James Axler – Watersleep

“That isn’t Holland, Doc,” Mildred said. “You’re off by a few miles.”

“Woman, I am off more than a mere few miles,” Doc retorted huffily. “I am a full-blown mental mess. My mental state is off by distances that can only be measured between the stars.”

“I’m glad you said it and I didn’t,” Mildred said. “I’d give anything for a tape recorder right now.”

The steady forward momentum the two amphibian mutants had created as they pulled the raft along sud­denly ceased, and the rope stretching into the water went slack for a final time.

“Looks like the free ride’s over,” J.B. observed.

“Guess they didn’t want a personal thank-you,” Mildred added lightly, giving her man a quick one-armed hug around the waist.

“Think we’ll have to swim the rest of the way in, Dad?” Dean asked.

Ryan didn’t answer. He was peering at the dock and the windmills.

“No,” he said finally. “We’re still on a direct course with the dock. See the ladder?”

He pointed at the lower front section of the dock.

“Tide’ll take us right to it, I hope.”

The one-eyed man was proved right. The yellow raft uncannily drifted into the proper position. Ryan and the Armorer both reached out and grabbed the lower rung.

“Like this balloon was remote controlled or something,” Dean observed excitedly. “Slid in just like a hot pipe.”

Now that the raft was stable and they had a place to go, J.B. scanned the area as best he could before actually exiting into the unknown. “What’s the drill?” he asked. “Our friends seem to have pulled a vanishing act.”

“Not much choice in the matter, J.B. We go ashore and see who’s been building windmills,” Ryan re­plied. “Mildred, see if you can get Doc to snap out of it long enough to use his hands and his feet. We’re going to have to climb out of here and get on dry land.”

“I’m not sure how much walking he’s going to be able to do once he’s on the dock,” Mildred warned, lifting one of Doc’s rubbery arms and dropping it back down with a wet slap as it hit the bottom of the life raft. “I’m not sure how much more I’m going to be able to take myself. We’re all as weak as newborns.”

“Not me! I feel great! Hungry as a two-headed mutie tiger, but I feel good,” Dean said. “I’m ready to do some exploring.”

“Sure, Dean, I’m feeling the adrenaline surge, too,” Ryan told his son. “We’ve found a safe harbor, but once we get up on that dock, I doubt we’re going to be able to do much of anything beyond a measured crawl.”

The one-eyed warrior reached out, taking a rung of the wooden ladder and pulling himself upright. He was the first man out of the raft, his blaster in hand.

“Come on, Doc,” Mildred said. “Rise and shine.”

“Are we there yet?” Doc asked weakly.

DEAN SPOTTED A TRENCH with running water as soon as they stepped off the dock and onto the grassy beach lands where the windmills were standing.

“Hot damn! Water!”

“Hold up before you go drinking, Dean,” Ryan warned. “Odds are these windmills are pumping some kind of seawater.”

J.B. cupped a handful to his nostrils and sniffed. “Yeah, this is salty. Least, it smells salty. Course, everything smells salty to me after being out in that raft as long as we were.”

“Looks like a settlement over there,” Mildred said, pointing toward a group of tents and other structures in the near distance. No one there had noticed the visitors yet, or if they had, they weren’t too excited about it.

The architecture of the settlement was nonexistent. Most of the shelters that came into view as Ryan and the others warily approached were indeed nothing more than old tents. There was a handful of recycled travel trailers and a broken-down motor home that was more rust than metal. A large circus tent with a high ceiling and faded strips of red and yellow stood near the center of the misshapen community. Picnic tables of wood were scattered in front of the tent and by a natural well, which appeared to serve as the source for fresh drinking water and bathing since three old white porcelain bathtubs with the plugs permanently adhered into their drains were behind a por­table curtain.