Shark Island by Chris Jameson

Author:Chris Jameson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

CHAPTER 23

Hands gripped Naomi from behind, powerful hands that hoisted her to her feet on the canted deck. She felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

“Swim,” Captain N’Dour said in her ear. “You must go.”

Naomi took his hand, grasped it tight. “We go together.”

Wolchko tried moving past them with Rosalie. He shouted to Bergting to shut down the signal, but that seemed such a small thing now. The ship would go down, the power would short, and it would be over. Naomi tried to tell him that.

The ocean fell away beneath them, the trough so deep. She heard a pair of thudding impacts on the hull and then the stern slid beneath the water and the rising crest hurled itself against the starboard and they were all sliding. Falling. Naomi saw the railing rushing up toward her and knew bones would break, and she shouted at Captain N’Dour to jump.

Together they launched themselves from the deck, fell over the side. Her camera flew beside her and clipped the railing, shattering on impact.

Then she plunged into the sea and the water stole Captain N’Dour away, his fingers torn from her grasp. The breathless cold seized her, so sharp and sudden that it shut down her panic, drove conscious thought away so that she relied only on instinct. In the water, the prosthetic felt lighter than the rest of her, but it moved at her command as she kicked upward and breached the surface.

Naomi looked up, expecting to see the Thaumas crashing down on top of her, but the ocean had changed its mind. The boat hadn’t capsized. Another massive wave threatened to topple it, but now the water concentrated on dragging it down from behind. Half the boat had vanished now, the crane gone below the surface.

She heard screams and turned to see Wolchko swimming toward Rosalie.

Seals barked from the rocky edge of Bald Cap, thirty feet away. Farther out, past the sinking boat, Naomi saw fins, and then she stopped thinking. Her brain blotted them out. Her eyes refused to see them. Shouts and barks and screams filled the air and the wind howled through the rusted lattice of the tower on Bald Cap, but she saw nothing more. She only swam, head down, salt water up her nose, body remembering early-morning swim meets in middle school, prosthetic leg not cooperating, slowing her pace. But she swam, heart thundering, and hating that leg. She swam.

Behind her, a voice screamed itself ragged.

Her good knee scraped stone. Her hand reached up, closed on a sharp edge, and then her foot found purchase under the water. The new leg couldn’t feel properly, but she jammed it forward, scraped against rocks until her boot caught and she had leverage with both legs. She climbed, dragged herself up onto the edges of Bald Cap, and turned as the shark surfaced, jaws wide, rows of yellow teeth smeared with torn bits of seal skin and flesh.

Naomi screamed and tucked her legs up against her chest, twisted away, and the shark careened against the rocks as it passed.

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