The Woman Adrift

The storm hit Falcon-88 out of nowhere. It was unlike anything Shauna had seen before. Rain tore through the darkened sky like bullets, drumming against the seasoned shrimp boat. Every beat seemed to give off a deep sense of nervous resonance that vibrated throughout both the boat and the crew. A thick and milky fog covered the top of the ocean water as they sailed blindly through the night.

On the table in Captain Ronnie’s office, she could see the map that showed their projected path. They had just set sail from the coast of Miami, Florida, planning on making a stop at Puerto Rico before heading back. Going into this adventure, they had not seen any storms at all on the radar. This mass of billows seemed to appear like a phantom, surfacing upon them with little warning at all.

Captain Ronnie was an experienced sailor. Shauna knew that. He had been invested in the hobby since he was a young boy. Despite his time sailing across the North Atlantic Ocean, however, his large and able-bodied boat was being thrown by the crashing waves like a child's toy in the bath. It was as if the storm and the water were playing a keep-away game with one another. Each time the wind picked up, the waves would send the Falcon tipping from one side of it's hull to the other, tossing the crew with it like dolls.

Shauna could see it in his eyes. The captain was beginning to wonder if it was too late to turn back. Maybe this haul would just need to wait. They could do it on another day. She was beginning to question this, too.

You could never tell with nature, after all. This was especially true with the ocean. It reminded Shauna of the lottery, this game of sailing that they played. Some days you put in your numbers and you get nothing back at all. In fact, you come back losing money by the time the gas station takes their share. Other days, albeit a bit more rarely, you get back the tenfold—much more than you ever thought you would! It was a gamble, a lot like life. Sometimes you win. Other times, you are not so lucky. Other times, you find your ship sailing away into the horizon.

As they made their way through the fog, their net dragging behind them and catching up all sorts of crawfish along the way, Shauna realized that the fog was clearing out. Disappearing into the dense, salty air. Just as quickly, the rain stopped, the bright and fluorescent moon peeking out from the clouds. It was taking on a deep yellow tint.

She saw it then. Up ahead, pointing up from the ocean and sinking rapidly, was a capsized boat. It was ancient looking, like one you would expect to see Captain Jack sailing on. Another fun fact about it was that it was also on fire, the cloth-like sails burning into the night, casting a glow like that of a light-house. The flames reflected off of the water, basking in the light of the moon.

This sight…this view, no matter how tragic, seemed to be beckoning them forward. It reminded Shauna of an angel, drawing them closer into a deep and shadowy world.

Shaking the thought from her head, Shauna put her mind on to the task at hand. She guessed that they were about two nautical miles away from what remained of the vessel. She instructed her crew mate Blane to call the seemingly abandoned boat in to the Coast Guard.

“The quicker we get them here the quicker we can get out.” She breathed, moving up to stand next to the captain. She had noticed that, for once, she had been left to take control. This was rare. Ronnie was one of the most ascertained and surefooted sailors she had ever worked with. He had mentored her for as long as she had been sailing.

Yet, here in the middle of what seemed to be a great chance for adventure, the captain had gone mute. Looking over at him, Shauna saw the rather glazed look in his eyes. They were focused on something up ahead that she couldn’t quite see.

*****

He could hear it now, a light and hallow humming. It grew louder and louder as they approached the shipwreck. It was a female voice, singing along to a melody. It rose up over the sound of the waves around them.

“Do you hear that?” Ronnie asked Shauna.

Shauna shook her head, instead looking to him in way that Ronnie had not seen before. She wasn’t hearing anything but the sound of the fire eating up the wooden ship in front of them.

While his crew mate Blane worked behind them in the office to follow through with the distress signal, he and Shauna set out to plot out a course of action. He had not ever responded to a shipwreck before. He was merely a captain for a shrimp boat, after all. Still, Ronnie knew of the obligation that that every sailor had to one another: to save them in their time of need.

As they crept closer to the wreckage, going slow so that they would not hit any of the debris. Ronnie noticed a lone woman clinging to a slab of wood. He realized that she must have jumped overboard when the ship started to catch fire. Her black, raven-like hair was slicked to the back of her head like seaweed as she leaned forward, trying to keep as much of her body as she could out of the water. She was already choking up sea water.

The girl was opening her mouth, calling out for help, but these seemed to be drowned out by the cranky current around them. It was beginning to pick up again, and he knew that there was at least 30 feet of water beneath them.

“Stop the boat,” Captain Ronnie called to Shauna.

As soon as he spoke those words, Ronnie noticed that the melody floating around him had stopped. There was nothing but silence.

Shauna pulled up as closely as she could to the woman adrift, but there was still a good twenty feet that the captain would have to swim. As his crew mate worked to keep the boat steady, Ronnie threw his life jacket on, grabbing the rescue donut from the side of the boat. He was just preparing to throw himself over the side of the Falcon when Shauna spoke up.

“That’s dangerous!” Shauna said. She knew that the captain respected her input. Valued it. His friend shook her head in exhaustion as she desperately tried to reason with him. “She’s too far from the ship. You won’t be able to make it back. Not if the waves pick up again. None of this even makes sense. That ship should not be here.”

“I said stop the boat,” Ronnie grumbled now through gritted teeth. He was not leaving the area without helping the anguished woman. He would not be responsible for letting her drown.

Shauna went silent. Saying nothing more, she brought the boat to a complete halt.

Captain Ronnie jumped into the dark ocean waters. Although he had his life jacket on, he could still feel the current trying dreadfully hard to bring him underneath. Could catch the tugging that it did as each wave crashed over him. His boat made it look much easier than it really was, but he couldn’t give up.

As he swam over to the damsel in distress, he began to hear the humming again, this time reaching over even the waves clashing around him. He ignored it, pushing farther out from the ship. Shauna and Blane watched him now from the deck.

And then the singing began.

"You came straight

out to sea,

now most would say

do stray from me.”

Ronnie paused for a moment, looking back to the boat to see if they had turned on the radio or something. Anything to explain the lyrics that he was hearing now. The words that were being melded into his brain like some sort of a branding iron for the mind.

“Yet you won’t,

Deny my song.

You stay afloat,

But not for long.”

That was when he realized it. What Shauna was yelling from the ship, her call for him to turn back. To hurry onto the deck. To turn away now before it was too late. To make the right decision and spare his own life.

But he couldn’t. It was as if something else was controlling him, a desire to continue forward and into the arms of this alluring and lost soul. Even after Ronnie saw the woman look up now, peered into her glowing blue eyes, he couldn’t stop. This creature was so mysterious. Unlike anything else in the world.

Yet, even as she swam closer, letting herself off of the slice of wood and into the darkened waters between them, he song continued.

“Because you swam right

Into my trap.

Into the depths,

No turning back.”

*****

Shauna and Blane watched in horror. If the captain had known that the woman adrift would bring about his death, he didn’t show it. Even in his final moments, right before she threw her arms around him and drug him down into the ocean deep, he looked as if he was a puppy getting ready to have the time of his life with a new toy. Perhaps, with all things considered, that was a good way to go. Ignorance was bliss, after all. No one knows for sure what lies in the Devil’s Sea.