Oh, Bite Me: Paranormal Dating Agency

by Chris Genovese

  Her body began to sink toward the ocean floor. Penny’s eyes fluttered open.

  “I’m hurt,” a voice said, but it seemed to be in her mind.

  “Take that, motherfucker,” came another voice.

  “Does anyone see Evelyn?” came one that sounded like Thane.

  The voices came at her and she couldn’t do anything to stop them. And she was drowning. No air came to her and she was too deep to open her mouth and inhale. Mechanically, her body seemed to begin doing what needed to be done to keep her alive. Her fins moved and then air came but only enough to keep her alive. She was moving too slowly.

  She was trying to figure out how to speed up when she felt the impact. Something slammed into her hard. It was another shark. Evelyn. She’d jumped in after her. Penny flipped. She lost complete control of her body as it turned over underwater. She couldn’t figure out which way was up, and which was down, and before she could spend any more time on the thought, she felt the teeth at her side. Jagged blades tore at her flesh. Evelyn had bitten the shit out of her. A red stream swirled in the water all around her and Penny got a taste of her own blood.

  I’m going to die. I’m going to fucking die without having the chance to fight back.

  She turned herself upright and tried to swim away when she saw the shark coming again. Then, from underneath came a larger shark, this one a giant, a great white, with its mouth open and ready. It was the stuff of nightmares, razor sharp teeth and a giant snout. Penny knew she was going to die. This was it. In her head, she said a final goodbye to Thane.

  But the shark swerved around Penny and attacked Evelyn, slamming its teeth into her from beneath.

  Penny didn’t stay to watch the fight. She turned and made her way toward the boat. She couldn’t compete underwater. It was a game she would lose no matter what, so she needed to get back onboard. Behind her, she could hear the thrashing in the water as Evelyn fought off the much larger shark. Penny thought of how lucky she’d been to have the shark go after Evelyn instead of her.

  Excitement ran through her as she saw the boat’s ladder up ahead. She swam toward it as fast as she could handle, and it was like her body knew instinctively what to do. She mentally reached for the ladder the way she would have done if she were in human form, and then in another second of bone shattering madness, her hand grabbed hold of the metal bar. She fought through the pain of shifting and hoisted herself back onto the boat where she collapsed onto her back and sobbed. She’d never felt pain so immense in all her life. Her side ached, and she wondered if she would bleed out and die on the boat deck.

  The hands on her were caring and warm.

  “Come with me, Miss Penny,” Juan Diego said as he pulled her away from the ladder. “We need to get you away from the water.”

  “Poet,” she asked. “Where’s Poet?”

  “He…he went in the water after you,” J.D. said.

  She thought about it for a second and then said, “The great white?”

  “Yes, Miss Penny,” he replied. “He’s different from the others.”

  She could only imagine the pain he must go through when shifting into such a large shark, if it hurt her so badly transforming into a smaller one. He hated shifting, yet he’d done it for her.

  “Can he beat her?” she asked, concerned about her new friend’s safety.

  “Most tiger sharks, yes,” J.D. said. “Unless they are bigger than him. Evelyn? I do not know.”

  Hands grabbed the ladder behind her and Poet pulled himself onto the boat, drenched, and shaking. He wasn’t hurt at all, but he looked terrified.

  “Are you okay?” Penny asked.

  Poet looked up at her and stared at her side.

  “I should be asking you that,” he said.

  She looked down and saw that she was covered in blood. She fell over, clutching her side.

  ***

  Thane searched the water everywhere and couldn’t find Evelyn.

  “Where is she?” he asked, pinging the question off the other sharks.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” came his answer in the form of Axel, headed straight for him.

  Axel knew better, but it seemed he’d received a pep talk since their last battle. Evelyn must have either scared the shit out of him or made him believe he was Superman, because the smaller shark was on course to go head-to-head with Thane.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Thane said. “Fucking punk.”

  Both sharks dove downward at the same time, then realizing an upward attack wouldn’t work, Axel swung right, and Thane followed.

  “Run, little bitch,” he said to Axel.

  “I’m not the little bitch,” Axel replied. “The little bitch is being taken care of right now…as we speak.”

  “What?!” Thane thought. “Fucker!”

  Axel chuckled and made a sharp left turn that baffled Thane for a second. His mind was no longer in the game but had turned to Penny. Was Evelyn attacking her?

  That’s why she’s not here.

  Thane turned to leave the scene and go after Penny when the younger, smaller shark shot up from the bottom, slamming his snout into Thane’s underbelly, and opening its mouth to take a bite out of Thane. Thane was too smart and too fast for such a stupid attack. He used the crash’s momentum and swung with it, letting Axel’s snout pass right by his caudal fin at the rear, and then swerved around to Axel’s bottom and seized the younger shark’s pelvic fin in his teeth. Axel swam so hard and so fast he ripped his own fin out from Thane’s mouth. Blood filled the water.

  Axel tried to swim away but didn’t get far. His pain was too immense. Thane knew that. He’d hurt him bad. He considered letting him go, but he’d told his group to fight for the kill, and being their leader, he needed to do the same. With lightning fast speed, he swam at Axel and opened his mouth around his body, chomping down on him until he tasted blood. Then he chomped again and tore left and right, ripping the belly out from under him. Thane didn’t let go until he saw the fight leave Axel’s body. Then, as he let go and watched the other shark sink to the depths of the sea, he finally turned to go save Penny, and he sensed even from such a great distance, that something bigger was in the water, and it wanted to get to Penny first.

  ***

  Penny’s side throbbed and she knew if she didn’t get to a hospital soon, she would bleed out and die. She wasn’t sure how much the shark blood would help her. Would she heal her own self, or would she die before she could learn to do it?

  Poet and J.D. leaned over her, trying to help her wake up, when a new set of hands grabbed hold of the ladder. This time, Evelyn pulled herself onto the boat. She was hurt and bleeding even worse than Penny.

  “My God,” J.D. said.

  “Evelyn, please stop this,” Poet begged. “You’re both hurt. We can live together in peace and you can both live long happy lives.”

  “This bitch dies today,” Evelyn said.

  “Why do you hate me so much?” Penny asked.

  “I don’t hate you, sweetie,” Evelyn informed her. “I hate him. And if you’re what makes him happy, then you’ve gotta go.”

  Penny knew if she didn’t do something soon, and quickly, Evelyn would kill her. Poet was in no shape to go back into the water. He was still trembling by her side. Juan Diego wasn’t going to be any help at all. And Thane was somewhere else. He was busy fighting his own battles. This one she needed to handle by herself.

  Evelyn’s footsteps slapped against the boat in wet thuds, so Penny knew she was close. So was Juan Diego who was still squatting down next to her. Even closer was the knife on his belt. It was small, something probably for cutting open fish, but it would work. Summoning all the energy she had left, Penny turned when Evelyn was only a few feet away. Her rage took over and with the raised blade, she charged at her foe, dove at her, and slammed her body against her all while stabbing her in the face and neck repeatedly. They both went overboard.

  The water was a cloud of red as both women s
hifted in an instant. This time, Penny fought through her pain and did her best to remain focused. The fear of losing herself in the confusion that happened between human and shark transformation kept her aware. Evelyn in her tiger shark form snapped at Penny, but Penny moved out of the way in time to dodge the attack. She tried to swim around and attack Evelyn from the side, but her enemy was much wiser, stronger, and faster than she was. Her only advantage was the amount of blood seeping out of Evelyn’s facial wounds. This only allowed Penny to dodge Evelyn’s attacks, but she still didn’t have the skills to launch an attack of her own.

  Then, through the bloody ocean fog, things seemed to move in slow motion as Penny saw what was approaching. It was a giant great white shark. Poet had come to save her again.

  Thank God. I love you, Poet.

  The great white came at them fast, but it was aiming at Penny, not Evelyn.

  No, wrong shark, Poet! No!

  Penny swam out of the way just as the bigger shark nipped at her fin. Circling around, she watched as the shark soared up toward the bottom of J.D.’s boat where it turned around and aimed right at her again.

  Oh shit!

  “Poet, no! What are you doing?” Penny said in her mental voice.

  “What’s happening?” Thane replied.

  “Thane!” she said in her head. “A great white is coming at me. Poet’s coming at me.”

  “Poet would never,” Thane said. “That can’t be Poet. Poet, is that you?”

  “I’m on the boat,” he said.

  “Get in the water, fast!” Thane ordered.

  The oncoming great white was much too close for anyone to save Penny. Or at least that’s what she thought. Its face was so close, only a few feet away, and she could never, even in her nightmares, dream up a face so full of hate. Its black eyes were beady, distant, absent love or any kind of caring. A scar ran up one side of its face. It had the look of a real warrior, a shark that had seen its fair share of battles and had been on the winning end of them all. Its jaws opened wide and were about to close on her when a splash sounded off from overhead and a new great white sped down at her, slamming its snout into the head of the other.

  Poet had saved her this time. The real Poet.

  Both sharks wriggled and spun. Penny wanted so badly to help Poet, but she was in no shape and wasn’t prepared to fight a great white. She would have to handle Evelyn, but it seemed the injured she-shark had fled the scene.

  “I’m on my way, Poet!” Thane yelled. “Get out of there if you can.”

  “He’s fucking big,” Poet said. “I can’t handle him. I don’t fight like this. I can’t…”

  Penny was about to reach the ladder when she looked down and saw the larger of the great whites take a giant bite out of the side of the smaller one.

  “Poet!” she yelled.

  Poet’s fins shook once, then twice as he held onto his life. The bigger shark let go of him and swam around quickly to attack again. Poet was no longer moving, only sinking toward the ocean floor. With only inches before he would clamp down on her friend again, Penny thought it was over, but then Thane flew into view, sinking his teeth into the side of the great white the same way it had with Poet. Thane’s mouth wasn’t nearly as large as the bigger shark and it only did half the damage.

  The great white shook him off and swam away quickly with Thane hot on its trail. Poet sank out of view. Penny went after him. She had no plan, but she knew she couldn’t leave him behind. The trail of his blood was easy to follow, and she found him on the ocean floor.

  “Poet!” she cried as she moved closer.

  She knew before she reached him that he was gone, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. He’d tried so hard to stay out of the water. He wanted nothing to do with the hunting and patrolling the waters the other males seemed to love so much. He only wanted to sit on the beach and write in his notebook. He wanted to be human. After feeling the pain of the shift herself, she understood, and she knew his transformation was a lot worse. To change into such a gigantic shark would take its toll on your body. Yet, he’d done it in a heartbeat to save her. He’d done it twice. And now he would never do it again.

  She cried salt water tears as she swam in slow circles around him. He’d died saving her.

  “Please wake up,” she begged. “This isn’t right. This is all so stupid. You died for what? For me? I’m supposed to die anyway!”

  “He’s gone,” Thane’s voice popped into her head.

  She sensed him behind her and knew he was approaching.

  “He’s gone,” Thane assured her. “I can sense all my sharks and even though he’s not a tiger shark, I knew him well enough. And no shark can lie still like that.”

  “Thane, he can’t be dead,” she argued. “Not for me. Not like this.”

  “He’s gone, babe,” he replied. “It’s not your fault. It’s part of our life.”

  “Did you kill that bastard?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “He got away. I wasn’t fast enough to catch him.”

  “Evelyn did too,” Penny said. “But I hurt her bad. If she does come back around, she won’t be nearly as tough as she was before.”

  “Come on,” Thane said. “We need to get you out of here in case they come back.”

  “They’re not coming back,” Penny said. “Not today anyway.”

  How she knew this, she wasn’t sure, but she knew it. They’d done what they came to do. They’d wreaked havoc on everyone around her. They were done for the day.

  “Come on anyway,” Thane said. “Let’s go home.”

  “And Poet?” she asked.

  “I told you. He’s gone.”

  “But we can’t leave him here like this.”

  “Where do you think sharks go when they die?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t know.

  “They go to the ocean floor…or they go into the stomach of whatever killed them,” he said. “It’s our way of life.”

  “He would want to be buried on the island,” she said. “With his notebook.”

  “He would be fine with this,” he assured her. “Besides, we have no way of getting him out of here. You’re like me now. If you touch the water, you shift. And as sharks we can’t move him out of here.”

  She knew he was right. Reluctantly, she followed Thane back to the boat, and said goodbye to Poet forever.

  Chapter 12

  The water had become off limits to Thane and his group, at least for a while. Evelyn and her gang had spilled enough blood and had left behind enough witnesses to have every shark hunter on the planet searching the waters around Queensland. She’d done what she’d set out to do. She’d scared the tourists and caused Thane so much damn misery he could hardly think of anything else.

  Part of that misery came from the fact that he had to send Penny away. She wouldn’t be safe with Evelyn around and now that there was a great white on the loose, he wanted her nowhere near the ocean. At night, while most of the hunters had retired for the evening, he and one of the other guys would carefully patrol the water searching for any hint that Evelyn was still around. He thought the great white might have been a random attack, urged on by the amount of blood splattered in the water and then brought to Penny on the red ribbon seeping from both hers and Evelyn’s wounds.

  Evelyn hadn’t reared her ugly head since the attack. With Axel dead, Thane decided she might have actually taken his advice and had migrated someplace where she wouldn’t find so much opposition. She could attack humans off the coast of Hawaii or the Bahamas or any other place she wanted as long as she stayed the hell away from Australia.

  The great white didn’t return, so after a few weeks, Penny did.

  On the day of their wedding, Thane couldn’t contain the joy inside. He was giddy, and everyone made fun of him because of it. He and Penny hadn’t had sex since her return. They both thought it would be interesting to see if they could make it to their wedding night. Tonight, he would fuck the shit ou
t of the woman he’d missed so damn much.

  As he stood on the beach waiting for her, he felt a twinge of sadness that Poet wasn’t there. All his other friends were dressed in their island bests. Kino had on khaki shorts and a red flowered Hawaiian shirt. Jagger wore a black leather vest with white slacks. Oliver wore a white suit. Rickshaw was dressed up too and wore suspenders and a bowtie. The women all wore comfortable dresses. Then Penny stepped out of his cabin, their cabin, wearing a white, sleeveless dress that dipped down to show her cleavage and was cut short at the thighs. He couldn’t explain it any better if he tried, but it was fucking sexy and she was so damn beautiful. This was the wife he’d waited for all his life and now she was finally his.

  ***

  Her heart raced as she stepped out of the cabin. Everyone on the beach was family to her now. She was like them. The energy flowing up and down her limbs was so strong she felt like sprinting to him and tackling him into the ocean. He’d been right. She’d gone home for the past three weeks, and during that time, she saw her doctors. She thought they were all going to faint when her tests came back negative for leukemia. They poked her and prodded her and did all they could to figure out how it had happened, but in the end, they could only take her explanation, that it was a miracle.

  They wanted to run more tests on her, but she left town before they got the chance. She knew before getting tested that her leukemia was gone. Before shifting that first time, she spent every day feeling exhausted and achy. She couldn’t wake up without pain in her joints and muscles and she couldn’t sleep through the night for the same reasons. The day of Poet’s death, when she changed back into her human form, she instantly felt the difference.

  She was exhausted and sore from going through her first two shifts in such a short amount of time, but she felt alive, awake, anxious to get started with her day. Before, she’d been content with lying in bed and watching TV or reading a book. Now, she wanted to get out of the house. When she’d gone home, she went rollerblading in the park and jogged through her neighborhood. Being active gave her so much more energy.