Adrift

by Trimboli, TJ

  “It won’t last long,” he told her.

  She kicked her ass into motion. “Listen up,” she shouted.

  The crowd paid her no attention as they scrambled through the shopping district searching each nook and cranny in every shop for an exit that wasn’t boarded up. Kendra put her thumb and index finger in her mouth and whistled.

  It echoed through the room catching everyone’s attention. As they turned, they saw the fire quelled beneath the rubble Kendra now stood upon.

  “We don’t have much time. Come now my children, be free and stop those who seek to oppose us and you will have your Oasis and no one and I mean no one will ever lay harm to you again.” She roared over the crowd.

  The crowd cheered in unison racing towards her. They all worked in tandem to climb the rubble. Men helped women, who in turn helped the children. Together they helped any hurt, any handicapped, any that required it. Kendra stood by proud of what she’d done. She had taken a group of strangers hell bent on succumbing to fear and gave them hope, gave them purpose. She turned to Richard. “Go to the bridge. Whoever is behind the helm, kill them.” “Is that wise?” he asked.

  “I won’t allow dissension.”

  “I mean, we don’t know if there is anyone else on this ship that can drive this hunk of junk.

  Better to give him one chance to see the error of his ways and join the winning team.”

  Kendra paused. He was right. Having an oasis would be no good to them if they couldn’t get to it, and taking the escape boat would take months. “Get it done.”

  They climbed the rubble separating at the stairs. Any person worth their salt stood on the sixth floor waiting for her. Men, women, teenagers, all sporting knives, shivs, blunt instruments, anything they could use as a weapon. She even spotted one man with a fire extinguisher. They stood waiting for her instructions.

  “Kill any who oppose us. If there are those who lay down their weapons and have seen the error of their ways, let them be. We are not savages. However, Bobbi and Trent Shaw are mine. If anyone sees them, take them alive. Do I make myself clear—?”

  The casino door beside her popped open, an older Spanish looking man strolled out like he was just out for a jog in the park. He paused when catching the sight of her and her army. “Oh shit,” he cussed turning tail back into the casino.

  Her army chased after the man. She followed close behind. Inside the casino was destitute. Only a few lights still worked, most short circuited when the power roared back to life over powering many of the bulbs. The ashes of their sockets were strewn around the room. The slot machines however were another story, managing to both stay intact and sing their songs at the top of their lungs. It was irritating to no end.

  Kendra almost missed it due to the Spaniard but her keen eye and deductive reasoning led her towards it. She spotted a vent halfway up the wall that hung open by two screws. There were dirt markings around the edges. They were fingerprints.

  She looked at her soldiers ahead of her calling for two towards the back. They were both teenagers. One a young girl, with smeared black eye liner, a shirt that read the story so far with five unsavory individuals on the front, and gauges in her ears that would put most African tribeswomen to shame. The other was a young boy in a polo, with short brown hair slicked back, bright brown eyes, with muscles upon muscles. They couldn’t be more polar opposite but here they were working in tandem.

  The people I bring together.

  The two approached her as she pointed to the vent.

  “Squirm your way in there. Someone has been using it. Some of his friends may have even used it to escape. Find them.”

  They set off for the vent. She didn’t wait to see if they could fit.

  A few of her soldiers caught up to the Spaniard by the roulette table, tackling him onto it cracking the board off of its spokes. They lifted the man up as she approached. They had him under one of the few lights left and now that she caught a good look at him, she could see that he was the same Spaniard that accompanied Morris on his aquatic adventure. She smiled kneeling down beside him. “Doesn’t look good for you Skipper. All your friends keep dying.”

  “Crazy Cunts will do that.”

  One of her soldier’s slapped him. Surprisingly, it was a teenager of medium build, average height, with jet black hair that swooped over one eye.

  Blood coursed out of the Spaniard’s mouth.

  “That is a disciple of God you are chastising. Do it again and you won’t have a tongue to blaspheme with any longer.”

  “It’s quite alright. I think our Spanish friend here will see the error of his ways. After all, you don’t want to die here alone like your pals, do you?” She sneered.

  “What makes you think I’m alone?” the Spaniard asked.

  Someone behind her screamed and she turned just in time to see a young woman under her command have her throat opened. She didn’t notice it at first, the loud music turning her attention away from the slot machines but now dozens of the Spaniard’s people came pouring out from their hiding places around them. They all brandished knives, shivs, and blunt objects.

  Kendra froze. It was going to be a blood bath. Her soldier’s formed a ring around her blocking her from harm’s way.

  Unfortunately, so was the Spaniard.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  TRENT

  In his drunken rage, he charged. Trent kept using his body as a battering ram but still, the door wouldn’t budge. The rain soaked his body. The storm overhead surged, the thunder continuously ringing through his ears. He finished off his bottle of merlot flinging it at the door.

  He peered through the shattered glass window. It was large enough he could fit his head through but not so large where he could fit his entire body. He reached his arm in attempting to reach the lock but the port hole was too high up. His arm barely made it halfway.

  The figure inside paced back and forth.

  Trent poked his head through like he was Jack Torrance in the Shining and in many ways, he was. A once great man, smart detective, and kind husband had turned rabid. A viscous dog that needed to be taken out back and gunned down. It had all built to a boiling point for the man once known as Trent and now there was no going back. The alcohol wouldn’t let him. That, the claustrophobia, and the death, all worked in tandem to shut down every critical portion of his brain. His lymphatic system, the temporal lobe, the prefrontal cortex were just the latest in Trent’s trigger happy hand. All that was left was the booze. He’d become a walking, talking, zombie. The ship’s first.

  “Open the door!” He ravaged.

  The figure stood at the helm of the ship never looking back, not that Trent would have been able to discern it anyway. All he could see was the small of her back, curvature of her buttocks, the flowing brown streaks of hair, and the gun holstered at her belt but there was no mistaking his wife. Suddenly, he burst into tears. Tears he had held for as long as he’d been a cop. He longed to be with his wife, he longed to hold her, to smell her hair, to feel her skin upon his own, but most importantly and devastatingly, he longed to be inside her. The animalistic urge raged within him. Time was a concept he no longer understood but at the moment it felt like eons since the last time, he felt the touch of his wife, his woman. He deserved it, his mind told him.

  You deserve it. A voice sang into his ears. It was Noah’s, that much he could still remember. The death of the boy had eaten away every part of his conscious, it consumed him just as the boy said it would.

  “Bobbi, let me in. I am your husband. You must obey me. No one else here can protect you the way I can, no one can love you like I do.” He slurred the words sounding more like a stuttering fool than the Casanova he claimed to be. “You will let me in. You can’t keep me out forever.”

  Trent then fumbled backwards slipping on the top step of the walkway. Tumbling down, he hit his head on every surface he possibly could, the railing, the steps, even his own knee had flailed about far enough to collide with his nose. He cr
awled towards the door that would put him back inside the ship. The buffet room was situated to the door’s left and Trent’s one track mind thought of only that which would put him inside the bridge.

  Once inside, he righted himself searching for something large and sturdy enough to gain him access to his wife. He found a planter that crumbled as he picked it up, a fire extinguisher that was all out of juice, a wet floor sign, and a metal garbage tin. None of which would help him in the slightest.

  Stumbling around, he just happened to fall at the perfect moment with the rocking of the ship straight into a janitor’s closet. He dusted himself off looking around at the room. There was a mop head, bucket, tons and tons of soap, tissue paper and toilet paper but nothing to get him to his wife. He lifted himself up, about to give up when he saw it, situated behind one of the storage bins encased in glass. It was an axe. He grinned like the Grinch and punched through the glass.

  He pulled the axe out caressing it in his hands. It felt like a child to him and though he no longer could remember the character or even what a TV looked like any longer he had completed his transformation. He was indeed Jack Torrance.

  Pushing his way out of the room, he turned for the bridge. The storm raged outside. The ship dipped with the direction of a wave while a subsequent wave barreled right at them. It was so large it crested over the top of the ship, a full fourteen levels, soaking the floor in front of Trent. The water rushed in through the doors, past his feet, coursing down the stairs but it wasn’t enough to stop him.

  He took a step outside when he felt a sharp pain nip at his shoulder. He cried out in agony reaching for his back unable to extend his arm fully as if trying to scratch an itch. He could just feel the cold sharp touch of the blade in his shoulder. He turned around.

  Noah stood there, worry in his heart and his eyes. “You’re going the wrong way, Trent.”

  Trent raised the axe over his head charging at Noah. He swung at Noah’s neck but as the axe made contact with his throat, Noah disappeared like an apparition vanishing leaving behind but a trace of white dust in the air.

  Another sharp pain nipped at his thigh. His leg buckled under the pain bringing him to one knee. He clutched at his thigh to see another knife dug in as if he was a knife display case. He swung back but rotated too far, falling over. No one was behind him. It didn’t make any sense and why would it to a man who no longer had the sense to look down? If he had, he would have saw the young girl with the mottled hair as she dipped a third knife into his stomach.

  He gripped at the knife in his stomach crying out. “Where are you? Face me like a man, you coward,” he mumbled.

  Taking a big step backwards, he never noticed the ledge behind him. He pulled the knife out clinging at the wound seeping copious amounts of blood.

  Noah appeared before him grabbing him by the shoulders. “You’re too high Trent. To get what you want, you need to slow it down. Take it lower. Much lower.” Noah gently pushed Trent back.

  The nudge was enough to send him careening over the ledge. Now he saw that it hadn’t been Noah but Richard’s face smiling at him from the rail. He tried to grab hold but his double vision made him miss the mark by a mile. Trent fell and surprisingly he was all smiles. It will be over soon. The quick rush of wind at his neck felt exhilarating like he was soaring through the air and the butterflies in the pit of his stomach brought him back to a simpler time, summers spent at Hershey Park riding coaster after coaster. He shut his eyes, extended his arms, and waited to meet his maker.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  BOBBI

  “Kid?” she shouted.

  The word echoed through the vent. Bobbi had gotten completely lost. She stopped at a junction looking both left, straight, and right while surveying each path trying to determine which way the kid went. All three looked exactly the same, leaving her with nothing but an educated guess to make. She shut her eyes trying to remember back to the steps she’d taken thus far to get a bearing on her position.

  She first jumped up into the vent using her legs and arms to prop herself up then by moving one arm at a time followed subsequently by her legs, she managed to shimmy her way up to the third level climbing out of the hole. It took every bit of physical, core, and muscle strength she had left and if it wasn’t for her years on the force and Sundays spent in hot yoga, she would have been stuck in the engine room until someone could pry the door open.

  After she crested the hole, she took a left and then an immediate right. She remembered it clearly, because she came across a squadron of cockroaches that she wanted to avoid at all costs. Bugs were not her forte and even less so when she would have to crawl past them. She continued down the right pathway until she came to the first junction. There, she listened and could hear the stomping of feet in the distance, the duct bending and receding under the weight of the child. It echoed through each pathway. Pushing all thoughts out of her mind, she concentrated solely on the sounds of stomping feet.

  Then she saw it.

  A droplet of blood dripping off a tiny metal screw to her left.

  She tore down that hallway, sweat dripping from her face like a leaky shower head. The vents felt like incinerators. She half expected to make one wrong turn and end up at the fiery entrance to a crematorium. She followed the drops of blood.

  Left.

  Right.

  Left.

  Up.

  Right.

  Which brought her to the junction she currently sat at which put her at her estimation on either the fifth or sixth floor. She knew the kid was heading all the way to the top but the question was which way leads to a duct that goes up. She didn’t want to risk popping out of the vents in fear of running into Kendra’s goons or Kendra herself.

  Metal scraped in the distance as if someone was grinding a fork against the duct. The shrieking noise penetrated her eardrums forcefully. She covered her ears expecting blood to be dripping from them. It seemed to be coming in from all directions.

  Bobbi then took a shot in the dark and turned left. Anything to get away from that sound. She army crawled her way down the length of the vent, the sound nipping at her heels. She came to the end, turning right. The vent went about five feet before coming to an end. There was only one way to go from there.

  Up.

  Thank Christ.

  The scraping of metal ceased. She paused looking back the way she came. Something felt off, like she wasn’t alone.

  “Kid?” she whispered.

  She couldn’t tell what it was but it felt like the feeling one gets when they’re not alone but they are. As if a ghost was standing there right in front of you begging to be noticed. She felt that way a lot back home after Kevin died, like he was constantly there with her trying to let her know he was okay. This felt like that but worse, like there another ghost stood right behind Kevin, forcing him to say those things. Something evil was in here with her.

  A few seconds passed and nothing happened. The vents were as quiet as a mute. She turned for the UP vent.

  A figure came sliding down the vent crashing down in front of her. She fell back banging her head on the duct lacerating the back of her head. The vent buckled under the stress of the collision, no longer able to support the weight of the two inside.

  The figure came at her and she could now see it was a young man.

  He wore a dirty white polo torn at the biceps. His body looked large and muscular. Too muscular to make it through these vents, without doing massive damage to them. He crawled towards her.

  The vents shook. Dust rained down upon them. She kicked at the lad’s face, crawling away. She turned back down the way she came wriggling her way to the junction.

  Another figure appeared from one of the paths. Another young kid. This one a girl, no older than seventeen. Her face was muddied with black mascara and she held a knife her mouth as if she was Captain Blackbeard himself, storming the vents for buried treasure except the buried treasure was Bobbi’s head.

  The emo quee
n crawled towards her blocking her escape route leaving her stuck between her and muscles Magee. She was stuck in a game of monkey in the middle and the teenage misfits were playing for keeps. The vent shook uncontrollably. It gave her an idea. Her only shot to make it out of here alive.

  She turned her head back towards the polo prince. His large frame caused him to move at a much slower pace. She crawled back towards him stopping at slit in the vents where they had been sealed together. She grabbed at the screws but they were much too tight to turn without a screwdriver.

  The emo queen was only a few short strides away.

  Bobbi laid upon her back kicking at the vent denting it out of place. Dust covered her face blinding her like crust in one’s eyes in the morning. She wiped at her face but every inch of her was filthy. She kicked harder.

  She could hear the labored breathing of the emo queen fast approach. The breath of air from her lips sailed right past her left ear. She turned her head to her right barely missing the fall of the knife. It tore through the vent. Bobbi pivoted towards the emo queen, blindly throwing a haymaker towards the knife. It connected with bone and she heard the girl go down. The vent shook, screws tearing from their seams by the weight of the three converging on this one spot. She leapt up, prying the loose screws from their homes. The vent dipped, light pouring through the small slit underneath her ass.

  She ripped another screw loose, dipping the vent further. She could hear screaming, shouting, sounds of metal scraping metal. There was a fight going on below her.

  She blinked like a camera during a photo shoot but all it did was force the dust further into her eye socket. She barely had time to react when she felt the wind rush towards her. She dropped her head back seconds too late feeling the sharp blade slice across her cheek. Falling back in pain, she could hear the knife dent into the part of the vent she was working on causing it to collapse. The vent tore apart free falling to the ground below. Bobbi’s legs fell over her causing her weight to lean against her neck as the vent raced towards its destination on top of a roulette table.