Chapter One

 

The boy is wet, but he no longer feels it. At first the smothering heaviness of his clothes on his back -warmed in the sun to the point that it burned, then chilled at night enough to make him shiver so hard his teeth rattled and he could not sleep- were irritating. But it has been so long, his mind is so fuzzy and far away that he no longer considers himself wet. He has been wet so long that his body has started to dissolve, and he is becoming part of the ocean, bit by bit. He welcomes the transformation. His body ached at first, but it doesn’t any longer. His extremities feel numb. His legs had kicked automatically -sporadically- down in the water at first, but no longer. He lets go of the seat and brings one hand out from under the overturned lifeboat. His hand is dark brown on top, pink on the bottom, pruney and prickling as the blood flow returns; he grips the piece of metal that stretches the width of the little lifeboat too hard, he can’t help it. Whenever he starts to drift off, rocked gently and warmed by the ocean around him, his fingers squeeze tighter, dig the edge of the metal into his skin, and keep him from falling asleep, letting go, and sinking down. It’s not just sleep that wants him, it’s a lack of consciousness he is drifting toward, and death, down there with the sharks and bodies of countless sailors since the dawn of man and the monsters, of course.

His body is numb, but his eyes and his throat feel raw and dry. It goes beyond pain. He’s so thirsty that letting the water take him seems like it would be peaceful. He drank some of the seawater on the second day. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but then he expelled it from both ends for a few hours and learned his lesson. He shucked off his undies and let them float away, pulled his shorts back on when it seemed to be over. That was yesterday.

Then, last night, a chopper passed overhead. The night sky out in the middle of the Pacific was so vast and starry, it looked like the edge of the black sky and the top of the black ocean melted into each other. The water might as well be the vacuum of space. He was floating, dissolving into the ocean and the sky, dissolving piece by piece and thinking through the heavy fog in his brain that that wasn’t such a bad thing, that it was so beautiful, that it would all be okay. He thought he remembered his mother, although he shouldn’t, he was only two when she died. That was six years ago. But there was a voice in the back of his mind, and a warm presence accompanied it as it sang to him, like she had rocked him as she sang him to sleep. A song about a falling star, a rainy day. If it was his mother he was remembering, she had a lovely voice.

He closed his eyes and relaxed down into the water, with it kissing his cracked lips, making them burn. He knew the last part would be hard, would hurt for a minute, but then he wouldn’t be scared or thirsty anymore. He just had to work up the courage to go under, or else wait out that stubborn last bit of strength and self-preservation that wouldn’t let him let go.

He could almost pry his numb fingers loose of the overturned lifeboat. Maybe a few more minutes, he thought. But the sound of the propellor blades chopping the air created a dissonance in his struggle between peace and survival, made him flinch as they -along with a flashing light on the front of the thing- brought back the sirens that had blared when he was already adrift on his little boat, and the huge crash and boom that had hit him hard, made his ear bleed, and then that huge body moving through the water, making him feel so small and afraid. But it had twisted and its massive tail had propelled it away, sending a wave behind it that overturned the boat, upended the boy into the water among the pieces of wreckage from the ship.

He was too weak to wave an arm, his throat was too dry to let him call out. They wouldn’t see his dark skin against the dark water, anyway, they wouldn’t hear his hoarse voice over their own helicopter. It went zooming away, and he blinked in the once again dark and lonely night, unsettled inside, no longer able to hear his mother’s voice or feel that acceptance of the end.

He hangs on a bit longer. The helicopter had to be coming from or going to something nearby. The dark stretches endlessly and uninterrupted in all directions, it seems hopeless, but occasionally he looks. After what seems like forever and also no time at all, the sky turns from black to navy to periwinkle, and the stars fade. Another day baking in the sun is upon him. As he has gone longer without food, the hunger has mostly faded. Now it is not an irritable gnawing, but a severe pain that racks him every so often, makes him wince and press his face to the lifeboat’s hull. Little explosions echo around in his guts.

The water shines orange and gold as the sun rises, then clear and blue as it recedes behind the clouds and smog. He thinks that if he never sees the color blue again, that’s okay. It must be near noon when the clouds and smog seem to part and the sun starts smoldering down again, baking him and his brain, drying him out, crisping him up. He thinks his skin must be a shade darker by now. The heat and the haze in his mind make him wish he had let go the night before. He could be down with the fishes right now, cool, at peace, one with the water.

The first day and night his mind was blank, with only thoughts of the crashing and fire and the huge monster drifting up to the surface. The second day and night he found himself clearer headed. He prayed to God that someone would find him. The third he just prayed for it to be over, whatever that meant. He doesn’t bother to pray anymore.

A horn blares from somewhere behind him, one long, loud blast. It makes him flinch, he lets go of the lifeboat and whirls in the water, numb and sore muscles flooding once again with blood and adrenaline. Heart pounding like a final death rattle, the faint whisper of what should have been a scream living and dying in his ragged throat, the boy flails in the water and tries to crowd back against the boat, the only safety his body recognizes. But he has accidentally pushed it away, his arms are locking up anyway, he can hardly drag them through the water to keep him afloat another second. His feet won’t move, they’re dead weight dragging him down, and as his head sinks below the water, he sees the massive oil tanker that has cruised up right behind him. The monster is not slicing through the water toward him, at least not that he can see. Crewmen point and wave from the side railings, but they are small figures in the distance. Someone swan dives overboard with a round life preserver over one arm. Under the water, the boy’s eyes are burning and his lungs being crushed from within. The figure of the swimming man is blurry, then fades to black.

 

*

 

The boy wakes and feels fuzzy. His brain, his eyes, his tongue, all fuzzy. The blanket that his fingers are touching, wrapping too tightly around him, he can barely wiggle in the white and grey room. Then he realizes why.

The cuffs around his wrists are designed to be soft and not to cut into the skin at all, to provide comfort to the prisoner. If his father woke up in cuffs, the man would be frantic, he would be furious. He would struggle and fight and demand to be let free, never acquiescing to any kind of confinement, never liking to be controlled, even told what to do. But he’s not like his father, and besides, he is too tired to fight against the restraints. His legs are strapped, one single black strap across them, over the blanket.

The room is cool. It’s small and the light coming in from the round porthole window is plenty for him to know that it is daytime. There is a needle in his arm, taped down, feeding from a tube and bag hung nearby, clear fluid. He doesn’t really care about the restraint, but he can feel the needle move as he twitches his fingertips, remembering that they are all there, making sure he can move them, that he is still alive. He wants that needle out.

He can hear a beeping growing more urgent as he swoons, feels sick, and turns his face the other direction, shutting his eyes. Sweat breaks out on his face, feeling prickly and then chilly. There are sensors on him, reading his pulse, blood pressure. Those beeps are basically coming from him, reporting a malfunction. Like a robot in system failure.

Eventually the panic and nausea fade. He slumps back down on the bed, tries not to think about the needle. He thinks he’s still dizzy from it, but then he realizes the rocking movement is just from the water. He’s still at sea. On that oil tanker, probably. So the man did pluck him out of the water before he could die. And what for? So that he could see another ship demolished, and the creature swallow him whole this time, probably.

He shuts his eyes and tries to go back to sleep, to where he doesn’t have to think about it anymore, but his body won’t let him.

A tiny sound of tumblers turning in a lock, then the door pushes open. The boy had looked automatically, then slammed his eyes shut, pretending to be asleep, hoping he had not been seen. A man has come into the room, and now shuts the door behind him. He’s distinct looking. Not tall but strong, covered in tattoos. They’re a lot nicer than the ones the boy’s dad had, and mostly got in jail. Bolder. Cohesive.

The stranger shuts the door behind him. Locks it.

Locked in the room with a strange man, the boy feels his heart start to pound, the machines respond with higher frequency beeping, betraying his consciousness.

“It’s alright,” the man says, keeping his distance. “My name is Caesar. I’m the captain of this ship. No one is going to hurt you, here.”

The boy opens his eyes, but shuts them again. The captain has a confident voice, authoritative. He sounds like he believes what he is saying. As if. As if someone could protect him from that thing. Wouldn’t that be something? If you could protect a person from everything that would ever want to hurt them…

He remembers breaking his arm when he was six. Just two years ago. Fell off a jungle gym, nothing for it, nobody’s fault… His father -never perfect- had said with all sincerity while they lifted his mangled arm up for the x-ray and fresh tears poured out, “If I could take your pain on myself, I would.”

If anyone could have protected him, it would have been his father. And his father is dead, now. He imagines his dad safe, somehow, alive inside the creature’s stomach. But that’s not reality. They’ll be reunited when the creature comes, it will be a small comfort at the end.

The captain comes closer, moving slowly. He sidles up to the foot of the bed. Puts his hands on the white railing. “What’s your name?”

The boy doesn’t answer, doesn’t see the point. He keeps his eyes closed.

“…Sorry about the restraints. You were out for a while, and you were having bad dreams. Scratching yourself.”

That makes the boy open his eyes again, and look. His forearms are wrapped in bandages. That explains that.

“I can take the restraints off, if you show me you understand me, that you’re calmed down and rational now.”

He speaks slowly, keeps his voice soft, like people do when they don’t have much practice talking to children, like they do when they think kids are stupid. The boy supposes he brought that on himself, washing up the way he did and leaving his will to speak in the ocean. He looks the captain square in the eyes for a torturous second; he feels shame as he does. He shouldn’t be alive. He nods.

The captain’s face changes, shows recognition. He starts to undo the strap around the boy’s legs. He speaks, more casually, now. “Just don’t feel like talking, huh? Well I have some questions I need answered, but you can just nod.”

He releases the strap on the right wrist, then the left. The boy reaches across himself, going for the needle, but the captain catches his wrist in a flash. The boy struggles, a hint of a whimper rising as his anxiety spikes.

“Stop.” The captain’s voice is hard enough to make him obey. “You were out there for days, weren’t you?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “You were dehydrated. You almost died. Your body needs those lost fluids replaced, so you’re going to leave that IV in until this bag is gone. Then I’ll remove it. Or you can rip it out, and I can restrain you and stick it back in.” He lets go.

His muscles clenching around the needle has reminded him of how much he wants it out. But if he stays still, he can pretend it’s not there. He relaxes back onto the bed.

“Okay. You came from a ship called the Alessa, is that right?” The captain is good at reading people. When he sees no recognition in the boy’s eyes, he prompts. “A black yacht, owned by a Chester Osbourne, it was the only other ship in the area.”

The boy looks away. Chester Osbourne, was that his name? The Alessa, that sounds right. A few days, his father had told him. He didn’t know how many. The boy had to stay hidden. The rich people would hire him for indeterminate amounts of time, who knew how long their binges would last? His father couldn’t get jobs at the nice restaurants that he used to, anymore. The best he could do was a penthouse, a party boat, living one job to the next on recommendations. He could still cook circles around anyone.

The captain reads the ‘affirmative’ in the boy’s sudden thousand-yard stare. “Alright. Were there any other survivors?”

The boy shakes his head.

“Was it the creature?”

He grimaces.

“Billion-dollar yachts like that come with all sorts of equipment to deter and defend against the creature. They didn’t work?”

The boy blinks, remembering. There was nothing like that. No guns, no drones. Just a siren and a minute later the creature appeared and rammed the boat until it was capsized and collapsing in on itself, bent metal and broken fiberglass, men screaming, being snatched and dragged down by the creature’s long jaws. He saw it all from the lifeboat.

In the medical bay of the Baton Rouge, the boy shrugs.

The captain sits back, his sharp face troubled. “Sabotage, then.” He looks at the boy. “You got to a lifeboat, and you were lowered to the water… you couldn’t have done that yourself, could you? You can’t be more than, what… Eight? Nine?”

The boy closes his eyes again, irritated, and his head aches dully. None of this matters. He chews at his crispy, sunburnt lips.

“So did you have someone looking out for you? A parent?”

The boy can tell by the captain’s tone that he knows that isn’t it. Those boats are designed so that they can be lowered from within, so that nobody need stay behind so that the others can escape. If his father had seen it coming, had been the one to put him in the boat, they’d still be together. He realizes that with sabotage being implied, and himself the only survivor, he is under suspicion. There’s nothing he can do to prove his innocence.

The captain prods. “No? Someone else? Someone you’d met before?”

He shook his head. He had seen the man only once before, the day before. And the man had never seen him, not expected him to be on the yacht. He remembered the shock on his face, finding a little boy in a closet with a video game. The man was dressed in an all-white uniform like his father, either kitchen staff or a server. He was Asian and middle aged, probably.

He had closed the door all but a crack, instinctively, and looked around. Then he looked back at the boy. Then he closed the door without saying a word. The boy stayed in the closet with his game and his snacks for a few more hours, until his father came to get him, when it was dark outside. He rode under a serving cart back to their small room. That was the day before the monster came.

It was early in the morning when the Asian man came and opened the closet door once again. He held a finger up to his lips, his eyes were stern, ordering silence. He motioned for the boy to come. Feeling his guts twist with guilt, unsure of the penalty for sneaking on a ship -maybe his father would go back to jail- he climbed out of the closet.

There was nobody on deck, so early in the morning. They stayed up late and slept late. But the stranger did not march the boy to the kitchen, or to the master bedroom to turn him over to the owner. He brought him to the edge of the deck. Gestured to the lifeboat hung out over the edge, swaying slightly with the roll of the bigger ship below it. The boy felt a new swell of panic and shook his head, thought about running for the kitchen. But as soon as he glanced that way, to the stairs down to the next level, the man tapped his arm. Just the motion of him reaching out made the boy flinch.

Moving the white jacket they all wore aside, he showed a black shirt underneath, a black belt, and tucked into it, the handle of a black automatic handgun.

It made the boy’s blood run cold. His mind went blank. It seemed like there was only himself and the man and the gun on the ship, in the world. Like God’s own eyes were only on them, there could be nothing more important.

The man gestured once more.

The boy had not hesitated, he had swung a leg out across the gap, a few inches only but a long drop down to the water visible through it. He pulled himself out and settled down in the rounded bottom of the lifeboat, on hands and knees. He felt the ropes lowering at once, he began to sink. Soon he was rocking on the waves in the shadow of the massive yacht, feeling small.

He still feels small.

The captain rubs his face, he looks tired. “Do you know their name? …No? How about your own name? I need to know, so I can work on finding your family, and getting you out of here. You don’t have to say it, you can write it down.”

The boy stares at the offered pen and paper. He doesn’t see the point. There’s no family out there who can save him. He won’t be leaving the ship. The monster is probably already on its way.

The captain sighs. Stands. “Alright. I’ll leave you alone for a while longer. Are you hungry? You must be. We don’t have a cook right now, but I’ll try to scare something up.”

The boy reaches for the needle still in his arm, but he doesn’t pull it out himself, just points. The captain sees, nods, and takes a step back to the side of the bed. He gloves up, collects a cotton ball and segment of tape from the bedside table. Then he takes hold of the needle.

“Ready? One, two-.” He doesn’t say three, just slides it out. The cotton ball is taped over the bleeding vein before the boy is even finished wincing. “All done. Very brave. PB and J or ham and cheese sandwich? Stupid question, PB and J all the way, right? I’ll be right back. This door is locked, it has to stay locked for now. You’re safe in here.”

He goes, shutting the door behind him, and the key turns the tumblers in the lock once again. The boy kicks his feet over the side of the bed right away. They are bare; he’s in a hospital gown. The floor is cold tile, his legs are stiff. He makes it to the door but his knees are shaking, blood is throbbing in his temples. He grabs the handle and tries to twist it.

It's locked from this side, too. He’s trapped. He’s never leaving this place. He moves back to the bed and collapses down onto it. He hardly has the strength to pull the covers up.