Seeking Safe Harbor: Suddenly Everything Changed (The Seeking Series) by Albert Correia Page B

you shined the light on the dinghy, and I certainly would have seen a body if there’d been one there.”
    “He must have come from the boat that was after us… but how?”
    “Are you going to kill him?” asked Millie, who heard the commotion and came up behind them to look over their shoulders at the man lying on the dinghy.
    “No,” Zach stated emphatically. “Maybe the rest of the people in this world have come to that, but we haven’t.”
    “Besides,” Stacey added, “for all we know, he’s already dead.”
    “Don’t think so,” Millie advised them. “I can see a slight movement of his back.”
    The two Arthurs turned to stare at the white-haired woman.
    “What? You think I’m blind just because I’m getting a little older? Look for yourself. It’s faint, but he’s breathing. Not sure how good of shape he’s in, but he’s clearly alive.”
    “I see it,” said Denise, who had come out on deck and was atop the aft cabin. Glen and George came up behind Millie.
    “It’s too bad, then,” Zach sighed. “That means we have a prisoner on our hands.” He turned to his son. “How’s the shoulder?”
    “It hurts when I move my arm, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be.”
    “Denise, how’s your arm?” Stacey asked.
    “It’s just a scratch,” the girl replied. “It’s nothing.”
    “Good,” Zach said, half in jest. “Because I need you to go below and bring me the .38. The AK-47 will be too cumbersome to carry down there.”
    “What are you going to do?” There was a hint of concern in Stacey’s voice.
    “You saw what happened when you tried to wake that fellow up by yelling, so I need to get on that dinghy and shake him into consciousness. Otherwise, we’ll lose valuable time dragging him behind us half the day.”
    “Be careful, Zach. We’ve seen what that kind of man is capable of.”
    When Denise returned with the pistol, Zach stuck it under his belt at his back. He told his daughter to go to the wheel and keep an eye out for any other vessels while they checked out the man in the dinghy. “If you see anything, let us know and take it out of autopilot. We’ll decide what to do from there.”
    “What about me?” Glen was eager to help.
    “You need to rest that shoulder,” his father told him. “You might just as well stay above decks, though.”
    “How about I redo the dressing on that wound?” Millie asked.
    “Good, and thanks, Millie. Stacey, you and George stay here.” He handed George his weapon. “I’ll have the guy covered on the dinghy, but you keep your eye on him, especially when he first gets aboard and I’m still climbing the ladder.”
    He climbed over the rail and down the ladder. When he was on the bottom rung, he pulled the line in until the dinghy was right below him. He tied it off and watched the man for several seconds before risking getting into the small boat.
    The dinghy had two seats that extended from one side to the other, and the man was draped over both. One leg was bent and totally inside the dinghy, but the other was straight out, the foot slightly outside the boat. He appeared to be slender and about as tall as Zach. His clothes were still soaking wet. Zach concluded the man must have crawled up from the water and passed out as soon as he was safely in the small boat.
    He stood over the man and nudged him with a foot. The fellow stirred, but didn’t wake up, so Zach nudged him harder. This time, the man opened his eyes and raised his head slowly. The first thing he saw was a gun pointed at him. He looked higher, and saw Zach staring down at him.
    “Who are you? And what are you doing here?”
    “You blew up my boat,” the man mumbled weakly. His head dropped down again.
    “You were trying to kill us.”
    The man didn’t raise his head, but turned it a little and looked up at Zach. “No. They were, not me.”
    “They?” Zach felt no sympathy for the man but decided to listen to what he had to say.
    “The