Monstrum

by Ann Christopher

  “Are you okay?” I ask quickly, not sure my own heart can survive another trauma. He and I are tight after all my years of fencing, and this isn’t the first time I’ve fluttered around him like a mother hen. “Is it your heart?”

  Murphy looks affronted, as though I’ve wounded his male pride. He straightens his wiry body to its full height, which is way closer to five feet than it is to six. “My ticker is fine, thank you very much.”

  This makes me feel foolish for overreacting, but mostly relieved.

  “So you do have a heart, then,” I say tartly. “Good to know.”

  Something in his face loosens even as he continues to glare at me. “Detention for you, Bria Hunter. When we get back.”

  “Deal.” Some weird impulse makes me reach out and squeeze his arm, although whether I’m comforting him or myself is hard to say. “What happened to them, then?”

  He takes forever to answer, and when he does, his voice is hoarse as he speaks haltingly. “They . . . didn’t make it.”

  “That’s not an answer,” I say sharply. “Why didn’t they make it?”

  Murphy raises a shaky hand and runs it over the back of his neck. Then he licks his lips and his jaws work, opening and closing his silent mouth. He looks up to the sky and then out at the sea.

  “Something . . . got them. When they. . . hit the water. I think—”

  This isn’t making any sense to me, but maybe that’s because my brain has kicked into protective mode and is trying to buffer me. “Something?”

  “Sharks, okay?” Mike Smith interjects flatly. He hesitates, swiping the back of one hand over his lips, as though his remembered fear and horror have left a nasty taste he needs to wipe away. “The first group of us jumped in the water and made it into the raft, no problem. Then the last few hit the water, but before they could even start to doggie paddle over to the raft, they started screaming and getting sucked under. The water bubbled and went crazy, and the blood was—”

  Mike trails off, shakes his head and rubs his mouth again.

  “Sharks?” Gray asks dully, as though he’s testing the word out for the first time in his life. “As in Jaws?”

  “Jaws?” Mike snorts. “Yeah. Exactly like Jaws—”

  “Oh, my God,” gasps Maggie.

  “—if Jaws brought two or three of his hungriest buddies and they picked off the swimmers one by one,” Mike finishes, giving us a hard stare.

  There’s no need. Judging by the absolute stillness in both rafts and the frozen grimaces that seem to reflect my own alarm back to me, we all get the picture:

  If there are sharks in the water, our chances of surviving long enough to get rescued have just gone from poor to negligible.

  As if by unspoken signal, we all look to the water again, but it’s secretive and silent, with no sign of approaching dorsal fins or any other movement. So, for this second, at least, we’re safe.

  I’ll take that.

  No one speaks for a long time. Espi and her mother, I notice, have reunited in our raft and are pressed together cheek-to-cheek, holding each other tightly.

  Murphy clears his throat, and it sounds like a bullfrog is warming up to sing opera. “Well. You’d best take a look at Macy Sparks, there, hadn’t you, Mrs. Torres? You’re a nurse, if I recall?”

  “I am, indeed.”

  Mrs. Torres extricates herself from Espi and kneels on the floor to examine Macy with skilled hands and an efficiency that makes her gold watch glint. Macy’s groans, I realize, have ceased in the last several minutes. I hope she’s fully unconscious again. I can’t stand the thought of her being in pain, and it’s not like Mrs. Torres will be able to do anything for her, anyway, unless the rafts come equipped with portable MRI machines I haven’t seen yet.

  “And the rest of us,” Murphy says. “We’d best go through these bags and review our supplies, hadn’t we?”

  “Supplies,” I echo, glaring at Gray. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  After a quick glance at Murphy to make sure he’s looking elsewhere, Gray flashes his middle finger at me.

  I nearly grin as I reach for the nearest backpack, unspeakably relieved that we can cede authority and responsibility back to adults at last. My faith in them is ridiculous under the circumstances, though; I know that. They’re not going to be able to produce a rescue chopper just by virtue of their additional years on the planet. But at least they’re here, trying to protect us, and that counts for something.

  “Okay,” Murphy says, surveying the collection of items at his feet. “It looks like we’ve got—”

  “What’s the point?”

  This harsh new male voice has the rest of us looking around in surprise, but Murphy takes it in stride. “What’s that you’re asking, Axel Hendersen?”

  Oh, Axel, I think. Wonderful. Here we go.

  Axel’s been sitting on the floor of his raft with his beefy arms resting on his knees and his head in his hands, but now he looks up. His mouth is twisted and his brows form a low shelf over his wild eyes, making him look more than a little unhinged.

  “I said, what’s the point? You think we’re going to survive at sea with a pack of Lifesavers, a few granola bars and some leftover bug spray and sunscreen? Do I look like MacGyver, man?”

  “Not at all,” Murphy says evenly. “You look like a scared young man lashing out—”

  At this, Axel unfolds his huge, football-playing body, springs to his feet to tower over Murphy and waves his hand in Murphy’s face.

  “Ah, shit,” mutters Gray. “This is just what we need.”

  “Yeah, I’m scared.” Axel gestures with his arm again, and I see the flash of metal in his hand. “But maybe you know something I don’t know, Murphy. My cell phone’s packing a gallon of water right now, but maybe yours is nice-and-cozy dry. Is that it? Maybe you’ve got some signal flares or the plane’s communication system in your back pockets. Is that it? And what’s going on with the sky? I really want to know your thoughts on that one, Murphy! You got a theory going on that—”

  “Dude.” Mike puts a hand on Axel’s shoulder. “You need to take a breath. You’re not helping.”

  “Helping?” Axel is shouting now, his voice half-choked with sobs. “My father is dead, man! And we’re as good as, because right now there are sharks out there with all our names on them! They’re probably circling around, drawing straws to figure out who gets stuck with the smallest person! So I want to know what Murphy’s got that he thinks we’re going to live through this mess!”

  “I don’t have anything, Axel Hendersen,” Murphy says quietly, “other than the sense God gave a goat and the desire to live until someone can come get us.”

  “And how will they know where we are, Murphy?” Axel demands, sweeping his arms wide to indicate the endless water. “What’s your answer for that? It’s not like there’s a signpost right there that says we’re at the corner of Bermuda Triangle Boulevard and Atlantic Ocean Avenue!”

  Murphy, much to my surprise, isn’t rattled or annoyed. “I’m hoping the copilot radioed for help, but I don’t know. What I do know is that planes have flight data recorders and black boxes and such. I know that coast guards look for downed planes. And I know I’d rather be found alive than dead. What about you?”

  Axel doesn’t have an answer for that, or maybe he’s just run out of steam. Collapsing on the floor, he buries his face in his hands and begins to sob. I’m no fan of his, but the sight of him lost, broken and crying for his father is more than I can take. I turn away and focus on one of the backpacks, grateful to have a task. Beside me, An and Maggie do the same. Someone sniffles. Mike murmurs soothingly to Axel, whose anguish slowly tapers into silence.

  Before long, I discover something useful in the backpack’s middle pocket—a water bottle. Yay. I toss it into a growing supply pile to one side of the raft.

  Mrs. Torres, meanwhile, seems to be wrapping Macy’s head with something while Espi hovers, watching.

  Things settle down as everyone
performs their own search for items.

  But then Carter brings up the subject I’ve been dreading.

  “Did anyone else hear it?” he asks softly.

  There’s plenty to be afraid of around here at the moment, and broaching this topic can only make it worse. The tedious work of rummaging for supplies had helped me lapse into a state of numb disbelief, but now that’s ruined.

  My heart begins a low, sick thud.

  Maggie raises her head from her work and looks around. “Hear what?”

  “That . . .” Carter shrugs helplessly and struggles to get the words right. “It was a shrieking scream kind of sound. I don’t know how to describe it. When the plane crashed. I thought it was some crazy kind of animal.”

  “It was just the plane giving up the ghost, lad,” Murphy says kindly.

  “I heard it, too,” I confess. “It wasn’t the plane.”

  Gray frowns at me. “What was it, then? Whale?”

  Carter and I exchange glances. I can tell that he’s thinking what I am. On the one hand, it’s great that someone else heard the thing, so I’m not losing my mind. On the other hand, if there really is a thing, then what was it, where is it now and how dangerous is it?

  “It wasn’t a whale,” Carter says.

  “It was . . . something bad,” I finish lamely.

  No one says anything. I suppose they’re all writing me and Carter off as crazy or hysterical. Who knows? Maybe we are. Anyway, we’ve got enough real and visible stuff going on without worrying about the bogeyman.

  Or the fact that the plane went down in the Bermuda Triangle.

  “What if this thing—whatever it is—got the others?” Sammy asks. “What if it wasn’t sharks after all?”

  “Get real,” An scoffs. As usual, she’s anxious to prove to the world that Sammy isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. “What could be out there that’s deadlier than sharks?”

  Sammy, of course, rises to the challenge. “Orcas,” he says flatly.

  Orcas.

  With that one word, Sammy lights a match and throws it on our smoldering fear, creating a bonfire.

  Several of us gasp. Most of us stare into the water, trying to see what’s in there.

  “Killer whales?” Espi cries. “The black and white ones?”

  “Oh, my God,” whispers Maggie.

  “But they don’t—” Carter’s bravado seems to have failed him for once, and he has to swallow hard to keep his voice going. “But they don’t live around here. I mean, they prefer the Arctic, right?”

  Sammy shakes his head and regurgitates more Wikipedia. “They live in every ocean. And they like coastal waters, so this should be perfect for them—what?”

  Gray, who’s been alternating between shooting worried glances at Maggie and An and giving Sammy lethal glares, changes tactics and puts his arm around Sammy’s shoulder. “Let me ask you something.”

  “Hit me,” Sammy says.

  “Would you like my foot up your ass?”

  Sammy goes utterly still for a moment before shaking his head. “I would not enjoy that, no.”

  “Okay, then.” Gray turns Sammy loose. Sammy hastily steps back, out of the danger zone. “We’re agreed. You’re going to shut up with the scary factoids. Thanks.”

  “Look!” Mrs. Torres cries suddenly, pointing off in the distance and shooting to her feet. “Do you see that?”

  A ripple of excitement energizes us, and we scoot around to follow her line of sight. I stare hard, trying to penetrate the darkness and straining my eyes until it feels like they’ll bulge out of my head and plop into the water, but I can’t see anything.

  “What is it, Mami?” Espi asks.

  Mrs. Torres looks at her daughter, her face alight with joy but tempered with bewilderment. “The yacht! Right there! Don’t you see it? It’s not even a quarter of a mile away!”

  This prompts another round of looking and head shaking by all of us. My eyesight is pretty good, and I can’t discern anything. Not a light or a boat’s outline—not even the suggestion of a shadow or anything with a form. Just water and sky in every direction.

  Apparently I’m not the only one coming up empty. “I don’t see anything,” Sammy says, and An and Maggie also shake their heads.

  Mrs. Torres, who’s now vibrating with a frantic energy, ignores us. Standing on her tiptoes, she waves her hands back and forth over her head, focuses her gaze on something only she can see, and tries to catch the attention of someone on the invisible yacht.

  “We’re here!” she screams desperately. “Over here!”

  “Mami.” Espi sounds concerned as she touches her mother’s arm. “I think you’re confused.”

  “No! No! I’m not confused! Why doesn’t anyone help me?” Mrs. Torres whirls to accuse us. Her voice is shrill and irrational and heading straight for hysterical. “Don’t just stand there! Help me! They’ll never hear me over the music if the rest of you don’t yell with me!”

  There is no music.

  Murphy decides to step in. Picking his way out of his raft, into ours, and around the supplies in the bottom, he arrives at Mrs. Torres’s side and wraps a supportive arm around her shoulders.

  “Why don’t you sit down for a minute and rest yourself,” he begins.

  “Rest? We can’t rest! What’s wrong with you people? We don’t have time to rest! The yacht’s almost gone!” Wrenching free, she drops to her knees and begins rummaging through the supplies. “Where are the flares? We need to light a flare so they’ll see us and come! Who hid the flares?”

  Aghast, the rest of us stand around uselessly and stare at her. Poor Mrs. Torres, I think. Is this a nervous breakdown unfolding before our disbelieving eyes? Was she unhinged to begin with? What’s the protocol when you’re trapped with an unstable person in the middle of the ocean? Do we need to worry about her doing something stupid? I have no idea what everyone else’s plan is, but I’m sort of hoping she’ll wear herself out and we can get down to the business of searching the rest of the bags for water and food. And for weapons strong and sharp enough to pierce an orca’s hide.

  We watch in a mortified silence while Espi puts a soothing hand on her mother’s shoulder and tries—with no visible success—to calm her down.

  Meanwhile, I’m fighting my own losing battle with anxiety.

  Dread cranks steadily higher inside me, and I can’t hold it back any more than I can hold an inflated balloon under water. It makes my muscles tight and my breath short, and beneath my arms, I can feel clammy sweat despite the chill.

  At best, we’d only had two adults left to guide and protect us through this ordeal, and now we don’t even have that.

  Murphy tries to be the voice of reason. “Mrs. Torres,” he says gently. “We haven’t found any flares. We’ve been looking, but—”

  “Liars!” Mrs. Torres pauses her frenzied search long enough to drop her face into her hands and roar with frustration. This goes on and on while she rocks back and forth and writhes as though her soul is being ripped from her body. “Why are you all lying to me?”

  “Oh, my God,” Espi claps a hand over her own mouth and tries to control her crying, making her shoulders shake with effort. “What’s wrong with her? What’s happening?”

  In a reflexive female move that supersedes the years of dislike and hard feelings, Maggie and An surround Espi on either side and put their arms around her.

  Murphy is still working on Mrs. Torres. Bending at the waist, he grasps her under the arms and levers her up to standing again. “There, now,” he tells her. “It’ll be all right.”

  Mrs. Torres turns her tear-slicked face up to his and struggles to speak through her sobbing hiccups. “We h-have to get h-help. They can’t s-see us. They don’t know we’re h-here.”

  “I know,” Murphy says. “But I need you to calm down. You’re scaring the kids. Look at poor Esperanza.”

  Mrs. Torres doesn’t look at her daughter. Instead, she brightens suddenly, and a manic new light flickers to lif
e in her eyes. “I have to swim to the yacht,” she announces.

  “No!” several of us shout.

  Murphy keeps his cool, as well as a firm grip on Mrs. Torres’ torso. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea right now,” he says. “Why don’t we keep looking for the flares, eh? There’s a good lass.”

  Mrs. Torres hesitates and then nods in a sudden show of cooperation that doesn’t fool me for a second. Something about the way her eyes dart back and forth, as though she’s plotting her next move, makes me brace for the worst.

  “Yes,” she says. “You’re right.”

  Murphy smiles, visibly relieved, and that’s when she springs, backhanding him with a balled fist in one stealthy movement that’s swift enough to make a lioness proud.

  Murphy yelps with pain, falls to one side, and ends up sprawled on the raft’s floor. The rest of us are still yelling with shock and scrambling to process what’s happening when Mrs. Torres climbs onto the outer tube of the raft and jumps.

  Mrs. Torres disappears into the depths, displacing so much water that it’s more of an explosion than a splash. The raft pitches in her wake, and the rest of us wobble before regaining our footing. Murphy lurches to his feet and curses, his mouth bloody. At first I’m afraid he’s going to attempt a rescue by swimming after her, but he merely leans over the side and gestures to Mike and Axel.

  “Give me one of the oars,” Murphy commands. “Quick, like!”

  “No-ooo! Mami!” Espi is halfway to jumping in after her mother. But before she can do more than swing one leg over the side, Carter and Gray, whose reflexes have been honed by years of basketball, grab her arms and pull her back inside.

  Espi goes wild, thrashing, kicking and screaming to get free. The boys have their hands full trying to control her, and it’s all they can do to remain upright while protecting their eyes from her clawing fingers.

  “Mami! Mami!”