20
Caught in the Ship Spotlight
Shy raced down the stairs and into the hallway, his mind flooded with all the awful things he’d just seen. Fallen buildings and fires and dead bodies. He had no idea how to process any of it.
He stopped in the hall, spun around searching for Carmen. It was all that seemed to matter now. Just find Carmen. Make sure she’s okay.
He shouted her name.
Nothing in return but the sound of the storm and the movement of the ship.
Then he spotted the glass doors sliding closed on the other end of the hall. Doors that were supposed to be locked because of the storm. And only crew members knew the code that opened them.
He took off in that direction, punched in the code and hurried through the doors himself, back out into the storm.
“Carmen!” he shouted over crackling thunder.
The rain was lighter now, but the wind was the strongest it had been all night. He had to lean into it to get all the way out onto the deck. He moved cautiously around the covered pool and Jacuzzi, eyes darting every which way, the destruction he’d just seen still stuck in his brain. And Otay Mesa. His family.
He climbed up onto the stage, moved through the empty outdoor café, searched behind every bar and busser station, every doorway, sprinted up and down every stairwell.
But there was no sign of Carmen anywhere.
He needed to get back to his group of passengers in the theater. It wasn’t right to leave Kevin in charge of everyone.
An awful thought crept into Shy’s head, and he hurried to the ship railing and peered over at the ocean below. It was even rougher now. Choppy whitecaps and aimless head-high swells that crashed into the side of the ship from every angle. Streaks of lightning flashing from above.
Carmen wouldn’t jump, though, he promised himself. Even if she knew her entire family was gone. She wouldn’t do that.
As Shy pushed away from the railing, a different voice came over the PA system:
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I need every passenger and crew member to remain in their muster station, sitting down, with their life jacket securely fastened. We will be encountering extremely rough seas ahead. I repeat, this is your captain speaking. All passengers and crew members must be seated with their life jackets securely fastened. We are working to regain satellite contact and get more information, but our immediate concern is for your safety.”
Shy continued around the deck, looking for Carmen and trying to decide what the captain meant by “rough seas.”
On the other side of the deck Shy found Paolo and several emergency crew members prepping the lifeboats. Paolo turned to Shy, shouted: “Why are you out here? You need to be inside with your group of passengers! Get back to the theater!”
“How come you’re doing the lifeboats?” Shy asked.
“Standard emergency procedures! Now go!”
Shy backed away, watching the emergency crew climbing in and out of the boats. Near the glass doors he bumped into someone and spun around.
Vlad. “You shouldn’t be out here!” he yelled.
“Just tell me why they’re doing the lifeboats,” Shy said.
Vlad looked toward Paolo and his crew, then turned back to Shy. “The problem is our location!” he shouted over the storm. “We’re too close to the Hidden Islands! The water is very shallow!”
“What does that mean?” Shy asked.
“And this wind!” Vlad shouted. “They’re worried how the ocean will react!”
Vlad looked back at Paolo again, then pulled Shy down the ship a ways, just outside the sight line of the emergency crew. He clicked on a high-powered spotlight and shined the beam on the raging ocean surface. “Watch the sea life!”
At first Shy only saw furious whitecaps and waves, but then a heavy swell rolled past and in the light he spotted a pod of dolphins racing past the ship, in the direction of the wind.
“They’re trying to get away from something!” Vlad shouted. “Don’t you get it? It’s likely we’ll encounter a tsunami!”
The word was a punch in Shy’s stomach.
But the scared look in Vlad’s eyes was even worse. It told Shy the ship was in serious danger.
Just then they heard the deep revving of the massive engines, and the ship slowly started moving again—not away from whatever the dolphins were fleeing, but toward it.
Vlad’s eyes grew even bigger as he stared into the wind. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Shy shouted.
He looked again, but didn’t see anything.
“They’re trying to make it over!” Vlad shut off the spotlight, spun around and started toward the glass doors.
“Everyone inside!” Shy heard Paolo shouting. “Now! Let’s go!”
Shy followed Vlad, looking over his shoulder at all the emergency crew members leaping down from the lifeboats, racing across the deck toward the doors.
Shy’s last thought before ducking back into the ship with everyone else was of Carmen and how he still hadn’t found her.
21
A Wall of Water
When Shy made it back to the Normandie Theater and his group of passengers, he found everybody seated except for Kevin, who was standing in front of a window. Shy made a beeline to the railing and scanned the lower theater for Carmen, but she wasn’t there either, so he hurried up to Kevin, saying: “There’s gonna be a tsunami.” He looked over his shoulder, making sure none of the passengers had heard him.
Kevin stared back at him wide-eyed and pointed out the window.
Shy saw it now.
The slight rise in the distance.
It was subtle and far away, but the ship was moving directly toward it.
“What if we don’t make it?” Kevin said. He looked terrified.
Shy turned to the crowded theater seats, thinking for the first time that he might die out here, in the middle of the ocean. His heart climbed into his throat, and he felt like he was about to gag or faint. Dying had never crossed his mind in a real way before. Not like this.
A pack of passengers were now gathered at the balcony railing, and Kevin was moving toward them and shouting: “Sit down, please! Everyone needs to be sitting down!”
Shy hurried to his group, making sure they were all secured in their life jackets, and he double-checked his own jacket; then he sat himself in one of the theater chairs and gripped the armrests and closed his eyes and told himself they’d be okay, they’d be okay, they’d be okay, the ship was huge, the bottom indestructible like he’d told his grandma. All they had to do was sit in their muster stations like the captain said, because the captain had probably seen it all and knew what he was doing.
Shy clasped his hands together as if to pray, but he didn’t know how to pray because he never went to his grandma’s church, and he was making shit up when he told her the bottom was eighteen feet thick and made of pure steel, he had no idea how thick it was, or what it was made of, and what if this was his punishment for lying or for not going to church?
Shy was up again, moving through the balcony seats to check the rise on the ocean through one of the windows.
It reached higher now.
And it was closer to the ship.
And they were charging right at it.
He heard voices over his shoulder and turned around. Scattered passengers were now gathered at the window behind him. They were at every window. All of them pointing at the rise and holding each other and panicking. Kevin was shouting for them to get back to their seats, but nobody was listening.
Shy tried shouting, too, but all the screaming drowned him out, so he went to the railing to look for Carmen again, his heart slamming inside his chest, his breaths too fast, because they were only seconds away from living or dying. He understood this. And what if Carmen was outside somewhere? What if she didn’t know what was coming?