Boys Life

exploding around the trunk. The rear windshield was a waterfall. I couldn’t get Dr. Lezander off me, and now the car was turning slowly against me as the Buick rolled over like a happy hog and my side started to submerge. Dr. Lezander was drooling bloody foam, and I realized his ribs must’ve taken a wallop, too.
    “Cory! Cory!”
    I looked up, past Dr. Lezander to the broken window rising above me.
    My father was there, his hair plastered flat, his face dripping. Blood was creeping down from his cut eyebrow. He started wrenching out bits of glass from the window frame with his fingers. The Buick shuddered and moaned. Water edged up over the seat and its cold touch shocked me and made Dr. Lezander start thrashing.
    “Can you grab my hand?” Dad wedged his body in through the crumpled window and strained to reach me.
    I couldn’t, not with that weight on me. “Help me, Dad,” I croaked.
    He fought to winnow in farther. His sides must’ve been raked and clawed by glass, but his face showed no pain. His lips were tight and grim, his eyes fixed on me like red-rimmed lamps. His hand tried to part the distance between us, but still the distance was too great.
    Dr. Lezander’s body lurched. He said something, but it must’ve been a snarl of German. He blinked, his eyes coming into painful focus. Water sloshed over us, a touch of the grave. He looked at his broken wrist, and he made a deep moaning noise.
    “Get off him!” Dad shouted. “For God’s sake, get off my son!”
    Dr. Lezander shuddered and coughed. On the third cough, bright red blood sprayed from his nose and mouth. He grasped at his side, and suddenly there was blood on his hand. The beast from the lost world had staved his ribs right through his innards.
    The water was roaring now. The Buick was sinking at the trunk.
    “Please!” Dad begged, still straining to reach me. “Please give me my son!”
    Dr. Lezander looked around as if trying to figure out exactly where he was. He lifted himself off me a few inches, which made me able to breathe without feeling like I was jammed in a sardine can. Dr. Lezander looked back at the sinking trunk and the water surging dark and foamy where the rear windshield had been and I heard him whisper “Oh.”
    It was the whisper of surrender.
    Dr. Lezander’s face turned. He stared at me. Blood dripped from his nose and ran down my cheek. “Cory,” he said, and his voice gurgled. His good hand closed on my wrist.
    “Up you go,” he whispered. “Bronco.”
    He lifted himself up with an effort that must’ve racked him, and he guided my hand into my father’s.
    Dad pulled me out, and I flung my arms around his neck. He held me, his legs treading water and tears streaming down his heroic face.
    With a great buckling and moaning noise, the Buick was going down. The water rushed around us, drawing us in. Dad started kicking us away from it, but the pull was too strong. Then, with a hissing noise of heat and liquid at war, the Buick was drawn down into the depths. I felt my father fighting the suction, and then he gasped a breath and I knew he had lost.
    We went under.
    The car was sinking below us, into a huge gloomy vault where the sun was a stranger. Air bubbles rose from it like silver jellyfish. Dad was kicking frantically, trying to break the pull, but we were going down with Dr. Lezander. In the underwater blur I saw the doctor’s white face pressed up against the windshield. Bubbles were streaming from his open mouth.
    And suddenly something had drifted up from below and was clinging to the trunk. Something that might have been a big clump of moss or rags somebody had dumped into Saxon’s Lake with their garbage. Whatever this thing was, it moved slowly and inexorably into the Buick through the broken rear windshield. The car was turning, turning over like a bizarre ride at the Brandywine Carnival, suspended against darkness. As my lungs burned for breath I saw the blur of Dr. Lezander’s white face again, only this time the ragged mossy thing had wrapped itself around him like a putrid robe. Whatever this thing was, it had hold of his jaw. I saw a faint glint of a silver tooth, like a receding star. Then the Buick turned over on its back like a huge turtle and as air bubbles rushed up again I felt them hit us and break us loose from the suction. We were rising toward the realm of light.
    Dad lifted me up, so my head broke the surface first.
    There wasn’t much light up there today, but there was a