Michael’s heart was racing as he pulled up alongside his target. Shining in gold trim along the side was the name, “Golden Fleece.” He thought that was perfectly pretentious for a yacht. He cast his eyes were down on the water as he turned the engine off. The keys jingled as he pulled them out and stuffed them into his pocket. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nose, then slowly he let it exhale out of his mouth. After a few more times of this he had calmed himself down.

With a flurry of movement, he grabbed his makeshift rope and tied it to the wall of the Lil Ducky and leaped towards the yacht. There was a loud splash as he fell into the water, but before long he had found the ladder on the other boat and managed to climb up. He shook himself off as best as he could and whistled as he looked around. This was indeed a luxury boat, or at least it once was. The once pristine boards and white seats were all trashed. It looked like a private tornado had ripped through the vehicle. Even some of the boards looked warped. He peaked into the cabin, and it was even worse. Like someone had ripped out moist of the interior and threw it overboard.

As the chaos grew, so too did his caution. Every few seconds the horn would blare again, and Michael wondered if they even knew he had come aboard. So, he shook one of the side rails to make sure kit was sturdy and seeing that it was attached the other end of his rope to it. Now his boat and this one were connected, even if just barely. He carefully approached the ladder to the upper deck and climbed up.

He peeked his head over the top and saw a robed figure slumped over the steering wheel. Slowly he crept up and reached a hand out towards the unmoving form. As his hand touched what he assumed was their shoulder he pulled away, as if he was a child touching a hot stove for the first time. The figure turned over and fell to the ground.

In one hand was a near empty bottle of vodka, in the other was a cracked cell phone. A crackling snore shook Michael out of his confusion as the person in front of him wasn’t a typical wallstreet broker, but instead looked to be a girl!

Michael started to curse under his breath as he nudged her with his foot. He wasn’t sure quite what he was thinking. After all, she didn’t wake up when she fell; but it was almost instinctual. Like poking a dead deer with a stick or scrolling through Netflix without selecting anything.

In response she groaned and rolled over. Michael jumped almost a foot back as the girl mumbled incoherently and let go of the vodka. The bottle rolled forward into his foot with a light thud. Apprehensively he picked it up and looked at the small bit of liquid left inside. His mind started to race with opportunity as he thought about all the uses he could have for hard alcohol.

“Like, who are you?”

Michael froze in place. Her thick valley girl accent caught him off guard. He had assumed that accent had died off long along with the Y2K scare.

With Michael standing like a deer in headlights, the girl rolled her eyes and stood up, leaving the robe on the ground. She was definitely the kind of girl Michael would have assumed would have a yacht. Tall, skinny, blond, in a ruby red swimsuit, and with an aura of attitude and superiority coming off her like steam out of a Nordic sauna.

She confidently walked up to him and snatched the bottle out of his hand before downing it in one go. He was still too shocked to react and cursed under his breath when he realized he had lost such a potentially valuable resource.

“So what like took you so long?” she said with all the aggression of a female lion that just had a sirloin steak ripped out of her mouth.

After a second of his brain short circuiting, Michael answered, “Huh?” It wasn’t much, but he felt like he had gone from the certainty aboard the Lil Ducky to standing atop a wet rock in a hurricane.

She rolled her eyes again as she threw the bottle out into the ocean. Michael visibly winced as the still useful implement was tossed aside so carelessly. She saw his reaction and her eyes narrowed slightly. “So like, who sent you?”

“I’m sorry what?” Michael was still struggling to find his footing as she kept up the onslaught.

She looked him up and down. Michael had managed to stay mostly covered and looked like he was more prepared for a trip on a crab boat than attending a young woman on her yacht. “How did you like find me? Sheldon didn’t send you, and you seem absolutely clueless, which would be like totes cute if you were a little better at putting yourself together.”

He couldn’t get a good read on her. She seemed to prance around him with all the confidence of an expert fencer fighting a toddler with a rattle. “Why don’t we start over,” he said as he tried to redraw the lines of their conversation. “My name’s Michael, and I came when I heard you laying on the horn. I figured you were stranded or something.”

She clicked her tongue. “Stranded huh? Like as if. This is a Beneteau Swift, and I’m maybe fifty miles out.” She crossed her arms as she took a step back from Michael. “So there should like be plenty of fuel for me to go wherever I want, and even easier for Sheldon to send someone to resupply me with like whatever my heart desires.”

“Do uh,” Michael stumbled as he tried to find a way to explain what happened. “Do you know what happened on shore? The missiles?” He paused as she just raised an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t you get an alert on your phone?” he added in near desperation.

She looked down at the cracked phone in her hand. “Well, like…umm…”

This was it, she had faltered, and it was time for Michael to press the advantage. “The shore was peppered with nukes. I doubt anyone outside of a shelter survived. Hell, we’re lucky we didn’t get caught in the blast waves out here in the ocean.” He paused a second as it finally struck him. “Wait…I could see those blasts…how did we…how did I?”

“Like, this isn’t funny.” She pouted. “You Prank YouTubers totally need to find a real job or like whatever.”

“It’s no prank, check your phone. I bet it’s all over the news.” He sighed as he looked over to check on the Lil Ducky. She was just bobbing up and down safely.

“So like about that…” she awkwardly held up her cracked phone and tapped it a few times as she continued. “My phone is like way fried. I must’ve totally smashed it when I passed out.”

Michael sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Well, my phone is back on my boat. I didn’t want to risk getting it wet. So for now at least I’ll need you to trust me, okay?”

She leaned back slightly as she looked him up and down. “Like I guess I can do that. But um, just for now okay?”

“Yeah, sure fine.” He waved off her apprehension as he started to look around more. “You never did give me your name though.”

“Oh yeah, it’s Carolyne, but you can call me Carrie.” She said with more perk in her voice, as if it was a well-practiced introduction that brought her back to a comfortable place.

“Alright then Carrie,” Michael took in a deep breath as he collected his thoughts.

“Umm…” she interjected to break the silence.

“We’re going to have to survive out here without any resupply. We have to assume no one can help us and find a way to survive on our own.” He pointed over towards his own boat. “I’ve got a pretty good setup in the Lil Ducky, but we’re going to have to modify your boat here and help make it better for long term survival rather than pleasure cruises.”

Carrie leaned over to look at his boat and went, “Awe, it’s totally adorable…in like an ugly dog sort of way. You know, like those little pug dogs that were way cool a few years ago, or like a British Bulldog. Like you know, the scrunched little faces with…”

She continued to go on describing various ugly dog breeds that were somehow cute. From Chinese crested to Xoloitzcuintli, she just didn’t stop. Every single sentence also seemed to be a question, with the pitch rising towards the end of each sentence. Talking on and on as if leaving any space for silence would invite disaster to fall upon their heads. With no break in sight as she moved on to her thoughts on how fish are always seen as acceptable to kill in animated movies where animals talk, except for ones like Finding Nemo.

Finally having enough, he cut her off. “Just tell me where the engine is so I can check it out.”

“Oh, are you like a mechanic or something?”

“Yeah, or something, just we need to get to work. Our survival is at stake.”

“No yeah, I like totally get it. We’re in this together, like when I was out with Samantha trying to figure out where Peter Gavensburg got his hair done. O M G, it was such a fright when we found that briefcase with a severed…”

“The engine?”

“Oops, like I’m totally sorry about that. I so have trouble sticking to a topic. It’s like everything is just so connected right? So like one thing leads so easily into another, oh just like…”

“Carrie…”

Carrie giggled. “Sorry sorry, I get giggly when I have a hangover. Just follow me, okay?”

As she headed past him at least he cursed all the time he had lost that he could have been fishing. He was also taken back by her offhanded hangover comment. If she could prattle on like this with a hangover, he worried how she would be when she wasn’t suffering. “Maybe I should keep a bit of seawater in that vodka bottle…” he muttered.

“Umm, like what did you say?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing nothing. Just thinking out loud.”

“Well, I like totally think it’s better to bounce ideas out loud. Even alone, saying it out loud helps make it more like real and totally easier to make sense of. You know?” Conversation seemed to come easier to her now. “With another person it’s so totally better! Like someone can say if you make any sense or not, right?”

As Michael zoned out and there was a bit of silence and still having some apparent fear of it she added, “So…?”

“Hmm? Uh…yeah I mean yeah that makes sense.”

She didn’t seem quite convinced and sighed. “Like whatever. Anyway, it’s right here. Should be all good to go.”

As she lifted a hatch in the floor, Michael peered in and started to see if anything looked off. He wasn’t an expert on engines or anything, but figured if something was really wrong, even he’d be able to figure it out.

“So like what do you see?”

“An engine.”

“Ha ha,” she said dryly. “You’re like so hilarious.”

“It seems fine just…” he screwed off a cap and peered around the edges before sniffing inside the hole. “hmm.”

“Like, what is it?”

“Well, I think it is out of gas.”

“Um, what? Like that’s totally impossible. I had it filled before I left.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m pretty sure this thing has been out of gas for a little while.”

Carrie’s brow furrowed as she bit her lip. “Like that means…”

Michael cursed his luck as she seemed to go silent on something he was at least somewhat curious about. Still, he figured it wasn’t his business, so he ignored it. “Looks like we have a decision to make now.”

“Mhm,” she barely responded as her eyes seemed to be looking far into the distance and through time itself.

“We can cannibalize this ship for supplies and move completely aboard my Lil Ducky, do the same but reverse the Lil Ducky and your ship, strap both ships together and mainly rely on the current to carry us, or go our separate ways.”

“Umm, which one of those do you like?”

It was obvious her mind was occupied. Michael’s impulses were screaming at him to cut his losses and return to sailing and surviving alone, but there was that tinge again. That cold phantom hand, except it felt like it was gripping his heart. “Maybe it’s my conscience, or maybe it’s because I just became single again and I’m really afraid of being alone, but I don’t like the idea of splitting up.” He quickly covered his mouth as he accidentally spoke his thoughts aloud. Embarrassment colored his cheeks as he swore at himself in his head.

Carrie finally seemed to have come back from her stupor and giggled. “Like you should totally act all open like that more often. It’s a way cuter look on you.”

“That’s not…I didn’t.” he felt cornered again, like he was back when they first started talking. A corned mouse against a hungry Cougar.

“Like don’t sweat it Mikey,” she purred.

“My name’s not…” he interjected before being cut off by her again.

“I like totally agree with you. If the world’s ending, we totally have to stick together, right? So, we’ll have way more time to get to know each other.”

Michael opened his mouth to speak, but his brain cut him off, afraid of him shoving a foot into his mouth. So, she continued alone.

“Like let’s tie them together and team up to conquer this apocalypse together!” A flash of inspiration flew across her face as she added, “We can totally be team Golden Ducky! It’s like totally perfect!”

Michael was still semi-mortified as she went into a monologue about a time she and a friend had found thousands of hidden rubber ducks in an abandoned house. There was also something about a knife and a size eighteen footprint, but as he started to calm down Michael was recalculating what would be needed for both of them to survive long term. Now it was almost as if he hadn’t made any preparations aboard the Lil Ducky at all.