Chapter 55
iris
Something tickled Iris’s forehead. She felt a warmth on her skin, and she could hear water lapping nearby.
She smiled. She’d always loved lazing by the beach.
She often fell asleep in the sun, and Amy would shake her awake, brandishing a sunhat and sunscreen, scolding her for being so reckless: you need to be more careful given your fair skin—
She heard a voice coming to her as if from far away, but she was too tired and in too much pain to work out whose it was.
‘Please,’ the voice beside her said, ‘please, please, wake up!’
She tried to open her eyes, but everything hurt.
‘Come on, please. I need you to wake up!’
It took an immense effort of will to force her eyes open. Someone was leaning over her, a flickering phone in their hand. Water dripped from their wet hair onto her face.
‘Nicky?’
He rocked back on his heels. ‘Oh, thank fuck.’
Her head was pounding. Iris touched her temple, and felt a thick, warm stickiness.
She pushed herself up on one elbow, coughing, and was immediately queasy. She must have concussion. ‘Where are we?’
Nicky spun his phone around the space. If they ever got out of here, the phone company could use this as a testimonial: our batteries don’t quit on you even when your boat sinks a hundred feet to the bottom of the lake.
‘We’re in one of the corridors beside the kitchen,’ he said. ‘But the water’s coming in fast. We gotta move further inside. Like, follow the air.’
‘How did we get here from the main cabin?’
‘Fuck knows. What does it matter?’
She sat up properly, her head swimming with nausea. The last thing she could remember was watching her sister drop down into the water to rescue Finn. After that, everything was a blur.
‘Finn—’
‘He’s not here,’ Nicky said. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. ‘No one else is here.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Maybe they escaped. Maybe they’re all dead. There’s no one here but us. Come on, Aunt Iris. We gotta move.’
The water was creeping rapidly up the corridor. It had already moved from her feet to her thighs in the short time they’d been talking.
She pulled herself upright, leaning against the wall for support. She’d lost both her shoes, but miraculously, apart from the concussion and a few minor cuts and bruises, she didn’t seem to be badly hurt.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked Nicky.
He grimaced. ‘Been better.’
He was clasping his right arm protectively across his lower abdomen, his fingers digging into the left side of his body, the knuckles white. He was clearly in pain. She wanted to ask him to let her see where he was hurt, but he was already limping ahead of her down the corridor.
He stopped when they reached the end. An open doorway led off to the left. Iris had lost any real sense of the boat’s geography, but she guessed they must be near the toilet cubicles behind the galley kitchen.
‘There’s another door to the outside off the galley,’ Nicky said. ‘We might be able to get out that way, if it’s not blocked. But we’d have to go down . . . there.’
They both peered through the doorway. Black water lapped at their feet. Stairs that would once have led up to the galley now disappeared down into the water. The only possible way out was at least ten feet below them, and who knew what unseen obstacles lurked in their way.
‘Finn nearly made it through the other stairwell,’ Nicky said.
‘Finn’s a good swimmer,’ Iris said.
He pointed back down the corridor. ‘We don’t have much choice.’
They’d been climbing up the corridor, but the water had rippled up behind them and was once again lapping at their feet. Their air pocket was shrinking; it was already so thick and rank it was becoming ever harder to breathe.
They were running out of options.
Nicky was shaking so hard she could hear his teeth chattering. She didn’t know if it was from cold, shock or fear – probably a combination of all three – but right now, they only had each other, and she couldn’t let herself panic and spin out, because she had to look after him.
‘Remember what your mother said about breathing out on the way up?’ Iris asked, taking Nicky’s arm and forcing him to turn his gaze from the stairwell to her. ‘We don’t know how far underwater we are. If we get out of the boat through that door, we’ll need to ascend as slowly as we can, OK?’
‘What about Finn? And Mom?’
‘We don’t have time to look for them,’ Iris said. ‘They could be anywhere. We have to try to get out, Nicky. We can only hope they’ve done the same.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Your mom would want you to—’
‘I can’t go into that water. I can’t, I can’t—’
He backed away from the doorway, splashing into the water behind them. Iris didn’t know what to do. Their only potential means of escape lay through the galley kitchen, but if Nicky panicked like this, she’d never get him out. God knows she was terrified too, but—
‘What was that?’ Nicky said, turning suddenly.
Voices.
It sounded as if they were coming from the corridor on the other side of the galley. Which meant there must be air there, too.
And then she saw the unmistakable flash of a torch.
She grabbed Nicky’s hand and pulled him through the open doorway.
The boat had settled on the lakebed at an angle; as they passed the stairs leading to the galley kitchen, they had to hang on to the grab rail to climb up to the parallel corridor.
When they emerged into it, it had barely an inch of standing water.
Amy was sitting on the floor, holding a flashlight.
‘Mom!’ Nicky cried.
‘Nicky,’ she said. ‘Oh, my God. Nicky.’
Amy scrambled awkwardly to her feet, grimacing in pain. The left side of her face was bruised and swollen, and there was a crust of dried blood around her mouth. She cradled her useless arm against her body.
Nicky threw his arms around her and squeezed tightly. Amy didn’t even flinch.
She cupped her son’s face with her good hand. ‘I can’t believe it. Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine, Mom.’
Iris peered along the darkened corridor behind her. ‘Is Finn—’
‘He was just here,’ Amy said. ‘He’s fine, Iris. He’s alive. He thinks we can get out through the galley kitchen. He’s gone to see if he can clear a way through. If he’s not back in another minute, it means he made it, and we can follow him.’
Iris felt her legs buckle with relief. Her son was alive. Against all the odds, the four of them had survived the unsurvivable. They might actually make it out of here.
‘Have you seen anyone else?’ she asked Amy.
‘No one but Finn. You?’
Iris shook her head. There had been more than thirty people trapped inside that cabin. Surely some of the others had escaped?
‘We’re alive,’ Amy said valiantly. ‘Others will be, too.’
‘They’ve probably escaped already,’ Iris agreed, for Nicky’s benefit.
Water lapped at her bare feet. They were so cold Iris could barely feel them, but the swirling movement of the water around her ankles made her suddenly register the danger.
‘We need to shut the door to the other corridor,’ Iris said urgently. ‘It’s filling with water. It’ll swamp us if we don’t.’
She splashed back through the connecting hallway and grabbed hold of the steel door, which was pinned back against the wall. The water was coming in so fast it took all three of them to wrench it shut.
Iris slammed home the bolts at the top and bottom of the door.
They were only just in time; in another few minutes, the pressure from the rising water would’ve made it impossible to close it.
It had already reached the bottom of the porthole in the door; if they hadn’t shut it when they had, it would’ve been too late.
‘How long has Finn been gone?’ Iris asked Amy.
‘It must be three minutes by now—’
‘Mom!’ Nicky cried. ‘Aunt Iris!’
Iris spun around.
Someone was hammering on the porthole of the door they’d just shut.