Shark Island

by Chris Jameson

  “They’re kayaking hsssss now? Off Bald Cap?”

  “Yes!”

  “Nice weather for it,” the woman said. The one thing she’d said that had come through with perfect clarity, not a hint of static.

  And the line went dead.

  Lorena let out a scream of frustration and turned back toward Kyle. He shouted one last time for his father and Dorian, but already he had a slump to his shoulders. Over the storm, there was no chance they might hear him. Lorena slipped her phone back into her pocket and joined him there on the rocks. A wave crashed and soaked the two of them, but they didn’t back up. Not yet. Instead, they watched the two kayaks cutting across the swirling water to the south of the island, already out of the channel. There were seals around them, but she didn’t see any sharks in their vicinity. Not yet.

  “Are they coming?” Kyle asked. “You were yelling at them.”

  “I think I got through to her,” Lorena lied. “Yeah, for sure. Help is coming.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Naomi knew they were safe, but she certainly didn’t feel safe. The past twenty-eight or so hours had caught up to her and her bones felt weary. Her thoughts seemed slightly askew, diffused like light passing through a dirty window. The rain had soaked her so thoroughly that she had no desire to move, her clothes so stiff that it was almost as if she could not have moved even if she’d wanted to. Nearly drowning hadn’t helped, either. If not for the crisp, cutting chill of the wind she’d have been tempted to strip down.

  She stood with her arms folded, watching the water, willfully ignoring the way some of the outlying rocks had vanished beneath the rising tide. They were safe, after all, so what difference did the tide make?

  Safe.

  It occurred to her just how long it had been since she had really felt safe. An image swam into her mind of herself tucked into the crook of Kayla’s arm, head resting on her breast. Her skin had been so soft and always so much warmer than Naomi’s. They had showered together in the dormitory, daring and not caring if anyone overheard. They’d left a trail of sudsy water as they’d hurried back to Kayla’s room, barely wrapped in their towels, and fallen into bed together. Later, so warm and soft, wrapped in flannel sheets, Naomi had lain her head on Kayla’s breast and listened to her heart beating.

  Naomi had felt whole, then—all parts of her intact—and she’d been in love. The smell of sex and shampoo and the candles Kayla had lit had lingered in Naomi’s memory for weeks, maybe months. It rose up inside her now, as vivid a sensory memory as she’d ever had, and she caught her breath, eyes fluttering closed. The rain pelted her and the wind raked her, but for a moment she was back there in that third-floor room in Lewis Hall.

  Memory is agony, she thought. The epiphany knocked her back a step. Memory could be the greatest treasure of her life, she knew. But now she understood that it was also this other thing. Standing on the slick rock face of Bald Cap, cold and full of dread, watching the angry black sky and the malignant killers circling the island, she thought memory had the capacity to be not only agony but hell itself. If she had no memory of that moment, of being warm and contented and in love, this place would not have had so much power over her.

  Kayla had called her the day before yesterday, wanting to fix her mistakes. Naomi had hung up on her. Now she thought that when she finally got back to the mainland and got her hands on a phone, she might give Kayla the chance she was looking for. The woman wanted to fix her mistakes. The least Naomi could do was let her try.

  “You all right?”

  Naomi felt herself turn slowly, a delayed reaction, as if she were moving underwater or in a dream. Wolchko had come up behind her and she wondered how long he had been standing there, watching her stare at the sea and the storm.

  “I’m not Bergting,” she said, “so I guess that makes me all right.”

  Only the sight of Wolchko wincing made her recognize the hardness of her words.

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” she went on. “I didn’t mean that to sound disrespectful or … cold. It’s just that I figure as long as we’re not in the water, we’re okay. He seemed like a nice guy—”

  “He was,” Wolchko agreed, brows knitted.

  “That was really awful of me. I’m sorry.”

  “You said that.”

  “I know, but it was pretty bad.”

  Wolchko smiled. “If it made me flinch, it had to be. Normally I don’t notice…”

  “Insensitivity?”

  Wolchko stood next to her and looked out at the undulations of the dark, surging sea. “Why don’t we start this part again? Are you all right?”

  Grateful, Naomi linked her arm with his and leaned her head onto his shoulder. “Yeah. Weirdly, I am.” She never felt so comfortable with people this fast, but Wolchko wasn’t like most people. His Asperger’s—or whatever it was—stripped him of all pretense.

  He gave her a sidelong glance. “I’m glad to hear it. On the boat you seemed like you were kind of falling apart.”

  “Kind of?”

  Wolchko shrugged.

  “Panic attack,” Naomi said. “I had to do breathing exercises yesterday morning just to psych myself up to get on the boat, knowing there would be sharks in the water. When sharks started smashing themselves against our hull … yeah, I fell apart. But the boat fucking sank, Eddie, and I’m still here. I’m standing on solid rock and I’m alive.”

  Wolchko glanced away, head darting around, almost bird-like. He stared at his boots for a few seconds.

  “What?” she asked.

  He pressed his lips together. Scratched at the back of his head.

  “Eddie, what?”

  Wolchko did that bird thing again, then gave a sharp sigh. “I’m trying to figure out how to say this without freaking you out.”

  “We’re not going to have solid rock to stand on for very long,” Naomi said. “I know.”

  “But you’re so calm.”

  “The tower’s on top of the rock. Help will come. The storm will pass. We’re okay. Cold and wet and wishing we were anywhere but here. I lost my camera and all the photos and you guys lost a ton of equipment and data, but Bergting lost his life and we’re okay. As long as the sharks are in the water and we’re up on the tower, I’ll be fine.”

  Wolchko exhaled with obvious relief. He nudged her. “So do you want to get climbing?”

  Naomi turned to look up. Tye and Kat and Rosalie were already on the wreckage of the platform up top, but Captain N’Dour hadn’t started climbing yet and Wolchko didn’t seem to be in a rush. She imagined wedging herself into the tower’s crossbeams.

  “I think I’ll hang out down here until time runs out,” she said. “You’ll let me know when that is?”

  Wolchko’s expression turned solemn. “Of course.”

  Naomi thanked him and turned to look back out at the storm. At the sea. At the dark bodies of the seals and the fins among them, at the way the largest of the sharks displaced water above as they moved just under the surface.

  She remembered that night in the dorm after showering with Kayla, the warmth of her skin and the sound of her beating heart. It had been the first time anyone other than her mother had told Naomi they loved her and meant it. Kayla had meant it, at least back then. She’d been loved, for a little while. It had been worth the pain that came later.

  Breathing deeply, she tried to conjure up that sense memory, the sex and the soap and the burning candle, but she had lost it. She wondered if she could ever get it back.

  CHAPTER 30

  Jamie had fallen silent, just watching the wipers fight the rain on the windshield. Behind the fishing boat, back toward the mainland, the sky had begun to lighten. The wind kept battering them and the black sea rolled, and Walter kept the throttle up, charging through the rough water. Jamie knew better than to think the lightening of the sky at home meant the storm would clear off quickly, but it was a reminder that the rain wouldn’t last forever. The sun would come back eventually. Until then, they would j
ust be miserable as hell.

  He’d turned the music on in the wheelhouse, but with the engine and the storm he could barely hear anything except the bass line and drums.

  “You look pretty grim,” Walter said.

  Jamie shook his empty coffee cup, as if that explained it. What was he supposed to do, tell the truth? Sorry, Walter, just thinking maybe this was a really stupid idea and a total waste of our day off? Yeah, that’d go over well.

  “You know we can turn around, right?” Walter said. “No shame in it. Only one who knows why we came out here today is Alice, and she wasn’t too thrilled with the idea to begin with. Plus she thinks you’re cute, so if you’re having second thoughts…”

  More than once, Jamie had admitted that Walter usually knew him better than he knew himself.

  “It’s tempting,” he admitted, raising his voice to be heard.

  “But?”

  The wipers swiped shrilly against the windshield, working dry in a momentary lull in the storm. Then the rain hit again, full blast.

  “But all that talk about being pissed at these scientists and their Cape Cod benefactors wasn’t just talk,” Jamie said. “People from Massachusetts act like just ’cause they’ve got Harvard University down there in Cambridge it makes every one of ’em a goddamn genius, like they’re somehow better, and folks in Maine aren’t much better than inbred hillbillies. Maybe they cleared their little experiment with the governor, but nobody cleared it with the people it might affect, and that’s just not right.”

  Walter twisted the wheel, pointed them right into a wave. The fishing boat crashed up and over—nothing they couldn’t handle. They’d been through much worse.

  “You gonna say anything?” Jamie asked. “Or did you just wanna hear me wax poetic?”

  “Just trying to recover from hearing you use a big word like benefactors.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Walter smiled. “Excellent riposte, my good man. Happy to know you sounding smart and thoughtful was a glitch and we’re back to fuck off.”

  “Fuck off.”

  He laughed at that, and Jamie grinned.

  “Seriously,” Walter said, “you wanna go back?”

  Jamie braced his hands against the ceiling and stared out at the Atlantic. Today would have been an excellent day for a nap, maybe an old movie in his threadbare recliner. The dark shape of one of the many harbor islands loomed off to port. He felt torn.

  The radio crackled. “Little Martha, this is Boothbay Harbor Harbor Master. Come in.”

  Walter burst out laughing for a second or two, then just shook his head and gave the radio a sidelong glance. “Go on.”

  Jamie smiled and reached for the mic. It crackled loudly.

  “Little Martha—” the harbor master began again.

  “All right, Bronski, you don’t have to repeat yourself,” Jamie said into the mic.

  Static, then a muttered profanity. “I hate radioing you two assholes.”

  “We do get a special joy out of hearing you say ‘Boothbay Harbor Harbor Master,’” Jamie admitted. “It’s like no matter how many times you do it, you don’t hear yourself repeating the word harbor.”

  “I’m not the harbor master of Boothbay—”

  “I know. You’re the harbor master of Boothbay Harbor,” Jamie said.

  Walter snickered. “Still sounds stupid.”

  “Still sounds stupid,” Jamie echoed on the radio, making sure Brodski got the message.

  Crackle. Static. “—told Delia you guys would be useless. I don’t even know why I—”

  Jamie went cold. “What does Delia want with us?” He exchanged a worried glance with Walter.

  Water slapped the starboard side and the boat slewed to port. Walter swore loudly and adjusted their bearing. Just a moment of distraction, but Jamie understood completely. When the harbor master calls with a message from the area’s emergency dispatcher, you start to worry your house is burning down or your mother’s dropped dead in her kitchen.

  More static and then— “She got a crazy call from a woman, said she was on a kayaking trip out to Deeley Island and a boat went down. Some folks were trapped on Bald Cap. There was something about sharks in there, too.”

  Walter frowned at the radio. “Nobody’s kayaking in this storm.”

  Jamie repeated as much into the mic, then released the button and listened to a few seconds of static before the harbor master came back on.

  “Said the same thing myself. I figure it’s a crank, and that’s what Delia figured, but she also said the lady sounded really upset. Like she meant every word.”

  “Crazies usually do,” Jamie observed.

  Static. Jamie hesitated. The kayaking thing did sound like a load of bullshit, some high school kid’s idea of a big joke. It just didn’t make sense. Not unless you remembered that Bald Cap had been the Woods Hole research team’s destination and that it wouldn’t be any surprise if they had sharks swimming around, considering the seal population they were trying to move.

  If their damn experiment worked, Jamie thought.

  “You guys know Delia.” Brodski’s voice filled the wheelhouse suddenly, strangely loud and clear, crisp and static-free. “She doesn’t hit the panic button for nothing. Maybe it’s a hoax, but she’s worried.”

  Jamie glanced at Walter as he raised the mic to his lips. “We’ll go check it out.”

  He didn’t mention that Brodski had just sent them to the very spot where they’d been headed. The harbor master thanked him and signed off.

  “Guess we’re not going home yet,” Walter said.

  Jamie zipped his jacket a little higher, shivering a bit from the wind. “Who said anything about going home?”

  CHAPTER 31

  Naomi hooked an arm through the latticed bars of the watchtower’s trestlework and rested her weight against the creaking metal, heart thumping in her chest. Down on the solid rock of Bald Cap she had heard the creaking and seen the tower swaying slightly, but now that she’d climbed nearly two-thirds of the damn thing the swaying seemed anything but slight. The wind wailed around her and she clung more tightly to the metal, fear fluttering inside her chest like some demon butterfly, determined to break out.

  Her face felt flushed and warm—the only part of her not numb with cold. Not true, she thought. You can feel the leg. That was the weirdest part, the way she could still feel her missing leg. In books and movies people talked about phantom leg pain—the nurses had even talked to her about it in the hospital, after the attack—but what they didn’t talk about was just feeling it. Sometimes even without phantom pains, the leg seemed as if it were still her own instead of a prosthetic, leading to odd sensations like this one, when the rest of her body had been chilled to the bone, but her face and her ghost leg felt warm. Alive.

  It creeped her the hell out. She’d worked hard to come to terms with the loss of a limb, taken a hard road to reach a point where she could think of herself as a whole person, but those little extra reminders didn’t help.

  Naomi reached up and to the right, climbing another couple of feet, and planted her good foot into a V where two rusting beams met. There were only a few horizontal crossbeams on the tower. The rest of the climb involved jamming her feet into those V joints, squeezing her feet inside her boots. The prosthetic didn’t hurt at all, but the other foot felt much worse for the beating it was taking. Her fingers were worse. The bars were slippery with rain and she’d lost her grip twice, hands sliding hard as they tried to regain a grip. Rust sloughed off the bars like peeling paint. Her palms and fingers were scraped and bruised and she had already accepted that she’d need a gorilla-sized tetanus shot when this was over.

  Over. That had suddenly become her favorite word.

  “You all right?” Wolchko yelled.

  Naomi pulled her face away from the beam where she’d rested it. Wolchko had been climbing the opposite side of the tower, with N’Dour to her left, on what she gauged must be the north side of the tower. The captain
had already reached the third crossbeam and he rested there now, just below the platform.

  Wolchko had paused halfway up. Naomi moved her head, trying to get a view of him through the trestlework. When she got a glimpse of his face, she gave him a thumbs-up, pressing her body against the metal to make sure she didn’t topple backward.

  She reached up and to her left, raising her left knee at the same time. When she planted her foot, the bar gave way instantly. Her left hand missed its hold and she pitched forward, smashed her forehead against rusted metal, scrambled for a handhold, foot pumping in dead air. Her right hand slipped, most of her weight dragging her down. She must have shouted, because she heard the others calling to her.

  The tower swayed. The wind raged so hard against it that for a moment she felt as if she were dipping backward, as if the tower wanted to pitch her into the ocean. Then the gust died and the tower straightened and she thrust her left arm through the lattice in front of her, hooked it to the right, and let the V joint catch her. Her shoulder wrenched a little, but she brought her left foot over on top of her right, and she could breathe again.

  “Naomi!” Wolchko called.

  Her head jerked back. For a few seconds she had forgotten that she wasn’t alone up here. Her heart did a hummingbird buzz as she spotted Wolchko again. He was climbing, moving fast, trying to get around the corner onto the south side of the tower—to get to her.

  “Stay where you are!” she said. “I’m okay. Watch your step. Some of these bars are rusted through!”

  Naomi thought she sounded okay. Not nearly as terrified as she felt. Flushed and shaking, she glanced down at Bald Cap, thinking about the fall she’d almost taken. The view stole her breath again.

  Waves rippled across Bald Cap, white lines of frothing water. Between them she could still make out some of the more jagged rocks, but the tide had already hidden the island under at least three or four inches of water and it was still rising.