Something had passed beneath the lifeboat, bumping its entire length. Marx told him, whatever it was, it wasn’t trying to eat him so keep fucking rowing. They pressed on, making good time, George was thinking, moving along at a pretty good clip despite the weed. From time to time, things bumped into the raft and boat, but they never saw what they were. But they were big things, some of them.
“Hold up,” Marx suddenly said. “Look here what we got.”
Just before the bow of the lifeboat there was what looked like an old plank, waterlogged and knitted with mildew. There were other scraps of wood in the weeds. Off the starboard side of the raft, George was seeing something long and green and fleshy.
Gosling prodded it with his oar. “It’s… it’s a log, part of a fallen tree. Something like a palm, I’d guess.”
“Maybe we’re near land,” Chesbro said.
“Maybe.”
The log was from no tree George had ever seen. It was pea-green and scaly, something very primordial-looking about it. Like a backyard weed grown to fantastic proportions.
“Looks like sort of a primitive cycad,” Cushing said. “Sort of a prehistoric palm.”
“And that’s fine,” Marx said. “As long as the prehistoric wildlife don’t come with it.”
They kept rowing, the fog enshrouding them, thick as ever. They continued to bump into things and most of the time, the fog hid them before they could get a good look. But from time to time they saw more logs and planks. Once, something like a bush torn from an Oriental garden. Chesbro said he saw what looked like a styrofoam cooler, but it was gone before they could all see it. Regardless, each man was given hope. Because they all knew that they were getting closer to something.
“Just don’t be disappointed when you see it,” Pollard said more than once.
It seemed they pulled through the weeds for hours and then came revelation of a sort. They bumped into something else, only this something was not moving. They thudded into it and stopped dead, everyone almost getting thrown forward.
“What in the hell now?” Gosling said.
They went forward, not knowing what it could be this time and, generally, expecting the worst. But what they saw was harmless, just immovable. To George it looked like the roof of a house jutting from the tangled weeds, the peak sticking up, but set with crusty marine deposits.
“It’s a hull for chrissake,” Marx said. “Goddamn shitting hull from a ship. She must have turned turtle here in the weeds.”
They could see about fifteen or twenty feet of it, the rest was under water and weeds. George got a weak feeling in his belly looking at it, almost like he was getting some disturbing psychic vibe from the thing. But he supposed that wasn’t surprising, for whatever had happened to the ship was probably a dark, depressing story and one that had taken lives.
They rowed around it, deeper into that grim cultivation of seaweed. Pausing only to clean off their oars from time to time. But every man was expectant now. The signs were there – planks and logs, the hulls of sunken ships – and they were getting optimistic. They felt it in their bones and blood, they were very close now to something.
And George was thinking, I just hope it’s something good. God knows we need something good-
And those thoughts had barely exited his mind when they passed by some huge and amorphous shape in the fog, something vague that disappeared into the mist before they could really get a good look at it. But they knew. They all knew.
“A ship,” Gosling said. “I think it was a ship…”
And that stopped them from rowing, stopped them from doing just about anything. The ship had been off their port side, but now it was gone. The question was: Did they stop rowing and try to find it?
Which was pretty much what Gosling was thinking about when something happened that stopped him from thinking. Stopped them all from thinking or doing anything else – the fog began to lift.
It ran thin, then thinner, became diaphanous like something sheer and clingy. It began to unravel and unwind, casting aside motheaten rags and guazy wrappings and misting cerements. Disintegrating and pulling apart like moist blankets and ancient shrouds. Yes, like a stripper, the fog disrobed, tossing its dressings aside, and revealing the bare bones beneath. And that was pretty apt… for everywhere, bare bones.
Cushing said it before anyone else could: “The ship’s graveyard. Jesus, it’s the ship’s graveyard…”
And they saw, they all saw.
