David Dun - Overfall

Under the trees it was still darker, and Anna understood they dare not use the light. So when they left the creek, they crashed through the brush in cold wet misery, feeling their way like blind people, stepping into holes, trying to find trails and to stay on them. Finally they found what seemed like a real pathway.

“I’m vibrating like those wind-up teeth,” she said. The cold was terrible and wet. It ached the bones and palsied muscles until she thought she couldn’t stand it; then she would take another step, only to be clung to by a wet branch or torn by a prickly vine; and there were more steps, and it seemed a mockery of her self-awareness that she considered each step to be her last, when there was always another.

“You Manhattanites are tough.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was a compliment. But don’t get any ideas.”

Despite her abject misery she laughed.

They stooped through a mucky thicket of something Sam called salmonberry with water running down the leaves all over her and gnashing prickles irritating her arms and legs. They exited into some sort of overgrown pathway.

“It’s an old logger’s skid trail cleared by a dozer,” Sam said. “But someone has been hiking it, probably the people from the oyster farm you’ve been telling me about.”

After a time they came to a small patch of moonlit, knee-high grass forming what appeared to be a natural meadow. They stopped and listened. In the distance there was a crashing sound in the forest that signaled pursuit Then they heard the muffled sound of a helicopter rotor. As it drew closer it grew into a distinct thump-thump, thump-thump. Sam took Anna’s hand and stepped back into the forest, picking up the pace. Soon, above the sound of slapping branches, there was the rush of moving water. For ten minutes it grew louder until they could smell the stench of low tide. When they arrived at the beach, green-slimed rocks slipped beneath their feet with every step, and they looked out over moonlight blazing on the roiling sea.

Down the way construction at the oyster farm was obvious. A large gable loomed against the sky.

Now they could see the copter’s spotlight working along the beach a half mile distant. It was coming at them.

“You’re not going to the oyster farm, are you?” she said.

“They’d find us in minutes.”

“Then where do we hide?”

“We don’t. We’re going to swim Mosquito Pass and get to Chatham Island and then make a nice warm place to sleep. In the morning we’ll find people.”

“Swim? Again? Oh, God.”

“Come on.”

Ahead, the beach became a cliff, and the water was edging ever closer as they approached the steep ground.

It was a hundred feet across Mosquito Passage to Insect Island, and then only half that far to Chatham Island, where, after a long overland hike, they could find a wilderness resort that would have a radio and air service. But the water through Mosquito Pass flowed like a river when the tide was running. From the sound of the faint roar, they were walking up-current and away from the overfalls.

“You do hear that roar in the distance?”

“There is always a roar in the distance. You’re just listening to this one. We’re going to swim fast.”

“No way. I’m not going,” Anna said, the terror of the sailboat ride fresh in her memory.

“This isn’t nearly as big or bad as the overfall at Devil’s Gate,” he said. “And the tide isn’t running as hard.”

“Will it kill us just as dead?”

“We aren’t going through it. We’re going to the kelp beds on the other side, hang on, and pull our way to shore.”

“But if we don’t make it?”

“We’ll make it. This way they’ll waste hours, maybe days, crawling over this island. They won’t suspect we swam.”

“You’re damn right. They know at least one of us isn’t crazy.”

Now the helicopter was moving fast in their direction. Sam tugged her hand, starting to run. He was headed for the base of the cliffs.

The stench grew as potent as an old-style outhouse with an added sulfur odor. At the base of the cliff were black holes. They ducked into a rock chamber exposed to the channel where flowing water had undercut the cliff. The eelgrass on the rocks made her feet slide crazily.

Then they heard it. Snarls and yelps from dogs in pursuit.

“They’re killers,” Anna said.

Sam grabbed something from the ground.

Out of nowhere there was a roaring bark, then another. It startled her.

“Sea lions!” Sam said. “We woke ’em.”

Then two huge growling shadows came through the cave entrance. Sam put her squarely behind him up on a rock. There were splashes all around as the sea lions hit the water.

The rotweillers were ignoring the sea lions. Barely visible, Sam was moving. He held something large over his head. There was a hollow thud and growling. Sam had struck a dog. Then Sam screamed and charged. It was primal. He was more animal than the dog. Into the water they went, dog and man. Instantly she knew to follow. She ran down into the splashing, growling melee. Then came silence, but for the barking of the dog on the beach. Sam had pulled the dog under. The chopper flew low overhead, just outside the rocky hollow, then turned out over the water heading back down the beach.

Now she was in water to her chest and nearly out from under the lip of the rock. There was a slight current. Everything was black. There was a sound like a billion bursting tiny bubbles that was life in the rocks. The thought of crabs and bugs shivered her spine.

Sam burst from the water. The dog was growling but swimming for the beach.

“Bastard bit me,” Sam said.

The first dog was now barking, but without enthusiasm.

It was plain the dogs would stay on the beach.

“I don’t think I can do it. That damn wave.”

He whirled and held her close. “You’ve gotta do it. Period.”

“You could kill them.”

“Right behind them will be guys with guns.”

She was trying to concentrate. To summon her will against the fear.

He put his face close to hers. “You can do this. I won’t leave you, but you gotta swim. Get your shoes off. Tie them.”

She struggled, but got them on her belt.

He did a surface dive. She hesitated, then followed, and raised her head when she got beside him. The current wasn’t strong.

Go, she told herself. When they were near the middle they were considerably downstream, and the current was rushing toward the jaws of the wave. Doing the crawl, she swam vigorously until her arms ached, breathing maybe every other stroke. Suddenly she once again heard the faint roar and it was growing closer, maybe a couple of city blocks away. And she was being pulled by a whirlpool. Her clothes felt as if they were lead-lined. Sam was strong and was leaving her behind. She swam harder. Then he was behind her-she felt his hand pulling on her fanny pack.

“Go!” he half shouted. “Go!”

Her arms and legs were losing strength. She seemed to be flailing. A gulp of water had her choking. The roar was now clearly audible.

“Swim!”

Then she felt slime everywhere, heavy and horrible, miring her down. It was like swimming through wet towels.

“Grab the kelp, you’re drifting.”

Reaching out, she grabbed a handful of slime. Then she could feel the water pulling on her. It was fast! Looking over her shoulder in the distance, she saw the white of the foam. It was the wave. Once locked in the current, she would go there. The thought of the black water and its secrets put her on the verge of panic. Pulling with all the strength her near-dead arms could muster, she tried to make headway. She couldn’t. In truth she was sliding slowly backward through the kelp, headed for open water and the wave.