Shy’s eyes popped open.
He was bobbing on the surface of the black ocean in his life jacket, retching uncontrollably—warm salt water and bile flooding back over his tongue and teeth, fanning out in the water in front of his face, the awful taste of his own sick making him vomit again.
He heaved for several minutes, until there was nothing left to purge, and still his stomach convulsed and his eyes stung and the world was blurry.
He spit and looked all around the darkness, shivering.
He was alone.
No idea how long he’d been floating here or how long he’d been drowned. His life jacket must’ve brought him back up, saved his life.
He spun around looking for what was left of the wave that had pulled him under, but there was nothing. The ocean was calmer, in fact. The wind less severe. He spotted the cruise ship, surprisingly far off in the distance—only the front third still visible, pointing straight up into the sky and half covered in flames.
Nobody else around, dead or alive.
“Kevin!” he shouted.
“Marcus!”
Any name that came to mind, he shouted out, but nobody answered and he slapped at the water with both hands, feeling overwhelmed and hopeless and having no idea what swam below him.
He did nothing more than tread water in the dark for several minutes, battling his own thoughts. What if he was stranded for good? Nothing to eat or drink, no one there when he died? What if he never saw anything but water again? He felt like he’d been shown the truth of the world. The absolute power it held. People just meaningless specks that came and went as easily as flipping a switch.
He couldn’t stop shivering in the cold wind and water as he looked around again, his eyes finally adjusting to the dark. A few ship pieces. Drowned bodies. An empty life jacket. An oar from a raft, maybe theirs. A rain slicker kept afloat by an air bubble trapped underneath.
He spotted a portion of a wrecked lifeboat, probably the one he’d seen slammed against the ship by a wave. Most of the bottom half just sitting there, maybe a hundred yards away.
He leaned forward without thinking and swam for it, picking up the oar and slicker along the way. His ribs throbbed as he splashed through the cold ocean, one arm in the slicker, tossing the oar in front of him and catching up, tossing and catching up, small waves sometimes washing over his head. Several times he swallowed mouthfuls of water and had to spit or vomit, but he didn’t stop until he was able to reach out and touch what was left of the boat.
The top half was entirely ripped away, the sides jagged and sharp. Cracks and gashes running along the edges including one fist-sized hole that was half underwater. He floated around the boat twice looking for the least jagged side and then tossed in the slicker and the oar and pulled himself up to peer inside.
A handful of passengers. All lying in two feet of water at the bottom of the boat. None were Carmen or anyone he knew.
“Hello,” he said.
Then louder: “Hello!”
No one lifted their heads to acknowledge him.
Shy floated there a few more seconds, looking back over his shoulder at the enormous black ocean, and then he pulled himself up and over the side and fell onto one of the bodies in the boat. He quickly rolled off and sat up and looked at the woman. Blood caked in her short gray hair.
Shy went on to his hands and knees and sloshed through the pinkish water to inspect the other bodies, too. He lifted faces, tried shaking them awake, checked for pulses. Nothing. All dead.
He picked up the oar and held it in his lap and looked outside the boat again. “Anyone out there?”
He turned his head to listen for a response, a voice calling back, or splashing, anything, but there was nothing.
Where were all the people on his raft?
Where were Kevin and Marcus and Paolo?
What if he was the only one left?
Shy set the oar back down and carefully got to his feet. He sloshed around the dead bodies and tried to turn on the motor. Nothing. He saw that the entire control panel had been bashed in. Blood splattered across the dash. He turned and looked in the supply compartment underneath the control panel. A large package of fishing line and hooks. Water dye. A length of rope. A flare gun and six flares. A fiberglass patching kit and a tarp.
No food or water, though.
He left everything where it was and considered the salt water at the bottom of the boat. It was about knee-high, which was a problem because one of the jagged sides was splintered so it was only a few inches higher. He reached a hand down near the bottom of the side to feel around the biggest gash—water rushing in.
He knew the boat surface had to be dry to use the fiberglass patch kit, so he pulled the soaking wet sweatshirt off the closest body, balled one of the arms and wedged it into the toothy hole. Then he started bailing water with his two hands cupped together.
He spent over an hour doing this, tossing the ocean water over the side of the boat, handful after handful, the inside water level falling at a painfully slow pace, and he tried to keep himself from thinking too far ahead.
Twice he stopped when he saw a bright light streaking across the dark sky. Looked like shooting stars, but they had to be flares. This gave him hope. Someone else had to be out there. He stopped bailing and fired a flare of his own in response and crouched there watching the sky.
He waited several minutes hoping he’d see something else, but he didn’t, so he went back to work.
When he grew too tired to lift his arms he sat back to catch his breath and rest his aching ribs. But just sitting there was even worse. It allowed too much time to think about how dire his situation was. Stranded in the middle of an ocean without food or water or any sense of direction—in a boat full of dead people.
Panic rose in his throat and started to settle in his chest, making it hard to breathe. He pulled at his own hair for a few seconds, freaking out; then he closed his eyes and sucked in breath after breath until he calmed down and could resume bailing water.
It wasn’t long before Shy grew exhausted.
He put on the slicker to protect himself from the wind and sank down into the water in the boat, which was slightly warmer than the air. He shivered and stared at the bodies. Two older men, one with glasses and a cast on his right arm. A youngish blond woman who might have been pretty before her head injuries. Two older ladies, the one closest to him with a hideous gash across the side of her face.
He thought about dumping them into the ocean so he didn’t have to look at them, and because eventually they’d rot and start to smell, but he thought it might be bad luck. And a part of him still believed he might be rescued by morning. If the bodies were still on the boat they could be given a proper burial.
Outside the boat, the sky was slightly brighter. The sun would soon come up over the ocean. And before that it would come up over California.
How was this possible?
After everything he’d been through?
He tried to imagine his family back home, safe inside the strong hospital walls. But he couldn’t picture their faces. Something was wrong with him. He’d swallowed too much salt water or lost oxygen to his brain. Because no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t picture the faces of his own mom and sister and nephew. He could only picture Carmen.
He looked back at the cruise ship, all but sunk now. Watched the last bit of the bow plunge beneath the ocean’s surface until all that was left was the flicker of a few bright flames coming off the tip. And then only flames. And then nothing.
In its place, the first tiny sliver of morning sun.
Shy held himself as he watched the slow rise of the bright blurry mass, unable to wrap his mind around it. His teeth chattering and every breath killing his chest and his mind stuck on what might’ve happened to Carmen.
He reached a hand up to rub his tired eyes and found himself wiping away tears.