What if

It had been four years since Kelly had been in a boat on water, four years of solid ground beneath her feet. On solid ground, you didn’t have to worry about if you could swim or if you would be able to keep your mouth closed if you fell in the bone chilling water.

 Snapping back to reality, she made sure all the straps on her life jacket were tight and her chest waders pulled up all the way. With that done she stepped down in to the Achilles ‘raft’ they were going to be riding eighteen miles in to the fishing village they were going to. Her brother, Jake, sat next to her on the cooler. Once her parents were in, they were off, navigating the boat through the harbor and avoiding the larger boats.

Dark grey clouds hung over the equally as grey ocean as they sped by a group of bobbing sea otters. Suddenly they hit a large wake from the passing ferry, causing the bow of the boat to flex up. Unfortunately, Kelly’s dad was not concerned about the boat flexing. His logic was that it was not made out of solid material so it would not matter if it flexed a little. Kelly continued the talk she was having with her brother as the bow flexed a few more times. A rip was heard- unfortunately with all the roar of the motor and the churning of the water the rip in fact was not heard.

Water covered Kelly’s feet completely before she even noticed it. Yelling over the roar of the motor, she spoke, “Mom! Why is the bow flexing like that?! I think it’s causing water to spray in! There is like four inches of water up here!”

Not answering her daughter’s question, she merely replied back “Hand me the Bilge Pump!” Unfortunately, the bilge pump was directly underneath where Kelly’s parents sat, unreachable.  Desperate to get the steadily rising water out of the boat Kelly Jake and Kelly’s mom grabbed anything they could bail water with and attempted to bail the water out faster then it came in. Kelly’s dad had the small fifty-horse motor going as fast as it could. With one final flex of the bow, the whole bottom of the boat ripped out, metal floorboards and all, leaving the shocked family bobbing in the frigid water.

They struggled to swim closer to each other, but the strong currents made it impossible. All of Kelly’s worries came true in an instant. Gasping for air Kelly swam towards her brother, the closest of all her family members. Urging him to try to swim over to the floating remains of the boat; she heard the most disturbing noise... her father and mother’s strangled screams. “Jake... w-why are they s-sc-c-reaming like that?”

Pausing in his hasty swim towards the cooler and ditch bag they had sat on earlier, he looked over his shoulder and uttered one word, “Sharks.” Now frantic to avoid the Salmon sharks that were tearing apart her parents she grabbed her brother, grabbed the floating cooler and bag, and started swimming to shore solely using her and her brother’s legs for propulsion.

Struggling in the frigid water to reach the ever-closer shore Kelly’s fingers were turning blue, they needed to get to shore, fast. With a few final kicks, their feet touched bottom. Now walking on the ocean floor, they kept a hold of the cooler, bag now on top, pushing it onto the black sandy beach, and collapsed exhausted on either side of it. Jake mumbled into the ground barely loud enough for Kelly to hear, “We need to build a fire. We’re gonna die out here if we don’t.”

Struggling to get up, brother and sister managed to get on their hands and knees and drag their remaining belongings to the nearby woods. Not five feet from the cover of trees they stopped. “I’ll go and get some firewood; you stay here and see what provisions we have.” Jake told Kelly. Finding the strength to stand, albeit he looked like he was going to fall over any second, he ventured into the trees to attempt to find some reasonably dry wood. Assessing the cooler and ditch bag Kelly found enough food for about two weeks, if kept cold, a box of matches, a Bic lighter, two flares with a flare gun, a space blanket, a small first aid kit and shockingly a marine radio with extra batteries.

“JAKE!” she shrieked in excitement.  

Jake, thinking his sister was being attacked, rushed back to where he had left his sister and dropped all the wood he had collected save a sturdy looking stick. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what lay in her hands, “Does it still work?” Was all he said.

“It should, I don’t see why not, it was in the dry bag after all.” Fumbling with the various buttons Kelly managed to get the grayish-blue radio to turn on. Even in situations like this Kelly was shy, handing the radio to her older brother she said, “Here, you call the coast guard, I’ll start a fire and get a flare out.” Getting up from her knees, she walked back to where her brother had dropped the wood and picked it up. She dropped it in a not so neat pile as her brother talked to the coast guard, informing them of what had happened and that they need to be rescued immediately. Finally getting the small fire started after a bit of fumbling around Kelly grabbed the flare gun and loaded a flare in it for later use. After gathering some spruce branches to increase the smoke, Jake sat down next to Kelly to warm up his body. She grabbed the space blanket and threw it over them.

The reality of the situation then hit her “T-they are gone a-aren’t t-they? M-mom and D-d-dad? ” barely holding back a sob.

Jake put an arm over his little sister’s shoulder, tears silently streaming down his face. “Yeah...” Sobbing she curled up against her brother and sat there her world crashing down around her, waiting for the coast guard to come and rescue them and bring them back to an utterly different world.