Reboot

When we got back to our spot on the beach, it was late afternoon and we found six people there waiting for us. A family of four and a couple. They came in on two different boats and were getting to know each other.

The Berg family was from Germany. They’d been sailing around the Pacific too. Their trip was supposed to be a family project that would bring them closer together. The parents, Johan and Maja were thirty-six and thirty-seven years old and were schooling their seven and eight year old kids Brit and Mikäel. Of course their adventure turned into the nightmare that led them to our shores. Maja didn’t speak English so Johan translated everything.

After being egged on a bit by Maja, Johan said, “We circled the island until we saw your things. Your note -thank you- it was nice. We were — um, worried,” he said shakily. “We helped ourselves to some of your food. I’m very sorry but we were very hungry.”

I smiled at Stan and Oliver. “Well, it’s very nice to see you here. Welcome. And don’t worry, we’ll have a proper dinner to celebrate your arrival.” They’d been sailing around Australia, then they headed straight here when they heard. They said Australia had become dangerous because of radiation and they had to leave. They had no food left and were starving when they arrived.

“We saw people, many, many people on the beaches. Some were pushed into the water. There were crowds trying to escape. So we did not go there. We can only guess that something terrible was happening inland. Maybe a disease or radiation. We turned around and left. We ended up here.”

The couple was from France. François and Evelyne. Young, fit, but looking very tired. He was an architect and she’d been a dancer.

“We were also travelling around when we heard the news,” began Evelyne. “We met up with other sailors around the Philippines and formed a small group of six boats. We were headed for Fiji thinking it would be a good destination, but we were ambushed along the way.”

“Ambushed?”

“Yes.”

“Hijackers?”

“Yes. They live on the ocean and steal people’s boats.”

“Excuse me?”

François explained that with the stolen boats the pirates had built a floating city. “It already sprawls at about half a square kilometer and they patrol the waters around that area.” He choked a bit and said,

“They kill the parents, keep the kids, Robert.“ He almost broke down.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“We’ve been trying to figure that out and we think the pirates are building an army; indoctrinating the kids,” he answered. “They think this will finally be their time. They may be right. I mean who’s going to stop them now?”

“How did you get away?” asked Stan.

Evelyne composed herself. It was obviously difficult to talk about. She had dark hair and blue eyes, freckles. Very pretty, pixie-like. But she had a tortured look on her face. She was broken.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” added Stan. He looked worried.

“No, it’s ok. I-I want to. We had the advantage of not having kids. Others couldn’t just run away if they had children to take care of. You’d never think that people could be so…--- such animals. No sorry, that’s an insult to animals. Monsters. The pirates were very good - well you know, I mean prepared. They had small motorboats and they circled us. We had nowhere to go, no way to defend ourselves, we were – how you say – cooked?”

I smiled a little and nodded.

“We thought they’d take our stuff and let us go, but they just started shooting. People were screaming and dropping everywhere. It was horrible. Francois started the engine, pointed the boat outward and took hold of me and we just dove overboard. Our boat headed off away from the group, so some of them went after it and somehow they missed us. We kept low and swam off as fast as we could. We found a floating piece of door and just hung on for a while. The ocean was red, Robert. They were laughing… The kids were screaming.” She hiccupped there, trying to control herself. She looked like she was about to start sobbing.

She paused for a while, closed her eyes, getting her strength back, François moved closer, held her tighter, then she went back to it. She was shaking. Her voice was shaking. But she wanted to finish.

“We knew we couldn’t just head out to sea so we waited nearby until they left and then we started to swim in the same direction figuring that they couldn’t be too far. Still, we paddled for about four kilometers didn’t we?”

Francois nodded. “It took hours.”

“Yes - until we found their floating camp. It was so cold. We were so tired. They were celebrating, drinking. We stole this boat when it was very late. They were all drunk and didn’t hear us. I was so afraid.” She started crying.

“We couldn’t help them, the kids, we had to leave them there, Robert. I’ll never forget them.” And then she broke down completely and François took hold of her as she sobbed.

As he was taking her away, François said, “We were very lucky. They weren’t afraid of anyone and weren’t paying attention.”

I ran after and stopped them. “François, wait, do you think they’ll come here?” I asked, grabbing him by the shoulders. He thought for a few seconds. “I don’t think so, not for a while anyway. They seemed happy to stay around their home, but who knows. When people stop getting snared around there, they might go looking elsewhere.”

Right then and there I promised myself that we had to plan for the worst.