Andrew Klavan - If We Survive

“Let’s go,” Palmer called harshly. “Keep moving.”

He tried to start off again. Meredith, then Jim went with him. I felt the pull of them. But Nicki just stood there, a dead weight. I couldn’t get around her and she held us all.

“Nicki,” I said. “Let’s go.”

She didn’t even turn to me. She was staring upriver. Her mouth was open. Her face was white. I turned to follow her gaze.

I felt the blood drain out of my face too.

“Oh, please don’t tell me,” I said.

“Come on,” Palmer shouted. “Move it!”

For a second I was frozen, as frozen as Nicki. I was staring, just as she was. Jim too—I think he saw us staring and followed our gaze as well and saw what we saw.

As we watched, terrified, a massive lizard rose from the banks about fifty yards upstream where the slower water was. It looked once our way. Then it lumbered toward the water.

It was such a frightening sight, it took me a moment to find my voice. But then I called up the line to Palmer. “Alligator!”

“Probably a crocodile!” Jim called, his voice sounding as unsteady as mine. “Maybe a caiman, although it’s kind of big for one of those.”

“Well, thank you, National Geographic,” I said. “But the thing is: I think it saw us.”

“It did, it did, it did,” said Nicki, her voice filling with frightened tears.

“Keep moving,” said Palmer. “It probably won’t come down into the faster current. But the sooner we get to shore, the better. It’ll have the advantage over us in the water.”

Well, I have to say, I was looking at this creature as it moved down the bank to the river. It was maybe, I don’t know, ten feet long—as long as two short people end to end. It had thick, stumpy legs like living tree trunks. It had a snout the size of a teacher’s desk and it was a sure bet its mouth was filled with teeth the size of daggers.

With all due respect for Palmer, my guess was it would have the advantage over us pretty much anywhere.

Still, hurrying along seemed like a good idea. Palmer started moving again, tugging the rest of us after him. And now Jim used some force to pull Nicki along and I pushed in on her without giving her a chance to resist. She staggered sideways reluctantly and our line started moving again. We continued to cross.

But all the while, of course, we also continued to watch the crocodile, or whatever it was, as it tromped with a weird slow grace over the mud toward the water’s edge. Another moment and its huge body knifed into the river without so much as a splash. A flick of its gigantic tail and the dark shape of it curled around and turned in our direction.

Then it vanished from sight under the dark water.

I glanced toward the opposite shore. Still fifty yards away at least—about as far from us as the crocodile. I didn’t know how fast crocs were when they came after something, but I was guessing it was pretty fast. I hoped Palmer was right about it staying in the slower water above us because if it came this way, it would be moving downstream, with the current carrying it along.

My heart plunged inside me. If you’ve never been in this particular situation, let me tell you: when it’s a real possibility, the prospect of being eaten alive is very, very hard to stop thinking about.

And I guess Nicki felt the same way. Because when the croc submarined out of sight like that, she just panicked.

“No. No. No,” she said, shaking her head—as if she could somehow argue the situation out of existence. She shook her head some more and started to back away from the spot where the crocodile had last appeared.

“Nicki, what are you doing? Stay on course,” I started to say—but I never finished the sentence.

Because Nicki, stepping back, gave a sudden shriek as she slipped on something in the riverbed—and she lost her footing completely. She fell backward, straightening her arms. In an instant, she slipped out of my grasp.

She splashed down into the water, her other arm still in the crook of Jim’s elbow—but only just. Jim clamped his arm tight to try to hold her, but the water was dragging her away from him too.

“Don’t let her go!” I shouted to Jim—and I went after her.

Nicki was off her feet completely, on her back in the water, being pulled downstream hard. One of her hands was up over her head, the other was pincered by the wrist in the crook of Jim’s arm. The water was flowing rapidly over her face so that she had to fight to come up for air.

I slogged unsteadily toward her, my movement downstream adding to the force of the river behind me. I felt like I was going to be hurled forward at any moment. The gun strap over my shoulder and head restricted the use of my left arm, but I reached out for Nicki with my right.

“Nicki, grab hold!” I shouted to her.

I heard her sputter as the water rushed over her face again. She gasped up out of it and saw me. She brought her hand down from above her head and reached for mine desperately. I stretched. I touched her fingers. I forced my legs forward another step and another. I wrapped my fingers around her wrist.

And then Jim lost hold of her.

Nicki’s hand slipped out of the crook of Jim’s elbow. The force of the current carried her downstream quickly—and Nicki carried me. I flew forward, tripped off my feet, and splashed face-first into the river.

I went under, the water burbling up around me. I had no chance to fight the current now. It forced me along like the wind carrying a feather. I burst up into the air, catching a breath. I heard Nicki start to scream and then choke as the water rushed into her mouth. I still had hold of her wrist. Trying to keep my head up, I craned my neck around and saw her. She was downstream, turning helplessly in the current— and just below her I saw the rapids and the rocks.

The rush of the river filled my ears but I heard shouting.

“Keep moving across!” Palmer barked at the others.

“Palmer!” shouted Meredith. “You can’t just leave them behind.”

“Do what I tell you!” he shouted back—and I hoped she would, because I knew there was nothing Palmer and the others could do to help us now. Nicki and I were caught in the current. We were on our own.

The river spun us round. I caught glimpses of the first rapids coming close, coming fast, the jagged edges of the rocks jutting out of them. There was nothing I could grab hold of, nothing I could do to stop us.

Nicki went under and came up again, spitting water. The current was tossing her around like a rag doll. Scared I might lose my grip on her, I pulled her to me. Wrapped my arm around her waist. Held her fast against me. This way, at least, we’d hit the rocks together and maybe I could take the worst of it on my shoulder or back.

She tried to scream again in my arms, but again the water overwhelmed her—overwhelmed us both. We went under. I held on to her with my left arm and fought toward the surface with the other. The water was dark—just swirling green and dirt all around me. I wasn’t even sure I was heading toward the surface. Then I broke out and saw the light and gulped the air. And I looked downstream.

I realized at once that I had no chance of protecting Nicki—any more than I could protect myself.

We had come around a small bend. I could see the rapids clearly now. They stretched out before us: boiling white water swirling, rising, spitting over the tops of boulders. As a wave of water lifted me up, I caught a glimpse of the river beyond them—and I saw the falls. It was a gauntlet of roaring, seething, frothing foam with sharp rocks rising from the chaos like a dragon’s teeth—and then a sharp drop out of sight.

Once we hit that, we’d be battered to death, the two of us. There was no doubt in my mind.