Fangtooth

Chapter 9

Shazam jumped to her feet and started barking. Thinking she was barking at Zander again, Bruce was about to admonish her when he heard the scream. It emanated from back along the road towards his house and was the worst thing he had ever heard in his life.

“What the hell’s that?” Erin asked.

Zander jumped up from his boat and clambered onto the quay. He stared into the distance where the sound originated, then started running.

Bruce looked at Erin, pulled a quizzical expression, and then ran after Zander with Shazam running effortlessly at his side. Despite his regular jogs, Bruce found himself trailing behind Zander, which made him feel somewhat annoyed. The pavement underfoot was cracked and worn, and Bruce instinctively made sure he didn’t step on any of the cracks. The last thing he needed was any bad luck.

Zander was out of breath when he reached the beach. He could hear Bruce’s feet slapping the ground behind him, and he increased his pace and charged across the sand. He wasn’t going to get beaten. No one ever beat him. At anything.

He saw a woman and two kids at the edge of the sea. She was gesticulating wildly and pointing towards the water.

“Clive. My husband. Something attacked him. Oh God. I think it was a shark,” she said as Zander reached her.

Zander put his hands on her shoulders and felt the slick sheen of suntan oil. He couldn’t help noticing how attractive she was in her blue bikini. For some reason, a woman in distress seemed highly erotic.

“Calm down,” he said.

“What’s going on?” Bruce asked as he reached them.

“My husband. A shark’s attacked him.”

Both children cried as they clung to their mother’s legs.

Zander shook his head. “There are no man-eating sharks in these waters.” He knew that the most dangerous species, Tiger, Lemon, Hammerhead and Great Whites’ didn’t visit these shores, so he was pretty certain that the man hadn’t been attacked by a shark.

“A shark,” Bruce said with a look of fear as he looked out to sea.

Zander exhaled loudly. “I just said there are no killer sharks in these waters.” He hated landlubbers with a predilection for melodrama with regard to anything about the sea. Jaws had a lot to answer for.

“I saw him get attacked,” the woman squealed. “Please, you’ve got to help him.”

Zander looked out to sea, but couldn’t see anything. “You’re sure he’s out there?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

The children started to cry louder as their mother raised her voice. This was crazy. Zander knew there was nothing out there. The only explanation was that a strong current had dragged him under, or he had a cramp and had been unable to swim. Whatever it was, there was no sign of him.

The woman’s incessant crying was starting to jar on his nerves. Zander tugged off his jumper and T-shirt to reveal a physique sculpted by hard toil.

Bruce looked pensive. “I’ll stay here and take care of the woman and her kids.”

Zander clucked his tongue and removed his boots. Then he charged into the sea.

The water was colder than it looked, but Zander ignored it as he put his head under the surface and swam powerfully away from the shore. The saltwater reduced his vision, like looking through warped glass. The sandy bottom dropped away quickly and darkness resided below. Tangles of seaweed drifted by, but Zander couldn’t see anyone. When he was far enough out, he dived down into the depths and swam around, trying his best to find the missing man, but as he didn’t know where he had gone down, it seemed useless. With his breath almost spent, he struck out for the surface and trod water for a while to catch his breath. He looked back at the beach; saw he had swum quite a way out.

He bobbed up and down as the sea rolled. When he was at the top of one swell, he noticed what looked like a dark patch on the surface of the water about twenty feet away. With a couple of powerful strokes, he swam towards the area. As soon as he reached the spot, he recognised the dark patch, had seen plenty of examples when throwing the remains of gutted fish back into the sea: blood. He could literally taste it in the air.

He took a deep breath, then dived back into the depths. The blood made it even harder to see so he used his hands to sweep through the water, searching for the woman’s husband.

A sudden movement caught his eye and he turned his head and tried to focus. Five feet below him, something dark surged through the water and disappeared. Without any concern for his own safety, he swam down, entering a world where there was virtually no light. Sweeping his arms back and forth, he searched the area, but couldn’t feel anything. Pressure built inside his chest and his ears felt ready to pop. About to give up, he felt the water swirl around him as something swam close by, and for the first time, he realised that something really had attacked the woman’s husband, and that now it was circling him.

Panic welled through his body, and his pulse increased. He could hear the throb of his heart pounding in his ears. With no idea how deep he had descended, he started his ascent, frantically scooping the water with his hands and kicking his feet as though the devil himself were after him.

He felt strange currents swirl around his naked torso; thought he felt something brush against his leg. He needed to breathe. Light permeated the depths. But it was a reddish light, filtered through the blood suspended in the water like a huge, undulating jellyfish. Uneasy, Zander swam through the blood and surged to the surface where he gulped in a deep breath. He wiped the saltwater from his eyes; saw a thin film of blood coating his skin.

Without hesitating, he made for shore, arms and legs aching by the time he was able to stand and wade onto the beach. He stood with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

“Where’s Clive?” the woman shrieked.

Zander looked up, breathing fast. He shook his head.

The woman screamed, but Zander didn’t pay her any attention. He stood up straight, put his hands on his hips, and turned and looked out to sea. If a killer shark prowled the waters, then it would explain the shortage of fish, and it might also explain the incident with the nets.

Now he had a job to do. It was time to go fishing.