Godless by Pete Hautman Page B

water.
    â€œC’mon, in, Jason!” she shouts.
    I swing the beam of the light around, marveling at the size of the tank. It seems bigger on the inside than it does on the outside.
    â€œHey Kahuna, you coming in or not?” There’s Henry, doing a backstroke. Dan is a few yards away, treading water.
    People will surprise you. You never know what dumbass thing they’re going to do next. I pull off my shoes and toss them up through the hatch. I take off my socks and my T-shirt, but leave my jeans on because I’ve got holes in my underwear. I hang my legs out over the edge of the platform, take a breath, and push off into space.
    Sometimes even I surprise me.
    The shock of hitting the cold water sends the breath rushing from my lungs. I kick and dig with my arms,making for the surface. It can’t be more than a second, but it feels like forever before I break through and suck in a fresh lungful of oxygen. But something is wrong. It’s black. The blackest black I’ve ever been in, blacker than closed eyes in bed at night.
    I’ve gone blind.
    â€œHey!” I shout. “You guys here? I can’t see!”
    â€œOf course you can’t, you dumb ass!” Henry’s voice. “You knocked the flashlight into the water when you jumped.”
    â€œOh, “I say.
    â€œWhere are you guys?” Dan’s voice.
    â€œOver here,” Magda says.
    â€œOver where?” I say. The darkness seems to amplify the echoes. I can’t tell what direction the voices are coming from.
    â€œThat was a really stupid move, your Kahunaness,” says Henry.
    â€œSorry. Can anybody see anything at all?”
    Dan says, “How are we gonna find the ladder?”
    â€œIt’s right in the middle.”
    â€œYeah, but where’s the middle?”
    â€œIt must be close to where you jumped in, Kahunaness.”
    Magda, off to my left, says, “I think I see the hatch.”
    â€œWhere are you?”
    â€œOver here. Up against the wall.”
    â€œIf you swim toward it, you might run into the ladder.”
    Dan says, “I’m getting tired.”
    â€œTry floating.”
    â€œI don’t float.”
    â€œMagda? Are you swimming toward the hatch?”
    â€œI’m”
    Something hits me hard in the eye.
    â€œOw! Who was that?”
    â€œSorry!” Magda says. “You were in my way. I can’t see the hatch anymore. You can only see it when you’re up against the wall, otherwise the platform blocks it.”
    I can’t see her, but I hear her breathing. I sense her body just a couple of feet away.
    Henry says, “If everybody just swims around for awhile, one of us is bound to run into the ladder.”
    I say, “I got an idea. We make a human chain. We hold hands and swim across the tank till we hit the ladder.”
    â€œSounds good to me,” Dan says. He is breathing hard. “Where are you?”
    â€œI’m over here,” says Magda.
    â€œKeep talking.”
    â€œHenry? You coming?”
    â€œRight here.” His voice is surprisingly close.
    â€œOkay. Dan?”
    â€œI can’t find you.”
    â€œKeep following my voice.”
    The sound of his splashing gets closer, then we hear a squeal from Magda.
    â€œHey, keep your hands where they belong!”
    â€œSorry!”
    â€œWe all here? Let’s grab hands.”
    I reach out, touching Magda’s shoulder, then sliding my hand down along her arm to her hand. On my other side, Henry is groping at me. We manage to clasp hands. My legs are churning double-time to stay afloat.
    â€œYou got hold of Dan over there, Magda?”
    â€œI got him. Now what?”
    â€œNow we start swimming, keeping our hands clasped and our arms stretched out.”
    â€œHow do we—
urk
!”
    â€œWhat the—hey, we all gotta be facing the same way.” Two very confusing minutes later, our human chain is relinked. We start swimming