The Living

by Matt De La Peña

  The lifeboat shook again, more violently this time.

  He leaned over the jagged edge, looked directly into the water, and his heart climbed up into his throat.

  There were five or six sharks circling beneath his sinking boat. Jaws partly open and full of teeth. Eyes black. He watched, horrified, as one of them broke from the pack, rose up and banged its snout into the bottom of his boat, knocking him on his ass.

  “What the hell!” he shouted, angrily pushing himself off one of the corpses and sloshing through the water to pick up the raft oar. Now he was pissed. On top of everything else he had to deal with this? He stood and started beating at the ocean and screaming down the sharks: “Get your asses away from here!”

  They dispersed for a few seconds, then re-formed their pack and continued circling.

  Shy pulled the oar into the boat and sat in the water trapped inside. He rocked himself back and forth trying to catch his breath and trying to think, his heart pounding against the inside of his chest as he looked around.

  The sweatshirt had come out of the gash in the boat, which was why it had taken on so much water. If he didn’t figure out a way to fix it, he’d sink, and if he sank…He remembered his grandma’s warning in the library: I have pictures of their teeth, though, mijo. They have rows and rows.

  Shy wadded up the arm of the sweatshirt a second time, shoved it back into the hole. Then he moved through the bodies and dug back through the supplies.

  The boat shook again.

  He pulled out the tarp, ripped open the packaging. But he couldn’t figure out how to secure it over the hole, so he tossed it aside, grabbed the fiberglass patch kit. He had to bail out enough water so that the hole was no longer submerged and it had a chance to dry. Only then could he try patching it.

  More scooping, two hands at a time, splashing the water overboard as quickly as he could. He did this for what seemed like hours, until his arms and shoulders burned and his back ached. All the while the sharks continued circling the boat. Sometimes knocking against the bottom or lifting their huge, menacing heads out of the water and flashing their teeth.

  The sun traveled slowly across the sky and began falling toward the sea. By the time the sky was lit up with colors, the water level inside the boat was down near his ankles.

  He kneeled, pulled the sweatshirt arm from the gash. It was no longer underwater, but it was still wet. And all the clothing on the boat was soaked, including his own, so he couldn’t dry it. Finally he leaned his face down and blew on the gash, breath after breath, each deep inhale triggering that sharp pain in his ribs.

  After several minutes, he felt around the gash with his fingers. It was dry. He opened the kit, positioned the patch over the hole, pasted on a thick coat of resin.

  A shark slowly emerged from the water and showed its teeth, gave a strange sideways glance. Shy leaped to his feet and grabbed the oar. He raised it over his head and came down with as much power as he could muster, cracking the shark in the teeth.

  “That’s right, shark bitch!” he shouted as it ducked back into the water. “Come back up here if you want some more!”

  He stood with the oar poised above his head again, but the sharks all stayed underwater.

  Eventually Shy sat against the tallest side of the boat and stared up at the swirling sunset sky, picturing Carmen’s face when the ship alarm first started blaring. It killed him, that look.

  His stomach was starting to cramp from hunger.

  His mind felt cloudy.

  The ocean continued whispering to him, the way it had since day one of his first cruise. But he knew he’d never understand.

  As the sky grew dim, he moved across the boat and kneeled down to feel around the resin-covered patch. It was completely dry. Strong when he knocked against it with his knuckles. At least the boat wouldn’t sink, he told himself. And the sharks had gone away.

  Shy’s thoughts soon turned to food and water. His stomach grumbled and his mouth was dry as a desert. It seemed unfair to be completely surrounded by water he couldn’t drink.

  He was staring out over the ocean and rocking himself against his favorite side of the boat when something in the distance caught his eye.

  A faraway raft maybe.

  With people.

  Shy stood and waved his hands. “Over here! Hey!”

  He dug into his supplies and fired another flare into the darkening sky, his second. Only four left.

  He heard a man’s voice in the distance and saw waving.

  The oar was back in his hands, but how would he use it? He tried rowing from one side, but it only made the boat turn in a circle. He moved to the very front of the boat, dug the oar into the water on one side and pulled, then quickly switched to the other.

  He wasn’t able to get much leverage, but to his surprise the boat started inching forward, little by little, in almost a straight line.

  A couple of the sharks were back now, swimming out ahead of him.

  It took a long time for Shy to get close enough to make out actual people in the dark. He counted seven heads, most kneeling on either side of a raft, paddling toward him by hand, though it wasn’t doing much good.

  A man he didn’t recognize shouted: “Hurry! We don’t have much air left!”

  “I’m trying!” Shy shouted back.

  There were a few sharks circling the raft, too. And the half-deflated sides were dangerously close to the water.

  Shy dug harder as he began recognizing some of the faces staring back.

  The oilman. Toni from Destiny. Both wild-eyed, on their hands and knees, paddling.

  Then Shy saw a second girl, just behind them.

  The blonde he’d had to kick off the Honeymoon Deck during the storm. Addison.

  29

  Blood in the Water

  Shy pulled his oar through the ocean, again and again, steering toward their weakening raft. There was less than a basketball court between them now.

  He watched one of the sharks suddenly dart toward the raft. It bit into the side near the oilman, who quickly dove backward. Everyone screamed and moved away, holding each other. The shark shook the raft in its teeth, like a dog, then let go and sank slowly back into the water.

  Shy couldn’t believe how aggressive the sharks were acting. Like they sensed how close they were to getting these people into the water. The raft began sagging on the bitten side, and everyone pulled their hands out of the water and moved toward the middle of the raft.

  A second shark broke from the pack, this one smaller and coming from the opposite side. It didn’t bite into the side like Shy was expecting, it launched itself entirely out of the water, turning over in midair, and landed on the back end of the raft.

  A few passengers were knocked off balance and fell overboard, splashing awkwardly into the ocean. They came up screaming and beating at the water around them, trying to get to Shy’s boat. But the sharks quickly pulled them back under, their tails whipping around the churning water.

  Shy was horrified.

  To get away from the shark on the raft, two others dove into the ocean and swam for Shy’s boat. One of them was Toni.

  “Stop!” he shouted, watching the sharks pull them under one at a time, their screams piercing as they came up for air and struggled to get away.

  Shy saw Addison still sitting near the front end of the failing raft, screaming. And he saw the oilman shoving things into a dry pack and then diving into the water, too.

  “Stay on the raft!” Shy shouted.

  Toni miraculously reached Shy’s boat.

  He extended his oar toward her, and she grabbed on. He pulled her in until she was close enough that he could grab her hand and her other arm and he heaved her up and out of the water. But just as he was getting her over the jagged lip of the boat, she screamed in Shy’s ear, locked her terrified eyes onto his, then she was ripped from his grasp and pulled back into the water.

  “Toni!” Shy shouted, leaning over the side of the boat. He watched
her thrash against the shark, trying to fight it off. She broke away somehow and started swimming for the boat, but seconds later she was pulled under again, her screams turning to muffled gurgling and then nothing.

  Shy’s entire body was shaking uncontrollably.

  He’d done nothing to help.

  A few more sharks appeared, their fins and tails whipping the water into a boiling mass as they tore at Toni’s body.

  Shy dug his oar back into the water, moving toward the oilman and Addison, who were the only ones left. The oilman swam right up to the feeding frenzy, pointed a flare gun and fired. The dark water lit up bright orange and the sharks darted away. Toni’s mauled body floating up to the surface, unrecognizable, her life jacket ripped to shreds.

  The oilman dropped the gun and continued swimming the short distance to the boat. He reached out for Shy’s oar and Shy pulled him in, then hoisted him over the side and turned his attention to Addison.

  She was still on the mostly deflated raft, frozen in shock and staring down at the water in front of her. He inched the boat toward her, to the point that they were almost touching. A shark popped its head through the surface of the water. Its massive jaw yawning wide, water rushing over the endless teeth, one of its black eyes staring directly at Shy.

  He swung his oar as hard as he could, cracked the shark in the side of the head. He raised the oar in the air, ready to strike again as the oilman snatched Addison by the arm and pulled her into the boat. She fell onto one of the dead bodies, quickly pushed herself away, and leaned up against the side, covering her face with her hands and sobbing.

  Shy tossed down the oar and went to her. He didn’t say anything, though. Nobody did. They only looked at each other and tried to catch their breath, listening to the splashing water and the feasting sharks. The sky entirely dark now, except a few scattered stars and the dull-looking half-moon that hovered in front of their boat.

  Shy rubbed his eyes and gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t shake it all from his head. Toni getting pulled under and the screaming and the blood.

  The oilman reached into the dry pack beside him, pulled out a gallon of water. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to Addison, who was shaking so violently she could hardly lift it to her mouth. The oilman had to help her.

  Then it was Shy’s turn, and when the water hit his tongue his entire body came alive. He could’ve kept drinking for hours, but they had to conserve. Who knew how long the jug would have to last. He passed it back to the oilman, who took a sip of his own.

  The oilman was holding a hand to his thigh, but even in the dark Shy could see the blood seeping through his fingers.

  The man set down the bottle and looked up at Addison and Shy. He lifted his hand from his leg, and Shy cringed. The giant rip in his jeans exposed a grotesque wound. All the way to the bone. Blood pumped out rhythmically, soaking his pant leg, streaming into the water around his shoe.

  The oilman put his hand back over the wound and told them: “I believe I’ve been bit.”

  30

  Mr. Henry’s Answer

  Shy sat across the boat from Addison, listening to the oilman’s whimpering and the hum of the nighttime ocean and the sound of tiny swells lapping against the side of the boat.

  The man’s leg was still bleeding, even though Shy had tied a tourniquet around his upper thigh—several inches above the wound, just like he’d been taught in training. But this wound was unlike anything he’d ever seen. It was jagged and uneven, the muscle chewed up and fully exposed. Shy didn’t see how anyone could survive a wound like that.

  Addison was in bad shape, too. She didn’t appear to be hurt physically, but she wouldn’t speak, even when Shy asked her direct questions about how they’d gotten on the raft and what had happened to their lifeboat. She just sat there against the side of the boat, shivering, eyelids drooping.

  When she finally fell asleep, Shy covered her with the rain slicker. She’d been a bitch to him on the ship, maybe the hardest he’d had to deal with, but it no longer seemed to matter. He crossed back to the opposite side of the boat and stared out at the sea. He was freezing and hungry, thirstier than he’d ever been in his life. His ribs ached. He was with other people now—living, breathing people—but he still felt totally alone.

  He sat there in the dark, his mind returning to the same simple questions. Why was all of this happening? Why’d he end up out here when he should be back home with his family, even if they all died together in the earthquakes? When he was a little kid his grandma had taught him to believe there was meaning in everything, even how his old man treated him. But now Shy understood there was nothing.

  He cracked open his eyes a few hours later.

  Still night.

  Addison was passed out in the same position. The oilman was awake, though. He seemed to be over his shock. He cringed and held his leg in pain, but he appeared more aware of his surroundings. Shy went to him, picked up the jug of water and urged him to drink.

  “Don’t know why you’d waste it on me,” the man said, waving the water away.

  Shy took a baby sip himself and said: “It’s not just you. We all need water.”

  “You know I won’t survive,” the man said, pointing to his mangled leg.

  It was true, the guy looked worse than before. His eyes sagged and his shoulders slumped, his pant leg was caked with blood below the tourniquet.

  “I don’t wanna be here anyway,” the man said. “Not without Angela.”

  “She’s the one you were gonna give the ring to?” Shy asked.

  The man nodded.

  Shy figured he should keep the man talking or something, to take his mind off the pain. But he didn’t know what to say. He tried pushing the water again instead, and this time the man took a small sip. When he handed back the bottle, Shy capped it and said: “I never got your name.”

  “William,” the oilman said. “William Henry.”

  “I’m Shy.” Shy reached out and shook the man’s hand. He seemed so much different than he had on the ship. More humble. Maybe that’s what a nasty shark bite did, Shy thought. It stripped away all the arrogant thoughts people had about themselves. “I wanted to tell you, Mr. Henry,” he said. “Everything that happened with the ship was seriously messed up. Obviously. But, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem fair you never even got to ask her to marry you.”

  Mr. Henry forced a grin and shook his head. “I knew her answer, though.”

  Shy frowned. “Why do you say that?”

  “Before dinner I told Angela to wear her pearls to the restaurant.” The man winced and looked down at his leg, touched gently around the wound.

  “I don’t get it,” Shy said.

  “Most women get caught off guard when they’re proposed to,” Mr. Henry said. He coughed into a fist. “They look back after the fact and wish they were wearing a different dress. Or they wish they’d been wearing makeup. Silly things. We joked about this a few times. So when I told her to wear the pearls, she understood what it meant.”

  “She knew you had a ring and everything?”

  The man shrugged. “But I saw the look in her eyes when I left her cabin that afternoon. She wasn’t ever coming to dinner.”

  Shy had no idea how to respond to this, so he told the man: “You don’t know that. She was probably just doing her makeup, like you said.”

  Mr. Henry shook his head. “I know.”

  Shy watched him lean his head back against the side and close his eyes, his fingers still touching around his wound. It didn’t seem fair that a guy who got stood up would also get bitten by a shark. But then nothing about the last few days was fair.

  Day 4

  31

  Lost at Sea

  By morning Shy’s stomach was cramping, and he felt weak. He was so cold he couldn’t stop shivering, but he knew by the afternoon the sun would be beating down on them relentlessly. His lips were cracked and swollen from the day before, his face so sunburned it felt tight and stung in the salty air.
Tiny sores had started popping up on his arms and legs and feet, and his skin was covered in a strange film.

  For the first few hours of the day, the oilman slept and Addison shivered in her corner and remained silent. Shy tried to think of a plan. They couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. The movement of the sun told him which direction was east, but what was he going to do, row them all the way back to California? It would probably take a damn year with his one stupid oar. He’d start them toward the islands everyone kept talking about, but he had no idea which direction they were.

  When he grew overwhelmed by the hopelessness of their situation, he started watching Addison, remembering how weird she’d acted on the Honeymoon Deck during the storm.

  A few hours later, Addison leaned over the side of the boat and said: “God, why won’t they leave us alone?”

  These were the first words she’d spoken on the lifeboat. Shy knew she was talking about the two sharks still hovering around the boat, but he took it as an opening to bring up what was on his mind. “Why’d your old man have a picture of me?”

  Addison turned and looked at him.

  “ ’Cause that’s what you said, right? When you were out there in the storm with your binoculars.”

  No answer.

  Shy shook his head. “You wanted to know who I am—shit, who are you? And who’s your dad?”

  Addison’s face crinkled up and she covered her face with her hands and started crying.

  Seeing this made Shy lose his edge. He always caved when he saw a girl cry. “It’s just a question,” he told her, softening his tone. “Seems messed up to tell me your old man has a picture of me and then—”

  “Are you fucking kidding me!” Addison shouted at him through her sobs. “I just watched my best friend die! Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

  Shy startled. He hadn’t expected her to get all psychotic on him.

  “And I don’t know where my dad is!” Addison screamed. “He could be dead, too! And you want to talk to me about your stupid picture?”