Kyle slid out from under the dashboard and sat upright, his eyes wide, watching the stern of the boat.
There was a splash.
“Brie?” he said in a hush. He swallowed again, terrified of what he
might see.
There was another splash. The boat rocked towards the back, the way it
did when someone grabbed hold of the ladder and started climbing. His eyes grew wider and wider.
“Hi!”
Briana said, climbing up onto the stern.
She hopped down onto the deck, grinning at him, water pouring off of
her.
He slowly rose to his feet, staring at her
with a combination of shock and disbelief.
There was a dark green smear of algae on her right shoulder, and a
string of some kind of slimy aquatic plant was tangled in her hair.
“Oh,” she said, wiping at the algae. “I’m kind of a mess, aren’t I?”
His eyes were drawn down to her stomach. There was a puffy white line across her
midsection, snaking its way from her belly button up to an inch or so under her
right breast. It looked like a deep
surgical scar, only without the white dots or crisscrossing marks from
stitches.
She looked down at it. “Isn’t that incredible?”
“What...what happened?”
“I was totally torn open, Kyle—icky stuff was
hanging out everywhere! That green water
is unbelievable. You’ve got to see it!” She started jumping up and down, rocking the
boat back and forth. “You’ve got to see
it, Kyle!”
“Brie, what hap—”
“I’m so strong,”
she said, making a muscle with her right arm.
“It’s like instant steroids, or something!” She giggled and spun around like a little
girl. As she did, Kyle caught sight of
the back of her left leg and gasped.
There was an ugly gash in her thigh, maybe five inches long. A clump of shredded red meat protruded from
it, with pink, watery-looking blood oozing out of it and down her calf.
“Your leg,” he said, almost in a whisper.
She turned to see what he was looking
at. “Oh, I didn’t notice that.” She looked back at him and grinned
sheepishly, as if she had a run in her pantyhose. “But don’t worry. The green water will fix it, too.”
All at once, Kyle understood everything. The poor girl was obviously suffering from
severe shock. It was a miracle she was
even alive. He tried to remember what
you were supposed to do for a shock victim.
“Brie, you better lie down for a—”
“I’m fine!” she said, bouncing back up onto
the stern. “You’ve got to come with me
and see it! You won’t believe it!”
He noticed that her eyes seemed to have a
strange green tint in them. He looked
down at the gash in her leg again and tried not to show any reaction, afraid
that it might upset her. But it looked
bad, really bad. The tendons appeared to
be cleanly severed. He couldn’t
understand how she could even walk.
“Brie, honey, you have to lie down. Do you still have the boat key?”
She ignored him and grabbed a plastic water
bottle that was in a cup holder mounted to the stern. “Come on!”
Before he could stop her, she leaped off the boat and back into the
water.
Kyle rushed over the starboard side almost
fell overboard. “Brie...what are you
doing...you have to get back in the boat!”
“No, you have to come with me!” she said,
kicking and splashing. “I feel
wonderful! It’s like the best drug you
ever imagined, only even better!”
“You shouldn’t be in the water,” he said,
trying to figure out how to deal with her.
“You’re wrong, Kyle. Look how strong I am!”
She swam over to the boat, not using her
arms, but undulating her body like a fish.
She started rocking the boat back and forth. Kyle lost his balance and almost fell
overboard again, grabbing hold of the top of the hull to support himself.
“Stop it!” he yelled. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing!” she answered gleefully. “Watch this!”
She started swimming around the boat in a
circle with amazing speed, thrashing up water every now and then. If he hadn’t been watching her with his own
eyes, he would have thought she was a porpoise or a big shark. She must have been having some kind of
bizarre shock reaction—that was the only explanation. He remembered reading about a 70 year old man
who, after being seriously injured in a traffic accident, had lifted the back
of his Cadillac off his son.
Kyle watched her make another circle around
the boat, then decided he had no choice but to get her out of the water
himself. He started to jump overboard,
then thought better of it and retrieved a life jacket out of a storage
compartment, not letting her out of his sight.
He slipped his arm through one side of the jacket and jumped in.
He expected her to resist, but she
immediately swam—or thrashed—her way over to him.
“Come on, let’s go!” she said.
Kyle took her by the wrist as gently as he
could. “Now, Brie, I want you to just
calm down and put on this life jacket.”
“Oh, don’t be such a major snooze!” She jerked her wrist free from his grip. The
next thing he knew, she had grabbed him
by the wrist. Her fingers felt like
steel. “Hold your breath!”
Before he could respond, she yanked him under
the surface. Water roared past his ears
and the life jacket was torn from his hand.
He hadn’t even had a chance to close his mouth, and he inhaled some
water. He coughed a few times, dazed and
dimly aware that he was being dragged rapidly towards the bottom of the
lake. The water was getting colder, and
even though his eyes were squeezed shut, he could tell it was getting darker
and darker as well. He opened his mouth
to scream, inhaled more water and started coughing again. His ears felt like two ice picks had been
shoved into them, and he made an effort to equalize the pressure, but it was
changing too fast. He felt their
direction shift and realized that they had turned around and were now moving
back up towards the surface. No, they
were rocketing towards the
surface. A few seconds later they both
shot out of the water, a good ten feet into the air, and splashed back down.
Kyle spat up water, coughing. He did a double-take when he saw the boat
and the life jacket—they were now at least 100 yards away.
“You better hold your breath this time, okay?”
Briana said.
Kyle coughed again, staring at her.
“Hold your breath, Kyle.”
“But—”
Her grip on his wrist tightened again, and he
decided that he had better do as he was told.
He sucked in a big breath of air.
The next thing he knew, they were shooting downward again. This time, they moved at what seemed like a
45 degree angle, what he thought to be the direction of the cliffs. He kept his eyes shut.
What’s
happening to me? he thought
helplessly. Am I dreaming? He wondered
if he was the one who had been hit by the speedboat. Maybe he was lying face-down in water,
unconscious, having some kind of crazy death-dream. But the roar of the water in his ears, the
icy-coldness of the water, and Briana’s iron grip told him that if it was a
dream, it was the most vivid one he had ever had in his life.
They started to slow down. It seemed almost pitch black now, but he
still didn’t dare open his eyes. He
desperately tried not to think about the flooded farmland and the catfish that
might be lurking nearby.
They leveled off and were moving a little
slower. He had been so scared he hadn’t
even had time to think about holding his breath during their descent, but now,
his lungs were beginning to hurt. She
slowed them both down to almost a stop.
Something that felt like a tentacle brushed against his legs. He jerked himself away from it,
terrified. Then his foot touched a
rock. They were definitely at the very
bottom of the lake. She grabbed both his
arms and guided him along some larger rocks—she seemed to be leading him
through some kind of gap or hole. He
opened his eyes a crack but immediately shut them again. It was pitch black.
His lungs felt like they were going to
explode. She began pulling him
faster. They started moving upwards
again, more and more rapidly, but it was still pitch dark. The pain in his chest was so severe he knew
he could only last a few more seconds before he opened his mouth and filled his
lungs with water, with anything.
They finally splashed to the surface. He sucked in a huge breath of air, gasping.
She let go of him and waited while he gasped
and choked.
“Open your eyes,” she said.
He was still hungrily sucking in air,
wheezing.
“Open your eyes, Kyle.”
He was afraid of what he would see, but he
slowly raised his lids.
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