by S.A. Bodeen
Until, with scarcely a splash, the enormous red-and-white open maw of a tiger shark came up out of the water and chomped down. The shark lifted the entire seal out of the water and shook it, like a dog does a toy, before tossing it back in the water. Both disappeared.
My mouth dropped open and my heart pounded. I couldn’t breathe.
The shark had to have been close to fifteen feet long, maybe longer.
Bloop!
The back half of the seal popped up.
I gasped, on my feet in a second.
And the shark was there again, all teeth and fury. With one bite, the rest of the seal was gone.
My hands clutched at my chest as I tried to catch my breath. One word went around and around in my head; I couldn’t even think anything else. Because it was the only word that applied to what I’d just seen.
Monster.
forty-five
Just in case of rain, I spent the next hour or so hunting for water vessels. I found another couple of broken fishing floats and rinsed them out as best as I could without stepping too far into the water. My plan was to never set foot in that water again.
The evening brought rain. At first Max and I sat there openmouthed, letting the fresh water fill our mouths. It tasted faintly of salt, but it was delicious. “Maybe the rain is my silver parachute.”
Max didn’t answer.
At least filling my belly with water made me less hungry for a bit. As the rain continued, I stuck some sticks in the sand and hefted the raft on top, creating a pathetic, but dry little shelter to lie under. Well, partly dry. Next time I would know to do it before the rain started, then it would definitely be dry.
I slept for a while and then woke up to darkness, stomach rumbling. Even if I could scrounge up fishing gear, I couldn’t fish for anything in the reef. I couldn’t risk getting ciguatera. Which didn’t leave many options.
In the morning, I was determined to find food.
The small flat field between the raft and the highest dune had obviously been where most of the gooney nests were.
“Ouch!” I’d stepped on something sharp and I looked down. An albatross chick, only a skeleton, still half feathered with silvery black down, most of the body eaten by crabs. I grabbed a stick and probed inside the ribs, what used to be the gullet, poking at a pile of red plastic. Caps from plastic bottles, fake plastic cherries, even a red toy soldier missing one arm.
I shook my head.
One of that season’s chicks whose parents had inadvertently killed it. When adult albatross fished on the surface of the ocean, they mainly feasted on squid eggs. But, with all the garbage in the ocean, this chick’s parents must have honed in on the color red, and ended up filling their chick’s belly with plastic. So it starved to death even though it thought its belly was full. It had been full, just full of the wrong stuff.
I kept looking through the nesting ground and saw a large egg. An albatross egg, white with the reddish splotch at the end. Obviously dead. Probably rotten. With my stick, I rolled it over. The bottom was cracked, and the motion split it open.
“Auuuuggghhh!” I covered my nose with my arm, and went running, until I was far enough upwind to not smell it anymore. “Yuck.” I shuddered.
I kept moving on my quest. Several sooty terns ran along the ground, chortling at me. They nested on the ground, and I kept my eyes peeled for their speckled little eggs. I found one and squatted beside it. The mother came running along and stood a few feet away.
I was hungry.
The mother looked at her egg, then at me.
My stomach lurched into dry heaves.
I left the egg and the mother and went on my way, finally catching my breath.
As I neared the beach where I’d found the mother seal, I heard barking. The baby. I jogged to the top of the dune and knelt.
The baby seal was there, nosing at a sea cucumber.
Before I saw one, I always thought sea cucumbers were like real cucumbers, some kind of vegetable of the sea. But they were marine creatures, and this one was very dark, close to a foot long, and looked like a big slug. When they felt threatened, their defense was to shoot out strands of sticky stuff, like Silly String. Apparently, this one felt threatened, because the poor seal had tendrils of light greenish goop all over its face and whiskers.
I smiled. Although they were no gourmet feast for a seal, sea cucumbers were plentiful and easy to catch. More than one baby seal has feasted on them before they got good at fishing.
“Way to go, Starbuck.”
Where did that come from?
For some reason the name just popped out. Maybe too much Battlestar Galactica in Honolulu. And a vision of my daily coffee fix. I tried not to think about a latte, whipped cream, caramel.
Maybe I just felt the need to name the seal, make it a companion. And sure, Starbuck was a girl on the TV show, and maybe the baby wasn’t. I didn’t know. The name just fit.
Starbuck shook her head as she chewed, probably not very happy with all the sticky stuff. As she gnawed, more goop oozed out her mouth and stuck to her snout. She kept working at that sea cucumber until it was gone.
I had a good feeling. She was going to make it.
forty-six
By the time the third morning on the island came around, at least I think it was the third, I had developed a routine. I woke on the beach, opening my eye to see if anything was different.
My left eye was still swollen shut. Useless.
My nose still hurt so bad I couldn’t even sniffle without my eyes tearing up.
My lips were cracked and stung from even the smallest twitch.
I was hungrier than when I’d gone to sleep.
My filthy Bermuda shorts threatened to fall down whenever I stood up, my formerly white camisole was now practically black with dirt and sand and blood, and I was pretty sure my underwear could go for a walk on their own.
Nope, nothing much different with me.
Or with Max, who now slept almost all of the time.
Or with the island.
Shades of the island didn’t change.
The sky’s bright unbroken blue.
The water’s ever-rippling greenish turquoise.
The sand’s long stretches of white, interrupted here and there by green plant life and the varied colors of marine debris that floated up every day.
The color scheme had become such an unchanging constant that when I noticed the bright yellow spot in the water, my breath caught in my throat.
I stared, squinted out of my good eye.
The bright yellow was a survival suit, there in the water, just floating.
I stood, watching it get closer until I could see it better. Yellow on top, with a black bottom and attached boots; it looked in good condition.
But the suit wasn’t flat.
Was there some sort of compressor inside? Filling it with air? They were no good if they got punctured, I’d read that somewhere, so maybe there was an extra bladder thing inside, keeping it afloat.
My heart pounded, but I didn’t want to admit what I was thinking.
Hoping.
Sometimes those suits had emergency beacons. Maybe this one did. And maybe I could activate it and wait for someone to track it to the island. To me.
I watched it for a bit, but it didn’t seem to get any closer to the beach. Despite not wanting to, I entered the water. Wading out to get closer, so I could grab the suit, I hesitated for a moment. The water came up to my ankles, then to my shins.
Almost there.
I grabbed one of the black boots and pulled.
“Oh, God.”
The suit wasn’t empty. I was holding a foot. Which meant—
A wave came then, pushing the weight of the suit at me, and I screamed, trying to shove it away. The suit was full, full of a dead person, full of what was left of whoever that person was. And that person was too heavy for me to push off.
Trying to get away, I stumbled in the water and lost my footing. An
other wave pushed the suit, the body, onto me and I was face-to-face with the eyeless, half-eaten face of a corpse.
Screaming, I shoved, but with the combined action of the wave and the weight of the body, my face ended up pressed against the chest of the suit. Using every ounce of strength I had, I whipped myself around and screamed at a sudden pain in my nose.
Finally, I crawled up onto the beach and cradled my face in my hands, trying to feel the damage. Blood dripped on the sand. The diamond was gone, had gotten caught in something on the suit—maybe the zipper—and ripped out, splitting that side of my nose.
I fell on my side, back to the water, arms wrapped tight around my legs, shuddering and crying.
When I’d finally stopped, I rolled over to face the water.
The survival suit … the body … was still there in the shallows, the waves pushing it onto the beach, but never far enough to stay for long. Eventually, the motion of the waves pulled it back, moving it away from me.
I stood up.
Max spoke to me then. He hadn’t spoken in a long time.
For days, it seemed.
He said, “You need that suit. You need that beacon.”
I shook my head. “No.” I sniffled, which hurt like hell. “I’m not going back out there!” My voice had lost any semblance of calm, and everything that came out of my mouth was high-pitched and childlike and uncontrolled. “I’m not.”
He kept telling me to go, go get the suit. If I stood any chance of getting it, I would have to go in the next minute or two. Get back in that water.
Max didn’t leave me alone. “Get in there and get it. You have to.”
“No!” I screamed. “No, I don’t!” I flung myself onto the wet sand and lay there.
I didn’t have to do anything.
I just had to lie there. Lie there and bleed to death.
Lie there and die.
I didn’t care. I didn’t have to do anything.
I didn’t.
forty-seven
My left cheek lay on the cool, wet sand. With my good eye, I watched the yellow suit.
There might not even be a beacon on the suit.
If there is, someone would have found it by now.
Or the thing is broken.
I gave myself more excuses to not go in that water.
And Max said, “You have to.”
Closing my eye, I said, “Shut up.” And I couldn’t stop. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
And then I sat up and screamed, screamed until my head hurt and I had almost no voice left. And then I stood up, turned toward Max, and used what voice I had left to say what I hadn’t been able to.
“You’re not real! You’re dead! You were dead when I shoved you out of the raft.” I was panting and had to pause to catch my breath. “I made you up because I couldn’t stand to think about what I’d done to save myself.” I pointed at him. “I brought you back so I wouldn’t have to be alone…”
Hearing the truth out loud made me gasp and cover my mouth.
The admission that I was just talking to myself, had been since the second day on the raft, was too much to take. I dropped to my knees, curling my body up and covering my ears with my hands. I didn’t want to hear whatever else I might say out loud. Saying it out loud made it true. And truth was brutal.
The real Max hadn’t said a word since the first night. Since he saved my life, twice, and I was ungrateful and yelled at him. He hadn’t said anything since I’d asked him if there was anything worse and he said, “Yes.”
Yes.
That was the last word he ever said because he never woke up.
“He never woke up.”
I shook my head.
“Shut up.”
The rest was all my imagination. Every conversation. It was just me.
I rocked back and forth. “Shut up.”
It was all me trying to stay sane.
First I shoved his body overboard to save my own life. Then I used him, the memory of him, what little I knew of him, to stay alive.
And when I couldn’t do it anymore, when I needed something from him, when I needed him to talk to me, I read his journal. I read his journal and pretended it was him talking to me, telling me his story. And I didn’t even know how it ended, would never know, because I’d lost the ditty bag when I came over the reef.
Max probably never even knew my name. He died in the raft with a strange, selfish girl who shoved his body overboard to save herself.
And the truth was I only had myself. The entire time I only had myself.
And where had it gotten me?
I was a starving, thirsty, bleeding mess with one good eye.
There was no one to make me go in that water except myself. And I was too much of a coward. Not brave enough to save myself.
Not brave enough.
Or was I?
forty-eight
Tears blurred my vision and I sobbed so hard my stomach hurt. I wiped my eyes, wincing at the pain when I touched my left one. I sat up.
The yellow suit was still out there, about fifty yards offshore.
I took a deep breath, which came out a racking shudder.
Getting to my feet, I waded into the water, leading with my right side so I could see. I kept going. To my ankles, then my shins, my knees, and my waist. The suit was still a ways off. I looked down at the water.
A drop of blood fell from my nose, just a momentary dark spot in the water before it dispersed and disappeared. Another did the same before I pulled up my shirt and held it to my nose.
With a tentative step, then pause … step, then pause … I kept going.
By the time the water reached my chest, I was almost to the suit.
I sensed something to my left and had to turn my whole head to see that side.
Nothing.
But the word popped into my head.
Monster.
“Stop it.”
Keeping time with my quick, shallow breaths, my heart pulsed in my ears.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh.
The suit was a mere step away.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh.
But the water was a little cloudy out there. I couldn’t tell, for sure, if the depth was the same. But I only had to move a little bit, not even a whole step.
I clenched my fists.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh.
The suit could mean rescue. Salvation. Getting off this stupid island.
I went for it.
The bottom dropped out, and I sank, kicking until I came up sputtering. Lashing out, I hit the suit with a hand. Jerking back at first, I realized it would keep me up. With a hand, I grabbed ahold, and the buoyancy helped me right myself. I took a firmer grip of the arm, trying not to think about what I was holding, and starting kicking for shore.
Again, I sensed something, but this time it was my right side.
Nothing.
Again, the word popped into my head.
Monster.
The waves helped my progress until I was able to touch the bottom and walk again, and I breathed a sigh of relief when the water was finally just a bit above my waist.
“Almost there.”
With one hand I dragged the suit behind me as I walked, fighting the waves.
Then suddenly, I was tugged backward and lost my hold on the suit. I turned my back to the shore to grab it again, but the suit was gone. Nowhere in sight.
I froze and stopped breathing.
Bloop!
About five yards away, farther out from the shore, a black boot from the suit popped up. The top of it spun toward me, revealing torn flesh and white pointy shards of bone.
Adrenaline exploded, and the resulting heat flushed through my body as my banging heart felt like it would erupt out my ears.
A dark shadow appeared underwater. The tiger shark surfaced and took the boot in one gulp.
And I couldn’t think for the sound, the sound that wouldn’t stop. The sound hurt, hurt my ears and my head and my brain.
Screaming.
The sound was me and I couldn’t stop it.
Move! Max. Max was telling me to move.
No, there was no Max. Not anymore. It was just me. Me telling myself to move.
Robie, you have to move. But I couldn’t.
And then I turned toward shore. Max stood at the water’s edge, frantically beckoning to me.
Robie, if you don’t move, you will die.
And I did. Move that is, not die. But any moment—
Monster …
And I was running …
Grab me …
splashing …
Bite me …
crawling …
Pull me back in …
scrambling …
Chomp me in half like the seal …
My screams, though becoming ragged, were still so loud they nearly drowned out the heartbeat pounding in my ears.
On the beach, Max still beckoned to me as I clawed my way through the water and didn’t stop fighting. Or screaming.
Not even when I reached the sand, dragged myself up away from the water, and collapsed in a shivering heap at his feet.
Pushing myself up, I looked back at the water.
The shark was still there, a dark shadow circling where the suit had been. Looking for more of a meal.
“You monster!” I yelled. “Monster!” My words were choking sobs. “You can’t have me! You can’t have me…”
And the shadow came closer to shore, so much closer than I ever imagined a shark of that size could come.
Was anywhere safe?
I screamed again, but the scream morphed into a wail and then faded to weak whimpers as I dropped back down and curled myself up in a ball, a wet and shaking ball, as I rocked back and forth.
Max wasn’t real. He had never woken up. And I had pushed him off the raft.
I wished I hadn’t admitted that to myself. Because I needed him then. I needed him. I couldn’t do it alone.
So I brought him back.
“I’m here,” he said. He sat beside me and took my head in his lap.
I just needed a few moments of comfort.
Just a few moments.
