Drift

Chapter 11

Yep... He's psychotic. He's absolutely crazy. He's totally a serial killer with psychological downfall and I'm totally going to get murdered on this piece of driftwood in this godforsaken ocean. Yep, that's right. If I wasn't gonna die before, I totally am now.
These thoughts tingled through my brain like static as I simultaneously pondered whether I should shove him off of our raft and get as far away as I could. But that won't do you any good, I thought. He's only bruised up and you've got an essentially useless arm. He'd only have his weight to pull, and the oxygen in his lungs would help support him in the water anyways. I'd be pulling my weight, the driftwoods weight, and all at an awkward angle too, where it'd be hard to get enough power to outrun him... It wouldn't work, forget it.

That was when it hit me.

"Charles, you lived in Florida a long time, right?"

"Long enough... Why?" He furrowed his brow, and an invisible string tugged at the corner of his lip, expressing immense confusion and frustration. If he was gonna kill me, it was probably gonna be soon.

"You know anything about gators? Or even just reptiles in general?" I asked looking directly at him, despite the uncomfortable lack of distance between his face and mine.

"Yea- lady, where are you goin' with this??" He said looking at me as if I'd just said that we needed to speak louder so that we could see each other better.

"Dude. Reptiles are cold blooded, right? Granted, you and I were- and still are, kind of- in severe shock, but that water's still pretty chilly, right?"

"Yes. It is. But lady, I have no clue what you're bringing up gators and reptiles for. Yes, they're cold blooded. So what??"

I shut my eyes and put my forehead on my knees in frustration. He hadn't seen the creature that took down Nessie, and didn't even ask about it. Why didn't he ask about it?

"Okay, so you remember that loud snap that you heard right before our Loch Ness friend got taken down?"

"Yeah, it was like a gator snap. But there's now way there's a gator out here, it's saltwater."

"Yeah, well there shouldn't be friggin' dinosaurs out here, either. And you're right, a gator typically can't be in salt water, but a Saltwater Crocodile obviously can."

"Either way," he refuted, "There's no croc alive that could have taken down that thing that had me. What are you getting at, anyways?" He asked. He was getting antsy. Like a criminal being interrogated and being worn down by the right questions. That obviously wasn't the scenario, but that was how he acted.

"First of all, it was definitely some kind of salt water croc, because I saw it with my own eyes. Second of all, it was more than big enough to do what it did. Right now we shouldn't be making assumptions of nature based on the nature that we've always known. Obviously things are different here, wherever this is. Once again: there was a Dinosaur. After seeing that, I wouldn't assume that a Jurassic saltwater crocodile is an impossibility."

He sighed and looked down. His world was shattering. You could tell just from a few moments with him that he was very by the books. Conventional. Traditional. Didn't like new things, even with evidence. If he was given a vacuum or a Roomba, he'd probably take the vacuum. All of this evidence was irrefutable. Saying that there were dinosaurs was like saying that aliens are real. And that if he tried to tell anyone, no one would believe him.

"And as for my point," I continued, "Crocs are cold blooded. They need sunlight or some place warm to be to warmed up. And that definitely wouldn't be in this water, at least not to what we know. If we're warm blooded and we find it cold, how much more so does that big guy out there? Unless it's some sort of warm blooded reptile or there are some weird volcanic outlets or vents in the ocean floor, there should be land somewhere not too far away. I mean that does make sense, right?"

He rolled his eyes, looking up into the dense mist.

"Yeah, that'd make sense."

I straightened up and smiled. I had finally gotten through to him! Maybe he was coming around. And then he spoke again.

"So let's say there's land nearby. Where is it? We could pick a direction and go but if it's the wrong one then we're just doomin' ourselves to getting even more lost. And then let's say we do find land somehow. What's on it? We don't even know if it's civilized. There are dinosaurs and giant crocodiles who are eating the dinosaurs in this water. For all we know, there could be a doggone Godzilla on whatever land there is, probably with some giant mosquito suckin' the life out of him or somethin', and here we are all beat up with messed up arms and busted ribs and-"

"Wait, what do you mean, 'busted ribs,' you said you were fine!!" I exclaimed, completely overlooking all of the incredibly valid points he'd just brought up. Since my theory was clearly shot down by his logic, I was putting it behind me for the time being.

"Ummm I thought you had messed up ribs er somethin'?" He said, failing at hiding the truth.

My face went from being angry and skeptical to being very stern.

"The second your shivering commences to quittin', you're takin' off that jacket and we're gonna have a look at those ribs," I instructed.

"Looking at them won't help," Charles fought, "it's not like you'll be able to do anythin' once you see em."

"Yes, I can do something, actually. I worked in ER for 4 years and I happen to know a little something about dislocations and setting broken bones. And if we look at it we'll maybe be able to tell if there's some internal bleeding that we can do something about and we can also see if we need to adjust how you're sitting to help your ribs and whatever bleeding there is."

"Well if you're so smart then why is your arm still messed up?" He asked, afraid.

"The bone is just really fractured. Earlier I thought it was bowed, but that's impossible because I'm an adult and that can only happen to young kids with bones that aren't done developing. I guess there was just water in my eyes or something. Anyways, aside from positioning my arm correctly and avoiding using it or putting pressure on it, there's not a whole lot I can do. If there was anything to be done, I could instruct you on how to do it, but there's not. And as far as bleeding, I'm keeping the wound above heart level, like you're supposed to, but it's not as bad as it looks. It's not on or near any major veins or arteries."

"Oh okay. It is really bruised up though..." He began.

We continued talking for a while about basic medical stuff, and as we spoke, most prior thoughts I had regarding his negative attitude began to slip away. He wasn't all that bad. It seemed that he simply got sassy when he was scared or nervous. And in our situation, there was plenty of reason to be scared and nervous. However, for the time being, I was mostly focused on buttering him up to let me look at his ribs and also to let me fix anything, if I could.
And surprisingly, it worked.

"Sooooo, um... you're not shivering anymore..."

"Fine." He said. He shook his hand through his damp hair, getting the last of the heavy water out, and then began taking the jacket off. It was a very slow process due to his pain and awkward positioning on the raft. I eventually even had to help him out with my one good arm.

Once the jacket and shirt were off, it was immediately clear that beyond a doubt, he was going to need medical attention ASAP.

And definitely from someone more experienced than me.