by William Oday
Emily had more strength and coordination than most people and she still found herself barely hanging on. Every time she got her feet under her, the deck shifted and sent her sprawling.
Another wave hit and this one tore her grip loose from the rail. She flew through the air, a trip cut short as the crewman wrapped her in an iron embrace. He spun them around and rode the bucking deck toward the door.
After a shifting path that more resembled a sidewinder slithering across sand than people walking on two legs, they made it to the door.
The crewman wrenched it open and shoved her inside. She grabbed the rail on the wall and held on for dear life.
He lifted a foot to follow and the boat lurched to the side.
It wasn’t like the sickening roll of a big wave. It was like hitting a giant rock.
The impact flung the crewman away from the door. He hit the deck on his back and the look on his face said it wasn’t a soft landing. He sat up, reaching a hand toward her.
And then a river of water swept over him. It slammed the door shut. The boat tilted again and the door swung back open.
The torrent of water seeped away, revealing the deck but not the man.
“Man overboard!” Emily shouted as loud as she could.
The captain appeared in the narrow corridor that led to the cockpit.
“Man overboard!” Emily shouted again. “He was just there and then a wave took him away!”
“Get your suit on! Now!” He grabbed Emily’s jacket by the collar and shoved her backward toward the sleeping quarters.
She stumbled forward and watched in horror as he lunged outside as much under his own control as under the ocean’s.
14
A few minutes later and Emily had the survival suit on with the kukri knife sheathed and secured to her hip. She tied the emergency light Marco had given her to the suit and verified that the chest pocket had a mini survival kit, but didn’t have time to check what was inside.
She swallowed hard to keep the rising bile in her throat from reaching escape velocity. Fighting to get into the suit in the tight confines of the crew’s quarters had her dizzy and nauseous. She needed to see the horizon and breathe some air not reeking of diesel fuel.
She lurched through the corridor toward the cockpit. The surface of the wall under her palm vibrated and shook. The deep thunder of the engines roared to life.
“Yes!” she shouted.
She made it to the small space with the aft door and found Erik stumbling in from the cockpit. “Captain said if any more cargo enters the bridge, he’ll personally tie an anchor around their waist and throw them overboard.”
Emily almost laughed. She would’ve but feeling like she was going to barf at any second put a real damper on her good humor. “What are we supposed to do then?”
Erik shrugged. “Hold tight.”
They were both already doing that.
Each stood holding onto a rail as waves pitched the boat back and forth.
The shrieking wind outside the door sounded alive and evil. Like it wanted them dead. Like it wanted nothing more.
Emily swallowed hard again as a wave of queasiness swept over her.
The engines thundered underfoot and the boat spun to the right.
Emily pinwheeled around and slammed her shoulder into the wall.
Something on the deck outside crashed and ended with the long screech of tearing metal.
A crewman appeared a few seconds later carrying a huge crowbar. He wore the same kind of yellow survival suit that each of them had on. He looked at both of them, sizing them up. “I need your help outside! One of the cranes snapped and is hanging over the side.”
An enormous gong sound battered the air.
“It’s smashing into the boat. A few more of those and it’ll bash through the hull. That happens and we’ll go down in seconds!”
Emily nodded to affirm she was ready. To do what exactly, she had no idea. And whether she’d end up being more of a help or a hindrance was equally uncertain.
The crewman threw the door open and led the way outside. Emily followed him through and looked back.
Erik stood frozen at the threshold. The eyes behind his glasses were wide with fear.
“Stay inside,” Emily yelled over the wind. “You don’t have to do this!”
A muffled shout and she turned to see the crewman with the crowbar wedged under a thick bar that had torn free of the deck and was stuck under another section of bent metal.
He waved her over and shouted again.
She turned back to Erik as he stepped outside. The droplets flying through the air coated his lenses and she wondered how he could possible see anything.
“He needs help. Let’s go!” he said.
They hurried forward and somehow made it to the crewman.
BONG!
The crane hanging over the side slammed into the ship. It hung from a thick cable like a wrecking ball.
All three grabbed a section of the crow bar and pulled upward.
The tendons in Emily’s shoulder popped with the strain. She gritted her teeth and screamed, fighting to give everything and more.
A wave rolled under the ship, but the tension between the crowbar and deck kept all three locked in place.
The metal pole shifted. An inch at first.
And then it broke free.
The bar swung up and out catching the crewman in the chest. It hit like a catapult.
The crewman’s yellow covered limbs dragged behind on each side of the pole as it swept him in an arc and then flung him through the air.
He helplessly clawed at nothing as he sailed overboard and disappeared into an oncoming wave.
Emily screamed but the wind swallowed the sound.
The cable holding the dangling crane snapped and it plunged into the frothing water.
The cable whipped through the air with a hiss and lassoed around Erik’s middle.
Emily watched in horror as the end of the cable continued around and caught underneath a large metal storage crate.
Erik’s eyes bulged as the loop tightened, crinkling the material of the survival suit.
The crate creaked and shifted as a huge wave rolled under the boat.
The cable constricted further, shattering his ribs with sickening hollow cracks.
Another wave hit and the ship leaned over hard on its side.
The crate broke free and slid across the deck.
The loop jerked tight and cut through Erik’s torso like a garrote wire. It sliced through his spine and snapped away.
Blood fountained through the air, covering Emily’s face and suit.
The two halves of what used to be a man dropped onto the deck and tumbled away as the ship rolled back the other way.
The deck fell away under Emily’s feet as a wall of water above rushed down to crush her.
Ice stabbed into her lungs as the saltwater blasted down her throat. A wave sucked her overboard as she saw the ship’s spinning props cutting through a ripping rain.
A black wave rose up, impossibly high. A curled hand of death that promised oblivion.
Emily stared up with something like grim fascination.
This was her end.
It wasn’t the one she’d imagined.
Not when she left her grandmother in Oakland to have a chance to win a million dollars.
Life didn’t always go according to plan.
She knew that better than most.
But this was something else altogether.
She squinted up at the monster cutting across the gray sky.
The peak broke and the avalanche of water crashed down.
The impact drove her and the nearby ship down into darkness.
15
The current spun her head over heels through shades of black and gray. Water shot up her nose and down her throat, choking her as she tried to cough it out. The spinning slowed and she oriented herself to the direction that looked lighter than the surrounding wat
er.
The surface.
She hoped.
She kicked her feet and felt the water slide by as she moved upward.
Hopefully upward.
Wracking spasms shook her middle as she spewed out salt water. The coughs subsided and the salt water was replaced by a growing ache.
A burning need for a breath of air.
She kicked harder, but suddenly felt the water sliding by in the wrong direction.
The gray twilight above drifted away.
Something was sucking her lower!
She glanced down and saw a darker shadow below.
The sinking boat.
And it was dragging her down.
The ache in her lungs ignited into a burn. Like a lit match.
She kicked with all she had left. The feeling of sliding through the water stopped, but didn’t switch directions.
The awkward suit made swimming twice as hard and she desperately needed a breath of air.
Energy drained from her legs like a battery with a hole in the side.
And then she broke free of the descending column of water.
The gray above drew closer. Her lungs fought to breathe but she clamped her jaws shut to avoid filling her lungs with water.
As darkness crept in around the edges of her vision, she broke through the roiling surface and sucked in a breath.
Half air and half water had her choking and sputtering again. She sucked in a few more breaths until she felt inside her body again.
And that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
Even inside the survival suit with layers of clothes and thermals below that, the cold water bit at her skin like needles. It numbed her exposed cheeks and made her teeth chatter like a baby’s rattle.
A wave lifted her up like a high-speed elevator. It rose impossibly high and then reversed course just as quickly. She plummeted like an elevator with the cable cut.
Her stomach jumped up into her throat and she screamed as she fell. She spun in a circle, squinting through the stinging rain pelting her face.
The ship was gone.
All that surrounded her were churning waves and whitewater tinted gray in the dim morning light.
Alone.
And she’d thought being left alone on the island was the most remote feeling anyone could possibly ever have.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
This was remote.
This was alone.
There was no help coming.
And there was no chance she could save herself.
This wasn’t a puzzle to be solved like constructing a shelter out of the available natural resources.
This wasn’t a challenge like grinding through another afternoon of foraging for food when you hadn’t eaten more than a few mouthfuls of calories for days.
No. That was hard.
This was impossible.
This was hell.
And it served no other purpose than to remind her how insignificant and powerless she was. And that her death would be meaningless and forgotten and even then only granted after sufficient suffering.
Emily fought to stay above the choppy surface while also trying to stay facing away from the driving rain.
But the instant she spun around to put the rain to her back, the direction shifted and a new onslaught slammed into her face, blinding and choking until she could again shift a few degrees away and find temporary respite.
A part of her wanted to let go.
To surrender.
It would be over faster that way.
But a harder, deeper part raged against the inevitable end.
A glowing coal at the center of her soul smoldered ever hotter the closer it got to being snuffed out.
She couldn’t quit.
Not even if she wanted to.
There was a raging beast in the depths of her core that wouldn’t go quietly. Its teeth gnashed and its claws slashed and it would not die without a fight.
Emily welcomed that fury. It burned through her veins, spreading warmth and comfort.
The shrieking wind yanked her hood back and slapped at her ears. The darkness inside her roared a challenge in return.
Another wave drove her up into the heavens. She clawed at the water, tearing at the beast that ignored her like a gnat battering a mountain.
An instant later, it pulled her down with equal disregard.
She hit the bottom of the valley and kicked hard to keep from getting sucked under.
A darker shadow passed through the depths below.
Something massive.
The ship still on its way down?
The light shifted and shadow bled into the surrounding darkness.
Had she imagined it?
A growing roar behind her pierced through the maelstrom of sound and motion.
She spun around as something hit her like a speeding truck.
It dragged her through the water as she struggled to stay afloat.
After it slowed and her vision cleared, she realized she was still clinging to it.
A fragment of floating timber from the destroyed boat.
She wrapped her arms around it and hung on.
This was it. Her final move in a game where mother nature made the rules and then changed them whenever she wanted.
Emily went where it went.
When it went down, so would she.
16
BOB slipped into his coat and buttoned it all the way up. It must’ve been around noon, but the weather looked miserable and cold outside the window. It was the first time he’d been up and around for more than a few minutes since his episode.
Episode.
That was the euphemism he’d started to call slashing his veins open and hoping to die.
His suicide attempt.
His episode.
What else would an old washed-out Hollywood veteran call it?
Bob drank the last few gulps out of his water bottle, capped it, and stashed it in the jacket pocket. Good to have handy in case he ran across a place to fill up. The water at the taps still worked, but he expected it to cut off any second.
He stretched his back to work out the kinks.
No, that wasn’t right.
He was officially sixty years old and more than forty of those were hard living. The kinks were there to stay.
He continued rolling his shoulders.
The last couple of days lying in bed doing nothing had added a few more kinks. As he moved, the muscles started to warm up and the aches fade.
The kinks never went away completely, but they could be convinced to soften and relax for a time.
“What are you doing?”
Bob spun around and saw Rome standing in the hallway outside his bedroom. He wore black sneakers, black pants, a black sweatshirt and his favorite cap. It wasn’t a cap Bob would wear without someone pointing a gun at his head, but he could appreciate the curvy chick with the tattered clothes.
Bob’s eyes fell to the green military duffle bag hanging from Rome’s right hand.
“What’s that?”
Rome’s upper lip curled into a snarl. “None of your business is what it is!”
Bob shook his head. “Okay. You’re right. It’s just that if you’re thinking about going into town carrying that, well…”
Rome tilted his head, waiting for the rest. “Well, what?”
“Well, that’s pretty conspicuous. Don’t you think? I mean, you’re wearing all black and that bag screams I’m full of drugs or twenty dollar bills!”
“I don’t remember asking your opinion.”
“Are you going to drive your mom’s car?”
“The Pinto Bean?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t find the stupid key. And even if I could, it wouldn’t be a good idea. You probably haven’t noticed since all you’ve been doing is laying around on my couch, but things aren’t the same out there. A car driv
ing around is going to attract a lot of attention.”
“More than wearing all black and carrying a large duffle bag?”
“Shut up already,” he said as he stomped toward the door.
Bob unlocked and opened it.
Rome stopped and cast him a suspicious look. “Why aren’t you in your suicide pajamas?”
Bob swallowed hard and clamped his mouth shut. He somehow managed to swallow the biting reply. “I’m going with you.”
Rome cast him a You’re insane, old man look. “Uh, no you’re not.”
Bob nodded. “I’m your back up. That’s all. Probably won’t need me and I’m not much good anyway. But something is better than nothing.”
“Uh, did you not hear me? You’re not going. You’re lucky I’m letting you stay here. I’m only doing it because I know my mom would’ve wanted that.”
“She was a good woman.”
Rome stepped forward and looked down at Bob. “Don’t tell me about my mother. You arrived three weeks ago. You don’t know anything about her.”
The kid was ready to explode.
Couldn’t blame him.
Losing a mother would do that.
“Sorry. All I’m saying is that she wouldn’t have wanted you going out alone. I know that much about her.”
Rome’s pudgy cheeks quivered. He may have been fat, but there was a good amount of muscle hidden in that large frame. If he decided to throw down a beating, there wasn’t much Bob could do to avoid it.
After a few seconds of waiting for Rome’s fist to flatten him, the boy spun toward the door and marched through it.
He lurched to a stop in the hallway outside. “Fine.”
Bob’s outlook brightened. He wasn’t going to let the kid leave without a fight, a literal fight, and the news that he wasn’t going to end up unconscious was both unexpected and welcome.
They made their way out of the apartment complex and down toward the main road. They arrived at the corner and turned south.
Bob looked down the street and gasped.
The town had utterly transformed in the six days since the end of the world arrived.
It was slow at first, but the change was speeding up.
Abandoned cars littered the road. Whereas they’d all looked fine the first few days, they now looked like they’d endured a nuclear war.
