Free Dead in the Water by Nancy Holder Page B

An out-of-date calendar advertised Mei Nin Chinese Foods with a large-breasted Chinese broad seated beside a waterfall. Glenn would say something stupid about that, too, like Nice melons, or I’ve got a nice big banana for her. Idiot.
    “… and if we have any trouble, the Coast Guard will pick up this frequency,” Ramón was saying. You had to give the guy credit for sensitivity: he was promoting the safety features heavily. It was clear to everyone John was concerned about the voyage vis-à-vis his son—
    —floating like a little planet, a precious lifespark comet—
    Donna furiously rubbed her eyes. Damn, she must be getting PMS or something. Overtired. It wasn’t like her to whine and sniffle.
    Hey, maybe she should go get her presents and play spin the bottle with these guys. Le Bouf! It would cheer John upand get Ramón off Ruth’s back, ho-ho. And it might shut off the Poor-Me’s, ’cuz that’s all this was, nothing wing-ding-ding cosmic—you could make a career out of singing about Mr. Wrong, but that was about the only instance where brooding about it made any sense; and there weren’t going to be any good decisions made tonight, officer ma’am, sorry gee.
    So. What about humping one of these guys? Sorry there, too, girl, because the old bump and grind was not much more than that without the love factor, witness Daniel.
    Yeah, witness him for involuntary manslaughter, but the parents weren’t interested and she was out of her territory; and his parting shot was that she should see a shrink about her hostility toward men.
    She took a deep breath and slid her hands under her arms. Maybe she shouldn’t have come on this cruise. Damn straight she should’ve; she was in no condition to work. Maybe Randolph, her big boss, had known that. Hadn’t he told her she’d logged too much vacation time? Sometimes the subtleties were lost on her. Sometimes not.
    “Hey, what’s that?” John asked. He was hovering over a gray box with a screen in the middle. Donna recognized it as the radar, chocked up a point on the quiz for herself and a demerit for John.
    “
Hijo
,” Ramón murmured, standing beside him. The green on his olive face made him look ghastly. The hollows beneath his eyes lengthened into diamonds as he glanced up, at the window. “Big fog bank, dead ahead.”
    “Wow.” John left the box and walked to the front of the bridge. “You see, Donna?”
    “Excuse me,” Ramón said. “I’m going to make sure they know about this.”
    He left. John said, “Don’t they have some kind of communications in here?”
    She shrugged. “Yeah, a couple of cans and some string.” She traced a circle on the unlit light table. “Listen, have you heard anything about this Cha-cha character?”
    “Look.” John pointed at the windows.
    Donna looked. Blinked. One moment there’d been nothing but black, rocky water; now, a swirling line of fog rose likesteam. It floated in the air, spotlighted by the moon, rolling and churning like a whirlpool. It glowed bone-white in the moonbeams as it thickened and expanded. Curls fanned outward, grasping upward, east, west, looping back into the water. Like a long, huge log on the water, or the white curl of a monster surf wave. For ghosts.
    “Weird,” Donna said.
    “It just came up on us. Ten seconds ago, there was nothing there. I was watching the radar screen.”
    Donna heard the tension in his voice. His eyes were wide, uneasy.
    The lights on the
Morris
’s king posts cast glowing spheres like disembodied heads along the waves of mist.
    “There sure is a lot of it,” he said.
    Hey, I saw this one, she wanted to tease him. John Carpenter directed it and Adrienne Boobeau (as Glenn called her) starred in it. There’s this evil fog, see, and it takes over a town. But everything ends okay. Trust me on this one.
    ’Course, a whole lotta shakin’ goes on first, heh heh …
    But she wasn’t sure he could take a joke. He was worn out, too, didn’t look so hot; and