Chapter 2: Making Port

Jack

It was early the following afternoon.

I could see the coast; it looked more like a gray cloud on the horizon. I could begin to make out the bridge that went over the Oregon Inlet itself. The autopilot was right on course. I made another cup of coffee and watched as the inlet slowly drew close.

My wind anemometer showed the wind speed was identical to the boat speed. In other words, there was probably not enough wind to bother putting a sail out. I put-putted along at 5 knots. My hull speed is 8.5 knots, but 5 is more economical and better for the boat and the engine.

Every 15 minutes, I would change the RPM up a little, or I would lower it a little. Holding the exact same engine RPM for a long duration is bad for the engine.

I tried raising the Oregon Inlet on the Garmin VFH radio. I fiddled with the squelch. They must be busy; nobody answered on channels 69, 9, or 16. Channel 69 is supposed to be the Oregon Inlet Fishing channel. Channel 9 is the general hailing frequency, and 16 is for international distress emergencies. Presumably, the Coast Guard would monitor that. Was my VHF radio out?

As I got nearer, even with decent conditions, I saw there was a noticeable current coming out from the Croatan Sound. It looked slightly rough next to the breakwater. It was nowhere as bad as the port at Cape Hatteras would have been. I tried the radio again and got no answer.

The Croatan sound is fed by several rivers. It looks like a ride for the next 15 or so minutes. I took the helm and steered her manually until I was safely inside the sound. When I could, I turned to starboard and, a few minutes later, turned to port. That got me headed north towards the Oregon Inlet Fish Camp.

As I got near the small harbor, I stopped the boat for a minute to throw over my port side fenders while I could. I saw nobody moving around anywhere. There were cars and pickups, but I saw no sign of life at all. That seemed abnormal.

I began hitting my boat’s horn to attract someone who might come and help me tie up the sailboat. A person assisting would make things easy and much less dangerous. Tying up with nobody to take your lines in could get sketchy with a 41-foot-long sailboat.

Wind and current can mess you up, but good. I was unsure of the current, even being outside of the main current of the sound.

There was little wind, so it was still doable if I didn’t screw it up. I know I’d feel a lot better with someone to receive my lines.

After several minutes two older teenage girls were running towards the fueling pier. They came from the camping area off to the north. They were running harder than I would expect teenage girls to run.

As they came up, the tall Redhead said, “Oh, thank God, it’s a man.”

“?”

The Redhead took the bow line and dropped it over a cleat on the dock. I tied off the other end of my bow cleat. I ran back to bring the stern in. I passed the stern line to the shorter brunette girl. I tied that end of the boat off.

They both stood there bouncing up and down nervously as I shut down the motor and electronics. It was obvious they were not wearing bras as their modest breasts were actively quivering as they jumped, their nipples were poking out.

The Redhead asked, “Can we come aboard.”

I smiled, “Yes, but be careful crossing over the water.”

Glancing surreptitiously and quickly at the girl’s aroused nipples, I stepped back. I dropped the section of a lifeline on the port side. I held my hand out to help them step aboard. They came on board sporting mile-wide grins. I was grabbed and hugged by both girls.

The redheaded girl said, “We are so glad to see you.”

Eventually, they stopped holding me as tight, but they oddly stayed pressed against me.

I asked, “Where is everybody else?”

The Redhead’s face changed instantly, “Dead! Everybody died except for the two of us. We passed out or something. When we woke up, everyone else here was dead; even our father is dead.”

Feeling a lead feeling in my stomach, I said, “What? Say that again,” not believing what she said.

The brown-haired girl said, “Yes, they all died. We woke up yesterday and found our Dad was dead. Everywhere we went, everyone was dead. They were dried out, looking like they are becoming mummies or something.”

I said, “So, every adult here is dead?”

The Redhead said, “Yes, all of the adults are dead. All the kids and the one older teenage boy here have all died, too. We are the only two here that are alive. We checked everybody. What the heck happened anyway?”

I said, “I have no idea. On Tuesday, I passed out. When I came to, two days had gone by. I was drifting very far from where I was supposed to be. I got the boat running and sailed straight towards here, I was due East.”

The brunette girl said, “I am glad to see you. At least there is an adult here now. Jeez, I always wanted to be free of school and parents and adults ordering me around. But this scared the crap out of me. I never knew how scary it could be without adults telling you what to do all the time.”

The taller, thinner Redhead hugged me tighter as the shorter brunette hugged me tightly from the other side. They seemed pretty forward for girls and this is odd, just odd. I am quite a bit older than them. I was very aware the two wore very little, and their tittie bumps were being purposely rubbed on me.

Yes, there were no bras on these girls. I had my arms around them; I felt no bra straps. I had checked. They were short enough as they moved around, hugging, that I slightly felt each girl’s side boob. Was that planned, too?

They made sure my hands had slid over the sides of their little titties.

The Redhead smiled. They both smiled. Were they coming on to me? They are half my age! Nah, that can’t be possible.

I paused a moment to let things sink in. There are only two older teenage girls here alive. Everyone else is dead. The girls are acting as seductive as young, inexperienced girls could. I figured they were inexperienced by how inexpertly they were putting the moves on me.

I found out later they were both Catholic and had a restricted upbringing.

I said aloud, “Well, if everyone else is dead, that makes this much more frightening. It’s actually macabre. I am Jack Sparks; who are you two ladies?”

The Redhead said, “I’m Isobel Peck, I go by Izzy, and I’m 18.”

The brunette said, “Giggle, I’m her big sister, Peyton Peck; I’m 18.” Peyton had thrust her slightly larger orange-size boobies out. Izzy swatted at her playfully. Their hard little nipples were still making their presence visibly known. Izzy has small cone-size swellings. Her height and small breasts reminded me of my Ex. Sarah.

I said, “Well, ladies, welcome aboard the Sailing Vessel “Elsa Lidia.”

Peyton

I would never have thought an adult was handsome, but this man was. He’s so tall I have to look way up. He’s taller than my Dad was. He also has an all-over, deep, rich tan. He has well-defined muscles and some chest hair, but not too much.

I can see his arms and leg muscles are well-defined. His body felt hard when he held me, also not like Dad was. He had a compelling smell; I felt my little pussy get damp, and I tingled all over just being near him.

This is totally new. I knew I wanted to be in his arms. I’m not ready for sex stuff, but I want to be held by him and maybe be snuggled once in a while. I shivered. He had touched my back and part of my boob. That gave me a shock right to my pussy. I would have to think about that.

Jack

The girls are still pressing themselves against me. I felt the short one tremble and hold me tighter for a second. The tall one was moving her hands around a lot, openly caressing my chest and back. It was all I could do to not slide my hands up under her top and pinch her hard little nipples to pay her back. As she moves, he drags her hard nipples all over my chest. Jesus!

To get my mind off of fucking these young ladies, I tried to think of other thoughts. Oh ya, I had told them the boat’s name.

I had not changed Elsa Lidia’s original name. Changing the name without a complete paint job would have looked shabby. It had been more a matter of wasting money on an unneeded paint job and the high cost of hiring a sign painter. I did not favor the modern vinyl signs some boaters were using these days.

I am decidedly a loner - that was mainly caused by my fair-weather Ex-wife. I let my eyes gobble up the loveliness of the two nubile-looking young women. They don’t look their age.

Their outfits were tight and left very little to my imagination. Izzy was sporting a freaking camel toe. Her bottoms were pulled up tight, defining her labia and where her slit was. Fuck me!

Why was I horny for these gals? I had just met them. Why had they dressed so indecently? They wore quite skimpy bikini bottoms and small, thin, almost nothing tops. It was as if they had purposely dressed to seduce.

I was wearing canvas deck shoes and shorts, and the two youngsters were gobbling me up with their eyes and hands. What was that about?

I realized the next few days were going to be tough as hell on me. I was seeing a lot more female skin than I had seen in quite a long time. Plus, it’s quite sexy seeing half-dressed young women or girls - this is almost forbidden territory. They came on to me. “If you mess with the bull...”

I had purposely kept myself emotionally distanced from females since my ‘Ex,’ Sarah, had left me. I had a chub from just being near these two and their overly friendly hugs. Then there’s their rubbing and touching.

Jezz! These girls were going to torture me. For once, I was interested in more than a jump in the sack. I wanted to bone them both on sight, and they returned that emotion.

I said, “Do you ladies need to collect your clothes and things?”

Peyton, the chubby, shorter brunette, said, “Are we leaving soon? You’re taking us with you, aren’t you?”

I said, “Yes, I would like to. Uhh, but I don’t want to hang around here with a bunch of dead bodies. I need to get some fuel for the Elsa Lidia and stock up on some food for the next leg of my trip.”

I said, “Shouldn’t we check if there are any living people in other places? Maybe this just just happened here. Maybe it’s some weird disease or something?”

Isobel said, “Where are we going?”

I thought, Typical teenager with very little understanding of how bad this situation really is. This feels like it had been a targeted extinction event. She also is willing to sail off with a perfect stranger. That is bizarre.

Aloud, I said to them, “I was headed south to the Virgin Islands. That was my original plan, but I’m not so sure about going there anymore.”

“My next stop is either Charleston or Savannah. Maybe we should check out both places. We can see if people are alive there. The wind has not picked up much. I don’t want to motor all the way to Jacksonville, Florida. I hope we can catch some wind soon.”

Peyton said, “Where are we going to end up?”

I said, “I really don’t know, someplace in Florida maybe? Whatever happened has changed everything.”

I continued, “I was making a trip down to the Virgin Islands. I’m seriously rethinking that. We should think about ending up somewhere in Florida. At least in the United States, we have some level of technology. We can discuss that on the way down.”

“I am looking forward to having a little help and company.”

Peyton said, “Sir, we don’t know anything about sailing.”

I said, “Call me Jack. Don’t worry; I won’t teach you any more than you can handle. I also won’t work you too hard either.”

“As far as other boats go, I have not seen any ships or boats moving or even not moving. The ocean has been empty of all other vessels. I feel it’s going to be just the three of us for some time.”

Izzy visibly shivered against me and said, “That’s scary. There must be someone, somewhere else.”

I shrugged, “I don’t know. I’m going on my feelings here.”

In my gut I felt something unspeakable had happened. Was it China or Iran? Who knows? If it’s them, I may have to sail far to the south and away from the U.S. - if I can. We will have to wait and see.

They left to go collect what they needed.

At the end of the conversation, my hands had dropped to their tight asses, and they didn’t say a word or try to move my hands away. I had cupped their ass cheeks, and they pulled me tighter. These are rather needy young girls.

Is it the situation? Young women don’t normally give a guy my age the time of day. Well, its time to get a move on.

I brought up my little fold-up grocery cart from below. I went to the small, all-purpose store as the girls gathered their things from the RV park. The lights were on inside the store, which was strange when I thought about it. I took a couple loads of munchies to the boat and stowed it away. I saw the girls raiding the store.

I did have to figure out who had the fuel pump keys. Yuck. I had to get the keys from a dead guy’s pocket. That was after I rifled through several dead guys’ pockets to find the keys. As I expected, they were attached to a 1 X 2 x 5 wooden board.

The pump allowed me to fill my three 5-gallon containers with diesel. That would replace what I had used in motoring. I poured the diesel into my 50-gallon tank and made another trip to refill my three fuel containers. Who knows when I would be able to get diesel again?

I had more than enough gasoline for the small outboard motor and my backup generator. Mostly I had been moving under sail alone.

Ordinarily, I used the diesel only to move into and out of port. If the sailing was slow, it was slow. After a long career, I was not in a hurry to get anywhere. I was done hustling from place to place.

I raided the store, too. I picked some more tropical clothes. Nobody here needed them.

The girls were determined to leave immediately. After a few minutes of their discussion, I decided to let them have their way.

I started the engine. Isobel went ashore as Peyton helped untie the lines. Isobel jumped back aboard. We were soon underway. Going out with the flow from the sound was much easier and quicker. Two miles out, I entered new way-point commands in the console, and I let the boat autopilot take over. There was still not much wind.

The girls were poking around in the galley, trying to come up with a meal. They would pop up and ask a question and then go back down. I appreciated the skimpier bikinis they had changed into. They had changed their clothes onboard while I was plundering the store.

I think they purloined some bikinis even before I had pulled in. I had seen the same styles in the store at Oregon Inlet.

I doubt their parents would allow them to wear bikinis quite as risqué as what they are wearing now. They had dropped their blouses for bikini tops, not that they had a lot to cover. Their boobies are cute.

Half the convenience store had been clothes for boating. They had a lot of swimsuits, T-shirts and flip-flops. The other half was junk food and fishing supplies. None of it was cheap; this place is remote, so the prices are understandably higher.

I had no idea what other things were planned when they wanted to get ready for bed. First, they wanted to know if they could shower before bed.

I said, “No. We need to ration water unless we get rain. We could wash off outside in the rain...”

I continued, “What I do; is use a wet Microfiber Cleaning Cloth to wipe myself off. They are the colorful 18-inch squares that are in the cabinet over the toilet.”

I said, “I minimize showering and wearing a lot of clothes. The Microfiber cloths will have to do for evening washing. I wear only a pair of shorts during the day. That keeps down the need for a lot of unnecessary washing of clothes.”

“Before going to bed, I use a damp cleaning cloth to wipe myself down. I sleep better that way. You’ll get used to it after a day or two.”

I continued, “I have to manually wash clothes using a portable washing contraption. It’s a lot of work. So, stick to swimsuits and wipe down like I do when you need to clean up. That way, we have only a minimum of clothes to wash while we are at sea.