The Exodus Quest

FORTY-SIX
I

Streams were still pouring down the walls, the rate not slackening at all. If anything, it was getting worse, leaving Lily marooned with Stafford on the small island they'd created, thigh-deep in water that would soon be up to her waist and then her throat unless something changed and went their way. She gave a full-body shudder of dread and cold, teeth chattering wildly. It took all her strength not to let the hysteria take hold. She was so young, and felt the desperate unfairness of her predicament, but also reproach for herself. It was one thing to have one's life ahead, all those infinite possibilities, another to look back and see how little she'd made of what she'd had so far.

Gaille surfaced, heaving for air after her latest shift attacking the talatat wall. 'Any luck?' asked Lily.

'We need to keep working.'

'It's getting us nowhere,' snapped Stafford. 'Haven't you realized yet?'

'Then what do you suggest?'

'We conserve our strength,' said Stafford. 'That's what I'm going to do. Maybe we can swim out of here.'

'Swim out!' mocked Lily.

'If this rain keeps coming down like this.'

'We'll drown before then,' cried Lily. 'We'll all drown.' Her indignation was too much for mere words. She slapped at the sound of his voice. To her surprise, she struck his bare chest. He'd taken off his shirt. 'What are you doing?' she asked.

'Nothing.'

She reached a hand across, felt something bob in the water. A water bottle, its cap screwed on. He grabbed it back from her; she heard the sound of wet cloth, felt out the knotted sleeve of his shirt, bulging with Popeye muscles. 'You're making yourself a life-jacket,' she said.

'We'll all be able to use it.'

'He's making himself a life-jacket,' Lily told Gaille. 'He's using all the water bottles.'

'It's a good idea,' said Gaille.

'They're our water bottles. Not his.'

'This is for all of us,' said Stafford unconvincingly. 'I just didn't want to get your hopes up before I knew it would work. Anyway, isn't it your turn to dig out this bloody wall of yours?'

It was. Lily paddled across the shaft, took several deep breaths, dragged herself down to the talatat hole, ears and sinuses aching from the pressure as she scratched furiously at it, a crust of plaster beneath her nails, progress pitifully slow, especially as the rising water was making the task harder and harder and soon it would be impossible even to-

Her world crashed in suddenly, the water a ferment; something striking her shoulder, spinning her around. She kicked instinctively upwards, half aware already of what must have happened, the planks and sheets and blankets and the rocks pinning them over the shaft mouth had all been brought crashing down by the accumulated weight of water. She surfaced, spluttered, flapped around in the darkness.

'Gaille!' she cried. 'Charlie!' No reply. She reached out, touched something warm, a torso, a man's shirtless torso: Stafford. She felt his neck, his head, a great indentation in the cranium, soft hot pulp smashed like a dropped fruit. She shrieked and pushed him away. 'Gaille!' she cried, searching the darkness with outstretched fingers, the flotsam of sheets and blankets and a wooden plank. She touched a forearm, felt the shirt, knew it was Gaille, dragged her up the mound and lifted her head from the water, allowing her to cough out liquid from her airways, but giving little other sign of life. All the same, Lily hugged her against herself, weeping copiously with grief, terror and loneliness in the dark.