Matt de la Peña - The Living

Shy was horrified.

To get away from the shark on the raft, two others dove into the ocean and swam for Shy’s boat. One of them was Toni.

“Stop!” he shouted, watching the sharks pull them under one at a time, their screams piercing as they came up for air and struggled to get away.

Shy saw Addison still sitting near the front end of the failing raft, screaming. And he saw the oilman shoving things into a dry pack and then diving into the water, too.

“Stay on the raft!” Shy shouted.

Toni miraculously reached Shy’s boat.

He extended his oar toward her, and she grabbed on. He pulled her in until she was close enough that he could grab her hand and her other arm and he heaved her up and out of the water. But just as he was getting her over the jagged lip of the boat, she screamed in Shy’s ear, locked her terrified eyes onto his, then she was ripped from his grasp and pulled back into the water.

“Toni!” Shy shouted, leaning over the side of the boat. He watched her thrash against the shark, trying to fight it off. She broke away somehow and started swimming for the boat, but seconds later she was pulled under again, her screams turning to muffled gurgling and then nothing.

Shy’s entire body was shaking uncontrollably.

He’d done nothing to help.

A few more sharks appeared, their fins and tails whipping the water into a boiling mass as they tore at Toni’s body.

Shy dug his oar back into the water, moving toward the oilman and Addison, who were the only ones left. The oilman swam right up to the feeding frenzy, pointed a flare gun and fired. The dark water lit up bright orange and the sharks darted away. Toni’s mauled body floating up to the surface, unrecognizable, her life jacket ripped to shreds.

The oilman dropped the gun and continued swimming the short distance to the boat. He reached out for Shy’s oar and Shy pulled him in, then hoisted him over the side and turned his attention to Addison.

She was still on the mostly deflated raft, frozen in shock and staring down at the water in front of her. He inched the boat toward her, to the point that they were almost touching. A shark popped its head through the surface of the water. Its massive jaw yawning wide, water rushing over the endless teeth, one of its black eyes staring directly at Shy.

He swung his oar as hard as he could, cracked the shark in the side of the head. He raised the oar in the air, ready to strike again as the oilman snatched Addison by the arm and pulled her into the boat. She fell onto one of the dead bodies, quickly pushed herself away, and leaned up against the side, covering her face with her hands and sobbing.

Shy tossed down the oar and went to her. He didn’t say anything, though. Nobody did. They only looked at each other and tried to catch their breath, listening to the splashing water and the feasting sharks. The sky entirely dark now, except a few scattered stars and the dull-looking half-moon that hovered in front of their boat.

Shy rubbed his eyes and gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t shake it all from his head. Toni getting pulled under and the screaming and the blood.

The oilman reached into the dry pack beside him, pulled out a gallon of water. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to Addison, who was shaking so violently she could hardly lift it to her mouth. The oilman had to help her.

Then it was Shy’s turn, and when the water hit his tongue his entire body came alive. He could’ve kept drinking for hours, but they had to conserve. Who knew how long the jug would have to last. He passed it back to the oilman, who took a sip of his own.

The oilman was holding a hand to his thigh, but even in the dark Shy could see the blood seeping through his fingers.

The man set down the bottle and looked up at Addison and Shy. He lifted his hand from his leg, and Shy cringed. The giant rip in his jeans exposed a grotesque wound. All the way to the bone. Blood pumped out rhythmically, soaking his pant leg, streaming into the water around his shoe.

The oilman put his hand back over the wound and told them: “I believe I’ve been bit.”

Shy sat across the boat from Addison, listening to the oilman’s whimpering and the hum of the nighttime ocean and the sound of tiny swells lapping against the side of the boat.

The man’s leg was still bleeding, even though Shy had tied a tourniquet around his upper thigh—several inches above the wound, just like he’d been taught in training. But this wound was unlike anything he’d ever seen. It was jagged and uneven, the muscle chewed up and fully exposed. Shy didn’t see how anyone could survive a wound like that.

Addison was in bad shape, too. She didn’t appear to be hurt physically, but she wouldn’t speak, even when Shy asked her direct questions about how they’d gotten on the raft and what had happened to their lifeboat. She just sat there against the side of the boat, shivering, eyelids drooping.

When she finally fell asleep, Shy covered her with the rain slicker. She’d been a bitch to him on the ship, maybe the hardest he’d had to deal with, but it no longer seemed to matter. He crossed back to the opposite side of the boat and stared out at the sea. He was freezing and hungry, thirstier than he’d ever been in his life. His ribs ached. He was with other people now—living, breathing people—but he still felt totally alone.

He sat there in the dark, his mind returning to the same simple questions. Why was all of this happening? Why’d he end up out here when he should be back home with his family, even if they all died together in the earthquakes? When he was a little kid his grandma had taught him to believe there was meaning in everything, even how his old man treated him. But now Shy understood there was nothing.

He cracked open his eyes a few hours later.

Still night.

Addison was passed out in the same position. The oilman was awake, though. He seemed to be over his shock. He cringed and held his leg in pain, but he appeared more aware of his surroundings. Shy went to him, picked up the jug of water and urged him to drink.

“Don’t know why you’d waste it on me,” the man said, waving the water away.

Shy took a baby sip himself and said: “It’s not just you. We all need water.”

“You know I won’t survive,” the man said, pointing to his mangled leg.

It was true, the guy looked worse than before. His eyes sagged and his shoulders slumped, his pant leg was caked with blood below the tourniquet.

“I don’t wanna be here anyway,” the man said. “Not without Angela.”

“She’s the one you were gonna give the ring to?” Shy asked.

The man nodded.

Shy figured he should keep the man talking or something, to take his mind off the pain. But he didn’t know what to say. He tried pushing the water again instead, and this time the man took a small sip. When he handed back the bottle, Shy capped it and said: “I never got your name.”

“William,” the oilman said. “William Henry.”

“I’m Shy.” Shy reached out and shook the man’s hand. He seemed so much different than he had on the ship. More humble. Maybe that’s what a nasty shark bite did, Shy thought. It stripped away all the arrogant thoughts people had about themselves. “I wanted to tell you, Mr. Henry,” he said. “Everything that happened with the ship was seriously messed up. Obviously. But, I don’t know, it doesn’t seem fair you never even got to ask her to marry you.”

Mr. Henry forced a grin and shook his head. “I knew her answer, though.”

Shy frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“Before dinner I told Angela to wear her pearls to the restaurant.” The man winced and looked down at his leg, touched gently around the wound.