by Ryan Casey
She was blind.
Alone.
And the enemy had carried out their orders, whoever they were, and whatever their motives really were.
She knew she had to do something. Simply because doing nothing didn’t seem like an option. It seemed defeatist. Like giving up.
But what could she do right now?
What options did she have really?
She was alone. Drifting on this boat—no idea of her destination. No idea how she was going to get out of this.
She wasn’t the hero of a story.
She was at the mercy of nature.
And that was the real story. That was the real moral.
There was no hero.
There was no protagonist.
That much should be clear by now.
When protagonists fall, throw you into a state of destabilisation, you search for someone else.
You look for someone else to root for.
You look for someone else to identify with.
Someone who fits the bill.
Someone with a flaw and an arc and a heroic struggle.
It’s what Kelsie had been doing all her life. What everyone does all their life. Because narrative drives all.
But there is no great narrative.
Narrative is the biggest myth we’ve ever been taught.
It got us to where we are.
But it destroyed us, too.
Because the protagonist is nature itself.
The only constant is nature itself.
And nobody can predict its whims.
Nobody can guess where it might go, from moment to moment, day to day.
So she had to go along with nature’s story now.
She had to let it carry her.
As much as she didn’t want to rescind control… there was nothing else she could do.
She held Baby Holly close. Patted Arya Jr at the same time. The ringing in her ears was still strong and deafening. The brightness in her eyes was getting more searing, burning, and painful now. It felt like her eyes were going to burst out of her skull at any moment.
And closing her eyes didn’t help.
They didn’t help a thing.
As the waves crashed against the boat, she looked down at where she knew baby Holly was, and she thought about the best option here. The least cruel option. The option that would result in the least suffering. Jump out the boat. That’s what she was thinking. Jump out, and get it done with. Finish Arya Jr first, though. Because it wasn’t fair on her to be left alone, either.
Unless there was a quicker way. Unless there was another way of doing things.
She moved a hand over baby Holly’s mouth and thought about just holding it there.
She was too young to understand.
She was too young to know what was happening.
But then she pulled her hand away and cried. Because she couldn’t. As much as she knew it might be the kindest—cruel but kind—option, she couldn’t.
She was with these two ’til the end.
There was going to be no quick escape. No easy way out.
There was only going to be slow decline.
She went to put her hand back to one side when she noticed something.
The engine.
That constant she’d heard in the background, even through the loud ringing in her ears.
It had stopped whirring.
Her stomach sank. She went over to it. Clambered over to the back of the boat where she knew the motor or the engine or whatever the hell it was, was. Tried to reach the pull-string that would get it started again. Tried to find it. Tried to pull it, even if her hands were shaky, even if she was totally bereft of energy.
She found it. Muttered to herself all the way. “That’s it. Got it. Just got to… just got to pull it. Just got to…”
She pulled it.
Nothing happened.
That nausea again. The nausea of inevitability.
She gritted her teeth.
Pulled that pull-string again.
Nothing happened.
Kelsie sat there. Stared at where she knew the motor was.
And as she sat there, she realised something stark.
A starker truth than anything she’d known so far.
This boat wasn’t going to start moving.
It was stuck.
She was trapped.
At mercy of the waves at last.
She moved back. Leaned against the back of the boat. No time to consider things. No time to even begin coming to terms with her new reality.
Just shocked.
Shocked that things had come to this.
Shocked that this was the way it was going to end for her.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t shout. She didn’t anything.
She just sat there with the two she cared about most in this world, and she listened to the ringing in her ears.
Then she heard something else.
Arya Jr.
She was growling.
Growling at something.
Growling at someone.
Chapter Forty-Six
The second Kelsie heard Arya Jr growl, she knew she wasn’t alone.
She still couldn’t see. The brightness was growing more intense and more painful by the moment. But she just got a different sort of feeling, now. A different kind of sense—the sense that she wasn’t alone. That extra sense that she couldn’t explain—that nobody could explain.
But it felt heightened now.
Perhaps it was in light of her lack of vision. Her distorted hearing.
Or perhaps it really was just another example of her mind playing tricks on her once again.
She’d been sleepless for some time, after all. Foodless. Without insulin or any of her medication. All of it could contribute. All of it could be a factor.
But then she heard Arya Jr’s growls get louder.
Heard her bark.
And then she felt it.
Something.
Something hit the side of the boat.
She froze. Heart racing. Mouth dry. She didn’t know what to say or what to do. Only that she was trapped here. She didn’t want to call out. She didn’t want to speak.
But at the same time… she knew that whoever was out there would have eyes on her.
They’d already have the advantage.
So what did she have to lose?
She held baby Holly tighter than ever. Tried to pat Arya Jr, to encourage her back to her side, to comfort her.
But it wasn’t working.
Something was bothering her.
Something was really bothering her.
Kelsie didn’t move again for a while. The banging, it seemed to stop. And that weird sixth sense-like feeling she thought she’d felt crawling across her skin just moments earlier seemed to have gone away, too.
She kept still, but she took a deep breath.
“Hello?” she said.
Nothing.
Arya Jr barking still.
Kelsie lifted her head, just a little, even though she knew damn well peeking over the side of the boat when she couldn’t see a thing was hardly going to do any good. But old habits die hard, after all.
She stood up. Stood right opposite the banging.
“Is somebody there?”
No sound again.
And then there was that little bang once more.
She fell back. Wondered whether it could be an animal. A fish. A shark.
But then as she stood, she thought she knew what it was.
A vision. A flash from her past.
Memory of when she was a kid. Riding in a boat. Her in one with Mum. Dad in the other, barging against her.
She remembered the fear and the laughter and all of it merged together into a kind of vision of what was ahead of her.
And then she took a deep breath and reached over to find out whether she was right or not.
She felt regret the moment she did it. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she’d go
t this completely off the mark.
But then she felt the sides of the boat ahead of her, and her suspicions were confirmed.
It was another boat. A small fishing boat from the feel of things, probably smaller than the one she was in. Wooden.
And judging by the way it was bobbing against her—judging from the silence—it was empty.
She looked back—again, out of habit more than anything. Looked at Arya Jr. Baby Holly still in her arms.
And then she turned around and looked at the boat ahead. Because there could be something in there for her. Something she could use. Something to eat. Something to help keep them alive.
She swallowed a lump in her throat, swallowed her fear, and then she climbed over onto the other boat.
It wobbled underfoot. Almost knocked her off balance.
But she stood her ground. Stood tall.
She heard Arya Jr barking behind her. Heard a scampering of claws. A struggle. She’d jumped over, wobbling the boat in turn. Alongside her now.
Kelsie crouched down. She felt the floor of the boat. Felt for something, anything she could use.
She moved her hands along it, and then she felt something.
She knew what it was before even investigating it. Her fears confirmed all over again.
It was a person.
Only they weren’t alive.
They were dead.
She moved her hand away. Then she forced herself to touch it again. Felt the clothes. Felt the slight hardening of the skin and the muscle underneath. She felt all these things and realised that a sightless world didn’t help the processing of these kinds of circumstances at all. If anything, it was worse. It made it more tactile. Sparked more violent images in the mind.
But she kept breathing deeply. Kept moving her hands up the body.
When she reached the skin, she felt the hair. Then the breasts.
She realised then it was a woman.
She pulled her hands away. She tried to imagine what’d happened. Perhaps she’d been out here surviving for some time. Eating fish. Gathering water.
Or maybe she’d escaped much in the same way Kelsie had, too.
She felt sympathy for this woman, whoever she was. Because this could be her.
It could very easily be her.
Arya Jr barked more violently than ever behind her.
“Be quiet,” Kelsie said.
Then she put a hand on the woman’s neck, and she felt something.
She wasn’t sure what it was at first. Thought it might be water. Some kind of fluid.
But then she felt the soft fleshiness underneath, and it dawned on her right away.
She felt the rest of her body. Felt more of these patches. Heart racing. Chest tightening.
Because this woman.
Whatever had happened to her… she hadn’t died in the explosion.
She’d been dead a while.
The ringing in her ears.
There was buzzing, too.
But it wasn’t just in her head.
It was the flies.
She moved her hand away.
Staggered back.
Arya Jr’s barking growing violent.
“Come on,” she said, fear and terror building up. “We need to get out of here. We need to…”
Then she felt a hand land on her shoulder and tighten.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Kelsie felt the hand on her shoulder, and her entire body went numb.
The blinding brightness intensified in her eyes as the fear took hold. Eternities of thoughts and fears invaded her mind in a matter of seconds. Because she was right. She was right all along. She wasn’t alone. Not only was there a boat here, but there was somebody in it, too. Somebody living.
Living with a dead body.
Arya Jr barking.
Baby Holly crying.
And Kelsie standing here.
Blind.
Alone.
Lost.
She turned around to face the person holding onto her shoulder, his—she knew that much from his musty smell, his hard hands, her other senses in overdrive—hand tightening on her shoulder.
And then she did the only thing she thought possible right now in a situation as desperate as this.
She lifted her head towards his balls as hard as she could, and she kicked.
He winced. Loosened his grip on her shoulder, just for a second. She knew she had to get back to her boat. She had to get away.
But she’d lost her bearings.
She had no idea which direction to go in.
Where to turn.
She threw herself to the side of the boat regardless.
And that’s when she felt the hands again.
He pulled her back, only this time there was even more force. He yanked her back, sent her flying down to the floor of the boat.
And as she lay there, head aching, Baby Holly still in her arms… she could only pull her closer. Because she was defenceless. Blind, defenceless, weak.
Arya Jr still barking beside her.
She felt the man’s hands wrap around her throat. Smelled his sickly sour breath, saltiness to it that told her he’d attempted to drink the seawater. She knew the tales about people at sea drinking salt water. How it sent people mad. She could tell this man wasn’t in any fit state.
But he was tough.
That grip around her neck. It was strong and tight, and she couldn’t do anything to break free of it.
She felt herself falling into that defencelessness again when a realisation sparked in her mind.
She wasn’t defenceless. Like Siobhan had told her. Like Mike had told her. Like Gina had told her.
She was strong.
Even if she had no firepower.
Just the Becker BK-2.
That trusty knife, by her side, just as it had been by Mike’s side for all those years.
She had to stop pitying herself. Because this was the situation she was in, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She had to fight.
She turned her neck.
Grabbed the side of the man’s right hand.
And then she bit down hard as she could.
He shouted out at first. But she didn’t loosen. She didn’t let go.
She bit right against the bone. So hard that it felt like her teeth were digging right through the flesh. Even if his hands did taste bad—like shit and piss.
He started to push her head against the side of the boat, then. And Kelsie wanted to let go. Because every whack against the side of the boat was dizzying. It was sickening. It was getting worse and worse.
But she held on.
She held on and searched her pocket for the Becker BK-2. Tried to get a grip on it.
But it was gone.
She couldn’t find it.
It was out of her grip.
The urgency built up again. She had to do this on her own. She only had one chance.
She waited for her moment.
Waited for her perfect chance.
He shouted something else at her then. And Kelsie realised something. This man. He spoke in a language she didn’t recognise. She’d heard rumours of what French was like before, and this sounded like it.
If he was French, how had he ended up here?
He went to swing her head against the side of the boat again.
Only this time, something different happened.
Kelsie let go of his fingers.
Then she pushed right up against him, head butting him where she knew his neck was.
And as he choked and struggled, she felt her way to the side of the boat that she knew would lead back to her boat.
She clambered for it. Felt it, right in touching distance.
Then she stood on the edge of the boat, and she went to take a leap.
Only something else happened.
First, she felt the hand again. The hand, right at the last minute.
Grabbing her ankle.
And then
she felt herself losing balance.
Losing her grip on baby Holly.
She let out a scream as she tumbled from her arms.
As that devastating splash of her baby falling into the water echoed around her consciousness, her worst fears were realised.
And then she felt herself falling into that water, too.
The man’s grip on her loosened.
She fell into the icy, wild waters below.
She was lost.
And baby Holly was lost.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Kelsie fell into the water, totally blind, with the sound of baby Holly hitting the water ringing in her ears.
The brightness still enveloped and blocked her vision. She knew to hold her breath underwater, but she was panicked, and she was fearful.
Because she knew her baby had fallen into the water.
And she had no idea where she was.
She swum around, struggled, tried to kick from side to side. She knew that above her that man was waiting. Shit, for all she knew, he could be in the water with her now, hunting her down.
But that was beyond the point. It didn’t matter what happened when she resurfaced—or at least tried to resurface.
Nothing mattered, as long as she found her baby.
As long as she didn’t die alone.
Not her. But baby Holly.
She’d long ago given up on her survival. It had slipped into second place in the priorities list behind her own life.
She tried to swim around, below, swinging her arms all around. She couldn’t shake that heart-wrenching image of baby Holly sinking into the abyss below. Fast, too.
Too fast to catch.
Too fast to figure out where she was. Especially when she couldn’t see.
Her heart raced fast. She knew deep down she was already too late. Already running out of breath. And already out of hope.
She was going to have to resurface.
She was going to have to rise up and beg…
But then she thought of something else. She thought of how much baby Holly mattered to her. And ultimately, when she mattered more than anything, going up to the surface was a waste of time.
Because there was nobody up there who could help her.
There was nobody up there who could aid her.
So she was going to have to go down there alone—and just hope for the best.
She started to swim below into the depths. She felt every corner of her being screaming at her to stop. To turn around. Because this was a pointless exercise. This only ended in tragedy. It only ended in one outcome—her death. Her baby’s death.