Chapter 28.
Chile
Jack has read plenty about people who have been bitten by sharks. A school friend from Galveston told him what it was like, saying it felt like a bad wasp sting at first, except for the crunching feeling of the teeth.
The truly intense pain, his friend told him, comes later.
Jack feels the teeth clamping down on his lower left leg, experiences the shock of that, just because he thinks he’s in the clear when he’s about to be up and out of the water.
But, just as quickly as the bite has come, the shark lets go of him.
Jack has also read up on what are called “hit and run” shark bites, once the attacker realizes that humans aren’t prey.
When he is on his feet, he sees the blood in the water and runs like hell through the waist-high surf, despite the pain.
When he gets close enough to the beach, hoping the shark is gone but not taking any chances, he just launches himself, almost with a racing dive, the last few yards into the sand.
Jimmy is with him, helping him up to a sitting position, giving a quick check to the wound, and then runs to what they both can see is a medevac helicopter that has landed farther down the beach.
Elena runs across the sand and appears out of breath, dropping to her knees beside Jack. Hand on his shoulder like she’s grounding herself.
“I thought—” she starts. “Are you—are you okay?”
Jack tries to smile through pain that’s starting to bloom. “Day at the beach.”
Elena doesn’t smile back. She glances toward the helicopter. “It wasn’t for you.”
Jack follows her look.
A stretcher comes out of the tree line. A man on it. Face gray. Jaw slack. Luca Tommasi. They’d had dinner the night before, Jack, Luca, and Elena.
Jack’s stomach drops. “What happened?”
Elena’s voice goes tight. “We got new routes on our sat phones. The Host said we could start whenever we wanted, and they’d check times later. Luca took off right away.” She swallows. “Tipton went with him.”
Jack’s eyes flick. “Tipton?”
Elena nods. “They were together at first. Then Tipton came back alone. Said he decided to wait and ‘play it smart.’”
Jack sits up as far as he can. “And Luca?”
“They said he stopped to fix his boot,” Elena replies. “Bend down, tie a lace. And he got tagged by something.” She lowers her voice. “One of those spiders.”
“Chilean recluse?” Jack asks, because his brain needs a label for the horror.
Elena nods once. “Probably.”
Jack looks up and watches them start to check on Luca. He sees Jimmy talking to two men Jack assumes are doctors, both of them carrying small black bags.
Jimmy points in Jack’s direction, and one of the doctors runs toward him across the beach.
Jack has been pressing his hand to his wound.
When he takes it away so that the doctor can get a better look at it, Jack looks down at his hand and sees a lot of blood. The pain is even more intense than his friend had once described, but the wound doesn’t look that deep.
That could’ve been worse, Jack thinks.
A lot worse.
The doctor, who introduces himself as Dr. Paredes, asks Jack what happened. Jack tells him. Paredes asks him to roll over on his stomach. Jack asks if he needs to clean the wound and the doctor says, “The salt water did that for me.”
Jack watches the doctor reach into his bag for what he hopes is something that will start to kill the pain, manages to smile at Elena. Somehow it feels they have known each other longer than a couple of days.
He sees her hair is still wet. He’d almost forgotten that she had been in the water, too.
“No sharks for you?” he asks.
“You guys being first in the water must have taken up all their attention,” she says.
Jack looks at the helicopter again.
“Was Tipton still with him?”
“I’m not sure,” Elena says. “Only Tipton knows that. If he was, he just left him there before turning around. And Luca hasn’t regained consciousness, so he can’t tell us what happened.”
Jack is seated while Dr. Paredes finishes putting a bandage on the shark bite, which the doctor states isn’t as bad as it looks. Jack tries to crane his neck, to see what’s happening with Luca, and sees Jimmy walking back.
He’s walking slower than before, like the sand got heavier. His face is blank in a way that scares Jack.
“How’s Luca doing?” Jack asks when Jimmy gets close enough.
Jimmy sits down next to Jack, wraps his arms around his knees, and stares out at the ocean.
Jack’s blood goes cold all over again, flashbacks of being back in the water.
“Jimmy.”
Jimmy finally looks at him.
“He just died.”
Patrick Arrasmith