I continue at a steady pace, keeping as wide a berth as possible from the other vessels, but the further into the river we get, the more the boats litter the route, and I’m now forced to turn east toward the bridge to avoid smashing into one of the unseen strays. I think I can see most of them clearly, but there is just enough of a film of fog that I’m petrified about steering us into one of the smaller vessels or buried anchor lines.
East, however, is the direction of the bridge, and though the path of ships is clearer this way, we’re now heading directly towards the crabs. We’re still far enough out that I don’t think we’re in any danger from them, particularly not with them almost sixty feet above of us. But they continue to stare at us, still virtually motionless, and though I don’t think they’ll jump from the height of the bridge, I have no experience on which to base that theory.
I finally ease the boat into a nice gap that has formed between the bridge and the flotsam of boats, and as far as I can see, the route is clear from here all the way to the northeast bank of the river. Straight ahead on this trajectory should bring us to our destination in only minutes.
But before I can lock my brain in fully to my destination, a large cruiser yacht suddenly appears in my periphery. It seems to materialize from nowhere, just off to my left, and it sways my full attention towards it. I’m not sure what it is about the boat that intrigues me—other than its size—forty feet, at least—as well as the fact that it was so hidden by the fog and now looms large above the water. It looks brand new, beautiful, and it’s anchored just close enough to us that I feel almost compelled not to pass it by without investigating. It floats isolated at just the right distance from the other anchored boats that it feels almost like it’s calling to me.
I nudge the tiller towards me slightly and begin to head in the direction of the cruiser, while still keeping a general line on the course of the far bank. If we simply remain on our current progression from this point on the river—about a third of the way across—we should reach the far shore in a matter of minutes.
But the draw of the yacht is too strong, and I pull the motor towards me further and give the handle a gentle twist. Our boat is now headed directly toward the cruiser.
“What’s the plan here?” Tom asks, noticing our course change. He’s the first to finally turn his attention away from the bridge,
I get the sense that Tom will detect any bullshit from me, so I keep it honest. “I just want to see what went on here. I mean, look at the size of this thing. I feel like there could be something useful in there.”
In seconds, I’m slowing up beside the cruiser. I have no immediate sights on boarding it, not without a solid assessment of the danger first, but I would like to get at least a superficial look at the craft.
Tom squints and looks up toward the cruiser, and then turns back to me. “Did you see any movement or anything?”
I shake my head and then crane my neck upward, trying to get a glimpse into the cabin. I don’t know what I’m looking for exactly, other than an obvious indicator that the crabs are on board, some type of motion or sound perhaps. From this vantage point, however, although I can’t see much, it looks pretty quiet inside.
Tom looks back to the cruiser for another evaluation. “Not sure about this, Dom. I’d say there’s a good chance at least one of those things is on there. You believe that, right?”
I nod. “Of course. I just wanted to get close enough to see if we could get any kind of feel for what’s in there. Because if it is abandoned—if we can determine that for sure—well, I would think a boat this size could be stocked with some pretty good stuff. A gun maybe. Food for sure.”
Tom nods and raises an eyebrow, accepting the possibility.
“And there could also be survivors, I think that’s a possibility too, people who avoided the first snows and then decided to stay out on the water. Maybe they saw the turning of some people on the bridge and then decided to keep away from the shores until...I don’t know. The coast was clear?”
“Or maybe they came out after,” Danielle adds, now also focused on the boat. Stella and James’ attention have also turned in its direction. “They could have fled the shores and decided to hold up out here until things normalized and the weather turned. And if that’s the case, like Dom said, they probably would have tried to bring as many supplies as they could carry with them.”
I hadn’t even considered the notion that Danielle has just raised. Maybe some of the boaters didn’t get stranded on the water during a pleasant Sunday outing; maybe some of them made an escape onto the water after the snows fell and they heard what had happened. The early broadcasts of the event suggested the incident might have occurred everywhere, and though doubt about the validity of those radio reports now rage inside all of us, I decide fleeing to the river is probably not a good sign. That would suggest—to me at least—a general lack of safety on land, which means that any refuge from this madness is farther than the just the northern shores of the Maripo River.
But these thoughts are a combination of speculation and my own mind’s fear-mongering; I don’t know any of this to be true. I force myself to hone my focus back on the matter at hand.
I stand on my tiptoes to try to see through the tempered glass of the side window, but I’m too low and the glass is too dark. The increased possibility that there are survivors on board, however, has altered my apprehension about exploring the vessel. At this point, I fully intend to have a look inside.
“Danielle makes a good point,” I say. “I think if we don’t see any signs of those things in the next few minutes, I should board. I think we need to take a look.”
James looks at me for a beat and then scans the faces of the group one at a time before returning his gaze to me, a look of confusion now evident. “Isn’t that what we’re doing? Aren’t we taking a look right now? What’s the point of boarding?”
“I just told you, James, there could be supplies.”
“I thought you were in a hurry to get across the river. This was your idea. Stealing a boat and heading to the opposite side of the river. And now that we’re on the way, halfway there, you want to start pillaging abandoned ships like Lewis and Clark.”
The professor in me wants to explain to James that Lewis and Clark weren’t pirates, but I resist the urge, knowing these corrections would only be counterproductive. “I am anxious to cross, and we will, but we’re here now, and if there are supplies on this boat—or survivors—we can’t just bypass them. Besides, if we can get this boat started,” I shrug my eyebrows and tilt my head toward the cruiser, “wouldn’t you rather be on this thing?”
“If there were survivors, they would have come out by now? And I don’t really care about going cruising another three minutes in luxury. I just want to get there and find some place that isn’t covered in snow.”
James is still a kid, eighteen or nineteen if I had to guess, so I give him some space to emit his fear. But my patience is starting to wear thin with him. He’s allowed to be afraid, but he’s getting a little too loud and panicky for such a precarious setting as a rinky-dink motor boat on an icy river.
“I understand, James? I’m just saying this boat would be a nice option to have if we decided we needed to stay out on the water for a time. And though you’re probably right about the chances that there are no survivors on board, there is a possibility. This boat has living quarters inside it. There could be people sleeping below deck. Or hiding.”
Hiding.
My mind suddenly fills with the memory of our escape from the mad colonel back on the exit ramp. It was a surreal scene, he and his soldiers emerging seemingly from nowhere, appearing on the road like some deranged military oasis, a beast of metal artillery at their backs, one that was subsequently turned loose in an attack that was nothing less than an attempt to blow us off the planet.
The colonel—and, presumably, some other government entities whom we’ve yet to meet—had engaged in some kind of devil’s pact with Stell
a’s business partner, Terry, with the intention of carrying out their demented experiment of bombs and snow and crabs at any cost. I fear now if these organizations are willing to employ a tank to patrol the grounds of College Valley, it isn’t unthinkable that some type of comparable vessel was currently patroling the Maripo River. Suddenly I begin to feel very agoraphobic.
“But I’ll leave it up to the group,” I say, now hedging a bit. “If this seems like a less than brilliant idea, too dangerous, I mean, then we’ll keep going.”
I can see Tom give a slight nod, almost a reflex of affirmation to the idea, with James seeming to concur by taking a deep breath, thankful I’d come to my senses.
“Well, shit, Dom,” Stella says, shaking her head in frustration, “you had me convinced ten seconds ago that we should loot this beauty, and now you want to scrap your own plan?”
“It was never a plan, and I didn’t say I wanted to scrap it. I’m just willing to take a vote.”
Danielle speaks up, filling in my indecisiveness with a calm resolution. “I think your first instinct was the correct one, Dom. I think we should investigate. We’re going to need supplies at some point, and there’s no guarantee they’ll be anything waiting for us on the other side.”
“Well if there’s nothing waiting for us on the other side, then we’re dead anyway,” James whines. “So what difference is a few cans of tuna going to make?”
“I’m actually more interested in the possibility of weapons. We have one shotgun, and we’re down to our last box of shells. We need to start stocking up on things other than food. There could be medicine, fuel, flares, a dozen other things we could use. In fact, if you ask me, I think we should make the rounds through all of these boats and get as much as we can.”
“Are you kidding?” James is flabbergasted, and I can see the tears forming in his eyes as he throws up his hands.
“So let’s take the vote. Like Dom said. Everyone who thinks we should give it another minute and then board the...what is the name of this thing?”
Danielle cranes her neck toward the bow, struggling to read the two-word moniker painted in fancy gold script along the hull.
“The Answered Prayer,” Danielle chuckles. “Just in case anyone was conflicted in their decision.” She raises her hand, casting the first vote to board.
My hand goes up second, followed by Stella’s. We give a couple more beats to allow either Tom or James to join, but they abstain. Their votes don’t matter though, we have a majority.
“Great,” James says, calmly this time, resigned to his fate. Tom remains pragmatic, unmoved by the result.
“Boarding wins by a nose,” Danielle announces.
I feel it’s time to exert my leadership role again, and I quickly declare, “It’s going to be me though. Alone. That was the deal.”
Danielle frowns and raises her eyebrows. “First off, I never made any deal. Second, why would you be the one to go? Because it was your idea? Sorry, it was your idea to go in that house alone, and if it hadn’t been for me, your bones would still be there getting picked over by buzzards.”
“That’s a bit of a low blow, but one I’m willing to forget about this time.”
Danielle shrugs, and a tense silence fills the boat.
“So then it should be you that goes alone?” I ask finally.
Danielle nods confidently, as if the answer is obvious. “It should.”
I feel the rest of the group staring at me, as if this moment is a decisive one in determining the leadership dynamic for the rest of our time together. I consider, however, that perhaps it’s not the group who is judging the moment in these terms, only I.
“Well, you’ve proven you’re a good shot, and we’ve only the one gun, so I’ll stand down. If everyone else is comfortable with you going, then I am too.”
I search the faces of the group for tacit responses, and Stella and Tom give me soft nods of approval. James just shrugs and looks away, rolling his eyes, a signal that his views aren’t considered anyway, so what difference does it make what he thinks?
I push the lever forward and guide the motor boat in a circle until we’re now parked perpendicular to the cruiser’s stern. At this point, Danielle can step easily onto the low swim deck of the Answered Prayer, and within seconds, she’s on the mysterious craft, shotgun in hand, moving toward the front of the boat.
And then we hear the first splash.
The sound explodes in my ear with no less force than the blast that started this whole story. I can’t immediately tell from which direction it’s come, but I have my suspicions.
“What the hell was that?” James asks.
I turn to look up at the bridge and the line of roosting crabs, and at first glance, the formation looks unchanged, an immobile grouping of alabaster statues. But as I scan farther down the line, toward the far end of the bridge, I can see the first gap of light shining through. I follow the sight line down from the railing to the water just below it, and I can see the ripples flowering out and then dissipating.
“Look!” Stella whispers, pointing back towards the railing.
I follow her finger and can see one of the crabs standing straight up now, tall and stiff like a bowling pin, its feet still appearing to be wedged between the railing and the barrier. It stands that way for a beat, and then, with no signal at all, it topples forward, tumbling over the side of the bridge as if it had been shot from the back. Two more crabs rise in the area of the previous one, perhaps two or three crabs down, and each fall into the water as casually as if they were preparing to lie down on a mattress. Two more follow over the side, then two more, all collapsing from the same general vicinity into the Maripo River. This continues for several minutes, as more crabs fill in the empty spaces left by the jumpers, and then jump themselves. Four, five at a time, nonchalantly, until dozens have gone over the side.
The gruesome sounds of the crashing bodies makes me cringe, their flesh splashing and slapping violently as they land. But I can’t look away, and within seconds, the river directly below the bridge becomes a battlefield of white, the crabs hitting the water and one another like mortar fire.
At first, there’s not much movement from the creatures once they enter the water, and many appear not to have survived the impact. Most disappear for a few seconds and then bob to the surface for a moment, and then ultimately sink beneath it again. Others lie listlessly atop those crabs that have survived and which are attempting to tread water, flailing their arms desperately, searching for the skill to swim.
But then the activity in the water begins to increase, and it seems that the impact has only stunned those I thought dead. Almost all of them seem to have survived the fall now, and those that had sunk beneath the water a second time have resurfaced, desperate to keep their heads above water.
They learn quickly, and now there are dozens of crabs, floating together in an island of albino flesh. The stragglers who missed the mark from the bridge and are on the outskirts of the island drift in to join the huddle, and the floating mass of crabs waits patiently until those that form it have collected all of their viable mates.
I have to assume that it is we on the boat who have precipitated this bizarre display from the crabs, but at first they don’t appear to be making any effort to swim towards us.
But they continue to tighten their huddle, patiently waiting for those who haven’t quite mastered the treading technique to do so. There are at least seventy-five of them now, perhaps a hundred, and the sight of the white bodies on the black water conjures thoughts of cancer.
And then it begins to spread.
The white splotch suddenly starts to change, extending from a circular blob to one more elongated, forming into something resembling an éclair. The mass continues to stretch in this way, growing longer and thinner, and, after several minutes, has a true design. It’s a bridge, an extended span of bodies about four crabs wide.
And, of course, the bridge is building in our direction.
; “What are they doing?” Danielle calls from atop the cruiser, her attention aimed in the same direction as the rest of us.
“Hey,” I snap, “you can’t lose your focus.” I’m as riveted as anyone by the beasts spanning out towards us, but I understand the potential for danger aboard the cruiser as well. “I don’t know if we have a lot of time. I would go ahead and assume not. So stay on task and if there’s treasure to be had easily, grab it. Otherwise, don’t linger. Let’s not push this anymore than we need to.”
“Push what? What do you think they’re...you think they’re coming for us? No way. There aren’t nearly enough of them.”
“I really don’t know, Danielle. But why tempt it?”
The fact is I do know what the crabs are doing. I saw the same type of behavior back at the college, immediately after I broke out the window with the Dutch oven in the student union. Maybe it was just the noise that had provoked them then, but it seemed to me, even at the time, they had recognized an opportunity. Before I could really process what I was seeing on the ground, the crabs had begun to build their bridge of bodies up the wall of the building and toward the new opening.
And it’s what they’re doing now, seizing an opportunity, working with that same group relentlessness—like ants—attacking with commitment, willing to sacrifice themselves without thought.
The white bridge of flesh extends rapidly, and now, after it has evidently been built to its proper specifications, four of the beasts that made up the structure are now atop it, traversing it like pedestrians, knuckle-walking like chimpanzees to the edge of the floating bridge. At that point, they plunge back into the water, connecting with each other in a line, forming the next piece of the expanse. It’s a type of natural genius, no doubt, instinctively understanding the process, like a spider forming its web or a beaver its dam.
They Came With The Snow Box Set {Books 1-2] Page 8
