by L. S. Wood
The sharks had all but disappeared now and were full of dead squid, they thought, because the surface of the water was still quite messy with them, and a shark’s fin hadn’t been seen in quite some time. Maybe they were just waiting patiently for their dessert of one of the space crew to finish off their grand meal they had just finished devouring for themselves. Even though they looked as if they were all gone did not make anyone on the module feel any the safer for it.
The task of trying to maintain each other secure upon the bottom of the slippery module had become a real chore for the most part. The bottom of the module had become as smooth as glass upon reentry. The immensity of the heat applied to the tiled bottom of the craft had turned everything ice slippery smooth like glass, and to make things ever the more worse, the craft’s bottom was more slippery with the slick coating of salty seawater along with the slippery slimy squid residue. They were all getting extremely tired of slipping and sliding, trying to stay alive on the curved round bottom of the space module that had brought them all back to this nightmare from hell they were all going through.
In just over an hour or maybe two, the awareness from the ravaged experience they endured the previous night, they were going to be plummeted back into it once again. Were they ready to be beat on by its mad force and cruelty one more time? This time being so tired and worn out from the heat of the hot sun and lack of sleep, something devastating was going to happen to one if not more of them during the next bout with the mad sea and its wicked forces.
Everyone looked at one another not saying a word about what their faces reflected, but each had the same thoughts about their dire situation. Everyone knew Sebastian would probably be the first to die and anybody’s guess which of the other crew would go next. They just knew some one or more of them were going to die this next night as the night before was a miracle that none had died.
The water around them continued to become more aggressive with every passing moment. This really confirmed their worries. No one would survive trying to cling to the bottom of this slippery module seeing no one could hardly stay up on its glassy smoothness when the water was mostly calm. Would the beating they were about to experience a second time be as severe on the backside of the storm’s eye as it had been on the forward side? They all hoped not, but knew it was going to be no picnic as it was not the last time.
The six mentally suspected not all would survive a second time around this time. The severe punishment they had all gone through the night before had exhausted them to the mere point of just giving up and letting whatever happens happen. If they were swept off the raft to die, then so be it, and goodbye to this miserable place called Earth.
Sebastian began to moan and groan and went instantly into convulsions. He began thrashing back and forth with his arms flailing out wildly in all directions. He began slapping out at anything and everyone one within arm’s reach. He gasped for air to breath as his tongue slipped and curled back disappearing into the depths of his throat and trying to block his airway. Krista jumped in fear at first not knowing what was going on with him, and then tried to keep his head from falling off her lap and letting it hit the hard surface of the space module. Chenco put his fingers into Sebastian’s mouth pulling his curled up tongue forward so he would not die from lack of air by suffocation.
Chenco let out a blood-curtailing scream as Sebastian clamped his jaw down tight around Chenco’s fingers, driving his teeth deep down into the flesh of his fingers.
Blood from Chenco’s fingers oozed out of Sebastian’s mouth, as the flesh of Chenco’s fingers was severally punctured. He endured the pain so his friend would not die from suffocation, and left his throbbing fingers in Sebastian’s mouth as a tongue depressor so his friend and comrade could breathe. After a couple grueling minutes, Sebastian quit his thrashing around and relaxed back down into the quietness of relaxation. He let go of Chenco’s finger as he opened his eyes with them rolling around as if they were in a swirling saucepan and began to vomit. He had had an acute concussion with a large golf ball sized hematoma that had developed just above his left ear.
The increasing waves were becoming less than friendly as the first soft rolling waves of the storm and the darkness of night would soon be upon them again. They would all have to abandon their floating island of steel very soon. They needed to take refuge back inside the rubber raft knowing none could survive the night upon the capsule without a means of connecting themselves to it somehow. With the possibility it might sink this time around, it would take everyone down with it if they stayed. It was not worth the risk. They lowered the rubber raft back down onto the unstable rolling sea and carefully lowered Sebastian back down into it. He continued to moan and groan constantly, but would not or was not able wake up or come to from his unconsciousness.
Chenco was the last one to enter the raft as the wind blew harder and harder. The waves around began to swell and build significantly. Both the raft and the space module rose and fell in unison on the surface of the rolling sea. They would soon have to get far enough away from their floating island of steel so it would not cause them any harm during the night which was coming soon.
Chenco, being the highest-ranking officer in charge, was going to dive down to try and retrieve whatever supplies he could from within the overturned capsule. The fingers on his hand were a mess and still oozing blood from the gashes from Sebastian’s sharp teeth, and a trickle of blood occasionally dripped off his fingertips every once in a while.
Gina begged him not to go, but he would not have it any other way. He was the highest-ranking officer onboard, and it was his duty to care for the ones under his control. “Think of the twins, Chenco, and you’re bleeding fingers.
Don’t you have any common sense left at all?” Gina yelled out with fear in her voice for her husband.
“I am thinking of the twins and of you, Gina. You damn well need the food and the water for them as well as yourself to survive, and I am going to get it for you and the rest of us. We need the canopy from the module to cover the raft tonight and from the sun tomorrow. I don’t know how we survived the storm out here last night; and without it, we will surely never see another sunrise ever again.”
“Please, Chenco, the twins and I will be all right. Tomorrow we can get the supplies from the module.”
“I have made up my mind. Without any volunteers, it is my solemn duty to supply us with whatever supplies I can get today. Tomorrow will be too late.”
“I will volunteer, Chenco,” Ludwitz said. “I will retrieve whatever I can from the module if there is anything left in there to retrieve.” Ludwitz put his head down over the side of the raft first, just barely beneath the surface of the water to look for lurking danger. With both eyes wide open and burning like hell from the salt water, he quickly looked both left then right. He looked forward and then behind them and then straight down toward the bottom of the sea. He was not able to see any sharks. He lifted his head back out of the water, and taking a deep breath of fresh air, took the cable towline behind him as he slid over the side of the raft on his belly into the water headfirst seeking out the opening to the capsule’s hatch. He had to swim down and halfway around to the opposite side of the module before reaching the opening. He was running out of the breath of air he had taken to stay down much longer. Getting ready to swim in through the module‘s open hatch, Ludwitz pulled his head back with great fear for himself. His heart instantly began pumping adrenalin throughout his nervous veins as the inside the module floated a huge head of a fish gawking back at him with its eyes and mouth wide open. Ludwitz thought at first it was a huge hungry shark ready to attack him. It would have been too late to try to have escaped from it if it had been.
He relaxed a little when it did not move. He recognized the lonely head of a very large Pope fish that had lost its body to the sharks during their eating frenzy. It must have taken place while the sharks were busy feasting on the many dead squid
in the area.
His lungs were hurting and screaming for air. He pushed the body-less head aside out of his way and entered the module in hopes that there was an air pocket still within it somewhere so he might catch a breath of air to keep on going, and there was. It was not much of an air pocket, but just enough to keep his lungs from bursting or collapsing so he might attempt to retrieve some very desperately needed provisions for their survival at sea. Ludwitz grabbed an almost empty oxygen bottle floating in the capsule, and turned the valve open. The bottle hissed some very much needed oxygen from itself, and he took another two great big breaths of air.
He busied himself by releasing the survival supplies from their storage bins beneath all the seats. A duffel bag full of sea rations was still intact and fell down to him when he released the latch to the first seat above him. He released another bin, and the other survival kit fell to him without the tarp in it to protect them from the torrent elements, but it did contain other important supplies for their survival at sea. He took a couple of the flight suits that had not washed out during the storm along with two flight helmets, and tied them to the tethered line. Two other compartments had come open during the storm, and their contents must have slipped out the open hatch during the turbulent seas. One of them must have contained the rubber raft protective tarp, needed to cover them up from the killer rays of the hot sun.
Ludwitz took another deep breath of air, bent down, and looked out of the capsule hatch to see a school of sharks swimming not far off to the right of the module. Chenco’s bitten fingers must have dripped enough blood to attract the damn scavenger beasts to the area again, he thought. He pushed the Pope fish’s head out the hatch, and the man eaters attacked it vigorously.
He didn’t know what to do next. He couldn’t stay hidden inside the module much longer for there was little air left for him to breathe. He couldn’t go out of the hatch as he would surely be attacked by the sharks and be eaten alive or bitten and die anyway. What was he to do to escape the horrendous situation he was facing?
He did not really have many choices, but to face the beasts and make a desperate swim for the top, and get into the raft as quickly as he could without them eating him alive.
He pushed the tethered supply satchels, helmets, and two flight suits out the door except for one flight suit left behind. He knotted the bottom leg openings of the flight suit and arms shut with knots, and then zipped up the front of the spacesuit. He then took the almost empty oxygen bottle sticking both out the hatch, placed the almost empty oxygen bottle into the flight suit’s neck, and opened up the oxygen bottle’s valve full force.
The flight suit instantly filled up with air making it a buoyant balloon. He let go of the oxygen bottle as he and the inflated flight suit shot to the surface of the water in a hurry. He swam quickly towards the raft ten feet away yelling “sharks” as he swam. Chenco and Dominique both reached out with their hands and arms to help Ludwitz back into the raft. As they both pulled at him from above, some thing or somethings were on the other end of him pulling him back down into the depths of the sea. His face turned from a dire look of concern to a horrid grimace of instant pain. Whatever it was that had tugged at him suddenly let him go, as both Dominique and Chenco pulled Ludwitz up into the raft, screaming with pain. He was bleeding profusely from several deep lacerations from a shark bite with razor sharp teeth had made on his leg.
He was lucky it had only been one of the many sharks in the water that attacked him, and not several of them all at the same time. Dominique and Chenco would not have been able to keep hold of him if they had, and he would have been lost to the scavengers of the deep for good.
Dominique pulled as hard she could on the tethered supply line to retrieve the survival supplies attached to it. Chenco pulled his shirt off and tore it up trying to slow down the bleeding with a tourniquet he made and applied to Ludwitz leg from it. Dominique felt several tugs on the tethered line as she tried to pull it in. The sharks bellow were busy biting at everything that moved as Ludwitz blood was drifting in the currents below them. Everything was mostly intact as the two duffle bags had only minor damage afflicted to them.
The flight suits did not look damaged, but one of the flight suit helmets looked almost crushed flat as if it had gone through a steel vise with large teeth, and a couple of teeth were still attached to it.
Chenco grabbed the first aid kit from the first survival bag that contained band aids for minor cuts and bruises. It also contained a tube of salve, eye drops, but nothing to patch up these kinds of wounds Ludwitz’ leg had on it. He grabbed for another kit from the duffle bag. That bag contained a single poncho and other things that were for someone who did not need immediate medical attention. He grabbed another one in a hurry, and this particular bag contained a single sewing kit.
“I have to sew these damn wounds up, Ludwitz! I know this is going to hurt like hell, guy, but I have got to stop this intense bleeding of yours or you are going to bleed to death.”
“Go ahead”, Ludwitz, said, “sew like hell and get it over with quickly. It cannot hurt one hell of a lot more than it does right now.”
The salt water burned in his wounds like a blow torch. The sea was becoming angrier by the minute with every passing second it seemed, as Chenco hastily prepared for suturing. The ocean’s waves were growing in size as everything around them was again turning into the nightmare they had just gone through the night before.
Dominique held Ludwitz’ leg as still as she possibly could for Chenco to sew it up with regular clothing thread and needle as the rubber raft floated up one side of a wave, and slide down its backside. Chenco was doing the best he could with the unsteady movement of the raft. He was trying not to hurt Ludwitz any more than necessary with every stitch he took, as Ludwitz slightly moaned with every prick of the needle, but didn’t yell out in pain like before because he knew he needed the needle work to be done on him or he would surely die from bleeding to death.
The sharks below must have known there was free-flowing blood in the raft above them because they continued to come up under it and drag their dorsal fins against the bottom of the raft and bump up into it with their strong pointed noses. Everyone in the raft expected at any given moment that a shark’s head would come tearing up through the bottom of the rubber raft and take them one by one down below for lunch or dessert.
Chenco ran out of the sewing thread he was using in order to sew up the remainder of the open wounds on Ludwitz’ leg. The long strenuous time of sewing up his leg had passed, and the time of day was quickly fading away into the darkness of night for Ludwitz. They had not finished sewing him up when they ran out of thread to stop the bleeding.
Chenco quickly wrapped the rest of Ludwitz’ torn leg with his own torn blood drenched shirt, and hoped that it would be enough along with the salt water splashing in and around inside the raft to stop the remaining bleeding.
Not one brave soul sitting in the half-filled raft with water dared to bail any of the excess water out which had found its way into the raft. They were afraid that the residual blood in the water would attract the sharks. They would all be in danger of losing their lives to another eating frenzy should they contaminate the water around them with Chenco’s blood should they decide to attack the raft.
Krista took the sharp shears from the sewing kit, and cut the top off one of the flight suits for Chenco to wear to protect himself the next day.
She knew the next day’s sun rays would cook him even crispier than his fair skin had already been cooked if they all be lucky enough to make it through another night from hell, like the night before that they had just gone through!
They could hear the sounds of the huge horrid waves approaching again.
The rain again began to come down on them in torrents by the bucket full, as it left them no choice but to bail out the excess water from the raft or sink down barely into the unfriendly waters just below the
water’s surface where the sharks would surely get to them.
Ludwitz’s leg stopped bleeding at last. Poor Sebastian though was still in his coma state moaning and groaning constantly driving poor Krista and the rest of them insane. It upset her by not being able to help him more than to just hold his head up out of the deep waters in the raft, and try to comfort him as best she possibly could while holding his head up tight against her bosom.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
The Gargantua 1st Wave
In the far off distance, the sound of huge waves began sounding closer like the mighty surf at high tide during a storm along a rocky coastline. The sounds of the waves grew more enraged with the passing of time as the inner outer circle of the storm approached the little rubber speck of a raft quivering upon its back in the open water.
Chenco could see the white of foam frothing from the first of the massive huge waves rolling in at them at a height greater than fifty feet in height, he thought. He yelled for everyone to prepare for the worst wave yet, as this was going to be the worst wave of all waves that would hit the raft.
This was a rogue wave of massive height, he thought. The wave looked more like a huge tsunami tidal wave coming toward them in the dim light like the big wave shown in the movie “The Poseidon Adventure” with its peak licking at the sky above compared to the powerful big waves that frequently hit them during the storm the night before.
With it about to hit them, everyone took their same old trusty positions over the ones that needed protection the most. They braced for the worse, as this was definitely the worst wave that was going to hit them, and they all thought they were surely going to die from it. Everyone took his and her place in the center of the raft for the best of everyone’s protection, if there was any.
