Affliction Z (Book 3): Descended in Blood by L.T. Ryan

fill his lungs and pulled himself under. Four more bullets hit where he’d treaded water a few seconds ago. They sounded like hollow thuds as they penetrated the surface.
    Turk dove forward and down and twisted and turned near the bottom. He could stay under for more than three and a half minutes if he conserved his breath and got maximum distance out of each stroke. No problem, so long as he didn’t have to over exert himself.
    Go with the current.
    He stretched his arms ahead then pulled them back as he kicked with his feet. It propelled him forward. The push of the water took over from there. The seconds stretched on. Turk had no way of knowing how far he’d gone, or if the men had alerted others, who then might have boarded the boats. Hell, he didn’t even know if that would make a difference, because he hadn’t seen whether the small vessels had engines.
    Turk continued on what he assumed was a north to northwest trajectory. On a direct line, the beach was about a mile away from where he went under. But he was being pulled back into the harbor. How far? He wasn’t sure. He figured that by the time he surfaced, he’d be halfway between the fort and landfall. Far enough away from the fort not to have to worry about overzealous survivors with rifles.
    But then something changed.
    It felt as though he’d been smacked in the gut, and his body was jerked backward, as though launched from a slingshot. He tumbled in the water, foot over head, head over foot. The shock of it caused Turk to expel half the remaining oxygen from his lungs.
    How long could he last? A minute? After being flipped several times, he could not even tell which way was up.
    To get through all this and then drown? I’m a fucking SEAL!
    That was the first sign he’d adjusted to the situation. No matter how weak his body felt, his mind was strong. It and his training took over. Turk quit fighting against the current and allowed it to carry his body. The covered sky darkened the water to the point that he couldn’t tell if he faced the surface or the bottom, but by expelling a mouthful of air he was able to figure it out when the bubbles wrapped around his nose. Turk angled his body up and tugged at the water, fighting through the current.
    When the ocean finally spit him out, he was still mired in the current. He knew it would only last so long, and only stretched so far. But how far? The powerful push of water was capable of dragging him out for as far as it stretched.
    Think, Turk. It’s basically a riptide. Simple enough, right?
    He began swimming to his left, not with or against the current. Through it. He fought with every ounce of strength his depleted muscles had left. Concern grew that it wouldn’t be enough. It was more than a riptide.
    The current struck back, pulling his legs and feet around to its center, trying to flip Turk over. If he went under again, that was it. He would not resurface. The ocean would claim Turk.
    And then it was over.
    He broke through the wall and the current ejected him. Turk swam as hard and as fast as he could until he’d made it twenty yards.
    Treading water, he glanced around and the realization over how far he’d been dragged out into the Atlantic set in. The current must have been moving twenty miles an hour. He’d only been caught in it for a few minutes, yet land looked like nothing but a tiny strip of sand.
    There’s no way I’ll make it.
    Another voice piped up. Just swim, Turk . Over and over, the voice repeated while morphing. His wife’s voice. His daughter’s. All of his instructors during BUDS. Fallen SEALs he’d been in teams with. They spoke in unison. His mother sang it like she was in the church choir again.
    Every damn one of them commanded Turk to continue.
    So he crawled forward. Right arm only, on his side. Then the left. Then a breaststroke. Then a backstroke. He tried everything he could think of to allow muscle groups to rest. Halfway there, he stopped and floated, allowing the