by M H Ryan
Shaya glared at Hanna, and if she had the ability of fire, I imagine flames would have been shooting out of those big eyes.
“Shaya, don’t,” Carmen said. “It wasn’t Hanna’s fault. Those bastards did the same shit to me and used my body like some kind of weapon. They showed me the power contained in those black stones.”
“She burned them,” Shaya said, tears building in her big eyes.
“Hanna was fed a lie just like your people were. They used her against us just like Carmen,” I said. “Hanna knows the truth now. She won’t hurt you or you people again. Hanna’s with me now.”
“Wife?” Shaya asked, glancing at Hanna.
“No, no, it’s not like that. She’s part of the group now. She’s with us.”
Shaya glanced up at me as I slid down the last rock, then her gaze went back to Hanna. She extended her hand to Hanna.
“Okay, we good then?” Hanna asked as she took Shaya’s hand.
Shaya nodded and then jumped onto the boat.
“I guess we’re good,” Hanna said, looking a bit suspicious.
The rest of the girls and I got onto the boat and in our assigned spots.
I had trouble shaking what had just happened to the Crultar on the shoreline here, but I knew I needed to put my full attention on what was ahead. I sensed the predators near us, six of them, swimming close. I reinforced the idea to them that we were not to be messed with. I just hoped it lasted.
“I think we need to put some distance between us and this wall,” I said as I looked at the grim faces of the girls.
“Yes, please, let’s get this over with,” Cass said. “I want to get back home.”
“Oh, come on, this is just the next step to our adventure,” Sherri said. “What’s with all the sour faces? Hell, only Carmen seems to have any pep in her step. This is going to be awesome guys!”
“Yeah,” Carmen said. “Bunch of downers around here. Like, I haven’t felt this good in a while.”
“Let’s open the sails,” I said.
The girls sprang into action and pulled open the mainsail. The wind pushed against the makeshift parachute sail and tightened it against the mast. Luna lurched forward, and I glanced back at the bloody smears we had left behind on the rocks.
“I don’t like this side of the divide,” Kara said. “I can’t breathe as well. The air… it feels heavier.”
Carmen took a deep breath. “Feels fine to me.”
“Emma, you have an idea of where to go?” I asked.
“Yeah, just straight like we’re going,” Emma said.
“What are you feeling, Eliza?” I asked.
“Nothing good,” Eliza said. “We’re going in the right direction, but I feel that we’re at a crossroad for…everything coming up. I’m scared, Jack.”
“We got your back,” Sherri said, holding a spear as she stared at the sea ahead.
I took a deep breath and looked at the choppy waters ahead, thinking I spotted an island but then realized it was just some sea animal that dipped under the water as soon as I spotted it. I searched for it but couldn’t find it in the growing population around us.
I glanced back at the wall, now just a line in the ocean, running in both directions as far as I could see. It felt good to be away from it, but Kara was right, this place felt different and not in a good way. The air did feel heavy. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but if Eliza was scared, nothing good was coming our way.
Even in the wide-open sea, I had a claustrophobic feeling, as if the very air was closing in around me. As more time passed, the feeling got worse.
“Aubrey, can you give us some wind, please?” I asked. “Sherri, can you give us some favorable currents? I think we need to be out of these waters as soon as possible.”
Chapter 30
I slumped against the rudder, gazing ahead at nothing in particular. I wasn’t sure how long we’d been at sea, an hour or five. Time seemed to slow down, and even the once-rough sea now looked like glass. Our poor, abused Luna, floated on the surface, sending out ripples around us, disturbing the stillness.
With barely enough energy or motivation, I sensed the sea around us. Something was below our boat—right below, as if it were attached to the bottom. Not predators, but more like…barnacles.
The predators were everywhere else, surrounding us in their dark waters. They fought each other for the front row seats, killing and maiming each other with recklessness. Sharks, yes, many sharks, and others that I wasn’t familiar with. Perhaps they were the slender creatures that killed the Crultar on the shoreline.
Those killings seemed like a lifetime ago. I had caused them, ordered them to the water’s edge, where they said they could not go—just number four hundred thirty-two on tough decisions I have made.
The air pushed down around me, and I went to one knee. I had the urge to lay down and put my face against the deck. A reasonable thing to do, no doubt. We weren’t in any hurry, and the ocean, was, well…the ocean—a vast expanse of water and misery that would be there long after we’d all danced our little jig on stage.
“What were we doing out here?” I whispered to myself.
You need to get up, Jack.
It was a voice I hadn’t heard in a long time—the floating lady that killed all those Crultar on the mountain top. Murrack was her or its name.
I looked up to see her hovering a few feet above me. Her white clothes and dark hair floated around her body just like before.
“Are you really here?”
“Yes, now get up. They need you, Jack,” she said with such pain in her perfect eyes.
“Who?”
“The girls, Jack. Your wives. Look at them!” she yelled and then fell into me, or through me. I felt her cold presence, like a bucket of ice water, and then she was gone.
I got up, pushing off of the rudder. Near me, sat Carmen. She smiled, looking at the sky and rubbing the deck with her hands.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Jack?”
“Carmen?” I asked, but she kept staring ahead, at nothing.
“Sit with me, Jack. Feel what I feel,” she said, rubbing her hand on the deck of the boat.
On the other side of me sat Cass. She had her knees pulled against her chest, rocking back and forth.
“Cass,” I said, kneeling next to her and touching her back. “Cass, what is it?”
She looked up at me, with tears in her eyes. It broke my heart, seeing her so upset. I bent down and hugged her. She hugged me back, and I pulled her to her feet.
“I don’t like it here, Jack,” Cass said.
I felt her tears against my neck as she held onto me.
“I need to check on the others. Can you steer the boat?” I asked.
“Steer it where?” Cass asked.
“Just keep your hands on the rudder,” I said, offering a small smile.
“We’re not moving,” she said, sounding weak and defeated.
I looked up to the sail. It sagged down, limp, and I realized there wasn’t an ounce of wind blowing.
“Aubrey?” She stood on the other side of the railing, staring down into the dark water.
I rushed to her, grabbed her by both shoulders as she leaned forward, as if she planned to fall into the water. I pulled her back and lifted her over the railing and into my arms. My beautiful, strong woman struggled to hold her head up. I sat her down on her feet, and she leaned against the railing, swayed, and then grabbed it tighter to steady herself.
“Aubrey, what happened to the wind?”
“I didn’t want to do it anymore,” Aubrey said, some of that strength coming back into those eyes. “The girls, Jack.”
I looked over the rest of the boat and staggered back until I hit the railing in shock. They were all sitting or lying down on the deck. Benji was stabbing at the wood deck with an arrow, muttering about killing something.
Sherri sat at the front of the boat with her feet dipped in the water.
Eliza lay down right behind Sherri while Kara
lay face down, near the small shack in the middle.
I rushed to Kara and knelt next to her motionless body. Her white skin, exposed to the sun, had hints of red in spots. Her tattoos wrapped around her torso, and I touched the one with the lyrics about staying alive and gently rolled her onto her back.
“Jack?” she said, reaching for me.
How could I have let this happen? Did we enter another portal?
It hates you. Murrack’s voice sounded in my head.
“Kara, It’s me. I’m here.”
“It found me…” Kara said, tears filling those ocean eyes.
“What?”
“Yin Island. It found me. It’s in my soul, Jack. I can’t escape it.”
“No, you can’t let it get to you.” I leaned down and kissed her small lips and wiped a tear from her eye with my thumb. “Now get up.”
I pulled on her, trying to get to her feet, but she wouldn’t help. She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, but she felt like a wet noodle with arms as I tried to get her on her feet.
“Just stop, Jack. Lay down with me. I can hear them again. They’re telling me the truth. Life sucks, and that moment of happiness was just a fluke. This is where I belong.” She pushed me back.
“Just let her be,” Benji said from behind me.
She stabbed the wood, getting the arrow lodged between two planks.
“Benji,” I said, turning to her. “Something’s wrong. You can’t give in to it. It’s these waters…they’re affecting us.”
“What are you talking about? It’s not the waters, it’s…everything,” Benji said, pulling her arrow out before stabbing it back in between the wood.
With both hands, I grabbed her face and made her look at me, as a great realization washed over me.
“Swamp of Sorrows,” I said, holding her tight.
“What?”
“The Neverending Story. When Atreyu and Artax went into the Swamp of Sorrows, they were overcome with sadness. Tell me you remember?”
She stared at me as I let go of her face. If she didn’t get up, I didn’t know if I could keep going either.
“Artax… I cried during that scene. I screamed at the screen like a crazy person,” Benji said with anger.
“Benji, we are in the Swamp of Sorrows, right now, and if you don’t get up, I’m going to kick your ass, because I’m not letting you sink into the sadness.” I wasn’t really going to kick her ass, but the pressure from the air weighed down on my thoughts, and that was the best I could come up with.
“Just leave me alone,” Benji said and went back to stabbing the wood. “I’m going to kill it.”
“Benji, you got to snap out of it,” I said, kneeling next to her.
I kissed the side of her face, tasting the tears streaking down her cheeks. She turned and kissed me back. At first, it felt cold, but she quickly loosened up in my arms and wrapped herself around me as she kissed me deeply.
“Jack?” Benji said, dropping her arrow.
I pulled her up to her feet.
“Swamp of Sorrows… holy shit, Jack,” she said and looked around the ship. “How did it get this bad?”
“I don’t know. I remember looking back and seeing the great divide fall away and then it was just ocean, all around us. I got lost in my thoughts—bad thoughts—and just…gave up, I think.”
“We got to get them feeling something good,” Benji said.
“What?” I had a few things running through my mind, but before I could get the logistics of getting all the girls at the same time, Benji had an idea.
“The best way to spread Christmas cheer is to sing loud for all to hear,” Benji said, smiling.
“Elf?” I said.
“Yes, only the best Christmas movie ever.”
“Better than Die Hard?”
“That is a debate for later,” Benji said. “We need a song. A real slapper. Something that everyone knows the words to, and you can’t help but smile when you hear it.”
“Something by Taylor Swift?” I suggested.
“No.” She put her finger on her nose and pointed at me with excitement. “This is so cringy, it’s good.”
Benji stood on the rail and yelled to get their attention.
“Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed.”
“Are you really singing All Star by Smash Mouth?”
“No, this is the Shrek song,” Benji said. “She was looking kind of dumb with her finger
and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead.”
“I haven’t heard that song since high school,” Aubrey said with a smile. “It’s ridiculous.”
“I love that song,” Sherri said, getting her feet out of the water and sauntering over to Benji.
Benji kept singing, and Sherri joined in. Even I remembered some of the lyrics.
The girls started listening to the song as Benji sang it as loud as she could. Aubrey and Hanna jumped in, and soon most of the girls were gathered around Benji, singing along. Eliza and Shaya both had big smiles as they listened to a song they had never heard in their lives.
Eliza hugged me. “I love it when you guys sing.”
Then the songs hook kicked in, and even I couldn’t help but rock out to some Shrek music.
“Hey now, you're an all-star, get your game on, go play. Hey now, you're a rock star, get the show on, get paid. And all that glitters is gold. Only shooting stars break the mold.”
The girls and I were jumping and singing and…having a good time. We even picked up Kara off the ground and got her moving. We Weekend-At-Bernies her ass at first, but by the end of the song, all the girls, including Kara, were dancing and singing.
The mood had shifted to something positive.
With some of the mental fog lifted, the confusion set in, and questions flew around like Benji’s arrows. I jumped up on the railing next to Benji and called for everyone to quiet down.
“Okay, I know, something weird just happened,” I said, and even as things had lightened, I felt the heavy air, pushing on me once again. We didn’t have much time.
Kara started crying and buried her face in Emma’s chest. Emma held her and patted the back of her head.
“It’s below us,” Benji said. “That’s what I was trying to kill.”
Below us? I reached out to it and then remembered the creature or creatures I felt under the boat, like barnacles or something clinging to Luna. I jumped back off the railing and got on my hands and knees, looking between the planks. Nothing but blackness, but that shouldn’t be the case. The sunlight would shine through and we should be seeing the ocean below us.
Then it moved, and a black, glossy eye blinked as it stared up at me.
I jumped back and onto my feet.
“Shit,” I said. “There’s something attached to the bottom of the boat.”
I went back to where the eye had been, but it had moved. I got my knife out and stabbed at the space between the wood. When I pulled my knife back out, a black goo dripped from the blade. From sensing it, I knew I hadn’t hurt it. We just needed to hit it where it hurt.
“Everyone, start stabbing it,” I said.
The girls moved into action, grabbing spears, knives, arrows and axes—anything they could fit into the narrow cracks. I walked around and realized the thing or things covered much of the underside of the boat.
“This is dumb,” Kara said, loosely gripping her knife. “I don’t want to do this.”
“This is fighting for your life, Kara,” I said. “Every internal demon you’ve ever had has manifested itself into this thing and attached itself to Luna. Now is your chance to kill that demon.”
Her lips thinned and she gripped her knife tighter, then plunged it between the planks as she snarled at the demon.
“It’s gelatinous goo,” Hanna said, pulling one of Benji’s arrows out and examining the tip.
“It’s like stabbing gum. It isn’t doing anything,” Kara said, putting her
hands over her ears. “I can still hear it.”
“Kara, you’re a genius. Can you and Hanna make a fire?” I asked, then turned to Sherri. “Sherri, think you can get some water on that thing under us?”
“You know it, but why?” Sherri asked.
“When I was a kid, I got gum stuck in my hair. I freaked out, thinking I was going to have this chunk of hair cut out, but my dad calmed me down and used ice to freeze it. Then it just broke off in chunks.”
“We don’t have any ice,” Carmen said, looking disappointed.
“Aubrey?” I asked.
“Me? I don’t know…I’ve never made ice.”
“People always said you were a frigid bitch,” Sherri said.
“Who said that? Because I will slap a bitch!” Aubrey snapped.
“Aubrey, you’ve made fog by heating the water on the surface, right?”’
“Well, sort of.”
“Then do that, but the opposite.”
“Emma, I think I need you,” Aubrey said.
“We’ll be like gas and fire,” Emma said, grabbing her friend’s hand.
“What’s the plan, Jack,” Hanna asked.
I gave them a quick breakdown of what I had in mind and then went back to my orders.
“Benji, Carmen, Eliza, Shaya, Cass—start shoving every stone and bit of metal into the body of that thing you can.”
The girls jumped into action, breaking spear tips and grabbing stone knives before falling to the deck and pushing the pieces of stone into this monster.
Sherri stood with both arms out and closed her eyes. The still seawater around us begin to ripple near the boat, and I felt us moving. Not much, but the initial inertia pushed me back a hair. Sherri dropped her hands and bent over, breathing hard.
“I can’t. There’s too much water to move, and I feel…weak.”
I sighed and knew what she meant. I felt weaker. This thing wasn’t just sucking the joy from us but also our powers.
Hanna and Kara had smoke coming out of the small fire they were building on top of a sheet of aluminum we took off the crashed plane. They’d have a fire soon, and if this plan was going to work, we needed everyone to do their part.
“Sherri, you can do this,” I said, getting close to her. “You stopped boiling water from killing you, me, and Benji. Creating a splash of water is nothing for you. You don’t have to move the whole ocean, just get it wet.”