How To Lose Weight And Survive The Apocalypse

Chapter 29

The water was impossibly cold and shockingly silent. I sank like I a stone statute, the life preserver ripped from my arms as though it was a champagne cork blasting off in celebration. Frozen with the horror of the situation, I hung in the water. The thought of seeing anything in the shadows kept my eyes closed against the salt water; I think if I'd seen a shark or a giant squid, my heart would have crapped itself and shuddered to a halt.

Kick, a voice commanded inside me. So, I kicked. I kicked out at the world as it had become, kicked against every self-loathing thought, kicked back at all the awful crap we'd been through just to get to this point. I pushed up through the water and broke the surface, gasping at the reality I'd burst into.

I was sitting at the bottom of a swell, waves like walls around me on every side. No sign of the boat or Mischa, but the life saver floated miraculously a few feet away. I slashed through the surface, threw my arms around the preserver and squeezed it tight. The rain pelted down on me, running into my eyes as I gripped the slippery plastic of the ring and frantically searched for any sign of anything.

Then, the waves rolled beneath me, lifting me to the top of the swell. I spotted the top of the yacht sails over my left shoulder, already startlingly far from where I floated. "Mischa!" I screamed, twisting to scan in every direction for the sight of her little blonde head.

There. I spotted a flash of red. Mischa's flannel shirt, just over the next rise. With one arm hooked on the life preserver, I powered towards her.

Kick. Kick. Splutter. Kick. The rain continued to assault me and the chop found its way into my mouth at frequent intervals. I lost sight of Mischa as I sank to the bottom of another well, but rather than panic, I kept pushing on. She'll be there, I told myself, putting my face into the waves again. Kick. Kick. Kick.

The swell lifted me again – was I imagining it, or did it seem lower than the last time? "Mischa?" I yelled. The red shirt was closer now, but to my horror, I could see that the little girl was floating motionless on the surface. "No!" Carving through the chop, I closed the distance between us.

"Mischa? Mischa!" The rain was easing, as if in reverence for the still figure floating before me. Mischa's eyes were closed, her cherubic face beaded with moisture and turned to the sky. "No. Please, no..."

Mischa's eyes popped open. "Karla! I did what you taught me! I floated!"

With a relieved sob, I hugged her little body to my chest. "You sure did, sweetheart. You're amazing."

"Did I do okay?"

"You did great - here, jump in this." I helped her wiggle into the floating ring as we crested the next wave, which was definitely smaller than the last one.

As Mischa settled her backside into the hole, her legs dangling over the side, she said, "The rain is stopping. I think it's over."

"I think you're right." It was a double-edged sword; there was less chop and swell, but it also meant less lift, less opportunity to search for the yacht. I could feel the current strongly sucking us along, but I had no idea if we were travelling in the same direction as the boat or if were headed towards another point on the compass entirely.

Rather than give in to panic, I anchored myself to the side of the ring as best I could without flipping it and tried to keep my legs still to save energy. "Look, blue sky," I said, pushing the damp ringlets back from her forehead.

"Pretty." She blinked her blue eyes and stared in wonder at the cracks in the clouds where the light glowed golden. I tried to calculate the distance between the sun and the horizon; I didn't know the time, but I knew it was well after lunch. We had only a few hours of daylight to be found, or we'd be spending the night at sea – and I didn't need Google to tell me that our chances of survival were pretty slim if that happened.