Dark Caribbean

When I wrote this story, I never imagined that my lifelong fishing partner and I would find ourselves in the Caribbean. I also never thought I would have false teeth, but here we are. Even more surprising, I never thought any of our crew, my partner, or I would be holding automatic rifles. But there we were, facing thieves who had forty or more of our lobster traps stacked on their deck.

Their boat looked like a refuge from the storm, but when I saw a barrel emerge from a broken window, I knew it was time to pull the trigger. Three men crawled up onto the boat’s roof, rifles in hand. I opened fire with my AR-15. The first guy dropped his rifle, and it clattered to the deck.

I fired a burst straight up and shouted, “Start the engine and throw our traps over the side, and maybe this boat will get you home!”