Sweet

by Emmy Laybourne

  “Nope,” she says. “Not if your plan goes right.”

  “You know, I always wanted to do an action movie. Save millions of lives. Blow up a ship,” I say.

  “Well, you’re doing it,” Laurel says. She pushes me back toward the entrance to the main hall.

  “Didn’t quite see myself doing it being pushed in a wheelchair by a pretty girl, though,” I say.

  “Maybe the movie features a disabled guy?” Laurel says.

  I laugh. “Oh God, how are you still funny?”

  She reaches forward and kisses me on the back of my head.

  “I got a tour on the first day of the cruise,” I tell Laurel. “The engine room is on Deck 4. We go through a door marked RESTRICTED AREA. It’s at the end of the casino.”

  “Off we go,” she says.

  She eases my wheelchair over the bump as we cross the threshold between the deck and the ship, and it jars my ankle.

  I inhale sharply through gritted teeth.

  “How is it?” she asks.

  My ankle has swollen to three times its size. It’s so big and bloated and bruised I’m worried the flesh will split open like an overripe plum.

  “It’s grotesque,” I answer.

  “How’s the pain?”

  “It’s okay,” I lie. “But I’m a little worried about the stairs.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking about that, too,” she tells me.

  The engine room is two flights down.

  * * *

  We reach the staircase.

  Laurel helps me stand, then carries the wheelchair down the stairs, so it waits for me on the landing.

  What follows is agony, one stair at a time.

  My right thigh shakes violently as I try to hold the damaged foot off the ground. Laurel supports me under my left arm and I’m clinging to the railing with my right.

  “I’m sorry I’m so slow,” I gasp. Sweat is pouring off me.

  “It’s okay,” Laurel says. “It gives the people on the lifeboat time to get away safely.”

  * * *

  Pain, pain, pain.

  We get to Deck 4 one step at a time.

  “Hey, look at that,” I say.

  This is the deck all those kitchen workers evacuated from. It has a door that essentially opens right up onto the sea—it’s where the boats dock when they pick us up for excursions to shore.

  The door is standing open, just opened right up to the water level—maybe five feet above it.

  A life raft is bobbing there, tethered to the ship by a long cord.

  It has an emergency light in it that illuminates the whole raft from within. It’s glowing orange.

  The kitchen workers must have not needed this one.

  Laurel and I exchange a look.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Maybe,” she answers.

  Now my teeth are chattering and I’m shaking.

  “I’m worried about you,” Laurel says.

  “We’re going to blow up the ship,” I remind her. “I can make it that far.”

  She peers into my eyes, examining them as if I might have a concussion.

  I cup her face in my hands.

  Laurel is so beautiful she shines like the moon. Her pale skin glows in the murky light of the hallway.

  “Don’t go into shock,” she tells me. “Because I’m too scared to be alone.”

  “I won’t,” I promise her.

  Laurel wheels me into the ship.

  We’re close—all we need to do is cross through the casino and the boutique area to get to the engine room.

  But it doesn’t make it any easier that it’s so dark and foul inside the ship. The only light comes from some emergency lights running along the edges of the carpet, showing you how to get out.

  The casino is empty. Most of the tall leather stools overturned. A few tables have been upended and chips are scattered across the floor like confetti.

  “Almost there,” Laurel says as she navigates my chair around a bank of dead slot machines.

  Then there’s a rustling ahead of us and a male voice grunts, “Dude! It’s mine! MINE!”

  A figure moves ahead of us, followed closely by two others. They are all clutching at something.

  There’s a sharp, husky laugh. My hackles go up.

  “We share everything. That’s what a family does. You should know that by now!”

  Everyone in America knows that accent—it’s Sabbi frickin’ Ribiero.

  Laurel freezes. I can hear her breaths coming fast and anxious behind me.

  The three of them cluster by a window and in the light of the moon I see Sabbi, next to Luka Harris. It’s got to be him—no one has that hair but him. But his body is unrecognizable. He looks like a cadaver.

  And of course they’re with Vivika.

  They’re huddled around a long shredded piece of dark fabric. They are sucking it.

  Laurel’s friend’s face is bone hollow. Her cheeks sunken. Her eyes huge in their dark sockets.

  Sabbi looks even worse. She’s even thinner than Viv and her skin is waxy and taut.

  “Go back,” I whisper. “Go backward.”

  But Laurel, ARGH, Laurel clears her throat.

  “Viv?” she says softly.

  All three look up sharply.

  “Vivvy, sweetie, is that you?”

  Sabbi straightens up from her crouch.

  “Ha!” she shouts. “It can’t be my Tomazino!”

  Sabbi stalks toward us through the fallen stools and tables.

  “Stay back!” Laurel shouts.

  I grab at the wheels of my chair, trying to move forward, but Laurel’s hauling me backward.

  “Forward!” I say to Laurel. “We can’t stop.”

  Sabbi walks after us. Talking to me as Laurel wheels me backward.

  “Tom, do you see what I did for you? To be pretty for you—to be thin, like you want me? I got down to nothing!”

  She holds her arms out and cackles.

  “Look at me! I shrunk down to a size zero. A size dead! I am all bones now and I hope you are happy!”

  She takes three giant steps and jumps at me, shouting, “Kiss me! Kiss me like you did!”

  I put my hands up to block her and I push forward, toppling out of my chair.

  She’s on me, her mouth on my mouth. She smells like a slaughterhouse and the pain from my ankle—

  “Kiss me!” she demands and darkness flashes, slashes, tears through my vision and takes me down, down into a hole.

  LAUREL

  DAY SIX

  “TOM!” I SHOUT. “TOM!”

  Sabbi is on top of him, kissing him, and he’s unconscious.

  “Get off him!” I scream. “You can’t have him, you skinny bitch!!!”

  She looks up at me and snarls.

  So I stomp her with my boot. Right in the hip.

  I hear a crack, but she spins and grabs me by the leg.

  I fall back and hit my head on the edge of a fallen table.

  Then she’s on top of me. I try to get out from under her, but Sabbi pins my arms under her knees.

  “You!” she spits. “You fat, ugly nobody! I got your friend! She’s mine now!”

  Sabbi’s face is inches from mine and her breath smells like rotten blood and animal guts.

  “I win. Ha-ha.” She puts her hands around my throat. I try to roll her off me, but my head is reeling.

  Her arms are shaking but she squeezes.

  Everything goes flashy in my vision.

  I see a shape moving behind her.

  It’s … It’s Viv.

  Something shines in her hands. A shard of glass.

  “GET. OFF. MY. FRIEND,” Viv grunts and chops down with the glass, stabbing Sabbi in the back of the neck.

  Sabbi’s eyes go wide in shock.

  The thin finger of glass protrudes from just under her chin.

  I gasp.

  The air hurts my throat.

  I gasp for air.

  Viv pulls Sabbi off m
e.

  “Viv,” I sob. “You saved me.”

  But she’s not listening.

  She’s drinking.

  She’s lapping at Sabbi’s blood like a thirsty dog.

  * * *

  When I can breathe again, I get my hands under Tom’s arms and I pull.

  It’s so hard to get him into that chair. He’s so, so heavy.

  With Tom out cold, I am making a new plan.

  “Vivvy, can you help me?” I ask. “Can you?”

  But she and Luka Harris, who scuttled forward like a rat, are feasting on blood.

  I get Tom on the chair. I’m sweating and shaking, but I finally get him on the chair.

  I pull him back, back toward that door open to the water. Toward the life raft.

  I kneel at the door that opens onto the ocean and grab the cord. Fist over fist, I draw the life raft closer to the open door.

  “You’ve got to go,” I tell Tom’s unconscious body. My voice is shaking. “It’s better this way. No reason for me to drag you along.” (Except that I’m terrified—but how much comfort could an unconscious boy in a wheelchair really provide?)

  “I hope you won’t be mad at me. Well, I hope you’ll live. That’s the first thing, and that you won’t be mad at me; I guess that’s irrelevant.”

  I realize I’m rambling, but it helps to fill the (dead, ominous, eerie) silence with chatter.

  “There’s a chance you’ll make it. Slim chance, but why not?”

  I tie off the raft as close as I can get it to the door, securing it to one of the T-shaped cleat things just below the door on the outside of the ship.

  I pull Tom’s body from the wheelchair and get it headfirst as close to the door as I can.

  I sit on the edge of the doorway next to him, then slide out and down into the raft. There’s a pretty steep angle because of how I tied it and I slip-slide down.

  Now I have to pull Tom’s unconscious body in with me. Hard to do with my feet slipping on the slick, drawn-up floor of the raft.

  “Sorry … about … this…,” I say between heaves and then Tom’s body comes free of the ship and slides down on top of me. I struggle to get out from under him and it’s awful and funny and horrific because I keep slipping as I try to stand.

  I grab on to a set of nylon grip straps lining the roof of the tent and use them to haul myself back up to the opening.

  “Core strength,” I pant. “I should have worked on my core strength more,” I say to no one conscious. I can see provisions tucked into bags attached to the walls of the raft. There’s food and water in there. Maybe he will be okay.

  I grab on to the cleat and use it to heave myself up onto the ship.

  Tom just lays there in the bottom of the boat. He looks so defenseless and broken. (No “looks” about it—he IS defenseless and broken.) I almost can’t bear to leave him.

  “I wanted to introduce you to my parents,” I say with a sobby kind of a laugh. “I think they would really like you. And I wanted to see them and tell them about everything that happened and about poor Viv. But none of that is going to happen. I’m not going to see them again.”

  I wipe away my tears with the back of my hand.

  “Because people will die if Solu gets out. That’s why.”

  I’m panting and cursing and crying as I untie the ropes I used to tie the raft to the ship.

  I give it a shove and a kick and then I try to shove it again, but it’s out of reach.

  “Good luck, Tom,” I tell his sleeping form. “Good luck and good luck and good-bye.”

  The raft bobs on the waves, the sea taking it slowly away from the ship.

  I hope the blast will push the raft farther away, and not suck it down to the bottom of the ocean. I hope Tom will survive. But I can’t worry too much about it. I’ve got a flare to light.

  I avert my eyes as I pass Viv and Luka in the casino. They don’t notice me. Too much blood leaching into the carpet.

  I find the door marked RESTRICTED AREA and I push through it. The corridors are painted flat gray and lit by yellow emergency lights set in the ceiling.

  I follow them down the hall, and when the hallway branches in two, I head to the left. Of course, this seems to be the wrong choice. I find myself in the ship’s laundry room.

  I backtrack to the intersection and go the other way, only to find myself back at the door leading to the casino.

  A half laugh, half sob rips out of me.

  “I’m lost!” I say. “Of course I am!”

  But I try the only other way to go and then I see it: a door marked ENGINE ROOM.

  The door is open because from what I can tell, the center to the doorknob—the part that locks it—has been removed with some sort of high-tech drill. (Hi there, Amos and company.)

  I’m in.

  The massive engine room is eerily silent.

  Giant ducts and pipes crisscross, connecting the engines. A series of machines the size of refrigerators lines one side of the passage. On the other are what look like rectangular tanks. Thick ducts and valves everywhere.

  And running in a loop around the perimeter of the floor are ten small packages of what must be explosives, connected with shiny copper wire.

  I wipe my hands on my pants. (They’re shaking.)

  The wires connect to an iPhone.

  It’s just sitting on the floor.

  I drop to my knees in front of it.

  “God,” I say, because I have to say a prayer. Because I need courage. “Thank you for my beautiful life. I was so lucky. Thank you for my mom and my dad and for all that they gave me. Thank you for my friends. For Viv. I hope you can forgive her. Thank you for Tom. Thank you for Bach, just for the world, for the beach and for delicious food and for all the love that I got to feel.”

  And I take the iPhone into my shaking hands and press that familiar round, slightly concave button.

  ENTER PASSWORD, the screen blares.

  I need to pick something that is most certainly not the password.

  And then it will detonate the explosives.

  I gulp.

  Then I press in 2-6-6-8-7.

  B-O-O-T-S.

  WRONG PASSWORD, it flashes, then, ENTER PASSWORD.

  I do not stop to think.

  I enter 2-6-6-8-7.

  WRONG PASSWORD.

  ENTER PASSWORD.

  Again I type in B-O-O-T-S.

  And the iPhone’s face resets.

  It’s a countdown. Sixty seconds.

  That was easier than I thought it would be, I think for a second.

  Then I come to my senses—I set it down and I run.

  I race through the casino and when I get to the open door, I see the raft.

  It’s floating off a ways. Not very far. (Probably not far enough.)

  I kick off my boots and I dive.

  TOM

  DAY SIX

  I WAKE WITH A START and everything is orange. I’m in some sort of tent? No. Water’s rolling beneath me. For a second, all I know is that everything is wrong. Then I remember: Laurel. Sabbi. The ship.

  “NO!” I shout, because I realize where I am.

  I’m in a freaking life raft.

  “Laurel!” I yell. “LAUREL!”

  I flip over, which wrenches my ankle. Hot pain sears up my leg. Using my arms, I belly-crawl across the smooth, yellow floor to the opening in the roof overhead.

  I pull myself up on the side of the raft, coming up to kneel on my good leg.

  The raft is floating maybe a hundred feet from the ship.

  She’s swimming hard.

  “Come on!” I shout. I reach out my arm.

  She swims for all she’s worth.

  I reach out, my ankle shrieking but there! She reaches for me, fumbling, her arm wet and slippery, and I get a good hold on her wrist and pull with everything I’ve got as—BOOM!

  Everything is white-hot light and a wall of sound.

  I pull Laurel over the side of the raft to me and—BOOM! A second exp
losion splits the air and we’re hit with water.

  The raft tips; Laurel and I slide down it, back through the open doorway, into the part of the raft that has a roof. And then the raft goes end over end like we’re in a washing machine.

  Water pounds us from every direction, and there’s the feeling of falling. The raft being sucked into a giant vortex of dark, churning water.

  We hit something—a part of the ship, maybe—and the raft absorbs the hit. We’re scrunched together, heavy rubber against my face for a split second and then the raft regains its shape.

  I sputter and gasp—trying to get air.

  My lungs are burning. My ankle’s bleeding. Bone through the skin. I can feel the joint sickly loose now.

  Then we’re spit back up, the whole raft, into the night air. We’re spit back up on a wave that carries us away from the wreckage.

  The waves churn and spin us. But I hold on to Laurel.

  We choke up seawater. We gasp. We puke up seawater.

  We slide all over the life raft. There’s nothing inside except us and the soft sides.

  But eventually we are floating. Bobbing on the waves.

  Laurel says, “Tom.” She says it over and over. I answer her with, “Laurel.”

  There’s blood and water in the raft. It sloshes back and forth as choppy waves roll under the raft.

  Laurel crawls-paddles through the water to the edge of the raft and looks out.

  “What—” I sputter. “What do you see?”

  “The ship is a flare,” she says. “It’s a flare.”

  “We did it,” Laurel says.

  Her hair is plastered to the sides of her face and she’s shaking.

  “You did it,” I tell her.

  She crawls back to me.

  We lie there, huddled together, looking up at the inside of the life raft.

  The smell of burning ship fuel wafts across the water.

  We bob on the waves.

  My leg throbs in constant agony.

  We’re all washed out. Nothing left. Nothing but the instinct to cling.

  * * *

  After a good long while, we hear choppers.

  LAUREL

  DAY SEVEN

  AT FIRST I DON’T KNOW WHERE I AM.

  There’s a window with glass slats. Outside I see the tops of scrawny palm trees and I can hear street noise and the sounds of televisions blaring and chattering.

  It smells like cheap gasoline and grilled chicken and frying bananas.