Shark Beach

by Chris Jameson

  He shifted his right foot and found nothing beneath it. The world fell away. The wind rocked him and he pinwheeled his arms. As he fell, he saw the pool, saw the sharks and the blood in the water that told him at least one more had already been torn apart. Then he plunged beneath the surface and he tasted the salt water as it jetted up his nose.

  His heart thundered in his chest, thrummed in his head. Terror became a scream for which he could find no voice. He swam, broke the surface, and whipped around in the water in search of the nearest pool edge. Blood fogged the water twenty feet away. Sharks tore at dead flesh in a frenzy. Fins slashed the water all over the pool, but he saw his opening, off to his left, clear swimming to the pool’s edge only a dozen feet from him.

  The next wave shattered the seawall.

  Broaddus managed a scream as he saw the massive wall of water pouring toward him, carrying tons of concrete and granite his way. Something pounded his chest, crushed his ribs, pushed all the air out of his lungs just as the wave dragged him under. Unable to breathe, pain burning his every thought, he managed to surface.

  Hanging in the water, he saw fins headed toward the opening in the seawall. No, he thought, and then Yes, because if they all left the pool, he might still live.

  Slowly, in agonizing pain, he began to swim one-handed toward the edge of the pool. But then the undertow grabbed him and hauled him toward the broken wall, toward open water.

  Just as he began to surrender, the pain too much for him to fight his fate, he saw the shark—saw its black eyes as it surfaced. He prayed it would be quick, that it might kill him so mercifully fast that the pain would be over swiftly. But the shark had no gods, did not understand prayers. It took his left arm first, as both were swept out into the Gulf. And then the others smelled his blood and came to rip and tear and fight for their share.

  In the end, a final, errant, lunatic thought shot through his mind. In a way, he had been successful.

  The sharks were free.

  CHAPTER 7

  By morning of the next day, the cleanup had begun.

  Jenn Hautala sat on a beach chair with an iced coffee half-buried in the sand beside her and watched the island start to come back to life. It felt surreal, the most unearthly hours she had ever experienced. The worst of the hurricane had passed through by early evening, and by midnight it could have been any ordinary storm. Sunrise had given them an angry pink sky striated with dark, lingering cloud fingers. Now, with the morning halfway over, the humidity kept the sky opaque but the wind had returned to its ordinary Gulf breeze.

  The island did not recover so easily. Trees were down everywhere. Most of the homes and buildings had damage from the wind and rain and the storm surge. The wind had torn the storm door off their porch, and a piece of debris had broken a taillight and dented the side of their rental car. The spring-breakers next door had more significant house damage—their Gulf-facing porch had been obliterated by a falling tree—but nothing that would endanger them now, as long as they used the front door.

  Chainsaws growled in the trees and echoed from other spots across the island. Jenn could hear hammers banging nails and voices shouting to one another as people came together to begin repairs. In Sunset Captiva, she had seen a crew already sweeping up broken glass. She and Matti had walked down Andy Rosse Lane this morning. One of the restaurants had been flooded so badly that Jenn doubted it would ever reopen, but most of them had been built up off the ground. They would recover in time.

  Aside from the noises related to work, the island seemed quieter than ever. There were fewer people, of course, since those who had managed to evacuate could now not return. But this was something different than ordinary quiet. The island had an awed hush, an awareness that they had all faced the force of nature yesterday and it was only good fortune that allowed them to live to see the sunrise. Had the hurricane made landfall as something more than a category 2, they might not have been so lucky.

  There were no WaveRunners out this morning. Nobody had opened the little shop that rented them, and there would be no parasailing. For the people who lived and worked here, there would be only sweat and frustration now, whereas the vacationers were going to just have to make do and be patient.

  Boats lined the beach, people from the island and mainlanders just there to help. Some had driven right up onto the sand while others were anchored just offshore, despite the water still being choppy in the aftermath of the hurricane. Though she remained aware of the other boats, her interest had been piqued by the single craft that really wasn’t supposed to be there at all—an old wreck that had been washed ashore by the hurricane and now rested on the sand, crusted with old seaweed and shells. Jenn did not recall ever seeing a ship like it, for this one had both a paddlewheel and a smokestack, although the smokestack had broken in half at some point. For that matter, so had the ship. What had washed ashore must have been only half of the vessel, the rest of it still at the bottom somewhere.

  From the look of it, the boat had been out there in the Gulf for a long time.

  As if the police and emergency services didn’t have enough to worry about, they had been here very early, staking out an area around the beached vessel with bright yellow tape. Several people had been left to look after the wreck, including a deeply tanned guy in a bright orange lifeguard swimsuit and Deputy Hayes, the woman who had come to the house the day before to listen to Rick Scully’s embarrassing rant about the spring-breaker who’d flirted with his wife.

  The thought made Jenn glance over her shoulder at the path that led to their rental house. Trees had fallen across it. Leaves and coconuts and other debris were scattered everywhere. A big yellow umbrella dangled from the trees, from one of the rentals, that someone had foolishly left under a house. She had seen another floating in the water that morning.

  Rick and Matti were still up at the house, calling the property manager and the car rental agency. They had managed to get the generator going. Jenn could have done it herself, but she never minded letting Matti feel like she needed him.

  She smiled to herself and dug her iced coffee out of the sand, took a sip, and then shielded her eyes to get a better look at the no-longer-sunken ship. Corinne and her girls were down at the police line, watching as a photographer took pictures of the wreck inside and out. Jesse had joined them, and Jenn knew her son wanted to slip under that tape and get a closer look, but she also knew he wouldn’t dare. Even out here in the sunshine, in vacation paradise, and with people responding to so many other troubles, he knew better than to break the rules. There were always people who would get angry, always police who would shoot first and make up their own story later. Even here.

  As she studied him, Jesse turned to look back at her, almost as if he could sense her focus on him. He said something to the Scully girls and started up the storm-ravaged beach. There were other people out there, but Jenn noticed nobody had dared to go into the water, afraid that the undertow would drag them out.

  “What do you think?” she said as Jesse approached. “Pretty spectacular, huh?”

  “Incredible,” Jesse replied. “Like something out of a storybook. Pirate ship washes up on shore in a storm.”

  Jenn narrowed her eyes. “It’s a pirate ship?”

  “I wish. Can you imagine? Everyone within a hundred miles would be out here looking for treasure on the beach,” Jesse said. “No, I overheard a couple of the guys photographing the wreck talking about it being something they called a blockade runner. I guess it was a Civil War thing.”

  She felt a rush of recognition. It seemed she had seen that boat design before. “I think I studied them in college. When the South seceded from the Union, they had no navy, so they had ships built in other countries, including England. The North blockaded the whole perimeter of the country to keep anyone from helping, but the South had these blockade runners that got supplies through.”

  Jesse looked impressed. “So that thing’s really been down there since the Civil War?”

&nbs
p; “Seems that way.”

  “Wow,” he said, and it sounded as if he meant it.

  For a few moments they stood there, mother and son, taking in the way the storm had resculpted the beach and all of the shells and seaweed and debris that had been left behind in its passing.

  “You’ll never forget this vacation,” Jenn observed.

  “Will you?”

  “Not a chance.”

  A comfortable, companionable silence fell between them as they watched the activity buzzing around the shipwreck. It was strange to look out across the Gulf and not see a single boat on the water.

  “It was pretty bad, I guess,” Jesse said somberly. “People were saying the cleanup is going to take a long time, but nobody seemed that surprised.”

  “This isn’t the first bad hurricane these folks have dealt with. I’m sure it won’t be the last one, either. As bad as it was, by the time it made landfall it was only a category two. One of these days they’re going to get a category five and the devastation will be unbelievable. The house we’re staying in—no matter how well it’s built, it’s up on those stilts. A storm that powerful might knock it over. The whole island might be scoured clean in a storm like that.”

  Jesse shook his head. “I don’t get why they stay. Why even own property here?”

  Jenn smiled, thinking of the stunning beauty of the Greek island of Santorini. The people had settled on an island that was part of the rim of a massive, active, underwater volcano. Someday it would erupt again and the entire city, all human activity there, could be burned away.

  “It’s paradise, babe,” she told her son. “People will sacrifice a lot for a place like this.”

  Before Jesse could reply, Jenn heard voices and turned to see her husband coming down from the path with a fiftyish white woman, bleached blond and definitely not dressed for the beach. She wore white pants and a yellow silk shirt, and her shoes slung from one finger of her right hand. She walked like she owned the island.

  “How’s the house looking?” Jenn asked.

  Matti nodded, though his focus shifted to the shipwreck on the beach. “Some minor damage. Someone will be over by the end of the day to board up the broken window, but otherwise, it’s business as usual.”

  “Well, we’re not miracle workers,” the woman replied. “It’ll be a few weeks until we’ve got it all cleaned up. Crews are out clearing the roads now, but the big concern is the bridge. The car rental companies will work with guests to sort out transportation at the end of a vacation, but now there will be a shortage of available vehicles off island, and the people who drove their own cars onto Captiva are in even worse shape. It’s going to be chaos for a while.”

  “Trouble in paradise,” Jenn said.

  “There always is,” the woman said with a thin, polite smile. Then she turned to Matti. “So, when am I going to meet your beautiful family?”

  The confusion clouding Matti’s features was understandable, but Jenn understood immediately. The property manager had seen a black woman and a black teenager and there had been a mental disconnect. If part of her brain had expected to find Matti’s wife and son here on the beach, her presumptions had turned Jenn and Jesse invisible.

  Matti fumbled for the right words.

  Jenn didn’t need to fumble. She fixed the woman with a withering stare as she put a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “We are his beautiful family.”

  The woman blinked as if still trying to make sense of this revelation. Then she smiled thinly. “Of course you are. How silly of me.”

  “Silly” was not the word Jenn would have used.

  “Sandy, meet my wife, Jenn. And this is our son, Jesse,” Matti said, much more formally. His spine had stiffened and his voice had taken on an uncharacteristic chill. “Jenn, this is Sandy.”

  Jenn smiled. “Sandy. Of course you are.”

  A small voice called out and they all turned to see Kelsey Scully running up the beach toward them, sand flying behind her. Emma and their mother followed at a less-manic pace. Kelsey raced up, chattering excitedly about the shipwreck, and Jesse turned on his natural charm, responding to her enthusiasm with his own.

  When Corinne walked up, Matti quickly introduced her. Rick Scully had remained inside the house, at least for now, but the property manager had the whole picture of the two families now. The Scullys were white enough to haunt an old castle. Jenn had skin almost as dark as her natural hair, which she’d tied back into a high puff this morning. With his Finnish heritage, Matti was maybe the whitest human on planet Earth, but their son was still brown enough to get “randomly selected” for additional TSA screening at most American airports.

  While Corinne and Sandy talked amiably about the hurricane, the concerns of the homeowners—which restaurants might reopen when, and how the collapsed bridge might effect the local economy—Matti gave Jenn a quiet look of apology. She had seen that expression on his face so many times, the expression that said that he wished he could understand what the world looked like through the eyes of his wife and son. Though sometimes she wished for the same, Jenn was glad that Matti could never really understand. He was a sweet man, and maybe too soft for the harsher realities of the world. She envied him the luxury of never having to know.

  “So what you’re saying is that, for the moment, we’re trapped on Captiva?” Jenn asked, studying the woman.

  “For now, yes,” Sandy said. “When you have to leave, I’m sure we’ll be able to help you arrange transport by boat to Sanibel or Fort Myers, so you can get back to the airport. Call me if there’s anything I can do, but for now, you’ll have to make the best of it.”

  Jenn looked up and down the beach, saw all the shells, the scattering of people who had not evacuated, the waves, and the palm trees, and she reached out and took Matti’s hand. He smiled and gave her a squeeze.

  “I think we can manage,” she said.

  Matti nodded. “We’ll survive.”

  There was more conversation. Something about the owner and possible repairs, but Jenn turned to Kelsey and Emma, who looked painfully bored. She whispered to get the girls’ attention. “Psst. Hey. Race to the waves?”

  Emma gave her a surreptitious thumbs-up.

  Kelsey hemmed and hawed. “I don’t know. Maybe we should…” she began, trailed off a moment, and then snapped her head up. “Go!”

  The youngest of them took off running toward the surf. Emma and Jenn shouted about how she’d tricked them, but caught up to her anyway. They reached the water just steps apart, with Emma the first one to the waves. She halted in the white foaming surf, celebrating her victory. Kelsey did the same, coming in second, but Jenn blasted past the two of them, took half a dozen stomping strides, and then dove into a massive wave that broke above her, pushed her under, tried to drag her back toward shore.

  She broke the surface, feeling the undertow, not caring. It wasn’t strong enough now to drag her out. They were prisoners of paradise now. Castaways on a tropical island. Like Sandy said, they would just have to make the best of it.

  As Jenn watched, Jesse joined Kelsey and Emma in the surf, and then all of them were swimming, laughing, splashing.

  The storm had passed. The worst was over.

  * * *

  Kelsey splashed Jesse, putting on her best evil grin. Emma swam a few feet away, trying to act all cool around him the way she always did lately. Kelsey might only be in the third grade, but she recognized Jesse’s overall cuteness. His face had changed, his jaw somehow stronger, and just this spring he had suddenly developed muscles he had never had before. The effect was enough to make Emma into a babbling idiot half the time. When Kelsey teased her about it, her mother told her to leave her older sister alone—that Emma just had a little crush. But it didn’t seem very little to her.

  What annoyed her more than Emma getting all swoony about Jesse was that she seemed to have forgotten why they had both always loved him. Kelsey loved his laugh, and what a dork he could be, no matter how handsome he might turn out
. He was just fun.

  “Time for a little swim,” Jesse said now, stalking toward her, arms up like a monster on the attack.

  “Don’t even think about throwing me in!” Kelsey warned.

  Emma splashed them both. “Do it!”

  Kelsey started splashing with both arms, sweeping first her left and then her right across the waves to send sheets of foamy water spraying at Jesse’s face. He lunged for her, roaring, and Kelsey squealed as he hauled her out of the water. Jesse lifted her over his head and she kicked a little, but not too much, before he hurled her as far as he could. She screamed, then clamped her mouth shut and her eyes closed as she plunged deep.

  The undertow grabbed her. Her heart lurched and panic seized her as she remembered how strong it could be, but then her feet touched bottom and she shoved upward and broke the surface, and Jesse was there, wading toward her, still playing sea monster.

  “No!” Kelsey said. “Throw Emma now! I dare you.”

  She saw her sister’s face blanch. “Try it, boy, and I’ll drown you.”

  Jesse laughed and turned to march toward her.

  Kelsey grinned, knowing how crazy Emma must have been feeling in that moment, loving and hating the attention from Jesse all at the same time. She glanced around, searching for her mother, and saw her a little farther out, swimming with Jesse’s mom.

  Beyond them, she saw the shark.

  Kelsey went completely still in the water. The waves were tall, but she watched the fin slice through a trough, watched a wave roll over it, and then watched as it emerged on the other side of that swell.

  A wave struck Kelsey, knocked her backward. She spun around in the water, kicked and swam, and wiped the water from her eyes as she turned to search for that fin again, her heart racing.