Extinct (18 page)

Out in the river, San-hi’s boat suddenly shot bow-first up through the surface and splashed back onto the water upside down.

“Come on,” Alan said.

The blond and San-hi looked at Fred, as if waiting for what he was going to say, then stepped toward the edge of the grass, but stopped and stared at the thirty feet of brown water between them and the speedboat. Suddenly the blond dove as far out in the water as he could. He splashed on the surface and never went under as he race-stroked toward Alan’s waiting hands. Alan caught him and pulled him toward the side of the speedboat.

San-hi stared at the water, out at the river, and back at the water. Edward was clinging to Fred and shaking his head no.

“Wait,” Alan said. He grabbed the side of the aluminum boat drifting behind him. He worked his hands down its side to its bow, pulled on the boat, twisting it at the same time, swinging the other end in a sweeping curve toward the section of grass, and gave it a push.

Fred edged forward and reached out his hand as the boat neared the grass. Behind him, San-hi and Edward, bathed in the dim red glow of the craft’s stern light, looked toward the dark river again.

A few feet from the edge of the grass, a thick dark fin rose a foot out of the water. They backed to the very edge of the section of ground.

“Daddy!” Carolyn said.

The fin was edging toward the shallow channel. Fred stepped back into the center of the grass.

The wide head broke the surface and nudged against the grass with its nose. Paul held tighter to his mother’s arm. Fred backed closer to San-hi and Edward standing at the very rear of the grass. Behind them the dark water was part of the river, curving into a cut sweeping several feet back into the marsh area where thick grass began again.

The head sunk from sight. The fin, its tip glowing a dark red from the illumination given off by the stern light of the drifting aluminum boat, turned toward the rear edge of the small section of grass.

And disappeared.

Fred looked over his shoulder and stepped forward to the center of the grass, pushing Edward ahead of him and holding San-hi by his shirt. They huddled tightly in the center of the grass, watching the second aluminum boat float out toward the one overturned in the river.

“Fred,” Alan said in a low voice, “the water here is too shallow for it to get in the channel. Just come forward to us.”

Fred pushed Edward forward. Edward pushed back against him.

“Go on, boy—you have to. I’m not going to let you go under.” Fred glanced over his shoulder again.

San-hi looked at the edge of the river a few feet to their side, then back at the speedboat, and stepped around Edward. Alan held his hand out. Carolyn looked where the river water met the entrance to the channel.

“Wait!”
she screamed.

The fin rose quickly, the head rose in front of it and the creature lunged forward into the channel entrance.

San-hi stumbled backward. Edward was pushing against Fred, nearly driving him backward into the river cut.

The shark lunged again, came a few feet farther into the channel. Alan backpedaled through the water and reached for the side of the speedboat. Its motor was still running. Carolyn reached for the throttle.

The creature lunged once more. The upper half of its body was out of the water now, its mouth gaping, its teeth reflecting a shiny brown in the moonlight. Its body stretched back a full twenty-five feet to the top of its tail rising out of the river.

With a sudden violent twisting, the creature slid backward, floated with its top half above the surface, then sank from view in a swirling suction of water.

“Fred,” Alan said.

“No!”
Carolyn said.

They all stared toward the river.

A few seconds passed.

The fin broke the surface a hundred feet out in the river, coming fast toward them, a spray of water mounting to each side of the dark protuberance.

“Back up, Daddy!”

Alan vaulted up out of the water into the speedboat.

The blunt head broke the surface, water streaming around it like a sea rushing around the bow of a submarine moving at flank speed on the surface.

The black eyes emerged.

The body rose.

The water sprayed higher.

The shark slammed into the entrance of the shallow channel, abruptly rose higher, came forward. Carolyn hit the throttle of the speedboat. The shark threw its head to the side of the channel, its body partially around the small section of spongy ground, cutting off Fred, San-hi, and Edward from the speedboat. Its dark eye stared at the three forms clustered at the very rear of the tall grass, their heels at the edge of the river. The shark began to roll side to side, wallowing out the mud beneath its great bulk.

Suddenly the shark rolled its body hard to the side, lifting another couple of feet of its bulk from the water and crushing the tall grass to its side. Its head twisted, trying to come up on the spongy section of ground.

Fred took a quick step to the rear, found his footing gone and, holding Edward, sat backward into the river. His arms thrashing forward wildly, pushing Edward in front of him, his knee caught the spongy ground. He pushed Edward before him, and came up onto the grass.

The shark rocked its body back and forth, compressing the muddy ground and slipping to the side a couple of feet more.

“Alan,”
Carolyn cried. The back of her hand was at her mouth. Paul twisted his face into her stomach. The other boys, crouched down in the boat, stared in horror. Alan vaulted over the seat to the steering wheel. He threw the motor into gear.

“Lay down!”
he yelled and jammed the throttle forward.

The speedboat shot backward. The boys dove to the bottom of the boat. The edge of the stern slammed hard into the creature’s side. The head jerked around toward the boat as the craft rebounded and came back again, smashing into the body once more. The shark twisted, trying to turn toward the attacking boat. Alan ran the craft forward twenty feet, jerked the gear into reverse, and backed hard again.

This time the stern crashed hard into the creature’s body with the metallic sound of the prop disintegrating and the lower unit locking.

The boat rebounded forward down the narrow channel.

The shark rolled. Its head lunged partially toward the speedboat, one eye staring in that direction. Blood stained the water at the creature’s side.

The head slowly pulled back toward the spongy section of ground. And began rolling again.

Half the ground had been compressed now—half the grass lay on its side under the water. Only half of a section originally but a few feet wide was left now.

The bow of the speedboat grounded in the grass on the far side of the channel. Armon knelt at the rear of the boat next to the motor, dead now and silent. His hands worked at the gas tank.

The shark rolled its body and tried again to turn its head toward the three figures only five to six feet away.

Armon came to his feet.

Facing the shark he came up on the rear of the stern and drew his arm back.

He held one of the balloons, full of liquid and drooping to each side of his hand.

He threw it hard at the wide head.

It splashed squarely between the creature’s eyes and ran down toward its mouth.

A lighter flared in Armon’s hand.
“Watch out!”
he screamed. His arm burst into flame as he pitched the lighter out past the rear of the boat.

The shark’s head burst into a wide ball of fire. The three in the grass ducked and threw their hands in front of their faces. The shark’s mouth gaped open. Flames trickled inside around its teeth. The head twisted. The body rolled from side to side. The thick bulk moved backward. The flames burned higher. The head pulled back from the entrance to the channel.

Its black eyes seeming to stare directly at Armon, flames jumping higher above its head, the creature submerged beneath the water, leaving small patches of burning gasoline rocking above it.

Smoke rose above the surface.

Two of the boys wrapped a wet towel around Armon’s smoking arm.

Fred grabbed Edward behind his shoulders and pushed him toward the front of the grass.

“Come on, San-hi.” Fred pushed Edward to the edge of the water.
“Go!”
he yelled at San-hi.

San-hi dove head first toward the speedboat, splashed into the water, and stroked frantically. Fred looked across his shoulder.

“Hurry, Daddy!”

Fred grabbed Edward, lunged forward into water to his thighs, and kicked his way toward the boat.

The fin rose at the entrance to the narrow channel and surged forward.

Alan grabbed San-hi and pulled the boy up into the boat.

“Daddy!”
Carolyn screamed.

“Papaw!”
Paul screamed.

Fred fought forward.

The blackened head rose ten feet to his side, lunged forward, but only moved inches. It lunged again. Again only inches. Fred reached the boat’s side and lifted Edward up toward the other boys reaching for him.

The great fish, its black eyes staring, twisted in the water, raising its head, trying to fight its way to the boat.

San-hi leaned over the side with a paddle and stroked it hard into the water. Alan vaulted over the side of the boat into the water and began to push on the craft’s side. Fred pushed from the rear. The shark stopped twisting. Its eyes still seeming to stare, it slowly began to back from the channel.

A moment later it sunk below the river’s surface.

Armon moaned in pain.

Paul began crying.

*   *   *

Rayanne reached for the telephone, hesitated, and dropped her hand back into her lap. Behind her the dining room table was set with plates and silverware. In the kitchen the steaks still sat on the cutting board.

Outside on her small patio the charcoal began to lose its glow.

She sighed, picked up the remote control, and turned on the TV.

CHAPTER 22

Armon lay with his legs along the speedboat’s front seats, his muscular shoulders propped against the side of the boat. Carolyn had made him as comfortable as possible by stuffing a life preserver behind his back. His arm, wrapped from hand to elbow in one of the boys’ T-shirts, was cradled in his lap. His face was tight with pain, but he hadn’t said anything since they had helped him to the seats. Paul fumbled in his jeans pocket and pulled out a partially filled pack of spearmint. He slipped out a stick of the gum and held it toward Armon. The boy took it, unwrapped it with his good hand, and moved it to his mouth. Paul stripped a second piece of its wrapper and held it across the seat. Armon shook his head. Paul moved the stick into his own mouth. Carolyn stared down at Armon.

The rest of the boys, except San-hi, sat without speaking in the bottom of the boat, their shoulders leaning back against its sides. San-hi stood next to Alan and Fred near the motor.

Alan spoke in a low voice. “He’s burned bad enough he’s seeping fluid.” He looked toward the river, a hundred feet away back toward the entrance of the shallow channel. How long after the sun rose would it take for a boat to come by, if one would come by at all with Sheriff Stark having ordered everyone to stay off the water? He didn’t know how many hours a burn like Armon’s could go untreated without it endangering his life or reaching the point where the arm would have to be removed.

Then his gaze went across the expanse of tall water grass stretching out toward the long Interstate 10 bridge covered with the tiny lights of vehicles moving along its surface. Back to the left of the bridge were the trees that marked the high ground, at least two miles away. There was no way to paddle the speedboat as big as it was.

“I’m going to wade out.”

“I’ll go with you,” Fred said.

“I can probably make it faster by myself.”

“And break a leg, or pull a muscle, or anything else—and we’ll all be waiting here for nothing.”

*   *   *

There was nothing more said. Carolyn handed them a pair of life preservers. Alan moved his leg over the side of the boat and dropped into water to his mid-thighs. Fred splashed down beside him. San-hi plopped down next to them. They didn’t say anything then, either. Carolyn handed another life preserver over the side.

“Let’s push the boat as far up in the grass as we can get it,” Fred said.

The other boys came over the side to help.

*   *   *

Rayanne looked at her birthday cake, with six candles set into the icing on one side, two on the other.

She looked at the phone mounted on the wall next to the refrigerator, and walked toward it.

*   *   *

In Carolyn’s driveway, the cellular telephone lying on the Jeep’s seat rang. It rang a second time, and then a third.

*   *   *

A minute later, the telephone in Alan’s apartment rang. It rang again. Then several times more.

*   *   *

They had found the quickest way to move along the shallow channel was by placing the preservers under their stomachs and lying forward on them as they paddled. It had been an hour. Ahead of them the narrow strip of water curved back in another direction once again. Their idea of wading out to the trees and dry land had quickly dissipated when, as the channel had weaved back to their right, away from the direction of the trees, they had left it and moved into the grass. It was two or three inches deep in water, with another foot or so of mud so liquefied it might as well have been water, and then an almost bottomless sucking, thicker mud underneath that. San-hi lost both his tennis shoes on his first steps. By, the time they had started breathing hard, they had barely moved ten feet. The only way out was to follow the channel to the interstate bridge, and then hope they could attract someone’s attention or, somehow, scale the thick concrete pilings up to the structure’s surface.

Fred’s deep voice trailed back to San-hi, floating behind him: “Son.”

“Sir?”

“Armon’s started smoking again is why he had that lighter, isn’t it?”

San-hi didn’t answer.