by L. S. Wood
Dominique being built so small in frame, thought for sure she was going to be about as useless as worn out tires on a race car in this task, but hunkered down just the same with Chenco preparing for the punishment coming right along with her fearless leader to protect the meek from the approaching menace. The first big wave to hit the raft was like the huge tidal wave Chenco had claimed it to be, as it came in over the top of them like a fly swatter. It was as he said it would be. It was nothing like any of the other waves from the same storm the night before.
The raft first went up the shank of the huge wave when suddenly to everyone’s surprise, the raft shot down sideways and under the massive wave like a surfer trying to catch a ride at the bottom of a humongous wave and barrel roll through it as a cannonball roll. Instead of the raft riding the wave like a surfboard, the wave caught ahold of the rubber raft in midair grasping hold of the front portion of the raft. The wave instantly folded the front up tight over the rear half of the raft giving it a sandwiched effect, and almost threw those standing or kneeling in its middle out of the raft, but did not. It instantly sandwiched over the top of everyone in the raft as if in a big rubber bubbled sandwich. The wave instantly submerged the raft and its occupants beneath the torrent surface of the moving waters over it. It was turned over and over and over beneath the massive rushing waters. The force of the water’s pressure compressed everyone inside together like sardines in a small can as it tumbled them like a top spinning the raft beneath its surface.
The massive pressure of the huge amount of water that surrounded them was almost unbearable for everyone trapped inside the sandwiched raft to withstand the compression being forced thirty or forty feet beneath the water’s surface on them. Trapped motionless inside the rolling raft, no one was able to move or breathe for a couple of minutes.
While submerged for the short time, instant thoughts about sudden death quickly encompassed them all and passed around in everyone’s distressing minds, except for Sebastian. Plummeted around beneath the water in the huge rolling wave tossing them and spinning them around speedily as if they were inside a flight simulator, but they were not able to breathe with no oxygen mask to benefit them. They all thought for sure that they were all about to die. They would become shark food and fish bait within the next several minutes or less.
The locked air caught within the baffles of the raft shot them to the surface atop the ocean like a sperm whale coming up out the water to empty its blowhole for a breath of fresh air. The raft shot skyward up out of the sea. It shot them high up into the stormy air, and then slammed them back down hard against the firm surface of the rolling sea. The raft flew open when it first came out of the water before settling back down onto the surface of the rough sea. The raft was still in great shape as if nothing at all had happened to it except for the six-trapped passengers held as prisoner inside.
The crew of the raft came down in a heap. Luckily no one flew out of the raft as none would have survived if caught under the huge wave all by themselves. They were lucky the raft opened up in midair the way it did because if it had opened up in any other way than it had, there would have had to have some been a serious rescue mission performed by someone to save the life of the one thrown out to the death-seeking sea. Not one in the raft was seriously hurt in this strange freak action of nature.
Everyone was just a little bruised from the involvement in the incident. Chenco instantly checked on Gina, Krista checked on Sebastian and Ludwitz. They all seemed all right or at least said they were, except for Sebastian. Chenco put his face down to Sebastian’s mouth, finding that he was still breathing, and then Sebastian moaned out a loud groan into Chenco’s ear. He was at least alive, but in great need of immediate medical attention as soon as possible along with Ludwitz and the two girls to be checked on for their unborn babies to make sure everything was still all right with everyone for what they had just gone through again.
The total dark of night was just about upon them now, and they knew like the night before, the sea was not going to be a nice place to be during this horrifying hurricane. If only they could hold out and survive one more trip through the torrent gates of hell, they might, just might, stand a slim chance to be saved by someone. It might be a slim chance at that, but at least it was a chance to hold onto and to fight for their lives.
Gina thought for sure the southerly side of the storm would be the weaker side of it. The other side of this storm if it were the southerly side, sure seemed to be the worst side yet, or was this the southerly side of the storm? The side of the storm they had already gone through, made this side of the storm seem worse to them, or were they just worn out from the first half?
Hour after long exhausting hour, wave after huge pounding wave, these six cosmonauts braced with one another against the elements of the ferocious tempest of pounding and pelting rain and furry placed upon them. They held onto each other with all their might for support, not wanting to lose anyone overboard, for whoever went missing out of the raft that night would surely stay lost forever. Everyone had all they could barely do to hang onto to their precious lives, as the torrents of waves continually attacked them, pounding them all down into frail little hunks of lost soaked souls of lifeless almost dead meat. The life raft should have ruptured long ago in the night from all the severe pounding it was taking from the people inside it twisting and turning their weary feet, just trying to brace themselves against the floor of it and its sidewalls of flexible rubber in order not be thrown out of the raft.
All six of the crew members should have all been broken down by now and dead, but somehow they all, including Sebastian, had managed to miraculously hold on to life and stay within the raft with arms and legs intertwined. It seemed to them that they would take a breath of air between raindrops and a lot of water in their mouths and nostrils, but somehow managed to get enough air to survive during each bout with the next huge wave.
To fight for life instills great strength in their mind and courage in their souls, enough to hang onto life in the most horrible of situations, even when Old King Neptune tries to beat the life out of you with his most ferocious of storms. No one in the raft including Sebastian not knowingly somehow wanted to give their lives up to this gargantuan storm from hell. Their want of life out weighted their fear of death, as everyone except the comatose one encouraged each other with each severe beating they took.
Krista held Sebastian’s head to her breast with every crashing wave above them. She became his guardian angel, and would protect him throughout the night or until the sting of death took one or both of them away from each other. She kept thinking of her unborn child, holding tight the defenseless human being held tight in her arms along with the fragile life held precious in her womb. During the storm she had it in her heart to protect them both from this demon from hell.
She felt Gina, round as a beach ball pregnant with her twins, tirelessly trying to hold on and stay safe inside the raft. She fought hard against all odds not to become the first victim swept overboard out of the raft and sink into the depths of Davey-Jones’s locker to her death. She looked exhausted, and just struggling to stay alive.
The raging storm threw everyone around and around in the raft all night long like swirling ice cubes in a bartender’s mixing glass. No one could see one another after dark, but continued to talk and yell out to each other during the storm all night long, keeping tabs on each other during each attack of another wave, holding tight to whatever clothes, hands, feet, shoes, and sometimes even each other’s hair, just to stay alive. Everyone was trying their very best to keep safe during the ravaging storm, no matter how bad it hurt them in the scary darkness.
Gina at times thought for sure she must have been a cave woman. There were times when someone in the raft would reach out in the dark grasping hold of her head by the hair to protect one another from being washed out the raft to their death. She could only imagine herself being dragged off to some unfriend
ly cave by a mad caveman holding a club in one hand and being dragged along by him in the other.
The heavy pelting rains and hard hail at times was strange for hurricanes. Finally the loud aggressive sounds of the huge large waves crashing down and coming at them, started to fade away slowly. The light of day began to break above them through the thick scattering clouds, as a spot or two of bright blue sky peeked its way down between the parting clouds of the mighty storm.
Why could the storm not have hit them during the light of day, they all wondered? In daylight, they could have prepared themselves much better for every huge wave that came rolling their way. Maybe they had been better off this way, so the dangers lurking in the night they could not see did not play upon their wondering minds. It may have played a real hard game against their psyche, if they had seen everything that was taking place around them, especially if it had been in the bright of daylight hours.
Not knowing what is taking place around one’s self, whether in a horrific storm or in an apartment next door behind closed doors, sometimes is best unseen or not known about at all. If they had seen the giant lost empty oil barge drifting afloat all by itself during the storm that almost ran them over, they would have all jumped out of the security of their life raft, and tried to swim away from the beast and died in the huge surf of the angry sea. Sometimes things unseen during a storm are best out of one’s sight and out of their minds in the dark of night. Strange noises that go thump in the middle of the night are noises best left alone and left up to the imagination to figure out their true cause.
Chenco thought for sure that he could hear the sound of water hammering hard up against the outer steel hull of an empty ship several times during the horrific stormy night, as did Dominique. Both strained their weary eyes until they hurt against the heavy pelting rains driven by the wind as they tried to search the area around them, looking as best they could into the storm for where the sound of the empty steel hull sound was coming from. In desperate search they looked for any light aboard a ship or a vessel that might be out there in the storm with them.
The slapping sound of water on a hollow steel hull seemed to be getting closer to them, as it sounded out several more times during the night, as they listened intently for another wave to come and hit them once again. The sound of the torrent waves coming at them, crashing hard up against this hollow sounding steel hull of the barge, was almost as good as sounding an alarm to the crew aboard the raft. It gave them fair warning that another wave was coming at them. They had no idea how lucky they really were because the barge took most of the fight out of the many harsh thrashing waves headed in their direction most of the night.
It was as if someone above had placed this huge barge, this fortress of steel, halfway through the night beside their raft to protect those trying to cling to a little ray of hope, in order to stay alive, as the barge bobbed up and down in front of them as a barrier.
The worst of the storm had passed by morning. The horizon over the earth’s sea became very visible to them from the east with a brand new day dawning above them. Towards the north northeast, the horrendous stormy hurricane was leaving them in a huge massive circular cloudbank that stretched out for miles. To the west of them, the sky was clear, as was the sky to the south and south east was also clear as a bell. They had made it through yet another night of torture thrown at them by good Old Mother Nature herself. They were very glad the worst of it was over, or was it? Just because the sky was clear, didn’t mean the sea would not become an aggressive field of menacing sharks again, putting their lives in danger one more time during an aggressive eating frenzy.
The dead squid were back along with hundreds of dead gutted fish lost from a fishing boat that were scattered all over the surface of the sea again like the day before. But there was no sign of a fishing vessel anywhere around to be seen. They didn’t need another repeat from the day before as the bottom of their raft must be weaker now. They figured the seals of the raft would not withstand much more stress from a shark’s dorsal fin, or was it that they couldn‘t stand the pressure of seeing more sharks.
Looking at one another with great big smiles, Gina started to laugh in hysterics and then began to cry out feverishly. She could not believe they had all rode out the night in the horrific storm and had come through the second half of the storm unscathed in just two days. Krista began to laugh wildly as well, and the raft echoed out in happy laughter for about ten long minutes as everyone aboard laughed in unison.
The storm left them hungry and thirsty from not eating or drinking any fresh water or food for the last two days. Chenco untied one of the tied up survival duffle bags from the tie down straps in the raft and passed a container full of fresh distilled water around to his wife Gina first, then to Krista who took a sip. They allowed Sebastian a try at sipping water, but he coughed it up instantly, so next the container went to Ludwitz. Chenco then gave the rest of the crew their turn at some of the refreshing liquid. Thank God, they had added extra nutrients to the containers at the space station. Someone special must have known this crew were going to end up in the brine of the sea or had guessed it and had added extra nutrients for a needy boost.
He next pulled out a container of sea rations from the strapped bag and proceeded to hand out to everyone a small snack from it to get their needed nutrients. In this position on Earth on top of the edge of the water, they could now see clearly how the world was round. They were like this tiny little germ sitting on top a basketball, looking out toward space. Never before on Earth had any of them ever experienced the significance of this sighting or feeling of how the earth’s horizon was so round. This was a very different picture than flying in a jet or rocket above the globe. This was actually sitting on the smallest of positions on the surface where they could sense the massiveness of the globe and its true roundness.
From outer space aboard the space station, they could see the roundness and beauty of the earth, but to sit here in the middle of its enormous ocean on this tiny rubber raft of no significance was to really see and feel the difference the location can make.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
A New Day For Life
On the horizon in the far off distance, they saw a small black object like themselves bobbing up and down in the water. Could it be a ship coming their way, or was it just another raft like theirs floating up and down on the sea as they were? A short distance away to the rear of them was another object of orangey color, a piece of the rubber ring that once was the floatation device that had kept the capsule they came to Earth aboard afloat. Had they stayed with their capsule that night, they would have all surely died.
One of the horrendous noises they all had heard during the middle of the night was when the huge empty oil barge only yards away from them to their rear, rose up on one huge wave and came crashing down hard in the middle of the space module that suddenly drifted beneath it. It was a good thing that they had abandoned their space module when they did. If that first menacing wave of the storm had caught them on the bottom of the space module, they would not be sitting in the middle of anything at that moment. They would probably be beneath the sea if they managed to stay with it, and the oil barge would have surely done them all in.
Sebastian started to moan and groan again as the warmth of the sun beat down on them. He began to cough and gag for a split moment, and then opened his eyes wide as if he had just awoken from a good long night’s sleep. “Where am I?” He questioned the others in the raft around him. He did not remember a thing about the lottery contest, leaving the space station or anything else about the last several days’ events. He could not image being back on Earth without remembering anything about how he had gotten there, and was now totally confused. All he did know was that he had this tremendous head ache along with a very stiff neck that hurt like hell when he tried to sit up and position himself away from Krista, especially with her husband looking at him as if he was taking advantage of
her.
Chenco tried explaining to him what he and the others had gone through since leaving the safety of the space station a couple of days earlier. Sebastian could not believe what he was hearing that he was in a rubber raft out in the middle of an ocean, and thought for sure he was surely dreaming. He could not believe he was back on planet Earth, or fathom in his mind that he had gone through two different halves of a hurricane, and was now lost out at sea in a matter of less than forty-six hours. He thought for sure he was dreaming until he reached up and felt the large welt he had just above his left ear. It hurt like hell even more than if one pinched his or her arms to see if they were awake.
They showed Sebastian Ludwitz’ leg and how Chenco had sewn up his shark attack tooth-torn leg with regular sewing threads, and then wrapped up what he could not sew with bandages made from his shirt. The sickening sight of the bandaged up leg wanted to make him vomit.
“How could all of this be happening to him”, he thought out loud. Chenco handed him some water and told him to drink it very slowly for his own good. He still had a severe concussion and Chenco didn’t know what consequences the sudden ingestion of water might do to his body and nervous system. Tipping the container of water up to drink from Chenco, his squinting eyes blocked out the bright sunlight became the size of large round silver dollars. He spotted a great number of sharks attacking the dead fish and squid scattered about the surface of the water. “Look at that”, he yelled out. Turning their heads, Chenco, Dominique, and the rest of the crew watched as a large number of sharks started another feeding frenzy right there in front of them.
“Keep away from the outside rim of the raft,” Chenco yelled out. We surely do not want to attract any unwelcome visitors aboard this raft, do we?
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR