The Raft (4 page)

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t do anything
but
listen.

His breath smelled of coffee as he continued to yell at me, face-to-face. “The G-one should stay on the surface for about five minutes. If we stand any chance at all, we’ve got to get the raft out the window exit, then inflate it. You can’t inflate it before it goes out the window, understand?”

He was so close, it seemed like I absorbed his words through my face, not my ears. I couldn’t do anything but look at him.

Leaning back a little, he grimaced and then yelled, “Do you understand?” A few flecks of spit landed on my face.

I just sat there.

He slapped me.

Shocked out of my paralysis, I set a hand on my cheek and nodded like a maniac.

“Five more minutes and we’re down. Get your life vest on; get ready to exit. We’ve got to be fast or…”

He hesitated, and then finished his sentence. “Or we’ll go down with the plane. Understand?”

Again, I nodded, even though I only wanted to scream.

Max stumbled back to the cockpit.

I wanted so badly to hear what was worse than this. I needed to know what was worse. There had to be something worse.

Didn’t there?

My hands shook so bad that I just sat there, cradling the one thing that might save my life. The one thing that would do absolutely no good if I didn’t get it on in time.

Things suddenly got quieter.

Then there were new sounds.

Shudders and squeaks and an anguished mechanical groan like something out of a horror movie. Max barreled down the aisle toward me and, with a loud grunt, ripped the exit window open. The wind and rain burst in and would have nearly blown me away if I hadn’t been strapped in.

But in one motion, Max clicked open my seat belt, gripped me under the armpits, and picked me up like a small child. Wobbling as the plane jostled us, he stepped to the opening.

The wind whistled and rain pelted my face. Putting up my hands to protect myself, I shouted, “My life vest!”

He just tightened his grip on me and screamed back, “Hold your breath and kick for the surface! The raft will be there!”

And then he threw me out the window.

eight

The life vest was ripped from my arms as I zoomed through the air. The blast of wind and rain took my breath away so that the scream coming up from my gut stopped dead.

The falling lasted forever, my arms windmilling in the void. I wanted to stop moving.

Stop the noise.

Stop the wet.

Stop the cold.

Stop the blowing.

Stop everything.

Stop.

Please.

But if I stopped, it meant I was dead.

Dying wasn’t what I wanted.

Breathing was. I just wanted to breathe.

And live.

nine

My feet hurt when they hit the cold water, and I sank, feeling like I would never stop. Salt water poured in my open mouth as I screamed at the darkness swallowing me. I could see only black, could feel only the shock of cold and wet as I fell farther into the crushing nothing.

Am I dying?

Because if this was it, my last moments on Earth, I just wanted it to be over.

God, please kill me already. This is more than I can take.

ten

And I floated down …

down …

down.

It was over.

I
was over.

Dying was so much easier than I ever thought.

eleven

It turned out dying was too easy.

Something in me wouldn’t accept the easy way out.

My arms flailed and my legs kicked, and after a moment, stopped my descent.

My legs kicked more and helped me move slowly toward the surface. My eyes were open, and through the blur, above me, reddish light glowed.

As I reached up with my arms, my air went. My panic grew. And I struggled to hang on; I struggled not to lose my mind. I struggled as if my life depended on it, because I was certain that it did.

God, please, let me reach the light.

I want to live.

Fighting with every kick, every ounce of reserve I had left,

the light got brighter,

closer,

and I reached up,

planning to burst out into the air.

But I couldn’t.

I was at the surface,
I knew I was.

But my hands touched a barrier. Something was there, soft and yielding, but I couldn’t push through. The red was all around it.

I was so close,
so close
 …

But something kept me from air, from life, from not dying.

In an airless, thoughtless frenzy, my legs kept kicking as my hands pounded, pushed, and slapped. My head whipped from side to side as I screamed a silent
no no no
—

twelve

Suddenly, my hair jerked, and my scalp burned.

And then I was moving.

Up up up into the wind and the rain and the rushing and the terrible howling.

No! You’re hurting me!

It was what I wanted to shout at the guy who attacked me in Honolulu. But there in the water I thrashed with my arms and legs, fought with everything I had as I choked, gasping for air. The hands were too strong, and they pulled me out of the water by my hair, until I fell backward onto something soft and wet.

I opened my eyes. There was only red.

And Max, on his knees, panting, holding a lit flare, the red light I’d seen when I was below. His other hand clutched hanks of hair, my hair.

Lying on my back, spewing up seawater, I was drenched and cold and shaking and exhausted.

I started to let fresh air into my lungs, but it hurt. It hurt so bad I didn’t want to breathe for a moment.

I rolled onto my side, spitting and choking. I yelled at Max with as much strength as I had. “You threw me … out…” My words were weak, closer to a gasp than actual speech. “How could you do that?”

His back was to me.

Had he even heard my voice?

I sat up, still hacking into the deluge of rain and wind. I pressed my hands against my chest, trying to hold back the pain of breathing.

I couldn’t believe how bad it hurt; how bad drowning … almost drowning … hurt.

Max turned left to where, about a hundred yards away, blue lights winked.

The lights on the wing. The plane.

“Larry!” Max screamed. “Larry…”

I had to cover my ears so I wouldn’t scream myself. I closed my eyes and squeezed my hands tighter over my ears and was alone with the pounding of my heart.

Alone with the stinging of my scalp.

Alone with the pain in my chest.

Alone with the rain on my face.

Alone with my freezing wet clothes, clammy dead weight against my skin.

My breathing slowed.

Alone with the truth …

I had almost died.

Panic surged through my gut and I opened my eyes and uncovered my ears, welcoming the rush of noise and chaos, grateful for their distraction from the truth.

In the wind and the rain and the red-tinged night, the raft thrashed us up and down with no mercy. The blue lights slipped lower and lower until they winked out.

The G-1 was gone.

thirteen

Again and again Max shouted for Larry, screaming until his voice grew hoarse. Then he stopped and hunched over, hugging his knees, one hand still clutching the flare. The other hand held one side of his head.

Tears now mixed with the rain on my face, and sobs blended with my coughs. In a moment, my fear was going to overwhelm me, so I tried to cling to my fury. “You threw me out of the plane!”

Still not looking at me, he said, just loud enough so I could hear, “Would you rather still be on it?”

And then it was quiet.

He wasn’t waiting for an answer.

Because any answer would have been stupid. Because by throwing me out of the plane he’d saved my life. And because I was suddenly certain he would rather be sitting in the raft with Larry instead of me.

What seemed like seconds later, but must have been several minutes, the flare went out with a little splurge of sparks.

fourteen

Between the waves and the wind, the raft bounced about, giving us a ride nearly as harrowing as the one we’d just endured.

Shivering from both fear and the temperature, I huddled by myself, one hand clutching the slippery side of the raft, my other arm wrapped around my knees, face buried. I couldn’t bring myself to raise it up, look around. I didn’t want to know, for sure, that there was nothing to see because it was too dark. I didn’t want to know, for sure, that I was stuck out there. In the nothing.

Was Max still there in the raft with me? He had to be. I told myself that, because I would have gone insane being there alone.

“Max?”

No answer.

Maybe he was upset, trying to deal with what just happened. Or maybe he hated me, not caring whether I was scared. And why should he? If I hadn’t been there, if he hadn’t had to take care of me, maybe he could have helped Larry. Maybe he could have gotten Larry out, and Larry would be sitting in the raft instead of me.

I lifted my head into pelting rain that stung my face. I held up a hand in front of my face. Nothing. A surge toppled me onto my side and I quickly sat back up.

I had to know that Max was there with me, but I couldn’t bring myself to yell his name. What if he didn’t answer? I inched along the side, feeling the raft as I struggled to hold on as it tossed about. I rounded one corner. Thinking he must be within reach, I held out my hand.

I would not survive this night if I thought I was alone.

My fingertips brushed his arm, found his wet hand. Chilled, dripping fingers closed over mine.

I gasped, mostly in relief.

Then he led my hand to a canvas handle, which I grabbed and held on to. His touch was gone. I wanted him to do something, put an arm around me … something.

Holding on tight to the canvas handle, I wrapped my other arm around myself and cried.

Eventually, my sobs became shudders. Then, when I’d run out of even those, I just sat there, shivering and wet inside the raft.

Something blue flashed for a moment. I blinked and wiped water off my eyes, trying to see.

A smudge of bright, glowing neon blue on the surface of the ocean, rippling and changing shape as the water moved. Phosphorescents. Algae, probably stirred up by the storm.

As quickly as the blue appeared, it was gone, leaving me wet and cold and in utter blackness. My shoulders slumped and I hunched back down.

I called out, “Is there anything worse than this?”

Max didn’t answer for a moment.

Then, finally, he said, “Yes.”

He didn’t elaborate.

And I was glad. Because I didn’t really want to know what could possibly be worse.

fifteen

The rest of the night passed slowly, all wind and rain with the constant up and down. I clutched the handle. My gut churned and I leaned over the side and threw up. Half expecting the wind to blow my puke right back at me, I was relieved it didn’t. My head pounded and my lungs still hurt. After puking the fourth time, I slipped my arms out of my sleeves and tucked them inside my hoodie, laid my head on the wet, cool, soft side of the raft, held on to the handle, and shut my eyes.

They opened to a dawn so gray that there was hardly a difference in the light. The rain and wind still pelted us as the raft surged down into large troughs and back up steep crests, but it was slightly quieter than before.

I must have fallen asleep, or passed out, because my neck was stiff from being in the same spot for so long. I sat up.

My clothes were sodden and heavy, and I shivered. The Northwest Hawaiian Islands, Midway in particular, were not all tropical. During storms, with heavy winds, it could be downright cold.

I stripped off my bedraggled socks and dropped them by my side. My fingertips were stiff and wrinkled, and I blew on them and rubbed them together to try to get warm. Slowly, I took in my surroundings.

The raft was bright yellow and six-sided.

Max’s head lolled on the side of the raft and, with knees curled and arms crossed, he seemed to be sleeping. In that position he looked like a little boy. Some kind of yellow ditty bag was attached to his arm with a bracelet of blue bungee cord. I could see a white T-shirt through his drenched white pilot’s shirt. One of his feet had a black sock, one a shiny black shoe.

Feeling a surge in my throat, I leaned my top half over the side of the raft and puked into the dark waves. How could there be anything left to come up? Turning my face upward, I let the rain clean me off.

A yellow-and-blue bag labeled “Coastal Commander” was attached to the inside of the raft, and I opened it up, hoping for some bottled water.

Inside were four flares.

Good, so we would have light if we needed it.

A little yellow cup.

For drinking?

I knew enough to not drink salt water. Or my own pee. Catching rain maybe? I held it up and caught a few drops, which I used to moisten my mouth, but anything less than a monsoon would take forever to fill the cup. I set it aside.

A small square mirror.

Signaling maybe?

Only if you knew Morse code. I hoped Max did.

As daybreak brightened the sky, I held up the mirror and looked at myself. The light blue bags under my eyes startled me a little, as did the glittery diamond in my nose. I’d forgotten about that. I swiped crusty stuff out of my eyes, then smiled wide and fake. Even in the middle of the ocean, my first thought was that I wanted to brush my teeth. Less than a day and they were already gross.

I put the mirror away and moved on to the next item.

A flashlight and some extra batteries.

I switched on the flashlight.

At least we wouldn’t be completely in the dark anymore. Just knowing we had a flashlight, the ability to make the dark go way, made me feel a little better.