The Raw Shark Texts (30 page)

Fingers clamped my wrist and forearm and dragged me back up towards the surface with a

Fingers clamped my wrist and forearm and dragged me back up towards the surface with a

Fingers clamped my wrist and forearm and dragged me back up towards the surface with a

Fingers clamped my wrist and forearm and dragged me back up towards the surface with a

Fingers clamped my wrist and forearm and dragged me back up towards the surface with a

Fingers clamped my wrist and forearm and dragged me back up towards the surface with a

Fingers clamped my wrist and forearm and dragged me back up towards the surface with a

tug-of-war heave, me hauled kicking and scraping my back and ribs and hips over the stern’s backboard and collapsing to the decking like a half-drowned animal with a thump and splatter of water. Electricity sparking out-of-control panic in every synapse in my brain and my body shaking humming thumping with fear and Scout still clutching me and shouting
you fucking moron stop falling in the fucking water
and her arms around me and me wrapping my arms around her and clutching for dear life and her still saying
you fucking moron, you fucking moron
into my ear and my hand on the back of her head holding her against me and saying
Jesus
and
sorry, God, I’m so sorry
over and over and me kissing the side of her neck like I’ll never see it again and her kissing me on my face and then us kissing each other properly and then Fidorous shouting
Scout Scout
–

“–Scout, come on, he’s going round to the front.”

She lifted away from me, pushing the hair out of her face and climbing up to her feet. “Are you okay?”

“I think so. Go on, I’ll catch up.”

Scout jogged off in the direction of the doctor’s voice and I struggled upright. I felt a sharp jab of pain in my left knee and I hissed as I tried to put my weight on it. I saw Scout disappearing around the side of the cabin and heard Fidorous saying, “He went for the boat, attacked it. He came straight at us.”

I limped, dripping, around the cabin and onto the front deck. Fidorous stood at the end of the railed gang plank which extended out over the water from the prow. He was holding something, a strange sort of gun.

“Eric Sanderson,” he called on seeing me. “Come on. He’s up and he’s a monster.”

“I know,” I managed, shock-shaking and weak. “I know he is.”

“Come over, come over. We’ve got him now. Scout, how are you doing?”

“Almost there.”

I looked around the deck but I couldn’t see her.

“He’s coming around,” the doctor called back to me and to the wherever-she-was Scout, pointing with his gun contraption. “He’s coming around.”

I looked out in the direction the doctor pointed and I saw it,
I saw it
–a high, hard triangular fin cutting through the blue, making a slow turn towards the
Orpheus
. A long, dark shadow under the waves.

The fin rose higher in the water, rolling out a long V of white foam as the shark picked up speed towards us.

My heart pumped sour milk and liquid nitrogen.

“It’s solid,” I said. “It’s real. It’s a real shark.”

“No, it just looks like it. He’s just like everything else here. Scout, come on, he’s coming. My God, look at the size of him.”

Huge and sleek and dappled grey, the Ludovician seemed to glide, weightless, in the clear sunny water just below its own tumbling bow wave. My legs backed me up against the cabin wall.

“Shit, Jesus, he’s going to ram us again.”

“No, no,” Fidorous raised the gun up to his eye. “He’s circling around and he’s going to give us the perfect–Scout?”

“Clear. Go.”

Something between a bang and an air pressure
thwap
erupted from Fidorous’s shoulder. A black bolt trailing cable striped across the waves and punctured the shark just behind the dorsal fin as the doctor bounced back from the recoil. Harpoon. A noise up close to my left made me jump and turn in surprise. One of the barrels of phone books and speed diallers leapt, threw itself across the deck, tumbled overboard and raced skidding across the ocean after the retreating Ludovician.

“Got him!” Fidorous whipped his cap off and threw it across the deck. “Did you see that? I got a barrel on your shark.” Flushed and adrenaline-pumped, the old man waved the harpoon gun up to me like proof. “Tekisui and Susumu. It’s like in the old stories, Eric, just like in the old stories.”

I watched the clear barrel bounce, hop and spray fast and away through the waves, then let myself sink slowly and painfully down the wooden slats on the cabin’s side.

The barrel chased the shadow of the shark and we chased the barrel, Scout at the wheel with the boat full ahead, thump-rising every wave and heaving out black smoke like an escaped Victorian factory. Fidorous, still out at the end of the
Orpheus
’s prow plank activated a remote control. Collapsed and soaking on the deck I could just hear the beep sequences of dialled phone numbers and an electronic ringing tone–
burr burr, burr burr
–over the angry growl of the engine and the smack-eyed spray of the waves.

“It works,” the Doctor shouted, waving as the wind and bounce buffeted his wild hair. He struggled to push his Michael Caines back up his nose and waved over at me again. “It works. The phone books and the diallers create drag. All the lives and flows and interactions the shark has to pull along behind him slow him down, tire him out. And we’re using this year’s books and real-time phone calls, current events. They’ll keep him up on the surface where we want him.”

Using the cabin wall, I pulled myself up to my feet.

The barrel skidded and hiss-bounced across the water ahead of us.

“It doesn’t look like it’s slowing him down enough.”

“No, but he won’t be able to keep that up for long. I’m going to put another one on him just to make sure. What are you like at knots?”

“I’m, well–”

I cut myself off, pointing over the doctor’s shoulder and out to sea. He turned around just in time to see the barrel suck down under the water and vanish.

“Well.” He was quiet for a moment, staring at the empty ocean. “Scout, cut the engine. Eric, that lever over there. Drop the anchor.”

“Where did he go?” Scout called down from the flying bridge.

“He went under,” I said.

“Can he do that?”

“Evidently,” Fidorous climbed back down onto the deck proper. “But not for long. That barrel will drag him up and when it does we’ll be here waiting.”

“He’s clever,” I said, maybe to myself. “It’s like–it’s like he was waiting to knock me over the side.”

“A Ludovician shark is just a big stupid eating machine.” Fidorous scooped up his cap and pulled it into place over his salt and pepper mop. “He attacked the boat and you were standing near the edge, that’s all.”

I nodded, looking out to sea.

“And you’re absolutely sure there’s no way that big stupid eating machine can get to us?” Scout asked, coming around the cabin.

Fidorous looked from Scout to me and back again, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“How many times? No. The
Orpheus
is built on a conceptual loop three times stronger than the one that’s been keeping Eric safe all this time. We’ll stay in here, he’ll stay out there, and when that barrel drags him up we’ll finish the job. The Ludovician and Mycroft Ward will be gone for good and we’ll go home. Now, Sanderson, the anchor, if you please.”

After half an hour, it became clear that the Ludovician wasn’t coming up any time soon, no matter what Dr Trey Fidorous might say or think. I volunteered to stay on deck and keep watch for the barrel while Scout and the doctor went below to organise a meal and drinks. I’d meant to change my clothes again, but the shorts and the Hawaiian shirt were light and had dried out quickly in the heat. I’d lost my glasses and straw hat when I went over the side though and the back of my neck was hot, burned and painful whenever my collar rubbed against it. I felt the sting across my forehead and cheekbones too.

Evening came. The sky began to turn dusty and I decided to stay out by the prow in the cabin’s long shadow, keeping up my watch on the waves. Scout did something to Nobody’s laptop and the doctor cleared the remains of our food away and did whatever else needed to be done on boats in the quiet times. Ian reappeared and walked around the deck in clockwise circles for a while, then disappeared below deck as the air started to get chilly.

More time passed, still no sign of the barrel or the shark. The sky turned from deep red to blue-grey and the ocean swell subsided into an unconscious sort of rocking. A cool breeze breathed between the deck railings and soothed my sore neck with gentle fingers.

I knew something inside me had changed.

Partly, I’d offered to stay on deck and keep watch so I’d have time to sit and think about what the something might be. I kept visualising an old coin fallen by the side of an overgrown path, one face on show and exposed to the elements for years and years, the other face hidden and almost forgotten in the mud. When the word
water
turned to real water in the cellar, it was as if the coin had flipped over. The familiar face became buried and the other face came out into the air. The change wasn’t huge–none of the memories the Ludovician had taken were back and none of the earlier Light Bulb dreams were any clearer–but it was there. The coin had flipped. From somewhere inside me a phrase rose up,
the view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view.

“Hey.”

Scout stood behind me on the deck. She was wearing that big waterproof coat I’d last seen in Fidorous’s cellar.

“Hey,” I said back.

“I brought you a jacket. It’s sort of grunge circa 1992, but, you know–”

“Thanks,” I said, pulling it on. “And listen–”

“Yeah, I know. Me too.”

She sat cross-legged next to me on the deck.

“I should have told you,” she said. “It was stupid not to.”

“No,” I said, “it wasn’t. I completely get why you did it. I just–”

“You just have trust issues.”

I looked at her. “
I
have trust issues?”

We stared out at the quiet sea. I pulled the jacket over my shoulders and watched her playing with her thumbs. “Is the laptop okay?”

“Oh, I was just tinkering with the connection. I’ve managed to crack its priority ranking so that Ward’s less likely to notice it’s open. Should buy us more time.”

“Nice going.”

“Thank you.”

The quiet sea. The distant gulls. Scout sitting next to me.

“I said some horrible things, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” she said. “You did. But I pulled you out of the water anyway.”

“Scout.”

“I thought you were going to die, you tool.”

“So did I. And I just–no, God that’s so lame.”

“Tell.”

“I was scared of leaving you thinking I meant any of that stuff.”

She nudged against me. “Awww.”

“Of course, I was
also
scared of that gigantic fucking shark.”

“Shush now,” she said, “you’re spoiling it.”

I tucked my arm around her and she leaned into me. “Forgive me?”

“You
were
an arsehole.”

“Hey, with some encouragement.”

“Yeeaah, but your arsehole-ness wasn’t for the greater good, was it?”

“No,” I said, embarrassed, “that’s true.”

“You were doing it because you’re emotionally stunted.”

“Damaged. Emotionally damaged.”

“Whatever.”

I ran my fingers through her fine dark hair and she squeezed her arms together around my waist. The breeze rolled around us, the gentle sea tipping the boat this way and that way.

“I’m going to say something now,” I said.

“Okay.”

“It’s going to make me look like an idiot.”

“Okay.”

“It might make you angry too.”

“Hmmm. Okay.”

“Right.”

“Go on then.”

“Okay. It wasn’t just for this, was it? I mean, what happened with us?”

Scout leaned away from my chest and looked up at me.

“I said it wasn’t.”

“You say all sorts of things.”

She tucked her head back against me and we sat quietly like that for a few minutes.

“Do you remember yesterday when we woke up; you said something really embarrassing about
knowing in your heart
that there was something, something
right
about what was happening with us?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“And you asked me if I felt that too.”

“I remember. You called me a stalker.”

“Yeah, well, anyhoo. What I’m trying to say is that, yeah, I think I do.”

“The heart thing, not the stalker thing?”

“The heart thing.”

“Wow.”

“Hmmm,” Scout said. “I feel like I’ve known you for years and years. I mean, a lot of this stuff, feelings or whatever, it’s like they’ve been in me all along. Does that sound crazy?”

“
Feelings or whatever?
”

“Don’t make me say it, Sanderson.”

I smiled. “No, it doesn’t sound crazy. I know exactly what you mean.”

“Good,” she said, and she kissed me, gently on the lips.

The taste of her then, the touch and the warmth and the movement,
all of it perfect, like the sweetest, saddest remembered note coming back through years of silence.

When she pulled away she gave me a look as though there had been something, something amazing she couldn’t quite get a handle on.

“I know,” I said, sort of helpless.

We kissed again.

When I opened my eyes, the cool blue morning was already being warmed by a fresh, enthusiastic new sun. My back and sides ached from sleeping on the deck and my knee seemed to have seized. A warm numbness filled my right arm where Scout slept curled into my shoulder. Some of her fine black hair had velcroed itself to my stubble and I pulled my head back to untangle us.

“Hmmm?” she said into my chest.

“Hey, it’s morning.”

“Ouch,” she mumbled. “Somebody’s superglued my joints.”

We were under our coats and, I noticed, a thick green blanket that hadn’t been there when we went to sleep the night before.

“Hey, we’ve developed a blanket.”

Scout giggled. “You still
sans
pants?”

“Yeah, you?”

“Yep.”

“You probably made his year.”

“Awww, he was probably worried we’d be cold.”

“Well, it worked. I’m sore, aching and exhausted, but I’m not cold.”

Scout kissed my cheek. She pushed back our covers, climbed out of our makeshift bed and stood naked on the deck. Her legs, a band around her belly, her arms and her face, had all turned pink from yesterday’s sun, but the ghost outlines of her vest top and shorts meant her ribs and breasts, her hips and the very tops of her thighs were still the same marble white.
She put down a hand to cover the stripe of black hair between her legs and raised an eyebrow at me.

“What?” I said.

“You’re staring.”

“When a girl wanders around naked in front of a guy it usually means something.”

She grinned and did a slow and very intentional stretch, both arms in the air, then both arms behind her head, twisting left and right at the waist.

“Blatant,” I said.

“I ache,” she said by way of an explanation, gave me a sideways little smirk and wandered over to the prow. “You should try it actually, it’s very–”

“Liberating?”

“Something like that. It might help with your emotional stunting.”

“Damage. We settled on
damage
.”

“Awww,” she said, staring out to sea.

I sat up, blanket covering my crotch and legs. The last few days had left me with a livid inventory of scrapes and bruises. Every joint in my body ached, especially my knee, but still I was swollen up inside with happiness. This moment–the early morning, me, Scout–it was absolutely perfect.

“Do you think it’s going to come up again?”

I watched her poke a loose and frayed twist of rope over the side of the boat with her big toe.

“Fidorous thinks so.”

She turned. “Yeah, for whatever that’s worth. I’m going to check on Nobody’s laptop.”

“Listen, I’m sorry this isn’t going to plan.”

“Why, what did you do?”

I managed half a shrug before she broke out in a smile. “Hey,” she said, finding her pants and pulling them on. “If it doesn’t happen this time, we’ll cope. We’ll find something else, some other way to sort all this. It’d be best if you tried not to fall in the sea today though.”

“Yeah, I was thinking that too.” I passed her shorts to her. “Thanks, Scout.”

“Well, it’s true. And I am sorry, about what happened.”

“Me too.”

She knelt to collect her top but I reached my arms around her, pulled her down on top of me and kissed her.

“Hey,” she laughed, breaking away and sitting up on top of me. We stayed like that for a moment, me looking up at her, her looking down at me. Scout’s expression settled, became still, serious. She leaned in and kissed me once, twice, gently on the lips.

“You’re amazing,” I whispered.

She smiled an almost bashful little smile then leaned in close, face down into my neck. “You too,” she said and the words were barely-shaped breath in my ear.

I wrapped my arms around her but she stretched herself free, her face full of that sharper, more familiar smile. “Come on,” she patted me on the chest and clambered up to her feet. “We’ve got things to do.”

“Awww.”

She laughed. “Why don’t you go and find us something to eat? Use up some of that excess energy.”

“What do you want?”

“Hmmm, something light. And maybe, beer?”

I nodded. “Good plan.”

When we were both dressed we walked together around the cabin side to the rear deck. Scout stopped and I almost bumped into her.

“Oh, come on,” she said, “where the fuck did that come from?”

There was an island a dozen miles to stern.

I hobbled down the three steps from the deck to the cabin. As I came in, Fidorous was closing a wooden hatch in the floor.

“There’s an island outside,” I said.

“Hmmm?”

“Outside, there’s an island.” Then, looking at the hatch. “What you doing?”

“Routine maintenance. She’s an old concept, you know, not as young as she used to be but–island, yes, I’ve seen it.”

“Any idea how it got there?”

“None at all. Was the anchor lowered correctly?”

“Yeah, we checked it.”

“Then maybe it hit sand. We may’ve been drifting all night.”

“All night? Then we could be miles from the Ludovician.”

“Don’t worry about that. I have equipment which will sound an alarm as soon as that barrel breaks the surface. Once it’s out of the water we can track it.”