200 Minutes of Danger

by Jack Heath

‘You OK?’ Quinn asked.

  ‘I think so.’ Yolandi’s dark hair was all over her face. She blew it aside. ‘What was that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Quinn said. ‘Came out of nowhere.’

  ‘Yeah, no kidding. We have to tell the captain.’

  ‘Pretty sure he knows he hit something.’

  Yolandi huffed. ‘Yeah, but—’

  19:30

  The deck started to tilt beneath them. Quinn’s stomach clenched. ‘That’s not good,’ he said.

  He tried to crawl up the tilting deck towards the safety rail. But the slope was getting steeper every second. His palms were sweaty. Soon he started to slip backwards on the smooth, wet floor.

  19:15

  Yolandi was sliding too. ‘Quinn! Help!’

  Quinn swiped for the fur-lined hood of her coat, but missed. The crates and inflatable life rafts strapped to the deck were all out of reach. He and Yolandi slid faster and faster across the ship.

  There was a gap under the safety rail on the opposite side. If they didn’t do something soon, they would slide through and plummet straight into the ocean.

  19:10

  They zoomed towards the gap, legs scrabbling helplessly. Yolandi was screaming. Quinn’s heart raced. He was headed straight for one of the poles that held up the rail. At this speed it was likely to break his leg, leaving him unable to swim when he tumbled into the ocean.

  19:05

  He stretched out and caught the extendable strap of Yolandi’s laptop satchel, then wriggled away from her as they slid down the deck. ‘Don’t let go!’ he yelled.

  They whooshed under the safety rail on either side of the pole and went flying out over the open water. Quinn gripped the strap. Yolandi clung to the satchel. The dark ocean loomed, twenty metres below—

  The strap hit the pole and went taut, slashing Quinn’s hands. He barely managed to hold on. The sudden stop jarred his shoulders. He and Yolandi bounced against each other, holding on to opposite ends of the strap as they dangled over the water.

  ‘I’m gonna be sick,’ Yolandi moaned.

  ‘Please don’t,’ Quinn said, though he felt the same. He’d never been so scared.

  The Vanguard was leaning sideways at a forty degree angle. From here Quinn could see the enormous rip gouged in the side of the hull. Whatever hit the ship had hit it hard. A few big shipping containers had spilled out of the hold and were floating away. If Dad’s prototype was in any of those, he would be so mad.

  A fin was circling. Hopefully just a dolphin.

  18:45

  Yolandi was looking up. ‘I think I can get back onto the deck,’ she said. ‘Maybe.’

  Quinn’s arm muscles burned. ‘Hurry!’

  Yolandi climbed the strap like a circus performer. She grabbed the railing, looped the satchel around the pole so Quinn wouldn’t fall, then swung up onto the crooked deck. ‘Come on.’

  17:30

  Quinn started hauling himself up the strap towards the railing, his cut hands stinging. Yolandi had made it look simple. She had always been good at anything physical or sporty. Quinn himself was more a ‘reading a book on the beach’ kind of kid—

  There was a sound like a cracking whip from above.

  ‘Quinn!’ Yolandi shouted.

  16:55

  Quinn looked up in time to see a huge plastic crate sliding down the sloped deck towards him, trailing ropes with broken ends.

  Yolandi scrambled out of the way. Quinn couldn’t do the same—he was still dangling from the strap of her satchel, right in the path of the oncoming crate.

  So he let go.

  16:50

  He got a last glimpse of the crate sliding towards him, Yolandi’s eyes widening with horror, and then he was falling towards the distant ocean.

  The wind buffeted his face, tearing at his hair and stealing the air from his lungs. His guts churned. He dropped faster and faster, screaming as the ocean rushed up in a deadly wall of grey.

  Above him, the crate hit the rail with a clang. Its shadow eclipsed his own on the water below.

  16:45

  Splash! Quinn hit the water feet-first, but the impact sent a shock through his whole body. Suddenly he was under, in the dark. The icy saltwater froze every inch of his skin, chilling him to the core.

  If he didn’t swim out of the way, that crate was going to land right on top of him. He paddled and kicked desperately, lungs burning, legs aching from the fall. His wet clothes dragged him down.

  The crate slammed into the water just behind him and broke open. Machine parts sank towards the ocean floor in slow motion, like snowflakes.

  Quinn’s head finally breached the surface. He gasped with relief. The colour returned to his world as the oxygen reached his lungs.

  16:00

  The ship towered over him. It looked like it was starting to straighten up again. Maybe the cargo had shifted inside, or maybe the crew was pumping out the water somehow.

  ‘Quinn!’ Yolandi’s silhouette was high above, waving urgently. ‘Shark!’

  Quinn spun around. There was the fin he’d seen before, now circling the floating remains of the crate. Investigating. Hungry.

  Dad was a physicist, not a biologist, but he had once told Quinn that sharks could smell electricity, even the tiny amounts generated by a frightened fish, or a human heart. And Quinn’s hands were bleeding from the strap. The shark could probably smell that, too.

  15:40

  Quinn swam towards the Vanguard as fast as he could. Hopefully he could climb in through the rip in the hull.

  Soon he was in the shadow of the listing ship, surrounded by half-submerged shipping containers. The torn hull was maybe twenty metres away. Now fifteen. Ten.

  ‘Quinn!’ Yolandi screamed.

  14:20

  Quinn risked a glance back, and a wave of panic swept over him. The shark was following him. Its fin cut a graceful line through the water, approaching at a terrifying pace. It would be on him in seconds.

  The hull was still at least eight or ten metres away. He wasn’t going to make it.

  Quinn changed direction, splashing desperately towards the nearest floating shipping container. He grabbed the side and tried to climb up onto it. But the metal was too slippery, too steep.

  14:15

  The shark drew closer. Quinn could see the rippling outline of its body beneath the surface. It was a hammerhead. A big one.

  Frantic now, he swam around to the other side of the container, where several steel rods held the door closed. He grabbed one of the rods and dragged himself out of the freezing water onto the end of the container.

  14:05

  Just in time. The hammerhead reared up out of the water, mouth open, its muscular flank banging against the side of the container. It was so close he could have reached down and touched the rows upon rows of triangular teeth. Its jaws snapped shut on empty air, and then it disappeared back down into the depths, out of sight.

  Quinn scrambled up onto the highest point of the half-submerged shipping container and hugged his knees, trembling.

  ‘Quinn!’ Yolandi yelled. ‘Are you all right?’

  13:45

  He looked up, squinting against the sun. Thanks to the tilt of the ship, Yolandi was directly above him.

  ‘I’m trapped,’ he called back.

  ‘Don’t panic. There must be a rope ladder or something around here. Stay there, OK?’

  Yolandi disappeared. Stay there, Quinn thought. Like I have a choice.

  12:00

  He looked around for the shark. There was no sign of it in the dark water. But he noticed something else.

  Bubbles.

  Quinn cautiously leaned over the edge. The bubbles were coming from the sides of the shipping container.

  It took him a minute to realise what this might mean. He watched the water lapping at the corrugated walls, getting higher. The container was sinking.

  ‘Yolandi!’ he yelled.

  Silence from above. The shimmering outline
of the shark reappeared, investigating the bubbles.

  11:00

  Fear gripped Quinn’s chest. ‘Yolandi! The container is sinking!’

  She reappeared above. ‘I couldn’t find a ladder. Hang on a minute.’

  ‘I don’t have a minute.’ The water crept up the sides of the container. Quinn had less and less space to stand on. Creaks and thumps came from within, as though the metal was starting to bend under the pressure.

  Yolandi untangled her satchel from around the safety rail and disconnected both ends of the strap. When she put the satchel down, it slid off the sloped deck and plummeted into the water. The shark darted towards it.

  10:25

  ‘Whoops,’ Yolandi said.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Quinn demanded.

  Yolandi extended the strap as far as it could go, then she dangled it over the edge.

  ‘I can’t reach that,’ Quinn said.

  ‘You’re not even trying!’

  Quinn stood on the highest point of the sinking container and stretched, but the strap remained several metres out of reach. ‘There’s just no way, Yolandi.’

  10:00

  The water was climbing closer to Quinn’s feet. The container seemed to be sinking faster now.

  Yolandi pulled the strap back up. ‘OK, uh . . . I’ll find someone with a longer rope,’ she said. ‘Or someone who can come get you in a boat.’

  Boat. Quinn remembered some of the things he’d slid past on the deck. ‘Wait, there are boats right near you!’ he yelled. ‘Inflatable life rafts. They’re in big, orange packages. Do you see them?’

  ‘Just a sec,’ Yolandi said, and vanished again.

  The hammerhead had gotten bored with the satchel, and was circling the shipping container. The container would be completely submerged soon, and the shark seemed to know it.

  09:45

  There was a hiss and a whoosh from above. Quinn looked up, and saw something that looked like a cross between a tent and a small jumping castle falling out of the sky. The life raft splashed down on the water and settled in front of him, canopy flaps open and waiting.

  Quinn felt a pang of gratitude for his sister. He would never say a bad word about her again.

  The raft looked only half-inflated, but Quinn couldn’t wait any longer. He leapt off the shipping container, sailed over the water and landed on the spongy plastic inside the raft.

  09:20

  ‘I made it,’ he yelled.

  Yolandi’s voice was distant: ‘Great—I’ll go get help.’

  A second later, the ocean swallowed the shipping container with a deep gulp. The hammerhead swam around and around the sinking box, looking for Quinn.

  Underneath the canopy, the raft really was like a tent. When Quinn caught his breath, he saw a bag of emergency supplies in the raft. He opened it. There was a first-aid kit. A torch. A flare gun. Two sponges. A knife. A hand pump. A mirror. A whistle. And an oar, about the length of Quinn’s arm.

  08:05

  The engines of the cargo ship were getting louder. Quinn peered through a mesh window. The Vanguard was moving again. The captain must be trying to get it to the port before it sank. Which would leave Quinn stranded on a life raft in open water.

  ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘Yolandi! Tell them not to leave me behind!’

  There was no response. Maybe she was already too far away to hear him.

  07:40

  Quinn hefted the oar. It was plastic, but it felt strong. His only hope was to paddle over to the ship before it got too far away. Hopefully he could climb in through the rip in the hull.

  He scrambled over to the open flaps with the oar—

  And the shark’s head burst out of the water, baring a hundred-tooth grin.

  07:25

  Quinn screamed and fell back into the raft. The shark’s jaws snapped shut, missing the oar, but catching the edge of the raft instead. Quinn scrabbled backwards as the shark thrashed from side to side, shredding the plastic. When it realised the raft wasn’t food, it let go and dived down out of sight.

  Quinn stared at the damage, breathing heavily. He could hear the faint whine of escaping air. The floor of the lifeboat was already going soft underneath him.

  He had to get back to the ship, fast. But he had to distract the shark first.

  Quinn switched on the torch. The LEDs were blinding, even in daylight. His palms left bloody smears on the handle. He flung the torch as far as he could. It splashed into the ocean in the distance. Hopefully the shark would be drawn to the light, or the electricity, or the movement, or the blood.

  06:55

  He picked up the fallen oar, stuck it in the water, and started paddling. Long, outward strokes. His arms burned, but he was making progress. Every sweep through the water brought the raft closer to the ship.

  But the ship was accelerating. Soon it would be going faster than he could paddle. And the punctured raft was collapsing around him like a sandcastle in an earthquake.

  ‘Come on,’ he told himself. ‘You can do this. Just keep paddling.’

  02:35

  The shark’s fin reappeared. Heading towards him. Quinn paddled frantically. He was nearly there.

  Thump. The other side of the raft hit the hull of the ship. Quinn dragged the oar sideways, turning the sinking raft around.

  02:00

  He’d missed the hole in the hull, but only by a metre or two. He could see the sheared edges, and the neatly stacked shipping containers in the gloom beyond.

  The shark was back. It lunged at him and bit down, this time on the oar, narrowly missing Quinn’s fingers with its fangs. It wrenched the oar out of his hands and took it under, shaking its head from side to side.

  Now or never. Quinn threw himself into the water and swam towards the hole in the side of the ship, his heart pounding in his ears.

  01:20

  He grabbed the torn side of the hole. The metal scratched his wounded hands, but he managed to haul himself up over the edge. He collapsed on the tilted floor inside the cargo hold. Safe.

  His blood trickled down the outside of the hull. The moment it touched the water, the shark went crazy. It sped towards the hull and launched itself out of the water like a dolphin.

  Quinn scrambled back as the shark landed on the floor inside the ship with a wet splat, tail spasming, jaws opening and closing in eerie silence.

  00:30

  It couldn’t get to him. It couldn’t even go back outside. It was as vulnerable out of the water as he had been in it. The shark’s eyes rolled in alarm as it began to suffocate.

  00:00

  Quinn waited for the hammerhead to stop thrashing around. Eventually it lay still, exhausted, maybe dying. He approached it cautiously. Then he put the sole of his foot against its flank, and rolled it back into the sea.

  20:00

  ‘Hello?’ Zak called.

  His voice bounced around the darkness of the cargo hold, coming back a little softer each time until it was gone. Nobody answered.

  But he was sure he’d heard something. A thud, like someone dropping a heavy crate onto the metal floor. Then a dragging sound.

  Zak was only fifteen, so he had assumed someone else would be supervising him while he worked. But no, he’d been sent to scrub the floor by himself. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else down here.

  19:40

  Zak leaned the mop against a parked forklift and grabbed his radio. ‘Yo, Wes. You there?’

  Wesley and Zak were never on duty at the same time, but they often used the radio to chat during shifts. Wesley would play Battery—a puzzle game involving magnets and wires—on the console upstairs, and Zak would make suggestions while he cleaned the hold. When Wes was the one working, Zak would bore him with explanations of the science videos he’d been watching. None of Zak’s other friends had been tempted to sign up for work experience on a ship.

  ‘Yeah?’ Wesley sounded sleepy, even though it was four o’clock in the afternoon.

  ‘Can you take a quick look
at the roster and make sure that I’m supposed to be working?’ Zak asked.

  ‘You’re definitely on, Zak-Attack. We swapped shifts, remember?’

  19:10

  ‘Right.’ Zak remembered now. ‘It sounded like someone else was down here, but I can’t see anybody.’

  Wesley laughed. ‘I hate the hold. I’m always imagining things.’

  ‘I wasn’t imag—’

  18:55

  Thump. There it was again. The sound had come from one of the shipping containers near the wall.

  ‘Call you back,’ Zak said. He picked up his mop and crept towards the container.

  He thought about going upstairs. But if he told the manager that he’d ‘heard noises’, she wouldn’t believe him—or she’d come down here, find nothing, and never trust him again.

  Because it probably was nothing. Just the hull creaking, or whatever.

  18:30

  Just the same, Zak’s pulse quickened as he crept closer and closer to the container.

  Some shipping containers had windows, so they could later be sold to construction companies as site offices. This one had a single narrow window with steel bars across it. Zak shone the torch on his keyring through the window, but the light just reflected off the dirty glass.

  18:05

  He circled around to the door. The container had no padlock. That was illegal, but common. If the contents weren’t fragile, valuable or dangerous, the port workers often left containers unlocked so the contents could be inspected or rearranged for better balance. Just the same, Zak had been told never, ever to open one.

  I’ll just take a little peek, he told himself.

  17:20

  The hinges groaned as he hauled the door open. Darkness inside.

  ‘Hello?’ Zak called again.

  Nothing.

  Zak pointed his torch into the shadows. The cargo was mostly outdoor furniture. Garden chairs wrapped in plastic so they didn’t get scratched in transit. Terracotta pots stacked all the way to the ceiling. A barbecue. A sturdy wooden table.

  The only thing that looked out of place was a small plastic crate labelled FUSION PROTOTYPE—FRAGILE. Zak didn’t see how that could be the source of the noise. But it was possible that someone was crouching behind it.

  16:45

  He got out the radio again. ‘Hey Wes,’ he whispered. ‘I’m investigating the noise. If I don’t check in with you in less than five minutes—’