Shark Island

by Chris Jameson

  Wolchko crawled away from the edge and reached for her hand. Naomi helped him so that they were both standing. The tower swayed and creaked so badly that his heart pounded and the whole world felt unsure beneath him, as if they might topple right off the edge of the Earth any second.

  “It’s nothing to do with that,” he promised.

  “The truth. If you’re worried about the prosthetic, don’t be. It’s light and waterproof. Yeah, it’s awkward underwater, but more because it’s too light than too heavy.”

  “I’m only being logical,” Wolchko said. “It’s what I’m best at, remember? The system that’s broadcasting the signal from down there … I built it, Naomi. I’m the logical choice.”

  Wolchko could have added that he was older, that he’d lived more, and that since his wife, Antonia, had died he had felt like he was just marking time in the world, but he said none of that. His Antonia would have been so proud that for once he had recognized which thoughts should stay inside his head.

  Naomi poked a finger at his chest. “How long can you hold your breath?”

  Wolchko backed up a step. “I don’t know.”

  “I was a swimmer in high school.”

  Wolchko nearly stepped on Tye.

  “Hey!” Rosalie barked.

  Naomi and Wolchko both turned to look at her. She knelt next to Tye, looking not so much angry as incredulous.

  “Could you two maybe not jump around up here?” Rosalie asked. “The tower’s rickety enough already.”

  From below them, Wolchko heard a throat clearing and a voice say, “I second that.”

  The fisherman. Walter. In the moment, trying to work out the next few minutes in his head, Wolchko had forgotten all about the other refugee on the tower. It brought him back to his senses, somehow, and he realized Walter and Rosalie were right.

  The tower shuddered with impact as a shark crashed into the structure down below. Wolchko and Naomi braced themselves and they all held their breath for a moment or two as the platform shook and groaned. It swayed, but Wolchko told himself that was just a wave sweeping by underneath them, not that the tower had tilted farther. He told himself that, but the tight knot in his gut twisted a little tighter.

  “Okay, point taken,” he told Rosalie. “But I’m afraid there’s going to be a little more jumping around, as you put it. If I’m going to reach the Thaumas, I need to land as close to it as I can. Just climbing down the tower and going for a swim would be suicide.”

  Naomi looked out over the edge, careful not to slip. “Do you really think you can clear the island?”

  “Maybe with a running start,” Wolchko replied.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Walter muttered below them.

  “You’re out of your mind,” Tye said weakly. He looked pale, and Wolchko wasn’t sure how much blood he had lost. Maybe too much.

  Rosalie shifted to get out of the way, give Wolchko a clear path. “Do it, Eddie.”

  Wolchko could have spent hours dithering about it, but they didn’t have hours. If he was going to take action, it had to be now. He closed his eyes a moment. The burr of voices around him vanished and he thought of Antonia, the smell of her skin when she was just out of the shower, the crinkle at the left side of her mouth when she tried not to laugh at one of his jokes. Wolchko tended to be overly serious, but around Antonia he had found his sense of humor. She liked to sing snippets of silly old pop songs while they were making dinner together, sometimes with a little dance routine to go along with them. He knew the risk he was about to take, but he also knew that Antonia would have understood.

  A hand touched his arm and he opened his eyes, wishing for Antonia’s smile but getting Naomi’s grim worry instead.

  “Eddie, please,” she said.

  “Time’s running out,” he told her.

  Wolchko walked to the remaining fragment of wall. To his right, Tye and Rosalie watched hopefully. Rosalie nodded, urging him on. A bitter little voice at the back of his brain said that of course she would urge him on, as long as she wasn’t the one taking the risk. But that was true of almost anyone. If someone else would put themselves in danger, in their place, most people would be happy to allow it.

  Naomi, though … she stood directly in Wolchko’s path. The platform measured only about ten feet in diameter, so he needed all the room to run that he could get.

  “I’m going,” Wolchko said, locking eyes with her. “If I’m forced to go through you, then we both fall, and we’ll never get the distance we need to clear Bald Cap.”

  His head throbbed and the swaying of the tower made his stomach give a twist, but he kept his gaze steady. Naomi had turned out to be smart, formidable, and kind. He didn’t want a conflict with her, especially because he knew she was trying to help.

  “We’re all soaked through and miserable. We’re all grieving and exhausted,” he said. “But my head’s clear. Before anyone else tries to get close to this rock to help us, that signal’s got to be shut down.”

  “Eddie—” she began.

  A shark smashed into the tower, then another, the double impacts so hard they made Wolchko and Naomi steady themselves, arms out to keep their balance. Rosalie swore as the noise of metal under duress filled the air. To Wolchko it sounded like rusty hinges creaking, and it made them all hold their breath.

  “Honey,” the fisherman, Walter, said from his perch on the side of the tower. “Get out of the man’s way.”

  Naomi deflated. She opened her mouth, gasping like a fish on a hook, but whatever she had wanted to say seemed to vanish from her head. Instead, she just nodded quickly and stepped aside. The wind kicked up, blew a strand of her soaked hair across her face.

  “Whatever you’re gonna do, make it quick.”

  Wolchko took a deep breath, then lunged forward in a long, loping run. He only had room for a few good steps, but he’d done the long jump in high school. Even went to the state track-and-field championship once. He sprang off the tower—felt it give a little too much as he pushed off, heard the creaking-hinge noise grow. His arms windmilled as he began to fall and he bicycled his legs, instinct telling him that he needed just a little more distance.

  Then he saw the dark water below, the rain plinking into the sea, the white curls rolling across the rocks at the edge of Bald Cap, and he knew he hadn’t gotten enough momentum. Knew he wasn’t going to make it.

  Wolchko hit the water, wondering how much it would hurt, how many bones would break, how long he’d be conscious as the sharks tore into him.

  He plunged into the water, a little prayer in his head, and his body stiffened for the impact. But the impact didn’t come. Salt water plugged his nose and he blew out a little jet of air as he began to rise again. Wolchko’s eyes shot out and he fought the ascension, twisted in the water, and began to swim lower. He opened his eyes, the salt stinging. In the murk he could make out almost nothing but the bodies of fat gray seals darting around him. One brushed against his back and his heart almost exploded in fear.

  Wishing himself invisible, as if just by thinking it he could draw some kind of field around him so the sharks wouldn’t see him, he swam in a direction he thought was away from Bald Cap. Only now, deep in the water, cold and sodden and wondering how long he could really hold his breath, did Wolchko understand just how stupid he’d been. He’d seen their boat go down, gauged the location as best he could from above, but how accurate had he really been? He was prepared to die down here, but not if it was for nothing.

  Antonia, he thought. What have I done?

  Desperately he swam on, pulled himself deeper, whipped his head back and forth, and fought the salt sting to keep his eyes open. He saw a glimmer in the murk, the gleam of something neither seal nor shark, and his heart leapt. All his life he’d had a hard time with the concept of God, holding out hope for heaven only after he’d lost Antonia. Now his whole being sent up a prayer of thanks and he swam for the boat, not counting the seconds he’d been down there, only feeling the burn in his chest and knowi
ng he didn’t have long to get to the dish that had been mounted on the underside of the boat. Hoping the seconds remaining would be enough.

  He could make out the shape of the wheelhouse and he started to circle the body of the boat. Shadows moved above him, made the murk even gloomier, and he looked up to see nearly a dozen fat seals passing overhead. In the same moment several of them broke away and swam toward him, faster than anyone on the surface would have imagined they could go.

  Wolchko went numb when he saw the monster chasing them. The Great White caught one of the seals and ripped it in half with a single clack of its jaws. A cloud of blood blossomed around its enormous body as it plunged toward him, impassive and unrelenting.

  CHAPTER 42

  Naomi saw the blood in the water not far from where Wolchko had gone in. Her heart tightened in her chest, almost like a fist. All her fear shut down and she felt her face go slack as she backed up to the wall, the same way Wolchko had before he’d jumped.

  “Whoa, whoa, Naomi,” Tye said. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Eddie didn’t make it. Someone’s got to,” she said, and then she lifted her gaze to study Rosalie. “What do I need to do? Smash the two broadcast dishes? I saw the one on deck, but where’s the one fastened underneath?”

  Tye forced himself to sit up, wincing in pain. “Don’t be stupid. If Wolchko couldn’t get there—”

  “Shut up, Tye,” Rosalie said, never taking her eyes off Naomi. “Girl’s trying to save our lives.”

  Naomi nodded once, not in thanks but acknowledgement. She and Rosalie understood each other. Naomi was willing to risk her life because somebody had to do it. The fisherman wouldn’t even know what to look for, Tye was too badly injured, and Rosalie had no intention of dying for the rest of them. That left Naomi as the only option. Of course, she also had no intention of dying … but that fact wouldn’t keep her alive. She’d need to be fast and she’d need to be lucky. Just about the luckiest woman alive.

  “So tell me,” she said.

  Rosalie ignored Tye’s protests. “The computer’s fried at this point, but that was just monitoring the signal, not broadcasting it. The broadcast unit’s a small waterproof box with a bunch of cables coming out of it. Yes, it’s in the wheelhouse. You go down there and you’ll see it immediately because it looks like it doesn’t belong there. It’s gray and smooth, rubbery looking.”

  “I think I remember seeing it,” Naomi said.

  “Yank it out, cables and all. You do that and the dishes don’t matter.”

  Naomi nodded, glancing out at the water. She could see where Wolchko had gone in, could see the patch of blood still blooming on the water, beginning to fade. How close had he gotten to the boat?

  Only one way to find out.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Tye said.

  But they had all been onboard the Thaumas … all seen the fishing boat sink.

  The tower shook with a fresh impact, swayed in the wind. Naomi knew they wouldn’t last long enough for someone to resolve this for them. Nurturing a tiny flame of hope, she peered out across the water, scanning in every direction for a rescue that might work. She saw only the rain and the sea and islands too far to do more than taunt her with the safety of their higher ground. Her stump ached, pain throbbing in the femur above it, down in the marrow.

  Naomi ran. Her right boot slipped on rain and rust but only for a moment and she hurtled forward. Tye did not shout her name—no one did. He and Rosalie only watched as Naomi launched herself out from the edge of the tower thirty-five feet above the water. A swell rose below. She saw a fin, spotted the shark as it smashed into the watchtower’s base, heard a snap—a bang—that was nothing like the crunch and metal shriek they’d all heard earlier.

  The water rushed up at her and she pressed her legs together, hands at her sides, and punched right through the heaving swell, wishing she’d taken a bigger breath to hold. Eyes closed, Naomi thrust out her arms and swam, dragging herself forward. Her left hand brushed against something and her eyes snapped open. Salt stung her and she had to close them again, but she knew she had no choice. If she couldn’t see, her chances of surviving dropped from slim to zero, so she opened her eyes again and endured the searing pain.

  Seals rushed around her, ignoring her. She saw a floating chunk of flesh and for a fearful flicker she thought it must be Wolchko. Then she caught sight of the flipper and she realized it was a seal. The sea enveloped her in murky darkness, but its effect was not total. She could see shapes, could see seals near and far, spotted a school of tiny fish … and there, not thirty feet away, the Thaumas, on its side on the bottom of the channel. Had it sunk farther out, she’d never have been able to dive deep enough. Here at the edge of Bald Cap, the water ran shallower, though even as she watched she thought the boat might be sliding in the current, shifting deeper.

  Naomi didn’t bother to look for the sharks. She knew they were there. Knew they would be coming. The only question now was whether or not she’d fulfill her goal before the sharks fulfilled theirs.

  CHAPTER 43

  Walter sat in a V joint in the trestlework where rusty bars met and watched the girl drop into the water. Naomi, they’d called her. And the guy … the one who’d gone in before her and been eaten pretty much right away … he’d been Eddie. Just people. Wet and cold and miserable and going-to-die-soon people. When Walter and Jamie had been sitting in the Dog, talking shit about the Woods Hole research team, they had seemed like the enemy. Even on the way out here this morning, when Jamie and Walter had gotten the call that the scientists had been stranded on Bald Cap, he had been thinking of them as somehow other. Like they were opposing navies, fighting for their respective homelands. His life had its share of hardships and heartaches and it had felt nice for a little while to have somewhere to point a finger, someone to blame. Jamie had needed that even more than Walter. Somehow they managed to string together a living as fishermen, taking odd jobs here and there to supplement that life. If the folks from WHOI were going to upset the balance, then all of Walter and Jamie’s frustrations could be laid at their doorstep … even though they hadn’t technically done anything harmful. Not yet.

  They certainly had now.

  Walter watched the water where Naomi had dropped, saw white foam rippling over the surface and the deep sea roll and churn, but he saw no blood. Not this time. He saw no sign that she’d been caught. Ten seconds underwater and apparently she had managed not to get eaten quite yet.

  Up top, Tye and Rosalie were losing it. Walter listened to them freaking out and barely heard the words. Not that the words mattered much. They were gibberish expressions of the same fear that he’d felt upon hearing the massive crack just as Naomi jumped, the latest shark impact down below. This time, though …

  Walter craned his neck to the right to get a look at the east-facing side of the tower, where he was sure the sound had originated. A swell rolled beneath them, swallowing a few extra feet of the tower, throwing that extra pressure against it—a push westward. When the swell passed, the push subsiding, Walter saw the broken beam. Rusted through, the lowest of the tower’s crossbeams had given way, and now as the tidal flow of the churning sea pushed eastward again the whole tower groaned and began to lean. Trestlework connected to the broken beam strained and bolts broke and even the corner began to sag toward the broken middle.

  “We’re going to die,” Rosalie said a dozen feet over Walter’s head.

  The woman had a gift for stating the obvious, but she wasn’t wrong. It’s all over but the screaming, he thought.

  A sound came from below—a human sound—and Walter craned his neck a little farther, looking inside the latticed structure of the tower. He saw a face there, a swimmer bobbing in the water within the broken cage formed by the bars and beams.

  Wolchko. Alive. Which meant the blood hadn’t been his. Which also meant that he’d failed to shut down the signal they’d been talking about and Naomi was out there on her own, trying to save a
ll of their asses.

  Cold inside, hollowed out by grief and now by his certain fate, Walter looked back toward the place where Naomi had gone into the water, scanned for fins, and then started climbing down. Another shark slammed into the tower, this time on the southern side, and he heard something else snap. He scraped his hands raw on rusty metal, snagged his shirt on a jutting bolt, and listened to Tye calling out to him, asking him if he was out of his mind. Walter tried to reply, opened his mouth and found that he could not speak. He wanted to say that he figured staying up top might be crazier than climbing down, but the words wouldn’t come.

  He paused ten feet above the water and took a breath. Several fins were cutting the water out in the channel, but none of them were close by. To the north, he saw one cruising his way, but he had a little time. Seconds. If the tower fell, they were all dead within minutes, at best.

  Walter thought about Jamie, knew his dearest friend would have told him that only an idiot would do what he was about to do. But he also knew that Jamie would have gone ahead and done it himself anyway. If Naomi was still alive down there, she might need help.

  Better to die fighting than crying, Walter thought. But it was Jamie’s voice he heard in his head.

  He clapped his hand to the knife that still hung sheathed at his side and hurled himself away from the tower. The water caught him, dragged him down, twisted him in its current.

  Walter began to swim.

  CHAPTER 44

  Bleeding, exhausted, too old for the panicked swim he’d just endured, Wolchko floated inside the tower and drew long gasps of air into his burning lungs. His heart pounded so loud that his skull throbbed with each beat, but at least here inside the tower he could take a few seconds to orient himself, to think. Behind him there came a splash like someone else jumping in, and he turned but couldn’t make out anything beyond the crossbars of the tower.

  Only when he started to turn back, to survey his surroundings, to figure out the best spot for him to begin climbing up the inside of the thing … only then did he see the hole in the side of the tower, the broken beam and the jutting bars that had torn away from the structure. He whispered a string of profanity spoken with such reverence that it might have been a prayer. The columns on either side of the hole had bent slightly inward and the one at the northeast corner had cracked.