The sound came, but it wasn’t what Jack expected.
Instead, there was a sharp, oddly clean noise, and Jack felt his mouth drop open as the car burst through the guardrail, snapping off the topmost branches of the hillside trees. It sailed over his head, its engine still revving, tires spinning. Jack had a detailed view of the chassis.
And then there was a tremendous whoosh as the car hit the water nose-first—the lake wasn’t frozen; it was too deep for that. There was a massive slosh, and a crow screeched from a tree and Jack saw the white, terrified faces of two boys. Yep, teenagers.
The car was a silver coupe. An Audi. The nose started to sink almost immediately, the headlights shining down into the lake. The sky was red and purple, helluva sunset, his boots were off and he was diving. He much would’ve preferred to do this in August, and holy mother of God, the water was cold.
For a second, the frigid shock slammed all other thoughts from his head as every muscle in his body contracted in shock even as he was cutting through the water (thank you, United States Navy; they’d trained him to act first and think later).
His bones already hurt from the cold.
The boys were screaming, their voices muffled by the closed windows. Damn. The best thing would’ve been if the windows were already open, giving them an exit. One boy was pounding it with his fist. Pointless, since that wouldn’t break anything except a bone in his hand. The electrical must’ve already gone out, if they couldn’t get the windows down by pushing the button. Or they were just panicking and not thinking of it.
Now the boy was hitting the door with his shoulder. Also pointless with several tons of water pressing against the doors. No, they’d have to break the windows and get out that way, or let enough water in to equalize the pressure and then open the door.
But they don’t teach that in high school, and, yes, Jack thought he recognized one of the boys as a classmate of his niece, Abby. Seniors or thereabouts.
The thoughts shot through his head rapid-fire.
The water would be flooding in through the front of the car.
They maybe had five minutes before the car was submerged. Maybe eight, but that’d be pushing it. That is, eight for hypothermia. Obviously less time if they couldn’t breathe.
Jack’s arms already felt heavy and dead. Not good. No, strike that, no negative thoughts permitted. Just move. He made it to the car, which was now halfway into the lake at a forty-five degree angle, the water up to the middle of the windows. Four boys, two in front, two in back, one with blood on his face. The driver was slumped over the wheel.
“Help us! Help!” the bleeding boy pleaded, and it wasn’t like Jack wasn’t trying.
He fumbled in his jeans pocket for the window breaker he had on his key chain. Ten bucks on Amazon, and not only did he have one, but every member of his family did, too. His dexterity was off, thanks to the cold, his fingers clumsy and slow.
One of the kids had his iPhone out. Good. Help would be on the way. Then again, by the time the fire department got here, the boys would be drowned. They’d all drown, Jack included, or die of hypothermia. How many minutes had he been in the water? One? Two?
The car was slipping deeper.
There. His numb fingers closed around the little device. Pressed it against the window, his hands shaking hard, and it slipped right off.
“Hurry! Hurry!” the bleeding boy screamed.
“You can do this,” said another, oddly calm, voice muffled behind the glass.
Jack positioned the tool again, pushed hard and the window shattered, water rushing in.
The car immediately began sinking faster, but already, one boy was wriggling through the window. Jack grabbed the collar of his coat and hauled him out. Did the same with the second, the calm one, Sam Miller, that was his name. “Get to the dock,” he said. They were already swimming. They’d make it.
The driver, on the other hand, wasn’t moving, which was not good, and the bleeding boy was screaming. Should’ve been out by now.
The tail of the car slipped underwater with a gurgling sound.
And then it was quiet.
Jack grabbed on to the roof and went with the car, the water gripping his face and head with a fist of ice. Through the window, the boy grabbed on to his arms. Jack pulled him free, but it was hard, the car was tipping in the water, nose down, the headlights shining into the eerie dark water.
The boy was free, and Jack kicked his numb legs, hoping they were moving upward. His lungs burned; the rest of him was dead. Then they surfaced, and the air was so cold it hurt, but damn. The kid choked and gasped, still clutching Jack.
“Relax and kick,” Jack said, his lips hard with the cold, his breath clouding the air. The boy just grabbed Jack harder, so Jack looped his arm around the boy’s neck and swam.
The dock was sixteen, twenty feet away, maybe. He could make it.
How many minutes had it been? Three? Five? More?
Sam was on the ladder of the dock, reaching out for them. He and the other boy grabbed their friend by the arm, silent with shock and shivering with cold.
Jack was already swimming away.
“I can help!” Sam called.
“Stay there,” Jack ordered.
He was also shivering. No, shuddering. This wasn’t good. This was Hypothermia: Stop Fucking Around edition.
Still...what was the word? Still...survivable.
The last boy, the driver—probably dead. Drowned, if not killed on impact. Jack himself would probably...what did they call it? Oh, yeah. Die trying.
It was getting hard to think. Advanced hypothermia.
So quiet now, the red sky above, the frigid water all around.
The cold didn’t hurt so much.
The car’s headlights were still on. Jack wasn’t sure why.
A deep breath, a hard exhale, a deeper breath, and he was under again, swimming as hard as he could and still too slowly.
The car rested on the driver’s side on the bottom of the lake. Ten feet deep, give or take. A fish swam in front of the headlights, then was gone into the darkness.
Jack tried to open the passenger door, but it was locked or jammed. But the window was smashed. The dashboard was still lit up. The clock said 4:41.
He reached in for the driver, who looked oddly peaceful, arms drifting, hair waving in the current. Eyes closed. Almost certainly dead. Not wearing a seat belt, a huge gash visible on his forehead, black against the white of his skin, blood trickling up in a dark, lazy swirl.No bubbles, meaning he wasn’t breathing.
Jack reached for the boy’s arm and pulled.
The kid didn’t budge.
Soon Jack would have to surface again or die down here. Which maybe wouldn’t be so bad. Nice that he could see. Deep blue all around.
He pulled again. A little movement now, but Jack’s chest was working, wanting to breathe, and if he didn’t go up now, now, he’d drown, navy or no navy.
His niece was eighteen, too.
He’d want someone to try one more time for Abby.
He pulled as hard as he could, bracing his legs against the car, all the air in his lungs leaving in a bubbling rush.
And then they were moving, heading up, and how they were doing it, Jack didn’t know because he couldn’t think anymore, but they were making it, a centimeter at a time, and then there was the sky, red and purple and violently beautiful, and full of air, like icy needles in his lungs, but so, so good, the sound of his gasps tearing through the cold.
His gasps. Not the kid’s.
He held on to the boy and tried to keep going. It wasn’t pretty. It was hard and sloppy and weak.
A siren screamed, then another. Police and firefighters, on their way.
The dock was still so far away. Jack closed his eyes, his head slipping again under the water. Shit. Kicked harder, his legs really just flailing now.
The boy was still and quiet. No breath, no coughing. No resistance.
Jack’s labored panting rasped in and out of his aching lungs.
The water splashed, over and over, a hopeless, wet sound as his arm smacked lifelessly in a sorry imitation of swimming. He held on to the boy with his other arm, and God, it was hard.
Still not there. Still not there. In between each stroke, Jack’s face dipped a little lower in the water. He choked on some water.
Still not there.
Then someone grabbed his arm. Sam Miller, clinging to the dock ladder, reaching out for him. God bless Sam Miller.
The other boys reached down and grabbed on to their unconscious (dead) friend, hauling him up the ladder, ice in their hair now. One of the boys was sobbing.
Sam reached down for Jack, pulling him up, which was good because Jack was not going to be able to make it out himself. Water streamed off him, and he fell onto his knees. “On his side,” he managed, and they obeyed, turning the limp boy onto his left.
“Oh, shit, Josh,” the sobbing boy said. “Josh, please.”
Josh. Right. Josh Deiner. A troublemaker.
It was now too dark to see if any water had come out of Josh’s mouth, up from his lungs. Jack pushed him on his back and started chest compressions. He couldn’t feel his hands, but this was a brutish job, just push, push, push, elbows locked, fast and hard.
The sirens were louder.
Sam breathed into Josh’s mouth.
One...two...three...four...five...
God, he was tired.
And then there were red-and-blue flashes, and footsteps thudded down the dock.
“Jack, we got this,” said a voice. Levi. Emmaline Neal was there, too, another cop, a good hockey player. They knelt down and took over compressions.
There was a clattering, and Jessica Dunn and Gerard Chartier were running with the stretcher.
“Dry him off!” someone ordered. “He has to be dry if we’re gonna shock him.”
There was a whole crowd now. The three boys were being wrapped in blankets and hustled away, their faces white in the gloom.
The sun was still setting. How could that be? It seemed as though hours had passed.
Someone put a blanket around Jack, too, then led him down the dock, arm around his waist, holding him when he staggered. The three boys climbed into the back of one of the town’s two ambulances.
The other would be for Josh.
“Let’s get you out of the cold,” said the person at his side. It was Emmaline. Huh. He thought she was back with Josh. She opened the door of her cruiser and gently pushed him in.
“Is he dead?” Jack asked.
She glanced down the dock. “He’s not dead till he’s warm and dead. You know that. Let’s worry about you right now, okay?”
She was about to close the door when Sam Miller came over. His face was ruddy now—he was warming up. “You saved us,” he said, his voice cracking. “You saved us all.”
But Jack hadn’t, because Josh Deiner’s body was still on the dock, Levi and Gerard on their knees next to him as if in prayer.
* * *
THE MEDIA CALLED IT the Midwinter Miracle, going for alliteration over accuracy. And for a few days, it was big news. Anderson Cooper, among others, came to town and interviewed the three boys—Sam Miller, Garrett Baines and Nick Bankowski, who were tremulous and fine, save for a broken nose on Nick. Their parents wept and called Jack a hero, an angel, the hand of God. A former navy SEAL was interviewed and attested that it was a “helluva rescue.”
As police spokesperson, Levi gave a statement, as well, and when Anderson asked if Jack was indeed his brother-in-law, Levi said, yes, he was. When asked to characterize Jack, Levi said, “He’s a good guy.” That was it, and Jack was grateful.
He himself was asked for interviews by fifty-seven media outlets. He didn’t give any.
That night in the E.R., Jack’s father hugged him for a long, long time. Pops’s voice broke as he told Jack how proud he was. His sisters fussed over him and his niece wept, and his nephew got teary-eyed, as well. Mrs. Johnson made him his favorite dinners every night for the next week, as did his grandmother, not to be outdone. So there was a lot of food. Jack tried to eat it.