Dinner was the best thing I’d ever tasted, roasted mutton with wasabi mashed potatoes and asparagus. To this day I have no idea what the hell wasabi is, or where you get it, but I sure loved the bite it gave those mashed potatoes.
And the scenery was fantastic. The stars dappled on the surface of Canyon Lake. On the shore, the tops of the hills were silvered with moonlight. There was music, a few older couples dancing on the open air deck, glimpses of a world long gone.
The conversation, on the other hand, lagged. At least at first.
I’d never really talked to a girl. Not like you do on a date, anyway. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say, how I was supposed to act. She knew little about weapons, or the Zone, and that pretty much exhausted what I knew. She was into growing vegetables and had plans for building schools.
But I told her dad I was going to treat her like a class act, and I did. The thing is, deep down inside, I am, and always will be, a Zoner. Life, as I had known it, was short and mean and cheap, and I spent a lot of time wondering if it was really worth the effort I put into it. When you think that way, it can be hard to look at a girl and think the two of you have a chance at romance.
She asked me if there was anything wrong.
“This world seems kind of pointless, don’t you think?” I whispered across the table to Heather as the waiter poured each of us another glass of wine.
“There may not be a point,” she said. “But even still, we’re here. You and me. That’s enough, isn’t it?”
Her answer surprised me, the simple practicality of it. “That’s true,” I said. “Here we are.”
After dinner we danced on the open deck of the Starliner. A cool, late spring breeze was in the air, carrying with it the thick, marshy smell of lake water. I held her body close to mine, the first time I’d ever held a real girl, and lost myself in the warmth of her green eyes and the smell of her skin.
That feeling, that comfort of absolute privacy, the romance of it, was why the Starliner cost so much. The infected were everywhere, and not even the strongest compound was completely safe from them, but when the Starliner was off her moorings and out on the lake, it was its own world, untouchable by the harsh realities of the Zone.
But of course there were other dangers in the Zone besides zombies. As the evening drew to a close, and the Starliner began her slow cruise back to the wet dock, Heather and I stood on the bow and talked about the future, about the stars, about anything and everything except the past. It was our night, and though our bonds had been forged in the heartaches of the past, we wanted our night together to be about the future. We wanted our own happy memories together.
There were no other boats on the lake. At least there hadn’t been during most of our date. But as we rounded a final elbow of land and entered the cove, we saw a large cabin cruiser waiting for us, the vague shapes of men ringing the rails of the deck.
Heather broke off in the middle of a giggle and watched them.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Not good,” she said. “I think that’s Wayne Nessel. Daddy warned me he might try something. Daddy didn’t think he’d do it out here though.”
I knew of Wayne Nessel. He was Ashcroft’s biggest rival, and a man with a lot of resources at his disposal. People in the Zone called him “The Bull.”
“He couldn’t know you’re here.”
“He knows,” she said, and then she guided me to the far side of the Starliner.
“But how?”
“He’s got spies everywhere, Andrew.”
She crossed to the opposite side of the deck and climbed the railing.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Where are we going?”
She looked down at me. “Can you swim?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” She waited till Nessel’s boat lit up the Starliner with its spotlights, then she gave me a wink and dropped herself over the edge.
I went in after her.
I thought we’d cling to the side of the boat and wait it out, but that wasn’t what Heather had in mind. She went under and kept swimming under the Starliner’s hull.
I followed.
Above us, through the green murky haze, I could see the glow of the spotlights and the shimmering outlines of men running on both decks. There were a lot of muffled popping sounds that I took to be gunfire, but none of that was directed down at us. It was all boat to boat.
We surfaced on the far side of Nessel’s boat and swam to shore. I’d hidden my motorcycle in the brush next to the Starliner’s docks out of habit, and now I was thankful for my instincts. As we swam, we decided it’d be best to come ashore a little ways from the dock, just in case Nessel had men covering his back on land.
We crawled up on shore and Heather pulled her black hair back with both hands, her camisole clinging to the curve of her breasts like wet paint.