by Bryan Dunn
Harry turned and looked at Amy, and then smiled warmly through trembling lips. “No way. Guys don’t get cold…”
“Harry, you promised me. You promised we’d trade off.”
Harry pushed up to a sitting position, then immediately drew his legs up to his chest in a vain attempt to warm himself. He could feel it – he was slipping away, he was going into shock.
“Listen, Amy, if you take that suit off we’ll both die. My body has already lost too much of its core temperature to recover. It won’t do me any good.” Harry reached out and touched her arm. “Besides, you look cute in Day-Glo orange.”
Amy slid over to Harry and wrapped her arms around him. Harry lowered his head against her chest and shut his eyes.
“Oh, Harry…” Amy said, and then tears spilled down her cheeks.
Harry’s body was suddenly racked by a series of violent shakes. It was all Amy could do to hold onto him. When the contractions finally stopped, she lowered his head to her lap and stared down at him, not believing that this was how he would die.
She looked around the tiny raft and was just starting to wonder how much time they had left, when she got an idea on how she might save Harry. She reached down, and gripping Harry’s head, said, “Harry!” Then louder, “Harry, listen, I’ve got an idea…”
Harry’s eyes fluttered open, then closed.
“Harry, you’ve got to hang on.”
Amy gently lowered his head to the floor, then scooted over to her daypack. She reached inside, removed the specimen of the creature’s blood, placed it on the floor, retrieved a syringe, then quickly tore away its plastic wrapping.
She lifted the specimen bag, jabbed the needle into the top, and drew out a syringe full of the rust-colored serum. Then she moved back to Harry and touched his cheek with her hand. “Harry… Harry, can you hear me?”
He was slipping away fast, losing his battle with hypothermia, but managed to open his eyes and look up at Amy.
“Harry, I’m going to inject you with antifreeze proteins from the creature’s blood.”
Harry’s eyes closed, then opened again. He looked back at Amy and ever so slowly a smile appeared on his face. And then with great effort he whispered, “”Don’t let me get freezer burn.”
And then he slipped into a coma.
Amy, working as fast as she could in the bulky suit, exposed one of Harry’s arms, gripping him tightly above the elbow until an artery swelled beneath the surface of his skin then she expertly slid the needle into the vein and slowly depressed the plunger releasing the serum into Harry’s bloodstream.
Amy flipped open the canopy door and pitched the syringe into the sea, not wanting to risk puncturing the raft with the razor-sharp needle. Then she lay down next to Harry, spooning her body around him – and began to pray for both of their lives as the raft continued to be pummeled by the storm.
Chapter 44
Twenty-four hours passed. The heaving seas had calmed. The wind had blown itself out. And the life raft rolled gently beneath a crisp, star-filled sky.
Inside the raft, Harry and Amy remained motionless, still lying on the floor.
Amy opened her eyes. Instead of howling winds and punishing waves, she listened to the soothing sounds of gentle seas as they lapped against the hard rubber sides.
She rose to a sitting position and looked down at Harry’s motionless body. His face was bloodless, and his skin was waxy, and it had developed a horrible blue cast.
She reached down and checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Oh, Harry…”
She lifted his head onto to her lap. A staggering sense of loss and hopelessness washed over her, and tears began coursing down her cheeks. And then, from somewhere deep down inside of her, she began to cry and sob, her breath coming in great halting gulps.
Her nose began to run and she tried in vain to wipe it with the sleeve of the rubberized survival suit. Using the back of a glove, she mopped the tears off her face.
She sniffed and lowered Harry’s head to the raft’s floor, then grabbed a bottle of water and was surprised by her thirst, draining half the bottle in one long swallow. She went to replace the cap, then stopped and took another sip – and then she heard something impossible. People talking! Male voices!
Impossible.
But there it was again – faint, distant voices skipping across the surface of the ocean.
And then she heard something even more fantastic…
Singing.
Men with French accents singing: “Allouette, gentille Allouette, Allouette je te plumerai.”
Then she heard the best music of all: The dull throb of a ship’s engine.
Amy leapt to her knees, ripped open the canopy, leaned out of the raft – and directly in front of her, about a quarter of a mile away – a brightly lit cruise ship slid across the horizon.
“Oh, God, thank you,” she said, almost breaking into tears. And then she realized that they couldn’t see her.
“The flare gun!” she yelled out, then dove back inside the raft. She swept her hand around the sides of the raft until she found the orange Olin box. She popped the lid, removed the stubby-looking handgun, cracked the barrel and inserted one of the shotgun shell-sized flares, then snapped the barrel back into position.
She lunged back out of the canopy door, leaned out, and – holding her breath, thrust her arm into the air and fired the flare gun.
There was a loud crack, then a bright flash as the flare shot up, arcing across the night sky…
It was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.
Chapter 45
Seraph
Two sailors were standing outside the bridge, smoking Gauloises cigarettes, and sharing a bottle of Veuve Cliquot Champagne.
Behind them, a tarnished brass plaque bore the ship’s name: Seraph.
When the flare exploded against the night sky, the two sailors were so taken by surprise that one of them jerked back, knocking the bottle of expensive champagne off the teak rail and sending it tumbling down to the sea sixty feet below.
“Mon Dieu!” the other sailor yelled, keeping his eyes on the blinding white glow of the flare as it floated back towards the ocean, suspended beneath a tiny parachute.
Just as it was about to be snuffed out by the water – another flare popped up out of the sea illuminating the night sky.
“Faites attention! Faites attention!” the two sailors yelled. Then one of them yanked opened the bridge door and yelled at the helmsman who was slumped forward in his chair, snoring loudly.
“Arrete! Stop the ship!”
He bolted across the bridge and jerked the helmsman upright in his chair. “Wake up you idiot!” Then he grabbed the throttles, chopping them back to stop the ship. The whole ship began to vibrate as the engines reversed, backing the screws, and the ship began to slow.
The bleary-eyed helmsman looked dumbly up at his shipmate who’d just jerked him awake, then swore. “Cochon!” He rubbed his eyes and scratched his head, then reached down by his side and retrieved a bottle of claret, burped, and took a long pull.
Amy heard the ship’s engines slow, then begin to reverse and she realized that the ship was stopping – they’d seen the flares!
* * * *
Inside the Seraph’s bridge, a new sailor was at the helm. Although he looked as equally dissipated as the former helmsman, he was at least awake.
A deckhand ran up to the bow and took the cover off a powerful searchlight attached to the top of a metal rail. The two sailors who had seen Amy’s flares remained on the bridge and excitedly shouted directions to the helm.
* * * *
Just to be sure, Amy cracked open the gun and inserted another flare. Just as she was about to fire it off, a bright searchlight from the Seraph’s foredeck raked the ocean’s surface, swept past the raft, then stopped and slowly drifted back, coming to a rest directly on the Zodiac’s bright red canopy.
&nb
sp; She was saved.
“Over here!” Amy yelled, overcome with emotion.
The light blinked a couple of times to acknowledge they’d seen her, then the ship began to alter course. It came around and headed directly toward her, all the while keeping the spotlight trained on the little bobbing raft.
Amy knelt in the canopy’s doorway and watched as the ship slowly turned, and followed the searchlight’s beam toward the raft.
Amy dropped back inside. She looked at Harry’s lifeless body and prayed for a miracle, prayed that the creature’s antifreeze proteins would do for Harry what they had done for the mouse back in the lab at St. John’s Airport.
She began to sort through her gear, filling her pack with everything she wanted to save and remove from the raft, then crouched next to Harry, adjusting the collar on his coat and preparing his body for transport to the ship.
Then, she heard a man with a French accent hail the raft.
“Allo, Allo… Ahoy, the raft.”
Amy’s head popped out of the canopy, and she found herself staring up at the Seraph’s rust-streaked hull not ten feet away.
She immediately recognized the ship – it was the same one she’d seen back in
St. John’s Harbor – and the French deckhand hailing her from the bow was the same shaggy-looking sailor who’d whistled at her a few days earlier.
Chapter 46
With the help of an assistant engineer and a deckhand, Amy carried Harry’s body down a narrow, dimly lit corridor toward the medical bay.
The first thing that caught Amy’s attention was the state of the ship. It looked as shabby below decks as it did topside. The carpet was threadbare, and the putty-colored walls were scratched and chipped and covered with grimy fingerprints. The entire ship was in desperate need of a thorough scrubbing and a fresh coat of paint. Any captain worth his salt would’ve been ashamed to go to sea in a ship like this, Amy thought as they passed through a bulkhead and entered the ship’s hospital.
Inside the medical bay, they carried Harry’s body over to one of the narrow bunks that lined the walls and gently lowered him onto the mattress. Amy stepped up to the bunk and placed a pillow beneath his head.
Across the room, passed out on another one of the bunks, was the ship’s surgeon.
“Who’s that?” Amy asked, thinking that the man looked like he’d had too much to drink.
The assistant engineer crossed the room, placed his hands on the doctor’s shoulders, and began to shake him.
“This is the ship’s surgeon, mademoiselle,” the engineer said, still shaking the doctor.
“Is he drunk?” Amy asked, with a note of incredulity in her voice.
“Oui, mademoiselle,” the engineer said, then reached down next to the doctor and held up an empty glass bottle. “Beaucoup d’eau de vie.” Then feigning outrage said, “Tsk, tsk, tsk…” and began to laugh.
“Too much water of life, eh?” the deckhand added, then began to laugh along with his shipmate.
“Do you think this is some sort of joke?” Amy yelled, causing both men to jump. “What the hell kind of ship is this?”
Suddenly the doctor came to. He let out a loud raspy breath, coughed, raised his head, and stared at Amy with a dazed look – obviously baffled to see a woman dressed in a bright orange survival suit standing next to him with a puddle of water forming around her feet.
He blinked and shook his head, not trusting his eyes, then looked up again – and was amazed to see her still standing there staring down at him.
The doctor slowly rose to a sitting position, swung his legs off the bunk, then wobbled up onto his feet. “Bon soir. I am Doctor Rousseau.”
Amy stared at his unshaven face and rumpled shirt and momentarily was at a loss for words. She looked him up and down, and shaking her head in disgust, turned to the slightly less inebriated assistant engineer and said, “I need hot water and blankets, lots of blankets.” Then she stared down at the puddle around her feet. “And some dry clothes.”
* * * *
A half-hour later, Harry’s wet clothes had been removed and he was swaddled in multiple layers of blankets. A saline and glucose bag hung from an IV rack, and the tube led to one of his arms.
Amy leaned forward, and for the third time in less than a minute, checked Harry’s neck for any sign of a pulse.
Dr. Rousseau, who had showered and changed into clean trousers and a fresh shirt, sat on the corner of his desk sipping coffee and watching Amy.
“Mademoiselle Tyler,” Dr. Rousseau said, pushing off the desk and walking over to her, “I am sorry – but it pains me to see you with these false hopes. This man he is mort. Dead. A block of ice, no?”
He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. “The sea, she has claimed another sailor…”
“He’s a bush pilot,” Amy snapped, giving Dr. Rousseau a direct look. “And he’s not dead.”
“But mademoiselle –”
“I’ve made his body freeze tolerant.”
“Merde,” the doctor scoffed. “Who do you think you are – God?”
“I’m just a biologist,” Amy replied flatly. Moving to the foot of the bed, she spread another blanket over Harry’s body.
“You are obviously distressed from your experience in the raft.”
Ignoring him, Amy reached out and placed a finger on Harry’s neck, checking for a pulse again.
Dr. Rousseau watched her, shook his head, then muttered something under his breath.
“What’s going on around here?” Amy said in a challenging voice, letting her eyes settle on the doctor. “Where are all the passengers?”
“There are no passengers. We are only a skeleton crew.”
“This is some sort of cruise ship, right?”
“Alas, mademoiselle, no more… C’est tout. This is her last voyage. Her final curtain call.”
“Her last voyage –? Well, where are we headed?”
“France, Mademoiselle Tyler. The bone-yard. She is to be scrapped for her steel.
Amy looked around the dilapidated medical bay, not able to find one clean wall or one unscratched piece of furniture. “Well, I don’t see it as any great loss.”
“She was once a great lady,” Dr. Rousseau said wistfully.
It was Amy’s turn to scoff, but she didn’t and instead asked, “Dr. Rousseau, I want to see the captain. We’ve got to radio St. John’s. The Coast Guard must know we’re missing by now. They’ll be searching for us.”
“Of course mademoiselle, but I think it’s best to wait until morning.”
“What?” Amy said with disbelief. “No, it would not be best to wait until morning.” Her voice filled with anger. “You don’t know what has happened. Men have been killed! Men have died!”
“S’il vous plait, mademoiselle,” the doctor said, holding up his hands. “You don’t understand. You see, the capitain is… how shall I say, indisposed. No, he would not want to talk to the Coast Guard just now.”
“You mean he’s drunk?”
“Well, umm, you see – this is very sad for us. So we have a goodbye celebration. Maybe a little drink.”
“Unbelievable,” Amy said with disgust. “Tell me then, if everybody’s drunk – who’s skippering the ship?”
“No, no, no… Do not worry,” Dr. Rousseau said, waving a dismissive hand through the air. “The French, they are excellent sailors.”
And then from behind them, right where Harry’s body was lying – they heard a cough.
Then a sharp intake of air.
Both of them snapped around just as Harry’s chest rose up and contracted in a mighty heaving motion. Then he gulped in great rasping lungfuls of air – like a drowning man finally breaking the surface and getting his first taste of oxygen.
Dr. Rousseau’s eyes bulged with disbelief as Harry began to breathe.
Amy rushed to his side, gripping his arm and rolling him onto his side as he continued coughing, his body involuntarily clearing its airways.
&nb
sp; Dr. Rousseau dropped his coffee mug, letting it shatter on the floor. “Mon Dieu!” he yelled, staggering back against a bulkhead and staring in shock. The man who had seemingly been dead a minute ago was coming back to life.
Chapter 47
Harry was back. He sat up in his bunk in the grimy little medical bay, sipping a steaming mug of chicken broth and thawing out nicely as the Seraph quartered into moderate seas. Amy was held one of his hands examining his fingertips, looking for any traces of cell damage.
Harry’s recovery had been nothing short of miraculous. Amy’s hunch had paid off. Cryoproteins from the creature’s blood had worked on him just like they had on the mouse back in St. John’s.
Except for some benign short-term memory loss – Harry had no recollection of events from the moment he lost consciousness in the raft until waking up a few minutes aboard the Seraph – he seemed completely fine.
“Amazing…” Amy marveled, examining Harry’s hand. “Not even a trace of frostbite.”
“Look ma, no freezer burn,” Harry said with a laugh, then looked across the room at Dr. Rousseau who was still gawking in disbelief. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Exactement, Monsieur McNills,” the doctor said, motioning with his hands towards Harry. “Ten minutes ago you were mort.”
“Who is this again?” Harry asked, looking at Amy.
“Dr. Rousseau. We were picked up by the Seraph, a French cruise ship.”
“French?” Harry said, like it was the most impossible thing in the world.
“Mai oui,” Dr. Rousseau responded.
There was a sharp knock on the door, and without waiting for a response Captain Luc Chabot stepped into the medical bay. He was wearing a filthy-looking sweater, rumpled khaki pants and sported a three-day growth. As he pushed into the room, the air instantly filled with a boozy, tobacco-laden funk.