The Secret Island of Edgar Dewitt

by Ferrill Gibbs

  Same as before, there they were, swimming beneath him and following his raft along the current. They’d been following him all day, actually, and maybe it was the heat he was emitting through the plastic that kept them around. Or maybe it was the splashing of the oars. Either way, the sharks were intent on following him for as long as it took, and he realized they were probably there to stay.

  Shaking off the dreary thoughts, he dug into the medicine bag and retrieved sunscreen, Chapstick, and a bottle of ointment. The ointment he applied to the fresh blisters on his hands; the medicine he splotched all across the jellyfish sting, which seemed to be getting better by the moment. He wrapped it with a fresh bandage and then popped two Tylenol for pain.

  Then, taking a pair of socks from the clothes bag, he slipped them over his hands for mittens, which he hoped would ease the pain of blistering from the handling of the oars.

  Next, he propped the radio against the sidewall of the raft and turned it on for background noise, frowning when nothing came on over the dial. Sure, he didn’t expect there to be anything smack dab in the middle of the Indian Ocean, but still, it would have been nice. All up and down the dial he searched, end-to-end, but there was nothing.

  It was, after all, the third-largest ocean in the world.

  He shrugged and hooked up his iPod to it instead, resuming his position in the back of the boat, taking the oars firmly in his freshly mitted hands and rowing to the sound of Coldplay’s latest album, his oars rising and falling with the beat, propelling him due west, cruising along the current.

  Something yanked on his oar.

  “What the hell!”

  In a rash act of aggression, one of the smaller sharks had gotten bold and nipped one of his oars, causing him to panic. Breathlessly, he rose to his knees and sliced the plastic blade into the water, swinging with everything he had, narrow side down, to show the sharks he wasn’t to be messed with.

  “You bastards!” he screamed, glaring into the sea.

  In the surface of the water, he noticed his face—his reflection—all scrunched-up into a horrified, full-toothed scowl. His stringy brown hair was disheveled, and he looked like a crazy person. The sharks were making him crazy.

  __________

  He rowed into the night as the fresh sleep, food, water, and medicine powered him on. As his muscles throbbed and burned with each stroke, the stars put on a heavenly show above, making him think about how his parents might be doing.

  He hoped his dad was still alive. And that he, Edgar, hadn’t drowned the whole town of Mount Lanier with ocean water. The thought of the destruction it was probably causing in Mount Lanier made him paddle even faster—it made his muscles burn even more.

  He just couldn’t die without knowing what had happened, could he?

  In the light of the high-hanging moon, on the surface of the sea he noticed a glimmering shark fin surfacing near the raft. It made his heart sink in fear. Shining a light on the waters, he ran a trembling hand through his hair.

  They were getting bolder now, apparently, swarming much closer to his raft and much closer to the surface. The fear of his oars was quickly diminishing.

  What would he do? he thought.

  That’s when, pondering these things, he saw something just beyond the school of sharks rolling up from the deep, dark sea: a large, fleshy creature that, in the faint light of the night sky, surfaced like a behemoth. It splashed and groaned like a kraken.

  “Oh my . . . God!” he whimpered, straining to see it in the dim light. He couldn’t exactly tell what it was, but whatever it was it was monstrous—the size of maybe four eighteen wheelers side-to-side, its wet body glistening in the moonlight.

  “A whale,” he murmured, “it must be.” And suddenly, in his tiny little rubber raft, he’d never felt smaller.

  Whatever it was, the sharks were not afraid of it, and unconscionably continued to nip at the surface near him and at his oar, testing him, mortifying him. Terrifying him.

  __________

  Finally, when morning came, the sun popped itself up clearly above the horizon, and Edgar, rubbing his weary eyes, noticed a school of dolphins were darting toward the boat.

  He rose to his knees and cheered.

  “Hey! Yes!” he cried, pumping his oars into the air. “Come get these dang sharks away from me, you guys!”

  But they didn’t. He’d always heard dolphins chased sharks away from helpless human beings, but he watched forlornly as the school quickly darted away, weaving around him and the sharks—the sharks not even changing their trajectories the slightest bit.

  They didn’t even stop their menacing lurking for a single, godforsaken second to even acknowledge the dolphins had even come by.

  He really hated the sharks.

  Reclining helplessly in the raft, a wet oar on his lap, he wished he had saved a single stick of dynamite. How good it would feel to light it and blow these jokers up . . . As he stared behind the raft at the retreating dolphins—all of them leaping across the waters now, all happy and rambunctious and free—a sleek sensation ran across his butt below the raft, even lifting him several inches.

  “Oh my . . . God!” he shouted.

  One of the bastards had brushed the underside of his boat.

  Petrified, he lunged to one side and peered over into the sea, trying to figure out which shark had just bumped him, but even as he glared at them, he could feel it happening again: this time, right across his knees went the slick body and fin below the raft, its blunt nose followed by a rigid tail.

  He was panicked now. Whimpering with fear, he snatched up the oars and did the only thing left he could do: he paddled like a wild man—like the relentless pumping of an oil rig in Texas—hoping that maybe a few miles down the current might tire them out, maybe prevent them from getting too much bolder. After all, it would take only one bite for the raft to deflate and then, he’d be a goner.

  Throughout the afternoon and late into the evening, he’d sometimes feel the raft lurch again and again from below. It began to dawn on him: his rowing had not deterred them one bit. Mercilessly, as if in the grip of frenzy now—or maybe it was hunger—they continued to bump and test the boat, and, as the bumps came more frequently, so did his desperate whimpers of anguish and prayers to above. His face was soon scrunched into a permanent, stone-like expression of misery, which turned side to side incessantly, looking for sharks, his oars slapped wildly at the waters each time they surfaced.

  Even still, the sharks were not deterred.

  “Please God,” he muttered, rowing ever faster.

  __________

  When dawn approached, Edgar found himself so delirious from all the rowing that his fear was unable to keep him awake any longer. Collapsing into the boat, lying flat in exhaustion, his eyelids so heavy they were like big slabs of lead, in no time he was asleep—sleeping a deep, black sleep, rocking slightly from the peaceful waves.

  Suddenly, jolting from a peaceful dream, Edgar was lurched airborne above the raft, screaming as he rose above the sea.

  The largest shark from the school had come shooting up, delivering a punishing blow to the underside of the raft, and sending him flying. The strike was violent and came with great velocity—obviously intended to knock him from the boat, which it did, halfway.

  Just as Edgar was cast into the air several feet he twisted his body and reached for the bouncing raft—knowing that if he fell into the water he would instantly die a horrible, gruesome death.

  As he slammed back onto the raft, the subsequent bounce flipped him over the side into the ocean. Half his body plunged into the sea as he grabbed to the side wall of the raft. A salty blast of water shot up his nose and went down his throat as he entered the cool water, and as it did, he screamed with horror into the vast blue. Knowing the sharks would strike at any moment, he scrambled backward out of the ocean and fell panicking
into the bottom of the raft, balling up into a ball, trying not to hyperventilate.

  He balled his fists and rose to his knees and quaked with anger, pointing a crooked and blistery finger down at the sea.

  “You!” he screamed, hissing like a madman, glaring at the water as an insane snarl crept across his face. “I’ve got something for you!”

  Standing there, his finger pointing in defiant anger, he suddenly noticed that, across the water, half of his stuff was launched overboard and scattered out to sea, some of it sinking, some of it floating. Floating in the sea were six water bottles currently being attacked by the frantic, swarming creatures, and the jugs with bite marks had quickly filled with undrinkable seawater and were submerging as he watched.

  “Dangit!” he cried, coming to his senses, frantically grabbing the oars and paddling to them as fast as he could. When he got to them, he reached out the oars to corral them in, but even as he did, the emboldened and aggressive sharks struck at them, as well as his oars. One nearly ran off with one, and Edgar actually had to play tug-of-war for a moment. Edgar snatched it away and concentrated on bringing the bottles to the boat. Finally, he was able to bring one in. It had a few bite marks in it. He lifted it to his lips and took a taste. And then another. And then another.

  When they were all back in the boat, five of the six bottles were ruined with salt water. They were undrinkable. Only one could be salvaged.

  That left him with only three water bottles to get to the French Southern and Antarctic Lands.

  Man, he thought. They had really screwed him this time.

  Disgustedly, he tossed the salty jugs to the swarm and then attuned his fiery glare at the devil fish.

  “You,” he said, “you sons of bitches. You all die, now.”

  The fishing pole, his iPod, all of his medicine—he could still see them sinking in the deep blue below the swarm, all off to Davy Jones’s locker. And, worst yet, his radio was sinking along with them: his last remaining lifeline to another human voice. He watched it all fade into the depths, and it was enough to almost make him cry.

  Almost.

  The half bag of Doritos still floating in the center of the mayhem, he watched as it got snapped under, too, noticing the jagged teeth of a shark glistening in the sunlight beneath it, almost as if it was smiling—almost as if they were all laughing.

  Then, unconscionably, another violent bump lifted him from the floor of his raft below—this one almost bounding him over the side wall again, just like the last one—well, this was the final straw.

  He regained his composure and rebounded from the blow, then gritted his teeth and made for his stash.

  A dark, desperate rage clouded his face. His mind was swirling like a hurricane. Hatred oozed from his pores, like acidy sweat.

  “You want to bump me?” he asked to the monsters. “Well, this is what you get.”

  Reaching beneath the bottom of the pile he dug it from his supplies and cradled it in his lap, all cool to the touch and sinister. It was the last item he’d packed when back on the island, the very last thing he thought he would need while drifting alone on the sea: it was the black, sleek, Somalian instrument of death—the Somalian man’s machine gun.

  Rising to his feet, grinning with power, he leaned over the side wall with his jellyfish leg propped high, and, like a one-legged pirate, he pointed the snub nose down into the sea and, giggling like crazy, he pulled the trigger and expected to give them hell.

  *Click*

  He blinked blankly at the gun.

  “Oh,” he said, flipping it upside down. The safety was still on.

  Flipping the safety off, he realigned his weapon at the sea and took aim at the largest shark among them: the one he suspected had bumped his boat and knocked him into the air.

  “Hey!” Edgar shouted to it. “This here is the top of the food chain!”

  Then he pulled the trigger and the gun was a fiery burst of violence. Instantly it danced upward with raw, shocking power and fury, making Edgar scramble to control it. But, then, he stabilized and re-aimed the gun back at the dastardly swarm of sharks, still grinning like a madman, and through the fire and smoke and lurching seawater he watched as big splotches of red blood began to spill out all over the sea like a bloody oil spill.

  Blood. What a wonderful sight!

  Spraying bullets everywhere, he tore into the flesh of the bully sharks like buckshot through paper, jerking the gun around and giving them all something for every bit of rage and fear that had built up in him over the past many hours. And oh, did it feel wonderful. Unleashing his fury, he glared at the sea, and with each spattering from the UZI, he realized that unbeknownst to him, he’d been screaming the entire time.

  *Click*

  What a bummer. He was finally out of bullets.

  There, just beyond the boat, was a gang of large and small bodies floating at the top of the sea, all riddled with red, violent, jagged holes, all belly up—all of them deader than doornails.

  He began to laugh for a long time—it was so wonderful to be free of those terrible creatures. With a hand, he wiped his sweaty forehead and with the other, he cradled the hot gun in his lap so it would not melt the plastic.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking over the side, trying to make sure that he got them all. “That’s what you get, jerks.”

  __________

  Later, when the gun was cool and stowed and he’d resumed his rowing upon the current, he noticed at the south horizon a bunch of clouds had been accumulating there.

  These were not just any old clouds: they were storm clouds. Haymakers.

  Simply put, they didn’t look good.

  Reluctant and weary, he put his head down and thrust the oars once again into the sea, knowing that he probably couldn’t outrun them, but also knowing he had to try. What else was he supposed to do? All he could do was row.

  And row and row and row.

  That’s when, crushing him, he realized another terrible, terrible thing: he heard a familiar small splash occuring near the raft. Whipping around, he strained to see what it was.

  There, just a few feet away, a small shark nipped the surface. Edgar rose to his feet and dropped the oars, staring wide-eyed into the sea.

  There, just a few yards away, swam another one. And another one.

  He looked beyond them. There, coming up from the deep below, was a second school of sharks, their occasionally visible white underbellies flashing like mirrors in the waning light.

  “Oh, God, no,” he whimpered, his heart sinking. The new school was much larger than the previous one—maybe thirty sharks—that no doubt had been attracted by all the gunfire and splashing, and especially, all the blood.

  Once again, he’d chummed the waters.

  With haste, he grasped the oars and frantically began to row, but after only an hour, more joined the school, and their numbers surged to maybe fifty. They were all keenly on his trail, just like the others had been, and before long, just like the others, they, too, began to circle the boat menacingly.

  “What did I ever do to you?” he whimpered to God through the assembling storm clouds. He looked up for an answer, but there was none. God seemed intent on torturing and killing him, probably for lying to his parents, maybe for sneaking out at night, possibly for his “impure” thoughts about Shay—all of this, even though, to him, his crimes did not meet the punishment. Dying by way of a swarm of hungry sharks seemed incongruent, and cruel.

  It was as if every time he made a bit of headway, something more awful swam up from below. Instead of fretting, however, knowing there would be no other way to fight the sharks as he was out of bullets, he did the only thing he knew of to do: he put his head down and rowed. He rowed like crazy.

  He’d row all night if he had to.

  Twenty-Seven

  This new school of sharks wasn’t bumping the bo
at like the other ones did, so at least there was that.

  They hadn’t yet, anyway. Maybe they just weren’t hungry enough.

  Yet.

  While they were a real concern, what ultimately began to worry Edgar was the southern storm coming up on him. He just couldn’t seem to outrun it, and it was a fully-formed storm now, a real rager, swirling above like a monster just due south, still many miles away, but getting closer all the time. Although he paddled furiously, he knew it was useless; it was indeed coming his way, and there would be nothing he could do about it.

  Even still, as always, he rowed.

  Capsizing now had become his greatest fear. Checking on the sharks, he rested the oars on the side walls and leaned across the boat, looking down at them.

  They were still lurking. Always lurking.

  And when the storm finally caught up to him, he tossed the remaining supplies evenly across the raft’s bottom, for balance.

  “This is called ‘ballast,’ son,” said his father, who floated in an imaginary raft, just behind him.

  “What?” asked Edgar. “Oh, yeah. I know what it’s called. You’ve already told me like two times already.”

  He quickly realized he was hallucinating. He counted backward from one hundred as he prepared the raft bottom, hoping to make the hallucination disappear. When the apparition asked how many days he’d been adrift on the sea, Edgar inadvertently answered it.