The ark had clearly seen better days. Alexis worried the plank would give way as she stepped onto it. She started to regret suggesting they go for a ride instead of going for drinks. Jon chivalrously took her hand to help her off the plank and onto the deck and Alexis breathed a sigh of relief.
The old ticket-taker pulled the plank away and untied the rope securing them to the headland. Jon and Alexis both shouted at him as the boat started to slowly drift deeper into the water. "Hey! Isn't somebody going to steer this thing?"
"Your fate is in your hands and yours alone! Enjoy yourselves!" he shouted back as the boat creaked and began moving with the current into a cavernous tunnel. The arched walls were painted like a sky dotted with fluffy clouds.
Not knowing what else to do, Alexis and Jon turned to each other. "Maybe it's on underwater tracks," Jon suggested nonchalantly.
Alexis frowned. She'd dated enough guys to know when they were putting on bravado. She rolled her eyes--at the worst possible time, it turned out, because just then the boat listed sharply to one side. She was thrown off-balance, right into Jon, who reacted quick enough to catch her in his arms before she tumbled to the rough-looking planks that made up the deck.
As the boat leveled off, Alexis grunted. "Stupid boat. This ride is awful." She noticed that the painted clouds were looking grayer, and larger. A faint sound of thunder echoed from somewhere farther into the tunnel.
"It was your idea," Jon replied.
"All you wanted to do is drink until you pissed yourself and passed out! I was hoping we could have some actual fun first. And maybe...you know..."
A shadow like a passing cloud swept over Alexis' face, making Jon look up in time to see the tunnel walls, now completely painted over with dark gray clouds, grow dim and nearly vanish into darkness. He raised an eyebrow. "Aaah. Dark tunnel. Alone on a boat. Couldn't have planned it better myself, Lexi babe." He puckered his lips and leaned toward her.
Alexis gritted her teeth. She hated it when he called her "Babe," but even worse was "Lexi." Her besties knew she preferred "Alex" or her actual name. Still, this was basically what she had in mind when she picked a boat ride, and with her whirlwind relationships, she was never one to squander a moment.
Their lips pressed together, and their tongues followed quickly after. They were able to savor two whole seconds before a sharp, electronic crack of thunder shocked them both. Their faces separated but they clung to each other tighter than ever. The water grew restless, rocking the boat ever harder.
"The fuck!" Jon shouted as a gust of wind almost blew them off their feet and made the boards beneath them quake. "We're still in a tunnel, aren't we?"
A flash lit up their surroundings, but if it was to answer his question, it didn't do a great job. The dark masses around them could have been painted clouds or the real thing. They couldn't tell where the source of the light came from, but the thunder that came with the flash sounded much more real this time. The constant rushing of water was starting to rival the thunder.
Alexis took his hand and stumbled with him to the wall of the raised deck built in the center of the boat. They timed each precarious step with the rocking of the deck. When they reached the wall, they threw their backs against it to brace themselves. "It's gotta be part of the ride," Alexis shouted over another thunderclap.
Struggling to keep standing, Jon scanned their immediate vicinity. He had to squint in the dim light, but he could make out a crisscrossing web of rope draped across part of the wall. "There!" He pulled Alexis' arm to swing her around him and pushed her toward the cargo net. At the same time, the boat tipped violently in the opposite direction and Alexis and the wall slammed into each other, hard. A wave crashed into their side of the boat and water leapt over the railing, splashing the deck just feet from where they stood.
Alexis cursed. "You almost broke my arm, jackass!"
"Just grab the rope and don't let go!"
With another crash of waves, the boat listed back to the other side. Jon inched along the wall, gravity pulling him against it as he carefully shuffled toward her. Alexis threaded one of her arms and one of her legs through the net. Jon reached his fingers out to grab the rim of the mesh when they both heard a gut-wrenching splinter of wood coming from the bow.
The ark had hit something big. It was still too dark to see more than vague gray shapes beyond the boat. They could have been anything. Rocks, other boats, clouds, or even paintings on the side of the tunnel. All they knew for sure was that the ark was tilting forward at alarming speed.
"Sinking! It's sinking!" Jon shouted. "That old asshole sent us off to die!" His feet slipped and he started to fall forward, away from Alexis and the net.
Suddenly, a pain shot through his wrist and he stopped falling. Alexis had grabbed him at the last second. She grunted as she pulled him back toward her. The ropes brushed his arm and he reached his other hand up to grab one and cling for dear life as his feet finally lost purchase. Just a second later, the entire ark went vertical and Jon could clearly hear the sound of heavy, splashing water directly below him.
"Climb! Climb!" he shouted up at his girlfriend--she was above him now, the way the boat had reoriented. He flung his legs wildly as he tried to grab the next line of rope. He remembered all the times he'd had to climb the cargo net in high school gym and now wished he'd gotten the hang of it.
Finally, a few of his fingers hook some rope and he pulled. He managed to claw his way steadily up the net until he could finally hook a foot into it, then the other. He whooped in exhilaration as thunder rolled again. He paused for a second to catch his breath, and then something blunt but mercifully soft hit him in the forehead. He shouted and was met with a faint "Sorry!" Alexis sounded far away, though it could have just been the thunder and waves drowning her out. Jon kept climbing, desperately hoping he could outrun the increasingly loud churning below him.
Meanwhile, Alexis' heart was pumping. She had recorded excellent times on the cargo net in school, and that expertise was paying off. "This is only going to make me a better gymnast," she thought to herself, allowing the vain thought to shut out the apocalypse around her.
Then her mood plummeted when she reached up for the next line of rope, only to swat at thin air. Her hand came down and slapped the "top" of the wall. She'd reached the corner of the raised deck housing. She looked down and saw, dimly, Jon's writhing figure just a few feet below him. She scrambled to get up onto the perpendicular wall, but her leg snagged on some knotted rope. She had to yank hard before the net finally let it go, and in the process her other shoe came loose, this time taking the sock along with it.
Alexis crawled up onto the groaning wood and turned around. Jon was close now. She reached her arm down to him. "I'm right here! Take it!" Jon grabbed hold and she helped him up. They both plopped onto their butts and panted for air.
Jon smiled dizzily at her and raised an arm. He was holding an oblong shape, with something flat and limp hanging out of it. "I got your shoe."
"Throw it. I already lost the other one. And we're still sinking!"
"I don't see anything left to climb!" Jon's characteristic swagger seemed to die on his lips and give way to outright panic. "It's just a flat deck up to the back of the ark! Even if we get up there, then what? We've gotta get oo... oooh... O-OFF this...!" His tongue failed as he began to gasp frantically.
Alexis grabbed his shoulders. "Jon! Breathe, dipshit! Panic when we're dead! Help me look for something!"
Another clap of thunder reverberated through them both, and seemed to even rattle the boat hard enough that several planks of wood splintered above their heads, ripping out. More bursts of lightning followed, and for an instant the planks' grotesquely curled forms appeared like a sea monster looming over their heads. But Jon saw something else in the flash that gave him all he needed to bring himself under control.
"Vines! There's some vines!" he shouted and pointed. "They're right up there. We must have crashed into a cliff or something!"
"We'd have to climb those boards to get up there!"
"You want splinters, or you want to drown?!" Jon snapped. He jumped up and grabbed one of the boards. As if triggering a switch, another plank snapped and swung out, hitting him in the ass, but somehow his grip held firm. He let out a warbling cry that he never heard himself make before. But then, what part of any of this was normal? He used the extra plank to get his footing and continue climbing the makeshift jungle gym. "C'mon, Lexi! I can't help you, I'm sorry!"
Alexis knew he couldn't, and she was sure he didn't need to. The water was so close now she could see it... a churning, frothing doom she had no intention of waiting around for. She leapt to her feet and scrambled up the boards. She found them much easier to climb than she expected. Ditching her shoes seemed like a good thing after all.
Jon made it to the top--or the back--of the boat and a well-timed flash of lightning showed him his target. With an all-or-nothing leap, he grabbed onto a thick, leafy vine and hoped his fingers could hold out. Something above him snapped and the vine started to swing away from the boat. He had just enough time to shout "The vines are right here!" before the ark fell away into the darkness.
Alexis heard him, knowing he'd just been sent on a trip by how fast his voice trailed away. She reached into the ether blindly and chanced to brush a vine. Grasping it for dear life, she jumped off the plank, hearing it break away as she began to swing rapidly toward an uncertain fate.
"I really needed a drink for this...!"