“Get ready,” Gosling said and there was dire import behind his words. George said nothing.
He’d never felt quite so helpless before in his life. His knuckles were white as they gripped his knees. He was tense and waiting, his heart hammering wildly.
His throat was so dry, his voice would barely come. “I’m afraid,” he admitted. “Jesus, I’m afraid.”
“Stay calm,” Gosling said.
The waiting, of course, was the worse part. Not knowing what was going to happen and when, if anything at all. George was now very much thinking about Lisa and his son Jacob and those pleasant Sunday afternoons. The worst part, the very worst part, about it all now was that he honestly didn’t think he’d see them again. He’d never know another Sunday.
Just stay calm, he told himself. Just like Gosling says. That’s what you gotta do. Stay calm.
Bullshit.
“They’re almost on us,” Gosling said.
But how he could know that with the door zipped shut was beyond George. Maybe he just felt it because George was feeling it, too, now: a gradual, almost lazy pressure building in the sea behind the raft. George was certain he could feel it coming right through the rubberized deckplates… a weight, an expectancy, a surging motion like air forced before a train. Right before impact.
There was no way to stay calm. Even Gosling didn’t look so good. He was clown-white under his tan, his eyes jittering in their sockets like roulette balls. He was gripping the plank for dear life.
There.
George felt it and so did Gosling. Something or many somethings had just moved beneath them with such speed and power its aftershock actually lifted the raft up a few inches. The sea exploded with activity.
“They’re under us,” Gosling said.
And they were.
Dozens and dozens of those luminous fish or animals or whatever they were. They swam close to the surface and now they were bumping against the raft, one after the other. The funny thing was that their light – sort of a pale, thrumming green – filled the interior of the raft, actually lit the bottom like an x-ray so that you could see the outlines of the air chambers, every seam and stitch.
Yes, it was amazing. Truly amazing.
But neither George or Gosling had the time to truly appreciate it, for being in the raft was like being on a roller coaster. Thump, thump, thump in rapid succession. The sea boiled and the raft careened and George clenched his teeth down hard, waiting for those chambers to start popping and for them to start sinking.
But that it didn’t happen.
The raft was engineered to handle rough seas and no amount of jolting and jarring was going to pop it. That’s why it was designed with a series of air chambers, rather than a single one.
Gosling had told him this and more than once, but George couldn’t remember any of that. All he was seeing was that weird glow and feeling the raft beneath him in constant motion, spilling him this way and that, into Gosling and then back to the deck.
Then the bumping stopped and the glow went out as if somebody had switched off a lamp.
After a moment or two, Gosling went to the door and unzipped it. Nothing but the fog and the sea again, moving as one when they moved at all.
“Gone,” he said. “And we’re still here.”