Gasp

by Lisa McMann

  Our valuables are put away in our waterproof vest pockets. Our duffel bags are unzipped so we can grab ropes quickly if necessary. We are as ready as we can be. And now all we can do is wait.

  Ben stands and walks over to the window, better on his feet in these conditions than the rest of us. He looks for a moment and then beckons me to join him. Either the waves are not as bad now, or I’m getting better at this.

  He points to the shore, where I can see buildings in the distance. “We’re passing Waukegan. On a clear day you can see Chicago from here. Obviously that isn’t today. But we’re getting close. North Chicago is coming fast.” He points at the sky. “See how it’s clearing in this direction?”

  I look, and there’s the little spot of yellow behind thin clouds. It’s not down quite far enough to match Tori’s description of thirty degrees, but I’m sure now that this is Tori’s sunrise—except it’s a sunset. I’m disgusted with myself for not even considering it. She was just so sure. . . . I shake the negative thoughts from my head. No time to dwell on that now.

  We watch the land grow closer. My phone vibrates from within the waterproof pocket of my life vest. I’m sure it’s Tori. I hide my front from the passengers and reach in to get it.

  SCENE CHANGE—now only 23 dead. You’re doing something right! Also, NEW SCENE—big jolt right before smaller bump, then shot of ferry instrument panel covered with blood! Be careful!

  Forty-Three

  I text back in a frenzy, willing my fingers to hit the right buttons as we rock and churn: Is there a clock on the instrument panel??

  And then I wait, frozen, begging her to narrow down the time of this imminent disaster. I show Ben, and he heads back to our table to tell the others about the big jolt.

  Finally Tori replies: 6:38!!

  I look at the time. It’s 6:35. “Shit,” I mutter. And then something inside me explodes and kicks me into gear. I stagger over to the others. “Three minutes, guys. The big jolt is at six thirty-eight.”

  There’s a split second when everyone takes in the news.

  Then Ben calls 911, giving them the approximate location as if we’ve already hit. Smart move. Every minute counts—especially when it comes to drowning.

  “We should warn people to brace themselves,” Sawyer says. “Most won’t listen, but some might.”

  “Good,” I say. “Yes. And remember—stay braced for two jolts. Then outside for life jackets, victims, lifeboats, rope. Everybody have their victim descriptions in mind?”

  At 6:37, with no additional news, I shove my phone back into my waterproof pocket, seal it, and leave it there. We wait an agonizing thirty seconds, situating ourselves behind our table. Then Sawyer stands up and yells, “Brace yourselves! Everybody! Hang on!”

  People turn to look at him, some in fear, others in annoyance.

  “Hang on!” I echo, and so do the others. I grab the table, make sure Rowan is in a good spot. “I love you guys,” I say. “See you on the other side of this one!”

  Sawyer leans over and kisses me hard on the lips. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” I whisper.

  And then we hit.

  Forty-Four

  Five things that should never be airborne on a ferry:

  1. A cat in a carrier

  2. Golf clubs

  3. Steaming-hot coffee

  4. Any kind of coffee, really

  5. Humans

  • • •

  The first jolt is a doozy, let me tell you. Not like the “run into a brick wall and stop” kind, but the “holy hell, that’ll slow down a fast-moving ferry in a hurry” kind. My ribs slam into the table edge, which takes my breath away. Trey ends up on the floor, but he signals he’s okay.

  Everyone else in the ferry who wasn’t bracing or wedged behind a table is now on the floor. There’s a second of weird silence, and I realize the engines have shut down, and then the cries of pain and the shouts begin, along with a muted chorus of honking horns and car alarms coming from belowdecks. I look out the window and see nothing but water, and a ways off, a harbor. “One more, guys!” I shout. And then my eyes widen as I see the massive wave of our own wake bearing down on us. And I realize it’s Tori’s giant wave she kept talking about. “It’s after this wave!”

  Trey crawls to the table and wraps his arms around the post.

  It feels like we’re on a roller coaster. The wave picks the ferry up and rolls us way to one side and then pushes us, like a surfer, toward the shore, throwing more people off balance and onto the floor or crashing into tables.

  We spin and ride the wave, and when we reach the bottom of it we feel the second jolt, and hear the groaning, grinding, shredding sound from the starboard side as the ferry lurches and shudders.

  There is mass confusion, an emergency alarm goes off, and then a voice on the loudspeaker says something nobody can understand.

  “Everybody okay?” I ask, trying to talk over the noise.

  They nod. And I’m not going to lie—they all look scared shitless. Which is exactly how I feel.

  “Okay. Let’s go!” I shout. “Now!”

  We stay low to keep better balance as we step over and around people and luggage as the ferry continues to ride crazily over waves. As we move toward the door to the outer deck, we tell everyone who will listen to grab the flotation devices under their seats.

  Once outside we can hear the emergency message directing people to put on their life vests and head to the lifeboat muster stations, but I know the people inside can’t understand a word of the message with all that noise. We form a human chain, with Ben and Trey hauling the life vests out of the bench seats and shoving them down at me and Sawyer. Rowan, who stands near the glassed-in area, passes them by the handfuls to people who need them as they begin to stream outside. We try to talk in calm tones whenever the voice on the loudspeaker stops, trying to help keep order, but it’s nearly impossible. And the ferry keeps lurching and rolling on the waves. But we manage to find at least a few of our victims from the list and get life vests on them.

  Finally we grab armloads of the remaining life preservers from the front deck and go back inside to try to find our victims and make sure they have them. We figure that most of the drowning victims are the people who were injured at the first impact, thinking they may be unable to get to a lifeboat. But none of our victims are where they were just minutes ago. Crew members are in sight, some sporting obvious injuries but helping people to the lifeboats anyway.

  We split up. Rowan peels away from the group and heads to the first-class cabin, and from my list I spot the older couple with matching sweatshirts and rush over to them. The woman is lying on the deck and the man is on his hands and knees beside her, trying to stay in one place.

  “Put this on,” I say near the man’s ear, indicating the life vest. “And then we’ll get you two out of here, okay?”

  He’s in shock or something, and the woman just stares up at me. Her wrist is twisted at a strange angle, and she says her hip hurts and she can’t sit up or walk.

  I put the life vest over her head and slide the belt around her back the best I can without hurting her, and I put her husband’s on him as well when it’s clear he’s unable to do it himself. And then I look for help.

  “Ben!” I yell when I spot him. He turns and sees me. Soon he’s kneeling next to us. “She can’t walk. And he’s . . . not really responding to anything. What do we do?”

  He looks around, his rain-soaked hair whipping and sticking to his face. “Ah. There’s one,” he says. He gets up and grabs a backboard from the wall and lays it on the deck next to the woman. “Help me lift her,” he says. “On three.”

  We get the woman on the board and Ben straps her down. I spy my duffel bag and crawl over to it just as all lights except a few emergency ones go out. A cry goes up. Luckily, it’s not dark out yet, but the clouds are keeping any sunlight from shining in. I can still see, but not well. I grab the rope and sling it around my arm, and crawl back t
o Ben.

  “You’re going to get this man on the lifeboat,” Ben says, “and then we’ll come back for her once it’s cleared out a bit and we can maneuver the board, okay? I see two of my people—I’ll be back.” He grabs his stack of life vests and goes.

  I take the man by the arm and lead him to one of the lifeboat stations as the emergency alarm drills into my head over and over again.

  When I turn around, I’m climbing uphill, and I realize that the ferry must be already starting to list to one side. Every few minutes I feel the ferry shudder, and I think the cars below us must be shifting as water pours in. I fight panic and strain my eyes trying to find the rest of my people. I don’t see any of them, but I catch a glimpse of Trey getting some of his people out.

  “Jules!” Rowan screams from behind me, in the doorway to the first-class cabin. I turn and run over to her. “I got four of them out of here, but this guy . . .”

  I look beyond her and see a man facedown on the conference table in a pool of blood and glass everywhere. “Oh my God,” I say. “Is he dead?”

  “I think so. There’s glass stuck all in his head.”

  “Let’s go—we’ll tell Ben. Lifeguards can probably tell if someone’s dead or not, right? I still need to find three of my people.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Brown-haired small man with blue-and-white pinstripe shirt. Twentysomething woman with big earrings and hair in a bun. Light-blond, rosy-cheeked middle-aged man in a red Windbreaker.”

  “I saw Sawyer helping the woman with the earrings get into a lifeboat,” Rowan says, peering around. “Let’s check outside on the decks. They aren’t in here.”

  The ferry shudders and tilts even more. We both instinctively drop to our hands and knees, slipping a little. A guy running past us totally biffs and falls over me. He gets up and keeps going, slipping and falling every few steps. Rowan looks at me. “We don’t have much time.”

  We crawl at top speed to the outer deck. And there I see my little brown-haired man, without a life vest, jumping off the railing.

  Forty-Five

  “No!” I shout. I slide over to the railing and look out after him. “Shit!” I look at Rowan, knowing I need to go after this guy, but remembering the matching sweatshirt woman. “Ro! There’s an older woman on a backboard not far from where we were sitting—Ben knows about her and will help you get her to the lifeboat. Don’t worry about my red sweater guy. Just get the woman and then you get in that boat too, you hear me?” The ship groans and tilts more, and I slip on the wet deck and land on my back. “Shit.” My panic shows in my voice. “Okay, Rowan?”

  She can tell I’m freaked. “Okay, I promise! Are you going after him?”

  “Yes, I have to. I’ll be fine!” I whip my sweatshirt off and toss my shoes aside, clip a life vest to one end of my rope, and then, without allowing myself to think, I climb the railing and balance there for a second, looking at the horrible scene below. Waves churning. The runaway empty lifeboat floating far away—we didn’t even have a chance to try to save it. People struggling in the water and hanging on to the sides of the lifeboats, unable to climb in. It’s a long enough drop to the water to give me pause.

  I spot my little man in the water as the ferry shudders and tilts again. My foot slips off the railing, I lose my balance, and suddenly I’m falling. Before I can take a deep breath, I hit the water and keep going. The cold on my face makes me want to gasp, but I fight it, and before long my life vest has me popping up above the water again.

  Wiping the water from my eyes, I get my bearings, and as a huge swell lifts me high, I see the little man. His head is tilted back and he’s not yelling or trying to swim or struggling or anything, which Ben says is a major warning sign of drowning. I swim toward him as fast as I can, dragging my rope and extra life jacket with me. As I get closer, he bobs under the water and comes back up again.

  “Sir!” I scream, unclipping the extra vest from my rope. “Take this!” I throw the life jacket at him and then swim the rest of the way as his head slips under the water again. I grab his shirt and lift him, and he grasps and clings to me and coughs, almost pulling me under the water. I thread the vest underneath his armpits to keep his face above the water, and I can only hope he can hang on, because I can’t risk trying to get the thing on him the proper way.

  My thighs burn and I’m out of breath. “Sir!” I yell in his face. “Hang on to this!” He manages a nod.

  I strike out for the nearest lifeboat with the other end of the rope, checking over my shoulder every few seconds to make sure he’s still there.

  From here, the ferry looks huge and scary and completely misshapen as it sinks lower in the water, tilted at a strange, extreme angle. I can see the entire front deck, people crawling around trying to hang on. There’s still one lifeboat attached to the ferry and being loaded, and as I push through the water I spot Rowan, Ben, and a crew member lowering the older woman on the board into the lifeboat using their ropes.

  And then I see Sawyer on the rear deck railing, the blond girl with the polka-dot headband riding on his back. She must be injured. They’re getting ready to jump. A wave of relief washes over me—she must be his last victim if he’s going over the side with her. Come on, Sawyer, I think. You can do this. I send him all the mental energy I can muster to help him get past his fear and jump to safety.

  I check on my guy, who is still hanging on. “We’re almost there,” I call out to him, and wind up with another mouthful of water as the tumultuous waves surround me. I am quickly growing exhausted. It’s about all I can do right now to get to the lifeboat so the people in it can drag this man in. Finally I make it, and a woman grabs the rope from me and starts pulling. Others try to help me get in despite my protests, but the ferry groans and leans farther toward us, making everyone stop for a moment to stare.

  And it keeps going, rolling slowly onto its side. “God in heaven,” I whisper. I gasp and choke on water as the contents of the car ferry appear to shift drastically, the front end sinking faster than the back. The ferry tilts quickly now, to sixty degrees or so. The crew loosens their hold on the swinging lifeboat, and it drops sickeningly fast to the water. A second later, almost everyone else remaining on the deck falls too. I look around frantically for Trey and Rowan and Ben and Sawyer as the falling bodies surface. The water is dotted with a dozen passengers.

  A woman in the lifeboat tugs at me. “No, I’m fine,” I croak, not looking at her. “I’m going to help some of these people.”

  I search for the ones without life vests on, but it looks like everybody on my team did a fantastic job of doling them out, which gives me a surge of hope. I spy Trey in the water helping someone get to a lifeboat, and then I see that it’s Rowan. My heart stops for a minute, but she is able to climb in on her own, so I think she’s okay. She must have actually listened to me. Trey signals to somebody. I follow his gaze, and I see Ben swimming far out to save someone. As I ride up the next wave, I look for Sawyer, but I don’t see him anywhere. “Sawyer!” I yell, but it’s useless, because everybody else is yelling for people too.

  I grab the rope and strike out toward a floating passenger, knowing we’re still in a lot of danger. These people in the water don’t have wet suits on. Just because they’re not drowning at the moment doesn’t mean they’re safe. I sure as hell hope we’re not relying solely on Ben’s 911 call—there had to be others. Maybe somebody’s fancy underwater car alerted OnStar. And of course there’s the crew, who must have radioed for the Coast Guard. But I don’t see anybody coming to our rescue. Lightning streaks across the sky and I realize it’ll be totally dark soon.

  I string two passengers together with the rope, and the woman in the lifeboat starts towing them in like a champ. Once I know they’re good, I whip my head around, looking for anybody else who needs help, and I see the girl with the polka-dot headband. She no longer has the glasses she was wearing on the ferry. I swim toward her and she’s just floating and crying, teeth chattering, i
n the water. “Come on,” I say to her. “I’ll help you.”

  I reach my arm out and she grabs on.

  “What’s your name?” I say. “I’m Jules.”

  “Bridget,” she says. And then she mutters through her tears, “As in, I wish there was a road from here to land so we could bridge it.”

  I can’t help but smile. My mom would say this girl’s got spunk.

  I flip to my back and start kicking, pulling her with me, trying to get somewhere. But I’m losing steam. The rain pelts my face; it’s warmer than the water I’m in. “We’re headed for a lifeboat that has room for you. You doing all right?”

  “I can’t find my family,” she says. “And I can’t see very well. I lost my glasses.”

  I remember seeing her on board, and noting that the rest of her family was not on the victim list. “I’m sure they’re fine. I’m positive, okay? I mean it. Hundred percent.”

  She nods, taking me at my word. “Okay.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “My ankle. It hurts really bad. I can’t kick. That guy said it might be broken.”

  That guy. “That guy who was with you when you jumped?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know,” she says, her teeth chattering uncontrollably now. “He told me my job was to fight through the pain and swim to the lifeboat. And then he dropped me over the edge.”

  Sawyer, where the hell are you? My limbs are shaky and tired, and now that we’re almost done here, I’m feeling the edge of the cold. My feet and face are getting numb.

  I pull the girl toward the nearest lifeboat, where Rowan is, but the boat just seems to be floating farther and farther away in the waves. “Ro!” I shout. “Rowan!”

  She turns and spots me. “Thank God!” she says. “We couldn’t find you!”