LC 04 - Skeleton Crew (45 page)

The sand, where was the sand? There was nothing but thick
rubber stretched over the top of the dam like the head of a drum.
The wind pushed her down and she slid on the wet rubber, hitting
the bump where the inner bulkhead stood above the sand, slipping
half over into the well. Electric panic sparked through her body as
she clawed at the rubber, sliding. There was nothing to hold on to.
She slipped over the side. By some miracle she caught hold of the
tie ropes that threaded around the edge of the rubber like huge
stitches holding it in place. She hung from the rope, suspended on
the side of the dam. Her wet fingers hurt. Think. The stairs. They
were not a yard away. Gripping hard with her left hand, she let go
with her right, stretched it over as far as she could, and grasped
another part of the rope. She remembered now-they were going to cap the top of the dam so the water would drain into the well or
into the ocean and not soak into the sand. John's crew were doing
that when she was taking up the artifacts. She held tightly with her
right hand and moved her left over. She could reach the scaffolding again. Safety. Don't count your chickens.

Lindsay took hold of the metal scaffolding with her right hand,
and before she could chicken out, she let go of the rope with the
left and grabbed the metal bar with it, while searching for a
foothold. With her feet on a lower bar and her hands on a higher
one, she baby-stepped around the metal structure. It shook as if the
footing was no longer on solid ground. She ducked under the bar
and lay on the stairs, tired and sick. She yelled again. Only a crashing wave answered her. Don't let grass grow under your feet.

She climbed the stairs again to the top, this time staying low.
She crawled onto the slippery rubber. She strained trying to see out
in the ocean. Off in the distance she saw a fuzzy light-the barge,
a ship, the shore? She was alone. They left her. Trey and the others
left her. John left her here in the dark. She yelled his name. He
wouldn't leave her here. Her head hurt.

In the flash from the lightning she saw the trailers. She crawled
on her belly so she wouldn't make a target for the wind. Don't go
in a trailer in a hurricane, some voice said in her head. But what if
there's something there? Something? What? Take a breath-a deep
breath. You have to get your brain back if you want to live. You're
alone. You have to have your brain. Air tanks. Maybe they left
some diving equipment. That's it. Good thinking. Would that
help? It's calm underwater isn't it? Isn't it? Dear God, please let
there be diving equipment. She inched her way to the trailer and
held on to its side with one hand and turned the doorknob. It
wouldn't turn. It was locked. No. No. There's no reason for it to be
locked. Locked out. I can't be locked out. Left out and locked out.
She held on to the side until she reached the other door. She turned
the knob. Please don't be locked. The door flew open in the wind.
She climbed into the trailer and stopped a moment, resting.

Don't rest long. Remember what happened when you rested
too long in the cave. It was so much calmer in the trailer. No wind
to hit her, no rain, just a little rocking. It's deceptive, her inner
voice said. It will blow away and you with it. Get on with it.
Lindsay headed for the closet where she knew they kept tanks. She
passed the bathroom. Aspirin. She felt in her pocket for her key chain and the small flashlight on it. Never, never be without light.
Light is life. If people wouldn't think she was nuts, she'd put it on
a bumper sticker. She took four aspirin. It will make you bleed.
Was she bleeding? She felt her head. Wet, but not sticky. I'm not
bleeding. Don't scare me like that, she admonished her inner voice.

Lindsay almost jumped for joy when she found a full air tank
and diving gear. She pulled on the buoyancy compensator, tank,
and mask. Someone's weight belt. Not hers. The wrong weight.
Doesn't matter, any weight is good weight. She grabbed a diving
knife from the floor. No flippers. Flippers would have been good.
She could go fast in flippers.

She hated to leave the trailer. It felt so much safer. It rocked violently. It's not safe. Go outside. There was a map next to the door.
She didn't know what of, but she remembered Nate's advice.
Always orient yourself in the right direction. Good advice, she
didn't want to swim farther out into the ocean. She recalled a mental image of the dam and where land was and where ocean was.
Remember that image. She put the mask over her face and stepped
out the door. The wind knocked her into the side of the trailer.
Maybe she could crawl under the rubber and wait. And suffocate.
Maybe she could hold on to the stairway until the storm passed.
John thinks the dam will hold. But, John doesn't have his butt out
here testing it, does he? What if it doesn't hold? The alternative is
the ocean. Look at it. It was dreadful, choppy, boiling. But people
escaped sinking ships in boats. Boats! They always kept a boat at
the dam. That was a rule. Never leave the dam without a boat.
They had a small one on the land side of the dock, an outboard.
You don't know how to drive a boat, her inner voice told her. "I'll
learn," she screamed at it. She had two plans-swimming underwater and driving a boat to shore. One of them would work. She'd
think about what to do when she got to shore.

Lindsay crawled to the stairs leading down to the dock, grateful to have something to hold on to. Her hands were cold and wet,
and she squeezed the bars until they hurt as she descended. The
boat was there. It was a small motorboat. A mouse of a boat. Not
worth taking along with them-thank heaven.

It was tied to two moorings, fore and aft, and bucked in the
water like an unbroken horse. The ties kept it from crashing into
the bulkhead. She somehow managed to climb into the rocking
boat and fell onto its bottom. It had water in it, but that was all right. It was only five miles to shore. Five miles, short for calm
water, a light-year in a hurricane.

How do you start the motor? Like a lawn mower? Does it have
a starter button? She tilted it back so the propeller was in the water,
trying to remember her father and brother taking her out fishing.
Quick-rudder-she felt for the rudder. Clutch-she found the
clutch. Start. What if there's not a key? There wasn't. A starter
rope. It had a starter rope. She pulled. Nothing. She pulled again.
Nothing. Third time wasn't a charm, but the fourth was and the
motor rumbled to life and screamed at the sight of the storm
waves. She took the knife and cut the ropes, positioned the rudder
in a manner that she hoped would take her away from the dam,
and gently moved the clutch.

The boat shot away from the dam, bouncing as if it were made
of rubber. Each bounce hit the water hard, jarring her head, making her nauseated. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but getting
to the shore. Then what? Doesn't matter. Get to shore, get to shore,
get to shore. She'd make it. The wind slammed at her side. Not
good. She remembered the diary. Keep the boat into the wind to
ride out a storm. I don't want to ride out the storm, I want to get
to shore.

A wave slammed into her, almost turning her over. She was sitting in water. Nothing she could do. Pray you get to shore before
she sinks. Maybe you should have stayed at the dam. Too late. The
dam was behind her. Don't look back, you'll turn to salt. Besides,
if she was lucky, the dam was a couple or three miles behind her.
She put the clutch in another gear and went faster, bouncing
harder. Get to the shore as fast as you can. Haste makes wastemaybe, but sometimes haste makes fast. She couldn't see the shore.
What if she was going in the wrong direction? No, she was going
in the right direction. Go, go, go. She was lucky-she bounced, but
stayed afloat. People did get to safety in storms in lifeboats, she
told herself over and over. Was that it ahead? The shore? There was
a line of dark something ahead. Maybe it was the shoreline. Maybe
it was clouds. Her head throbbed. Why wouldn't the aspirin take
effect? Maybe that was the wrong thing to take. Too late now.

Another wave slammed into her, tossing the boat over on top of
her in the water. She sank. The water was not calm below the surface. Her inner advice had lied to her. The wind reached down
under the water, churning it. It swirled her around like a mixer. She fought to get her regulator in her mouth and took a breath. She
was hopelessly turned around. She'd never find her way to shore,
she was going to drown. No. I'm not going to drown. The waves
are going ashore. They will take me ashore.

She felt sick, nauseated. Don't throw up, not now. Laterwhen you're on the shore. Breathe slowly, be calm, try to dive
deeper where it's calmer. You'll go to shore, that's where the
water's going. You're close, you were almost there, weren't you?
Before you turned over, didn't you see the dark line of trees
blowing in the wind? Lindsay let out some air in her BC so she
would sink deeper. The water was still choppy. A wave must
have gone over her, for she suddenly bobbed and tumbled forward. Just breathe until you have no breath. She reduced her BC
some more, sunk a little farther. The water was still rough.
Another wave went over. She hit the bottom of the ocean hard,
the regulator jarred from her mouth, she slammed the side of her
face against the bottom of the sea. Don't breathe, don't breathe.
She scrambled for her regulator and put it in her mouth and
breathed. It still worked.

Bellisaro stood holding the stump of the mast, yelling at her to
hold on, telling her he was sorry. She clawed at the bottom of the
ocean until her fingers hurt. The water rushed over her like a river,
but she moved against it, swept by some magic current. The floor
of the ocean was so hard, and it hurt her fingers. She felt a stabbing
pain in her arm. She was going to die.

I'm sorry, she whispered in her mind to all those people who
would mourn her. Another wave crashed over her, and another,
and another, and she was on land. A tree limb blew on top of her.
Her left arm hurt, but she wasn't in the water. She pulled the regulator out of her mouth. The bottom of the ocean still hurt her fingers as she dug them into it trying to rise. It's so hard. Where's the
sand? She rose to her knees, pulling off her gear with shaking fingers. The wind blew another branch in her face. She wanted to
scream at the trees. In the dim light she looked at the vegetation
blowing in the wind. Why was she so high? She looked down, then
all around her. No. It's impossible. She heard a creak, a groan, and
a crash. She stood.

She was standing on the deck of a galleon. The jagged stump of
the mainmast was directly in front of her, the railing to her right.
The wind pushed her sideways, the deck started groaning and giv ing way under her feet. She jumped, landing hard in the wet sand,
knocking the breath out of her.

On all fours, gasping for breath, she crawled to the trees.
Impossible. She looked again. It was there, impossibly damaged,
collapsing, majestic. With another groan, the ship keeled over.
Lindsay crawled into the woods, looking for a low place, something with protection, anything. She fell into a shallow depression
filled with water and laid her head on the sandy bank.

Lindsay awakened with a start, gasping for air. She had slipped
into the ditch and her mouth filled with water. But there was no
sound. Had it passed? As she slept, unconscious, it had passed,
and now it was morning. Was this the eye? Something told her that
no, it wasn't. That, as bad as the winds were, they were not near
hurricane strength. Her arm throbbed in pain. She remembered the
dream. Bellisaro, the ship. She wondered how she had lived.

She walked on aching, throbbing legs, out on the beach. It had
to be a dream. But there in the sunlight lay the ship. Its bow
plowed into the foliage, the rest in shallow receding water. It was
enormous. Even decayed and crumbling, she was grand. Lindsay
walked toward it, the water gently lapping around her ankles-as
if only the evening before it hadn't treacherously tried to drown
her.

The ship had a gaping wound in her side. The shallow water
and thin stretch of sand glittered with gold. A chest had broken
open, spilling bars out into the surf. Piles of coins lay in the sand.
Lindsay knelt and put her hands in them. Some gold, some silver,
some stuck together. She looked inside the hold. It was stacked
with barrels and chests. She wanted to walk in. Her better sense,
returning to her in the daylight, told her not to. She backed away
and picked up a gold bar. It was unbelievably heavy for its size.

She looked up at the sun. Late morning. She had slept a long
time. Did anyone miss her? It hit her then what had happened. She
hadn't even thought about it until that moment. She touched the
back of her head. Someone had hit her and left her under the plastic to die. She felt a stabbing pain in her arm. She looked down at
it and fell to her knees.

It's all right, it's all right. It's not that bad, she told herself. A
splinter about six inches long was imbedded under the bloodcaked skin of her forearm just below the elbow. She touched it tenderly. It was sore. She tugged gently to pull it out and was rewarded with enough pain to make her cry. I've got to get home.
Surely someone is looking for me.

She walked around the ship through the vegetation to the other
side. Most of the hull on that side was missing and the ribs were
showing. The decks were collapsing. No one is going to believe
this, she thought. She still held the gold bar. She held it close and
started walking in the direction of the house. Every step hurt, her
face throbbed. The saltwater-soggy sneakers hurt her feet. My
teeth, the regulator! She stuck her fingers in her mouth, feeling.
They were all there, but two of her upper incisors were loose. They
would tighten back up. Just as long as they were there. She felt no
jagged edges, either. The side of her face felt swollen. I'll bet I look
like the wreck of the Hesperus.