Deep Six

Deep Six

by Doug Rodoski

My feet were bound to the bottom of the chair, my hands behind me and bound at the wrists. There was water coming into the room now, a slight list to the left.

Visions flickered through my mind, back to front and side by side in my aching head. On the one hand I was trying to gain consciousness, on the other I knew sleep was the only respite to the raging headache caused the crushing blow to the back of my skull. There was a damp spot on the front of my shirt. Vomit, or blood?

I let myself slip back into dream state. Visons of the deployment, cadavers observed during a battlefield damage assessment. Stateside at a New York Rangers hockey game with the dead brother, years before the Army. Subway ride through Manhattan.

Back to the present. Explosive pain in my skull was a living thing. Water coming in.

Then again in my mind’s eye, I was in a dark room tied to a chair. My head was hanging forward. It seemed that I was conscious. There was no water here, the floor level. Hard to tell if dreaming or real. A distance away, the sound of a door opening and slamming. Then heavy footsteps, with a sense of urgency. Then the dead brother was standing in front of me. I lifted my head; in this dream state I somehow did not have the sickly headache.

John seemed to have a peasant expression through the limited light. Strangely, in the room of my mind, everything was colored black and white.

The dead brother spoke without preamble.

“You did your best, Nick. You and the girl. You can’t fight city hall, Nick.”

He seemed to smile a little. I did not speak yet, not trusting my voice. Was this a dream?

John’s eyes seemed to get dark now, the pupils receding into the darkness his features. His eyes were like dark orbs, abysmal and shark-like.

“Nick, I did the best I could too. You know the work I put into the business. But we got in the way of Boss Flanagan. He had to buy up the tracts of land, and was going to push everyone and everything out of the way.”

He rotated his neck, as if to relieve tension. Could I hear the crackle of cartilage?

Now he leaned over me.

“I couldn’t take it, little brother. I had put too much into the business. You were going to be my right-hand man, when you were done with the Army. But I lost the business, and the house. I’m sorry Nick, I had to make the pain go away.”

His voice became hoarser.

“You’re still alive though, you have to get the evidence to the DA. There’s still time, you must move fast.”

He paused.

“And I need you to save Sara.”

I stared up at him now. He leaned towards me, placing his hands on my shoulders.

“Don’t let these scumbags win!”

His hands dug into my shoulders like talons.

“Goddamn it, SAVE YOURSELEVES!!”

With that I was jolted back to the present. Through the red haze of my migraine, I saw and felt more water coming in, the list more evident. The light in the hallway gave this room some illumination.

And I realized that we must be in Midnight Lake, in one of the abandoned boats at the dark end.

The lake with no bottom.

I surveyed the room with anxiety, fighting back panic. Why didn’t Sara stay home while I confronted Flanagan?

Cut the crap, Nick! Figure it out, figure it out. My hands were still bound to the chair, hands behind my back. I surveyed the room. With great pain, I observed Sara’s sweatshirt rolled up and on the floor in the corner.

I thought I could detect her fragrance, still.

Okay. The chair I was bound to was heavy wood, like the old school chairs with a shelf to write on. Water rising still, just below my seated waistline. The sinking boat was groaning, like a living thing.

The constraints binding my hands were attached to the chair also.

I thought I could still feel John’s fingers digging into my shoulders.

I took some deep breaths now. I spread my feet to the extent that the constraints would allow. And I tried to stand up and rip my arms free at the same time.

I could feel the chair start to crack.

I flexed with all of my strength, the bottom of the chair thumping the floor, the list of the boat more evident.

Suddenly there was movement overhead, on the deck above the compartment I was in. It was one of Flanagan’s goons! I had not anticipated that someone was still here.

He crossed the room towards me, steadying himself with one arm along the bulkhead.

As he reached out to me with his free hand, the chair I was tied to broke apart. I swung at his face with the wooden shard still attached to my right arm, driving splintered wood into his left eye.

Bright red arteriole blood sprayed across me and beyond. He dropped to the floor, and screamed and screamed.

I freed the shattered wood from my body, my hands and feet free now. The guy was reaching under his jacket and screaming. Out came the pistol.

I stepped on his hand, freezing the upward swing of it as he tried to aim. I peeled the weapon away from him. Now I repeatedly chopped at his neck with the edge of my hand, trying to break his windpipe.

He finally stopped moving; I detected no breathing on his part. I searched him, looking for anything I could use, plus our confiscated phones. No dice.

Water now crashed into me, as the doomed boat sought out the floor of the lake.

I put the pistol in my waistband and headed for the doorway.

“Sara? Are you in here?”

No answer.

The forward compartment was chest deep in accumulating water. It was here that I suspected that she might be.

“Up here, Nick! On the deck!”

A surge of adrenaline was released in me with this hopeful event. I climbed the listing stairs to find Sara clinging to a mast on the forward deck.

She offered her hand and she helped me stabilize in an unsubmerged platform on the deck.

I placed my hand along her face. No words right now, we had to act.

I knew that the lake had once been a quarry. The boat was not going to settle in any shallows.

We plunged over the last floating part of the boat. I had surveyed the distance to the shoreline, to an abandoned house with a pull in water garage type entry, maybe fifty yards away.

Sara was making good time through the water. I had to do a side type of crawl, as my shoulder ached from the violence of the night before.

Salvation as I felt scraped gravel. We were standing in chest-deep water.

Clambering up on to shore, pulling ourselves along to safety by holding the branches from a tree leaning towards the water, I let myself feel the first tendrils of relief.

Although we both had lost our mobile phones, I had the jump drive wrapped in plastic, in my shoe and under my foot. The evidence that would take down Flanagan and crew when presented to the authorities. I took it out now; it was undamaged.

John’s beautiful widow turned towards me; our eyes met. We both turned when we heard the finally twisting groan of the boat as the stern was about to disappear into the dark depths of the lake.

And through the chill mist, across the dark waters illuminated by a full autumn moon, I thought I saw a dark figure standing upright on the final piece of the boat. I thought I saw John raise a hand in a salute, before vanishing.

THE END