Chapter 9 #2
“I think we’re going to a dock. They’re taking all this equipment somewhere. Not sure why they’d go by boat.”
“Maybe we can get this guy’s attention.” Because they were higher up, it was easier to see the details of the person pushing the dolly. It was a man with a burly beard and wearing some kind of forest green bucket hat that shadowed much of his face.
“Hey!” Trey said, doing his best to get to his feet. “Hey!” he shouted louder, doing a hop and frantically waving his hands. He only managed a few jumps before his body wavered as if getting woozy and he put a hand on the outlet to support himself.
Due to the rough vibrations passing through the box, Cat didn’t feel safe doing the same, plus it wasn’t a quiet environment.
While she hoped Trey would catch the man’s attention, there was serious doubt he would.
It felt pointless, and all the jumping and hollering couldn’t be good for him if he did have a concussion.
“He can’t hear you! Besides, I think he has earbuds in,” she said, pointing toward her own ears.
Trey lost his balance, falling to a sitting position. “Now what?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s anything we can do. You need to be careful. I don’t want you getting more hurt than you already are.”
He didn’t seem to pay attention to the words as he studied the man pushing the cart. “Maybe it’ll be quieter once we stop mov—” It was at this moment the cart did stop. “I think an earbud popped out!” Trey jumped up again.
Catalina also scrambled to her feet. She wasn’t sure if they were already at the dock, but through the noise of people on the beach there was the sound of a gentle surf hitting against the sand.
The man’s face disappeared from view, with only his back rising over the box like the slope of a hill as he bent over.
“This is our chance,” Trey said as he reached for the closest top edge of their enclosure, pulling himself onto one of the box’s open side flaps.
Catalina didn’t like this at all, but he was already running across the cardboard surface.
Unsure of what to do but feeling she also needed to do something, if only to keep Trey out of trouble, she leaped up, getting at least her chin and elbows over the top edge of the box.
Grunting and pulling her body upward until she could hook one of her feet onto the edge, she shimmied herself onto the same flap he was on.
If this experience had taught her anything, it was that she needed to change her normal exercise routine to include more upper body strength training.
“Trey, wait,” she called. In the back of her mind, she knew being on the box’s flaps was a really, really bad idea.
It was scary enough standing inside the box.
The cord from the power strip trailed over the same flap, and she watched as he easily clambered over it like a hurdle.
She’d barely gotten to the same cord when the man stood to his full height again.
Their window of opportunity for this ill-advised plan was coming to a close.
She gripped the top of the cord in her arms as though this would provide a lifeline to the box. “Hey!” she called out as loud as she could, just as Trey also started jumping, waving his arms, and yelling at the top of his lungs.
“Here! In the box!” Trey did a piercing whistle with two fingers between his lips.
Both of them shouted while watching the man’s hand track upward to his right ear.
There was one brief moment when a confused look passed across his face and he paused, as though maybe he did hear something strange and couldn’t place it.
But the man shrugged, returning the earbud to his right ear and blocking out the screaming couple and any shot they had at being noticed.
Trey’s arm dropped to his side in complete deflation.
The same feeling passed through her, along with frustrated helplessness.
Except she couldn’t dwell on these emotions for long.
With the earbud back in place, she had a sinking gut feeling about what they could expect next.
The dolly continued forward, the rattling and vibrations commencing with it.
“We need to get back in the b—!” As she yelled her warning, one of the dolly’s wheels hit a violent bump.
Catalina finally understood the experience of seeing things happen in slow motion during a traumatic event.
The box flap dipped before flinging upward. A moment of bewildered shock passed across her husband’s face before he was suddenly gone. She couldn’t register his disappearance before the cord she’d been gripping was ripped from her grasp and a gust of air replaced the void between her arms.
Then Catalina was doing what she feared the most: flying.
She was thrown through the sky, a flash of brightness hitting her eyes before being replaced by shades of blue and tan swirling across her vision in a dizzying effect.
The out of control feeling of her fate was never so terrifying.
She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for all the colors to turn to black and expecting the impact of death.