Paolo capped the raft, pulled out the handles and made sure the emergency compartment was fully stocked. Shy studied the contents, knowing that he would likely need this stuff in order to survive: water, dry food, fishing kit, hand and smoke flares, radio signaling device, tarps, blankets, small basic tool kit and water dye.
Paolo tapped Marcus and another guy, shouted: “Drop the raft at the launching site and do a sweep of the theater! You’ve got fifteen minutes!”
They each took a side and carried the raft above their heads, half crawling down the angled stairs.
Before they cracked open the second pod, Shy heard a loud creaking sound coming from the back of the ship. An explosion followed, and they all spun around to look. Bright flames shot up into the dark sky, illuminating clouds of black smoke. Screams came from the line of passengers waiting to board the lifeboats. Shy looked down at the raging sea, then back up at the burning and sinking ship.
They were all going to die.
He repeated this fact in his head, again and again. Calmly, though, in his shock.
The second raft filled with carbon dioxide. Paolo did his safety checks and tapped Kevin and Shy this time, told them to drop off the raft and do a sweep of the Destiny Dining Room.
They both took a handle, lifted the raft over their heads and started cautiously across the Lookout Deck. When they got near the bottom of the stairs Shy scanned the line of passengers and spotted Carmen climbing into one of the lifeboats.
“Carmen!” he called out to her. When she didn’t hear him, he turned to Kevin, told him excitedly: “Carmen just got on one of the boats! She’s alive!”
Kevin nodded and they dropped the raft off at the launching point, secured it just behind the one Marcus had carried down. They moved back inside the ship, into the Destiny Dining Room, passing the empty hostess stand where they split up. Shy took the rear of the huge restaurant, Kevin stayed up front.
The place looked like it had been hit by a tornado. Fallen ceiling slabs, tables and chairs scattered and on their sides, thick smoke hovering above the flooded floor where motionless bodies lay. It was strange how numb to death Shy had already become. It hardly slowed him down. As he sloshed through the water, he recalled the jealousy he’d felt in this dining room earlier. Carmen and Toni talking about their engagements. Carmen’s man kneeling on the boardwalk. It all seemed so ridiculous now.
He headed straight for the kitchen, the source of the smoke, looked through the swinging-door windows. Three kitchen workers were inside, aiming extinguishers at a roaring fire—the white foam hardly containing it at all.
Shy pushed through the doors, shielding his nose and mouth with his shoulder. “Paolo wants everyone up top!” he shouted in a muffled voice. “Now!”
The three of them turned around.
Shy was overwhelmingly relieved to see that one of them was Rodney.
“Shy!” Rodney shouted, tears streaming down his face.
“Rod! You need to go get on one of the lifeboats, man! There aren’t many left!”
“Everyone’s dead, Shy!”
“Go get on a lifeboat!” Shy shouted back at him. “Hurry!”
Rodney dropped his extinguisher, grabbed the others by their shirts and all four of them hurried out of the burning kitchen. Shy told Rodney he’d meet him on the Lido Deck as soon as he found Kevin. Rodney hugged him, then pushed away and sloshed through the water toward the exit.
Shy scoured the back half of the dining room for survivors with a new determination. Carmen and Rodney were still alive. But soon the air grew thick with smoke, which was now spewing out from underneath the kitchen doors. Shy had trouble breathing, and whenever he coughed it felt like a knife digging into his ribs.
Kevin shouted his name from across the dining room, but just as Shy started toward him, stepping over bodies along the way, he heard a second voice. “Help me.”
Shy stopped in his tracks, looked all around, saw nothing.
“Help me. Please.”
“Where are you?” Shy shouted.
“Here.”
The heat from the fire in the kitchen grew more intense. A thick layer of smoke had gathered near the ceiling. Shy saw a man and woman, completely submerged in water, holding hands. He saw a motionless woman slumped against the wall holding her stomach, covered in blood.
“Shy, let’s go!” Kevin yelled again.
Just then there was a massive explosion in the kitchen. A burst of flames shot through the doors, started eating at the restaurant walls and ceiling. When Shy turned to run he saw a hand reaching up from behind a fallen chandelier.
It was the man who’d been following him all around the ship. The man in the black suit, Bill. “Help me,” he pleaded. “Please.”
Shy froze.
The fire raged across the entire back half of the dining room now, smoke burrowing into his lungs. Shy flashed through Kevin’s warning, his and Rodney’s trashed cabin, the man’s threats in the Luxury Lounge. But Shy couldn’t just leave someone.
He reached down and grabbed the man’s hand and pulled, but the man’s leg was trapped under the chandelier. He couldn’t move. And Shy couldn’t lift him. The water now up to the man’s chin.
“Please,” he begged.
Shy slipped his hand out of the man’s grip and tried lifting the chandelier, but it was too heavy. Kevin was beside him now, gripping the chandelier, too. Together they strained, Shy’s chest killing him as he coughed, and Kevin shouting for the man to push.
Finally the three of them moved it enough for him to slip his leg free. The man got to his knees quickly, but when he tried to put weight on his leg he toppled back into the water.
Shy and Kevin lifted him, threw his arms over their shoulders and started dragging him through the restaurant. Flames crackling at their backs, running across the ceiling and walls in front of them now, the intense heat blistering Shy’s skin, singeing his hair.
The front exit was on fire, the doors closed and covered in flames. Shy looked back at the rear exit, but it was even worse.
“Carry him!” Kevin shouted. “I’ll do the doors!”
Shy coughed as he watched Kevin hurry awkwardly through the knee-high water. He struggled to stay standing with the man weighing him down.
Kevin led with his shoulder and crashed through the double doors, collapsing into the water on the other side. Shy followed, half carrying, half dragging the man, both of them diving through the flames, everything going silent for Shy underwater.
He quickly raised his head up and sucked in a smoky breath and started coughing uncontrollably as he and Kevin pulled the man toward the warped stairs.
25
Launch of the Lifeboats
Through the darkness outside, Shy saw the outline of several lifeboats already on the ocean, whitecapped waves thrashing them around. A line of passengers and crew jockeyed to get on the two remaining lifeboats, as both ends of the sinking ship were now on fire.
Shy and Kevin helped the man up the uneven stairs to the closest lifeboat, pushed him through the line of shouting passengers. “Vlad!” Kevin yelled. “Make sure he gets on the boat! His leg is hurt!”
“We just reached capacity!” Vlad shouted back. “We’re lowering it now! Get him on the next one!”
Shy and Kevin turned toward the other boat, a crowd already pushing and shoving in front of it. Shy knew he should be fighting, too. The lifeboats were ten times safer than the open rafts. Especially in these conditions. But there was no room left. And he was crew.