by Nancy Holder
Yes, or we will hang you from the side of the ship, yes, hang you so they can leap from the water and gnaw at you. Shins first, toes. Or upside down, so they will mar your beauty first. Have you ever seen a woman whose nose and lips have been chewed off?
Have you ever met the kind of man who could do it?
Who has done it?
Yes, yes, oh, yes.
So nice you can join us. So nice.
And as for you, Donna Almond …
Half-asleep, Donna put her hand around the barrel. Happiness was a cold gun. When she pulled herself together, she’d unload it. Everyone was behaving very well, no chance of mutiny or cannibalism with this set. Of course, they’d only been at sea for a day, and the belief in being rescued was strong at this point.
Her gun ferried ammo across the ocean, but the safety was on, even though a .38 Special didn’t have one.
She was the safety.
Her cheekbone fitted nicely against John’s shoulder, and she sighed, allowing herself to drift closer back toward sleep. Plenty of food and water, and flares, and the signal would lure someone to them. Everything was copacetic, as Glenn would say.
Glenn. Fuck it. When she got home, she was going to ask for a transfer. It was the only answer. Okay, that was okay. There were other shoulders in the sea. Even now, she was vaguely horny, nuzzling John, young Dr. Kildare. He was a bit timid, but he had such a capacity for caring. And he could patch her back together whenever the streets got vicious. She bet he sewed stitches tight and small, less chance of scarring. Yeah.
Back to sleep now, Donna. You can sort all this later. Now listen, this is how it will be when—
That fucker, Ramón. She would get his ass and get it good. Sue the hell out of them? She’d get them put away for life. Life imprisonment. Yeah.
This is how it will be—
Ramón in a cell. Yeah. Ramón in a big glass box. Ramón under glass, his nuts in a fingerbowl. Right on. Right on, right on, right fucking on.
Sleep, now, old girl. Sic him later. She chuckled to herself, silently, because sic sounded like suck, and after all, she was a cop with a nasty mind. A sleepy, incoherent, but still nasty—
LISTEN!
Sleep now. Yeah. Man, she was cold.
GODDAMN YOU, LISTEN TO ME! WHEN YOU DROWN, THIS IS HOW IT WILL BE WHEN YOU DROWN. AND YOU WILL! YOU WILL DIE!
Sighing, she let herself go.
YOU BITCH! LISTEN—
Swimming parallel, with the safety on.
11
Boarded
Swim parallel.
Dreaming, Donna fought her panic down as she kicked her arms and legs, but it was hard to stay calm when the world was nothing but endless, heartless gray. She made a circle in the water. There was nothing to see. Water, water, everywhere, no lifeboat, no Morris, no people. Nothing to cling to, nothing to save her. She was alone, alone, all, all alone.
She took a hard breath as the undertow grabbed her ankles and yanked her into colder, thicker water the color of lampreys and sharks. Wind whipped her hair from her forehead, frozen and harsh; if she didn’t drown, she would freeze. She shook so hard the muscles in her legs and stomach twisted into throbbing cramps.
The waves surged around her, crashing over her head and forcing her under the surface. She choked down filthy, icy water that shot down her throat and stung her lungs; it gathered in her abdomen like an anchor and dragged her down,
down,
down.
There was death in there, a million parts per million’s worth. She must get out, or it would kill her.
She tried to tread water, but she was too tired. Never in her life had she been so exhausted. She couldn’t raise her thighs, couldn’t move her wrists. As she surveyed the gray sea, the gray sky—
—why, it was fog, all around her; she was swimming in fog!—
—she knew she was going to go under once too often, and not come back up, and then it would be over, all over.
No! She stirred. Dreaming, she told herself. She was only dreaming. The realization should have comforted her, but it did not, as she struggled and gagged and slipped under again.
Something bumped her hip.
What do you want? The same voice she had heard on the Morris and yet, not the same. A voice to fear.
But not as much as that other voice. That other, that one that had spoken of thirst and darkness.
Or had it been a different voice?
What was happening?
Bile rose in her throat. Something cold slithered over her. In her sleep she imagined it was a shadow crossing the sun. She tensed, balling her fists. Or dreamed she did. The coldness crept over her face, over the top of her head, and then someone drilled a hole in her forehead and poured ice water over her brains.
Evil, evil. Something grotesque seeped inside all the cracks and weakest places; God, it was going to fucking kill her with its stinging, razored ice.
What do you want?
“Nnnothing—” she managed, as her brain froze over.
Then she heard a scream, followed by a gurgle, and she whipped around on top of a huge wave. Disoriented, she cried out. Water rushed into her mouth. Dreaming, she reminded herself.
The little Lake Tahoe floater struggled at the base of it, eyes huge with terror. He sank; for a moment, she saw his red mittens, the hood of his black and red ski jacket, so lost, so hopeless, as the wave rose up, up, like a wall of gray stone, and folded back on itself, and crashed over him. Donna was carried with it, and she flailed for him as she slammed back down. But seaweed tied her hands and feet; she was helpless, and then something hard smacked her at the base of her skull, and all faded from whale-gray, to pewter-gray, to the blackest of black terror, grief, remorse.
“Unh, unh,” she stammered. Dreaming, damn it, dreaming.
And yet, real, as she pulled herself free, arms and legs wrenching from the kelp of the undersea forest, and sped toward the surface, unhindered. The boy was not her fault, not; these things happen—
NO! someone shouted, at the same time that she forced her eyes open and raised her head off John’s shoulder.
In the fog, a shape the size of a sea serpent hurtled toward them. Muzzily, she gripped the side of the lifeboat and tried to make sense of the image. Silently it sped toward them. She glanced around; everyone else was asleep. Matt’s mouth hung open, slack—they all did. They looked as if they’d been drugged.
Huge, sleek, a monster. Donna swayed as adrenaline shot through her veins. Christ, get it together, she thought; despite her terror, she couldn’t seem to focus—
The blast of a klaxon—
“Jesus!” she shouted. It was a ship!
A huge, sleek cruise ship bore down on them. The fog evaporated as the bow sliced through it, fading into wisps that evaporated into nothingness. The sky above the vessel beamed clear and blue. Deck upon deck of sparkling white loomed above a hull of white striped with aqua. On the stack, a green figure of a mermaid sat on a rock, her arms open wide.
“You guys! Hey, wake up!”
The klaxon blew long, short-short-short and plowed toward them.
“Ahoy! Ahoy!” Donna shouted, waving her arms. The fog rolled away, sank into the water and crawled into the clouds, revealing the figures of hundreds of people as they hung over the rails and waved back. Faces peered from portholes that opened in rapid succession along the lower decks. The passengers cheered and waved. Rolls of toilet paper streamed into the water. The horn blew again.
Around her, the others finally stirred. Froze, stared, and burst into cheers. Phil grabbed Elise, then Ruth, and kissed them both. Matty threw himself against his father and jumped up and down. John started to cry and buried his face in his son’s hair.
“Thank you,” he croaked. “Thank you.”
Then John hugged Donna, and Ruth kissed her cheek, and they laughed and cried and sat down quick and hard to avoid capsizing the boat. Elise and Phil huddled at the stern, Phil with his arms around his wife. She made no
move to embrace him. John sat to Phil’s right, turned sideways to stare at the ship. Matt sprawled half on his lap, half off, picking excitedly at his father’s wet shirt, chattering and laughing.
“It is like Vikings!” he called to Ramón. The man smiled weakly at him. Yeah, right, buckwheat, be scared, Donna thought, as she sat down on the bench—called a thwart, she remembered Ramón telling her. We’re saved and you are big-time busted, friend.
On the other side of the thwart, Ruth covered her mouth with both hands, looking dazed.
No one embraced or congratulated Ramón, Donna noted with bitter satisfaction.
“Ahoy the lifeboat. Is everyone all right?” someone called over a public address system.
“Yes!” Donna and Ramón both shouted. Donna nodded vigorously and gave a thumbs-up. Ramón scrabbled past Ruth to a plastic sack filled with flares, pulled one out, and shoved it back into the bag, as if realizing it wasn’t necessary. He sat back and dangled his hands between his knees.
“We’ll help you aboard. Sit tight.”
With one arm around Matt, John cupped his other hand around his mouth. “The Morris,” he called. “Is it all right?”
There was no answer. The ship bore down on them with the seeming speed of a 747. Donna looked nervously at the oars, thought about getting the lifeboat out of the way.
“My God,” Elise said. “They’d better slow down.”
Ruth moaned. Donna dropped to her knees beside her and touched the woman’s cheek. The old lady was white and sweaty. Her fingers were gnarled balls of bone and vein, gripped around each other as if she were fighting off a mugger who’d grabbed hold of her purse.
“Are you all right?”
Ruth nodded slowly. “Yes, I think so. I … I’m so relieved.” She caught Donna’s hand. Her flesh was ice-cold. “But I feel … I’m …”
God, she might have had a stroke. Donna held her hand and waved to John. “Can you check her out?”
He duckwalked toward them, rising up to climb over the thwart. Back on the massive ship, a large, square door close to the waterline opened and something like a cart was wheeled to the edge. Men in black scuba gear appeared and crouched beside the cartlike object, gesturing.
Elise dug in her purse, produced a comb, and started raking it through her hair. Tears chained like pearls from her bloodshot eyes.
The object unfolded. It was a bright yellow raft. The divers pushed it over the side and jumped in after it, splashing into the water. Next, men bolted something onto the edge of the open area. A long suspension ladder unrolled the length of the side and tumbled into the water. The divers caught hold of it and made signs to the men waiting above them.
“Can you row to us?” the public address voice queried.
“Yes!” Donna called. Ramón was already setting the oars in their oarlocks.
“Told the captain to get an outboard,” he grumbled.
Everyone looked at everyone else. Was the captain still alive?
John finished taking Ruth’s pulse and studied her pupils. Donna noted the way he smoothed her hair from her forehead. Patting, touching her. An errant quip about bedside manner fleeted through her mind.
“You feeling better, kiddo?” he asked.
Uncertainly Ruth nodded. “I … I dreamed again,” she said, as though she were confessing. “It was so vivid …” She put her hand to her hair. Her eyes jittered back and forth. “But now I don’t remember any of it. I don’t remember a thing!”
Donna paused. She had dreamed, too. But she also remembered nothing.
“That’s how dreams usually are. Everything is fine now. We’re safe now.” Ducking his head, he grabbed Matt and snuggled him under his arm like a chick. Matt’s thin fingers gripped his back, white dabs on his father’s life jacket.
Donna took her place beside Ramón on the bench in the middle of the boat. He took the left oar, she the right, and without speaking, the two began to row toward the ship.
“Why can’t they get any closer? Why did they stop all the way over there?” Elise said, pawing through her purse. She found a cigarette and lit it.
For God’s sake, they were rescuing them, weren’t they? Donna wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up, but she knew Elise was just upset. Anger was fear’s twin brother.
John let go of Matt. “I should do that,” he said, indicating the oars.
Donna made a snorting sound. “Oink, oink. Stay with your kid.”
A couple of minutes later, a diver popped up a few feet from the lifeboat. The other two stayed with the raft. The man checked out the boat, asking if everyone could make it up the ladder or if they should order a hoist.
“A hoist, I think,” Donna replied, thinking of Ruth and possibly Matt. The boy was wrung out. Circles ringed his eyes and he was sunburned. He couldn’t have lost a significant amount of weight overnight, but his bony wrists seemed bonier. John appeared to have noticed it, too. His dark eyebrows showed through the tortoise-shell frame of his glasses.
The diver nodded and swam alongside the boat, urging it toward the ship.
“Have you been looking for us?” Donna asked.
“Yes.” He grinned. “I get a gold piece for spotting you first.”
She smiled, figuring this was some kind of reference to sea lore she didn’t understand, especially when John guffawed. Damn, she was going to have to get around to reading some books one of these days.
But not today. Today she was going to sleep and drink and make a lot of phone calls.
“You’ve got ship-to-shore?” she asked, and for a moment the diver looked confused. Probably hadn’t heard her. She mimicked putting a phone to her ear.
“We’re almost there,” he said, and turned back into the water.
“Of course they have a phone system,” John said. He gave Matty another hug. “See? We had an adventure, didn’t we? And we’re fine now.”
Matt didn’t smile or agree. Instead, he scooted closer to his father and sucked his thumb, and pulled at the hairs on the nape of his neck.
The lifeboat bumped softly against the hull of the ship like a water spider dancing on the surface tension. Dodging the rolls of toilet paper that careened out of the portholes, Donna smiled and waved at the onlookers and glanced up the field of white, searching for the ship’s name. “Yo, baby,” someone called; she laughed and gave the high sign.
Ah, there it was. Pandora. In bold black letters that seemed twenty feet tall.
Pandora. Wasn’t that the name of the woman who let all the evils into the world? She had a box—
Behind her, Ruth gasped. Donna started to turn her head but at that moment, three men in white officer’s uniforms and hats appeared at the edge of the opening and called, “Ahoy! Are you able to board now?”
“Yes,” Donna said as John leaned over her shoulder and said, “The Morris! Is it all right?”
“You’ll have to speak with the captain, sir,” one of them replied. “We don’t have that information.”
“Well, where is the captain?”
“He’s on the bridge, sir. He’ll debrief you after you come aboard.”
“Let’s get off this thing, all right?” Elise asked shrilly, pushing past Donna. The three divers positioned the boat and held it while Ramón secured the hoist.
Donna gave her a hard look, the same one that withered seasoned gang members. “Ruth first,” she said.
Elise squared her shoulders, opened her mouth. From his seat, Phil took her hand. “C’mon, darlin’. We’re safe now.”
Elise glared at him. “Who does she think she is? She’s not in any kind of authority over us. She’s not—”
“Darlin’,” Phil murmured in his soft Southern voice. “We’re safe now.”
Elise exhaled and plopped down beside him, studiously avoiding eye contact with Donna. Donna shook her head and held her hands out to Ruth, who gingerly sat on the strap while they fastened her in.
Ruth was slow, but she made it. Everyone cheered, in the lifeboat an
d on the Pandora. Matt was next, glancing down anxiously at his father. Then the Alphabitch, then John, then Phil, then Donna.
Halfway up, as she hovered in the air, a sick, dizzy leadenness wrapped itself around her. She hugged the straps of the hoist as her head spun. She tried to focus on something—the lifeboat, now small and toylike, the sparkling green and purple water, once so gray and forbidding. The anticipation of a shower, and bed.
Her stomach lurched. She was positive she was going to be ill.
Someone spoke through the cheers and the hoots. People were banging things: pots and pans? Cameras clicked and flashed.
Someone spoke, and she swore she heard a familiar voice—whether man or woman, she couldn’t tell—heard the voice say, She’s the one.
“Donna? Donna?” John queried her. The hoist quivered as it raised her to deck level and stopped. He reached for her hand.
“I’m okay.” She shook her head to clear it. “I’m fine.” Took a breath and unbuckled herself as hands reached to help her.
So many faces. She put her left foot on the deck and her right knee buckled. Someone, not John, caught her arm and supported her; in the crush of well-wishers, she never did see who it was. The cheers in the cavernous space were deafening. Despite the fact that this was some kind of service entrance—a forklift was parked on the other side, and on the walls hung signs about union rules and OSHA and workman’s comp—a throng of passengers had pushed their way in. Camera shutters whirred and clicked and the ship’s horn rattled the metal posts that divided the room into halves. The press of bodies was suffocating.
“Stand back, stand back, please,” an official voice boomed. “A little air, please.”
The passengers obeyed, moving to either side of imaginary barriers and leaning over them to smile and wave and take pictures.
A crewman in a black jumpsuit stepped aside as a bearded man in a startlingly white uniform and a black-billed hat trimmed with gold braid approached the group. He had epaulets on his shoulders.