“What if the boat sinks?” yelled Sarah, knowing that the rope was attached to the boat with four knots.
“Even if it fills with water, it probably won’t go more than a foot below the surface,” yelled Jonathan in reply.
“How is that possible?” she asked.
As he continued scrambling around the boat, hunched over in the dark, undoing snaps and straps, he answered, “I checked out these lifeboats online before we got on the ship. They’re made of fiberglass on the outside, but on the inside they have foam-filled flotation chambers built into the hull. The foam can’t sink, so it might go beneath the surface of the water a little, but it won’t sink entirely. If we start having a problem with it, like a hole or something, we can flip it over and sit on top of it.”
Sarah smiled tentatively. “I guess that makes me feel a little bit better.”
“You’re welcome,” Jonathan said as he finished the job.
“Ready?” asked Kevin.
“Ready!”
Together the boys pulled the heavy tarp off the top of the boat and pushed it to the center. All four of them worked together to get it somewhat folded up, piling it up near the middle of the boat. It was thick and bulky, making it hard to maneuver.
Now that the cover was off, they were able to see around them a bit. The boat was being tossed all over the sea’s surface. The rain was coming down very heavily, but the moon was visible through the clouds from time to time, making it possible to see that they were in a very dark and very lonely place. They could barely make out the lights of the cruise ship way off in the distance. Even this far away, they could see that the ship was listing to the side. It was weird seeing such a big thing looking so ... well ... wrong.
They started scooping up handfuls of water, throwing them overboard as fast as they could; but no matter how fast they scooped, it seemed the rain kept coming in to fill up the bottom of the boat. The skies showed no signs of clearing. There were clumps of black clouds as far as they could see.
After nearly an hour of scooping, they were all exhausted. Sarah stopped scooping altogether, followed shortly by Candi.
“I just ... can’t ... anymore. I’m exhausted,” said Sarah.
“You have to keep trying,” said Jonathan, focused on scooping and tossing; scooping and tossing.
Candi’s gaze was fixed on a spot just over Jonathan’s shoulder. Sarah looked over and caught the expression on her face. Sarah could see she was terrified.
“What? What’s wrong? Other than the obvious of course.”
Candi couldn’t answer; she could only point.
Everyone turned to look and Sarah felt the blood drain from her face.
It was a huge building-size rogue wave. It looked like a tsunami, and it was heading right for them.
“Oh, shit!” yelled Jonathan.
“Oh, shit is right!” agreed Kevin. “What should we do?”
“I don’t know! Just hold on and pray!! And put your backpacks ON!! We can’t lose our supplies!”
Everyone scrambled to grab a totally soaked backpack and put it on. Sarah put her backpack on and grabbed her makeup valise. She put it in her lap and held onto it with one hand, holding onto the side of the boat with the other.
“Would you get rid of that thing?!” yelled Jonathan.
“No! Leave me alone!”
Candi glared at her brother. “Just leave it, Jonathan; we have bigger eggs to fry.”
Sarah felt the boat rising up and up and up again – just like last time – only last time, they had the cover on the boat. This time the boat was wide open and already half-full of water.
The boat started to spin as it reached the crest of the wave, which was just starting to break at the top. Sarah began to feel dizzy and sick, losing track of where they were.
The only thing they could hear was the roar of the wave and their screams. The only thing they could see was spinning, spinning, spinning and a great yawning, foaming whiteness. The water rushed over the boat and filled their mouths, trying to force its way into their lungs. Sarah gagged on the salty seawater, holding on to her brother and the boat as tight as she possibly could.
The wave seemed to be pounding around them over and over. Just when she thought it was calming down, it would rise up again. It was like a series of vicious waves, growing and climbing, with the specific purpose of destroying their little boat and sending them to the ocean floor to become food for the sharks that were certainly waiting for them below the turbulence of the surface waves.
One last wave, bigger than all the rest, rose up out of the black sea. All four of them looked up, and the last thing any of them remembered seeing was a wall of black water, coming to claim their lives.
CHAPTER SIX
Adrift
Jonathan was the first one to wake up, slowly at first. Then enough that he could taste the dried salt water covering his chapped lips. The inside of his mouth felt wrinkled and salty. He sensed the heat of the early rays of the sun, already burning his salt-damaged skin. He moved his fingers and felt the skin crackling, as if they were coated with dried glue.
He tried to move his legs but they were pinned in place. He had a momentary panic attack until he opened his eyes and realized he couldn’t move his legs because someone was lying across them. He wiggled them a little bit and managed to rouse Candi.
Candi sat up all of a sudden, quickly leaning over to the side of the boat to vomit into the water.
“Uuuuhh. What the hell happened? I feel so sick. Oh no ... here it comes again ... ” She leaned over and vomited a second time.
She wiped her mouth off with the heel of her hand and laid back down in the boat, arched uncomfortably over the pack that was still strapped between her shoulders.
The noise woke Sarah up. She lifted her head off the tarp where it had been resting. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed or washed in a month. Jonathan was afraid of what she might do if she saw it, doubting that she’d ever seen herself look this bad before. He wisely kept his mouth shut about it.
“What? What’s happening? Are we rescued yet?” She looked around and her face dropped.
All Jonathan could think was, water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink. Funny that The Rime of the Ancient Mariner would pop into his head right now. Hopefully their little boat would have better luck than the one in that story. He shivered to himself thinking about it.
Kevin stayed put, giving a slight moan as an indication that he was still alive.
Sarah looked over at her brother, frowning in concern.
Jonathan saw that Kevin’s eye was swollen shut and looked pretty gross. His lips looked as chapped and dry as Jonathan’s felt.
“I need some water,” croaked Sarah. She started shrugging off her backpack to get a bottle from within.
“No! Wait!” yelled Jonathan.
Sarah shot him a dirty look. “Why? I’m thirsty.”
“Yes, I know. We all are. But we have very limited supplies, and we don’t know when we’re going to be rescued. We have to take stock of what we have and then ration it. We have to use as little as possible.”
Sarah thought about what he said and nodded slowly.
“Everyone take your backpacks off and empty them here on the tarp. Let’s see what we have,” instructed Jonathan.
Slowly they all sat up, Kevin more slowly than the rest, and wrestled with their backpacks to get them off. It was easier said than done, since the saltwater had started to dry into a stiffness that made the straps difficult to bend and pull off.
They each opened up a backpack and started putting things out on the tarp. Kevin and Jonathan organized it all into separate piles and tallied it up.
“Okay, Kevin, how many ounces of water do we have?”
“Well, we have six, eight-ounce bottles, so that makes forty-eight ounces, give or take.”
“Okay, so there are four of us, that makes twelve ounces each. Maybe a little less for us and a bit more for you, since you ha
ve a bigger body mass than us. Now, how much food do we have?”
Kevin answered, “We have three protein bars, one bag of airline peanuts, two melted candy bars, and a mini bag of beef jerky.” He held up the bag of beef jerky and smiled. “Who’s the genius who brought this?”
Candi smiled mirthlessly and raised her hand. “That would be me.”
She looked around at everyone looking at her like she was crazy. “What? I like to eat beef jerky when I go on road trips! I figured I’d like it on a cruise, too.”
“Hey, it’s good protein, Candi, don’t worry about it. We just have to be careful because of the salt. We can’t afford to make ourselves more dehydrated than we probably are already going to be. We’ll save that one for last,” said Jonathan.
“Okay, what else do we have with us?”
Kevin held up a sopping wet hunk of white cloth and some other miscellaneous things. “One bed sheet. One pocketknife. One black thing I don’t know what it is. Two rain ponchos. Two pairs of sunglasses. One compass. One baseball hat. One tiny scope thingy ... aaaaand ... that’s about it.”
“Don’t forget the tarp,” said Candi weakly.
Jonathan frowned at the file of rations on the boat cover. “That black thing is a flint, for starting fires. So, let’s start with water. I think we’re all pretty thirsty. Only two ounces each, though.” Jonathan looked each person in the eye and they all nodded in agreement.
As she drank, Sarah looked around. “Don’t we have some stuff on this boat from the ship? I mean, it’s not like they’d send people out on a lifeboat with nothing in it, would they?”
Everyone started looking around them at once. It was then that they realized the lumps they were leaning against actually were hard, covered boxes with latches on them.
They each hurried to open the box nearest them. Kevin got his opened first. “Ha! Water! A big container of it, probably ten water bottles’ worth or more. Plus some vacuum-packed foil packets that might be food ... Yes, I think these are meals. There are twelve of them.”
“I have a flashlight with batteries! Hey, and it works! There’s also a mirror in here, a hatchet, and ... um ... dynamite sticks,” said Candi.
Kevin and Jonathan looked at each other with confused expressions on their faces. Dynamite?
“Flares!” they both yelled at the same time, grinning at each other.
“My box has a first aid kit in it. Should I open it?” asked Sarah.
“Yes, open it,” said Jonathan.
Sarah flipped the latch. “There are band-aids, some scissors, some white tape, some iodine looking stuff, rubber gloves, some foil packets with antibiotic cream, and tweezers. Oh, and some gauze pads.”
“What about your box, Jon? Anything good?” asked Kevin.
“Well, I think so. This looks to me like ... ,” he pulled out a black box, “some sort of radio!”
“Does it work?” Sarah asked, desperately.
“I don’t know, there’s a switch here. If I can figure out how to turn it on ... ” He flipped it back and forth, but nothing happened. “Hmmm, it doesn’t seem to be working.”
“Hand it to me, Jon, let me see what I can do.” Kevin reached his hand out for it.
“No, just wait, I want to look at it first.”
“Give it to him, Jonathan,” said Sarah, a dangerous tone in her voice.
Jonathan disregarded it. “In a minute.”
Sarah got up on her knees and reached over to take it from him. “Give it up, Jonathan, you don’t know what you’re doing. Kevin is very good with electronics.”
“Back off, Sarah, I’m not done yet,” Jonathan warned, keeping a strong grip on the black box.
Sarah had obviously had enough of Jonathan’s arrogance. She grabbed the box and hauled back hard on it, yelling, “Give it!”
Jonathan lost his grip suddenly, and it slipped out of his hands.
Sarah wasn’t expecting to win it so easily, and fell back with it in her hands held high above her head.
Jonathan watched the scene as it played out in what seemed like slow motion – Sarah tumbled backwards and the box flew out of her hands, over the back of the lifeboat and into the water.
“Holy shit, Sarah!” yelled Kevin, an instant before he got up and jumped into the water after it. Unfortunately, he had forgotten they were all still tied together.
Jonathan felt the tug on the rope first. A burst of air and a loud painful groan flew out of his mouth as he was dragged towards the edge of the lifeboat.
With the combined weight of Kevin in the water and Jonathan connected to him on the same side, the entire boat started leaning sideways and began taking on water.
“Jonathan!! Kevin!! Oh my god, get back in the boat!”
Sarah threw herself to the opposite side, trying to counterbalance the weight.
Candi reached over and tried to help Kevin get back into the boat. He was finding it difficult with his swollen hand and only one eye to work with. Being fully clothed in wet canvas shorts and cotton made his body a lot heavier than normal.
Kevin was finally able to drag himself back into the boat with Candi’s and Jonathan’s help. He didn’t have the radio in his hand. It was made of metal and had sunk too fast.
Everyone just sat there for a minute, Kevin trying to get his breath and Jonathan wrestling with the knot in the rope around his waist. He didn’t want to get dragged overboard like almost just happened. He decided that the idea they’d had of everyone drowning together earlier was a stupid one.
Sarah sniffed and looked down at her nails, saying nothing.
Kevin looked at his sister, a frustrated look on his face.
Sarah looked up and saw her brother staring at her. “What? I’m sorry, okay? Sheez, how was I supposed to know Jonathan was going to let the thing go like that?” She looked over and shot Jonathan a dirty look.
“Wha ... ? Me ... ? You’re blaming this on me? You’re nuts, you know that?” He shook his head in disgust, mumbling under his breath. He kept himself busy packing their supplies evenly into the four backpacks, putting items like the flares and flashlight in his and Kevin’s packs. Sarah had already proven she couldn’t be trusted to be responsible; he wasn’t about to have her holding their life-saving supplies.
“Come on, guys, let’s not fight. We’re going to be out here for at least part of today, so we should make the best of it.”
“I’m sorry to break this to you, Candi, but I think we’re going to be out here a lot longer than just today,” said Jonathan bitterly, without looking up.
Candi started feeling sick to her stomach again. “Why do you say that?”
“Because that storm blew us really, really far away. I’m no expert at navigation or anything, but if I were searching for the passengers from the ship, I probably would limit my search to the area near the ship. They might not even know about those rogue waves that kept throwing us farther and farther away from the standard search grid area.”
“What is a rogue wave, anyway?” asked Kevin.
“Rogue waves are really large and spontaneous ocean surface waves that occur far out at sea; a threat even to cruise ships, let alone little lifeboats like we’re on. Maybe that’s what caused the problems with our ship, I’m not sure. Technically, rogue waves are waves whose height is more than twice the significant wave height, which is the mean of the largest third of waves in a wave record.”
“Holy, blah, blah, Jonathan, what are you actually saying?” asked a frustrated Sarah.
“Therefore,” Jonathan continued, not even glancing at Sarah, “rogue waves are, in a nutshell, surprisingly large waves for a given area of the ocean."
“So, you’re talking about a tsunami, then?” said Kevin.
“No, rogue waves are not tsunamis. Tsunamis are triggered by earthquakes that happen out at sea, which cause a wave to travel at high speeds and build up strength as it approaches a shoreline. Rogue waves, on the other hand, occur in deep water or where a number of physical factor
s such as strong winds and fast currents converge, but not earthquakes. Some think a rogue wave is a bunch of smaller waves that join together to make one, large wave; and based on what I was feeling last night, I’d agree with them. The biggest rogue wave ever measured was something like ninety feet high.”
“Which is ... ” said Kevin, trailing off as if he were trying to calculate the size of a wave like that.
“About as big as the one that threw our boat last night – the height of a ten story building.”
“You act like you’re not really sure, though,” said Candi.
“The problem with rogue waves is that they’re rare. Hardly anyone has ever seen one. They have almost never been measured. So the fact that last night there wasn’t just one, but several, is some sort of crazy anomaly that no one could have predicted or planned for. It’s entirely possible that we’re the only ones who even knew they were there!”
Sarah started putting it all together. “So that means that if someone comes to look for us, they’re probably not going to look out this far, and if they don’t find us near the ship, they’ll probably assume we drowned.”
“Yes,” answered Jonathan, sighing deeply and sadly. “That is exactly what I’m trying to say.”
Everyone on the boat went quiet. The only sound they could hear was the gentle lapping of water against the sides of the boat and the sea breeze blowing against their dry, chapped faces. They sat there, absorbing the news that they were probably completely doomed. Each of them was doing the calculation in their heads. Enough water for a couple of days. Food for a couple of days. And an endless expanse of salt water and burning hot sun.
“Hey, I don’t want to add more gloom to our doom,” said Sarah, “but shouldn’t we do something about this sun? I’m starting to bake. I may be dying soon, but I don’t want to go down prematurely wrinkled.”
Candi nodded her head. “Yes, I agree, who has the sunscreen?”
“It’s in this bag.” Jonathan handed it to his sister. “I think we should all wear the backpacks, so nothing goes flying overboard again.” He looked pointedly at Sarah, who refused to meet his eyes.