It was only minutes later when the sky opened, and the downpour
began. In seconds, the four men had
scrambled out of their deck chairs, grabbing up their blankets and lights, and
hurried down below deck to escape the pouring rain.
“Man, now that’s what I call a storm!” Howie cried, ringing out
his long, dripping hair, which in only a few moments, had become soaked with
rain.
“I’ll say,” Brian muttered, flopping down on his bunk weakly. With the violent tossing of the waves, he
suddenly felt sick to his stomach. He
lay down and tried to not focus on the rocking motion of the boat.
“You okay, Bri?” Kevin asked, noticing this.
“Fine,” Brian replied.
“Just a little seasick.”
The others smiled sympathetically at him and sat down on their own
bunks.
“Well, now what do we do?” AJ asked.
“Wanna play cards?” Howie suggested.
“Okay,” AJ and Kevin both replied. Howie took a deck of cards out of his duffel
bag and started to deal them out.
“You wanna play, Rok?” he asked.
“No,” Brian moaned, his hand resting lightly over his stomach, his
eyes closed tightly.
“Okay,” Howie said sympathetically, picking up his hand of cards
and studying them.
The boat suddenly jerked sharply, catching them all off guard and
nearly sending them flying from their bunks.
They managed to regain their balance, but Kevin, of course, was alarmed.
“I’m gonna go see how Nick’s doing. Be right back,” he told his bandmates,
heading up the small steps to the “captain’s” area, where Nick stood, blindly
trying to control the boat.
Kevin looked around, shocked to see how the storm had worsened in
just minutes. The rain poured down
ceaselessly, and thunder and lightning struck in the distance, sounding and
appearing closer with every passing moment.
The waves had gotten higher and wilder as well.
“Nick, you okay?” Kevin shouted above the roaring of the
rain.
“Yeah,” Nick replied unsurely.
“This is worse than I thought though.”
That didn’t sound good to Kevin.
“Well, we’re gonna be okay though, right? You can control this thing still, right?”
“Sure,” Nick said, failing to sound confident.
Suddenly, a monstrous clap of thunder sounded, so close it shook
the boat. And right after it, a bolt of
lightning came zapping down.
Kevin gasped, as he saw a blinding flash of light and felt the
boat tremor beneath his feet. He had
closed his eyes with the flash, and when he opened them again, he let out a
scream of sheer horror.
***