Twenty-seven
Graham swam through the warm water with ease, kicking deeper. Rosalind’s light dangled, looped around his throat. It gave off enough of a glow that he could see some fish straying here and there. He could also decipher rocks at the bottom of the ocean, which meant they weren’t in as deep as he’d thought.
The pressure of holding his breath didn’t burn his lungs like he knew it should. His mind kept telling him to pop up for air, but as the need for sleep had been evading him every night since he’d come to Chuzzlewit, the need for breath left him now. He kept going, swimming away from the boat’s lantern light at the surface. His eyes searching for a sign of the strange metal thing he’d seen the first day he met Victoria.
“He should be back by now,” Victoria said, tapping her feet. Rosalind continued watching the eddying water through the telescope, waiting for any sign of anything. Oscar hadn’t once peeled his attention from the bubbling surface ahead of them. It frothed and widened, and he took the telescope from Rosalind for a better view.
“That is no wave,” he said. “If only Graham would return. We really should relocate.”
Rosalind sounded frantic. “What if he’s drowned?”
An invisible fist clutched Victoria’s chest. “He hasn’t drowned,” she said, bending to remove her own shoes. She’d never swum in water this deep before, but it couldn’t be that difficult.
“What are you doing?” Oscar demanded, his eyes bulging wide as Victoria began unlacing her corset.
“That is certainly no wave,” Rosalind said, eyes boggling at the frothing water that had grown to the size of a small geyser.
The wind whipped the boat so hard Victoria stumbled to the boards, her hands scraping hard. Oscar darted toward her, and she looked up in time to hear Rosalind scream.
Graham pulled against the water to move forward. Pull, kick, pull. He still hadn’t surfaced for breath, though it had been at least ten minutes. Coach Kress would go nuts. Graham had always been good at sports, but here it seemed he could keep a pace he never had before. And on no sleep for days? It had to be the town, though he still didn’t know why. Another question for Jarvis Digby, whenever he managed to get him alone.
Something moved in the darkness beyond the reach of the light drifting from his neck. Graham paused, waving his hands to tread in place. He squinted at the dark mass’s uneven and jarring movements.
Water began to push against him in a way it hadn’t moments before. He fought to not drag away in the pull of it. A large, metal claw slogged upward as the creature came into view, and Graham would have gasped if he could.
He wheeled around, searching above for the boat’s lantern light—had he gone too far down? Long, clockwork arms reached. Graham searched around the thing for a sign of its home—a cave or something, maybe?—but the long, clockwork arms pushed the beast’s bulk with such force that Graham rocketed backward in the water.
He spun several times before getting a grip on himself. The light from the boat drifted above him, rocking from the increasing waves, and the creature the size of T-rexes riding piggyback was heading straight for it.
Frantically, Graham swum straight for it and grabbed a hold of one of the metal circles making up the Kreak’s massive leg. The minute he did, the Kreak let out a guttural roar, kicked off from the ocean floor and speared upward so fast Graham could barely hold on.
Victoria couldn’t believe how foolish they’d been. Why had they come all this way without any weapons? Why had she not alerted the other Nauts? They should have known coming out to it would upset the brute. Oscar struggled to ignite the boat’s engine. In fact, he struggled to stay upright amid the boat’s heavy rocking in this sudden current. Rosalind dove to help him, and together, they managed to pull the string.
The boat’s engine puttered to life. Victoria dashed forward, nearly knocking into the wheel as Oscar shifted into gear. She yanked his arm away from the wheel.
“No! We cannot leave Graham!”
“We cannot stay here either,” Oscar shouted over the sea spray. He wiped his brow and urged Rosalind into the seat behind him, the boat rumbling beneath their feet. The frothing geyser before them suddenly doubled in size with a fantastic spray of white and sea water, knocking the boat back. Rosalind screamed.
Victoria clung to the sides for dear life and blinked through the water dripping from her nose and into her eye lashes to the stars above. “What have we done?” she asked them.
The stars didn’t answer.
Oscar barreled straight for the shore instead of back toward the dock. His father would be upset, but he didn’t have any other choice at this point. Wind whipped his hair back, and he forced his eyes to remain open through the spray. Though he’d tried to make her sit, Rosalind stood just behind him, hugging his waist and resting her cheek against his back. He couldn’t say her closeness didn’t provide a small amount of assurance. She needed him. And he needed her too.
A loud roar crackled across the sky, and the Kreak burst from the water’s surface. Oscar’s heart plummeted. Graham. What had they done? It was not possible for them to wait around any longer, though. He wasn’t sure what else he could have done.
The Kreak followed the motorboat at breakneck speed. Oscar propelled the boat to accelerate rather than slow, despite the nearness of the shore. Victoria clung to the boat’s side, her face glaring in determination toward the creature behind them. She shouted something, but Oscar couldn’t make it out amid the tumult. The shore was drawing nearer, much too quickly.
“Brace yourselves!” he yelled over his shoulder. Rosalind’s grip tightened around him. His hands jerked from the wheel as the boat wedged forward, cutting into the sand. The three of them lurched, miraculously remaining in the boat until friction slowed it to a stop.
Oscar panted in disbelief. His right shoulder ached clear to the bone, stronger than it had ever done since he’d first injured it in that fire so long ago. He stared back at the arrow they’d cut into the sand, and gasped in horror.
A massive wave rose in their wake, threatening to blanket the shore. And riding in the wave was the Kreak, a conglomeration of discordant metal. Oscar could make out its strange, clockwork eyes, and the vulnerable heart and lungs pumping from within its cage of a chest.
He’d never stood this close to the beast. He couldn’t help the morbid fascination that overtook him, despite the wailing pain at his shoulder. Rosalind tugged at him. Victoria called to him, Graham’s abandoned shoes and shirt in hand. But still he stared, transfixed.
It wasn’t a single heart in the Kreak’s metal chest. It was many smaller versions all mashed together like grains of dirt caught in chewing gum. To what purpose?
Sense rattled back into Oscar’s brain, and he gripped Rosalind’s shoulders. “Let’s go!” he cried.
“Graham!” said Victoria, leaping from the boat toward the beast and the roiling ocean.
“No!” Rosalind cried out after her friend. The reality of it overtook her and she fell. Oscar barely caught her before she hit the boat’s soaked planks. Her weight wasn’t much—it never had been—but a sudden heaviness in his right arm pulled, dragging them both to crash against the wetness of the bottom.
“Are you all right?” he yelled over the discord.
“My dress!” Rosalind pointed to her feet.
Oscar knelt, his trousers unable to get any wetter than they already were, and yanked at the soaked fabric caught on a peg just below the boat’s side. It tore, freeing her to fall against him and knock his aching arm against the bench.
The Kreak roared in a terrifying shriek. The town’s siren split the air, shrill and piercing. Harry and Dahlia must have finally seen the beast. Soon the pilots would alight and help, but that wasn’t much of a comfort.
Oscar’s thoughts brimmed with the memories of the woman’s screams, the way her skin had bruised over before melting from her bones, the way her son had trembled, when the Kreak’s taloned arm swooped down and snatched Rosalind by the waist.
“No!” Oscar cried, his arms reaching as Rosalind was lifted far above his head. He’d kill it. He would kill it if that thing so much as harmed her.
He charged toward the beast’s large legs, each the size of a plane and pieced together by circles and scraps of metal. It reeked of fish and seawater, of rust and salt, but Oscar managed to fight the churning in his stomach and latch on to one of the large metal pieces near the thing’s foot.
Adrenaline scoured through him, and he climbed, managing to keep hold despite the slippery wet metal. Desperation fueled him, pushing him higher and higher over the dripping height of the beast.
Rosalind’s scream jarred his attention. Oscar pulled back enough to see the Kreak opening its mouth and lowering Rosalind to its gape. It hadn’t emitted any of its poisonous breath yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t about to.
“No!” Oscar shouted. His arm throbbed, growing heavier the higher he climbed. He was at the shoulder of the thing now, but it was no use. Rosalind screamed and flailed, prying against the talon of metal gripping around her.
Graham emerged around the side of the Kreak’s face, a steel bar in hand. Rosalind lowered and lowered, closer and closer to the trap of a mouth. Graham reached in, wedging the bar into a pulsing gland within the orifice, blocking the greenish fumes from building up within.
The Kreak choked and gave off a blood-curdling wail. It fell back, releasing Rosalind who tumbled to the sand ten feet below.
Oscar’s hands slipped down the sides of the metal until he was at a safe jumping distance. He dived to the sand as Graham did. Gritty grains of sand stuck to Oscar’s skin and clothing. He spat out sand that had collected on his tongue, and he broke for the direction Rosalind had fallen.
Several planes boomed overhead. Their flames seared the sky, lighting it with a brilliant haze. The Kreak raised its metal arms, shielding its face, gagging on the metal bar still blocking its breath. It ducked to the side, dodging the flames, crushing the sand. But the planes pressed on, alternating their fumes and pushing the beast back into the sea.
Rosalind had landed, unmoving, near the boat, her head angled to one side. Her hair had come free of its twist, and Oscar could make out the rip in her soaked skirts.
“Is she okay?” Graham yelled over the ruckus. Blood dribbled down his sand-crusted cheek, and his bare chest heaved.
Oscar’s heart seemed to beat on the outside of him, pulsing all over his body, making him more aware of the salty air, of the noise of the planes pushing the beast back into the ocean, and of the ache in his shoulder. He waited for her to move, for her lids to blink. She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be.
Victoria ran from the Kreak’s direction, relief overriding the desperation on her face, and threw herself into Graham’s arms. Oscar couldn’t hear her words. He heard nothing but Rosalind’s overwhelming silence. The sand played tricks on his feet, tilting him this way and that. How could anything be upright if she were gone?
“Come on,” Graham said, shaking him. Oscar fought, pushed him away, but Graham shook harder, forcing Oscar to meet his severe eyes. “We can’t stay here!” Graham shouted.
Sense kicked back in. Oscar bent to lift Rosalind’s motionless form from the sand. Her head hung back. Her mouth dangled open, and he carried her away as her skirt swept across the damp sand.