudge of salt that she had left on the window, appeared more like a dot. Abby realized it was different. Her pulse quickened. She thought the dot might actually be a ship in the distance. She wiped the window clean and blinked. A ship was on the horizon.

Worried that she might be hallucinating, Abby grabbed a thermometer. With a shaky hand, she checked her temperature.

Ninety-eight point two. Normal.

Abby ran downstairs, all the time resisting the urge to shout out her discovery. If she were wrong, she didn’t care what the others would think about her, but she didn’t want to raise false hopes. She returned to her room with binoculars and trained them on the horizon. It was a ship, a freighter, perhaps.

Now she raced throughout the house, shouting the news. Word spread quickly and soon everyone had gathered below the mansion by the water’s edge.

“It’s an aircraft carrier,” Eddie said and handed the binoculars to Jordan.

“I think it’s a cruise ship,” Jordan replied to his friend.

“Yeah, the passengers are on vacation,” Derek said sarcastically. “They don’t know they’re supposed to be dead.”

Nobody laughed.

As the kids shared the binoculars, Abby glanced back at the mansion. Colby was in the window. Sadly, in her excitement, she had failed to alert him. She had forgotten to tell the one person who needed the most help. Abby waved and Colby gave her thumbs up. His positive attitude in the face of death constantly amazed her.

“We have to go out there in
Sea Ray
,” Eddie said.

Jordan shook his head. “I don’t think it has a crew,” he said. “They all died months ago. It’s literally a ghost ship, drifting.”

“We have to try,” Eddie said.

“Try what,” Jordan responded quickly, “wasting our last fuel to chase a ghost ship? We need the fuel to go to the mainland when the antibiotic becomes available. The scientists aren’t going to deliver anything to a dinky island.”

“The chance might never come again,” Eddie said.

Jordan glanced at the weather vane. “If it’s drifting, the wind will blow it to the south.”

Eddie lay on his belly, eye level with the pebbles, and aimed a stick at the ship. They’d soon know its direction.

As the kids waited, they put forth wild theories.

“What if the captain and crew are twelve years old?” Jimmy said.

“What if they’re pirates,” Emily said.

“Have you ever seen a hospital ship?” Tim began. “When there’s a natural disaster, they bring doctors to the area. Hospital ships look like cruise ships.”

“Where do they go if the entire planet is a natural disaster?” Derek said, matching the sarcasm of his earlier comment.

Abby remembered a discussion at council where they had argued which natural disaster had been worse: the large meteorite that had crashed into Earth millions of years ago, killing all the dinosaurs, or the comet that had poisoned the atmosphere, killing everyone who had passed through puberty. Most had agreed it was the latter.

Abby had her own outrageous theory. “The ship might be carrying the antibiotic,” she said. After all, she had willed the ship into existence through her many fantasies. Why not also imagine the antibiotic onboard?

“The CDC would tell us if they were sending it,” Emily said.

They all turned to Jimmy, who, as always, had his ear glued to the radio, listening to the CDC broadcasts. He simply shook his head.

Kevin suggested a possible reason for secrecy. “If everyone knew where a ship loaded with antibiotics was going,” he said, “millions of kids would show up. There’d be riots.”

Eddie hopped to his feet. “It’s moving north.”

Jordan was still against taking
Sea Ray
, saying they couldn’t afford to waste the fuel.

Eddie challenged him. “Explain why it’s moving north? You said yourself it should head south.”

“I can’t explain it,” Jordan said. “Anyway, it would take all our fuel just to get out there. We’d be stranded at sea.”

“We can tow the sailing skiff,” Eddie shot back.

Jordan shook his head. “I don’t think we should.”

Abby couldn’t understand why her brother was being so stubborn, but she offered him a compromise. “Ships turn on their lights at night, right? Let’s wait. If the crew turns on the lights when it gets dark, then you should take
Sea Ray
.”

Jordan agreed, although reluctantly.

“Let’s build a fire so they’ll know we’re here,” Abby said.

Like an army of ants, the kids carried armloads of wood from out back—their winter supply—and built a pyramid beside the road. Eddie sprinkled gasoline on the base, cautioned everyone to stand back, and touched the match to the fuel. Sprinting flames ignited a huge fire ball that radiated intense heat. They all fetched buckets of seawater to make smoke and throughout the afternoon alternated feeding and dousing the fire.

The day’s last light glowed on the western horizon and soon the dark of night swallowed the horizon and the ship with it. No lights appeared on the ghost ship.

“It’s drifting in the Gulf Stream,” Jordan said. Tucking his head, he walked toward the mansion.

Abby stayed on the beach until she was alone. The dying embers of the fire did little to ward off the chill she felt deep in her soul. They had wasted their wood supply because of her fantasy.

Colby’s condition worsened. During the daytime, he hardly made a peep, but he moaned throughout the night. Some of the kids had concluded his pain was greater at night until they realized he was crying out in his sleep, a time when he had no control over how he sounded.