And I can see that the bridge makers are becoming increasingly at ease in the water—treading the river more effortlessly than before, perhaps rediscovering the skill from their past lives through some primal instinct or abominable undead evolution.
The bridge of bodies continues to narrow and tighten in formation, and slims from four bodies wide to three, and it’s obvious to me that the crabs are learning. Not only how to tread water, but also the dimensions necessary to create a bridge that can reach our boat more quickly. Why waste an extra couple of bodies for the width of the bridge when they’d be better served lengthening it?
The crabs at the very back of the bridge, those who served as the first planks of its construction, continue to climb up and make their way to the front, but for the first time I realize they’ve stopped adding bodies to the whole of the bridge, apparently having all they need now to get to us.
I look back up to the remaining crabs on the bridge and see they’ve stopped falling, somehow seeming to understand that their troop numbers in the water below are now sufficient. There’s no sense wasting resources.
“Are they coming toward us?” James asks, a comically obvious question as far as I’m concerned, but I realize the concept may be too outrageous to believe, particularly by someone who hasn’t seen this behavior previously.
“It looks that way,” I say, no longer watching the water, my attention now back on Danielle and the Answered Prayer.
“How can...?”
“Wait,” Stella says from behind me. “Look. They’re...stopping.”
“I noticed. They’re not falling from the bridge anymore.”
“No, I mean they’ve stopped building.” Stella sounds rapt, as if entranced by the behavior, like a mad scientist taken over by wonder at his creation.
I prepare to dispute Stella’s claim, until I turn back to the river and see that she’s right. They have stopped, about fifty yards away from us. The crabs in the water have settled into a steady tread, and the two beasts standing atop the fleshy bridge just stare at us, watching.
“Danielle, how we doing up there?” I call, keeping my eyes fixed on the river. “Danielle!” I repeat, louder this time, but still no reply.
I turn toward the cruiser and see that Danielle has vanished from sight.
“Shit! Danielle!”
“Danny,” Tom calls, his face white with panic.
“She’s alright.”
“You can’t know that, Dominic.” Tom’s voice is calm, always calm, but there is pain in his eyes, fear.
“I’m going aboard,” I say, but as I make a move to board the cruiser, I hear a light splash, followed by another. I turn back to the water. “What was that?”
“They jumped in,” James replies, stammering the words out past his fear. “The two on top, they just jumped in the water. Why would they do that?”
I stare at the water around the crab bridge for several seconds, waiting for the creatures to resurface, but there is no breach of the water. “I don’t know, but keep an eye out. I’m going to look for Danielle.”
I hop the narrow gap between the Sea Nymph and the Answered Prayer, and in seconds, I’m up the back of the boat and am standing in the cockpit scanning the view. “Danielle!” I call toward the bow.
“I’m down here.”
The voice is muffled and has come from below me, and I look down to see a small hatch in the floor. I pull up the door of the hatch and follow a ladder down to a cabin where Danielle is standing, a pirate’s smile on her face.
“Pretty sweet, am I right?”
I give the cabin a cursory glance and then nod. “It is. What did you find?” My voice is hurried, one eye on the hatch.
“There’s not much food, unfortunately, but there’s plenty of booze. Rum mostly—kind of cliché—but there’s also a few bottles of wine, a bottle of—”
“What about any weapons,” I interrupt.
“I haven’t found any guns, but there is a set of filet knives that could come in handy.”
“Did you find any keys?”
Danielle’s eyes get wide and she smiles. “I didn’t even think to look yet. Let’s check the ignition.”
“I did, they aren’t in there.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“I meant a spare set. Hidden somewhere.”
“Is that common, to keep a spare set on board?”
“I have no idea, but if I owned a boat, I would keep a spare key somewhere. I mean, what if you sailed to Tahiti and then dropped your keys in the ocean. How the hell are you getting home?
Danielle shrugs. “Airplane?”
I ignore the smart-ass reply. “Maybe Tom has an idea where someone might keep a spare set. Anyway, the crabs in the river are starting to act strange—stranger than usual—I don’t think it’s going to be safe for us out there much longer.”
“What are they doing?”
“I’m not sure, but those things are...I don’t know if smart is the word exactly, but they’re acting very organized. They seem to be in some type of holding pattern for the moment, but we need to get across this river. This may have been a bad idea.”
“Okay, I’ll take what I’ve got and go check on the group, you keep looking for keys. Though truthfully, I’d much rather stay on this beauty for a few hours longer. No offense, but that rickety old motor boat is a pretty big downgrade.”
I frown. “You know that’s not my boat, right?”
Danielle shrugs and then heads up the stairs to the main deck. She’s carrying a satchel with a drawstring pulled tight, inside is presumably the alcohol and fishing knives she referenced, and whatever else she failed to mention.
I stay below as ordered and continue searching the cabin, opening several drawers and cabinets in the yacht’s small kitchenette, including several pull-down, glove compartment-like spaces that would be perfect for keeping a spare set of keys. I have no luck, however, and I quickly turn to inspect a carved-out sleeping area on the opposite side of the same room.
I walk a few steps over to the foot of a twin-sized Murphy bed, looking for more compartments or drawers, but the bedroom area is essentially just a bed in a corner, and there aren’t many practical places where someone could hide a key.
My search there ends quickly, and I turn my focus now to two thin doors that sit closed at the back of the cabin. The first door is of the sliding variety and looks to be a closet, but the second one is knobbed, with a silver passage-door lever which I assume opens into the cabin’s bathroom. It’s as good a place as any to search, I decide, and as I move to press down on the lever, a bumping sound penetrates the cabin wall from somewhere behind the door. I freeze for a moment and then slowly pull my hand away, and then I stand still for several beats, waiting for the sound again.
I lean my cheek gently against the door now, placing my ear just barely against the panelling, looking off to the side like a doctor listening to a heartbeat. But I can’t hear anything. I put my hand on the knob again, and this time I push the handle down, releasing the latch. The door cracks just an inch, and then I hear the screams.
They’re coming from outside.
I inhale a gasp and my throat seizes the sound halfway in. It takes me a moment to place the sounds of the screams—my first thought is that one of the white monsters will come bursting out of the bathroom—but I eventually process the source of the cries and rush back up to the top cabin.
From the cockpit, I can see them. Two crabs are surfacing in the water only a few feet away from the boat. I assume they’re the two that were atop the floating bridge and had entered the river just before I came aboard the Answered Prayer.
“Danielle!” I call instinctively.
Danielle is standing below me on the swim platform with the shotgun aimed at the water in front of the Sea Nymph, which is beginning to drift away from the yacht. It’s still close enough to jump the gap, but it won’t be for much longer.
“I’ve got them.” Danielle says, a steely conf
idence in her voice.
“You can’t have both of them,” Stella says.
“Everybody needs to get off!” I yell.
“Did you find keys?” Tom calls up to me.
“No, but we’ll figure it out. Just get—”
Danielle fires the first round into the water, but I can’t see any result of the shot other than the explosive blast of water shooting straight into the sky. I wait for the air to clear, but I still see nothing.
I look out to the bridge of crabs in the distance, to judge their reaction to the firing, but they seem unfazed.
“Where did they go?” James asks no one in particular. “I can’t see them anymore.”
I lean over the railing of the cockpit and look as deeply into the water as my eyes will allow, but I can’t see them either. It is possible, I suppose, that Danielle hit one of them with the shot—which would explain why that one is no longer visible—but she certainly didn’t hit both.
“You all need to get off,” I repeat. “If you don’t do it now you’ll have to jump in and swim. At least there are plenty of towels and clothes on board if that’s your choice.”
“Swim?” Stella questions.
“Or get off right this second. I know what my decision would be.”
Tom and Stella both heed my call and less than thirty seconds later they’re both aboard the Answered Prayer, standing beside Danielle.
As before, however, James is lingering.
“James, let’s go!” Stella calls. “What are you waiting for?”
He backs slowly from the front of the motor boat, keeping his eyes peeled for the swimmers, and then finally turns his attention to the stern and Danielle, Tom and Stella standing on the Answered Prayer. He hesitates though, noting the distance the boat has drifted from the yacht. “What? What happened?”
“Can you make it, James?” Tom asks, nodding as he does, imparting the power of suggestion.
“I don’t want to miss. It’s too far.”
“Jump in and swim then. It’s one second and then we’ll pull you out.”
“No way,” James answers, leaving little doubt about his willingness to plunge into the icy Maripo River. “I’ll just pull the boat closer.”
I consider this actually the better decision, one I’d resisted earlier for fear of the motor noise drawing more of the crabs to us.
James makes his way to sit on the stern seat and fire up the Nymph, and as he grabs the tiller of the motor, something reaches up the side of the hull and over the gunwale, grabbing his hand.
I don’t believe it at first, a trick of my eyes maybe, but now I can see that what has gripped him at the wrist is another hand, one very similar to his own, only much whiter. He tries to scream but the sound catches in his throat, and within seconds, he’s over the side of the Sea Nymph and beneath the water.
“Get him!” Stella screams.
James’ face bobs back above the surface, for just a moment, and it’s the fear in his eyes that lets me know he’s still alive. But it’s only a matter of time.
“Danielle,” I call down, my voice is calm but with urgency.
“I see him, Dominic. But if I hit James, that’s not really going to help the situation.”
I watch as Danielle adjusts her aim slightly, raising the shotgun first to her left and then to the right, up and then back down a hair, trying to calibrate every fraction of the impending shot, the anxiety that she may kill an innocent man hanging across her face.
But she can’t pull the trigger, and soon James is back down beneath the surface. Danielle lowers the gun with a huff.
“Dammit,” I whisper, and without another thought, I hop over the side of the cockpit wall and drop down, feet first, into the river. I can hear the calls to stop from Danielle and Tom as I fall—Stella, I assume, is in a state of shock—and the pleas continue as I rise to the surface, the frigid water pressing on my chest like concrete. I think again of my ill-fated reunion with Sharon and the pleas from my companions for me not to enter my home.
I begin swimming towards the spot where I last saw James, and thoughts of my own death emerge for the first time since my meeting with my wife earlier in the day.
But drowning and freezing to death are only two of the possibilities; I also consider that an attack could occur at any moment by one of the two crabs, shark-like, exploding from the depths of the river and ripping me in half at the torso. I now expect such an attack, in fact.
But then some type of primal optimism buoys me, quite literally almost, and I remain hopeful that if Danielle took out the first of the diving crabs, and if the second one is still preoccupied trying to kill James, I should have an unmolested path to him. I have no idea what my plan will be if I actually find him, but that’s a problem for future Dominic.
I break into a true swimmer’s stroke now, alternating my breaths intermittently, turning my face to the icy water for two strokes, and then back out for two more. I move steadily like this for what feels like a mile, but must be ten yards or less, and then, as I’m looking off to the side during one of my breaths, I see it, the crab bridge that had been formed so uniformly and altruistically has broken apart. And the bodies that had created it are all swimming towards me.
I’m only a few yards from the Sea Nymph now—which gives me plenty of time to arrive and be out of the water before the horde of swimming crabs arrives—but my mission isn’t to swim to the Sea Nymph, it’s to save James.
I reach the boat and stop on the far side, grabbing the top edge for a desperate moment of rest. I can feel the early effects of hypothermia setting in now, and my coat now feels like an x-ray vest, the kind they lay across you at the dentist when they check for cavities. It’s doing me more harm than good now, so I work it off me and lift it over the edge of the boat and drop it inside.
“Can you see him anywhere?” I ask breathlessly to the group, all of whom are standing on the swim platform, watching me with a mix of wonder and concern.
“Get out of there, Dominic,” Danielle says softly, shaking her head. “They’re coming.”
“Do you see him!”
“No, but he’s got to be...wait.” Stella points to the front of the Nymph, and I turn to see that one of the crabs has James by the hair and is pulling him away from the boat, swimming with him in tow back towards the bridge.
It’s a hopeless scenario for me; there is no way for me to catch up to him. “Shoot him!” I scream, not taking my eyes from the white abductor.
And with perhaps only a second’s pause following my words, I hear the blast of the shotgun behind me.
A geyser of red water erupts into the air, followed by flying bits of white, wet flesh. I blink a droplet from my eyes, considering that perhaps the bead of water has clouded my vision and the prism has created the illusion of colors. But the color comes in clear now. It’s blood. She did it. Danielle did it. She pulled off the impossible shot and saved James. At least for the moment.
The water spray and last bits of the crab’s body splatter to the surface, and I look over at Danielle with what must appear to her like love in my eyes, though the feeling I’m experiencing is closer to awe. “You got him.”
“I got one of them,” Danielle replies soberly.
But that one shot was perfect, fatal, and within seconds James has surfaced, his nose barely breaching the water line. He looks scared and tired, but by all indications, he’s okay, offering further proof of Danielle’s acumen with the weapon. If her shot had hit James anywhere on his body, from the distance he is from the boat currently, he would be on his way down to the riverbed.
I swim ploddingly towards James, a flounder’s stroke, no longer putting my face beneath the water, gasping for each breath the whole way. When I finally reach him, it takes every bit of my strength to grab him from behind, under the armpits, and pull him towards me. I make a few desperate, one-arm backstrokes towards the Sea Nymph, but I’m quickly fading.
Another blast from Danielle, and I know that one was
to keep the horde of crabs at bay.
“Are you okay?” I ask James, my voice almost inaudible with exhaustion.
James nods. “I think so.”
“Can you swim? To the yacht?”
He closes his eyes and nods again, stifling some deep emotion that, given the circumstances, would be out of place were he to release it now.
“Go then. I need you to do this, James. I can’t carry you anymore or we’ll both drown.”
I release James and give him a last gentle shove forward, and then I follow in his wake a second later, watching his progress. For the first few seconds, it looks like he’s going to give up and sink beneath the surface, but he catches his stride, and I can see a newfound hope in his stroke. He listens to my instructions and swims past the Sea Nymph and towards the cruiser.
I am almost completely spent now, freezing and tired, now in the full grip of hypothermia, and by the time I reach the Sea Nymph, I can’t swim anymore. I look up and see that James has made it to the yacht and the group is pulling him aboard the Answered Prayer. Ah, the magic of youth, I think to myself, and I crack a tiny smile.
“Come on, Dom,” I hear a female voice call, and at this point I can’t tell if it’s Danielle or Stella. It’s a sign, perhaps, that I’m beginning to lose my faculties.
I can’t swim to the yacht, I simply don’t have the strength to make another stroke, but I have to find the power, somehow, to pull myself into the Sea Nymph. Simply freezing to death without trying is unacceptable.
I grip the gunwale with both hands and bob my body down three feet or so into the water and then pop back up, lifting my torso out of the water just enough that I can flop my upper body over the side. I grip my pants with my right hand and pull my right leg up to the gunwale, catching the edge of the hull with the top of my foot, barely hooking the toe of my shoe on the inside of the hull. I’m now straddling the gunwale, my left leg still hanging over the side of the hull, and with a final scream, I pull my body up and flop my left leg over. I’m now lying flat on my back at the bottom of the boat.
They Came With The Snow Box Set {Books 1-2] Page 9
