The Melting

by Christopher Coleman

  My concern, however, rests on getting it started, which, even if we can, its dependability once we’re on the water is still a question. Getting stranded halfway across the Maripo River a year ago was an inconvenience; today it would be a death sentence.

  “Listen,” I say, studying the interior of the boat, “I think Tom may have had the right idea. I think we should see if one of these other, uh, shall we say more modern boats, has their keys in the ignition.”

  “Why? Is this old girl beneath you?”

  “I’m not confident she will stay beneath me, that’s the problem.”

  Danielle chuckles and then looks the boat over sympathetically. “I think it’s kind of beautiful. Reminds me of my dad.”

  “If that’s the case, I’m guessing you got your looks from your mom.”

  Danielle smiles and I can see the hint of a blush. “I meant we used to go fishing when I was a kid.”

  “Yeah well, just—”

  “Dom look!” The awe in Danielle’s voice can only mean one thing: she’s spotted the crabs.

  I look up, prepared to follow Danielle’s gaze to the bridge, but instead she’s begun walking toward the edge of the pier, pointing out toward the river with her mouth wide, her eyes unblinking.

  “Look at all the boats.”

  I hadn’t noticed them from the bridge—the wall had blocked not only the assembly of crabs, but also the view of the river wide. But I can see them now, dozens of boats, from catamarans to luxury yachts, their shapes fighting through the low fog and white backdrop of the atmosphere, adrift on the water.

  It all makes sense, of course. The day the snows came was a beautiful Sunday in May, which would have meant the boaters of this and every other waterfront community would have been out on the water, starting early in the morning and soaking up the day with fishing expeditions and drinking jaunts, not wasting a single moment so as to justify their hefty investments. Most of the boats weren’t docked at their piers right now because they were all stranded on the water, unmanned.

  “Do you think...I mean the sailors...that they all...” Danielle cuts herself off.

  “I don’t know about all, but I would think it safe to assume at least some. Let’s just try to see if we can get this thing started.”

  I pull out the choke and shift the throttle to the start position, and then I pull the starter rope once, slowly, and then a few more times until I feel the resistance from the starter. “I think it’s going to turn over,” I say, hoping to attract good fortune with my words.

  Danielle’s eyes are wide with suspense as she nods, spurring me to give the rope another tug.

  I pull the rope again, with force this time, and the motor spits for a moment, almost catching, before sputtering dead.

  “This is the one,” she says.

  It’s my turn to nod this time, and I take a giant breath before yanking the rope towards me with the full strength of my thighs and shoulders. The motor comes to life again and then retreats, but this time, just as it begins to die, it catches, barely, and then crescendos into a full growl.

  “Yes!”

  I push in the choke and turn the throttle to the ‘Run’ position, and then Danielle and I both stand in unison and begin waving our arms over our heads in the direction of Tom and Stella, signaling both our success with the boat and the urgency of the moment.

  Stella points to the truck—indicating she’ll need to get James first—and then she gives a thumbs up.

  Danielle and I drop our arms, and I can’t help but smile as I stare at the outboard motor, watching the propeller spin furiously above the water, fighting the rope line tying it to the pier. It’s a small win, and one that’s only momentary, since the boat may end up putting us in a worse spot than we are currently. But for now, I’ll take it.

  Danielle sighs and I can see that she is also looking at the boat, but the expression on her face lacks any levity. She looks up slowly and across to the bank on the opposite side of the river. “What if nothing has changed over there?” she asks, and then looks back to me. “And I don’t mean immediately on that side—I can see the snow from here—but, like, anywhere over there.”

  I look to the spot where Danielle was just staring, understanding the question she’s really asking is: What do we do if the world is over? I don’t have the answer to that question, so I answer the one she asked. “Then we’ll keep going. Eventually we’ll cross into a town that isn’t affected. It’s a big world. We’ll find it.”

  Danielle smiles weakly at this, and I’m relieved that she’s accepted the answer, even if only to be kind.

  I look to the place where Stella and Tom were just standing, but they’re now out of sight, presumably having walked back from the bridge to take a route not as severely sloped as the one Danielle and I took to get down to the water. This extra delay has me slightly worried, particularly about fuel, since I have no idea how much gas is in the motor currently, and now that I’ve gotten it started, I don’t want to risk adding more and conking the engine.

  But my concerns about the delay are assuaged when our three companions arrive moments later, with James beside them, he, it would seem, having licked his wounds from our earlier discussion. He and Stella are smiling wide and laughing.

  “Well done, guys,” Stella says. “It’s not my style exactly, but it’s running.”

  Tom looks at the boat suspiciously, “So we’re going with this one, huh?”

  I raise my eyebrows and shrug. “I think we’re lucky it started. So yeah, that would be my recommendation.”

  “You don’t think we should take a look in any of the others? Just to make sure?” Tom’s question isn’t loaded; just a straight-shooting inquiry.

  “I know how to work this one, but if you feel comfortable with one of those—”

  “Oh Jesus! Oh my jumping Jesus!”

  It’s James, and my misjudgement about the source of Danielle’s exclamation earlier is now, I assume, applicable to him. He’s looking up in terror at the crabs on the bridge, except now they’re no longer a couple dozen in number. They extend from one end of the span to the other, hundreds of demons perched upon the railing in a straight line of white, so uniform and compact that they’re almost unnoticeable, having assembled into what could easily be mistaken as some ghastly architectural design.

  Stella follows James’ eyes and gags, a reaction similar to the one I sustained earlier, though hers is a bit more dramatic as she leans over the water and dry heaves.

  Danielle has her hand across her mouth, staring in disbelief at the scene above us, and then, as if a thought suddenly popped into her head, looks over at me. She seems to notice my lack of an appropriate reaction. “You already saw them didn’t you? You saw them and you didn’t say anything.”

  I nod my confession. “I saw them earlier, when we were coming down the hill. But there were only a dozen or so of them then.”

  “There’s gotta be hundreds now,” Tom says, his voice distant and awed, so different from the typical Tom cadence. “You can’t even count ‘em there’s so many.”

  “Let’s go,” I say. “This doesn’t change anything. They’re just watching us. Like they always do. I think if we stay away from them, keep a wide berth, then...I don’t know.” And I don’t know; it’s the beginning statement of wishful thinking. “Let’s just go.”

  “Why are there so many?” James asks, still frozen in posture. “Where did all of the people come from?”

  “They’re not people,” Stella replies.

  “I mean the people who turned into those things after the snow. Where did they all come from? And why are there so many of them on the bridge?”

  “I don’t know, James,” I say, now ushering the first of my passengers—Tom—into the boat. “There’s lots of people in the world. But we should get going. If there are any of those things in the immediate area, on this side of the bridge, we’re going to be fish in a barrel.”

  “But there’s so many more of them now. Rem
ember back when it first happened? There weren’t this many then. I was out in the snows for two weeks after the blast, alone, hiding in houses and stores, and even then I only saw them every few days. Now they’re everywhere. They were all along the road the entire drive here. And, Jesus Christ, there’s a thousand on the bridge. Are you telling me all of these people were out on the bridge when the snow fell? That doesn’t even make sense.”

  There’s a telling silence that permeates the group, and no one dares attempt an answer to the question, mainly for fear that we’ll discover one doesn’t exist. But I think it’s to do with the melting snow. I think these crabs have always existed, and now, with the rising temperatures, they’re coming out more often.

  “James,” I say, “we can explore these and other questions later. Now we have to go.”

  Danielle and Stella quickly board the boat, and I step in behind them, eager to get away from this pier and on our way to search for the world that left us.

  James never takes his eyes from the bridge, but he finally begins to back his way toward the edge of the pier and the boat, and Tom has to jump up and grab him at the waist just a step before he collapses into the freezing water. James is stunned back to the moment and quickly finds his senses and his seat in the boat, though his stare immediately returns to the perched crabs.

  With everyone now aboard, I unmoor the craft and shift the motor up slowly, making a smooth departure from the pier. Within seconds, I’m steering the small boat across the river towards the far shore.

  The eyes of my passengers are still riveted on the bridge, which now towers above us on the starboard side, but my attention is straight ahead, locked on the obstacle course of stray boats in our path, the fog shrouding some of them almost entirely.

  Some of the vessels have been anchored and now bob listlessly on the waves, waiting patiently to resume the purpose for which they were made, to skid the waters at the command of their owners. But others are simply drifting freely with the current, desultory crafts of all sizes that have been abandoned by their captains and now search hopelessly for a new master. There’s no telling from how far away the skeleton ships have come—it’s been months now since the blast—and my imagination takes over, envisioning the world at large. What must the oceans and seas across the globe look like if the event has indeed affected the entire planet? The image is unfathomable, too big to think about right now, and I force myself to turn back to the issue immediately in front of me.

  I continue at a steady pace, keeping as wide a berth as possible from the other vessels, but the further into the river we get, the more the boats litter the route, and I’m now forced to turn east toward the bridge to avoid smashing into one of the unseen strays. I think I can see most of them clearly, but there is just enough of a film of fog that I’m petrified about steering us into one of the smaller vessels or buried anchor lines.

  East, however, is the direction of the bridge, and though the path of ships is clearer this way, we’re now heading directly towards the crabs. We’re still far enough out that I don’t think we’re in any danger from them, particularly not with them almost sixty feet above of us. But they continue to stare at us, still virtually motionless, and though I don’t think they’ll jump from the height of the bridge, I have no experience on which to base that theory.

  I finally ease the boat into a nice gap that has formed between the bridge and the flotsam of boats, and as far as I can see, the route is clear from here all the way to the northeast bank of the river. Straight ahead on this trajectory should bring us to our destination in only minutes.

  But before I can lock my brain in fully to my destination, a large cruiser yacht suddenly appears in my periphery. It seems to materialize from nowhere, just off to my left, and it sways my full attention towards it. I’m not sure what it is about the boat that intrigues me—other than its size—forty feet, at least—as well as the fact that it was so hidden by the fog and now looms large above the water. It looks brand new, beautiful, and it’s anchored just close enough to us that I feel almost compelled not to pass it by without investigating. It floats isolated at just the right distance from the other anchored boats that it feels almost like it’s calling to me.

  I nudge the tiller towards me slightly and begin to head in the direction of the cruiser, while still keeping a general line on the course of the far bank. If we simply remain on our current progression from this point on the river—about a third of the way across—we should reach the far shore in a matter of minutes.

  But the draw of the yacht is too strong, and I pull the motor towards me further and give the handle a gentle twist. Our boat is now headed directly toward the cruiser.

  “What’s the plan here?” Tom asks, noticing our course change. He’s the first to finally turn his attention away from the bridge,

  I get the sense that Tom will detect any bullshit from me, so I keep it honest. “I just want to see what went on here. I mean, look at the size of this thing. I feel like there could be something useful in there.”

  In seconds, I’m slowing up beside the cruiser. I have no immediate sights on boarding it, not without a solid assessment of the danger first, but I would like to get at least a superficial look at the craft.

  Tom squints and looks up toward the cruiser, and then turns back to me. “Did you see any movement or anything?”

  I shake my head and then crane my neck upward, trying to get a glimpse into the cabin. I don’t know what I’m looking for exactly, other than an obvious indicator that the crabs are on board, some type of motion or sound perhaps. From this vantage point, however, although I can’t see much, it looks pretty quiet inside.

  Tom looks back to the cruiser for another evaluation. “Not sure about this, Dom. I’d say there’s a good chance at least one of those things is on there. You believe that, right?”

  I nod. “Of course. I just wanted to get close enough to see if we could get any kind of feel for what’s in there. Because if it is abandoned—if we can determine that for sure—well, I would think a boat this size could be stocked with some pretty good stuff. A gun maybe. Food for sure.”

  Tom nods and raises an eyebrow, accepting the possibility.

  “And there could also be survivors, I think that’s a possibility too, people who avoided the first snows and then decided to stay out on the water. Maybe they saw the turning of some people on the bridge and then decided to keep away from the shores until...I don’t know. The coast was clear?”

  “Or maybe they came out after,” Danielle adds, now also focused on the boat. Stella and James’ attention have also turned in its direction. “They could have fled the shores and decided to hold up out here until things normalized and the weather turned. And if that’s the case, like Dom said, they probably would have tried to bring as many supplies as they could carry with them.”

  I hadn’t even considered the notion that Danielle has just raised. Maybe some of the boaters didn’t get stranded on the water during a pleasant Sunday outing; maybe some of them made an escape onto the water after the snows fell and they heard what had happened. The early broadcasts of the event suggested the incident might have occurred everywhere, and though doubt about the validity of those radio reports now rage inside all of us, I decide fleeing to the river is probably not a good sign. That would suggest—to me at least—a general lack of safety on land, which means that any refuge from this madness is farther than the just the northern shores of the Maripo River.

  But these thoughts are a combination of speculation and my own mind’s fear-mongering; I don’t know any of this to be true. I force myself to hone my focus back on the matter at hand.

  I stand on my tiptoes to try to see through the tempered glass of the side window, but I’m too low and the glass is too dark. The increased possibility that there are survivors on board, however, has altered my apprehension about exploring the vessel. At this point, I fully intend to have a look inside.

  “Danielle makes a good point,” I say.
“I think if we don’t see any signs of those things in the next few minutes, I should board. I think we need to take a look.”

  James looks at me for a beat and then scans the faces of the group one at a time before returning his gaze to me, a look of confusion now evident. “Isn’t that what we’re doing? Aren’t we taking a look right now? What’s the point of boarding?”

  “I just told you, James, there could be supplies.”

  “I thought you were in a hurry to get across the river. This was your idea. Stealing a boat and heading to the opposite side of the river. And now that we’re on the way, halfway there, you want to start pillaging abandoned ships like Lewis and Clark.”

  The professor in me wants to explain to James that Lewis and Clark weren’t pirates, but I resist the urge, knowing these corrections would only be counterproductive. “I am anxious to cross, and we will, but we’re here now, and if there are supplies on this boat—or survivors—we can’t just bypass them. Besides, if we can get this boat started,” I shrug my eyebrows and tilt my head toward the cruiser, “wouldn’t you rather be on this thing?”

  “If there were survivors, they would have come out by now? And I don’t really care about going cruising another three minutes in luxury. I just want to get there and find some place that isn’t covered in snow.”

  James is still a kid, eighteen or nineteen if I had to guess, so I give him some space to emit his fear. But my patience is starting to wear thin with him. He’s allowed to be afraid, but he’s getting a little too loud and panicky for such a precarious setting as a rinky-dink motor boat on an icy river.

  “I understand, James? I’m just saying this boat would be a nice option to have if we decided we needed to stay out on the water for a time. And though you’re probably right about the chances that there are no survivors on board, there is a possibility. This boat has living quarters inside it. There could be people sleeping below deck. Or hiding.”

  Hiding.