It was useless. There was no way the driver could hear him. The boat kept coming, and then finally it turned to its port side. It wouldn’t hit the dock now. But the pilings.
“Stop! Turn around!”
It didn’t. The boat was still just a dark shape in the water, and from where we were standing we could barely tell how big it was. But one thing was certain. The realization probably hit all three of us at exactly the same time. We were about to witness something truly horrible.
I didn’t just hear the impact. I felt it in my stomach. It was the long wrenching scrape of the boat’s hull against the wooden pilings, far worse than nails on a blackboard. It all happened within two seconds. Before I could even draw another breath the boat had stopped dead. The engine was still churning at the water.
“We need to get out there,” Tyler said. He was already moving.
“Your boat…”
“It’s on land. I’ll get Phil’s.” He was heading toward his next-door neighbor’s house. “Call 911! Tell them to send an ambulance and to relay to the Coast Guard.”
Leon pulled a cell phone out of his back pocket and started dialing. As he spoke to the dispatcher, I went down to the dock and looked out at the wreck. It was maybe two hundred yards out. I had no idea how deep the water was. I was wondering if I should dive in, but decided against it. If Tyler could get a boat running, I’d be a lot more helpful riding along with him.
“I’m calling from Brimley,” I heard Leon say into his phone. “Lakeside Loop, right by where the old bridge went out to the point…No, I have no idea…No, we can’t see anybody. It’s too foggy. Yes, we’re gonna try that…Tyler Barnes is here. He’s Coast Guard Auxiliary.”
Tyler came running back down the yard, heading to the dock next to his. Leon was right behind him. By the time I got over there, they already had the boat uncovered and untied.
“Should I go grab the other guys?” Leon said.
“Don’t worry about them,” Tyler said. “We’ve got to get out there fast.”
“Get in,” I said. It was a runabout, maybe twenty feet long. “I’ll push off.”
Leon jumped into the boat. I gave it a good shove and tried to hop in over the bow. I almost made it, had to hold on tight as one leg went into the water. God, it was cold. I pulled myself up and slid in around the windshield.
“Come on,” Tyler said as he turned the key. The engine clicked but didn’t turn over. “Come on, you son of a bitch.”
“Where’s your neighbor?” Leon said. “Can he start this thing?”
“He’s not home,” Tyler said. “Good thing I know where he hangs his keys.”
He tried to start it again. Click, click, click. Then nothing.
“Start, you stupid piece of shit. Turn the hell over.”
“Tyler, those men are probably drowning out there,” I said. “We may have to swim for it.”
“Hold on,” he said. “Just hold on.”
He turned the key again and the engine finally roared to life.
“All right, you pig. Let’s move.”
As he pushed the throttle forward, the boat jumped like a startled horse and nearly threw us all overboard.
“Hang on,” he said. “Let’s go see what we can do for these guys. What the hell they were doing out there…God, did you see how fast they were going?”
“Be careful,” Leon said. “Don’t run into those things yourself.”
“I know where I’m going. Don’t worry.”
It only took us a few seconds to get out to the boat. As we got closer we could hear the whine of their engine. The propeller was still spinning hard.
“We’ve gotta kill that engine,” Tyler said. “That’s the first thing. Here, Leon. Take this.”
He gave Leon a flashlight. For the first few seconds, the beam did nothing more than reflect in the fog, but as we pulled up to the boat we got our first good look at the damage.
“Holy shit,” Tyler said. “Look at that thing.”
It was a wooden boat, one of those antique Chris-Crafts. At least twenty-five feet, with that rich polished look you see on the real showpieces. These were the boats they take down to the big Antique Wooden Boat Show in Hessel every summer. Although if this was really one of them, its show days were over. The hull was completely obliterated, with raw wooden planks sticking out in all directions.
The thing was probably worth eighty, maybe a hundred thousand dollars before the wreck. Maybe more. Now it was kindling.
“Do you see anybody yet?” Tyler slowed us down to a crawl.
“Not yet,” Leon said. In the meager light we could make out a canvas top, but it had collapsed. Now it was like a tarp covering the whole cabin.
“This might not be good,” Tyler said. The understatement of the year. I could only imagine what the sudden deceleration had done to whoever was inside this thing. The boat had stopped in an instant, but their bodies would have kept going. And even then, when their bones stopped…Their skulls…What was inside would still be moving. At that moment, I wouldn’t have given fifty cents for their chances of staying alive.
“I’ll pull up close,” Tyler said. “We have to be careful of that engine, though.”
I could see what he meant. The whole boat seemed to be shuddering, as the propeller kept trying in vain to move the whole thing forward.
“Let’s get this top off,” Leon said. He was toward the back end of the boat now. I was closer to the front, but the boat was taking on water fast, going down nose first. I had to reach down to grab the canvas. Together we each grabbed on and pulled.
“What the goddamned fuck!” a voice said from inside the boat. “What happened?”
Leon and I nodded at each other. We pulled harder on the canvas top. It was heavier than hell, but we were finally able to lift it just enough to see inside.
There were three men in the boat, all of them looking like they’d been thrown forward from where they had been sitting. The one closest to me was lying facedown on the floor, his head in the rising water.
“Grab that guy!” Tyler said. “Get his head out of the water!”
I jumped into the boat and grabbed him. He was big, and the fact that I was standing in a sinking boat now didn’t make things any easier.
“Let go of me!” he said. “Just leave me alone!”
He knocked my arms away and went back down. With a great heave he threw up everything in his stomach, all over the place. There were beer bottles floating in the water, boat cushions, a fishing pole. And now a few pints of vomit for good measure, spreading all around the boat like an oil spill.
“Cut that engine!” Tyler said.
“I can’t get to the controls,” Leon said. “This guy’s out.” He was trying to work his way around the man at the steering wheel. I could see blood on the man’s forehead.
“We shouldn’t be moving him,” Tyler said. “But I don’t think we have much choice.”
“Let me just get this thing turned off,” Leon said. He tried lifting the man with one arm and reaching for the ignition with the other. He took a small step to shift the man’s weight, and that’s when everything went crazy. Leon lost his grip and the man fell back onto the throttle, pushing it forward and just about sending us all into outer space. As I fell backward, I saw Tyler jumping into the boat like some sort of long-haired pirate. I heard the wooden hull giving way as the motor drove us against the pilings, felt the cold shock of the water on my back. The only question was how many of us would go down with the boat, or whether the propeller itself would break free and start slicing into human flesh.
I tried to pull myself up, but the big man was trying to do the same and fell right in my lap. Leon was wrestling with his own man, trying to get to the controls. The third man was on his knees now, holding his head like a fighter taking a long eight count.
“Tyler!” I yelled. “Tyler, cut the engine!”
He climbed over everybody and fell forward, stretching out toward the front of the boat. He reached for the ignition key.
The engine kept churning at the water. The noise was louder than anything else in the world.