Color drained from the sky, painting the ocean in a palette of pewter and ash.
Finn had found a tiny electronics access sponson, barely big enough for one person to squeeze in. From its tiny catwalk he had climbed out onto a small projection from the ship’s hull where he now sat, perched some ten feet above the water’s surface, straddling the jut with his legs and gazing out at the darkening ocean. Holding a white plastic bucket with one hand, he reached in with the other and withdrew a small slimy object.
A chicken heart.
He tossed it out into the sea churn.
A huge shape leapt out of the water. There was a harsh clump of jaws closing and the thing crashed back into the water.
A swirl of bubbles curled around it and vanished.
Finn had been observing the tiger shark for hours, watching it trail alongside the Lincoln, trying to parse just why it was there. Yes, tiger sharks liked to hunt alone, at night, and they favored warm waters. But this far from the shallows? Out in the middle of the ocean? It shouldn’t have been there. Yet there it was.
“You’re out of your depth,” said Finn.
Says the SEAL who spent an hour this morning hunched over a steel toilet.
Now the roiling sea surface, with its flicks and curls, reminded Finn of the icing on a big fat chocolate cake.
A fat slice of chocolate cake on a plate, left on a card table in a dimly lit kitchen. A faint beam of late afternoon sunlight carving through the room, trapping a silent swarm of dust motes—
Finn shuddered, then blinked, twice.
Early memory? Stray fragment in the gaping bomb crater that was his childhood?
A gust of night breeze stippled the water’s surface, the waxing moon a million tiny echoes like an insect’s mosaic eye.
Scientists talked about “water memory,” the ability of water molecules to retain the impression of dissolved substances even after exhaustive dilution should have erased all traces. The idea defied all current physical and chemical understanding, but homeopathy worked anyway. And poets were thousands of years ahead of the scientists. They’d been talking about the ocean’s memory for eons.
Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, in that gray vault, the sea…
When water turns ice does it remember one time it was water?…
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell…
Finn leaned back against the ship’s steel skin and closed his eyes. Slowly, gingerly, he walked through that morning’s sequence of events.
Climbing up onto the deck to watch the Line Crossing. Sitting by the rail, watching. Brief exchange with one or two people. Observing sailors as they went through their sophomoric rituals—and then, boom! He was in his broom closet, sitting on his rack and holding his paralyzed jaw.
Two scenes, side by side in his mind, seamless. Here—there. Nothing in between.
Like a skip in an old vinyl LP.
He took another slow breath. Reached into the bucket. This time his fingers found some chicken feet. He tossed them.
The monster leapt, gulped, crashed back into the water.
He brought his thoughts back again to the flight deck that morning. The sailors, the rituals. Pol-ly-wog. POL-LY—
He quickly shut that thought down. Looked out at the ocean, breathing in, breathing out, watching the chocolate cake curls.
Without permission, the thought crept back in again. Pollywog. What the hell did that mean?
But he knew, didn’t he.
It meant death.
He had no idea why. But that’s what it meant.
Death.
The creature with a massive head and no arms or legs.
Finn reached back in the bucket and his fingers closed on what felt like a slippery, serrated bamboo flute. Chicken neck. He picked it up. This time, instead of tossing it he leaned as far forward as he could and reached out over the water, holding the chicken neck out with his fingertips.
Tiger sharks could grow to twelve, fourteen feet and longer. A thousand pounds plus. He knew this one could take his arm off if it wanted to. And that fucker could jump, he’d just seen that.
Suicidal.
Insane.
He gripped with his thighs and leaned out a few inches farther.
Felt a tug, and his hand was empty.
Splash—CLUMP—crash.
Finn slowly withdrew his hand and straightened, his back pressing against the ship’s hull again.
He had not even flinched.
He could lower himself down into the water, right here and now, come face-to-face with that tiger shark, armed with nothing but his four-inch ring knife—and he would not be afraid. The shark might kill him. Or not. Either way, he still would not be afraid.
So why was he paralyzed by some childish chant about a tadpole?
Fingers back in the bucket. Nothing left but a slick of guts. He tossed the mostly empty bucket out in front of him. The big tiger shark reared up one last time, then the chocolate icing melted in around it, and it was gone. Like a bad dream.
Like a memory.