by J. D. Palmer
“Har.”
She’s trying to wave me over to her as she struggles to tread water in the heavy waves.
Theo.
“He’s down. He’s down.”
She dives down as I near her and I follow. I still can’t see anything. I surface and gulp air and dive down again, feeling around in the darkness. Four feet down I find him. The weight of his clothes carrying Theo down. Hands limply clawing for a surface that’s disappearing.
Beryl and I somehow get the giant to the surface, shifting and manhandling him until we find air once again. But he doesn’t respond. There is no gulping of air. There is no coughing, or yelling, or crying.
I slap Theo’s face. He isn’t conscious. Through the crashing of endless waves I hear yelling and I see Steven waving us towards the island. I thump on Theo’s chest a few times before doing my best to follow.
The waves push us towards the rocky shoreline. They also try to push us under. Beryl and I each support an arm, swimming on our backs and keeping Theo’s face out of the water. As much as we can.
Steven gets to the island, standing in the shallows and waving his hands as if exhorting us to try harder. It’s so close. The shore is right there. But for leaden limbs it seems to be an insurmountable distance. And for Theo each foot we claw closer is seconds gone without air.
My heel scrapes into rough sand and suddenly Steven’s hands are beneath Theo’s shoulders. We barely get him out of the water, roughly dragging his torso out onto the sand before Steven starts giving Theo CPR. He breathes oxygen and the blood from his nose makes an odd trail of tears down Theo’s cheeks. I’m too spent from the swim, gasping too hard to switch places. But I weakly pump on the muscled chest, rearing up so gravity can bring me back down.
Please don’t die.
“Fuck!” I try to scream. It’s a whisper barely audible. “Wake up!”
He jolts, muscles going stiff then a slow gargle of water from his mouth, his body convulsing as it rids itself of the salty poison. He panics and tries to yell and shoves Steven away from him before rolling onto his side and gasping life back into himself. His body shakes, convulsing from cold or fear or death and I wish I knew what to do to help him.
It takes him twenty minutes before he can speak.
Beryl kneels next to him as he grunts and shudders, holding his hand between hers as she lets him know that someone is there.
I don’t know what to say. Or do. I’m exhausted. My fatigued body got me here but I don’t know if I can get up.
Theo rolls back onto his back. His throat is raspy, torn to shreds by hacking up so much water. “Don’t you know… Black people can’t swim.”
Beryl gives him her rare big smile, even though the worry still crinkles the corner of her eyes.
Steven stands up. “We ready?”
No.
I nod. Look back at Theo. “Can you move?”
He lowers his head and doesn’t respond.
We need to go. Now. For John. We can’t stay here. If we dawdle too long we will die, one way or another.
Beryl says something to him, her whisper too soft for me to hear. He nods, eyes darting up to meet hers as she leans down to help him to his feet. His hand wraps around her forearm as she somehow pulls him up, an impractical vision of a single person erecting a monument to bravery.
We scale the slope, numb feet slipping on sharp rocks. Clumsy fingers scrabbling to hold onto the thin, twisted trees. We make it to the road, pausing to catch our breaths. A moment to examine the cuts on our knees. To examine arms and legs that radiate with pain.
Four idiots in their underwear, shivering and bruised and running on the dregs of adrenaline. Cold and half dead, whatever clothes we still have on work with the wind to make sure we stay enveloped in the cold of the ocean.
We’re quite the intimidating rescue party.
We totter up the road. We need to find clothes, soon. Every gust of wind is a knife blade of cold slicing into aching bodies. I shiver as I look back at the rest. Beryl and Steven’s lips are purple, Theo has his head down, numbly following the feet in front of him.
I just want to sit down.
We limp and stumble on bare feet down the road. We hope there is a house somewhere close. I hope we get there before we can’t go any farther.
A rooftop looms above us. With grimaces we climb another hill rather than walk the curving road. We can’t wait that long. Bent over figures that crawl more than walk, hands pulling at tufts of grass and grasping at bushes with more than a little desperation.
It appears to be Coast Guard housing and we break into the first apartment we find. We are loud and reckless, the danger of enemy soldiers a distant second to getting warm.
We ransack the sleeping quarters, not bothering to find clothes that fit, Beryl simply wrapping herself in a large blanket and curling up in the corner. Theo wobbles on his feet. Steven changes clothes and drops into a chair. His face is lined with exhaustion, eyes tired and grim. He wears the face of a man desperate to keep going but knowing his body can’t. I can only imagine what I look like, my eyes are doing their best to seal shut and I’m losing the battle.
“We wait for the night.”
Steven looks like he is about to cry. “That’s too long. It’s too long.”
I put my hands on his shoulders, look him in the eyes. “Look at us.” Then quieter. “Look at them. We can’t do anything without some rest. We can’t. We just can’t.” I plead with him. If he demands we go I will have to try and I have nothing left to give.
He composes himself and nods, breaking away from me to find a place to stretch out. I wonder if he’ll be able to sleep. I flop down in a chair with the distant thought of keeping watch.
I find myself back at the bridge, strong winds whip my hair into my eyes and work to rip me off the edge and out into the abyss. I don’t want to jump again. I try to turn, cold fingers fumbling over metal and rivets as I struggle to pull myself back over the rail and then I’m falling. Falling, but slowly, as if through water not air. I roll over as I fall and Jessica is above me, face contorted with fear and a hand reaching out towards me. What was she doing here? Why is she here?
Then I fall faster, hurtling away from Jessica to plunge into the water.
Darkness envelops me again. I try to struggle towards the surface. There is a whoosh as a body plummets past me, white tendrils of air streaming behind it. Whoosh! Another body. And another. They are sinking. My friends are sinking and they aren’t coming back up. Why aren’t they coming back up? I claw the water, twisting and kicking my way after them.
Beryl is at the murky bottom, hair blossoming into long dark tendrils around her head. Her arms reach towards me, her face desperate. She seems so far away, I can’t seem to close the distance. The harder I work the more I seem to stay still. She is frantic, arms clawing and torso contorting as she tries to escape the bottom.
Threads of red coil their way up around her, slowly wrapping around her body and encircling her in a crimson nebula. She is panicking, I see her mouth open and she inhales water, desperate eyes pleading with me. I force myself closer and then I see it. The hand around her ankle. Stuart’s decayed face grins up at me, blood pouring from the wounds in his gut and groin to cloud the water. He reaches up another hand and pulls Beryl closer to him. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
I wake to rough fingers jostling me. I spasm, throwing a hand out to ward off the attack.
“It’s time.” Steven is frenetic and doesn’t spare a moment to ask me about my nightmare. It takes me a long moment to disentangle myself from the dream, a sickly feeling still coiled in my gut.
It’s dark outside. We have slept too long. My blurry eyes find Beryl and Theo sitting up across the room. I do my best to steady myself, calm the beating of my heart. Sore limbs scream in protest as we rouse ourselves, doing our best to move as our stiff bodies rebel.
We dress in what we can find. An assortment of dark pants and sweatshirts emblazo
ned with USGC. Theo pulls a woolen hat down over his head. Steven is already in the lobby laying out a variety of weapons he has found. Our good fortune to wash up near a Coast Guard facility.
Steven is chomping at the bit to be on our way. “We get to their base quick enough we can get to John.” He says it assertively, pocketing a knife and a gun as he speaks.
“I don’t know if it will be that easy.”
He shrugs me off. “We’ll figure it out when we get there.”
I share a glance with Beryl. She gives me a terse smile that tilts her head as she sticks a new knife into her new boots. I get it, we are committed. Not a lot we can plan for when we know absolutely nothing.
We head down the road, Steven leading, shooting nervous glances at the silhouette of the bridge looming over the buildings. Joints begin to ease with movement. Other than the soreness from hitting the water I feel much better.
We follow the curve in silence, each of us lost in their own dark thoughts of what could have happened earlier. What should have happened.
Farther down the road Steven pumps a fist. “I fucking knew it!” He jogs to a dock. Boats, large and small, are tied up in a line.
“Steven…” Theo is trepidatious. I don’t think he wants anything to do with the San Francisco Bay water. I know I don’t.
“We can’t take a car. They’d see that a mile away. We can’t go near the roads. This is it.”
He looks at me, chin raised defiantly, and I can tell he’s ready to go on his own if need be. And we could let him. We could let him continue on this suicide mission by himself. The folly of this, if not apparent before, is a truth that is cold and naked and exhausted. This is risking too much, if it’s not already too late.
But if Steven goes alone then he’s as good as dead. So is John.
I nod.
Fuck it. This is a reckless and stupid venture. Maybe we need to be bold. Time is most certainly against us. Steven starts the engine and we clamber inside as quick as we can. Flashlights beam on the bridge, light trying to pierce the heavy curtain of rain and fog. They must have heard us.
No yells. No gunshots. Confusion, perhaps. Who but them would take a boat out into water so close to their base?
Who would be so stupid?
Theo and I push the boat off the small dock and jump in, the small craft lurching heavily as Theo lands and I see him almost panic. He settles into a corner and forges a death grip with the two small metal bars on the railing.
Steven guides us out into the open waters, the boat bucking at first in the swells. Then he guns it and we skim out and around the island. The city proper looms in front of us, the jagged skyline glowing with a million small lights. Where Los Angeles was an abandoned graveyard San Francisco is the remnants of a bonfire. Small glowing embers making eyes of buildings and occasional sparks of light flashing in buildings shrouded in misty fog.
“Steve!” He kills the engine as I point towards the middle of the bay. A warship stands confidently in the center, guns facing both the entrance to the bay and the city itself. Steven idles in a large arc away from it as we pray they don’t take notice.
Our route takes us along the bridge that nearly was our deaths. I see Theo shivering as he stares at the height from which we dropped. I can’t even look.
We break from the idle and charge towards a long row of piers dotted with a myriad of ships. Beryl stands and points and gives a small yell and Steven swerves, turning just in time to avoid crashing into the bulk of a capsized vessel. He slowly steers around the jetsam, scanning the shoreline ahead of us. A car drives along the shore, lights relegated to thin cylinders etched perfectly in the fog. I feel his impatience to get to his brother, the willingness to be reckless if it will get us a little closer to the goal. I’m getting a taste of my own medicine.
We move at a snail’s pace, chugging along the coastline looking out for detritus. Derelict shipping and fishing boats crash into huge piers of stone and wood and steel, the rhythmic knocking a metronome of death. Most of the ships are partially submerged by the constant battering. Some cling to life as they ride the swell of the sea, only to lower their shoulders and crash once more into the unmoving wall.
Lights bob to and fro along the docks. This isn’t going to be easy. I grope around in the floor of the boat and find a small compartment. Inside is what I’m looking for; two long oars. I hold them up for Steven and he nods. We cruise farther north, looking for a break in the piers and there, curling out like some thin arm with a massive fist at the end is a jetty protecting a beach. Steven kills the engine and we sit, adrift, waiting and watching for signs of life.
It’s peaceful.
Theo and I row us towards shore, relentless waves hell-bent on pushing us back towards the piers. Theo is stronger than I am, even digging deep and trying to match his rhythm our boat shimmies and wavers off course constantly.
Suddenly we surge forward and I look up to see we’ve reached the lee of the jetty. Placid water greets us and we glide forward easily. We make small strokes, doing our best to be quiet until we grind up on the sand.
Only the moon takes any interest in our madness.
We splash ashore and clamber up steps that lead into a park. A large nautical museum presides over the beach, preserving its history of the sea for a future people to marvel at.
Steven starts to jog up a road that runs parallel to the park. I run after him and grab his arm. “Where are we going?”
He pulls his arm free and continues to walk up the hill. “Mickey said they were downtown. They’d want to stay close to the docks.”
“You know where to go?”
He nods. “Been here a few times.”
Odd that he hadn’t mentioned that before. I share a look with Beryl and Theo.
“How far?”
“Couple miles.” He barely looks at me now as he speaks. He is solely focused on getting to his brother as soon as possible. We set off at a jog, Steven in the lead and Theo bringing up the rear. The running doesn’t last long. Even if we weren’t exhausted there is no way we could have kept that pace on the hills that undulate before us.
We near the top of a ridge when I hear something. A change in the smack of boots on pavement and labored breathing. A patter much quicker. A clink and shift of fabric rubbing on brick. I grab Steven and pull him to a stop, desperately signaling him to stay quiet. The others freeze behind me as we do our best to keep heaving lungs silent.
Boots clomp on pavement and there is a murmur of voices, a foreign tongue hissing orders. A group of soldiers crest the hill and march down the road towards us.
We are out in the open. Theo grabs Beryl’s arm and pulls her back down the street towards a couple cars. We follow, crouching down by a blue pickup truck, peeking underneath to watch the group approach. One of the men raises a hand to signal and I look behind and see more soldiers appearing out of a side street, flashlights sweeping to and fro as they patrol.
Did John tell them about Mickey’s plan? Are they looking for Mickey? Or are they looking for us?
Either way we’re fucked.
There is no way we won’t be discovered.
We have no time to formulate a plan. I push the others ahead of me off of the road and down an alley away from the soldiers. We sprint, hares flushed from the brush and it’s not long before we hear the baying of the hounds behind us. Our only chance is to find hiding before they get to us.
We push our tired legs, zig zagging down streets. It’s a small consolation that the hills are hurting them just as much as us. Drops of water start to patter down on us as we run and the sky rumbles. Even with the hiss of rain and the thunder we are too loud, feet slapping the pavement and breathing heavy.
Please don’t let us slip. Please don’t let us take a wrong turn.
We turn down a posh street of close-knit apartments and I trip on the strip of metal that guides the trolley. Gun shots ring out and staccato voices bark commands. A flash of lightning illuminates helmeted heads cro
ssing the intersection at the base of the hill.
Fuck.
As one we turn and run down an alley that divides the townhouses. It’s thin, not enough room for even a single car to drive down. We pass blue and white houses before coming up to a salmon colored shed. An old chain-link fence sits elevated two feet above the ground and surrounds what must be the roof of some underground dwelling.
Theo sees my mind and helps Beryl over the fence, and then Steven. I scramble over, twisted points of the old fence puncturing the palm of my hand before I drop down beside the others. We run up the old slate and down the other side. A ten foot drop greets us and we skid to a stop. I jump and roll. I have enough adrenaline going through me that I don’t hurt myself. Or I don’t know it yet.
I hold hands up to catch the torso of Beryl as she lowers herself. Steven and Theo swing down, Theo ripping the edge of the roof off as he drops. He lands awkwardly and the wind is knocked out of him. He heaves in weird reverse hiccups and I cover his mouth, desperate to muffle the sounds as booted feet run down the alley.
An hour ago I was scared that he would never breathe again, now I’m suffocating him. I try to give him a reassuring smile as he struggles beneath me.
The boots pass us by, flashlight beams bouncing off windows and reflecting in bursts of light that blind our benighted eyes. Then they’re gone. Theo shoves my hand away from him as he forces himself up. He draws in coarse breaths as we scurry through another small gateway between buildings. The street is empty before us.
Not for long.
They know we are close. Soon the whole area will have been surrounded.
“Move!” I hiss as I run and we dodge around a car and sprint across the street, Theo shielding Beryl ahead of me and Steven already almost across. I expect a bullet at any second. Hunched, head tilted, shoulder raised to take the blow.
Nothing.
We reach the other side and run up to a fancy brick apartment building painted blue. Large, ornate glass doors stand at the top of steps.
“Har!” Beryl is pointing down dark stairs adjacent to the building towards a basement entryway.