The common enemy was this terrible sea. They could only survive if they worked together. Cook was no survival expert, but even he knew this. And the greatest threat to their unity was Saks. Not what lurked out in the fog or even this hypothetical devil of Crycek’s. Just Saks. He would destroy the survivors much faster than any of those factors. He was a self-involved, self-indulgent macho bastard who would have fed his mother to the sharks if he thought it would keep him alive a few more hours.
If the others had risen up and decided to kill the man, Cook knew he would happily join in. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not yet, anyway.
But if he was lucky, maybe in time.
And nobody was more patient than Cook because he knew Saks was a dead man, it was just a matter of when now.
“I’m so thirsty,” Soltz kept saying. “I need water.”
“You’re okay. Just try to think of something else,” Cushing said, scanning the fog with his bright blue eyes, looking for something, anything out there. Anything that might give him even the thinnest ray of hope. Because, Jesus, this was bad.
Real bad.
Cushing wasn’t a pessimist by any stretch of the imagination, but there were limits to everything. Just the two of them, he was thinking, floating on that fucking hatch cover in that turgid, alien sea. What were their chances here? Death could come in so many different ways. And if it wasn’t from some of the wildlife – he’d heard enough sounds out there now to be convinced that there was some seriously nasty shit prowling around-then what? Dehydration? Starvation?
Damn, but it wasn’t looking real peachy right about then.
He hadn’t slept in… well, he wasn’t sure how long now. Since his berth in the ship. Every time his eyes started drifting shut, he snapped awake with the dread certainty that something was coming out of the fog, something was reaching out for him. Even when he was wide awake and alert, it was hard to shake that feeling.
He wondered if Soltz felt it, too. But he didn’t dare ask him.
The man had enough anxieties to deal with.
“No boats will come here,” Soltz sighed. “Not into this Sargasso Sea.”
“I told you that’s a myth. I was pulling your leg.”
“I think we both know better, don’t we?”
Cushing just shrugged. Okay, the kid gloves were off. No more trying to talk reason to the man… even if it was less like reason and more like out and out bullshit. Let Soltz believe they were lost in some alternate dimension, that they’d fallen through the back door of the Devil’s Triangle.
Why not? Because they probably had.
“What is that?” Soltz said excitedly. “Look! What is that? A shark? A whale?” Cushing looked and saw nothing. “Where?
“There!” Soltz said, jabbing his finger at the water.
Cushing saw a gigantic shadow pass beneath them. Soltz, trembling, his jaw sprung open like a trap, moved to the very center of the hatch cover. Cushing crept out to the edge, tried to get a look at their visitor. It was a huge fish, at least forty feet in length. Its body a dusky brownish green speckled with white dots and darker transverse bands. It could have been a whale… except that as it passed, Cushing saw that its head narrowed into an angular probocis that was lit up like a Christmas tree, seemed to twist in the water, corkscrewing.
Crazy, impossible fish.
It swam off, did not return.
“It’s just some kind of whale, I guess,” Cushing said, not sure if he was relieved or terrified by the idea of something that size. “Harmless, I think.”
“You think? Well, it didn’t look harmless to me.”
“It’s gone. Don’t worry about it.”
Soltz stared out through his thick glasses. “You know a lot about nature, don’t you? The sea and its animals, things like that. How is it an accountant knows about things like that?”
“I’m a frustrated naturalist,” Cushing admitted. “I read books on everything. Sea life happens to be one of those things I’ve studied.”
“With my eyes, reading is a chore. I get headaches. Did I ever tell you about my headaches?”
Cushing figured he was about to learn all about them.
“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.
