by Shay Savage
“A liter a day will keep you healthy,” I told her. “You can survive on a lot less.”
I looked over to her and took in her tiny frame.
“You’re going to stick with a full liter as long as we can afford it.”
“Why?”
“You’re too small,” I said, shaking my head, but I felt the corner of my mouth turn up a little because something about how much smaller she was than me was just…interesting, I guess. “You’ll dehydrate a lot faster.”
“Is there enough?” she asked.
“For now, yes.”
“If it doesn’t rain again?”
“There are other options.”
She sat looking at her hands in her lap and biting down on her lip.
“You mean like…drinking urine, right?”
I tried to keep myself from laughing out loud, but a bit of a snicker escaped me.
“Only in movies, babe,” I said, shaking my head again. “Urine is about as salty as sea water, and a lot more gross.”
Raine smiled and nodded.
“I’m rather glad to hear that,” she said. “What do we do if we run out of fresh water then?”
“Long before we run out, the first thing that will happen you will stop eating, whether there is food or not. Digestion takes a lot of water, especially to digest proteins. You can have carbs a little longer.”
“Just me? You won’t stop eating?”
“I already stopped eating,” I said, “but I’ve been through a little starvation before. I’m not too concerned about that.”
“You should eat while we have food, shouldn’t you?”
I shook my head.
“Maybe in a couple of days,” I said. “I won’t drink any more today, either, because I’m probably going to be really sick. The less I take in now, the less I’m gonna lose tomorrow.”
“Why will you be sick?”
I fought the urge to tell her to use her fucking brain. I mean, I had told her, hadn’t I? I’d been thinking about it but not talking about it. Just because I told her I was an alcoholic didn’t mean she understood what that really meant. I took a deep breath and tried to control my voice.
“Because I’m a fucking alcoholic,” I said through clenched teeth. “By tomorrow morning all the alcohol will be out of my system, and my body is going to be seriously pissed off about it.”
I held my arm out straight in front of me so my hand was just a foot away from her face. My fingers bobbed up and down uncontrollably.
“I’ve already started getting the shakes, and I’m probably going to start throwing up continually by noon tomorrow. I might start hallucinating, and if that happens, I know I won’t be of any use to you. That’s why you need to remember all this shit because I may be out of it for a day or two. You can’t drink too much or too little water. You have to eat half a carb bar every six hours, and you have to watch for other ships or boats or anything else to come by.”
Raine looked from my shaking hand to my eyes – I felt my heart skip a beat – and then back down to my hand again. Her brow wrinkled up in thought, and she gnawed on her bottom lip again.
“You better tell me everything I need to know pretty quickly then,” she said. “I’ll probably want to go over it a couple of times, and it’s probably good to do that while you still can.”
I nodded, seeing the sudden determination in her eyes. It was good to see her losing some of the panic she was feeling before. Of course, that may have had a lot to do with me being a dick as well. We went over the survival guide, and I continued on with the shit she really needed to know, like how to set off the flares and how to use the signal mirror. We talked about keeping dry as much as possible and above all, saving energy.
“The more you move around or get worked up about shit, the more energy you use,” I explained. “You have to conserve energy because energy uses water and dehydration is what is going to kill you.”
“Okay,” Raine said. “I get it. You’ve said that ten times now.”
“Well, then you shouldn’t fucking forget it, should you?” I snarled, and she flinched, her eyes darkening at me. I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my hair. “All right, what do you still have questions about?”
“What if we run out of fresh water?”
“That won’t happen before I’m back to my shitty self,” I said. “Really, you can actually drink a small amount of seawater without it making you sick, but only do that if there isn’t any fresh at all because it isn’t going to help much, either. There are some other ways to get fresh water if it doesn’t rain. It won’t be much, but it will keep you alive. That won’t be for a week or so, though. In general, hope for rain and always be prepared to collect it when it comes.”
“How do you know so much about surviving like this?” Raine asked. “I mean, did you just learn it as part of getting a boa…er…a ship?”
“No, I learned it before that.”
“Were you a boy scout?”
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that one.
“No, definitely fucking not.”
“May I ask how you learned?”
I glanced over at her and met her eyes. I knew what she was doing – asking me if she could ask instead of just asking the actual question. She was giving me the easy out. I looked away from her and down at my hands. The shaking was worse. I couldn’t hold them steady at all. I wondered how long DTs usually lasted. I’d never made it very far in the past – it was just so much easier to take a drink instead.
“Someone taught me,” I said. “He was a retired Navy SEAL, and he taught me just about everything I know.”
“What was his name?”
“Landon,” I answered.
“Will you tell me about him?”
Did I want to talk about Landon? Good question. The answer wasn’t so straightforward. In a word, no – I didn’t want to talk about him. However, I probably could talk about him without saying all that much, and maybe Raine would be appeased.
“He was…kind of like a father to me, I guess,” I finally said. “I never had a father, so I think that’s what they’re supposed to be like. I looked up to him, anyway.”
“I can’t imagine you looking up to anyone,” she said and smiled a little. “You’re so tall, I mean.”
“I’m not that tall,” I responded. “It’s just that you are just a couple inches away from being a midget.”
“I am not!” she cried with mock indignity. I smiled a little.
“Landon thought it was important to be able to handle any kind of…situation.”
“Like surviving at sea?”
“At sea, in the desert, in the jungle, in a cave, downtown Manhattan – whatever.”
She giggled again.
Holy shit. What was it about that sound that got me so worked up? I took a deep breath and said a mental “down boy” prayer to my crotch.
“Is he…still alive?” she asked.
“As far as I know,” I said. We were approaching dangerous territory faster than I would have liked. “I haven’t talked to him in a while.”
“I lost my father a few years ago,” Raine said.
I had expected as much. I tilted my head in what I hoped came off as a sympathetic gesture. I debated asking her what happened to him, but I really didn’t want to get into such depth of conversation – not with her or anyone else. Too much talking about oneself was dangerous. I kind of liked listening to her talk, though. About the time I decided to go ahead and ask her, she opened up her mouth and told me anyway.
“He was a police officer,” she said quietly. “He died in the line of duty.”
Great.
I wasn’t sure if it was irony, karma, Murphy’s Law, or fucking feng shui, but it just figured her dad had been a cop.
“I was still in high school when it happened,” she continued. “And all that was kind of a nightmare, really, so I got my GED, got emancipated, and spent a couple years in college. I couldn’t really cope and
dropped out last spring. I’m planning to start again in the fall, though. My friend Lindsay convinced me to take this cruise so I could relax and have a good time before I start my life over again.”
Raine issued a short, humorless laugh.
“Relaxing, huh?”
“I’ll let you know when the spa opens,” I said. I meant it as a joke and hoped it didn’t come out too harsh. “You picked the wrong vacation.”
“I would say so, yes,” Raine agreed, “but it could be worse.”
“How the fuck could it be worse?” I snorted.
“Well, at least you found me,” she said, shrugging. “I could have drowned, or I could have ended up on a raft by myself and not know what to do. If I have to be on a life raft out in the middle of nowhere, I have the feeling you are the person to be with.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, trying to think about exactly what she was saying. I knew she just meant I had essential survival skills, but she just sounded so grateful. I don’t think anyone ever really talked to me – or about me – in that particular tone before.
“Yeah, if you were really unlucky, you would have ended up with John Paul.”
“I thought John Paul was sweet.”
“You talked to him?” Stupid question. Of course she had talked to him; he was practically a one-man cruise director. He talked to everyone.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “Alejandro was making waffles for breakfast, and John Paul told me to have it with blueberries instead of strawberries. He said Alejandro bought the strawberries super cheap and they were absolutely nasty.”
She giggled again. Damn.
“The blueberries were really good.” Raine smiled, looked straight into my eyes with her dark brown lashes half obscuring her irises, and giggled again.
Holy shit. I had to stop breathing for a second. She said something else, but I totally missed it.
“What?”
“I said, did you have the waffles with blueberries, too?”
“No.” I shook my head, “not my kind of breakfast.”
“What is your kind of breakfast?”
“Coffee with Kahlua and a half pack of cigarettes.”
“Seriously?”
“Only thing that keeps me awake.”
“What about lunch?”
“Oh, I usually eat lunch,” I said. “Whatever Alejandro brought to the pilothouse I would eat. I’m not too picky about food, as long as it isn’t crappy food.”
“What’s crappy food?” she asked.
“You know – like chips and red meat and candy and shit. I never eat that stuff.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not good for you.”
She laughed out loud, which was almost as cute as the giggling, but not quite.
“You drink and smoke breakfast, but you won’t eat a candy bar?”
“Yep.”
“Does that really make sense to you?”
“Yep.”
“Do you think you could explain it?” she asked, tossing a handful of hair over her shoulder. “Because I think that sounds absolutely ridiculous.”
“It isn’t fucking ridiculous,” I growled, glaring at her. “Alcohol gets processed by your liver and doesn’t affect muscle mass. Chips and other shit like that are wasted calories in fat which slows you the fuck down. Red meat is too hard to digest, has too much protein and too much fat.”
“What about the candy?”
“It rots your teeth.”
Raine smiled with one eyebrow arched towards me but didn’t laugh again.
“Change the fucking subject,” I warned. “Otherwise I’m going to start being a dick.”
She smiled without the cocked eyebrow and nodded.
Raine asked me about living on the ship and talked about a lot of trivial shit like people she knew in high school and movies she had seen over the winter. She talked a lot about her friend Lindsay, the one who had talked her into a cruise. I just sat and listened and felt my stomach start to churn and my hands start to shake more. I wished to God I had a fucking coffee with Kahlua right at that moment.
If you can’t change it, don’t fucking think about it. It’s nothing but a waste of time. Focus on the things you can do.
Yeah, well, there weren’t a whole lot of things I could do right at the moment. Sorry, Landon.
It was starting to get dark again, so I demonstrated setting off the flare in actuality instead of just in theory. I spent a few minutes looking over the horizon again, hoping to see the lights of some ship out there, but there was still nothing visible.
I was really tired and starting to feel a little sick to my stomach. I was pretty certain it wasn’t from the rocking motion. I skipped the nighttime “meal” and stretched out on the floor of the raft, leaving the blanket-towels to Raine if she wanted them. She spread one of them out on the other side of the raft and then tried to give the second one to me. I shook my head and waved her away.
“I don’t need it,” I said. “It might get a little cold after a while though. Keep it.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s what I fucking said, wasn’t it?” Damnit. I really needed to stop doing that, but I hadn’t operated with a verbal filter for a long, long time.
Raine glared long swords at me but refrained from doing anything violent.
As the sun set completely and enclosed us in pitch blackness, I closed my eyes and listened to her breathing slow down, but never regulate enough to indicate sleep. I couldn’t manage to drop off, because of all things, I was feeling fucking guilty about what I had said to her before. I wasn’t going to apologize because…well…because I just didn’t do that. Probably because I had to be a dick to keep people from cozying up to me, and I definitely didn’t like to ever admit I’d been wrong. Regardless, I felt like I ought to say something.
“Raine?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks for…um…stitching up my head and shit.”
“You’re welcome, Daniel.”
I guess I really didn’t need to be a complete dick after all.
Chapter 4 – Pain
My gut hurt.
I didn't bother trying to open my eyes - my head hurt bad enough with them closed. Along with my head and my gut, my chest, back, arms, legs and pretty much everywhere else hurt, too.
Oh – and everything was shaking. I couldn’t even tell if I was hot or cold because I was shaking so much I couldn’t really feel my skin. The shaking was in the way. It didn’t make any sense to me, either.
I was certain if I moved I was going to puke. I was reasonably sure if I did not move I was also going to puke. The only real question was whether or not I could make it to the raft entrance and get it opened before whatever was in my stomach decided to come out.
I moved as quickly as my shaking limbs would allow. Thankfully, even with the shaking, I did get the damn thing open and the flap pulled back. The heated sea wind hit my face, and the fresh air calmed my stomach for about thirty seconds.
Those thirty seconds were followed by the most violent vomiting I had ever experienced.
I rocked back and forth on my knees, heaving what little had been in my stomach into the sea. After a dozen retches I was only dry-heaving, which I always thought was worse than actual puking. It wouldn’t stop, and my stomach muscles were aching even more.
My hands were shaking so bad, I was having a hard time just keeping myself perched on the edge of the raft without just tossing myself overboard. I could feel my heart beating so hard in my chest, I wouldn’t have been totally shocked to see it come bursting right out of my skin. Sweat began to pour down the back of my neck, which just had to fucking stop because I was going to get dehydrated enough as it was. I gripped the hem of my shirt and pulled it off.
“Daniel?”
I felt a soft hand touch the top of my shoulder, and I immediately pulled away from the sensation.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” I screamed, not even knowing why. At the very least, I was
already hypersensitive all over. Even the feeling of my knees against the bottom of the raft was pissing me off. The last thing I needed was her hands on me, trying to give me some kind of fucking comfort.
I would have yelled a few other choice words at her, but my body starting heaving again instead. It felt like it went on forever, but eventually it stopped long enough for me to drop down to my side and curl up in a ball for a while. My head began throbbing again, and my heart was still beating rapidly.
I was using up a lot of energy which I really couldn’t afford. There was nothing I could do to stop it unless there was a distiller in the survival kit. I’d have to make sure to add one of those for next time. I had a brief image of John Paul right after we bought the lifeboats for The Oblation. He packed a bottle of rum in with the rations. If I had gotten to one of the fucking lifeboats, I’d have some goddamn alcohol.
“Holy fucking shit!” I yelled out, beating my hand against the flexible side of the raft, which was wholly unsatisfying. I kept cursing and ignoring whatever the fuck Raine was trying to say to me. I was yelling too loud to actually hear her over myself. I felt her fingers against my arm again, and I shoved her.
“I told you not to fucking touch me! How fucking stupid are you that you can’t follow the most basic instructions?”
I heard a sharp intake of breath and didn’t care how fucking shocked she might have been.
“Should have fucking let you drown!”
My hands covered my face, and I tried to rub my fingers into my eyes. They itched. Actually, my whole face itched, and I scratched at the thickening beard on my cheeks. My ears itched, too. So did my arms. My hands were all sweaty, and when I tried to scratch at my arms, the sweat clung to my skin and just made me itch more.
“Daniel, stop,” I heard Raine say. Something was wrong with her voice – she sounded strange. I felt her hand on top of mine as she tried to pry my fingers off of my skin. I shoved her away. “You’re going to make yourself bleed.”
“I’ve bled before,” I barked. “What fucking difference does it make?”
I looked down at my arms and saw the long red streaks I had made on them with my fingernails. Shit. I couldn’t think about it for too long, though, because I was suddenly retching over the side again, bile burning up my throat.
