The Stranger in the Lifeboat(33)

“Hey, no!” I spat out as he drifted away. I splashed toward him. He went under. I inhaled a breath and submerged to try and lift him; he was even deader weight now. I finally raised him above the surface, but his eyes were closed and his head rolled back. He wasn’t breathing.

“No!” I yelled. I tried pulling him by the shirt, grabbing for his shoulder, for his neck, but he kept slipping from my fingers. Then I heard Geri scream.

“Benji! Where are you?”



Geri. Little Alice. Who would help them back in? With no passengers to weigh it down, the raft was drifting away. I looked over my shoulder, but there was no sign of Lambert now, and no sign of the Lord. The orange raft was the only thing breaking up an endless panorama of water and sky.

So I swam, with my lungs bursting, until I reached its edge. I tried to pull myself in, remembering how hard this had been the night the Galaxy sank. It was even harder now. I had used my depleted strength going after Lambert. Every muscle from my toes to my jawbone felt unresponsive.

Pull, I told myself. I tried. I slipped off. Pull! Inside is life. Outside is death. Pull! With a final yank I lifted myself to neck level, then flopped onto my shoulder, the weight of my body depressing the raft enough for me to fall forward, until the heft of my torso slid me down. I had to lift my legs in with my hands, that’s how exhausted they were. But I hit the raft bottom and was never happier to feel any surface beneath me.

I heard Geri weakly calling my name, and I scraped across the floor to the side where she and Alice were bobbing in the water.

“Take her, take her,” Geri panted. Little Alice’s expression seemed a reflection of my own, mouth agape, eyes wide and horrified. Geri pushed her up, and my trembling hands pulled her in. She fell onto her back.

“Are you OK, Alice?” I shouted. “Alice? Are you OK?”

She just stared at me. I turned back to Geri, whose arms were resting on the ocean surface, her head down like a marathoner who had just finished the race and was considering the enormity of the distance run. I was flushed with admiration for this woman. At every turn she had shown such strength, such courage, the kind of courage I only wished I could possess. For a moment, even amid the horror, I felt a wave of hope, as if, with her help, we might somehow survive this.

“Come on, Geri,” I said. “Get back in.”

“Yeah,” she panted, raising her arms. “Gimme a hand.”

I steadied myself against the side, pulling the safety rope around my waist. I reached out to her.

Suddenly her expression changed. She convulsed, her head jerking forward.

“What?” I said.

She looked down, then looked up at me, as if confused. Her head tilted and her arms flopped weakly into the water, as if she’d been unplugged. Her body fell sideways. Her eyes rolled back.

“Geri? …,” I yelled. “Geri?”

A blossoming pool of red began darkening the sea around her. Her torso rose briefly to the surface, but not her legs.

“GERI!”

That’s when I saw two blurry gray shapes circling for the rest of her. My body shivered in recognition, as all of Geri’s warnings came rushing back. Don’t splash. Don’t draw attention. Don’t stay in the water for any duration. The sharks had never left. They’d just been circling, as if waiting for us to make a mistake.

I turned away in shock. I heard a thrash in the water, and covered little Alice so she wouldn’t see it, or hear it, or remember it. I prayed that the beasts would be satisfied with just one of us. It’s horrible to say, but at the moment, that was how I felt.

As I held little Alice, I began to weep with the realization of all that had happened in a few terrible minutes. Everyone was dead. Everyone was dead but the child and me.

“I’m sorry!” I sobbed. “I couldn’t save them!”

She studied my tears with a sadness that cut right through me.

“They’re all gone, Alice! Even the Lord.”

Which is when the little girl finally spoke.

“I am the Lord,” she said. “And I will never leave you.”





Ten





Land





“My name is Dobby.”

LeFleur’s heart took off like a jackrabbit. Dobby, the guy from the notebook? Dobby, the guy with the limpet mine? Dobby, whom the author had called “mad” and “a killer”? Sentences jumped to LeFleur’s mind. I can see why Dobby wanted him dead … It was his idea to blow up the Galaxy.

“What do you want?” LeFleur asked, his throat suddenly dry. They were squared off on the pavement, maybe thirty yards from LeFleur’s yellow house. When Dobby didn’t answer, LeFleur added, “I live on this street. All the neighbors know me. They’re probably watching through their windows right now.”

Dobby glanced at the homes, as if confused, then turned his focus back on the inspector. “My cousin,” he said. “His name was Benjamin Kierney. He was on the Galaxy. A deckhand. I was hoping maybe you knew what happened to him. Something more than what they told us, anyhow.”

“Who’s they?”

“The people from Sextant. The ones who owned the boat.”

“What did they tell you?”

“Nothing helpful. ‘All were lost. We’re so sorry.’ The standard crap.”