Page 158 of The End of the World As We Know It

“Get the fuck up here!”

That she heard fine. And strange clanking sounds from the front of the boat she’d never heard before. She still didn’t know much about boats, but that sound wasn’t good news.

The boat briefly righted and then heeled right again (starboard?), the angle slightly less severe. Marie got over her surprise and kept clawing her way to the companionway, propelling herself with the edge of the table, then the kitchen counter, then the sturdy stair rail. Her foot landed on the first step, then her left, and up. Motion knocked her head against the wall, like a whip’s lash to her temple, but she didn’t lose her grip in the stairwell. Three steps felt like a hundred.

The door opened above her as lightning flared in the skies with bright veins. All she saw was his silhouette painted in the brightness behind him.

“—lost the headsail!” the Boat Man was saying. “The furling line snapped! The headsail wasshit.”

He reached his hand out to her, and she took it without thinking. He hauled her up the last step and put his face too close to hers to shout in her ear above the storm. “I’ve gotta go up and secure that sail! Might be just a squall, but you two stay in the cockpit and do what I say!”

In the next flash of lightning, she saw the wildly swinging ropes of her nightmare. The tattered sail was making awhoo whoo whoosound in the strong gusts, flapping wild.

Marie wasn’t sure, but she thought she might be wetting her pants.

“I need the gun!” she said. “You took it! I have to give it back to him.”

He slapped her face. Not hard—enough to get her attention. But the sting vibrated to Marie’s bones, paralyzing her. He shouted in her ear again, as painful as the slap. “Did you hear what I said? We lost the sail! Stay in the cockpit!”

A rope snapped ahead of them, dancing in the wind. The Boat Man’s head turned as if it had called to him. Still reeling with theboat’s wild rocking, he reached toward the metal bar to hoist himself toward the sail. Water sprayed just beneath him, splashing at her feet.

“I have to give it back!” she shouted.

He hesitated long enough to look back at her one more time with a terrible sneer, or at least it seemed like one in the night’s shadows.

“Shut the fuck up and do as I say!” His voice was a shriek, or was his voice the wind? A lightning flash made him grow to the size of a giant, his beard coming to life on his face, twisting and writhing. Were his eyes glowing bright red? How had she never seen his true image before? Only the storm revealed it.

When he turned away from her, reaching for the iron bar to support him, Marie ran toward him with all of her strength. Only later did she realize she was screaming a war cry that honored her name—La Guerre—as she thrust out her palms and pushed him hard in the center of his bony back. And he flew so far that she thought he might soar above her.

The Boat Man’s arms pinwheeled, trying to hold on to anything solid, as he somersaulted headfirst and fell into the inky water. The storm and flapping sail were so loud that she didn’t hear him splash—but his yell went silent in the churning sea.

Marie panted, stunned at herself. Stunned by the boat’s unruly rocking. A fever lifted from her, as if she had dreamed that the Boat Man was standing ever so close to her. Slapping her. Shouting in her ear.What had she done?

Marie might have stood there clinging for balance in the cockpit with the question rolling over in her mind for days—if not for the first gunshot.

Thepoppingsound wasn’t as loud in a storm, but she recognized it and whirled around. Edmund had emerged from the galley, leaning over the railing where one unlucky jolt would send him tumbling into the water, too. He had put on his red leather jacket, bright in the muzzle flashes.Pop. Pop. Pop.

Edmund was firing into the water.

“We don’t need you!” Edmund was screaming. “We can go by ourselves!”

The popping sound gave way to clicks: he had emptied his gun. Marie grabbed Edmund by his jacket collar and pulled him away from the railing. Water pounding the side of the sailboat spilled over them both.

“We need to put on our harnesses!” she said. “And we gotta get that front sail down!”

Edmund stared up at her. In the lightning, she couldn’t tell if his face was only drenched or if he had tears in his eyes. He blinked as if he, too, were emerging from a dream.

“Edmund! Did you hear me?!” she said.

He leered an unholy grin at her. She prayed that her eyes did not look as wild as his, but surely, they did. She was not the sensible one, after all. Maybe no one was sensible anymore. Perhaps they were all just swimming as fast and as hard as they could, trying to stay in the eye of the storm.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Edmund said.

He winked at her exactly like the Boat Man.

THE STORY I TELL IS THE STORY OF SOME OF US

Paul Tremblay