Dry, p.1
Dry, page 1
DRY
PER JACOBSEN
HUMBLEBOOKS
Copyright © 2023
Per Jacobsen & HumbleBooks
First edition, 2023
Artwork: Per Jacobsen
ISBN (e-book): 978-87-94319-18-8
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted without permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction.
Any resemblance to real people,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is dedicated to those
who have walked through the darkness.
Especially to the ones who took the lead,
carrying the torch.
Dear reader,
Before we start, I want to warn you that this novel deals with topics that may be sensitive for some people. It touches on themes such as suicide and incurable disease, and while my reason for including such topics was quite different—to explore what my characters would do if I robbed them of all hope—I'm well aware that these topics can be painful for some people.
That's my cards on the table and now it's up to you to choose whether you want to continue reading. And if the answer is no, that's perfectly okay.
Are you still here? Great, then buckle up, because we're about to enter the tunnel—and there is no light at the end.
—Per Jacobsen
"Water can be a source of life,
as well as death.
Just like hope."
R. Morgan, The Flood
DAY 1
CHAPTER 1
"Both hands on the railing if you're gonna stand that close to the edge, sprout!"
"You promised you'd stop calling me that, Dad! And I need to be out here. Otherwise, I won't be able to see the reef when it shows up."
In addition to her words, Jessie wrinkles her nose in a just-so-you-know grimace. Her dad pretends not to see that, though. That's the reward for her hands—both of them—now having a safe grip on the ship's rail.
To be fair, it would also be a double standard if Nathan gave his daughter a hard time because of her interest in the sea and its inhabitants. After all, he has dedicated his life to it, working as a marine biologist for almost eight years.
Actually, this job is the reason why he and Jessie are standing here right now, on the deck of this small cargo ship bound for the Galapagos Islands. He's been tasked with documenting some cases of coral bleaching reported by locals and investigating whether the changes in water temperature are to blame. And Jessie? She came along hoping to fulfill a lifelong dream of seeing a sea turtle in the wild.
"You'll be standing there for a long time if it's the reef you're waiting for," he says, tousling the girl's auburn hair. "It doesn't start until a few miles from the coast, and right now we're at least fifty nautical miles away."
"Fifty what?"
"Nautical miles. That's how distances are measured on the water. They're a bit longer than regular miles, so … around sixty miles, give or take."
"Sixty miles?" Jessie shoots her lower lip forward and lets out a sigh of despair. "Oh, man. It'll be dark before we get there."
"Hardly," Nathan laughs, then kisses her on the forehead. "It's only half past eleven in the morning, so I think we'll manage."
Jessie shrugs, placing both of her forearms on the top edge of the railing and leaning forward so that her chin rests on them.
"We could play some cards if you like?" Nathan tries. "Pass some time?"
"Nah, it's okay, Dad. I think I'll just stay here and look at the ocean."
This is one of them, Nathan thinks. One of the moments Michelle warned you about where Jessie should be allowed to be alone with her thoughts and you should just leave her be.
That's how he thinks—and yet he nudges her gently with his elbow.
"We could look upward instead. The weather is perfect for it."
She looks at him and then up to the sky, to which his index finger is pointing.
"Airy Tales?"
He nods, and she smiles.
A few minutes later, they're in the bow of the ship, both lying on their backs on top of the tarp covering one of the ship's life rafts.
The game is simple; Jessie spots shapes in the clouds, and her dad has to come up with a story that incorporates them all, to the best of his ability. Today it's no small task as the girl sees princesses, dragons, knights, and trolls up there … as well as spaceships, parachutes, and a single dinosaur.
When she was younger, the stories were a means to get Jessie to sleep. Now it is often himself who succumbs to them. That is also the case today. While the troll opens the airlock and climbs into his spaceship, following the final boss battle against the evil knights of the periodic table, Nathan's eyelids turn heavy. His eyes blink, at first in time with the soft rocking from side to side of the deck, then slower and slower, until finally the clouds and blue skies above them disappear behind a blanket of darkness.
I can't keep doing this, Nathan. I won't keep doing this.
It's far from the first time these words have woken him up, only to keep echoing in the back of his mind after he opens his eyes—and he knows it won't be the last either. They are going to haunt him until the day when he closes his eyes for the last time. And he can only pray that it will at least stop there.
Today, however, Michelle's words don't get to torment him for long, as several other things rapidly steal his attention.
The first is the sky above him. It's no longer blue with scattered clusters of clouds. It's a pearly white. As if someone has covered it with a giant sheet. The second thing is the realization that he's alone on the tarp of the life raft. Jessie is gone.
He glances at his wristwatch, squints, shakes his hand, and looks again.
Quarter past twelve? That can't be right. Then he has only slept for … what? Ten minutes?
"Jessie? Are you still here?"
No answer, not from Jessie or anyone else. In fact, it's so quiet on the deck that the sound of the plastic tarp crackling underneath him when he moves is all he can hear. And although this small cargo ship isn't as full of life as a cruise ship would've been, that's not normal. Usually, there are a few crew members up here, at the very least.
"Jessie?" he repeats as he pushes himself off the edge of the lifeboat and lands on deck. "If you're hiding, I need you to come out now."
Still nothing.
With an increasing unease in his stomach, he moves toward the middle of the ship, where the nearest staircase to the lower deck is located. He doesn't walk down it, though, because as he gets there, he spots Jessie's red hair. She has once again placed herself all the way out by the railing, this time at the stern. And she's not alone. Next to her are two other people who, like her, seem deeply preoccupied with something down in the water.
One is Earl Gibson. He's one of the two ship mechanics who help the chief engineer keep the ship's engine running.
Despite an intimidating exterior—a face filled with deep, furrowed wrinkles, and rough hands, the nails of which are always black with oil and dirt—Earl is one of the friendliest crew members they've met on the trip. He even gave them a tour of his workplace down in the engine room when Jessie asked what his job was on the ship.
Judging by the object in his hand, though—a small, silvery hip flask—the good Mr. Gibson has apparently punched out for the day.
The other person is an elderly lady in a long, gray coat. All Nathan knows about her is that she boarded the ship in Manta Port, just like them, and that she isn't part of the regular crew either.
"What's so intriguing?" he asks, walking up behind them, and to his surprise, all three of them jump at the sound of his voice.
"Dad!" Jessie exclaims. She sounds strangely out of breath, as if she's been running. "You've gotta see this!"
"She's right," Earl agrees. "You're a marine biologist, right?"
Unsure if this is a question the mechanic actually wants answered, Nathan merely squints.
Earl's reply is also inarticulate. He just waves his hand—come closer—and nods toward the water.
Nathan walks over to the railing and grabs its edge. Then he leans forward—and momentarily loses his ability to breathe.
The water is filled with bubbles. Thousands of them. Small, quivering bubbles that emerge on the surface, grow larger, and then burst.
"What is it?" he hears Earl whisper beside him. "A … shoal of fish or something like that?"
"Hardly. No shoal of fish is that big."
To emphasize his argument, Nathan points to a random place farther out on the ocean, where the water's surface is also broken by bubbles. In fact, there are bubbles in all directions, as far as the eye can see. It looks as if the entire Pacific Ocean is boiling.
Except that we would have been steam-cooked by now if that was the case.
"A bucket," he says. "I need a bucket and a rope."
He hears the cold, commanding tone of his own voice, and for a moment, he expects the mechanic to tell him to shut the fuck up and go get it himself. But Earl doesn't protest. He just nods, takes a few steps backward, turns around, and then sprints in the direction of the stairs down to the lower deck.
"What is it, Dad?"
"Probably nothing," Nathan replies, ignoring the skeptical look the lady in the gray coat sends him behind Jessie's back. "A family of octopi having a party on the seabed, maybe. They're probably down there singing birthday songs right now. That's why it's bubbling up here."
Jessie roll
"Did you see when it started, sweetie?"
The girl shrugs and tilts her head at an angle.
"It had started when I came up here, about five minutes ago," says the elderly lady with the coat. She hesitates for a moment, glancing down at Jessie, then adds, "I, um … noticed the girl and thought she was a bit young to be running around on deck unsupervised."
For a split second, a snide response burns on the tip of Nathan's tongue, but he chooses to swallow it and instead mumbles:
"And what about the fog? Did it appear at the same time?"
"I believe so … but I don't think it's a fog."
Nathan opens his mouth, intending to ask what makes her say that, but right away, the answer comes to him on its own.
The air. It doesn't feel cold or damp. If the white blanket that has been pulled out across the blue sky while he slept were actually a fog, the air would be heavy and humid.
But it isn't. On the contrary, the wind feels bone dry when it hits his cheeks.
What the hell is going on?
The sound of quick footsteps on a metal grate makes him turn around. It's Earl. He's back, and he's brought a nylon rope and a bucket with him.
Nathan accepts both and nods at him. Next, he ties one end of the rope to the handle of the bucket and pulls on it a few times to make sure the knot holds.
Lifting the bucket over the edge and letting go, it once again strikes him how eerily quiet the ship is. Part of it is due to all four of them anxiously holding their breath as he starts lowering the bucket the thirty feet down to the water.
But it's not just that. There's something else too. He just can't put his finger on it.
An almost inaudible 'plop' marks the bucket's meeting with the bubbling surface of the ocean, and a second later he feels a pull on the rope as it fills with water.
He begins to pull it back up, first with heavy, slow jerks, then faster and faster.
"Careful," the lady in the gray coat warns. "You don't want to burn your fingers if it's hot."
"It's not hot," Nathan replies—and when he sees Jessie's face contract in worry, he adds, "It looks like it's boiling, but it isn't. If it were, we wouldn't be standing here."
He's pretty sure that what he has just presented is an indisputable truth. Nevertheless, he can't stop his fingers from shaking slightly as he closes them around the handle of the bucket and lifts it back onto their side of the railing.
His logic held true. The handle isn't hot and neither are the contents of the bucket. The water is just as freezing as you'd expect it to be this far out on the Pacific Ocean.
But whether he should feel relieved by that observation, he doesn't quite know. Because if the water had been boiling, it would at least have explained why the surface of the water—including the one down in the bucket—is still sizzling and bubbling.
Some microscopic organisms, too small to be detected with the naked eye, that release oxygen into the water? If so, it would be the fastest spread he has ever witnessed.
"What the fucking hell is this crap?" Earl mutters, as Nathan tilts the bucket at an angle so he can look down into it as well.
Behind him, the old lady's eyes shoot open, look down at Jessie, and then back at Earl. She's clearly offended by his choice of words when there are children present.
Under normal circumstances, Nathan would've shared that view. Right now, though, Earl's words are a pretty good reflection of what is going through his own head.
"I don't know," he says, putting the half-full bucket down on the deck. "But I think we need to bring this to Captain Matthews' attention."
"I'll talk to him," Earl says, starting to turn around, but Nathan stops him by placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Only Matthews for now, okay?"
Earl lets a thoughtful gaze slide down to the bucket and from there out to the sea. Then he nods.
"That's probably a good idea."
While Earl makes his way to the bridge to talk to the captain, Nathan turns his attention back to his daughter.
"Listen, sprout. I'll have to stay here and talk for a while, so it might get a bit boring for you. Do you think you can find your way down to our cabin?"
"Dad!"
"Oh sorry, I did it again, didn't I?" he says, pretending to slap himself on the forehead. "Can you find our cabin on your own, Princess Jessie?"
"Of course … if I can eat the rest of the M&Ms."
"Blackmail? You're too smart for a seven year old … sprout. But okay, then."
"I can take her down there," the lady in the gray coat interjects, putting her hand on Jessie's shoulder and smiling at her. "I'm headed downstairs anyway, and I could use the company … and a piece of chocolate."
She winks at Jessie, who responds with a smile and a nod.
"The girls are teaming up, huh?" Nathan laughs, holding his hands up defensively in front of him. "Fair enough, then. You can go with, um …?"
"Meredith," the lady says.
"Meredith," Nathan repeats, nodding at her, after which he leans down and kisses Jessie on the forehead. "I'll be down as soon as I've talked to Captain Matthews."
The woman extends her elbow, and Jessie takes it. Then they turn their backs on her father and stroll arm in arm across the deck in the direction of the stairs, as if they were just two girlfriends on a shopping trip.
In the meantime, Nathan redirects his attention to the railing and the mystery that unfolds on the other side of it.
He's never been particularly fond of things he can't explain—which was one of the reasons that studying biology appealed to him—and on the list of inexplicable things he's faced in his life, this is quickly approaching the top spot.
The simmering and bubbling sea surface, the sudden, dry mist. None of it is …
Something in the water somewhere to the right of the ship catches his attention. Something smooth and black which he registers out of the corner of his eye—and which his brain initially assumes is a large sea creature. A whale, perhaps.
But what breaks through the surface of the water isn't the back of a whale. It's the tip of a cliff—and to his horror, he discovers it's not the only one. In several places around the ship, there are large, menacing shadows just below the bubbling surface of the ocean. And it looks like they're growing bigger.
In the wake of that thought, another one follows, and he instinctively leans down and picks up the bucket from the deck.
"Oh God," he hears himself groan as he looks down into it, confirming his terrible premonition.
Not so much as a drop. The bucket is empty. The water has vanished … just as it's vanishing on the other side of the railing right now.
CHAPTER 2
It does cross Nathan's mind, but only briefly, as he catches a glimpse of the wheelhouse before he runs down the stairs to the lower deck.
The thought of whether that should be where he was headed. Whether his first priority should be to pass on his discovery to Captain Matthews—thus increasing the chance that more people will walk away from the impending disaster with their lives intact.
But as with most such philosophical dilemmas, the answer is short and simple: Jessie is his daughter. His flesh and blood. None of the others are.
At the end of the stairs, Nathan steps out into a long corridor that both looks and smells like something from a spaceship in a dystopian science fiction movie. The walls are sheathed with metal plates. From these, thick pipes stick out at varying heights, making the already narrow hallway feel almost claustrophobically constricted—a fact that's only made worse by the thick stench of oil hanging in the air.
Combined with his growing panic, these things are disquieting, to say the least, and his desire to edge his way through the corridor is just as limited as the space. He just hasn't got any choice, given that this section of the ship is the quickest shortcut into the middle section, where the sleeping quarters and common rooms are located.
