Drift

Chapter 8

I laid awake in shock on my piece of wood in the middle of what seemed to be the ocean. I had just dreamed the most real thing. And in the dream, I died. Well... Chrisy- Christine- died. Not me. But who was Chrisy? And who was Charlie? Or "Charles Taylor," or whatever his name was? Why were they fighting a war? Were these people even real? 

Who knew? It was just a dream, I thought. A very intensely, grossly, real dream... it's not like dreams are ever real. No need to worry about it. What good would it do? I pondered. All of these voices and things were still persistently pouring into my head... I wanted to know so badly where they were coming from. But that'd have to wait. Because at the moment, I had the sounds of a screaming man to attend to. And they were not just in my head, that was for sure. They were as real as can be. 

"HELLO?" I called, looking in the direction of the sound. I strained my eyes to see through the thick misty fog, but that was no good. I couldn't see more than roughly three feet in front of me.

"HELP ME!! IT'S N' THE WATER, PLEASE HELP ME!!! HELP ME!!" He yelled back. He had deep voice, with a gentle Texan accent. My grandparents were born and raised in Austin, so I know a Texan when I hear one.

"WHAT IS IT, WHAT'S IN THE WATER?" I responded, confused and very nervous about the unknown thing that was "in the water." 

"I DON' KNOW BUT IT'S FIXIN' TO GET ME!!" He cried out again, splashing even harder. What does he mean 'It's in the water?!?' What is 'it??' I panicked. My heart was in my throat, nearly jumping and beating. I'd seen Jaws so may times as a kid that for years, even swimming pools were scary to go into without the fear of a shark prowling the waters. What's in the water?? I continued wondering hysterically. I couldn't see. And a lack of sight is not what you want when an unknown threat is posed, particularly when you can only assume that it's definitely their environment that you're in- and not exactly your own cozy little niche. I could hear, though, so I listened. It sounded as if he was swimming away from something. Or trying to escape from something. I couldn't tell. Whatever it was he was doing, he certainly wasn't in the water alone. 

He didn't sound too far away, not more than 50 feet. As scared as I was of whatever was in the water, I tried to paddle on over to the vicinity of the origin of the sound. It wasn't hard to locate, because this guy's voice, like mine, had pretty much nothing to echo off of. 

50 feet doesn't sound very far until you have to paddle that distance by hand on a really heavy piece of wood. And as if paddling a giant piece of driftwood that distance (or at all) wasn't hard enough, I only had one arm to do it with. My right arm was completely useless, destroyed and bowed, constantly suffering in agony. Trying to use it would only slow me down, if anything. It sounded like the Texan's yelling was coming from straight ahead of me, so that was where I headed. I stuck my left arm into the frigid water at the nose of the wood, and started paddling. 

It took me roughly 30 seconds to start moving at all, and at that point I was already exhausted and ready to give up.  I was moving a lot of weight forward, and only with one small hand, making things even slower. In addition, putting my arm into dark murky water when some dude was screaming in terror- floating in the same waters- wasn't exactly an idea that gave me warm fuzzies. As daunting as it was, I kept paddling. I didn't think I was getting anywhere, but after a few minutes, I noticed the yelling and the obnoxious splashing getting louder. 

I was closer.

I guess I was making progress. Unless the mysterious man crying out in the water was somehow swimming towards me. He was about 15 feet away now, straight ahead of me. I could even just barely make out a dark shape through the fog, which I was hoping was him. I hadn't even been paddling but maybe a minute or two at this point, but he was swimming- and very swiftly, it appeared.

"I'm almost to you, just keep swimming straight ahead! You're doing great!!" I yelled to him. I kept paddling with my arm, even though I was morbidly horrified of the prospect of it getting gruesomely snapped off. Despite the hair-raising and perplexing circumstances, I couldn't help but feel like a motivational coach because of the way I commended him. 

He began to call back,"I'm almost there'," before he abruptly disappeared below the water in mid-word quicker than the snap of a finger. 

Something had pulled him under. 

"NO!" I screamed. Then I realized that maybe screaming wouldn't have been the best of ideas. What if whatever was under the water was attracted to noise? I had no idea. I kept quiet, and became as still as possible. Everything was quiet again. Then I heard the sound. 

A deafening, bloodcurdling, screaming roar from under the water. It had to have been about 20 feet below me. If I wasn't still before, you can bet your life I was then. My heart stopped. Even my arms, trembling from the cold and pain, came to a halt as every cell of my body seemed to stop. Everything in the world felt motionless in every way possible. The matter, time, and sound... all frozen still. Even the mysterious voices in my head seemed to silence themselves. My eyes were so wide with pure terror that I could feel my short lashes brush against my eyebrows. 

What was that sound?!?!? I screamed in my head.

I heard the dripping of tons of water from several feet up as what sounded like my Texan friend was lifted higher and higher into the air, yelling and crying. As if he had emerged from the water in the mouth of something with a reeeeeeally long neck... and like that reeeeeeally long neck was lifting him 30 feet out of the water. A loud, deep, complex growl emanated from high up in the air. 

"WOMAN? PLEASE HELP ME!!" Texie screamed out.

"I'M TRYING, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!" I shrieked back, frowning at the blank fog.

"SHE'S NOT KILLIN' ME- AAAAHHHH!!!" He cried out. "SHE'S JUST BITIN' HARD, I DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE'S DOIN', I THINK SHE'S PLAYIN', BUT SHE WON'T LET ME GO," he called down to me. "SHE'S GOT TEETH BIGGER N' DALLAS AND I DON' WANNA STILL BE IN 'ER MOUTH IF SHE STARTS THROWIN' A HISSY FIT, SO PLEASE GET ME OUTTA HERE," He added, seeming just as annoyed as he was mortified. 

"WHAT'S SHE LOOK LIKE?" I yelled up to him. I had no idea why we started calling it a she, but there was no time to question trivial things as such. 

"SHE'S A DINOSAUR, DAD GUM IT, SHE'S A DINOSAUR!!!" He cried out.

I'm about to throw a hissy fit bigger n' Dallas myself, mister, now please chill and stop makin' up stories if you wanna get outta here and let me try to figure things out, I grumbled to myself in my head.   

I couldn't believe this guy. 

Of course it's a dinosaur," I muttered to myself sarcastically, rolling my eyes and sighing. "Obviously. A dinosaur. That makes ALL THE SENSE IN THE WORLD!!" I screamed

He was clearly alive.

And clearly from Texas.

Cool.

What was not cool was when the water beneath my driftwood swelled, forming a giant bulge. I braced myself, gripping the wood on whatever hold I could find as the nose lifted several inches out of the water and began to move forward. I don't know why I caught on so late, but It wasn't until that moment, when the wood and I began moving, that I realized what was happening. 

It was the thing in the water. It was coming up from right underneath me.

And if my pal Texie wasn't delirious from terror, it was a dinosaur.