The Great Shark Hunt Read online

responded, relieved to be invited into the conversation. He stood up, placed the fishing tackle in a metal base attached to the side of the boat and stretched his arms over his head. He caught Nadine’s eye as he attempted a few deep knee bends on the rocking boat, failing, falling on his butt on the second try. Jack saw her struggle not to laugh, covering her mouth with her hand. She smiled, winking under her stocking cap.

  Adam broke the silence.

  “You guys see the Sox game yesterday? Reminded me of the ’99 playoff game we snuck into at Fenway.” Jack and Potey nodded as Adam continued. “Jackie, you were so scared an usher was going to catch us, you just stood there at the hole in the fence for a full two minutes while Potey and I yelled at you to climb through.”

  Jack stopped in mid-crouch, staring up at Adam in the captain’s chair, the sun behind his body casting a long shadow across the boat. His heart fluttered nervously as he shifted his focus toward Nadine, who stood silently, smiling, scanning the horizon, the camera at her chest.

  “We finally had to physically push you through,” Adam continued. “It was like you were frozen or something.”

  “Great game though,” Potey chimed in, quickly changing the subject. He gave Jack a weak smile. “Pedro versus the Rocket. Doesn’t get any better than that.”

  “Yeah, after the game we were on such a high,” Adam said, taking his gaze off the water. “We went to Boston Beerworks and started hitting on the waitresses. That was the only time I ever saw Jackie go up and talk to a girl. It was fantastic.”

  Jack continued to stare up at his former resident advisor, the guy who was supposed to offer guidance and support, but who instead was obviously doing everything he could to undermine him in front of Nadine. Jack remembered the game and the bar vividly; it was one of the only times he’d been able to put himself out there, ignoring the voice inside his head that had always urged him to stay in the background, never take a chance, always remain anonymous. However, high from the dramatic Red Sox victory, he’d confidently asked the waitress for her number, and she had eagerly complied.

  Adam continued, “What was her name, Sara or something? Didn’t you end up dating her for what, like, five years? What happened to her?”

  Jack’s mouth dropped open, and he gaped at Adam who was standing next to and in front of Nadine. Jack could see her face over his shoulder, eyes wide open, ears tuned in, anticipating his answer. Adam continued to look down at Jack from the cockpit, waiting expectantly for an answer as well.

  “Damn it, Adam,” Jack exclaimed. “You’re always doing that.”

  “What?” Adam shrugged, a smile on his face, doing a bad job of feigning innocence.

  “You know what you’re doing. You’re hitting on Nadine. It’s not the first time you’ve gone after a woman I’m interested in.”

  Adam continued to grin, looking extremely condescending to Jack.

  “It’s true.” Potey spoke up from his seat in the stern of the boat, looking up at Adam with a serious look. “You’ve always undermined Jack around the females.” He motioned at Nadine who stood silently above them on the bench, gazing out over the horizon.

  “Hey, I’m a scientist,” Adam defended himself. “I believe in Darwinism. I’m just taking advantage of the weakest in the herd.”

  “Fuck you,” Jack said, his teeth clinched, his eyes afire. “You’re just insecure.”

  “Hey, Adam, cool it.” Potey carefully took a step forward, balancing himself on the rocking boat while getting ready to break up his friends if things got physical. “We all know what you’re doing, and it’s not--.”

  “Shark!” Nadine yelled suddenly, pointing to a spot behind the boat. Jack turned his head in time to see a grey mass crash back into the water, its mouth agape, Sidekick wedged between its powerful jaws.

  “Holy shit--“ he exclaimed as Nadine miraculously got several shots off with the camera she held at chest level.

  “Keep taking pictures,” Adam yelled as he scrambled out of the captain’s chair and picked up the underwater camera and the hand-held harpoon.

  “We only have one chance at this,” Adam said as he scanned the water, waiting for the shark to resurface. “Jack, start reeling in that slack.”

  Jack grabbed the fishing pole, furiously reeling in the line, scanning the water for another sign of the beast. Sidekick popped up ten yards off the starboard side, bobbing up and down in suddenly calm water.

  “There he is,” Nadine said as a giant shadow moved under the boat, its gray skin offering a sharp contrast to the clear, emerald water. Adam thrust the underwater camera under the waves, pointed directly at the approaching shark, and lifted the harpoon over his head with his other hand, waiting for the beast to get closer. Jack looked at Potey who was leaning over the side of the boat furiously hacking at the seal meat with his ice pick, a shiny oil slick trailing several feet to the side and behind them.

  “It’s coming around again,” Adam said, pulling the camera out of the water and crossing over to the left side of the boat, tracking the large mass as it approached.

  “Jackie, reel him in slower. He’s confused right now. He’s investigating us.”

  The dark mass kept moving closer, slowly following Sidekick as Jack pulled the decoy through the oil slick. A grey snout surfaced out of the water, nudging Sidekick’s fake tail, pushing him to within several feet of the boat. The nose disappeared and the dark figure took a hard right, drawing a course parallel to their starboard side. Adam lunged across the deck, wedging himself between Jack and Potey, furiously stabbing at the water with the harpoon.

  “Damn it,” he yelled as he pressed against Jack trying to get closer, pushing him against the side of the boat, doubling Jack over the railing at the waist with his arms pinned at his side. Jack clutched the fishing pole as Adam pressed up against him, straining to achieve more reach and forcing Jack closer to the water. His face hovered close to the surface as the dark mass started to swim by, the spray from the waves crashing up against the boat wetting his brow. The water turned dark underneath him as the beast swam several feet under the surface, the beautiful emerald water Jack had admired earlier blocked out by three thousand pounds of muscle and teeth. Adam smashed Jack against the railing, thrashing at the water with the harpoon, trying to get the depth necessary to attach the beacon at the base of the shark’s dorsal fin.

  “Ahhhh, too close, too close,” Jack yelled as Adam pushed him down ever further.

  “I. Can’t. Reach,” Adam yelled in Jack’s ear, straining with all his might to climb over Jack and get closer to the passing shark.

  Jack could feel the air escape his lungs, the blood rushing up to his face. He stared down into the dark water with its boils rising up to the surface, clearly able to make out the shark’s head, fins and tail. He released his grip on the fishing pole, letting it crash to the deck, and put both hands on the railing in front of him. He jerked his elbow back, catching Adam in the ribs. Adam cried out and eased off, allowing Jack to position his hands in front of him, palms flat against the side of the boat. Jack pushed with all this strength, doing a standing pushup with Adam’s weight more than doubling gravity. Adam frantically yelled in his ear to be still, but Jack continued to rise up, sending his adversary crashing to the deck behind him. Adam landed with a thud on the fiberglass deck directly on top of the underwater camera, still dripping from its dip in the ocean several seconds before. The harpoon landed at Jack’s feet, the handle hitting his sneaker, the barb and beacon falling harmlessly against the railing on the other side of the boat. Without thinking, Jack gave Adam a quick kick in his side and grabbed the harpoon. Turning, he leaned back over the side, scanning the passing dark mass for any sign of anatomy.

  “Right behind the dorsal fin!” he heard Adam yell behind him on the deck as Jack raised the harpoon above his head. He jammed it into the water. The harpoon hit what felt like a brick wall just under the surface, jarring the wooden handle out of his hand as the gray mass retreated out of arm’s length and
Jack collapsed next to Adam. Potey reached down from his seat in the stern, plucking the harpoon from the water as it popped back up to the surface. Adam scrambled over Jack and grabbed the pole from Potey. He lifted up the tip, revealing that the barb and electronic beacon were missing.

  “Ha!” he yelled, seemingly forgetting that Jack had just thrown him to the deck and kicking him in the ribs. He rushed to an open laptop in the cockpit. He pressed a few buttons as Jack and Potey crowded behind, watching him call up a window that looked like the radar you’d see in a submarine. There was a flashing yellow dot just off center in the top-right quadrant moving away from the boat.

  “You did it!” Adam yelled at Jack, cupping Jack’s head in his hands, screaming into his face. Potey slapped him on the back. Nadine let out a rebel yell from her perch on top of the bench.

  Jack smiled from his seat on the deck, wiping the salt spray from around his eyes. “Yeah, I guess I did,” he said, his hands beginning to shake from the adrenaline. “I saw my chance and took it. It feels great.”

  Several hours later, Jack, Nadine and Potey were in the car, heading back to San Francisco, back-tracking over the country roads they had traveled that morning, this time the sun at their backs. They chattered constantly about their adventure on the water with the